Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

To this day, the idea that I am in a foreign country while in China has not really sank into my mind. While I understand that (as I will rant on about in the following paragraphs) citizenship, more often than not, is a display of pure opportunism rather than some deep-hearted and sincerely nationalistic loyalty, a mental change, after all, does need to accompany a sudden change in national status. Recently in China, a fishing boat colliding with a Japanese patrol vessel in disputed territory has been subject of nationalistic outbursts. Especially considering the elections in Japan that marks another shit back toward pro-American stance and September 18th being the anniversary of start of Sino-Japanese War, tensions run high here. As much as I stay neutral on these issues, I wonder that, if similar situation were to occur in the States on July 4th, would there be as big of a reaction? Some priest threatening to burn Korans on September 11th and the popular support for such an act show

Even just going to a supermarket with your grandmother can be a learning experience in China. As a relatively new phenomenon that did not really take off in China until the early 90s, supermarkets are still a sort of middle class luxury rarely experienced by elders and people in the rural areas. In fact, for everyday shopping (especially for food), supermarkets of any kind are considered rather high end (and prices reflected this), with most Chinese preferring to buy their raw vegetables and sorts in open air markets with small stalls rather than get them all packaged from local supermarkets. Even the middle class thinks that those open air markets (sort of like "farmers' markets" in the States) have fresher local produce directly from the fields, whereas the goods in the supermarkets are commercially produced, meaning that they are made with high quantities of chemicals and are shipped from areas far far away. Of course, once you go to the open air markets, you know t

As someone (nominally) adhering to a leftist political ideology, the continued existence (and strengthening) of social class differences is quite a major issue for me. Obviously, as all leftists, I believe that the lack of equality in opportunity (or rather, the existence of double standards in which people at higher social classes get better access to education, job training, and business relationships that enable them to have greater chance of obtaining higher incomes...elitism, in short) is the fundamental reason for class gap to emerge. With elitism, social mobility that allows for descendants of lower class to move upward in social hierarchy exists just as an idealized principle. But at this point in time, I would like to question a basic premise of this argument. In modern society, we define social class as simply as a matter of income, as we assume that better educated people with jobs that require more sophistication is bound to make more money. Furthermore, we assume that t

Approaching a 10-day count until I finally depart for my job in Japan, I am thinking about what kind of hell that I will be expected to raise once I actually start working. No, really, otherwise why would I be hired in the first place? A Japanese company's business side compels the newbies to do some sales in the beginning. And obviously, a foreigner, whose spoken (not to mention written) Japanese has some serious problems, has no way to out-compete Japanese employees in talking Japanese customers in Japanese into buying random stuff (unless its a white/black guy doing door-to-door, then the Japanese people might actually be amused enough to listen...while, at least initially). And that explains why I get rejected from practically all Japanese companies with which I applied for a job. There is no need for many multilingual dudes claiming to know foreign markets considering these big conglomerates hire local talents in different localities around the globe. The local talents do

One thing that is really noticeable these days in China is the degree of non-propagandistic political underpinning that goes into literary works. In a country where even the news still contains plenty of brain-washing tactics on respecting and loving the Party, the (limited) freedoms of thoughts shown by even highly censored publishing business here in China has been quite amazing. From democracy to human rights, the usual suspects of government censorship abound, leading the usual reader to wonder whether the book s/he is reading somehow managed to slip through the censors. Obviously, the answer is no. Government censorship is as systematic as it has always been, reviewing every book that can possibly pack a slight tinge of political ideas for dissidence. There can only be two explanations for how "open" (relatively speaking, of course) the publishing industry in China has become. The first is growing skill of Chinese literati to hide "progressive" political i

Finishing the same book that I wrote about in the two previous posts, I was surprised how there could be an optimistic conclusion to such a depressing storyline. Amid a growing increase in the number of farming migrants to the Inner Mongolian grasslands, concerted efforts to eradicate wolves and introduce farmlands into the area are undertaken. While wolves no longer harm livestock and herders become settled residents with regular services and amenities enjoyed by other citizens, the grasslands slowly turned into a vast desert spewing sand toward Beijing to the south. It seems that under modern pressures, the grassland and its masters budged, abandoning the principles that kept the grasslands healthy and sustainable for centuries. A shallow perspective would feel that this is but another typical Chinese phenomenon of trading wealth for environment, but the author has pointed out the final and ultimate demise of the nomadic-herding tribes are the greatest loss. For generations, thro