On Being Unique and Special - Or... Tales of the Hair Shop Horror!

Naruto, yet another cartoon character with impossible hair.  But hey!  It makes him unique and SPECIAL!

 The lady at the hair shop sure is nice, but typical in 'one size fits all' Asia, like pretty much every single time I've EVER gotten my hair cut in China, Taiwan or Korea, she stubbornly (and unconsciously, perhaps) just keeps trying to give me spiky, triangular Japanese anime sideburns.   Uh... funny thing is... I'm a REAL white guy!  I am NOT Naruto, somebody's STEREOTYPICAL anamorphic, CULTure-centric FANTASY about how they wish somebody actually did look.

OKAY?

Noooooo!  Of course it's not okay!  You have to look just like all of them, of course.  There's ENORMOUS social pressure to look, act and think JUST LIKE ALL OF THEM!  Funny thing is though... that, naturally, they wake up from time to time and discover that they all look, act and think, not exactly the same, but as a CULTural necessity, pretty damn similar in most respects.  So some of them (the ones with an even greater need to be "special") really do feel even more social pressure to get plastic surgery, start wearing colored contact lenses, and/or having their hair colored some bizarre shade of orange.  Just to be... "different?"   Zany!

I even drew pictures of the profiles of people with different haircuts ON MY HAND, desperately trying to get the woman to understand that I did NOT want pointed Asian style hair sprouting down the sides of my white man face!  But, alas, she STILL did not get it.  Then... she practically DEMANDED of me that I allow her to wash my hair.

Of course, because I felt really guilty for being such a pain in the ass foreign customer, I gave her the vicarious thrill of letting her run her fingers through my foreign scalp while she washed my hair, in her compulsory need to service every single customer the way she is accustomed to.  But seriously... I really don't need anyone else to wash my damn stinky foreign hair.  'Cause... psst!   I take a shower every day, you know.

And... psst!  NOOOOOBODY really has hair like FICTIONAL Naruto!  NOOOOOBODY!  But what can ya say, right?  FASHION!  Which is something that brainwashes people in EVERY COUNTRY, right?  Not only the millions and millions and MILLIONS of people in individuality challenged Asia.

But the vast majority of people in Asia don't resort to plastic surgery to compete with the massive herd, to hopefully be different and special.  Currently, the plastic surgery stereotype is just a trendy, shallow South Korean thing.  No, most other Far East Asians just engage in elaborate social and/or financial ruse after elaborate social and/or financial ruse, just to try to stand out above the crowd.  These odd social manipulations usually entail the usual psychological 'ME ME ME' tactics that people everywhere around the world tend to unconsciously deploy.  But perhaps by sheer necessity, in Asia, the 'me first' stimulus that naturally drives all human beings, gets kicked into OVERDRIVE.

So if a little first grader, for only one purely hypothetical example, that cries and cries and cries for attention all the time (despite never having any real physical ailment) doesn't get enough of a certain social drug called SYMPATHY, the poor little thing continually tries to ESCALATE the budding young hypochondriac style symptoms. And THEN... her mother gets in on the act.  Why?  Well, see, mother has been unconsciously teaching this kid to constantly play the victim all her extremely brief young life.  Why?

Because maybe she (mother or daughter, take your pick) doesn't feel that she is either smart, cute or special enough to compete with the other kids.   So... she continually plays the poor little cripple card.  'Oh, don't mind me!   I'm sick!  I'm too small for my age.   I'm just not clever enough, mommy keeps saying,  so... boo hoo... I don't really wanna play the game that all the other kids are enjoying, anyhow.  I just wanna sit here and ball my little eyes out!'   So that when mama shows up, she can get her own selfish fix from asking WHY her kid is crying!  WHO, dammit, has been being mean to her?  She's special, don't you see?  She may not be as smart, pretty or big as the other kids, but SHE'S MY KID, DAMMIT!

Yes sir, a PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE MASTERPIECE!

Oh well.  Blame it all on them damn foreigners.  That's the ticket, yeah! 

Welcome to Public Trash Receptacle Deprived, Littered Up Asia!

Advertisement (that NOBODY pays attention to anyway) via LITTER!  Welcome to shameless, trash bin deprived, littered up "happy" Asia!

I recently had a confrontation with the motorcycle riding creep, here in South Korea, who keeps throwing handfuls of business cards at the front door (and all over the street in front of our) school.  I guess the pot just boils over sometimes, you know.  So I quickly picked up a handful of his cards, tore them up, ran up to him on his motorcycle, and threw TRASH at HIM for a change.

See... I have Irish, Scottish, and obviously Viking blood, it seems, so I guess I just got European Medieval Warrior style NUTS all of the sudden, and went after that dude when I caught him in the act that day.  Yes, I guess I just reverted to "type."  Hey!  In my own defense, living in Asia is often pretty similar to living in the Middle Ages, so... yep, no back handed Asian style retaliation when nobody is looking for yours truly, thank you very much.  I was raised in Viking style Western society, after all.  I was definitely not raised in this passive aggressive society.

And I don't even share any of their blood, or the societal traits they've been forced to inculcate for literally thousands of years - which, for your information, are the direct result of thousands of years of Imperial Chinese, Japanese AND Korean inequality and corruption.  So, for a change, I'm sorry, but I really don't think one group of Far East Asians can blame certain social tendencies that they all share on each other.  But I'm sure they will keep trying to do just exactly that.  Why stop now?

And I hear that in Japan, litter is pretty rare.  Hmm.  Is THAT the real reason why all the other Far East Asians hate the Japanese so very, very much?  Hmm.

So anyway, I jumped out of the car we had just arrived in, and went after the guy on the motorcycle.  It was a real, good old fashioned, medieval jousting style titling match for a moment there!  Because I'm sure the guy (who was wearing a full, TINTED helmet) thought he had the anonymity that most Asians seem to love so very much, with their illegally tinted car windows (to hide their shamelessly bad driving habits, apparently).

This dude also had no license plate on the back of his motorcycle.  Imagine THAT in Asia!  And don't kid yourself: South Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese traffic laws are pretty damn similar in most cases, to American and British laws.  Look it up!  I'll wait.

So... no excuses, please.

Anyway, that motorcycle riding flunkie also thought he had the upper hand, because he was sitting up on a powerful riding machine.  Until, that is, I think he wised up and saw that I was pretty upset, from what seems like endless days that I've had to pick up his filthy litter.  And martial art skills or no, if I got close enough to him, I was gonna knock his ever loving Korean ass OFF that crotch rocket.  You know, level the playing field a little.  In the grand old tradition of REAL DEMOCRACY.

But he sped away, of course.  And playing fair and square isn't exactly the Asian way of doing things most of the time.

But wouldn't you know it, the punk just had to come back.   'Cause he figured I wouldn't be there, out in the street, waiting for him, and he would be able to really stick it to me, by throwing EVEN MORE handfuls of cards on the street - where I'd have to pick them up on a daily basis.  And let me tell you, it often seems like all I ever do is pick up after selfish, lazy, littering Orientals who seem to think they don't have to throw away their own trash.

Grow up and wipe your own butt much, "modern" Asians?  But hey!  We can't all be parented the same way, can we?  Some of us just definitely seem to need to have codependent tendencies instilled in us by needy, 'pay me back when I get old' parents.  You know, parents that selfishly dote on us, so they'll have the big face of showing others that they are so attentive to their kids.  Hopelessly codependent kids that they can blackmail to take care of them when they get older, too.  See how that works?

CULTure!  It's all the rage.  And not just in fabled Far East Asia (where more and more senior citizens are not only NOT being taken care of by their money obsessed children, but where those elders are now committing suicide in record numbers).  If I were to speak in the defense of Asians everywhere, that is.  Which, I sometimes really do do, believe it or not.  'Cause this isn't about "race."  It's about REALLY, REALLY BAD HABITS habitually committed by various groups of people (NOT just Far East Asians) that are still trying really, really hard to climb up out of the Dark Ages.

Yes, the Dark Ages.  You know, when people just threw their trash and waste water out into the street.  Oh wait!  I saw that just a few short years ago in Shanghai, China!  Which is supposed to be the most "modern" city in China....  BULLSH#$T!  Tall buildings and capitalism, I am oh, so sorry to say, does NOT modernity make, kids.

See... the thing is, what Mr. Littering Motorcycle Creep is doing, like a lot of accepted practices in Asia, is ILLEGAL.  So SCREW WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT "CULTure," and peaceful, happy, self effacing "Buddhists" in hopelessly corrupt, litter strewn, passive aggressive Northeast Asia.   'Cause... duh! I'm fully aware that not all Asians are exactly the same - despite the MASSIVE SOCIAL PRESSURE they are all under from the cradle to the grave, to just be one of the passively aggressively misbehaving crowd.   Are you aware of what makes different groups of people different AND similar?  Really?  Seriously?  How much do YOU really know about what things are REALLY like in Northeast Asia?

Here's the REAL DEAL: Littering is littering, and is bad for the environment in ANY country - you overly liberal, enabling, excuse making scum out there, who don't know what you're talking about anyway, when you're making judgments from afar.  My wife is Asian, thank you very much, and I'll have you know that she doesn't make excuses to avoid civic responsibility.  Like yours truly, she obeys the local and international law, as often as humanly possible.

So, when that littering motorcycle creep came back, I had my camera ready and set to video.  Sure enough, the COWARD saw me and turned tail.  But the passive aggressive scumbag will, I'm sure, be back.   But I'll get 'im.  'Cause harassment can definitely work both ways.  And bullies tend to only understand reverse bullying, you know.   So I'll get the littering, anally retentive creep.  One way or another.  And this Yankee cowboy isn't gonna hide like a coward behind his actions when I do.

So You Think You Know About "Racism"

Just for starters, I'd like to humbly say, "SCREW ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE EVERYWHERE who would accuse me of being 'a RACIST!'"  Screw every single last one of you!   Because for your information, I AM A FREAKING MINORITY!

Oh, yes, I am!

I've lived for MORE THAN A DECADE (and counting) in places (three Asian countries - though only two if you seriously think that Taiwan is NOT a sovereign nation and that Beijing should be able to continue to bully its people) where there are extremely few white people like myself.  And sometimes, it hurts like HELL just to be in this region.  Why?  Because most of East Asia is still mired in Medieval thinking AND social practices, that's why.  Despite, that is, their love for any and all bright, shiny new modern Western gadgets, trinkets and baubles.

And not that I want to be a whiner, but very few people (if anyone) in this region even understands what makes me tick, let alone the principles I was raised to value as an American citizen.  Very few Asians, for example, at this stage in global development (hence, the term, "developing country"), truly understand things like EQUALITY and DEMOCRACY.  Oh sure, they talk the talk, don't they?  Both North Korea AND Mainland China have the word "Democratic" in their official title for their countries!  What a total crock of BS, and everyone knows it. Except... maybe all the poor, dumb people in ANY country who buy into the communist propaganda machine.

Sure, the Chinese have capitalism down pat, 'cause that's EASY, see.  You sell stuff to people to bolster your economy and build your imperial power, see.  Big whoop!

But capitalism is NOT democracy.  And I think communist China has done a better than average job of proving just exactly that - that you can enrich your powerful elite by capitalizing on the love of money, but it doesn't mean you give a DAMN about human rights or FREEDOM in general.

So, yeah, most East Asians seriously just don't quite get it yet.  Because unlike most Western countries, they still have a foot (maybe a whole damn leg, an arm and a spleen to boot) in the Middle Ages!

And not everybody kisses my ass over here (OR back in the US, for your information), just because I'm white.  Nor do I want anyone to.  In fact, every single time I have encountered special treatment in China, Taiwan or South Korea, it was EXTREMELY EMBARRASSING and completely and totally unwanted, unnecessary, and UNWELCOME.  In fact, usually, in those situations, I've gotten the distinct impression that I was being treated that way, usually in a very public fashion, to either get big face off of me, or to curry some kind of "I scratch your back, you scratch my back later" kind of favor with me.  And sorry, but WHITEY DON'T NEED or APPRECIATE THAT SHAT!

But hey... I'm just here as a humble language teacher, doing something that is hopefully worthwhile, that may one day IMPROVE the lives of the ordinary East Asians that I touch every single day.  Something besides being the usual "arm chair quarterback," who has never known what it's truly like to be a single soldier, with your boots on the ground in a totally foreign land, where the values you grew up with are simply not even acknowledged, much less understood.

No, I'm not in the military and I don't carry a weapon, but hopefully, day by day, I am making some kind of difference - no matter how small.  And, at least I'm doing something BESIDES accusing everyone else of being a "racist" to score social points!  So, RACE MONGERS out there, you are hereby cordially invited to KISS MY FREEDOM LOVING RED, WHITE AND BLUE AMERICAN ASS!

Living in China

Oh, this is a gas! I've known about Men Without Hats for ages (because of their trademark hit, 'The Safety Dance,' but never knew until today, that they recorded this song.  With snappy lyrics like, "What did the Chairman want?  A great big wall they could all watch Occidentals on," how can anyone possibly go wrong?

But... is it a "racist" song?  Oh my!  I sincerely doubt that, all you hypocritical, race mongering, guilt tripping bastards out there.  Just waiting to pounce, aren't we?  The modern INQUISITION is the constant, wholly undemocratic threat that people live under, that they will be ruined in society for being labeled "racist."  It's the 21st century equivalent of the Scarlet Letter.

But seriously, you should hear what people in China say in their own language(s) about white AND black folks.  They don't even have much nice to say about other yellow people!  If anything, they're actually much harder on their Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean counterparts in the region than they are on other "foreign devils."  Especially the Japanese.  They REALLY hate them, of course.

And most Chinese don't mean most of it maliciously, in fact.  It's just how they refer to people outside their "middle country" borders.  Either way, the word "racism" is a relatively recent addition to the English language, and believe me, very few people around the world that us extra careful Western folks bend over backwards to not offend, are actually doing much to pay us the same respect in return.  And true to freedom deprived, communist style, imperialistic form, they don't even have the luxury of being able to vote Republican OR Democrat!  So chew on that for a while, why don't ya?

But don't just take my word for it.  If you're not already familiar with the YouTube channel, China Uncensored, have a look at the following highly informative video.  Just remember though, that those "demonic" Japanese deserve every bit of the seven decades (and counting) of outright slander that they continue (as an entire "race") to endure.  Well... don't they?  Ah, hate!  Use it or abuse it, I guess....

http://lyrics.wikia.com/Men_Without_Hats:Living_In_China

Another Year, Another April Fools' Day in East Asia

So, it was April Fools' Day over here in South Korea.  All day, I asked all my little students if they knew what day it was (beyond the actual date, April 1st), and interestingly enough, only the older ones knew what April Fools' Day is.  They called it, "Liar's Day."  WHAT?  Why does it always seem like everybody in this region is always looking for a good reason to lie about something?

Oh!  CULTure again!  Well, that excuses EVERYTHING, doesn't it?  Either way, it's been quite an uphill battle, trying to get my students to understand that playing practical jokes on a given special day of the year does not necessarily equate to "Liar's Day."  I mean, does anybody in the West really think that April Fools' Day is a special day when you have carte blanche to lie?  SHEESH!

Okay.  Fine.  I'm just supposed to look at this all with "an open mind."  You know, all "liberal," and all that good stuff, right?   Different people in different countries have different ways, after all, right?  Sure!  That's why, given that Nazism grew out of generations of old world European and Germanic CULTure, it was perfectly normal and okay (at least for a while) for Hitler's government to pass legislation to strip European Jews of their property.  And then... later on, it must have also been perfectly okay for those first simple laws to progress to DEATH CAMPS! RIGHT?   'Cause, see, "different people in different countries have different ways!"

Uh-uh.  No, you're not fooling me!  No way, no how!

Somehow, I don't think that "CULTure" can, or EVER should, supersede basic human common sense and morality.   'Cause a bunch of people slowly starving to death in a concentration camp is still a bunch of people slowly starving to death in a concentration camp, whether it's in Nazi Germany or North Korea.  Nukes or no nukes, facts are still facts, you see.   I mean, as human beings, we all bleed the same way, don't we?  We all come into the world the same way, and pass gas the same way, so... how can CULTure really alter what is best (or ultimately harmful) for ALL human beings?

Good "liberal" Jedi mind trick there, but... I'm not buying it.  Nope.  Uh-uh.  April Fools' Day or not, I mean, "what's good for the goose is always good for the gander, right?"   In other words, lying over here on this side of the globe, despite any and all CULTural practices, is still pretty much lying over in some other corner of the globe - no matter how you slice, dice (or spin) it.  After all, a falsehood is a falsehood, and just twisting it around in your "open minded" head doesn't really change the facts.
 

But what am I saying?  "Different people in different countries have different ways of doing things."  Guess I'll just keep telling myself that.  Until I actually believe it, right?  Nah. I think it'll be a cold day in Hell when I buy into any of that copious, shameless bull crap.  'Cause here's the thing; I KNOW better.  I was simply raised better than that.   And all the clever Jedi Mind Tricks in the world can never really change any of that.
Of course, I think it's good to be open minded.   I'm pretty open minded about a whole lot of things, myself.   Like the paranormal, for example. I figure anyone who believes in what Fox Mulder of The X-Files often referred to as "extreme possibilities," has got to be pretty darned opened minded.   So yes, I truly believe in being "open minded."  I just think that some people are, perhaps by nature, so open minded that, their brain sort of starts rolling around in their head.  You know, in all that vast open space up there.