Alpha Asian

In this episode Laszlo Montgomery introduces one of the great military heroes of the Ming Dynasty. Though rather well-known to Chinese who went through the public school systems of Greater China, little is known of him elsewhere. Qi Jiguang helped to rid the China coast of pirates (Wōkòu) and through his epic Great Wall restoration engineering project he kept the Mongol menace at bay and preserved the Ming Dynasty for an additional half century. His two military treatises were required reading into modern times and he contributed greatly to the introduction of Chinese martial arts into the military as a training regimen.

Happy New Year, everyone. It's the Year of the Dragon. Let's hope it's a prosperous one and the economy will turn around and give us some more positive news. Yesterday, my Washington Capitals lost in overtime to the Pittsburgh Penguins on national TV yesterday. And once again, the play by play announcer, Doc Emerick, referred to my man Richard Park as "a native of Korea". Doesn't that imply that he grew up in Korea? Park grew up in North America, having emigrated as a little kid from Korea with his family. While it irks me to see him being portrayed as something "other" or "foreign", it's also said for a lot of European players in the NHL. And that's because they DID grow up somewhere else and it's still their home country! But Emerick has been slagged on in hockey forums as having lost his touch as a commentator. So I guess if I'm going to follow hockey, I'll have to put up with the guy. Wow. Talk about natio...

So I just finished up Fortunate Sons by Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller. This is a true story about the Chinese Educational Mission : "[120] boys were sent to the United States in 1872, during the twilight years of the Qing Empire, in the hopes that a few years in America's leading schools would produce a band of leaders capable of rescuing China from its technological and military stupor." This book is a fascinating read, and it provides a rather unique and personal look at China in the midst of turmoil and change. It also touches upon a lot of issues that seem relevant today to China and to Asian Americans. The story starts off with Yung Wing, the very first Chinese to attend Yale. Yung is fascinated by American culture and the American educational system. Whereas the Chinese educational system taught classic Confucian texts, poetry and calligraphy and churned out intellectual bureaucrats, the American colleges focused on developing leaders and innovators. ...

I titled the previous post as Part 1 because I knew this stuff wasn’t going to be over. Of course Donald Trump was never going to run for the GOP nominee for the presidential elections. Only a moron would think that he would. And he won’t now, even with Palin supposedly saying that she would “love” for him to run. He’ll never fill out his financial disclosure forms for scrutiny, which means, he won’t run. This is all ego and theater. Does he really want people to scrutinize why he filed for bankruptcy four times? I thought casinos were suppose to make money. But again, this guy blows the dog whistle for race baiters. Once the birther issue was settled when Obama requested the state of Hawaii to release his certificate, this guy goes on the attack in scrutinizing Obama’s background, challenging how and why Obama got into Columbia, which is a not so subtle jab at affirmative action and insinuating that the man wasn’t really qualified to get in. ``I don't know why he doesn...

I find most people completely ignorant of Tibetan history and society, and yet there are a lot of drones who jump on the "Free Tibet" bandwagon and spew out the anti-Chinese dogma like a parrot. I actually heard some dimwit girls say they don't eat at Chinese restaurants because of Tibet. Yes, you dumbasses, the poor immigrant waiter who brought you your $5.50 fried rice is oppressing Tibetan monks. Get the fuck out of here!

Interesting. So the NFL cancels the Vikings-Eagles game due to the snowstorm that hit the east coast. And Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) went on to express his tough guy stance about how Americans have become "wusses" and then throws in a comparison with the Chinese. Ohhh-kay. "I think it's a joke," Rendell told the local Fox affiliate. "We cancel the game and there's less than 3 inches of snow … I think the fans can make their own decisions about their own safety." "This is football! Good lord, Vince Lombardi would be spinning in his grave that we canceled the football game for the snow." Fox 29’s weatherman John Bolaris offered a correction to Rendell's snow totals but the governor wasn't having it. "There's really already seven inches of snow on the ground," Bolaris said. Speaking to 97.5 FM Monday afternoon, Rendell noted that the Chinese wouldn't have canceled the game: " If this was in...

I remember a short sci fi story that I read from John Varley called Persistence of Vision . It was about a drifter that came across a society of people who were both blind and deaf. And because these people were both blind and deaf, they of course relied a lot on their sense of touch. Every night, the people of this commune would engage in a gigantic group hug/orgy. EVERYBODY. Man, woman and child. It was their way of being in tune with each other, including everyone, soothing tensions and fostering a group cohesiveness. The funny thing is Bonobo chimps have this type of society. Bonobos have a matriarchal society and prefer sexual contact to violent confrontation to resolve conflict. It is literally make love, not war. Bonobos are closely related to our evolutionary ancestor, the common chimpanzee. Chimpanzees, however, form male-dominated societies. They are very territorial, and they will attack male outsiders on the periphery of their territories. You can see pa...