Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Yesterday was my birthday (not much happened, I just had dinner with a friend in a Thai place...very good food, not that expensive...well, 100+ RMB per person, so its not that cheap either for a normal person, I guess) and tomorrow my father makes his return from the States. Given the intense scrutiny over alleged extramarital affairs that he is facing from the entire extended family (I would like to talk about the details even in this blog), the peace and independence I am enjoying right now will not return until I leave Shanghai for Japan almost a month later. Now, with my father back here, so will my grandmother get here from Nanjing to watch over him to make sure nothing else happens to aggravate the existing situation that further ruin the family name (I wrote about my rather uncaring and angry attitude toward this issue not that while back on this blog, so I won't talk about this anymore). I will be put in an incredibly awkward position between the silent tension between my ...

While in Taiwan and since coming back, I have been asked multiple times what are the most striking differences between the mainland and the island...and so far I have not been able to put the fundamental things in anything beyond a few superficial traits. Like I said in the previous post, Taiwanese people are respectful, polite, attentive to detail, allowing for a society filled with order. Traditions are protected and there is an overwhelming sense of peace and mutual trust within a service-oriented society despite a physical look resembling some old Chinatowns at certain parts. However, descriptions like this are definitely satisfying. People of both sides should expect something of this sort without the need for a visit to the other side. After all, reading the political and economic histories as well as the societal and ideological developments is enough to predict all such differences. Everyone on the mainland knows that Taiwan is ahead economically, especially when consideri...

Language unites a civilization. Only with efficient communication can a group of people bond so much as to consider themselves to belong to one society and one culture. A common language creates common languages and diminishes the separating effects of geographic and transportation barriers. Nowhere is such a principle more aptly illustrated than here in China, where 20% of humanity have become one nation through the use of Mandarin Chinese as a prevailing lingua franca. Sure, unintelligible local dialects still exists, but as internal migration pick up pace (and it certainly has with hundreds of millions of migrant labor moving into large cities), the power of local tongues has considerably weakened as people from all areas of China begin to live next to each other in expanding cities. People no longer use their local tongues because the majority of the people they come across everyday cannot understand them even if the tongues are used in the original localities. Politics have al...

Just got back to Shanghai after an overnight bus ride from Fuzhou (where I only walked around for an hour and a half after I landed on a ship from Matzu Islands in Taiwan)...now with the trip over and not much else to do before my father returns from the States and my grandmother getting here from Nanjing, I suppose it is time to write some reflections on the entire trip (two weeks long...even thought it was too much...after all, the Taiwanese leg happened rather spontaneously without much planning). The main purpose of this entire trip, seen retrospectively, is the comparison of mainland China with Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Same language and culture does not mean a similar present, and the result of 6 decades of different political and economic backgrounds really show on the outer appearance, social order, and especially, the characters and attitudes of the people, both to themselves and to each others, especially in the case of mainlanders vs. the other Chinese-speakers. Perhaps...

When I was planning my trip to Taiwan not that long ago (in fact, I didn't seriously think about it til I got to Xiamen, across the Strait from Taiwan....AFTER already on the road for a week in Wuhan, Guangdong Province, plus Hong Kong and Macao...I was kind of suspicions from Chinese border customs regarding why I am leaving the country 3 times in 4 days), going to an Internet cafe was definitely part of the plan...all the blocked sites, especially Facebook and this one (I have been posting via email for the past month and half on the mainland), need to be accessed... Now here I am, sitting in a loud 24-hour Net Cafe in Tainan City, my first chance in accessing the Internet in Taiwan...there is a dog barking and walking down the hall in the net cafe rather leisurely and I am getting constantly distracted by the sounds of someone playing some gambling machine next door (I suppose the net cafes here also do other entertainment options?)...so yeah, the writing is and will be pretty h...

Recently, my mother has been worrying that my brother's writing is not up to par with his classmates and the requirements for getting into elite colleges. Besides the fact that he is still only in 7th grade, a period of time that is really premature is judging the readiness for college-level writing, I suppose the fear is legitimate for a parent who does not know better. Chinese people can't stress enough about the importance of writing in American education system (primarily because Chinese people generally believe in technical stuff, such as engineering, medicine, and sciences, as the only legitimate education for preparation for good jobs...and because they generally suck at English writing) as Chinese kids, even those that have lived most of their lives in the US, tend to fall apart on the writing section of the SAT and in English classes both in high school and college. Having taught writing for so long to high school students in Korea, I have a general grasp of what are...

A week into complete boredom at home with not much to do...the weather is so hot that I am only going out to resupply food...staying home and doing laundry, sweeping the floor (believe me, I hate cleaning...there are dust bunnies everywhere...thats why I prefer carpets to floors...the dirtiness shows easily on floors), and watering flowers (plants, to be exact)...Went to the hospital a couple of times cuz my left ear was plugged...now that my left ear is cleaned out (first time in years...probably more than a decade), I am just amazed by the amount of noise I can hear on the street...and how my right ear (which just got a partial cleaning) feels stuffed and weak on hearing when compared to my left....I do regret not cleaning both ears at the same time when I had the chance... Ok, besides these boring daily happenings, I am really having not much to do...yesterday was designated a disaster day here in China to commemorate the victims of gigantic mudslide in Gansu Province (it was gigant...

Watching TV last night (not much to do except that nowdays with no passport and no travel plans), I saw Tibetan singer Alan perform. Now for those who don't know, she signed with Japanese company Avex Entertainment (a company that I almost worked for…damn that last round phone interview) a couple years back, and has made a name for herself in being distinctively Tibetan in voice yet good-looking and fashionably dressed in a way Tibetans are traditionally perceived no to be. Now, with my theory that Tibetan traditional culture is ultimately bound to be neutralized, a character like her would be seen as the inevitable vanguard of such a trend. Now, I don't know how she would be perceived back home in Tibet (not that favorably I bet, after all, she gave up traditional culture for money), but as far as Han Chinese and Japanese people are concerned, she represents a dramatic, and welcoming, break, from the Shangri-la image that we always seem to have about Tibet (perhaps her next ...

Switched on TV this morning and immediately saw a variety show where a pre-teen girl was dancing to a song that is supposed to be "sexy" in nature...and the girl, with what little she got, was trying her best to look and move in a sexy way. The show is supposed to be a pre-teen talent show of some sort, but there is really something wrong with this scene I am looking at. Of course, as I said before that I don't believe in anybody lecturing anyone on perceived immorality unless crime can be involved, but having premature girls presented as symbols of sexiness is a little too much even for me. What is scary is that these kind of thing is a lot more common than people would expect. There are Japanese and Korean female music groups in which the majority of members are below the age of eighteen (one in particular, ベリーズ工房 from Japan, averaged about 14-years-old at time of debut) and they are garnering a lot of attention and popularity precisely because the members are pretty...

Second day of waiting for my Japanese visa...without my passport, I can't go anywhere. I can't stay in hotels, go to bars and Internet cafes, buy long-distance bus tickets, you name it...basically I am confined mostly to the house, without much to do... Talking about that with a friend on MSN last night, I was told that I should go chat up girls in music bars and/or online. Of course, I disagreed. For the music bar, girls go with friends (making approaches difficult) or go to hit up foreigners (hate to keep coming back to this topic, but its true), and plus, when the music is so loud, meeting people is really a stretch...and as for online, well, who knows what kind of people are actually there...and how can I even trust anyone on there to say they are really who they are? OK, OK, I could just be making excuses to not do anything cuz I don't like to go to particularly crowded places by myself (now, if I actually looked like a foreigner, that might not be the case...seen pl...

With "war on terrorism" continue its full, violent course while the likes of Korea and Taiwan continue to be silent battlegrounds of major world powers, the general atmosphere of peace and cooperation seems fragile indeed. Sure, major powers speak of nonviolence, but only insofar as to the American military dominance is maintained (for everyone except America) and the quagmire that is the "war on terror" finally sees its light at the end of the tunnel (for the US). But has anyone actually thought of nonviolence for the sake of nonviolent resolution of problems, rather than measure for avoiding the huge costs of war? In the past, non-violent protest has been successfully utilized by various social movements to achieve their goals of ending injustices. The Indian national independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the black civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. ended the British colonial rule and the racial inequality in the U.S., respectively. A...

Race has been a major topic in this blog, with difference between whites and Asians, between different Asians as well as minorities in China covered most frequently. But we should not forget that the U.S., often considered the most tolerant society for foreigners of all backgrounds, have its own occasion spurts of racial problems. Even as the movements like by figures like Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez are honored, the underlying reasons for such movements are not alleviated but often exaggerated (with all the previous improvements negated) as the downturn of American economy made people much more wary of foreign incomers and domestic economic inequalities tied to race. Few years back, radio personality Don Imus' commentary regarding the black female basketball players has once again brought to attention the role of celebrities in the issue of race relations. While Imus vigorous defend his innocence from using improper words to refer to the players (by characterizing the c...

The fact that Chinese people treat foreigners better than their own should not be news. Even a 50-year-old grandma at the service counter of a dilapidated state-owned store cracks a rare smile at the white guy walking in. And with that fact known to all, it seems that there began a simultaneous movement by the entire population to look and act as foreign as possible (of course, the "good" foreign, i.e. Euro-American and Japanese/Korean, especially Korean, about which I wrote a published letter: http://paper.sznews.com/szdaily/20100802/ca2935227.htm ), often without knowing what they are actually doing (perfect example I encountered a few days ago: a middle aged grandma walking around with a black T-shirt that says "I *heart* BOTOX). Everyone seems to be getting English/Western-sounding names (I wrote about this in a published letter: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/print.asp?id=443855 ) and using half-assed English in their daily conversations...English/Japanese/K...

Just finished watching a Korean romance comedy (yes, yes, I speak many times about not liking Korean dramas cuz the romance is all the same...this one is kind of in the mold too, i.e. guy is stupid, girl is pretty, another handsome, all-around-better guy comes along, parents want the other guy, first guy breaks up with the girl for her sake, but girl comes back to the first guy at the end...happily ever after), but what made the film sort of different from many others is the stark contrast posed by the two main male characters in question. One handsome and one ugly (of course, thats usually the case), but in this case, the handsome one is also the one that seems to be more caring and have a warmer heart. Only in later part of the story do the viewers come to know the truth. After the female main character was raped by her high school coach, she started having mental problems and went into a mental institution, where the first male character was also housed at the time. The guy stood...

The days are still quite hot here in Shanghai (even thought the temperature have been down quite a bit…walking around yesterday in Chongming Island, I didn't sweat nearly as much as I expected). Now, speaking of the walk yesterday, I trekked about 5 hours into the rural parts of the island, away from any public buses or major roads (I was actually lost…didn't know the geographic scale of things…expected the island to be much smaller), and found out that the difference between the parts near the major roads and the true countryside is quite glaring. While high rise apartments are built near major roads to accommodate increased number of mainland Shanghainese who move to the Island to get away from the city, the same amount of luxury is not shown at all in the villages. Sure, the houses are much nicer than the ones in really poor parts of China, but in terms of the simple interior décor (no AC, wooden chairs, traditional kitchens, few electronics), it can be said that the r...

The recent healthcare reform launched by President Obama in the U.S., I believe, have not gone as far as it can possibly (and, in my opinion, necessarily) could go (even though it is already facing tough resistance from many). Rather than just providing a government alternative to insurance package offered by private companies, shouldn't there be something else other than just the supply side that need to be looked at? To be specific: what about how the best insurance option is chosen and purchased? Considering that a large number of people in the US get there insurance from their employers (i.e. they don't choose the insurance, their bosses do), maybe it would be wise to change that structure much more so that the employees receive the greatest benefits while bypassing the step where the bosses weighs the economic costs to their companies. Of course, the merit of companies providing their employees heath insurances has the benefit of attracting more capable workers. However, ...

Just a personal update: just bored at home after coming back home from Nanjing yesterday...I received a notice from the company in Japan this morning saying that the documentation I need to start visa application is ready and have been mailed to me here in Shanghai and the mail would reach me in 2 to 3 days via EMS...oh great, what a timing...long enough for to be bored waiting for it at home, but too short for me to go on the road again if I want to start the visa application ASAP...sure, there are plenty of places I can go around Shanghai for 2 to 3 days, but considering the hot weather here in the city and its actually cooler near the water here, I doubt that I would actually want to go anywhere geographically close to the city amidst the sweltering heat... Yet, blowing constantly in front of AC at home isn't the solution either. Not to mention that I am already running low on food reserves here (already eating cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...they are running out too)...