Oh you Amelican!
Christmas was a mixed bag.
I visited my parents and family: Not very good. Holidays are always a huge drama bomb. My younger brother will be shipped out to Afghanistan or Iraq. His choice! I did not even know he had enlisted in the army, but the marines would not take him so off he goes apparently! His choices are not fantastic. Of course, this led to all kinds of retarded drama, and so I holed up in the guest bedroom and worked on trying to write journal articles and communications.
I got engaged to someone: This was a good thing. I think that finding someone that enjoys what I enjoy and actively wants to go do the things I want to do, and the fact that I want to actively go out and do the things she wants to do is healthy. It makes me happy that I can do these things and I think that is important.
I had a big new year party: This was a mixed bag. Unfortunately, one of Aubrey's friends turned out to be a huge bro. It made the party a little awkward (from what I was told) because he kept falling all over the now fiancee. He was a nice enough guy though, so I guess it wasn't too bad. I really hope the popped collar and "bro"-ing was purely for irony. Also on the other hand, there was a ton of good food and a lot of fun to be hand. That was awesome. I also drank tequila and TC ended up being so plastered, he was running around half-naked in the snow, hugging my flowerpots and vomiting in multiple locations. If you see him, this should be brought to his attention. Reminding him of this is important.
I am getting my half-sleeve/back/chest piece finished up. The frogs look fantastic and I really like them a lot. Once the chest piece is done, they will be literally near and dear to my heart (though mostly just the near part). And speaking of tattoos!
I was alerted to this dude via Facebook's hilarious habit of shoving shit on my news feed when I have expressly told it "don't do that": This has brought up something that I have come to really despise about (a) being Asian (b) dealing with people who are (for lack of a better description) "weeaboos." Yes, I am Chinese. Yes, I like Chinese stuff. Yes, I understand that Chinese history has spanned many thousands of years. I think it is great that you love the food we make, the quaint little shoes we wear, and our need to create kung-fu schools named after animals. Yes, I think pandas are awesome and while I love that bamboo is the new "in thing" for renewable building materials I don't need you to bring this up to me all the time. However what I really honestly despise (and this is a two-way street I can assure you) is when Americans who read a little about the language (be it Japanese or Chinese or whatever symbolic language) suddenly believe that, since we use a character driven language that relies on characters made up of lines that represent pictures or however you want to describe it, our linguistic history must be really fucking deep.
I am sure it would piss off Americans if Chinese or Japanese people or Asians in general, were to take American English, bastardize it, and then use it like flair at TGIFriday's and tell you, as an American, that English is so philosophical because you can use the word "vaginate" in such words as "envaginated" and vaginas are for fucking so matral vagination is a really poetic and inspiring way of saying, "motherfucker" and didn't you know how beautiful that is? It's so deepyl rooted in philosophy and deep meaning. I'm sure there are plenty of Americans that look at Asian dudes wearing baggy pants and shirts that say "Spread Beaver" and roll their eyes. I do it too. I also think it's pretty silly and also nearly insulting that you think that the best thing to come out of the English language is "Spread Beaver" and that it needs to be on a shirt. Maybe I'm just old.
Now just imagine an Asian guy - let's take me for an example - running into a dude with kanji or characters or what have you tattooed on themselves and trying to read it. The person tattooed declares quite loudly and with absolute conviction, "this is some deep shit and it describes me perfectly." I then try to explain to them that it doesn't actually mean what they think it means. Chinese characters are context dependent - what they are next to is what gives them a particular meaning. This is something that is typically lost on people who don't read a language that is so heavily context dependent. What one character is next to, or is absent from, means very specific things. It doesn't mean that you can read whatever the hell you want into it. "Pussy" can mean a lot of things, just like the word "lead" or "jog." If I were to say the phrase, "the pussy willow in spring does not thrust its branches towards the heavens but instead drapes lazily towards the earth," you would not immediately parse that as, "the vagina differentiating binary chart female deer (plural) not fucking secondary locations polite feelings directed at another person the place that good Christians go when they die as a reward glutes within a home curtains sleepily polite feelings directed at another person the planet we live on." I really hope you wouldn't at least. But that's basically what you are doing when you see individual character in Chinese that make up a particular "word" and then say "it must be a deep way of referring to that word."
That guy I linked up there? He tattooed wei ji on his back. That's great. I also have tattoos and if they have a deep meaning for you, that's great - but don't just make shit up about a language that you don't even speak. I don't know why I get pissed off about it - but it probably has something to do with people repeatedly telling me that Chinese characters are awesome because they're so symbolic. Sure, it's symbolic, but that doesn't mean a bunch of ancient Chinese dudes sat around drinking plum wine and smoking up herb, thinking about what the most "tubular way of making deep meaningful symbolism for tea is, bro." If anything, you had a bunch of people trying to tell each other what a forest was and drew a bunch of trees. Hey! that's useful! Let's simplify that a bit and just use that every time we want to say "tree." What would you use for a forest fire? How about we use that tree character and put a fire character next to it? Super! Thanks for playing!
So what pisses me off about "wei ji?" You get a lot of people who read shit like this and decide that obviously "wei ji" means danger and opportunity. Actually no, if you ask native speakers this sort of thing, they will tell you that while the second character can mean opportunity in some contexts, in this case it is being used to (a) indicate time (b) emphasize danger. Crisis is a "dangerous time." It is not "opportunity in danger." If we wanted to express opportunity in a time of danger, we would most likely come up with a set of characters that directly express "I might die trying, but there is a really good chance I will be getting seriously hot sexy time with that guy/girl I have been eying across the room if I can use my mantis style martial arts to totally defeat her boyfriend's tiger style martial arts." I can appreciate that you believe that it is poetic and has a deep meaning to it, but while it's fine that you believe that, please understand that you are wrong. Please do not play the, "but you never know" or "you just don't get it" cards. If you're going to do that, at least have the balls to play the, "you guys can't possibly understand your language as well as non-Asian people do," card because that's pretty much how it looks.
Anyways, thank you for telling me I don't understand a language I grew up with! I also have some wonderful leaflets detailing the link between vaccines and autism. I think you might be interested.
I visited my parents and family: Not very good. Holidays are always a huge drama bomb. My younger brother will be shipped out to Afghanistan or Iraq. His choice! I did not even know he had enlisted in the army, but the marines would not take him so off he goes apparently! His choices are not fantastic. Of course, this led to all kinds of retarded drama, and so I holed up in the guest bedroom and worked on trying to write journal articles and communications.
I got engaged to someone: This was a good thing. I think that finding someone that enjoys what I enjoy and actively wants to go do the things I want to do, and the fact that I want to actively go out and do the things she wants to do is healthy. It makes me happy that I can do these things and I think that is important.
I had a big new year party: This was a mixed bag. Unfortunately, one of Aubrey's friends turned out to be a huge bro. It made the party a little awkward (from what I was told) because he kept falling all over the now fiancee. He was a nice enough guy though, so I guess it wasn't too bad. I really hope the popped collar and "bro"-ing was purely for irony. Also on the other hand, there was a ton of good food and a lot of fun to be hand. That was awesome. I also drank tequila and TC ended up being so plastered, he was running around half-naked in the snow, hugging my flowerpots and vomiting in multiple locations. If you see him, this should be brought to his attention. Reminding him of this is important.
I am getting my half-sleeve/back/chest piece finished up. The frogs look fantastic and I really like them a lot. Once the chest piece is done, they will be literally near and dear to my heart (though mostly just the near part). And speaking of tattoos!
I was alerted to this dude via Facebook's hilarious habit of shoving shit on my news feed when I have expressly told it "don't do that": This has brought up something that I have come to really despise about (a) being Asian (b) dealing with people who are (for lack of a better description) "weeaboos." Yes, I am Chinese. Yes, I like Chinese stuff. Yes, I understand that Chinese history has spanned many thousands of years. I think it is great that you love the food we make, the quaint little shoes we wear, and our need to create kung-fu schools named after animals. Yes, I think pandas are awesome and while I love that bamboo is the new "in thing" for renewable building materials I don't need you to bring this up to me all the time. However what I really honestly despise (and this is a two-way street I can assure you) is when Americans who read a little about the language (be it Japanese or Chinese or whatever symbolic language) suddenly believe that, since we use a character driven language that relies on characters made up of lines that represent pictures or however you want to describe it, our linguistic history must be really fucking deep.
I am sure it would piss off Americans if Chinese or Japanese people or Asians in general, were to take American English, bastardize it, and then use it like flair at TGIFriday's and tell you, as an American, that English is so philosophical because you can use the word "vaginate" in such words as "envaginated" and vaginas are for fucking so matral vagination is a really poetic and inspiring way of saying, "motherfucker" and didn't you know how beautiful that is? It's so deepyl rooted in philosophy and deep meaning. I'm sure there are plenty of Americans that look at Asian dudes wearing baggy pants and shirts that say "Spread Beaver" and roll their eyes. I do it too. I also think it's pretty silly and also nearly insulting that you think that the best thing to come out of the English language is "Spread Beaver" and that it needs to be on a shirt. Maybe I'm just old.
Now just imagine an Asian guy - let's take me for an example - running into a dude with kanji or characters or what have you tattooed on themselves and trying to read it. The person tattooed declares quite loudly and with absolute conviction, "this is some deep shit and it describes me perfectly." I then try to explain to them that it doesn't actually mean what they think it means. Chinese characters are context dependent - what they are next to is what gives them a particular meaning. This is something that is typically lost on people who don't read a language that is so heavily context dependent. What one character is next to, or is absent from, means very specific things. It doesn't mean that you can read whatever the hell you want into it. "Pussy" can mean a lot of things, just like the word "lead" or "jog." If I were to say the phrase, "the pussy willow in spring does not thrust its branches towards the heavens but instead drapes lazily towards the earth," you would not immediately parse that as, "the vagina differentiating binary chart female deer (plural) not fucking secondary locations polite feelings directed at another person the place that good Christians go when they die as a reward glutes within a home curtains sleepily polite feelings directed at another person the planet we live on." I really hope you wouldn't at least. But that's basically what you are doing when you see individual character in Chinese that make up a particular "word" and then say "it must be a deep way of referring to that word."
That guy I linked up there? He tattooed wei ji on his back. That's great. I also have tattoos and if they have a deep meaning for you, that's great - but don't just make shit up about a language that you don't even speak. I don't know why I get pissed off about it - but it probably has something to do with people repeatedly telling me that Chinese characters are awesome because they're so symbolic. Sure, it's symbolic, but that doesn't mean a bunch of ancient Chinese dudes sat around drinking plum wine and smoking up herb, thinking about what the most "tubular way of making deep meaningful symbolism for tea is, bro." If anything, you had a bunch of people trying to tell each other what a forest was and drew a bunch of trees. Hey! that's useful! Let's simplify that a bit and just use that every time we want to say "tree." What would you use for a forest fire? How about we use that tree character and put a fire character next to it? Super! Thanks for playing!
So what pisses me off about "wei ji?" You get a lot of people who read shit like this and decide that obviously "wei ji" means danger and opportunity. Actually no, if you ask native speakers this sort of thing, they will tell you that while the second character can mean opportunity in some contexts, in this case it is being used to (a) indicate time (b) emphasize danger. Crisis is a "dangerous time." It is not "opportunity in danger." If we wanted to express opportunity in a time of danger, we would most likely come up with a set of characters that directly express "I might die trying, but there is a really good chance I will be getting seriously hot sexy time with that guy/girl I have been eying across the room if I can use my mantis style martial arts to totally defeat her boyfriend's tiger style martial arts." I can appreciate that you believe that it is poetic and has a deep meaning to it, but while it's fine that you believe that, please understand that you are wrong. Please do not play the, "but you never know" or "you just don't get it" cards. If you're going to do that, at least have the balls to play the, "you guys can't possibly understand your language as well as non-Asian people do," card because that's pretty much how it looks.
Anyways, thank you for telling me I don't understand a language I grew up with! I also have some wonderful leaflets detailing the link between vaccines and autism. I think you might be interested.