If you could have an RSS feed from my brain, it would be complete shock and awe.

Warning: Serious Post

Okay, I just shot off a couple of amusing posts, the blogger’s version of a “drunk dial”, but right now I want to talk to everyone about something serious - the ABCs. Back to the basics. We’ll take it in reverse, if for no other reason than to be psuedo-clever.

C. is for China. China is…FUCKING INTENSE. If you’re ready, bring it. Come on down, like your name is Bob Barker…or maybe Rod Roddy is better. The people will welcome you with open arms. But if you’re not, stay at home like your name is Tim Allen. Especially if you come to the interior, you better bring your best game or else you WILL be eaten up. Don’t come just to get the stamp, to tell your colleagues you went and saw the rapid growth first hand, to see the Wall or the Bund. If you’re coming, you better do it 500%, like Wesley “two scoops” Berry (<--Google him), otherwise I'm gonna call you a pussy. Yes, a BIG FAT PUSSY!!!! I'm a nice guy, but I will say it.

B. is for Black people. I’ve really wanted to write about this for a while, but haven’t found the right touchstone. But tonight was the night. When people ask what was my biggest surprise about traveling abroad or what shocked me the most, I, unfortunately, cannot respond with something like, “the food”, “the toilets”, etc. That would be easy, predictable, and false. But in reality, the thing that is most shocking and appalling while overseas, is the thing that is most shocking, appalling, in my home country. That is, the perception of Black people. Man, I am so disappointed. Actually, I am so sad, disturbed, by the perception of black people around the world.

No matter where I go, the perception of black people is a negative one. To be honest, I don’t know how to react. I just listen…and defend. But now matter what anyone says, I cannot accept it as rational, factual, acceptable, because I know different, from my own experience, from my life. Black people have had so much influence on my life, more than any other people in the whole world. My style, my swagger, my dance, you name it, if it weren’t for black people, I wouldn’t be me. If it weren’t for Black people, we wouldn’t be US (yes, that is in CAPS, you know what it means). So when someone talks ill of them, they talk ill of me, of YOU, of US. I feel confused, distraught.

A. is for Ambassador. I can certainly understand how some people could think I’m a little arrogant to call myself an Ambassador. But then again, there is no better word in the English language to describe my current position. No matter my choice, an Ambassador is what I am. When I meet people who have never interacted with a foreigner (any foreigner), what else can I call myself? I didn’t come here just to do business and get rich, just to see beautiful sites {including the women}, eat great food, and drink local beer. I came here to represent…our ideals, our swagger. Yeah, I’m a good ‘ol boy from the Midwest, but I’m showing them how WE get down. And when I come back, I’m gonna show you how THEY get down…and guess what?…we’re not so different after all.

jas

*citation: credit SbookP with “swagger”

Okay, just this one thing. I hate to do an “us” versus “them” post, but this is important. The Chinese and Japanese definitely have this on us.

They get really drunk….and then they drink tea. We really need this. Can we adopt this practice? It works miracles. I am pretty tipsy right now, but I know I’ll be alright because I have my glass of green tea at my side.

Let’s do this American People!!!

Oh yeah…and…this is more of a “Chengdu” thing (I say this because the restaurants in Shanghai were quite different). In Chengdu you can sit at a restaurant or tea house for 6, 7, 8 hours, order one meal or one glass of tea and no one bothers you. Just refill, refill, refill. No pressure to leave or order more. Just living, enjoying.

Okay, I just got this email from my Mom (AKA “Big Worm”) in response to my “So” post. Here it is, verbatim, for the world to see. If you can’t love the CIA for the Bourne Identity series and for telling Matt Damon he’s too fat to play a CIA agent, then at least give it up for the Internet.
“Now I am worried. Why are you eating MSG? and Why aren’t you wearing deodorant and why are you freezing to death?

I am hoping you are taking better care of yourself. You are a million miles away and I have no real idea of how you are. Please please take care of yourself. You can always come home and take better care. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.

love mom

I read your blog every day it is my best connection to y ou.”

She’s so cool, right? Such a Mom. Mom, sorry to put you on blast like this, but it is a must. Okay, here is my response to my beloved Mother, verbatim:

“haha….yo…we eat msg cus it is natural here…i dont wear deodorarnt cus it is unnatural here…i am not freezing..i am praying for more global warming because the weather is so warm here..and i want more of it!”

This is way more fun than auditing.

Holla!

Jestito

Wait, wait…it’s not over…I’m a little split..okay, a lot split, and I have a story to tell..like I’m BIGGIE. This happened when I was maybe 8 or 9. Our neighbor, this guy named Ronnie. He was a drunk (note: I do believe alcoholism is a disease, so maybe it’s not appropriate, but I’m feeling this right now). This dude was fat (note: I do believe alcoholism is a disease, so maybe it’s not appropriate, but I’m feeling this right now), and he snorted coke (note: I do believe drug use is a disease…you got it). A lot of coke. But he had a fly whip. A 55 chevy. Red. Candy apple red. He had a personalized license plate that said “Nifty 5″. And he had a Harley. And his wife, Maureen, had a hard time controlling him. He had a son, Ryan, who loved the Power Rangers. Okay, enter “go go Power Rangers” theme song here. Ryan was forbidden to speak to my Mother, but he loved her so much that he’d sneak over and talk to her despite the risk of a spanking. Ronnie had another son, I forget his name, a younger one. And his mother, Dorothy, and Father, Leo, lived at the end of the street, across from us. D. was cool. Leo was a drunk and died of a bad liver. I felt bad for D. Like many women, she suffered for her man. Maybe it’s respectable, maybe it’s regrettable. I think a combination of both. Anyway, Ronnie, this guy, he used to come home drunk all the time. Like pissy drink. More drunk than I am right now. Stumblin’, fumblin’, rumblin’. I would watch him from my window. It was better than anything on CBS. And he had a camper.
I digress, he told some people my oldest Brother, Buzzy, was gay. Okay, cool. If you’re gay, that’s cool. Do your thing. But, indeed, my big bro straight. My Mom found out about this and she, well, put the smack down on Ronnie, in front of everyone. She did it Price Hill style - face to face, what did you say? I still remember peaking out of that second floor window with my Brother Nate like, “Yo! Mom is seriously diggin’ this guy a new asshole”. Is she for real? Yes, she was dead serious. Big Worm don’t play. She ripped into him in front of everyone. I mean, everyone, on the porches, in the windows, hands on the phone ready to call District 3 (that’s our Police district) in case something pops off. I was impressed by my Mom. She really put him in check. After that, it was respect. Dude didn’t mess with us at all…but he was still snortin’ mass lines of coke. Anyway, he was racist, too, so I was happy when he moved away…

Price Hill…all day…

My lifestyle is sooooo taboo right now.

I’m eating tons of MSG. I ran out of deodorant and didn’t re-up for an entire week. I’m rockin’ long johns and praying for more of this global warming phenomenon.

Curious George makes an encore appearance.

“I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.“

haha. I surprised myself today. I was walking to the office this morning and I heard a “hey, hey” from behind me. I turned and it was a foreigner. I was like, “huh?”. I must have looked dumbfounded. I just kept walking for a second until I realized he was talking to me. He asked for directions and I gave them, but I was a little surprised. Then, just now, after returning from lunch, there was another one of those people (lol) waiting for the elevator. I even wanted to stare.

At least when it comes to socks.

Today I am wearing women’s socks. They are pink and super comfy. I am not the rightful owner.
I was walking down the street and my shoelace came untied, so I reached down and pulled up my pant leg. I forgot I had put them on, so was caught off guard. It was sunny out and I had on black shoes, so the contrast was making me so obvious. I felt like traffic stopped and everyone was honed in on my pink socks. I looked around and a guy had spotted me. It’s cool, though, cus’ pink is the new white.

Dip Set ’til I die!

It doesn’t necessarily rain. If you’re in my apartment complex, that is. Here, 2 apartments take up a floor, so each room has plenty of windows and an area outside of each set to hang clothes for drying.

After nearly a week of great weather, I thought we finally got our turn, as I woke to the familiar pitter patter of rain drops. But after looking out the window and seeing nothing but sun and dry land, I realized that it wasn’t rain causing that familiar soundtrack, but the water from someones mops being hung out to dry on the floor above ours. I think it these same people whose dog, at 7:00am each morning, without fail, starts barking his ass off. I don’t know what they are doing to him…

In University, I used to debate the merits of global warming with my good friend Dave. He insisted that it was bullshit. Literally, he claimed the biggest cause of global warming is cow crap. I vigorously opposed this assertion on the grounds that cats’ fart and feces frequency and volume surpasses that of cows. I know because I had cats and those little buggers stunk. They even used to shit in the house and we would wrongfully blame the dogs until one day I caught them in the act. Anyway, looks like I missed my calling, because some clever Aussie’s are capitalizing on this.
Sydney-based Easy Being Green says it will mitigate your cat’s flatulent contribution to global warming for A$8 ($6). The same company could also make your granny “carbon-neutral” at A$10 a year, according to a report in the Australian newspaper last weekend.

An ideas on how to make granny ‘carbon-neutral’?

The real Ambassadors, that is.

A tour bus of U.S. senior citizens defended themselves against a group of alleged muggers, sending two of them fleeing and killing a third in the Atlantic coast city of Limon, police said on Thursday.

One of the tourists _ a retired member of the U.S. military aged about 70 _ put assailant Warner Segura in a head lock and broke his clavicle after the 20-year-old and two other men armed with a knife and gun held up their tour bus Wednesday, said Luis Hernandez, the police chief of Limon, 80 miles east of San Jose.

The two other men fled when the 12 senior citizens started defending themselves. The tourists then drove Segura to the Red Cross where the man was declared dead. The Red Cross also treated one of the tourists for an anxiety attack, Hernandez said.

Yu Hang and Jenney invited Fu Yuan and I to join them and six others for an overnight trip to Mount Emei (Emei Shan). This was my second visit, but the first to the top, the Golden Summit, some 3000m high. Pictures and commentary are below.

Not captured on the digi: the bonds formed over the beer drank.

I’ve had great views from above the clouds on airplane rides, but never anything like today where I was out in the open air.

My first time in a cable car. We were packed in with about 100 people for the 3 minute ride upward. I’ve always had a fear of heights, so I was kind of nervous.

I like this photo because it gives you a since of how high up we were. The cables blending into the clouds at the bottom, a big white abyss.

I found something very appealing in the isolation that this tree has to experience day in and day out.

This temple was of in the distance on a relatively secluded mountain top. I played peek-a-boo with the clouds.

This was the main temple, the Gold Summit. Neo gave me a lesson in Buddhism.



Incense and Candles

“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign / Fucking up the scenery breaking my mind / Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?”. I remember going to Western Hills Plaza to get this single with my Brother Nate. I also remember the 2 Live Crew poster they had hanging the store….ooh, man! Anyway, back on track. Maybe one of the best parts of traveling is reading the English translation of all the signs, especially in China. Japan has to get a big thumbs down on this category. Granted, they do have one in Yoyogi Park whose English translation is: “Don’t let your dog poo in the grass, children eat and play there”, but other than that, it is always DON’T THIS, STRICTLY PROHIBITED THAT. I was bored one day and counted how many “DON’T” signs there were between the subway station and my house (roughly a 6 minute walk). I got to 11 and stopped counting. I’m from OSU baby, we were always told to “Do Something Great!”

This was the first, and probably best of the trip. Neo explained that the warning is not meant as much for those who sit on the edge as it is for those who come here to end their life with a jump into the “yun hai”(ocean of clouds). Check the pic after it for a prime jump spot.

I saw this one and it caught me off guard. I was like, ‘huh, what does that say?’. And even once I figured it out, I was like, ‘huh, it takes that many characters to say that?’.

I thought of that Mark Morrison jam, “Return of the Mack”, when I saw this one.

Not a word left to speak, the sight of you leaves me weak…

I hit the jackpot at Emei, capturing some really great phones. The one on the red wall was pointed out to me by Neo, otherwise I would have missed it.

As you may know, I’m in the design business now (cough cough, choke). These are a prototype of an upcoming release, a remix of the Air Force 1s. I call them, “The Claw”. Not. The steps leading up to the Golden Summit were quite slippery, so we bought these tie on gripper givers.

I’m not sure what the English name (Fu thinks there is one, but guesses it’s an academic mouthful) is for these flowers, but here they are called “you cai hua”. They bloom this time of year and can be seen everywhere if you make a trip rural areas or the countryside. Sometimes the area in front of you looks like a sea of Big Birds. These pics don’t really do the scale justice. The second one was in the back of a restaurant we at at on our way back to Chengdu.

007 has nothing on me…except that AM. The girls kept making me do this pose the night before, like 20 times. I got it down.

Group photo

Just a little haute to keep quoting myself, but hey, this is AS, not Ayou.

On my favorite countries (so far):

“Well, truthfully, Japan and China are my two favorite countries in Asia. Completely different from one another, but equally addictive. China is more close to my style, but Japan has something I want (not just the women either).”

I watched the entire second season of “Desperate Housewives” last week.

The confession: I loved it!

Eva Longoria, I wanna do youuu…r lawn.

Well, if you don’t know any Chinese, I can give you a quick lesson*. Let’s start with the essentials: “laowai” = foreigner. I hear it countless times each day and so might you if you make the trip. Hell, in the beginning, I thought the people had given me a Chinese name. I even started introducing myself as “laowai”. I immediately knew something was up when people were like, “yeah, I know”. If someone does not know me, they don’t refer to me as “he”, simply as “foreigner”. It’s basically the same in Japan, with the word there being “gaijin”.

Anyway, I haven’t really though much of it until today. As we were walking up to the Golden Summit, a woman walking behind me said “laowai, ni hao” (hello, foreigner). I guess she was caught off guard when I turned around and said, “ni hao”. “ting de dong ma?” (you understand?), she said, surprised. “idiar” (a little), I responded with a smile.

*Statement of full disclosure: this is all the Chinese I know, so no more stuntin’

“i will crush you like the softest of grapes under the most diseased of elephant feet.”

D. Poo

“You can care less without being careless.”

Me

As a freshman in college I joined the American Marketing Association. It was comprised of mostly upper classmen - Juniors and Seniors - looking to fill their resume with extracurricular activities. I was trying to gather information on choosing a major. We would meet once a week and a member of the local business community would come speak to us about various Marketing related topics.

On one occasion, an employee of the Columbus Dispatch, the cities largest newspaper, came to visit us. She asked for a show of hands of how many people read the newspaper on a daily basis. Everyone’s hand shot up like the head from a Jack in the Box…except mine. I was sitting in the front row, XXXL hoody, jeans saggin’, shaggy hair, and a scruffy beard. You know my style - low key. But it was the truth, so…

She called on me: “Well, young man, you don’t read the newspaper?”

“No, ma’am, not outside of the sports section.”

“Why not?”, she asked.

“It’s too depressing. Just a lot of bad news that doesn’t add any value to my life”.

Ms. Empiricism resorted to the facts: “You know, studies show that people who read the newspaper on a daily basis are, on average, more successful than those who don’t”.

Maybe she thought I wasn’t going to respond. But at that time I had a reply for everything, and it usually came in the form of lyrics from a rap song.
I winded up, and let go the pitch - “I’ve never been average. And in the words of one of this great country’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, ‘The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the one who reads nothing but newspapers’”.

Well, it wasn’t the latest from Jay-Z, but indeed a classic combo by T. Jizzle and Jesse. Holla!

Xin nian kaui le! Happy New Year!

Looking out of the window today, I saw Chairman Mao’s statue reigning over Tianfu square and decided to put a couple of his quotes up here. Don’t rack your brain too hard or snub your nose too high. Just enjoy, little piggies.

“What is work? Work is struggle. There are difficulties and problems…for us to overcome and solve. We go…to work and struggle to overcome these difficulties. A good comrade is one who is more eager to go where the difficulties are greater.”

“All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said, ‘Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.’ To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.”