Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

In recent news, while India has been busy perceptively becoming the rape capital of the world, Hong Kong has been taking definite steps toward the title of "maid-abuse capital."  High-profile physical violence of foreign domestic workers, one of which involving a to-level administration official at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has brought forth a small but increasing focus on the plight of the lowly, underpaid migrant workers from Third World countries, toiling away in a strange land far from home, while little legal protection from authority both in Hong Kong or their home countries .

The ongoing political stalemate in Thailand, entering an even grander stage of opposition protests and incumbent counter-protests to paralyze Bangkok, seems to see no end.  Fueled by continued anger over talks of inappropriate use of national funds, hidden corruption , and unjustifiable grips on political power by the so-called "Thaksin regime", the opposition seems to still have plenty of firepower left despite private murmurs among its supporters that they are pushing too far with their demands, and that their lives are increasingly being disrupted by the constant need to be on the streets.

The line between being alone and being lonely can become really blurred when one remains on the road at an almost semi-permanent basis.  Physically being in new, strange places constantly, a traveler become a "floater," a being without a group of long-known acquaintances that give one the reason to remain in that place for long time .  That idea of being physically alone and friendless at times, more often than not, begin to affect one's mental state toward a sense of confusion as to whether that sense of being alone is voluntary or forced, and whether willingly accepted as a side effect of traveling.

The ideas of fighting for honor, to modern human beings, seem like obsolete ideas of the past fit for history books but anachronistic in modern societies where rational considerations for individual and collective interests trump what is often perceived an overtly emotional exercise of avenging wrongdoings for vague moral purposes.  And indeed, the last Hollywood blockbuster "47 Ronin," a sci-fi-tinged retelling of a Japanese true story about a group of master-less samurai revenge-killing a rival lord for their dead master, cannot get more medieval in context.

U.S. embassies all over the world tend to have a shared characteristic: they strive to look like military barracks, surrounded with heavily armed guards and barbed wires to fight off terrorist attacks at any given notice , rather than a diplomatically positive representation of America as a socially advanced and politically liberal place that its politicians seem to tirelessly promote when abroad.  Usually taking up prime real estate in highly urbanized areas, these American missions demonstrate American power, but in the most off-putting and scarily unapproachable fashion possible in everyone's eyes.

It is not particularly surprisingly that as people get older and older, their attitude toward the coming of a new year turn from excitement and anticipation to something more akin to avoidance, nostalgia, or in extreme cases, hatred.  When one starts to become more aware of age and less aware of concrete progress in life, the passage of time, as symbolized by coming of a new year, becomes more and more a sign of meaningless aging, of another year passed without significant accomplishments or achievements, and, again, in extreme cases, another step closer to that inevitable end of human life.