Raving and Drooling – A lion’s tail

I’ve blogged about both of these songs before and posted the videos here, but I want to post them again together, because these two songs are really meaningful to me. How often in today’s society is a song about something REAL ? Sure, you might get the occasional song about insanity or about the stress of life, but how many songs say “Hey, fuckers, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re looking at things the wrong way and you really need to step the fuck back and reprioritise because the things you believe in are just bullshit” ?

Well I know two. One is American, and you will ALL know that song. The other is Korean and very few of you will know it. But both of them carry the same message… “Hey. There’s more to life than money or beauty. Happiness and a good heart are what’s important, not how beautiful someone is or how rich they are”.

I may be a writer, but I’m not a song writer. I have written a couple and at least one I think is pretty cool, but they tend to rhyme too much and I sort of write songs like a sixth grader writes poetry, but I have things to say, and if I ever wrote a song, I think it would be about the throw-away materialistic nature of society today. In Australia in particular, the cost of labour is so high that fixing things is totally impractical. If your MacBook Air screen breaks, guess what ? It’ll cost you less to buy a new one that it will to repair the old one (no, literally, I was quoted the price of a new screen and labour and it was more than the laptop was originally worth). Even if your fridge breaks down… in Australia, you don’t get it fixed. It costs too much to do so.

But in somewhere like Vietnam or Thailand, they fix EVERYTHING. I mean if a speaker cone is broken, they won’t throw it away. They will pull it apart, unwind the copper coils and wind on new copper. Anything that can’t be fixed, they will strip for all usable parts and save them to help fix the next person’s device. If I took a broken Nikkor camera lens into a store in Australia they would laugh me out of the store if I asked them to repair it. “Repair ? You can’t repair a camera lens. They’re precision manufactured by machine. A human being couldn’t repair that, and even if they could, it would cost you more than the lens is worth new. Throw it away and buy a new one”. But I have had the same camera lens repaired from a completely useless state (I dropped my camera from more than 5 foot onto concrete in Malaysia) back to mint condition in both Vietnam and Thailand for a tiny FRACTION of what a new lens would cost. Mere pennies. Because when you have a large population who are desperate for work, and people who can’t afford to just throw things away – you don’t. You find someone who will spend all day fixing your shit, only to charge you $20 for their time. And they’ll be grateful for your business.

In Australia, a G4 iMac is quite a very rare item. Not all that many were sold because they were very expensive. But these days, noone wants them because they’re not that efficient as a computer. They are very slow at browsing the web and they can’t handle the latest Flash player that YouTube requires. My local rubbish dump has had dozens of them for sale for $5 each and noone even wants them. But in Asia, they are still heavily utilised. Ok so they may not play YouTube, but they make great Point of Sale terminals and they make AWESOME video screens for running video advertising. You can re-tool a beautiful old computer like an iMac to still be incredibly useful for certain tasks. And in some countries, they do. But in western societies, we just don’t. We throw them away at the dump and maybe if they are lucky… in six months time someone will buy one for $5, only to throw it away again when it doesn’t meet their expectations.

So that’s what I would write a song about. The way western culture and high wages have turned us into a throw-away society that doesn’t repair ANYTHING. Hell, we don’t even recycle it. It goes to the dump and ends up in land-fill. That’s something I feel passionate about. We don’t have an infinite supply of copper, or nickel or lithium in the world and we can’t just keep digging it up, sending it to China to make into TV’s and stereos and then use it in Australia or America for a year or two before throwing it away and burying it in the ground. RE-FUCKING-CYCLE it you idiots ! Strip the parts and RE-USE them !

But this post isn’t about my song. It’s about Jessie J’s “Price Tag” and Fat Cat’s “Is Being Pretty Everything ?” because they both have an important message saying “Hey, wake up guys. Money and beauty are not everything. There is more to life, and neither money nor beauty will bring you true happiness, so stop wishing for them all the time and being depressed if you don’t have them”.

I hope you enjoy both songs and think about what they mean (The Korean song has English subtitles) instead of just blindly humming along to the chorus. While they may be pop songs, they are pop songs that actually have some fucking MEANING for a change. They have a message that’s really important and that we all need to think about for once. So once more, enjoy both of these beautiful, heart-warming and thought-provoking songs.

And PS, to Fat Cat. I can see your true beauty. I can see your crying heart and if you’re not already taken, I’ll be on the next plane to Korea to show you how much I can appreciate your heart. ;”)

Jessie J – Price Tag

Fat Cat – Is Being Pretty Everything ?

People like cute stuff, right ? Everyone likes a girl looking kawaii, especially if they’re Asian. Well, let’s try and show my vague knowledge of East Asian fasion culture and see how badly I can embarass myself.

So where do these kawaii looks come from ?

Well, most people who have had any passing interest in Japanese culture or anime are probably familiar with the “Lolita” look. It’s a popular look that is very cute and very out there (to foreigners at least). It originated in the 70′s but was really popular during the 90′s and I guess is still popular today among a certain subculture. The Lolita look has many variations centering around old style Victorian clothing with long dresses and frills.

The most famous is “Goth Lolita” where the girl dresses in all black dresses, often with white lace trims, but otherwise goes for a very black look. “Sweet Lolita” or “Classic Lolita” is the pink or brightly coloured pastel version of this and is also downright adorable. There is also “Kuro” (black) or “Shiro” (white) Lolita which represents the colour of the clothes. What’s the difference between Gothic Lolita and Kuro Lolita ? Well, Kuro is more toned down. It probably has less frills and is less fancy.

Other styles include “Princess Lolita” (often featuring royal-like jewellery), “Sailor Lolita” (as in sailor-style outfits), “Pirate Lolita” (no seriously, I’m not making this up), “Country Lolita” (for that “just rolled in the hay” look) and various others.

What other looks are there ? Well, on the less extreme side of things, one popular look in Japan is the Gyaru look, sometimes called “Ganguro”, although that look is actually slightly different and often focuses around the use of bleached blonde hair and fake tan, where as Gyaru itself is more about a sort of “glam rock” style. It may involve jeans or short shorts, lots of makeup, possibly shiny clothes and glitter and such.

How about school uniforms ? Japanese school uniforms are considered so damn kawaii, that many girls choose to wear them not just out of school, but after they’ve finished school. This look is known as Kogyaru, although I don’t really know why it’s considered related to Gyaru because I don’t see the similarity. Kogyaru typically involves either real or stylised school uniforms, oversized loose socks, leather platform shoes with big shiny buckles or plain loafer style shoes, and of course cute, childish accessories like backpacks and purses and hair ribbons.

This is a cute look, but it’s possible you might get some odd looks if you’re a middle aged guy going out with a girl dressed in Kogyaru ! Also, Kogyrus are often looked down on because they are thought to be selfish, spoilt kids who often make money from enjo kosai, the art of compensated dating whereby girls will date much older guys in return for high fashion clothing or money. How often this includes prostitution is debatable, but I’d like to think that that aspect of it is just hyped up and that most girls into enjo kosai don’t sleep with the guys they date. I guess there is an obsession among older guys for that schoolgirl fetish. Perhaps they shouldn’t make Asian school uniforms so damn cute if they don’t want guys to be attracted to them ? Just sayin’. Kogyrus have featured in various Japanese movies, and in the western world they famously appear in Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” part 1.

Anyway, back on track. That’s most of the fashion styles I’m into, but there are others which I won’t cover. I will just touch on one Korean style though. Ulzzang is a style and also sometimes an activity. It’s similar to the Japanese style of Gyaru, but really focusses just on the facial look more than anything. It involves heavy, heavy amounts of eye make-up to make the girls look like they have huge eyes, circle contacts to make them look like they have big irises etc, and certain hairstyles and makeup styles as well.

Ulzzangs often spend a great deal of time preparing their look, often not even to go out. They just take photos of themselves for their myspace or facebook pages. The stereotypical Ulzzang photo is always an ultra-closeup from a bizarre angle, showing off their crazy big eyes. This look can freak people out a bit and some people are critical about it being “too fake” and the people who use it being try-hards. Look, the eyes are a very important part of a girl’s look, and Asians have such beautiful and varied eyes depending on where they come from so it’s natural they would try and enhance them. Personally I’m not a huge fan of excessive makeup, so the Ulzzang look isn’t really something I’m that into, but if done moderately I think it can be very pretty.

Before I finish, I’d just like to bring up a Korean word you might not know. You’re probably familiar with “Kawaii” right ? It literally means “cute” in Japanese, but more commonly means “omg that is SO DAMN CUTE I can’t believe it” when people say it, especially if they drag out the “w” and “i” sounds. Well, how about “Aegyo” ? Have you heard of that ? Aegyo is to act or play cute. Specifically it normally means to pull a cute face. It’s a Korean word, so it was really meant to describe a Korean look, but of course you could just as easily say that many Jpop stars pull Aegyo as well, they just don’t call it that. So if a Korean girl is pulling a cute face at you, be it pouty or coy or just sweet, tell her she has a nice Aegyo. And if you’re a girl, practice your Aegyo at home. You can even find tutorials for it on YouTube !

That’s by no mean a definitive explanation of East Asian fashion, but it explains a few popular types that I’m aware of, and hopefully I haven’t completely screwed them up and misrepresented them. If you want to see such cool fashion, well, you can go online I guess, but really, you need to get yourself to the Harajuku area in Tokyo, so named after the train station. “Harajuku style” is famous in Japan, and encompasses all the styles previously mentioned, especially Kogyaru and Lolita styles. Shibuya is also a popular area where this sort of crazy fashion runs rampant and is the home of Gyaru and Kogyaru, and there is one famous department store there called “109″ across from Shibuya train station that specialises in Gyaru and Kogyaru clothing, so you can expect to see LOTS of girls running around with eye makeup on and school uniform style clothing with loose socks. Sounds pretty cool, right ? Hopefully I’ll be there in a few months time and I can take pictures for you !

… is sitting around with a flat laptop battery and having the last of your three internet tablets fade and go dim and then you suddenly realise “But wait. I still have a smartphone I can get online with. I’m not completely cut off from the world yet !” And you lunge for it only to see the battery in that’s about to give out like a flickering candle and plunge you into electronic social darkness again and you realise with despair “Fuck. Now I’ll just have to talk to my neighbours and my real life friends”. And suddenly you don’t feel like you have 827 friends anymore.

You’re in the real world again.

FML ? Or is it how life was supposed to be?

No, not the rapper. The money. I don’t actually have that much though. I have 49.9 cents in cash and negative $4.90 in my bank account. Cool huh ?

I went out for dinner. My “last supper” if you will. I went to the “other” nearby restaurant. The one that does the great Singapore noodles with vegetables. I don’t really like the place that much because they make me feel really uncomfortable sometimes. They recognise me now so I’m not completely bizarre to them, but they are always still amused and they don’t mind showing it.

At some places you can go in and even when the menu is in Vietnamese and you know few foreigners ever go there, they remain completely professional and act like it’s no big deal that you’re there. But at this place they will all look at me and giggle and they will talk about you and smirk and watch you eat and often they will sneak up behind you and look directly over your shoulder at your laptop for ages to see what you’re doing. I mean, I don’t hate it and I’m not offended but it is really unprofessional and sometimes it really annoys me.

Tonight I choose something different. I chose crispy fried noodles and seafood, beef and veges. It sounded delicious. But as soon as they brought it out I thought “Oh this is going to be awkward”. It was a massive plate of these crispy fried noodles and a big hot pot of stewed meat, veges and seafood with a ladle and a spoon. In retrospect I shouldn’t have spent my last few dollars on a meal I wasn’t familiar with because it was possible I might hate it and then I’d have to leave hungry.

It wasn’t that awful, it was just awkward. I have no idea how you’re supposed to eat those noodles ! I basically broke them up by stabbing them with my chopsticks until they were bite-sized pieces and then I would eat them. I tried dropping them into my bowl with a ladle full of the hot pot ingredients but I realised they quickly went soggy so I decided to eat them as they were and just eat the hot pot stuff separately.

The other stuff wasn’t really great. I don’t mind octopus tentacles so much, but steamed cuttlefish is so fucking chewy. I just can’t eat it. I have to basically slice it in half with my incisors and then wash it down with my drink and quickly swallow it whole with a grimace. I didn’t eat any more of that after the first piece. It’s almost as bad as boiled or steamed sea snake which I would probably prefer car tyre over. The bits of beef were likewise chewy and not very nice. Dammit, why did I pick that for my last meal ? Now I’m going to leave hungry.

Not to mention I was obviously eating it wrong and the staff were all staring at me. Goddamnit, leave me alone for fuck’s sake will you ? One of the senior girls, who are normally more mature and polite enough to not laugh at you came over with a grin on her face and I know some of them know at least a couple of words of English and I was waiting for her to say “Um, ur doin’ it wrong” but she just leaned close with this amused grin on her face and I looked at her and lifted my hands a little in exasperation and mouthed “WHAT ?!” silently at her. She obviously thought I wanted to say something so she leaned closer to listen but I just screwed up my face and shook my head and looked away from her and she chuckled and walked off.

Seriously, I like the food there, well, the Singapore noodles at least, but if they’re going to treat me like that all the time I’m not going to go back again. In the end I was so annoyed and embarrassed that I actually faked a phone call so that I could pretend I was urgently needed elsewhere and I asked for my bill, paid, knocked back my beer and walked off in disgust leaving my meal only half finished. Screw you guys, stop making me feel like an idiot. It’s weird enough being there in the first place without you making me feel embarrassed every time I try to eat an unfamiliar meal. I’m trying my best to be brave and try new things and fit in in a heavily Vietnamese area, and you could at least do the decently of not making me feel like shit to the point where I just want to escape in embarrassment.

I’m so disappointed with them. I wish they could have just come and showed me how I was supposed to eat it so that they could leave me alone and stop staring at me and giggling. And now I wasted my last few dollars on a meal that I didn’t enjoy and didn’t finish. Sigh.

On the way home I looked at how much money I had left. I had enough left for either a bowl of pho tomorrow or a small bottle of brandy. I may not get paid tomorrow. Maybe it won’t be until Tuesday. What would I rather be ? Hungry or sober ?

I bought the brandy. Hunger won’t kill me. Sobriety might. I don’t really care that the meal wasn’t as good as I was expecting. I’m just so annoyed at their attitude. I don’t really want to go back there again after that. That’s why foreigners like Ron don’t go out to restaurants like that, because they’re afraid of the staff making them feel ashamed just because they don’t know how to eat the food or order it or whatever customs you’re expected to follow.

Anyway, so I’m back at home with a little bottle of brandy, about 150ml of cheap cola, and two little 12 cent bread rolls with chocolate filling. I figured I would save them until tomorrow when I was hungry. Didn’t happen. I ate them as soon as I got home because I was starving. I still have a few unpleasant chocolate coins and a small packet of sesame snacks and a few coconut candy lollies that I’m not really fond of. Oh, and half a jar of lollipops. I guess I’ll be sucking lollipops all day tomorrow to stave off hunger. I guess I could walk the 15 kilometers into District 1 and back to get a 10,000 dong sandwich with my last remaining money but I seriously doubt the energy gained would outweigh the energy expended getting there. It’s not like a little hunger will kill me. To be honest I think I should experience it. Joy goes hungry all the time. Maybe being hungry would give me a better appreciation for what some other people go through.

My mum tells me the minister at their church is Vietnamese and I idly wonder whether church ministers are allowed to come into the country as “skilled immigrants” to work. I should find out. I’m sure Joy would love to come and preach in Australia. From what my parents tell me, I think his English is probably better than their minister’s because they say they always have problems understand him, but I have no problems understanding Joy because his pronunciation and vocabulary is very good. It sucks that he’s so skilled and yet still struggles to eat.

I’m just going to tell a couple of other random stories that I’ve forgotten to tell. My local xe om guys tend to know me pretty well. Not because I use them but because I don’t use them and they see me walk past at least a few times a day. The guy on the corner when I get to Pham Hung is especially friendly and twice now when I’ve walked past he’s gone “Heeeeyyyy !” and held out his hand for a high five. Well, a medium five, because it’s normally done at waist height, but it’s cool the way he’s basically like “Hey bro, how’s it going ?” and I guess he knows a little English because sometimes he actually says “How are you ?” which is always cool and cheers me up when I’m feeling down.

Further on down the street there’s another guy who I have gotten to take me places from time to time and he knows damn well that when I walk down the road in the late afternoon that I’m only going out for dinner or to the supermarket so he knows I don’t want a motorbike, but he always asks anyway. This evening on my way home, seeing me walk past for the second time he goes “Motorbike ?” and I shake my head and he chuckles probably thinking “Yeah I knew you didn’t want one, I just wanted to say something”.

But yesterday there was something really weird. On my way into the city I was walking along in the light rain and a group of about 5 teenagers walked past going the other way and they all started talking and looking excitedly at me as I approached and one of them goes “Hello !” and he holds out his hand as I pass and I quickly shake it and say “Hi” without really breaking my stride. But as they pass, one of them runs back and just touches me on the arm and laughs and then runs back to join his friends.

What the hell was that all about ? I can only imagine they had some sort of bet going like “First person to touch a foreigner gets bought dinner by everyone else” because it was all like some big joke for them just to touch me. I mean even if that’s what it was, I’m not offended. It was funny and it made me laugh probably as much as it did them. Whatever it was, it seemed harmless and I continued on down the road chuckling to myself thinking “What on Earth was that about ?!”

Sometimes the weirdest things happen to you in Saigon and that’s why I like to hang out in local Vietnamese areas and walk into the city. If I caught a motorbike into the city I never would have found the weird manga cafe, or run into this weird group of teenagers and whatever. Sometimes you just have to do things differently in order to have different experiences.

Sometimes being poor and having to eat at a random little rice cafe late at night like a did a few nights ago is exactly what you need to do to have the sort of unusual experiences that I have here and frankly, I love it. I mean, it’s very embarrassing when I have to admit to my Vietnamese friends that I actually don’t have any money and they look at me and I know they’re thinking “How can you not have any money ? You’re a westerner. Surely you have a wallet full of money don’t you ?”

Joy said to me yesterday, after I had previously told him that in my apartment in Saigon that I don’t have any furniture or anything “I bet you have lots of possessions at home, right ?” and at first I was going to say “No, not really” because I had gotten rid of a lot of stuff when I was looking at traveling around Australia and when I was running out of money in Vietnam, but on second though, I suppose I do. Sure, I sold my big plasma TV (for an absurd price I might add), but I have quite a number of computers, and an awesome stereo and I have boxes full of consoles and games and books and dvd’s and general household shit.

I don’t think Joy has anything in the world other than a couple of pairs of clothes, a mobile phone and a bible. We went to the Rhum House the other day so that I could charge my camera battery and he ran into a woman that he’d taught Vietnamese to a year or so ago and she was there with her husband. He was giving Joy a real hard time because he was wearing a football t-shirt with a date on it and two team names and this guy was going “You can’t wear that ! Those teams weren’t IN that game that year. That’s totally fucking wrong. They didn’t even play each other. That shirt is a fraud ! Take it off !”

The guy was joking.. I think. But Joy was a bit alarmed and he was quite happy to get out of there and he said to me as we left “It’s not my fault. God provided that shirt for me. I have to wear what he provides. I don’t have any choice” and I said “Don’t worry about him. He was just being an idiot. You shouldn’t throw away good clothes just because someone doesn’t like what it says on it. Forget about him”. But I bet Joy is a tiny bit nervous about wearing that shirt now after the way that guy harassed him.

Later that evening we were sitting at the Bia Hoi place on Bui Vien and Kelly bought some cashews and he wanted to offer Joy some, but he had his nose stuck in the bible so he didn’t bother him, but another girl beside him bought some peanuts and offered him a handful and he took them eagerly and said to me “See ? God provides for me”. I sort of mentally facepalmed and thought “Shit, I didn’t realise you were THAT hungry”. He was obviously expecting a comment and I had to be honest.

I said “Maybe when people believe in god they are just nicer people and then they are more willing to be generous” and he basically said “Yeah, same thing” and I figured “Oh well, I guess we sort of agree then”. I personally think people have free will and I don’t like to think that what we do is determined by any god forcing us to do something, but I guess the way he believes it works is complicated. I just prefer to think that there are some nice people in the world and maybe it sometimes has something to do with belief in god. But If god really makes everything happen, doesn’t that mean that we’re not responsible for anything we do ?

When a mother’s son is killed by a drunk driver and she says “Well, god obviously had other plans for him”, doesn’t that absolve the drunk driver from being at fault ? If god made it happen, then surely that means the drunk drive wasn’t at fault, because god made him get drunk and kill someone. It seems like a slippery slope me to start attributing people’s actions to the will of god, but it makes religious people happy when they’re needy and gives them comfort when they’re sad, so I’m certainly not going to take that away from them and say that it’s otherwise.

I can’t rule out the idea of a creationist god. Certainly not one that created this “Adam and Eve” nonsense, but I vaguely think that maybe our universe could have been brought into existence by some greater being. I like to think about Kelly’s theory of the “dimension of size”. Just as we can create a bowl of sea monkeys by putting ingredients into a bowl of water, creating a universe of a much tinier scale than our own, I think perhaps maybe in an environment far larger than our own universe maybe someone could have put the right ingredients together to kickstart our universe.

I don’t hate the idea of a creationist god. I just don’t like the idea of an interventionist one. This is just my personal opinion, but I think life is random. People die all the time and it has nothing to do with some god taking them away for a higher purpose. It just fucking happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. I understand why some people find that so hard to accept and that surely there must be a purpose to our life, but I think the opposite way.

I don’t think we’re given a purpose. I think we have to create our own purpose in life. Life is random and sometimes good things happen and sometimes bad things happen and you just have to make the best of it. Sure, it must be comforting to think that everything happens for a reason even if you can’t understand what it is, but I can’t deal with that possibility. If I tried to imagine that was the case I’d start thinking “Well, why does god hate poor people ? Why do people in Uganda get fucked over so much ? What’s the ‘purpose’ behind that ? Does god hate Cambodians more than Americans ? Surely if this god was so fair and kind and everything had a purpose he wouldn’t make life so miserable for those people. What have they done to deserve that ? Plenty of poor Vietnamese people believe in god and he’s still giving them the short end of the stick while other lazy non-believers in America and Europe prosper”.

I guess I’m not totally atheist, not totally agnostic and not religious either. I really appreciate what religion gives to people and I can see how much they need it. It’s just that I don’t. I can work out good from bad on my own. Nnot that it means I always act flawlessly mind you. Just like any Christian I sometimes do bad things anyway even when I know they are wrong. I’m not perfect. But I can work out the reason you should be kind to others because I know what it feels like to have someone be unkind to you. Not everyone seems to be able to do that though, and I wonder sometimes if a belief in religion actually weakens our ability to work things out on our own, but I still think it’s mostly a good idea.

Sure, horribly atrocities have been and continue to be committed in the name of religion, but you have to admit that for the most part it makes people happy and gives them a reason to live, and that can’t be a bad thing. So I totally respect religion and I have a lot of respect for people who are devoutly religious……… as long as they don’t try and ram it down my throat, because I think that shows a serious lack of respect for others. And then there’s the assholes who get mad at people for having the wrong religion.

I mean, from my point of view, all religions are good and they all have benefits for those people so I think it’s horrible for people to say “No, my religion is right and yours is wrong and you are going to burn in hell“. We had a discussion about it on IRC recently and someone quoted all these bizarre lines from the bible that literally say that it’s ok to kill your neighbour if he believes in a different god.

People put shit on Muslims and say they are violent and will kill in the name of religion but there are numerous situations where the bible says that anyone who doesn’t believe in the same god as you are a lesser person who deserves to be anything from spat on to killed. That’s horrible. Why can’t people just go “Ok, you don’t believe in the same god as me, but at least you believe in a god, so you can’t be such a bad person”.

I mean, if I did believe in a god, I would be one of those people who think it’s the same god and everyone has just gotten fucked up interpretations of it over the years. “Oh, god is male” “No, she’s female” “God says this is what happens when you die” “No, god says this is what happens”. How the fuck can you know ? Because some millenia old book that’s been re-translated and re-edited hundreds of times says so ? Come on. I think if you believe in the bible you should probably accept that it should be taken very loosely and not literally.

You have to accept the fact that over thousands of years and through many re-translations and cultural differences it must have picked up many, many inaccuracies. If you take it literally to the letter and act on it, you’re very likely not doing what your god intended. And of course, the messages were passed down from an invisible, ephemeral being to some imperfect humans who lacked an iPhone to record it on, so who’s to say that when they got home and wrote it down that they didn’t fuck some of it up ? Stop taking it so literally guys !

Why don’t you just chill out and try and get the general feeling of it right and try not to be so literal ? I mean, ultimately, they all say the same thing; “Be nice to each other”, but we get so caught up in these messages that the fallible humans have added in about “Oh, it’s ok to kill your neighbour if he believes in a different god”.

I’m pretty sure if god had given humans a message, it wouldn’t have been that it was ok to kill your neighbour because he believes in a different god than you because I’m pretty fucking sure that contradicts the “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” message. Like, would god have said that if he knew it meant “Ok, you can go kill your neighbour and in turn your neighbour is going to kill you”. If he did, he’s not a real cool dude, you know what I’m sayin’ ?

You can’t be so contradictory that you say that it’s so important to treat your fellow man with respect and then turn around and go “Yeah unless he was brought up in the wrong country or community and through no fault of his own was taught the wrong religion as a child and therefore deserves to be killed mercilessly”. I’m pretty sure god wouldn’t say that. That’s not very nice, kind, benevolent or fair.

Religion is very conflicting in Vietnam. It’s mostly a Buddhist society but it also has a massive Christian demographic. On my way home this evening I turned into my street and went “Holy shit, am I in the wrong street ?” My street was just jam packed with parked motorbikes. I realised why. The Catholic church across the road from my apartment was having evening mass and hundreds upon hundreds of Vietnamese people were inside, outside and even across the road from the church reciting prayers.

But just as much, if you live in a family of Buddhists as Joy does and you choose to become Christian, you might very well be ostracised and cast out or treated with scorn and ridicule or even threats of violence. It’s terrible that people who call themselves worshipers of any god would act like that against their own family just due to their choice of religion, but sadly that is what religion has become these days. It’s “Me against you. I’m right and you are wrong“. It truly makes me sad that people who claim to be so righteous because they are religious can be so cruel in the name of the religion they claim to represent.

When I was helping seek sponsors for Joy’s religious education, I asked a friend in Australia if he would help Joy with his tuition in the USA and he said “Why can’t he do it in his own country ?”. I assumed that obviously if that were possible, he would do it, rather than traveling across the world at great expense, but I wanted to know the answer, so I asked Joy yesterday over lunch. He leaned closed and whispered very quietly “Communism. We are not allowed. We may practice Christianity here, but we may not learn it. The government does not allow it”.

Well, fair enough. That’s just how it is. I don’t really criticise foreign governments for acting in a certain way. When people get into power they enact certain rules that may seem unfair and unreasonable to others, but that’s their right. Sure, religious oppression isn’t ideal, and only a few decades ago, all religion was banned completely in Vietnam and priests were all sent off for re-education and public worship was forbidden, but the government policy changed in time and it was opened up again and now they appear to have relative religious freedom.

I mean, even in Australia we are uptight about religion. There are schools, public places and even whole towns that forbid Muslims from wearing the hijāb. I think that’s not very cool and I disagree with that and personally I would protest against that because I think if that’s part of their religious beliefs then we should allow it.

Ok, so maybe Australia doesn’t want to allow it, but if that’s the case they need to at least stop being so fucking hypocritical and admit “Ok, we don’t actually allow freedom of religion here. We are a Christian society and there’s certain religions that we don’t allow you to express publicly in certain ways, and religious dress codes are one of them” because we proclaim to be this free and open society where everyone is equal and have the same rights and the ability to express their religion. And we don’t. You can’t claim that and say “Oh yeah it’s a free country…. oh… unless you want to wear a hijāb, because we just don’t allow that. Fuck you, take that shit off in public or we’ll fine you or throw you in jail if you refuse”.

I bet if I was a teacher in a school in Australia and I had a small Buddhist shrine in the corner people would be up in arms saying “YOU CAN’T DO THAT ! YOU CAN’T RAM BUDDHISM DOWN CHILDREN’S THROATS !!!”, but of course it’s totally normal for even a state school to have a crucifix in every room, isn’t it ? Whether you’re in Australia or in Vietnam, under a democratic or a totalitarian government, it’s always “one rule for us, and one rule for them”.

Anyway, I didn’t mean for this to be a four and a half thousand word rant about religion, it’s just that I’ve been exposed to it a bit lately and it’s been on my mind so it turned out that way. Sorry if you didn’t want to read this. But I have opinions and sometimes I want to express them and this is my damn blog and I’ll say whatever the fuck I want on it. And if the government tries to stop me, I’ll go and host it off-shore on some satellite connection where I’m not bound by any nation’s laws.

Because it’s increasingly looking like that’s what people have to do in order to practice freedom of expression. Maybe seasteading isn’t such a crazy idea after all. I tell you what, I’m not saying if I ran my own autonomous country that I would be fair and open to every idea, but I’d certainly do a few things differently, that’s all I can say. Chibihogoshino would have been right into that shit.

I don’t think I’ve talked about this. Maybe I have. I can’t remember. It’s hard to distinguish between the stories I tell in my head and the ones that actually make it online. But I’m enjoying telling these tiny random short stories. Not every story has to be a 12,000 word epic tale. So here’s a simple one.

Have you ever had a girl (or guy, if you’re a girl, or whatever sex appeals to if you if you’re that way inclined) feed you ? By which I mean she cuts up something on her or your plate and holds it out to you on a fork (or chopsticks) for you to eat ?

It’s so cute and it’s really friendly and caring. It’s not like it’s incredibly intimate, here at least. It’s just… I struggle to find the right word. It’s just somehow sweet. It’s amusing and it’s a teensy bit embarrassing and a teensy bit exciting all at the same time. It makes you feel shy but also open and cared about at the same time. It doesn’t always mean a lot, but sharing a meal is sort of significant.

Some people hate sharing meals. They hate when they take someone to dinner and they want to share meals with them. I dunno why. I guess I can understand. You choose what you choose and it doesn’t mean you want what the other person has. But of course there’s no harm in them saying “Hey, this is really good. You should try some”, and then they cut a piece for you and add salt or pepper and hold it out for you to eat on the end of their fork and you open your mouth and they feed it to you.

To watch two people do this is really sweet and in a western society you tend to see it and think “Awwww. That’s really sweet. They must be deeply in love” because you don’t see it all that often. But I think it’s done much more commonly in Asia. Asian people don’t seem to have this absurd fear that by sharing a fork or a glass that you’re going to catch herpes off them and it’s not uncommon for someone you barely know to be willing to share their drink with you or share their food with you or even cut up their food and offer it to you on their fork for you eat.

I guess it’s more meaningful to me because we don’t really do that back home. Back in Australia, two people sipping out of the same bottle is serious freak-out stuff. It’s like “OMG that’s an indirect kiss” and it’s only done between people who desperately like each other. Here… not so much. Sure it’s sweet and friendly and not without meaning, but it doesn’t mean that just because you share your drink or your fork with someone that you want to sleep with them, which is pretty much what it means in many western countries, Australia at least.

I’ve had it happen a few times to be honest. In fact, I’ve had it happen so many times I’m not even sure I can count all of them, hahahahaha ! I know this probably sounds weird but yeah, I’ve had a few girls feed me from their fork. It’s really cute. When it happens you half blush and suddenly become aware of your surroundings and wonder who’s looking, but of course there’s no choice but to accept, so you lean forward and take the offered morsel from their fork and then you munch it up and say “Mmmmm. That’s very good” and then you chuckle and she grins happily at you.

I dunno. It’s just one of those things you do I guess. But it’s a cute experience. I’m not sure that I ever had that happen with my wife in 8 years together. Maybe once early on in our relationship. In western cultures it’s something you do when you’re in love to show how much you want the other person. Here, it’s simpler. It’s just sharing food and being friendly. It doesn’t come laden with quite the same amount of significance and connotations. It certainly doesn’t (necessarily) mean the girl wants to sleep with you, so if you’re in Korea or Vietnam or Japan or wherever and a girl holds out some food on a fork for you, don’t freak out and read too much into it. She’s just being friendly.

But enjoy it all the same. It’s a sweet gesture and I personally love it.

So I was a bit jaded with people yesterday. Westerners specifically though. I’ve just seen them being so rude and obnoxious and untrusting and untrustworthy and it pisses me off. Plus I also had a big argument with some people on IRC who I’d had issues with for ages who were just being assholes for reasons I couldn’t even be bothered going into. So last night I went to bed pretty pissed off and unhappy.

This morning, I woke up feeling much better as usual. Still very sick though. This latest bout of the flu is really nasty. Horrible racking cough that just incapacitates me and causes such spasms that the last two nights after dinner it’s caused me to throw up my meal because I’ve been coughing so violently. I feel like I’m becoming bulimic. But I was at least prepared for a fresh day when I got up.

I needed water because I was almost out so I went to Titan Mart and wandered around aimlessly for a while looking at snacks. I was hungry, but because I was sick, not very much appealed to me, and all I ended up buying to eat was one of these tiny little strawberry filled bread rolls for 12 cents and a teeny container of strawberry rice snacks sort of like Pocky for the same price. As well as the water I also picked up two bottles of my favourite 85 cent brandy. I like it because it’s 39% alcohol and taken straight it’s quite good to treat a sore throat. It’s also pretty good mixed with cola and I mean come on, it’s 6 standard drinks worth of really good brandy for 85 cents. How can you complain about that ? Oh, I also treated myself to a chocolate Paddle Pop. You remember when Paddle Pops used to be 50 cents ? Well guess what? They still are in Saigon. :”)

I mean, people already said hello to me on the way there and stuff which is normal and always gives me a small smile, even when I’m feeling terrible, actually… especially when I’m feeling terrible. But as I’m checking out, these little group of kids no more than about 10 walk in and they pass me, and the first one’s face lights up and he grins at me and says “Hello !” and I say hello back and the next one says “Hello !” just as excitedly, as does the next one and the next one.

The final one decided to go a bit further and he said “Hello. How are you ? What’s your name ?” Now I know from experience that they are taught to parrot these three phrases from a young age and many of them don’t even know what it means and if you turn around and tell them your name and ask them the same question back, they will have no idea what you’re saying, so normally I just say hello and don’t bother responding to the other questions, but this kid just seemed a little brighter than usual and his pronunciation was perfect.

So I said “I’m good thanks. My name is David. What’s your name ?” and he looked at me happily and said “My name Binh. Nice to meet you” and we shook hands. The clerk meanwhile is bagging up my groceries just laughing out loud to herself. But it made me so happy, you know ? For this little 10 or 11 year old boy to just walk up and go out of his way to speak to me in perfect English and ask what my name was and how I was doing and then tell me it was nice to meet me. It made me so much happier and feel so much better about the human race in general.

I know that it’s only because I’m a foreigner and a novelty in this area but come on. What do you think would happen if a 33 year old Vietnamese guy was walking through Woolworths in Annerley in Brisbane ? Do you think a bunch of 10 year old Aussie kids would walk up to him and all say “hello” to him and ask how he was doing and enquire what his name was, in ANY language ? Not in a pink fit. It just would NOT happen. This is one of the things I love about Vietnam. The fact that we were at war with these people less than 40 years ago, but now, you go to their country and they just go totally over the top showing you how welcoming and friendly they can be to you. It really does make your day.

So, feeling significantly better, I thought I’d go for a walk through the markets. I’m still looking for that 45 cent kid’s clothing guy again. I’ve wandered around looking for him at least half a dozen times since I first saw him but I’ve never seen him again much to my disappointment. The only reason I didn’t buy more the first time I saw him was because I was in such disbelief that it was possible to buy nice kid’s clothes for 45 cents each. I so much want to find him again and give him $5 and just go “I want that and that and that and this and that and those and these”. I’m sure that not only would it make my day, but it’d probably make his as well.

I mean, if he sells them for 45 cents, how much does he buy them for ? Is he seriously buying cute Hello Kitty dresses for 20 cents each ? I guess he must be. The guy must spend all day there selling them in the hopes that if he’s lucky he can make $1 profit. I wish I could find him again. I keep looking and looking but he’s never anywhere to be seen. I hope he hasn’t give up selling kid’s clothes and decided to go sell drugs or something just because it’s more profitable.

The markets are quite dead though today for some reason. They normally sprawl for several blocks around the central market area but today they’re very thin on the ground. I’m not sure why but I think maybe today is a bit of a special Saturday because weird things have been happening lately. There’s been marching bands playing a lot lately. Last night they were walking through the streets well after midnight playing loudly and they have been for a couple of days. Something’s going on. It’s not a festival that I can tell, but they’re celebrating something, and for some reason today, many shops are closed that would normally be open all day Saturday, and most of the market folk aren’t there.

I wander into the depths of the markets because I’m feeling curious. I go down the tiny little alleyways full of women selling fruit and meat and fish. I see that they have one small area in one street that’s a bit like Ben Thanh. It’s an undercover market area with very, very narrow aisles that I would have to walk down side ways to avoid knocking anything over and it appears to go back a long way, with many, many vendors inside selling silk and cotton and sheets and pillow cases and other such stuff. I’m tempted to wander in and look because I would like to explore the deepest part of these markets but I’m carrying bags and I’m still feeling sick and I have a headache so I decide to leave that for another day and I just peer curiously in the gloomy, unlit depths as I walk past.

I pass a pharmacy and I stop in. I already have “Robotussin” written down on a post-it note because I went out hoping to find it. At first I can’t see anyone in the store and then I look down and there’s a woman fast asleep on the floor. I mean, that’s totally not uncommon. It’s 1pm in the afternoon and many Vietnamese people break for a siesta and many stores close between 1 and 3pm. But even at any time of the day it’s not at all uncommon to walk in and find the owner fast asleep on the floor.

I mean this woman probably has a second job as well, working at night time in a warehouse or something, not to mention taking care of her family. If I was her and I had to work all day Saturday at a quiet pharmacy in the suburbs where I knew I wasn’t going to get many customers all day, I’d have a snooze too. I wander around, making a little bit of noise but she doesn’t wake up, and I can see pretty much everything they have on their shelves and I don’t see Robotussin anywhere. I’m not sure they sell it here, at least not in the smaller places.

I bet I could get it at the big MediCare place on Tran Hung Dao in the city. They have everything there, but apparently not in a little place like this and I’m reluctant to buy a weird local brand because it’s probably going to be flavoured with something I can’t stand that’s going to make me want to vomit, so I just quietly walk out and head back home to relax in the air conditioning since it’s such a hot afternoon and I’m sweating profusely already.

My electricity bill was pretty high this month. About $60 for the month, which doesn’t surprise me because I have been home most days so I’ve pretty much run my airconditioner 24 hours a day 7 days a week apart from a few days when I’ve gone out for the day, so it’s no surprise that my electricity bill is so high. But I mean, back home in Australia I’m used to $300-400 a month electricity bills, so a $60 one is quite a relief. It’s also very convenient to pay all your bills straight to your landlord.

Stuff getting bills in the mail and having to go and pay for each thing separately. Here, once a month, on rent day, I come home and my landlady or her son silently present me with a little slip of paper which has my itemised bill for the month. $138 for my rent, $9 for my new aircon, $63 for electricty $2.70 for my shower water, and $2.30 for my internet. In other words, $216 AUD for my rent and all my bills for the month. Her son handed me the bill the other day, and I had been expecting it so I had the money ready and I paid him and he smiled and I thanked him and went upstairs. Easiest shit in the world. My rent and all my bills paid in a matter of seconds.

I am starting to learn to live pretty cheaply now that money’s become tight too. I’m still adamant I will NEVER become one of the western tightarses that I’ve seen around the place, but I’m at least cutting my expenses down. I eat cheaply wherever possible. If I’m in Pham Ngu Lao I will get a 70 cent hamburger. If I’m at home in Binh Hung I will either eat Pho or I’ll go to my favourite karaoke place with the cheap meals. The other night I went there with very little money and the woman came out and grabbed my glass to put ice in it and get me a beer as soon I sat down and I said “Em. Khong bia” and shook my head. She was shocked. Why wouldn’t I want a beer ?

Mainly it’s just because I was sick. A beer is only 36 cents there so it wouldn’t have broken the bank, I just wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t want a beer. I asked for the ostrich luc lac as usual, but she came back and said something quickly in Vietnamese and handed me the menu. I know what she meant. She meant they didn’t have that available. I was disappointed because I had been hanging for it, but I settled for a plate of sauted, diced steak and chips with a fried egg which is almost as good, though not as tender, but I do love the fact that it comes with an egg.

When I first got it I was like “How the hell do I eat a fried egg with chopsticks ?” I wasn’t sure how to break the egg up so that I could eat it without picking up the whole thing, but I worked it out. You use your chopsticks in reverse. You hold them together and stick them into the egg, then you pull them apart instead of closing them like you would to pick something up. By doing this you can break the egg up into manageable pieces to eat it.

I know there are some things I don’t do right when eating. When you eat, you get a large plate of food and you always get a small bowl as well. You’re supposed to transfer a smaller portion of your meal into the bowl and then add condiments to taste and then you eat out of the small bowl. But I don’t think you’re necessarily supposed to do it with every meal. I do it with rice and with noodles. I had a fantastic meal of Singapore fried noodles with seafood and meat the other night at another place where I did this and added soy and chili to the little bowl and then picked it up and ate out of it.

But when I’m just eating steak and stuff, I don’t see the point, and while I haven’t watched others eating this sort of steak meal, I don’t think you’re expected to do that. Red meat meals do come with an interesting condiment though. You get this tiny bowl of this fine salt-like powder and a tiny lime, and you squeeze the lime over the powdery stuff and it mixes together and then you gently tap your meat onto this mixture before you eat it. It’s amazing too. The difference it makes is phenomenal.

It’s this amazingly tart, zingy taste, and it accentuates steak or ostrich so well and makes it such a pleasure to eat. I think it’s probably the one thing I’ll miss most of all when I’m eating steak back in Australia and I totally get now when when Asian people come to Australia they bring all this weird food with them. It’s because their food is so much more interesting and flavoursome compared to ours. Australia is so bloody boring when it comes to food. We’ll knock up a steak and you’ll either get gravy on it or some tomato sauce.

Here, it comes sauted in these delicious natural juices mixed with what could possibly be some sort of sweet red wine and then you dip it in this delicious salty, sour mixture on a little plate before eating it. I don’t think eating steak will ever be the same for me again, and whenever I get a steak in Australia from now on I’m just going to sigh and wish desperately that I had my Vietnamese seasoning and condiments on hand. I may very well be one of those people who try and come into Australia with bags full of weird food and customs will be like “What’s this ?” “Seasoning” “Hmmmm. And this ?” “Food condiments” and then I’ll have to explain where they all come from and what they’re made out of.

I always used watch border control and shake my head and think “Why are these people trying to bring all their own food into Australia ? What’s wrong with our food ?” Well, it’s because they LIKE their food. It’s good. And you tend to like what you’re used to. I’m still not familiar with it all, but I try new things bit by bit. At first when I ordered pho I would just eat it as is and not add anything. Nowadays I will always add fresh spouts to it when they’re given to me, and sometimes I will squeeze a little fresh lime juice into the bowl and I always add sliced chili and I sometimes add a little of their spicy bbq sauce.

I don’t normally add the weird herbs you get though. I’m not sure what they are. You get provided a massive plate full of them when you walk into a pho restaurant. They’re a bit like mint, but not exactly. I once just chucked a whole stalk of it into my bowl for the hell of it before I saw other people picking the individual leaves off and throwing the stalks away but I didn’t know that’s what you did so I tried not to feel too stupid, but pho is pretty flavoursome already so I don’t feel an incredible need to add lots of things to it.

The other day at my favourite pho place where they serve nothing but pho, 24 hours a day and they don’t even sell drinks, I walked in, and they all smile at me and chuckle because if I’m not the only westerner who’s ever been there then I am at least one of very, very few and I drop in at least once a week. I sat down and without a word they just brought me a bowl of their 7 flavour pho with all the different stuff in it. I don’t like all the stuff in it. There’s this stuff that seems to me like chicken cartilage which isn’t very pleasant and I never eat that, but I love the sliced up pieces of pressed chicken luncheon sausage with pepper through it which is really nice.

I started on my meal and I’m watching the young guy who’s been roasting nuts over the coals start putting things into the big pot. They have a huge big drum that’s about 40 gallons and he just picks up a whole side of beef and throws it into the pot which is sitting on the coals then he adds a whole chicken, then a big leg of pork and some other stuff. I bet they stew it for days. That’s why pho broth is so tasty and one of my favourite things about eating pho is sitting there just sipping the delicious broth with a spoon. As I’m sitting there the older woman walks over and pulls something out of a different pot with a ladle and brings it over to me.

I have no idea what it is and they’ve never done that before but she doesn’t say a word to me and I don’t refuse, so she dumps this white lump of stuff into my bowl. I look at it and wonder what it is. I try and break a bit off with my chopsticks to taste it but it just disintegrates so I figure it’s obviously not supposed to be eaten like that, so instead I just break it all up with my chopsticks and then I pick up my spoon and I take a spoonful of broth with a small bit of this white stuff and I gingerly taste it.

I think it’s lard of some sort. I don’t really know. It’s definitely fat of some kind, but it’s not unpleasant at all. It doesn’t have a particularly strong taste and it’s neither delicious nor repulsive. It’s just something you add to the meal I guess. It makes the meal a tiny bit oily and I guess it gives you some nutrients or something. One thing that my mother would be proud of is that I eat a lot more healthy stuff when I’m in Vietnam. Other than the odd home-made hamburger when I’m in Pham Ngu Lao, I would be lucky if I ate fast food once a week here in Saigon.

Every meal I have comes with vegetables and salad and I always eat them because they’re really good. They’re simple uncomplicated vegetables that I like too. Any sauted or fried meal will come with onion and green capsicum and any noodle meal will come with bok choi and often bamboo or spinnach and some other sort of stuff that’s sort of halfway between celery and bok choi. I sort of know what it is, because we have it Australia too I think but I don’t know what it’s called.

Anyway I feel very good about the fact that I eat quite healthily here. Certainly more than back home where I’m likely to eat pizza and burgers for at least three quarter of my meals. Here, no way. Sure sometimes I do think “Gee I could go a nice simple burger”, but the fact is that a shitty fast food hamburger is like 45,000 dong here, whereas I can get a much more nutritious and tasty proper meal of low-fat ostrich meat and vegetables for only 39,000 dong, and I can get it just near to my house without walking the km or so into District 5 where you find those sort of places.

But Pizza Hut ? I wouldn’t even dream of going there. Sometimes I will get a small gourmet pizza from a restaurant like the one I shared with Joy the other day, but I certainly don’t go to pizza joints and pick up huge family sized pizzas and take them home and munch all night like I would back in Australia. I pretty much eat one meal a day here, and maybe a few light snacks. If I’m hungry I’ll have pho in the afternoon and then a proper meal at night. If I haven’t lost some weight in the next month or so I’m going to be bitterly disappointed.

It’s very cheap to eat out and everyone does it because the country is geared that way. When a restaurant can knock up pho in huge 40 gallon vats and serve hundreds of people a day for $1 a bowl it’s just not worth cooking at home and I always see mothers bringing their children into a restaurant for dinner. I’m sure that really poor people do have to settle for white rice at home, but if you’re an average person, it’s no big deal to drop into a pho restaurant for a cheap bowl of noodles with beef and pork and chicken and prawn and whatever other weird stuff they put in it.

God I’m making myself so hungry talking about all this. I think I need to go out for pho. I’ll catch you later !

I warn you now, this post contains a lot of strong language. If that offends you, please skip to the next story. I am really pissed off right now about something that happened recently. Not to me, but to my friend Joy.

Joy is an interpreter and tour guide. He speaks four languages and he teaches Vietnamese to foreigners to get by. This one day, he was supposed to meet this Norwegian guy to give him a 2 hour vietnamese lesson. The guy made him wait for 5 hours before they had their lesson and after waiting all day Joy says “i’m really thirsty.. can we go outside to get a coffee where it’s cheap ?” thinking the guy will buy him a coffee as thanks for fucking waiting for him ALL FUCKING DAY.

They go outside and talk and Joy teaches him Vietnamese, and the guy doesn’t buy the coffee. He pays for his own and leaves Joy to pay for his. At the end of the day, you know what he paid for his 2 hour Vietnamese language lesson that Joy spent 7 hours at his hotel for to give him ?

16 cents

He stays in a fucking $100 a night hotel. The same one our Australian ex prime minister stays in when he’s in Vietnam, and he’s so cheap he will not buy Joy a coffee and then pays him 16 cents for a language lesson.

THAT FUCKING PISSES ME OFF !

Why do foreigners come here and assume that just because people here are poor that they can take advantage of them and pay them fucking NOTHING. I mean, I don’t even go out to dinner without leaving at least a 50 cent to $1 tip .. whether its at a bar or a restaurant. But this guy wants to pay 16 cents for a 2 hour vietnamese lesson

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE !?

I don’t understand why Vietnamese are so nice to foreigners when most foreigners are the biggest fucking CUNTS to the Vietnamese. Like where the fuck does this Norwegian guy, who openly claims to be rich get off paying 8 cents an hour for an experienced translator and language teacher ?

But it gets worse.

The guy’s been here twice before, and the second time, he fell in love with a Vietnamese girl. They spent a lot of time together and he liked her but he took advantage of her and didn’t tell her how he felt. Then he went home for a year without telling her that he loved her, and when he came back the next time, expecting to pick up where they left off, she’d gone cold on him, and when he asked why she said “You didn’t seem interested in me. I think maybe you have a girlfriend back home. I met a guy in Singapore and I’m dating him now”.

The guy was devastated. He was pouring his heart out to my friend Joy, bawling his eyes out, saying he desperately wanted to show her he loved her because he hadn’t realised how much she meant to him until she didn’t want to be with him.

Joy says “I run a delivery service. Maybe I could take her a gift for you”. He asks the guy for $20 to get a gift wrapped for him and take it across the city to this girl, and explain that he misses her and wants to see her.

The guy goes “I can’t trust you. You’re Vietnamese. You’ll take my money and fuck off”. Joy insists “No ! I am a devout catholic. I pray every day. I am studying to be a priest. I would never do something like that. You can trust me”.

The guy repeats “Yeah you will. You’re Vietnamese. You’ll take my money and fuck off”. Joy says “Please don’t swear. I am religious and it offends me. I would prefer you do not say the F word in front of me”. The guy just keeps doing it, bawling his eyes out, swearing, being fucking racist. At one point he even tells Joy to “fuck off” but then takes it back and apologises.

When we had lunch to talk about his business later, Joy explains what happened and says “What do you think ?” I’m like “So this guy claims to be rich right ? Wants to open a business in Saigon ?” and Joy goes “Yep”. I’m like “But he’s worried about losing $20 to a catholic Vietnamese interpreter who spent 7 hours at his hotel to teach him Vietnamese in exchange for 16 cents ? I think he’s not a very good person. If he’s so rich why would he worry so much about losing $20 ? What’s it matter to him ? What’s he got to lose ?”

Joy’s like “Yeah that’s what i thought too. I think he’s lying. I think maybe he’s not rich”. I said “I wouldn’t assume that. I think maybe he is, but he’s just cheap and he doesn’t trust you just because you’re Vietnamese, and he doesn’t respect your religion. But I think it’d be bad luck to turn down your first delivery customer. I’ll talk to him and see what he’s about”.

I talk to the guy via email after he’s gone back to Oslo and of course he’s perfectly polite to me, doesn’t swear, and trusts me implicitly, even though he’s never even met me. He even asks me if I’ll do a website for him and help him setup his business in Saigon.

So he is well off, and he’s not just generally an asshole, he’s just a racist cunt who wants to come to Vietnam and pay the locals 8 cents an hour and open a business and make lots of money, but refuses to trust any Vietnamese people even with $20 of his money.

Why the fuck do people come here and assume every Vietnamese guy is a fucking thief ? I met Joy on a dark street corner late at night in the pouring rain. He just walked up to me and introduced himself and started talking to me and said he needed work and told me what his skills were and gave me his phone number and said “If you ever need anything, please give me a call” and then he said “You don’t have some money for the bus do you ?” and I gave him $1 thinking “So what ? Maybe this guy will turn out to be useful, or maybe not. If not, I’ve only lost a dollar”.

So one day i needed some flowers delivered, and I rang him and said “Can you do this for me ? Go to this restaurant, I will arrange for my friend to give you $10. You go buy a 20 cent rose from down the road and give it to a girl at the bar for me”.

I mean, if he didn’t do it, what did i have to lose ? $10 ? BIG FUCKING DEAL. But he did do it. I wanted it done at a precise time, and he did that. He arrived early to get the money, bought the flower, came back and waited outside the place until the appointed time and went in and gave it to the girl personally, and then left and texted me and said “I delivered your flower. Thank you for your business. Sincerely, your staff, Joy”.

I put my trust in him and he went and did precisely what I wanted him to do and informed me the moment he’d done it. Why the FUCK is it so hard for other people to do that ?

Why was this distraught Norwegian fuckwit so reluctant to trust this guy to deliver a gift for him for $20 ? You’re not trusting them with your fucking credit card or your life’s savings. You’re giving the guy $20 and saying “Hey, go do this for me”.

And people still won’t do it. It fucking SICKENS me, these people coming to this country and being so racist against the people here. Sure, if you wanna sit back in your own country and bitch about Vietnamese, yeah whatever. You do that you racist prick. But if you come here to this country and you want to do business here, then for fuck’s sake, don’t act like every single person is going to take your money and run off.

He was more than happy to trust me without even meeting me because my name’s David and I have white skin, so he trusts me, Whereas Joy’s real name is Thuyen and he has dark skin so immediately he distrusts him.

When Joy first talked to me about setting up the delivery business he said “I want you to take the phone calls and speak to the customers because people want to speak to you. You know.. white skin to white skin”. At first I was uncomfortable and I thought HE was being racist, until I heard this story and experienced the difference for myself. Then I was like “Ok… now I get it. Many westerners simply will not deal with Vietnamese people because they don’t trust them”.

But if you think that Vietnam is full of muggers and crooks and swindlers… DON’T FUCKING COME HERE ! If you want to come and do business here, do it because you like the country and you think there are opportunities here. But if you come here full of mistrust and hatred for the locals, all you’re doing is taking advantage of the economy to make a cheap buck, and you’re giving foreigners a bad name.

There’s nothing I fucking hate more than people who come to a foreign country and then sit around bitching loudly about it and abusing the local people and calling them untrustworthy.

If you think it’s a shitty place full of untrustworthy people.. DON’T COME AND DO BUSINESS HERE. Do us all a favour and STAY HOME ! We don’t fucking want you here. You don’t trust the people here. We don’t like you because you’re all tightarses. Just FUCK OFF and find some country full of white people where you think you’re safe and you can trust the people.

Shit like that makes me ashamed to be a westerner.

“Like what ?”

Oh I dunno. How about a motherfucken bunny rabbit with a pancake on its head ?

Now I know most of you are sitting there with your minds melting right now.

*drip* *drip *drip*

That’s the sound of your mind dripping out of your ears onto the floor as you try and comprehend why the bunny rabbit has a pancake on its head. But I know the more astute meme-watchers among you are going “Hey, that’s just Oolong. He was a meme that was big like a decade ago. He practically pre-dates lolcats !”.

Well yes, you’re right. That is Oolong and this is not a new and up-to-date story. But I could have SWORN I’ve talked about Oolong before and today for some reason I went searching my blog for him but for some reason I couldn’t find him, which is bizarre. So maybe I never blogged about him and I was just telling someone online. But I want to talk about Oolong because he was the coolest bunny who ever was a meme.

“Wait, ‘was’ ? Please don’t tell me Oolong met a tragic end !”

Yes, I’m afraid the man in the black cape did come for Oolong. Way back in 2003. But people still adore Oolong, because he was special. He was a bunny rabbit who balanced weird things on his head. His owner was a photographer named Hironori Akutagawa who lived in Hokkaido and I guess he ran out of things to photograph one day and he just said “Hey Oolong, would you mind if I put a pancake on your head and take a photo ? I’ll give you a lettucey treat if you let me”. (Actually, the first object Oolong ever balanced on his head was an empty film canister, but saying that doesn’t make my joke as funny).

So he began taking more and more photos of Oolong balancing weird objects on his head and posting them on his website, and eventually one day some person browsing along stumbled on it and went “OH MY GOD IT’S A RABBIT WITH A PANCAKE ON IT’S HEAD” and suddenly Oolong went viral and became known all over the internet. Yes he was a rabbit internet celebrity.

Doesn’t it piss you off sometimes when you want to get famous and have people adore you and worship you, and then a motherfucking rabbit gets famous for balancing a range of bakery items on its head ? It’s just not fair is it ? But then again. I’m just not as cute as a rabbit with a pancake on it’s head, am I ? People don’t see pictures of me and go “Awww that’s so cute. I have to paste that on Facebook and send a copy to my mum”. I wish I had Oolong’s appeal. You know, Oolong got a write-up in the New York Times ? Wasckally wabbit ! Akutagawa-san even did exhibitions of photos of Oolong around Japan. Goddammit, I gotta get me a trained rabbit. I want a photo expedition.

Sadly though, rabbits, like little Jacky Paper in Puff the Magic Dragon, do not live forever, and he showed signs that he was going to go, and on the 7th of January 2003, Oolong passed away. Akutagawa-san captured photos of Oolong’s final moments in a tribute to his fame and for all the people who loved him so much. Here’s a photo of Oolong’s final official performance in 2003, balancing a waffle on his head.

What are you staring at ? Ain't you ever seen a rabbit with a waffle on its head before ?

After Oolong passed away, Akutagawa-san decided he wanted another rabbit in his life that would balance things on its head for him, so he acquired a new rabbit named Yuebing (named after the Chinese word for mooncake, whereas Oolong was obvious named after the tea). Now Yeubing is cute, and he does balance things on his head, but, and I say this with all due respect to Yeubing, because it’s hard coming along and trying to live in the shadow of an internet celebrity like Oolong and do what he did, but no matter if you balance a whole stack of pancakes and maple syrup on your head (actually, can I see a photo of that please ? With a scoop of ice cream on top ?), you are never going to replace Oolong in our hearts.

Many people saw pictures of Oolong and the first thing they did was go and try and get their own bunny rabbit to balance pancakes on it’s head, largely unsuccessfully. People adored Oolong all over the world. When news of his passing finally reached the big wide interwebs, people mourned. Many tears were shed and many tribute videos were made. You can look at the others if you want, but I want to share the most famous one with you. This guy actually wrote a whole song about Oolong to go with the collection of photos of Oolong balancing different things on his head over the 9 years he was alive. It’s called “Bunny Heaven”. But I warn you. This is going to make you cry. I can’t watch this video anymore. It turns me into a wretched, sobbing mess. And if you’ve bothered to read this far, it’s going to make you cry too. If it doesn’t… YOU HAVE NO SOUL !

Well, rest in peace buddy. You’re definitely the most famous rabbit in the world in my mind.

Oolong’s page can be found here, but sadly most of the links are all dead now that Infoseek have closed up shop but thankfully, archive.org does have most if it archived, and you can use the WayBack Machine to view all the links on Oolong’s site. There are links to Yeubing’s site on there which work fine, but seriously, fuck Yeubing. Here is Oolongs introduction page (in English).

http://web.archive.org/web/20090224030300/http://sokaisha.hp.infoseek.co.jp/010817/010817.htm

You can view any of the images by pasting the URL from Akutagawa-san’s website into the WayBack Machine at http://wayback.archive.org. Let’s hope that these photos stay online forever, and if you care about the longevity of bits of history like Oolong’s site, you can donate to the Internet Archive, which I think everyone should do at some point, because little bits of internet history like Oolong shouldn’t disappear. I hope people know who Oolong is in a hundred years. I’m sure he’ll be remembered long after I’m forgotten.

"Waddaya mean I have toilet paper stuck to me ? Where ?"

Oolong the rabbit. RIP.
July 28, 1994 – January 7, 2003

“How’s that foreign coin collection of yours going, pawz ?” someone asked me yesterday.

“Not too bad thanks. I have lots now” I replied.

How many ? Well, excluding the special ones in folders, this is what I have so far. A few of these are from the same country, but for the most part, every one of these coins is from a different country. I won’t bore you by telling you every country they come from, but they come from all over the place.

Pretty fucking cool right ?

I feel uncomfortable talking about this subject because I am not a perfect person. I have done the wrong thing in my life before. I have done things that hurt others in some way due to my own personal hangups and personality problems, so I feel guilty trying to talk about this subject and acting like I am some sort of moral person. But who’s perfect ? Who hasn’t ever committed some sort of crime or done something that you later regret and made you think “I wish I hadn’t done that. I hope that person isn’t really hurt by that” ? Not many of us. The ones who can claim that are probably just lying to themselves.

But following on from my previous discussion about the idiots rioting in England right now, someone posted a blog link from earlier this year about deindividuation and dehumanisation and mob mentality. It’s a fascinating subject and one I’ve always had an interest in. Unlike how as we, due to our “selfish genes” sometimes put ourselves first at the expense which makes sense at least, sometimes we do things that are bizarre and we would later consider reprehensible just because we got caught up in the moment of it.

The author of this blog post discusses how often, when a person is standing on the ledge of a building that people will start chanting “Jump. Jump. Jump”. Individually, on our own, few of us would exhibit this behaviour, but in a group, we shed our individuality and we become a hive mind. But the question is, why is the “hive mind” such an asshole ? Why is that when we gather in a group we turn into horrible people ? Why don’t we all chant out “Don’t jump ! You’re a wonderful person ! You have so much to live for” ?

I don’t know. It bothers me though. There is a famous quote by an anonymous person who said “Because None of Us are as Cruel as All of Us” which means to say that when we gather in groups, we are far more cruel than we are as individuals. I won’t bore you with the studies and research that have shown that when people are anonymous they will be crueller or more dishonest. You’ll just be like “Well duh. Everyone knows that”. Besides, I’ll link to the original post at the end and you can read them yourself.

But there’s a difference between just stealing candy or giving someone an electric shock for lulz and encouraging to someone to jump to their death or rioting and burning down people’s houses or smashing up their shops or beating people. Sometimes we have reasons, even if they are vague. When people rioted at the G8 summit, they wanted to pretend they were jaded with globalisation and the government, and they probably were. Was it just an excuse to misbehave, or a representation of an inner frustration that they couldn’t really identify or express properly ?

I think it’s partly both. The English riots though are a bit absurd. People from all over the country just saw others on TV rioting and went “Let’s do that too !” Large mobs donned balaclavas and burned things down and smashed things up for no reason whatsoever. I guess they were angry about something in their lives and this was just an outlet. Just like how we sometimes get so frustrated we need to go outside and scream or go and punch a punching bag, we sometimes just need to let out the multitude of frustrations that we bottle up every day.

But do we need to do it like that ? What makes people decide to take part or not take part in these behaviours ? I think it’s a sense of identify. You are either comfortable with who you are as a person, or you are not. You either know yourself, or you don’t. The people who know themselves and are introspective and always questioning themselves; those people don’t do those things. They look at the mob of people chanting “Jump” at the person on the ledge and they are disgusted. They might be too afraid to go against the mob, but they at least don’t take part. Others just get caught up in the craziness and the “lulz” and just do it like everyone else and later excuse it by saying “I don’t know what came over me”.

When the Brazilian guy wanted to kill the cat live on the internet a couple of weeks ago, millions of people allegedly voted to kill the cat. We know it was a scam, but even if it wasn’t, I’m confident that many people would have voted this way anyway. We all think “Awww it’ll never happen. But it would be funny to watch if it did”. But when it does happen – when the man does kill the cat, or the person does jump from the ledge, we are horrified. We cannot believe we went along with this. But at least it wasn’t “our fault” right ? We aren’t the one who caused it to happen even though we may have voted or called out like everyone else ? It’s not like MY voice made the difference ? Did it ?

But we are rubbernecks and we love a spectacle. It’s not like we enjoy human suffering, but we crave new experiences and when we see something unusual, we are fascinated and we can’t stop looking. I remember once as a child in school, I was with a friend watching a motorcycle race in the streets of my home town and his father was there who was a psychologist.

I was filming it with my parent’s video camera and I commented “Gee, I wish one of them would have an accident so I could catch it on film” and my friend’s dad turned to me and said “You should never wish for something horrible like that to happen. How would you feel if it did happen and someone died and you saw their child crying over their dead father ?” and my jaw dropped and I was speechless. He shamed me into retracting my comments instantly and saying “Oh no. I don’t want that to happen. I just wish I could film an interesting event. I definitely don’t want anyone to get hurt”. That moment stuck with my for my entire life. I remember so clearly that shame that I felt when he said that to me and made me truly think about the consequences of what I’d said.

I am a complex person. I don’t understand a lot of things about myself. I don’t like everything about myself. But I am comfortable with myself. I have made mistakes, but I learn from them and I try not to repeat them. I identify my flaws and I take steps to make sure they don’t affect me or others as much as possible. Even were I anonymous, I know that I would never chant for someone to jump off a building.

Sure, everyone says that, but examples of sickening human behaviour like that disgust me. I don’t really get involved with groups in that way. Maybe because I grew up on my own for many years without that sort of peer pressure I don’t succumb to it as easily. I didn’t spend my formative years being forced to follow social norms and “fit in” because I had noone to fit in with.

But I’ve been in public street protests before, and maybe there are some things I would do. Would I beat a police officer if everyone else was doing it ? Yeah, it’s possible I would, even though I know he’s just an individual doing his job. But that tends to come from years of seeing police officers act unfairly towards others. Noone loves the cops, right ? Would I beat a foreign person just because they were from a different religious or ethnic background and everyone else was doing it ? Fuck no. I probably wouldn’t intervene, because I’m not a hero and I don’t like to put myself against a mob of people, but I certainly wouldn’t take part.

“Hating” and “griefing” is a big part of the internet these days. The anonymity that the internet provides allows people to express the darkest side of their personality and the darkest side of humanity as a whole. Many times the people doing this “griefing” or “trolling” don’t believe what they’re saying. They’re just doing it “for the lulz” and reflecting a dark side they know exists in humanity. They don’t really hate muslims or support the Klu Klux Klan. They just think it’s funny to illustrate that that side of humanity exists.

They are holding a mirror up to society and saying “Look. Look how fucked up we all are that this shit exists in our society. I’m going to pretend I support it because I think it’s funny that we are like this”. It’s an odd behaviour and many of these trolls are actually very intelligent people and in a bizarre way, they are actually sending a complex social message that isn’t always obvious from what they’re saying.

I never used to get “trolling”. In its simplest form it’s basically people who go onto chat rooms or forums and put forward a deliberately retarded or ignorant point of view in the hope of inflaming people into being offended or getting them worked up. When they see someone ranting and raving in anger they sit behind their computer laughing and they say the person is “butthurt”. It’s funny to see people get worked up and obsessive about shit, and I get that. But it’s also mean and pointless and makes you look like a bit of a retard.

But trolling can be a laugh if it’s harmless. I have a pastime that amuses me no end. I troll people in my anime channel with bukkake pictures. I had never even looked at a bukkake picture in my life until a couple of months ago even though I was aware what it was, but someone mentioned it as a joke and I went onto Google Images to find a picture of it to make a visual gag about something. People laughed and went “ewwww” and I got a reaction out of it, so I kept doing it.

I had to get really, really creative though because people quickly learnt that every time I pasted a URL, be it an image or a video or a web page, it probably contained bukkake. So I would tell people long, elaborate stories which were normally completely true and very interesting, and then just when I thought people were completely hooked, I would find a way to say “And here is a photo of that”, and if my story was good enough and people were fascinated enough and hanging on the edge of their seats, even the most seasoned IRC’ers who knew me well would get suckered in and say “Oh you asshole pawz. I should have known you were going to do that” and I would fucking crack up laughing and go “Gotchya !”

But there’s some things you do for the lulz, and some things you do because deep down, you are a horrible fucking person and all you are doing every day of your life is putting up a charade and pretending you’re a normal, well adjusted citizen of the world. But if you’re the sort of person who riots for no reason, or tells suicidal people to jump of a building, or you post disgusting shock images on the facebook pages of children who have been murdered, you’re not engaging in group mentality. You’re just a fuckhead.

Here are links to two of the articles that inspired this post:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/02/10/deindividuation/

http://andrewlloydgoodman.com/documents/griefers.pdf