Croissants
Damn, I thought it was Thursday today. Damn, that means I'm going to have to go back to work soon. Damn, no more staying up until 5am. Damn damn damn.
Matt Groening understands me.
I'm kinda keen to see the reaction when I post the finished version up on the forum. Apparently girl on girl action is popular in thar.
Sometime later.
Whoa man, internets. Funny how following links at 2am can see me still browsing around at 5am reading Wikipedia articles on China. And to think it all started because I was looking at the Racial Slurs Database. Actually, the whole reason I was looking at that in the first place was out of curiosity to see if the term "Eggplant" was an actual derogatory term like they used in that movie Enemy Of The State.
And then while I was in the neighbourhood, I got this urge to see the where the term "Tojo" came from, since I'd always thought it was short for "Tokyo Joe" after having played Heroes Of The Pacific.
Turns out "Tojo" comes from Hideki Tojo, the Minister for War at the time who'd ordered the strikes on Pearl Harbor. So, okay, I'm not too great with my WWII history, so I thought I'd look him up on Wikipedia. And then links from that page lead to a page on the actual attacks on Pearl, as well as the Battle of Midway and the Yasukuni Shrine. So okay, I thought I'd take a read of that page too since grand dad's always going on about it. Figured it was time to take a look at what's so controversial about it myself.
Links from that point to Junichiro Koizumi, former Japanese Prime Minister who caused a bit of a stir by visiting the shrine on occasions. From there there was a link to Shinzo Abe, the current Japanese Prime Minister and stuff about how he's trying to smooth relations with China.
And that brings me to where I am now, reading up on my heritage. Every time I'm in China, I promise myself I'd do a little research into China's history since it's not exactly on the school curriculum here in Australia. But because I can't read any of the books there and because the internet is so vigorously policed, it's very hard to get information while I'm actually over there. Thus 2am on a Saturday morning is as good a time as any to actually do something about that.
It's kind of humbling to take an in depth look at just what's available on the subject, and it makes me realise just how ignorant about what my antecedents must have gone through. Not just with present events such as the current government regime, but of things on years past such as the abdication of the monarch, the civil war, and the events of June 4 in 1989, among many things. They struggles, the hyporcracies, the injustices - I never realised just how lucky my generation is to have avoided such turbulant times.
It's ridiculously late now, so I'll have to have a read about the rest of the stuff some other time. Though it is kind of ironic how it turns out that I needed to leave my birth place to find out about it. Still, at least now I know why mum always insists I put down "P.R. China" on my immigration card every time I travel.
Oh yeah, and there was also this. :D
Matt Groening understands me.
I'm kinda keen to see the reaction when I post the finished version up on the forum. Apparently girl on girl action is popular in thar.
Sometime later.
Whoa man, internets. Funny how following links at 2am can see me still browsing around at 5am reading Wikipedia articles on China. And to think it all started because I was looking at the Racial Slurs Database. Actually, the whole reason I was looking at that in the first place was out of curiosity to see if the term "Eggplant" was an actual derogatory term like they used in that movie Enemy Of The State.
And then while I was in the neighbourhood, I got this urge to see the where the term "Tojo" came from, since I'd always thought it was short for "Tokyo Joe" after having played Heroes Of The Pacific.
Turns out "Tojo" comes from Hideki Tojo, the Minister for War at the time who'd ordered the strikes on Pearl Harbor. So, okay, I'm not too great with my WWII history, so I thought I'd look him up on Wikipedia. And then links from that page lead to a page on the actual attacks on Pearl, as well as the Battle of Midway and the Yasukuni Shrine. So okay, I thought I'd take a read of that page too since grand dad's always going on about it. Figured it was time to take a look at what's so controversial about it myself.
Links from that point to Junichiro Koizumi, former Japanese Prime Minister who caused a bit of a stir by visiting the shrine on occasions. From there there was a link to Shinzo Abe, the current Japanese Prime Minister and stuff about how he's trying to smooth relations with China.
And that brings me to where I am now, reading up on my heritage. Every time I'm in China, I promise myself I'd do a little research into China's history since it's not exactly on the school curriculum here in Australia. But because I can't read any of the books there and because the internet is so vigorously policed, it's very hard to get information while I'm actually over there. Thus 2am on a Saturday morning is as good a time as any to actually do something about that.
It's kind of humbling to take an in depth look at just what's available on the subject, and it makes me realise just how ignorant about what my antecedents must have gone through. Not just with present events such as the current government regime, but of things on years past such as the abdication of the monarch, the civil war, and the events of June 4 in 1989, among many things. They struggles, the hyporcracies, the injustices - I never realised just how lucky my generation is to have avoided such turbulant times.
It's ridiculously late now, so I'll have to have a read about the rest of the stuff some other time. Though it is kind of ironic how it turns out that I needed to leave my birth place to find out about it. Still, at least now I know why mum always insists I put down "P.R. China" on my immigration card every time I travel.
Oh yeah, and there was also this. :D