I won't treat you like a potato if you don't take away my beer

that way we can both be happy.

capice?

Elzzup siht tuo erugif uoy nac?

I did not know that!

one thing that separates reason-minded folks from religious delusionoids is our ultimate trust in knowledge, and along with that goes being able to admit that the human race has just barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about the universe we inhabit.

the sheer ignorance required to think we really know all there is to know about the physical world and to assume it was the work of a bearded guy in the sky is absolutely mind boggling to me.

how dare you think you know everything!

that being said, knowledge is power. and one advantage of not having a social life (read: not having a girlfriend) is being able to focus my energies on soaking up as much knowledge as possible. and boy have i got a lot of work to do!

as a sinophile, i'm embarrassed that i know very little about tibet and its history, so i picked up a book and intend to get informed.

stocking is the new planking and i gotta learn me some of that!

a recent re-viewing of the matrix reminded me that i know next to nothing about alternate states of consciousness and the possibilities born out of philosophical thought experiments, so here i come nietzsche! here i come, camus!

of course, one can never know everything, but admitting that and trying to better one's self through knowledge is a much better alternative to wading in the status quo of being controlled by delusional barbarians.

free

your

fucking

mind

yo

An odd way around the language barrier

i am a fluent mandarin chinese speaker. it's one of the few identifying characteristics i have. so my coworkers often ask me to order lunch from chinatown... except, a couple of their favorite places are run by cantonese speakers who don't know a lick of mandarin so i am forced to communicate with them in english.

only, they can't understand my english... unless i speak it wiss a chinese assent.

you unnersan my meaning?

so, odd as it may look to my colleagues, there i go... regularly speaking with an offensive chinese assent so dey can unnersan i wanting chinese brocori... not so much having merican brocori.

Pourin' some liquour out for the fallen

today marks the 22nd anniversary of the tiananmen square massacre.

and as much as the still stoic communist regime would like the world to believe this event never actually happened, let me assure you: IT FUCKING HAPPENED.

when i lived in china i was sorta ornery in that i often prompted folks to talk to me about taboo subjects like tiananmen. i was careful to only do so if the participant was willing, and i met LOTS of folks who described those days back in '89 with lots of heart and lots of tears.

it was a fucking disgrace what the government did to those people.

never forget.

never fucking forget.

This is awesome til ya get to the bottom...

i remember the very first time i saw a kid just piss right there a foot in front of me, spraying bits and splashes all about my shoe and just about anywhere else within his tight yet accurate range.

i nearly shit MYSELF.

in some ways, i really respect the chinese. i mean, talk about  passing down some fucking culture.

but this pee pee shit... nah. that's fucking ridiculous.

My own ritter sirry engrish regret

had i ever thought there might be money to make by taking pictures of all the ridiculous fucking engrish signs found throughout china and the rest of asia, i'd be a rich muthafucka right now.

of course, i just chuckled and moved on.

what a fucking waste.

Over expectation in your mind

you might think this is just engrish, that the chinese couldn't possibly have a camera that could see in your mind...

then again, they are communists... so move along at your own risk.

been there done that yo!

HOLLA!!!

Qi baishi... still a badass

i love art with the same passion that i detest religion. that much is definitely true.

when i was in college, then later living in china, i spent a lot of time studying daoism and i was struck at how useful its philosophy could be when applied to my own life (i eschewed the rites, rituals, rain dances and overall delusional aspects of the practical religion, of course).

basically, it's all about being one with one's environment, living in the moment, self-control, awareness, treating others as one would want to be treated. pretty much all ya need.

well, this philosophy is so evident in the works of the late great qi baishi, chinese master painter extraordinaire. what a fucking badass. with the simplest and lightest of brush strokes, he was able to create fascinatingly complex figures and scenes.

it may look simple... and easy. that's the point.

but let me assure you, there is NOTHING easy about creating masterpieces such as these:

holla!!!

Um... yikes.

yep. them's all boys. lady boys as they call 'em in thailand, and throughout asia.

i will say that i had a, er... strange lady boy encounter once when i was living in china.

i was on holiday in hong kong, at a bar, pretty shitfaced (if i remember correctly), when a beautiful woman sat down beside me. she smelled good. FANTASTIC even! if i could describe her scent with something tangible i'd say that it alone caused a bonafide bonerjam.

immediately we struck up conversation, and though it was quite apparent she was a 'working girl' looking for a john and i certainly wasn't interested in that, i did entertain the idea that i could get her to follow me back to the hotel on just my own charm.

i bought her a couple drinks. we talked. laughed. she kept touching me.

and i noticed a lot of the locals snickering and hiding their eyes from mine when i looked around.

then... it hit me.

i got it. don't know why or how, because like the lady boys pictured above, you really could not tell. at all.

but i knew.

i asked her: "so, are you a... uh..."

"LADY BOY!" she said.

and i ran. i fucking RAN! i was so embarrassed... but it's funny as hell now.

good grief one can hardly tell!!!

Press your fucking luck

when i lived in china i spent a lot of time doing research at a series of buddhist and daoist temples and was consistently amused at the amount of wayward folk spending time at the altars of the god of wealth and the god of luck (both entities exists in each religion).

they'd crowd around in droves, fighting one another for the opportunity to give offerings to these "gods" and then leave feeling lucky... like they'd end up getting money or some awesome thing in return for their tributary efforts.

what.

the.

fuck.

i know humans have the ability to be completely fucking stupid, but i also have some sort of innate faith in our species' ability to see through the bullshit, to really know that ya can't get something for nothing, that the idea of some invisible sky daddy just randomly showering me with FUCKING MONEY and GOOD FORTUNE is as believable as a talking snake and a worldwide flood that left no geological evidence.

then sometimes i'm just like, "ah fuck it, give me a beer."

Still wanting be a cock!

oh yes... another excuse to share one of my favorite stories of all time, the oft shared "i wanna be a cock!!!" story.

To fix or not to fix

...there's a lot of money to be made (and a lot of mistakes to be fixed) if the chinese would just take me up on my offer to fix their country's engrish epidemic. i would even do it for a modest fee.

but they just don't listen.

they'd rather sell boba tea by likening it to sucking on balls.

and while i've never done the sucking on balls myself, i'm pretty sure it's a lot different then sucking on honeydew-flavored tapioca.

but don't quote me on that. not yet.

Asians make the craziest christians

they also make the craziest drivers.

and lovers.

and martial artists.

okay, now i'm just stereotyping.

but seriously, i'd put any fucking nutso chinese or korean or japanese christian up against the most hardcore evangelical rapture lovin' delusionoid...

any.

day.

while living in beijing, i was once trapped in a public park and swarmed by a group of undercover self-mutilating christ-fiends whose only harness against shouting their imaginations in full voices to the skies was the fact that "a highly militarized faction of government spies" was constantly watching their every move.

i took on a thick afghan accent and told them (with wily eyes) that i was a muslim.

naturally, they left me alone.

'cuz ain't nothin' crazier than a wily eyed muslim dude on the cusp of bedding 72 virgins.

Writing with a chinese accent

i so habbing a ritter trub-oh try talking wiss my own chiner assent. you what is my meaning?

but so many timing i not rike was happen. so den i tearing myserf is okay no probrem.

and den is rike i cannot having trub-oh stay talking you in engrish so is okay but  no one can knowing diss one.

i can tearing dem is forever twenty one.

I did one last thing before i left china...

... i gave away a bunch of t-shirts.

most chinese people are non-believers nowadays. some remain superstitious, but when it comes to sky daddies and talking trees and shit, the chinese, for the most part, know to say 'fuck that'.

show me some proof.

as a westerner, i think it's fair to say the chinese are kickin our asses every which way right now. it's no surprise they're more prone to logic than we are too.

Wang Lihong de Bu keneng cuo guo ni

when i lived in china, i commited several popular songs to memory, so that when i was forced out to the karaoke clubs with friends, co-workers and human beings in general, i would have something to add to the party.

at times, i even became the party.

cuz whitey speaks mad chinese yo.

*ahem*

i can sing this one from start to finish. on command. no prob.

I've seen that for real

all the time.

it's a chinese thing.

me and my buddy (a fellow american in fact) tried to both ride on the same bike. i pedaled from the seat and he sat on the storage space above the back tire.

we were an awful mess.

i never worked so hard for so little in my whole life.

but the chinese make it look easy.

(image via ihmp)

I say "pussy", you say "box"

this is the sorta shit i have to deal with.

every.

single.

day.

you'd think mr. chinese guy would listen to what the fuck i have to say when it comes to translating shit into english. you know, my first language IS english after all. such stubborn quibbles lead to bouts of embarrassment.

why be so fucking bullheaded about it?

or did you really mean to publish a book on chinese vaginas?

i'd buy that. hell, i could probably even be an expert on the subject. just let me have editorial power when it comes to the english shit.

All kinds of awful

this chinese guy, from china, has a lot of money, and a decent collection of ming and qing bronze incense burners, pretty good stuff.

publishes his collection.

like everyone else in china, refuses to get anyone who actually speaks english to review the english translations, and in the end we find ourselves with a great big giant fucking mess.

like this.

(click to enlarge)

must be all the fucking INCENTS.