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?

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.

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!!!

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.

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)

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.

Okay, here's a reason why i respect the taiwanese...

yeah, their sales philosophy may be low-ball.

but it always fucking works.

this is the dumbest fucking product one could ever think of owning, let alone pay money for: a low resolution, hand-held gaming module with a stylus.

but they hire this cute chick to do a mini-infomercial and they make MILLIONS.

and yes, her voice IS that annoying.

da jia zai jian LAHHHHHHHH!

Fan guo lai de

i was at work, lookin' through some new publications, new catalogues, and i found this one from thames & hudson and couldn't help but snicker like the prude pedantic i am (sometimes)...

the cover, to the book that's being advertised, is upside down.

those characters are upside down.

and that's fucking funny, dude.

Hey, me and my friend are just gonna go get rock blasted by a small cock, cool?

seriously, the chinese are cock-obsessed, man. no matter how many times ya tell 'em, "CHICKEN dude, it's a fucking chicken when you eat it. even if you DON'T eat it, it's still a fucking chicken unless you're a fucking farmer."

yet still, they continue to go cock crazy. dictionaries. signs. menus. cock, cock, cock.

COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK'nBALLS COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK COCK

it's a bit much.

really.

The following is fucking real, dude

(click pic to enlarge)

Smoking, religion & how we're all gonna fucking die

this picture is from the author bio page of this new book by chen yuzhuang on song through jin dynasty celadon kilns. not that you give a fuck about that sorta thing, but the fact that mr. chen wanted to use THIS picture -- of all the fucking pictures of him that exist -- makes me laugh... and not in a good way.

'cuz it proves just how far off china is from being "like us".

i started smoking while living in china. to fit in. because manly men smoke cigs. that's what they do. if you don't smoke, you don't get in the club, you don't get the girl, you don't the next round of drinks. i recently quit smoking (6 months and counting), but it took me 12+ years of 20-30 squares a day and the inability to climb up one flight of stairs without losing my breath to finally break the fucking habit. and i'm 31 years old.

quitting smoking was the hardest thing i've ever done.

and even though we know how dangerous, how unhealthy, how murderous these cigarettes really are, logic still hasn't gotten through to many parts of the world, specifically china. shit, it's only gotten through to us during the last 15-20 years or so.

so if takes that long for human beings to wake up and smell the fucking carcinogens choking us, then imagine just how long it will take before all humans realize just how retarded the idea of religion really is.

how it's wasteful, how it's harmful, how it's totally unfounded, unnecessary, unhelpful.

i don't even wanna think about it.

but, we can't give up. if we give up, we never have a shot at winning. and all we need is a fucking shot.

Kitchen turbo hood

i'm a big fan of engrish, so when i saw this on a door in my neighborhood (i rives wis many many chinese peeper, and they riking me because i can talking chinese ranguage) i just had to snap a pic... and share...

sound like a pretty good band name.

groove metal.