10.04.2005
TV WASTELAND //
Museums are great. They are a break from your own culture and allow you to appreciate some of the best imaginative expressions of others. That is almost exactly the opposite experience you get from watching tv here. I'm convinced CCTV stands for Creatively Challenged Television. This country has mastered the art of ripping stuff off. (Just today in a cab I'm pretty sure Sarah McLachlin doesn't sing "in the arms of an angerl.") While I was watching a WNBA semi-finals game (mourn for me), when they cut to commercial the CCTV5 logo would disappear so you could tell it was just covering the ESPN logo. Since I don't speak the language I only watch the sports channel. Last month I viewed a great selection of: Regional Strongman Contest, the European Golf Masters, the Southeast Asian Women's Badminton finals, and round 1 men's doubles of the China Tennis Open. They actually have some original programming though. Pretty edgy stuff if you are into the rawness of camcorder quality filming, having the key grips act, community college RTF production values, and those Adam West Batman slanted camera angles. Pow.



10.07.2005
LIFE WITHOUT SPICE //
Out of the blue I received the first email my dad has ever sent. He writes, "You were once vibrant, energetic, determined, and up beat. Now we feel that you have given up on life and have shied away from people; anti-social, closed off in your own world. It seems like you do just enough to barely exist. There is no joy or goal in your life." Living with yourself every moment of every day, it's hard to notice any changes. I don't think I'm that different since getting banged up, but I know that's not true. My dad is right about me just getting by. Life has just devolved into diversion for me. It's like going to the theater and finding that they aren't showing the movie you wanted to see. So instead you watch whatever to pass the time. I don't think I've given up on life. I think I'm tired and I just don't care anymore. I know that I haven't felt safe to completely be myself around people. Sanctification isn't even that important to me. I feel like I'm fine as long as I'm doing/saying the right things until the credits roll. The rapture can't come fast enough; just as long as it doesn't happen during the TX-OU game if we're about to win. Then again maybe that will herald The End.



10.08.2005
3 AND OUT //
Is anyone else outside of New England not disappointed to see the Red Sox get swept by the White Sox? Yes, baseball nation was glad to see them finally win their first title in 3000 years. But the aftermath of it just got so ridiculously annoying with how they just wouldn't gracefully slip away into the off season and hit the links. I mean do people remember that just 3 years ago the Los Angeles/Anaheim/California/UC Berkley/ 90210 Angels won it all? Take your pick of obnoxious parading last spring: C list celeb Johnny Damon making the talk show rounds and co-authoring a book, the trite phrases Kevin Millar claims to have invented like "cowboy up," the whole Queer Eye make over, etc ad nauseam. So after they made a last second surge to beat out the Yankees for the division (after squandering a late commanding lead), I had no patience for the all the talk of the Red Sox magic being re-kindled. But I wouldn't mind seeing them being champs again…give or take 86 years.

10.11.2005
THE GREATEST DAY THAT NEVER HAPPENED //
I was disappointed the other day to wake up and find myself still on Earth. When I went to bed Texas/OU was at half time. I was certain that I'd be raptured before we beat OU. My friend said that it was anti-climatic because we didn't beat them when they were good. News flash: we couldn't beat them when they were good. It's like getting turned down by hot girls at a bar all night, but then scoring digits during last call when you've clearly drank too much and she clearly was still around for a reason: you'll take it. // Last year the Astros were responsible for my pendulum mood swings. I would flutter from bliss to the abyss with every pitch in the playoffs. Last night 3:30am: Bases loaded 2 out. C'mon Backe, shouldn't be too hard to coax a fly ball from Adam LaRoche. He got that fly ball, but it landed in the bleachers. I went to bed depressed. You want unlikely heroes? Berkman's 8th inning slam? Clemens first relief work since 1980 and on 2 days rest? Burke's game winning homer? Nope. Brad 3-home-runs-this-year Ausmus. All this happened while I was on the other side of the world fitfully trying to sleep. Next you're going to tell me the Texans are going to win a game this year. Crazy talk.



10.14.2005
BEING LAO WAI //
Foreigners fascinate the locals here. For the most part I don't stand out until they either look at my legs or I open my mouth. I love to wear shorts, but it's so bizarre to these people. Many of them even go jogging or play basketball in jeans. It's not that they don't get hot. Men here will roll one pants leg up to their knee and roll their shirt up to their armpits and walk around. Often I see guys in a restaurant wearing slacks and no shirt. But heaven forbid that they wear shorts and look silly. They also can't comprehend how I can be Chinese but not speak Chinese. I must be Korean or at least a retarded Chinaman, but not American. I was chatting with a security guard and after I explained that my parents are from Hong Kong but moved to America where I was born and raised he asked me, "but is their skin yellow?"



10.17.2005
SHANGHAI NOON //
I made a day trip to Shanghai on Friday. It was actually 7 hours round trip travel for a 1.5 hour excursion and I left broke. So it was almost exactly like a typical date my friend Kai-Yi would go on in high school. While waiting at the train station I was really impressed by the order in the city. Everywhere else I've been to, the intersections are a 100 man game of Frogger. But they had street guards at each corner holding a piece of string to keep the pedestrians at bay. A pair of girls wandered past the DMZ and a guard ran up to them and started blowing his whistle right in their face. It was awesome. In the sense that it was funny to watch but I'd want to karate chop him in the throat if he did that to me. People also spit just as much, but rather than on the floor or say on my shoes, they do it in a trash can. I watched one guy literally snort, gesticulate, and hock for 8 seconds. It was as if he was focusing all of his chi to spew a fireball from his mouth. I kept expecting him to levitate, have his hair stand up and turn yellow, and challenge me to a duel. I would've won you know.



10.18.2005
GOING POSTAL //
What would incite a relatively quiet, keeps to himself, postal worker to suddenly crack and show up to the office with an AK-47? It's a fascinating cliché that always seemed bizarre and inexplicable. Until now. After Berkman hit his go ahead 3 run homer in the 7th, I knew it was going to come down to Lidge in the 9th. He had been shaky this entire series and I was filled with eager anticipation for the Astros going to their first World Series ever. But having watched sports all my life, there also loomed a sense of dread. When Lidge gave Eckstein a hittable pitch at 1-2 I started loading the shells. After he walked Edmonds I laid the rifle on my lap while patiently waiting as The Greatest Hitter of His Generation stepped up to the plate. I'd seen Albert Pujols do this before months earlier after the Astros secured a 2 run lead only to set the stage for his dramatic 9th inning Roy Hobbs moment. As we huddled in front of my co-worker's computer, I said that Pujol's was going to hit a game winning homer. Refresh. A. Pujols homered to deep left, J. Edmonds and D. Eckstein scored. My co-workers sympathized with me while laughing. Saying stuff about how Houston still led the series and something about it being more interesting and dramatic. I couldn't make it out because all I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears. That and the click of the safety.



10.22.2005
CLEANING HOUSE //
One of my favorite words that I don't pronounce correctly is "a yi." Literally it's Chinese for helper-that-cleans-up-after-me-like-a-mom-without-the-guilt-of-not-being-married-
or-a-doctor. Apparently according to my parents the latter is why the prior hasn't happened. Mom, with me misdiagnosing meningitis for the flu as a 37 year old intern, no one wins. Anyhow our "auntie" is a sweet old woman who comes twice a week to clean our floors, laundry, toilet, dishes, and folds my delicates. At $1.25/hr we all end up winners. Now if I could only figure out a way to ask her to cook as well then "a yi" may evolve to mean two-more-reasons-to-stay-single. Maybe three when you consider that dates end up considerably more expensive per hour. Or so I've read.



10.26.2005
SNIPE HUNT //
Over the last few years I've spent about 20 weeks in this country, and in that time I've yet to spy out one hot chick. Forget hot. I'd settle for just one cute in girl out of the 1.3 billion people here. This has sort of become my quest for the Holy Grail. I'm almost to the point that I don't believe that they exist; like unicorns, four leaf clovers, or gorgeous Korean girls that dig short Chinese guys with a stunning sense of humor and a pocket full of dreams. A couple weeks ago I was waiting outside of a train station in Shanghai, and I thought for just a moment I caught a glimpse of one good looking girl. But unfortunately she was waiting with a friend while doing the Asian squat. The squat is just not a good look for girls. I mean put a hole underneath her and she's taking a dump. It's all ruined. So the search continues. And what will I do once I finally spot this vision of beauty? Why avoid eye contact and mutter curses at the guy who will end up with her that isn't me of course.
I hate myself.