Americans have long since taken to roasting themselves inside those ovens of artificial sunshine in attempt to, by any means necessary, bypass that middle-aged basement dwelling son of the energy world, solar power. That big ball of gas, situated at the center of our universe, was adequate for a time, but in the same way that the good people at Chia improved upon the previously perceived perfection of grass, so Edison was able to deposit dazzling cargoes of light into those places that had never before felt the torch-like touch of that luminous substance. And with this innovation, the darkness vanished, and was immediately replaced by its incandescent counterpart. However, from dark to light was only one of two directions that this newfound technology was capable of navigating. That is, thanks to the illuminating efforts of numerous brilliantly bronzed pioneers, seeking to cure a Hollywood diagnosed plague of paleness, a reversal was realized, and these bright bulbs were proven quite effective in darkening skin poor on pigment.
As time went on, science was successful in both the careful classification and subsequent manipulation of the properties that this new direction promised. For instance, when the inability of these fabricated rays to pierce a mere sticker was observed, researchers responded by harnessing this lack of penetration. Paper patches were cut into shapes tracing only the most tasteful assortment of nationally recognized symbols and then laid upon the bare skin of some brave, but peach participant. The radiant result was something similar to a sun stained silhouette, given shape by a two toned contrast on its fleshy canvas. My personal favorite design was the “Alfred Hitchcock”. Nothing ever seemed to compliment a golden brown tan like that pudgy profile.
Needless to say, as a plant basking in the nourishing rays that the sun generously, yet feebly offers, will bear much fruit, so have these labors bore a bountiful harvest, fueled by their own super-solar source and ripened by the darkening demand of the times. However, to some around the world, such progress is a puzzling thing. To them, jumping into the booth is, in effect, taking that TGIF inspired regression from the suave Stefan back to the awkward Urkel. Sure the latter cared more about Laura, but the former got to share the stage with New Edition.
(Note: In regards to the last reference, I do encourage anyone reading this to investigate the scientific merits of “cool juice” and/or “boss sauce”. I personally can’t bring myself to do it after the let-down that the apparently fictional flux capacitor awarded.)
Culturally, the Vietnamese are one such people who find this desire for a more pronounced pigment a bit peculiar. A strong tan has traditionally been associated with long hours of daily fieldwork. In turn, in equal and opposite reaction, a light tone became a bodily badge of status, establishing melanin as the new stonewashed “ao dai”.
Still today in this country, great efforts are taken to shield one’s self from those resourceful rays. That is, against an enemy that can reflect, refract, and travel at the speed of itself, defense is no easy task. And this must be compounded with the almost certain frustration the sun must feel in response to its mere 5 billion years of existence remaining, in which all it has to look forward to is sitting around the same lonely place in the galaxy and expanding to many times its current size. So before it resolves to receiving static ridden signals of Diagnosis Murder, which will hopefully have arrived by then, and dawning a massive interstellar muumuu, it’s quite likely that it wants to make each of our lives as miserable as possible, giving Americans too little of its radiant residue, and the Vietnamese too much. As such, it’s no secret that these Asians have their work cut out for them.
The first and most practical tactic comprising this anti-exposure arsenal is the simple art of avoidance. A little over a week ago, I found myself, and the rest of my American team, all alone on the deck of a pool, which in accordance to it’s current wader to water ratio, was sized to decadent proportions. It was midday and the sun was throwing all he had at this country in cover, as most of its residents seemed to be positioned safely indoors. However, to all of us, this was the perfect place to set up camp and we capitalized on these isolating sentiments by repeatedly performing the one aquatic maneuver that requires its executer to yell its name with each and every execution. That is, the cannonball, and I’ve even come to find that this practice of subtle narration also spices up many otherwise mundane activities. For instance, as I write this, every English speaking person in the café that I’m sitting is fully aware that I’m word processing.
Soon though, as late afternoon approached, and the sun retreated, the masses returned and these falls of grace were rendered at best inconsiderate, and at worst, deadly. So, after a few Dale Jr. denouncing remarks, retaliatory in nature, and some collision induced casualties, we took the hint and moved on.
But, unfortunately, at times, one must leave his or her ray resistant shelter and venture out to face the elements, even when that flared up foe is highest in the sky. In such occasions, special pains are taken to cover any otherwise brandished body parts. To this purpose, some traditional defenses have been revised and revamped to contemporary cultural trends. For example, the simple genius behind the tried and true conical hat and its portable portioning of shade has been uprooted from the fields and planted fresh in the surprisingly fertile soil of asphalt. It’s quite common to see female motor bikers taking refuge under a ringed helmet extension, supplying the headgear with a solar blocking brim, casting a cooling blanket of shadow upon the motorist’s face.
However, even this accessory can be further accessorized in the battle against baking. The riding smock, the unpretentious cousin of the turtleneck, is another common armor choice. It’s draped over each and every area that finds itself snugly situated between the neck and waist, even exerting its powers of protection on the wrists and hands. Most frequently, it’s fashioned with flowing floral designs, patterns that would give even the most daring artists at Bounty a run for their money.
So, in light of these often agonizing efforts to either procure or preclude pigment, it appears that the varied vantage points that culture provides are the color conscious catalysts. In the same way, regarding the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, I have to think that the silent onlookers did somewhat believe that this anything but modestly garbed monarch did in fact have a shiny new suit. Psychology has long ago proved that social pressure is a powerful thing. However, in this case, the emperor is a golden brown George Hamilton.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Lost in Transportation
I felt like Dustin Hoffman in the movie Outbreak, which, in it’s own way, wasn’t completely wayward, because it was nice, for once, to shed that Raymond Babbitt persona that a foreign culture so often elicits. Like the immunity granted him by his airtight uniform, working to guard him from that vicious viral menace, I too, armed with two decades of sitting in the “shotgun” seat beside my mother, was spared from the biological turmoil raging around me.
I was at Sun Park, recently changed from the slightly less hip, in the celestial sense, Moon Park. It’s an amusement park, not a Korean friend, with rides that wouldn’t quite rival that of a Six Flags or King’s Island, but had more to offer than your average county carnival. And honestly, perhaps this former fact was for the best.
After every up and down or side to side series that each attraction awarded, it seemed that at least one student would rush from whatever brightly colored cage he or she was just freed from, find the nearest patch of patch of grass, and blotch the green with the brown of a newly liberated lunch. Even the seemingly mild back and forth movement of that classic ride, the pirate ship, wasn’t without a slew of vomiting victims. In fact, it became an enormous pendulum, signifying each new hour with the chiming of faintly heard heaves.
It seems that the average Vietnamese stomach has been almost exclusively conditioned to the specific motion of motorbikes. As such, any break from this motional standard is often met with clumps of unprocessed protest. Larger, unfamiliar deviations appear to produce the most avid internal angst, like those supplied by the novel, and often airborne, patterns of park pulleys and tracks. However, even a slightly extended excursion via car or bus can compromise the passenger’s nutritional packaging, resulting in yet another parcel marked “return to sender”.
This calibrator of undisturbed digestion, the motorbike, is, subsequently, responsible for the vast majority of motorized movement carried out in this country. I suppose there really isn’t any stateside equivalent to this vehicle, but it’s something in between your typical midlife crisis motorcycle and that barely post-pubescent hormonal transport, the Yamaha Razz. A wide variety of options peruse the city, with models like the sleek and stylish Vespa representing the flashier end of the spectrum and the sensibly modest Honda Dream rounding out the other. Personally though, I was just relieved to find that the latter wasn’t an occurrence of waking up damp with motor oil.
These two-wheelers are suited quite well for the city of Hanoi. The narrow roads, which must accommodate for the densely packed population, often resemble overworked arteries assailed by the steady diet of a chalupa enthusiast. The small stature of the motorbike allows for a certainly constricted, yet usually fluid movement, in such situations, as burdensome barriers like regimented traffic lanes can be eliminated. Any open space, no matter the size or respective locale, becomes a legitimate next step on the congested journey onward.
With this heavy concentration of flow, high velocities, as a whole, aren’t common commodities of the Hanoian motorist. On top of that, for safety purposes, the road regulations officially outlaw any speeds over 30 kilometers an hour. However, this restriction is followed with about the same zeal as your average American speed limit. At least that seems to be the case, because, to be honest, I really have no idea how fast that is. It’s likely some rate derived by a staggering quantity of cubits. I’ve resolved many times upon exact calculation, but the occasional discarded syringe has proved a powerful deterrent in any continuous progression of pavement to forearm contact. So, with a badge of scar tissue and some fellow foreigners in my bloodstream, I’ve resigned to simply go with this flow, without any thoughts of arguably outdated units, as I saddle the passenger’s portion of a friend's bike seat.
However, with a small, but daily growing presence, the car is throwing an ever-increasing amount of four wheeled, boxy wrenches into the cluttered cogs of this somehow successful traffic system.
Now, that’s not to speak of the public buses, which do, most of the time, function as space savers when you compare their rider to room ratio. In fact, at times, bus trips have left me green with envy over the arena rock audience. I mean, here we are, both listening to “Every Rose has its Thorn” over a scratchy loudspeaker, but all the while, they’re swimming in their ocean of comparatively empty space.
But, the car, on other hand, is a different story. Taking up the space of multiple motorbikes, yet often housing only one occupant, this vehicle presents unfavorable passenger to pavement proportions. It lacks the ability for the makeshift maneuvers that keep this citywide stampede in transit and clogs the pedestrian heavy sidewalks near it’s drivers desired destination, as parking lots are few and far between here.
Currently, these autos aren’t easy to come by. The import tax, which applies to each and every model purchased, is around 83%, nearly doubling the dongs dished out. As Vietnam becomes more involved in the WTO however, this figure is expected to undergo a significant drop, a change that will most certainly catalyze a larger number of able agents to look at life behind the retractable windows of a luxury sedan. In regards to the movement of the masses, this will likely cause some stalling.
As for me though, most my travels are taken atop my formerly 3-speed bicycle, which, in an act of sacrificial streamlining, has recently shed itself of those apparently excessive first two gears, graciously giving them back to the street they had so long navigated. It’s a machine of simple maintenance, which forfeits high priced fuel for the cheap, albeit often exhausting, power source of pedaling. So I am sincerely grateful that the makeup of Hanoi traffic renders this cycle perfectly capable of carrying me anywhere I wish in the city
In turn, as the petrol propelled players, hurriedly acting out this surprisingly well received, but not quite smooth performance, change over the coming years, I’d like to think that the bicycle will remain a castable extra. In the very least though, despite the increased air pollution likely produced from this new roster, one will undoubtedly be able to take comfort in the abdominal acclimation that is sure to follow, a phenomenon that will be quite effective in keeping some local parks much cleaner.
I was at Sun Park, recently changed from the slightly less hip, in the celestial sense, Moon Park. It’s an amusement park, not a Korean friend, with rides that wouldn’t quite rival that of a Six Flags or King’s Island, but had more to offer than your average county carnival. And honestly, perhaps this former fact was for the best.
After every up and down or side to side series that each attraction awarded, it seemed that at least one student would rush from whatever brightly colored cage he or she was just freed from, find the nearest patch of patch of grass, and blotch the green with the brown of a newly liberated lunch. Even the seemingly mild back and forth movement of that classic ride, the pirate ship, wasn’t without a slew of vomiting victims. In fact, it became an enormous pendulum, signifying each new hour with the chiming of faintly heard heaves.
It seems that the average Vietnamese stomach has been almost exclusively conditioned to the specific motion of motorbikes. As such, any break from this motional standard is often met with clumps of unprocessed protest. Larger, unfamiliar deviations appear to produce the most avid internal angst, like those supplied by the novel, and often airborne, patterns of park pulleys and tracks. However, even a slightly extended excursion via car or bus can compromise the passenger’s nutritional packaging, resulting in yet another parcel marked “return to sender”.
This calibrator of undisturbed digestion, the motorbike, is, subsequently, responsible for the vast majority of motorized movement carried out in this country. I suppose there really isn’t any stateside equivalent to this vehicle, but it’s something in between your typical midlife crisis motorcycle and that barely post-pubescent hormonal transport, the Yamaha Razz. A wide variety of options peruse the city, with models like the sleek and stylish Vespa representing the flashier end of the spectrum and the sensibly modest Honda Dream rounding out the other. Personally though, I was just relieved to find that the latter wasn’t an occurrence of waking up damp with motor oil.
These two-wheelers are suited quite well for the city of Hanoi. The narrow roads, which must accommodate for the densely packed population, often resemble overworked arteries assailed by the steady diet of a chalupa enthusiast. The small stature of the motorbike allows for a certainly constricted, yet usually fluid movement, in such situations, as burdensome barriers like regimented traffic lanes can be eliminated. Any open space, no matter the size or respective locale, becomes a legitimate next step on the congested journey onward.
With this heavy concentration of flow, high velocities, as a whole, aren’t common commodities of the Hanoian motorist. On top of that, for safety purposes, the road regulations officially outlaw any speeds over 30 kilometers an hour. However, this restriction is followed with about the same zeal as your average American speed limit. At least that seems to be the case, because, to be honest, I really have no idea how fast that is. It’s likely some rate derived by a staggering quantity of cubits. I’ve resolved many times upon exact calculation, but the occasional discarded syringe has proved a powerful deterrent in any continuous progression of pavement to forearm contact. So, with a badge of scar tissue and some fellow foreigners in my bloodstream, I’ve resigned to simply go with this flow, without any thoughts of arguably outdated units, as I saddle the passenger’s portion of a friend's bike seat.
However, with a small, but daily growing presence, the car is throwing an ever-increasing amount of four wheeled, boxy wrenches into the cluttered cogs of this somehow successful traffic system.
Now, that’s not to speak of the public buses, which do, most of the time, function as space savers when you compare their rider to room ratio. In fact, at times, bus trips have left me green with envy over the arena rock audience. I mean, here we are, both listening to “Every Rose has its Thorn” over a scratchy loudspeaker, but all the while, they’re swimming in their ocean of comparatively empty space.
But, the car, on other hand, is a different story. Taking up the space of multiple motorbikes, yet often housing only one occupant, this vehicle presents unfavorable passenger to pavement proportions. It lacks the ability for the makeshift maneuvers that keep this citywide stampede in transit and clogs the pedestrian heavy sidewalks near it’s drivers desired destination, as parking lots are few and far between here.
Currently, these autos aren’t easy to come by. The import tax, which applies to each and every model purchased, is around 83%, nearly doubling the dongs dished out. As Vietnam becomes more involved in the WTO however, this figure is expected to undergo a significant drop, a change that will most certainly catalyze a larger number of able agents to look at life behind the retractable windows of a luxury sedan. In regards to the movement of the masses, this will likely cause some stalling.
As for me though, most my travels are taken atop my formerly 3-speed bicycle, which, in an act of sacrificial streamlining, has recently shed itself of those apparently excessive first two gears, graciously giving them back to the street they had so long navigated. It’s a machine of simple maintenance, which forfeits high priced fuel for the cheap, albeit often exhausting, power source of pedaling. So I am sincerely grateful that the makeup of Hanoi traffic renders this cycle perfectly capable of carrying me anywhere I wish in the city
In turn, as the petrol propelled players, hurriedly acting out this surprisingly well received, but not quite smooth performance, change over the coming years, I’d like to think that the bicycle will remain a castable extra. In the very least though, despite the increased air pollution likely produced from this new roster, one will undoubtedly be able to take comfort in the abdominal acclimation that is sure to follow, a phenomenon that will be quite effective in keeping some local parks much cleaner.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Jerry O'Connell is Watching You
A few years ago, I found that many around the world refer to that meticulously mapped portion of the South Pacific, comprised of an astonishingly numerous assortment of islands, as Oceania. Until then, in all my academic endeavors, this continent had been clearly and continually identified as Australia. As you can imagine, such information isn’t ingested easily, as a seventh of the world has suddenly, in one fell factoidal swoop, become something different. It was like when that loveable Sheriff Griffith emerged from a cocoon of syndication as Matlock, only 32,000,000 times more painful. And now I can’t help but worriedly wonder if perhaps my own long lost landmass known as North America will someday undergo a similar identity theft, with the contentintily unrecognized Mexico and Canada running up questionable quantities of charged hockey pucks and soccer balls. All the while, those pavement patriots are skipping their Talladega victory laps to clock into second shift at some mall kiosk, just to cover the bogus bill.
However, this sour scenario becomes a sugar laden diabetic danger compared with the horrible net that Oceania will potentially cast upon the Americas in the not so far off, albeit delayed, future. At least according to an astutely dismal account I recently read. Being a denim enthusiast, I had initially hoped, judging by its title, that this text would be a snapshot chronicling all things stonewashed, as they appeared four years into the 80’s. However, sadly, I soon discovered that this book had no discussion of the tasteful leg-wear this decade had to offer. Rather it was a dark glimpse into a super state entitled, coincidentally enough, Oceania, which just so happened to include the majority of that continent currently carrying this label, as well as it’s two connected neighbors across the Pacific that share a common namesake. In fact, the one and only redeeming quality this nightmare of a nation seemed to supply was the blue overalls, presumably denim, made mandatory dress for many of its members.
Personally, as someone who has derived most of his foreign policy opinions from Toby Keith songs and Left Behind novels, I’ve been properly primed to give such a prediction the urgent, yet strangely affirming attention it demands and deserves. To me, it doesn’t seem that far fetched that this Orwell character, the man who penned this prophecy, was privy to some changing tide in continental colonialism, which was missed by his contemporaries and successors, as they were busy building sand castles with the diversionary Hasselhoffs of global affairs. Perhaps some subtle clues observed in his travels had alerted him to an array of alarming trends. Tendencies that his manuscript portrayed in full maturity.
For instance, from the temporal perspective in which this glance is given, the majority of everyday affairs are attended to in a language officially referred to as Oldspeak, but we would recognize it as English. However, the soon to be sole tongue of Orwell’s Oceania is Newspeak, that is after it’s forthcoming, yet still far off, full and complete implementation. The factor that sets this latter labeled language apart from any other is its peculiar propensity to actually decrease in lexical magnitude with each and every year. This curious characteristic is due to its slow refining by the ruling organization that gathers under the banner of Big Brother. This gradual dropping of words deemed dross is purposed to render critical cognitions directed at this group impossible, as such thoughts would lack the linguistic girders to support their meanings.
Orwell himself actually spent a considerable bit of his youth in India, and perhaps like myself, amidst this time in Asia, he found it favorable to impart the nationals with the knowledge of Oldspeak. Maybe it was during one such language lesson that the beginnings of a movement toward Newspeak became apparent, or at least possible. I’ll admit, this suggestion may strike its audience as quite unlikely, a just criticism surely wetting the confidence that the claim seeks to kindle. However, inside my mental tender box, below a handsome collection of pogs, rest shards of shed bark, their hints of rings telling of life gone by. A fresh addition, slightly gnarled by its misdirected search for the sun above, should be the perfect piece to grant this theory the spark that it needs.
That is to say that recently, one of my fellow teachers came across some compromising curriculum that was residing comfortably and undisturbed inside a textbook from which he teaches. The first flag that caught his eye was a multiple page-spanning chapter entitled “The Family Jewels”, complete with a barrage of expressions equipped to create conversations around this very topic. Needless to say, I was disgusted, but also a bit confused. Littering this lewd section were pictures of jewelry, armoires, and other assorted, seemingly aged, relics. My best guess was that the original images were spliced out in exchange for something non-threatening, something with the soothing subtlety of an “Antiques Road Show”, as a sort of penance for the mere privilege of being printed.
In Oldspeaking occasions, it seems to me that comments and phrases derived from this questionable content would, rather than bring its orators into closer connections with those they interact, instead alienate them inside an unbreakable bubble whose film consists of glossy restraining orders. However, this end may in fact be the desired goal of these perverted publishers. In the same way that Big Brother seeks to destroy the ties between those it subjugates, as such pathways of personal exchange represent lingering liabilities, perhaps these composers of conversational smut are similarly striving, and even building upon the work begun long ago, which went unnoticed by all but one lone Englishman in India.
However, this sour scenario becomes a sugar laden diabetic danger compared with the horrible net that Oceania will potentially cast upon the Americas in the not so far off, albeit delayed, future. At least according to an astutely dismal account I recently read. Being a denim enthusiast, I had initially hoped, judging by its title, that this text would be a snapshot chronicling all things stonewashed, as they appeared four years into the 80’s. However, sadly, I soon discovered that this book had no discussion of the tasteful leg-wear this decade had to offer. Rather it was a dark glimpse into a super state entitled, coincidentally enough, Oceania, which just so happened to include the majority of that continent currently carrying this label, as well as it’s two connected neighbors across the Pacific that share a common namesake. In fact, the one and only redeeming quality this nightmare of a nation seemed to supply was the blue overalls, presumably denim, made mandatory dress for many of its members.
Personally, as someone who has derived most of his foreign policy opinions from Toby Keith songs and Left Behind novels, I’ve been properly primed to give such a prediction the urgent, yet strangely affirming attention it demands and deserves. To me, it doesn’t seem that far fetched that this Orwell character, the man who penned this prophecy, was privy to some changing tide in continental colonialism, which was missed by his contemporaries and successors, as they were busy building sand castles with the diversionary Hasselhoffs of global affairs. Perhaps some subtle clues observed in his travels had alerted him to an array of alarming trends. Tendencies that his manuscript portrayed in full maturity.
For instance, from the temporal perspective in which this glance is given, the majority of everyday affairs are attended to in a language officially referred to as Oldspeak, but we would recognize it as English. However, the soon to be sole tongue of Orwell’s Oceania is Newspeak, that is after it’s forthcoming, yet still far off, full and complete implementation. The factor that sets this latter labeled language apart from any other is its peculiar propensity to actually decrease in lexical magnitude with each and every year. This curious characteristic is due to its slow refining by the ruling organization that gathers under the banner of Big Brother. This gradual dropping of words deemed dross is purposed to render critical cognitions directed at this group impossible, as such thoughts would lack the linguistic girders to support their meanings.
Orwell himself actually spent a considerable bit of his youth in India, and perhaps like myself, amidst this time in Asia, he found it favorable to impart the nationals with the knowledge of Oldspeak. Maybe it was during one such language lesson that the beginnings of a movement toward Newspeak became apparent, or at least possible. I’ll admit, this suggestion may strike its audience as quite unlikely, a just criticism surely wetting the confidence that the claim seeks to kindle. However, inside my mental tender box, below a handsome collection of pogs, rest shards of shed bark, their hints of rings telling of life gone by. A fresh addition, slightly gnarled by its misdirected search for the sun above, should be the perfect piece to grant this theory the spark that it needs.
That is to say that recently, one of my fellow teachers came across some compromising curriculum that was residing comfortably and undisturbed inside a textbook from which he teaches. The first flag that caught his eye was a multiple page-spanning chapter entitled “The Family Jewels”, complete with a barrage of expressions equipped to create conversations around this very topic. Needless to say, I was disgusted, but also a bit confused. Littering this lewd section were pictures of jewelry, armoires, and other assorted, seemingly aged, relics. My best guess was that the original images were spliced out in exchange for something non-threatening, something with the soothing subtlety of an “Antiques Road Show”, as a sort of penance for the mere privilege of being printed.
In Oldspeaking occasions, it seems to me that comments and phrases derived from this questionable content would, rather than bring its orators into closer connections with those they interact, instead alienate them inside an unbreakable bubble whose film consists of glossy restraining orders. However, this end may in fact be the desired goal of these perverted publishers. In the same way that Big Brother seeks to destroy the ties between those it subjugates, as such pathways of personal exchange represent lingering liabilities, perhaps these composers of conversational smut are similarly striving, and even building upon the work begun long ago, which went unnoticed by all but one lone Englishman in India.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Teleological Suspension of the Edible
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard argues that amidst a life defining commitment, a particular person may, in accordance with the demands of this liberally lavished loyalty, be called upon to rise above the universal ethics of his or her culture. His mascot, of multiple mentions, whom he posits plainly pioneered this phenomenon, is Abraham the patriarch. His case is loosely as follows: a man of faith, in allegiance to a higher calling, brought his son Isaac to Mount Moriah for a purpose too peculiar to be esteemed as ethical. It’s a controversial claim to be sure, with philosophical implications way beyond the breadth and nature of this blog. However, this notion has been heavy on my mind as of late, due to a recent eating excursion I embarked upon, leaving me far outside the camp of edible American ethics.
In effect, at least according to this deep thinking and arguably great Dane, I was dragging many of my beloved childhood heroes up those sacrificial slopes. Lassie, who had time and time again saved that accident prone Timmy from the deadly depths of the village well, was to meet her own ideological end on these craggy heights. Chance and Shadow, who crossed vast and dangerous distances to reunite with their subsequently overjoyed owners, were to find that perhaps, in the end, they were safer in that foe-filled forest. Spuds Mackenzie, “the original party dog”, was about to realize that liver disease wasn’t the only fatal factor to fear.
When the summit was reached, that is, when the dish was placed on the top of the table, warm and speckled with ginger, there was no replacement ram. No beef. No chicken. No pork. Not even tofu. In fact, to add to the trepidation of the trial, this serving was coupled with a crustacean flavored condiment made of shrimp. This strange sauce was purple in color and amazingly potent in aroma. I wrapped my right hand around a pair of chopsticks, pinched a small portion of meat, dabbed it in a shallow well of violet, and brought the contents slowly to my reluctant lips. And with that, I ate my first bit of dog.
In Vietnam, it’s a popular pastime for men to go out together with the purpose of consuming this canine cuisine over a couple of beers. My best guess would be that the alcohol functions as some type of chaser. Such dining only takes place during the first half of any lunar month though, as it’s unlucky to partake of this amply processed Purina once the latter half hits.
In my case, my good friend L. brought an order of this mutty meat, purchased from a local street side shop, to the guesthouse as a compliment to the dinner a few of us American teachers were preparing. The main course was to be a batch of sloppy joes, courtesy of Scott’s kitchen expertise, which would easily rival that of any Rachel Ray recipe broadcasted on the back of some “Mesquite Style Lucky Charms” box, alliterative namesake and all.
This doggy bag brought with it much to ponder. For the sake of cross cultural friendships, you’re sometimes faced with such situations, where you must either cling to the familiar normality of your native notions, or suspend them for a time while you take part in some relatively trying tradition that stretches your previous conceptions of what constitutes food, dress, conversational exchange, and so on. So, with a relationally fueled resolve, I ate what was before me, as described above, and honestly, once the mental hurtles had been jumped, thanks to the bulging thighs of my spandex laden neurons, the taste was that of any grilled meat. However, it did take a while to dissolve in your mouth. I suppose this left it somewhere between a Big Mac and a Jawbreaker.
With all that said, I’m not making any Swift style proposal to deal with all of the strays running loose in the land from where I come. That place has it’s own culinary conscious, rendering such a meal as something less than edibly legitimate, even with the culturally consoling thought that all of these perspective entrees would go to heaven. Besides, man’s best friend could never become his Wednesday lunch special, at least not without some form of demonizing done to the eaten party. For instance, merely consider the tarnished reputation that Ronald dealt the Hamburglar to justify each and every quarter-pound piece of flesh sold and devoured.
If America slandered these precious pets in any sort of similar way, we’d lose a lot. Not least of which would be police comedies featuring high strung detectives paired with large, unruly dogs and, of course, an important artistic heritage of portraits portraying these animals gambling socially. Quite frankly, that’s not an America in which I would want to live.
However, for the time being, I’m in a different place with a different palate. As such, I will continue to counter my conception that dining on dogs is a wrong practice. I’m not going to rush out and sample a side of shepherd any time soon, but, if a friend buys a round of Rover, then I’ll courteously partake.
So tonight, like every Sunday night, I’ll watch the recent remake of the Shaggy Dog. If I find that the animal actor looks abnormally appetizing, I’ll let it slide, at least for the remainder of my stay in Hanoi. I figure it’s not until Tim Allen begins to look delicious that I should start to worry.
In effect, at least according to this deep thinking and arguably great Dane, I was dragging many of my beloved childhood heroes up those sacrificial slopes. Lassie, who had time and time again saved that accident prone Timmy from the deadly depths of the village well, was to meet her own ideological end on these craggy heights. Chance and Shadow, who crossed vast and dangerous distances to reunite with their subsequently overjoyed owners, were to find that perhaps, in the end, they were safer in that foe-filled forest. Spuds Mackenzie, “the original party dog”, was about to realize that liver disease wasn’t the only fatal factor to fear.
When the summit was reached, that is, when the dish was placed on the top of the table, warm and speckled with ginger, there was no replacement ram. No beef. No chicken. No pork. Not even tofu. In fact, to add to the trepidation of the trial, this serving was coupled with a crustacean flavored condiment made of shrimp. This strange sauce was purple in color and amazingly potent in aroma. I wrapped my right hand around a pair of chopsticks, pinched a small portion of meat, dabbed it in a shallow well of violet, and brought the contents slowly to my reluctant lips. And with that, I ate my first bit of dog.
In Vietnam, it’s a popular pastime for men to go out together with the purpose of consuming this canine cuisine over a couple of beers. My best guess would be that the alcohol functions as some type of chaser. Such dining only takes place during the first half of any lunar month though, as it’s unlucky to partake of this amply processed Purina once the latter half hits.
In my case, my good friend L. brought an order of this mutty meat, purchased from a local street side shop, to the guesthouse as a compliment to the dinner a few of us American teachers were preparing. The main course was to be a batch of sloppy joes, courtesy of Scott’s kitchen expertise, which would easily rival that of any Rachel Ray recipe broadcasted on the back of some “Mesquite Style Lucky Charms” box, alliterative namesake and all.
This doggy bag brought with it much to ponder. For the sake of cross cultural friendships, you’re sometimes faced with such situations, where you must either cling to the familiar normality of your native notions, or suspend them for a time while you take part in some relatively trying tradition that stretches your previous conceptions of what constitutes food, dress, conversational exchange, and so on. So, with a relationally fueled resolve, I ate what was before me, as described above, and honestly, once the mental hurtles had been jumped, thanks to the bulging thighs of my spandex laden neurons, the taste was that of any grilled meat. However, it did take a while to dissolve in your mouth. I suppose this left it somewhere between a Big Mac and a Jawbreaker.
With all that said, I’m not making any Swift style proposal to deal with all of the strays running loose in the land from where I come. That place has it’s own culinary conscious, rendering such a meal as something less than edibly legitimate, even with the culturally consoling thought that all of these perspective entrees would go to heaven. Besides, man’s best friend could never become his Wednesday lunch special, at least not without some form of demonizing done to the eaten party. For instance, merely consider the tarnished reputation that Ronald dealt the Hamburglar to justify each and every quarter-pound piece of flesh sold and devoured.
If America slandered these precious pets in any sort of similar way, we’d lose a lot. Not least of which would be police comedies featuring high strung detectives paired with large, unruly dogs and, of course, an important artistic heritage of portraits portraying these animals gambling socially. Quite frankly, that’s not an America in which I would want to live.
However, for the time being, I’m in a different place with a different palate. As such, I will continue to counter my conception that dining on dogs is a wrong practice. I’m not going to rush out and sample a side of shepherd any time soon, but, if a friend buys a round of Rover, then I’ll courteously partake.
So tonight, like every Sunday night, I’ll watch the recent remake of the Shaggy Dog. If I find that the animal actor looks abnormally appetizing, I’ll let it slide, at least for the remainder of my stay in Hanoi. I figure it’s not until Tim Allen begins to look delicious that I should start to worry.
Monday, March 17, 2008
They remind of Dignan in that way
A few days ago, I was having dinner with a student who I’ve come to count as close friend. Amidst this meal, stocked with a queue of cuisine that I no longer consider curious, I asked for what seemed to be a simple and straightforward favor. The request was for a small compilation of various phrases, chosen at his own direct discretion, which would serve as fashionable accessories to the bare halter-top that is my Vietnamese lexicon.
He excitedly agreed and, after several swelling servings of food ingested and words spoken, hurried home to hone his fantasy expression roster. A lot of the heavy hitters that dominate many of the everyday exchanges had already been drafted, but I knew there were still some quality picks resting just below my rudimentary radar. I wasn’t necessarily asking for an Air Bud or an Icebox, but rather, simply something solid, like Gary Busey in Rookie of the Year.
Well the next day I received the list and was taken back a bit by the conversational content. The only phrase translated in entirety was as follows, “At the bottom of my heart I want to say that I love you so much,” a statement quite forward for anything short of a Hallmark card.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite partial to the people that daily peruse the bustling street on which I live. It’s largely a cast of familiar characters and, at least mentally, each time they come into view and offer their own salutational catch phrases, given pronounial distinction by their age and gender, I hear a healthy appropriation of applause. However, in response to these friendly fragments of hellos and goodbyes, I just wouldn’t feel anything close to comfortable offering up this newly learned bit of language. In fact, I suppose there’s only one person I could sincerely say this to, and sadly, he stopped being in charge of my days and my nights, my wrongs and my rights, long ago.
Later that day though, pondering hard at my desk, this bit of translated romance began to make sense, in light of something larger. It was a talkably tangible representation of a tendency evident in many of the students here. It made me realize that I was the one who was a little off. I was the cynical American. All I had was Charles, but they had so much more.
I thought back to a teaching episode that had transpired last semester. It had been a week of much work, which had left me faintly fatigued for the final class of that stretch. Afterwards, some of those in this course asked me if I had lost love. It was their first and most confident suspicion to explain this lack of teacherly tenacity. It was a little awkward, and since then, just to be safe, during those days of densely scheduled duties, I’ve taken to mainlining the most extreme energy drink legally available. That’s right, Commando Bear. And my platelets have never been so ferocious. Seriously, they will clot your freaking face off.
(It really is a drink. I saw a billboard for it on the way to a city named Ninh Binh: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11955465/Commando_Bear_Energy_Drink.html)
On another such occasion, I was with some friends enjoying some ice cream. The weather had not yet turned for the frigid, but we were clearly on the cusp of this change. The conversation went from the weather to the ice cream to a combination of the two. I learned that it was regarded as romantic to eat this snowy snack in cold conditions, a fact I consciously filed in a folder already thick from other such notions. I carefully slid it behind the last entry: the romance attached to glasses on guys via the Fabios from Korean films.
However, this too is a piece of something bigger.
In Vietnam, karaoke seems to be the preferred activity for most nights out. As such, the nationals can belt ballads like nobody’s business. The lists of songs vary greatly from place to place, but there seems to a be a few pieces present in each and every papered procession, likely laminated and usually enclosed inside a thin plastic binder. One of these consistencies, often selected and subsequently sung, is “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. It’s performed with the utmost sincerity, each lyric a layout for global improvement. However, sitting among a room full of swaying shoulders, each in beat with the rhythm and the message, I always find it difficult to take this song seriously.
All that to say that there’s an idealism here quite unlike anything I’m Americanly accustomed to, and I really do admire it. Back in the states, I wouldn’t have counted myself a cynic, but in this land, at least by comparison, I feel like the Larry David of Chua Lang Street. Tomorrow is a new day though, and perhaps, just maybe, each and every person passed will, to me, become a Baio.
He excitedly agreed and, after several swelling servings of food ingested and words spoken, hurried home to hone his fantasy expression roster. A lot of the heavy hitters that dominate many of the everyday exchanges had already been drafted, but I knew there were still some quality picks resting just below my rudimentary radar. I wasn’t necessarily asking for an Air Bud or an Icebox, but rather, simply something solid, like Gary Busey in Rookie of the Year.
Well the next day I received the list and was taken back a bit by the conversational content. The only phrase translated in entirety was as follows, “At the bottom of my heart I want to say that I love you so much,” a statement quite forward for anything short of a Hallmark card.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite partial to the people that daily peruse the bustling street on which I live. It’s largely a cast of familiar characters and, at least mentally, each time they come into view and offer their own salutational catch phrases, given pronounial distinction by their age and gender, I hear a healthy appropriation of applause. However, in response to these friendly fragments of hellos and goodbyes, I just wouldn’t feel anything close to comfortable offering up this newly learned bit of language. In fact, I suppose there’s only one person I could sincerely say this to, and sadly, he stopped being in charge of my days and my nights, my wrongs and my rights, long ago.
Later that day though, pondering hard at my desk, this bit of translated romance began to make sense, in light of something larger. It was a talkably tangible representation of a tendency evident in many of the students here. It made me realize that I was the one who was a little off. I was the cynical American. All I had was Charles, but they had so much more.
I thought back to a teaching episode that had transpired last semester. It had been a week of much work, which had left me faintly fatigued for the final class of that stretch. Afterwards, some of those in this course asked me if I had lost love. It was their first and most confident suspicion to explain this lack of teacherly tenacity. It was a little awkward, and since then, just to be safe, during those days of densely scheduled duties, I’ve taken to mainlining the most extreme energy drink legally available. That’s right, Commando Bear. And my platelets have never been so ferocious. Seriously, they will clot your freaking face off.
(It really is a drink. I saw a billboard for it on the way to a city named Ninh Binh: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11955465/Commando_Bear_Energy_Drink.html)
On another such occasion, I was with some friends enjoying some ice cream. The weather had not yet turned for the frigid, but we were clearly on the cusp of this change. The conversation went from the weather to the ice cream to a combination of the two. I learned that it was regarded as romantic to eat this snowy snack in cold conditions, a fact I consciously filed in a folder already thick from other such notions. I carefully slid it behind the last entry: the romance attached to glasses on guys via the Fabios from Korean films.
However, this too is a piece of something bigger.
In Vietnam, karaoke seems to be the preferred activity for most nights out. As such, the nationals can belt ballads like nobody’s business. The lists of songs vary greatly from place to place, but there seems to a be a few pieces present in each and every papered procession, likely laminated and usually enclosed inside a thin plastic binder. One of these consistencies, often selected and subsequently sung, is “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. It’s performed with the utmost sincerity, each lyric a layout for global improvement. However, sitting among a room full of swaying shoulders, each in beat with the rhythm and the message, I always find it difficult to take this song seriously.
All that to say that there’s an idealism here quite unlike anything I’m Americanly accustomed to, and I really do admire it. Back in the states, I wouldn’t have counted myself a cynic, but in this land, at least by comparison, I feel like the Larry David of Chua Lang Street. Tomorrow is a new day though, and perhaps, just maybe, each and every person passed will, to me, become a Baio.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Screw the Looking Glass
One of the most acclaimed accounts displaying the sometimes deep discontinuity between faith and reason is a longwinded dialogue given life in The Brothers Karamazov. In this early existential exchange, Ivan, the thinker, artfully articulates the nihilistic notions that have taken form in his burdened brain, and subsequently pried him from the hope to which his brother Alyosha, the then monk-in-training, clings to so firmly. The main thrust of these unsettling sentiments is carried aboard a story Ivan relates, where, in response to the carefully ordered condemnations counted by the character who voices Ivan’s suspicions, the imprisoned, but clear-conscioused convict, offers only one rebuttal, a kiss. Then, Alyosha, after being rebelliously regaled, offers the same objection in thoughtful mimicry, laying lips on his simmering sibling.
I ponder that scene frequently, and am often dumbfounded by the simple genius of Alyosha’s gentle gesture, expressing, perhaps, what words never could. However, sadly, it seems that, at least in my own experience, when riddled by those around me with questions arguably beyond responses of reason, such an affectionate answer would likely put me in prison. On top of that, I’m not so certain that the intended meaning would translate, at least not amidst all of the harassment charges. And it’s true, I am many miles removed from any Russian monastery, but, all the same, I do daily impart perhaps the most mysterious of all matters, that is, English as a foreign language.
Growing up in this linguistic system, it’s natural for me to accept its notoriously strange nuances with a learned and uncritical assurance. When given the task of teaching these in an academic setting though, it’s not uncommon for me feel like I’m explaining love to some token movie robot like Johnny 5. Only by experience will it truly compute, my steel-plated pal.
For example, from the perspective of my students, I have to think that supplying satisfactory suffixes to each adjective and verb is something akin to Minesweeper on my 1993 Compaq Presario. Will “er” let me live to click another flat grey box? Will “ed” drop me in the middle of a mine field? It’s hard to say, but at least this program did provide the player with those colorful numbers that I always assumed navigated every next step in accordance with some strange strategic protocol.
(Note: If that wasn’t the case, then I’d wager that these countable clues were actually the lump sum of “Dorf” viewings that would have been a better use of the clicker’s time. I mean that game was honest to a fault. In that way, it was the Progressive Auto Insurance of early computational entertainment.)
Furthermore, derivational and inflectional inconsistencies are only the tip of this irrational iceberg.
Speaking itself sparks many of its own subtle irregularities. As my students toggle to and fro between tied together terms like photograph and photographer, the strangeness of stressing certain syllables over others is brought to all of our attentions in a strong way. But at least with a few sloped streaks above the separated segments of the words in question, a bit of our naïve hope for normality is restored, as diagramming awards us an apparent degree of systematic structure. It’s in just such an occasion that I think back thankfully to a tenth grade lesson on iambic pentameter, leaving Shakespeare sandwiched between scholastic matinees of Space Jam and Encino Man.
For the record, these two movies were not mentioned mockingly, because they, perhaps more than any other media mechanism, brought to light many of the difficulties produced by societal differences. Quite simply, whether it was portrayed via the dissonance between ice-age and contemporary cultural or human and cartoon culture, the message rang clear: cultural quirks can be a confusing, sometimes frustrating, commodity for the outsider. I’ve come to know this all to well, and like Michael Jordan and Brendan Frasier before me, I feel that such rigors have been both rewarding and refining. However, this isn’t a one-way process, and as a lecturer of language, I often find myself having to explain the entity that entitles words to their very existence and meaning. What the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was to Marty McFly, so culture is to language.
As one might expect, this can further confound the confusion associated with English acquisition. Take for instance, the following encounter with a student politely exiting the classroom:
“Good afternoon Mr. Will.”
“Actually, you can’t say good-bye like that.”
“But you can say good night to say good-bye, right?”
“Well, yeah, but this is different. Good afternoon is like good morning. It’s a way to say hello.”
“So why are they different?”
I suppose this would have been a perfect moment to employ Alyosha’s answer, but, once again, it’s a little less than legal. So instead I admitted my ignorance and played the culture card, all the while harboring a bit of envy for those teachers of simpler subjects. Topics such as particle physics for instance. I mean Yahoo Serious seemed to make it so accessible in that gem of scientific cinema, “Young Einstein.”
Soon though, in such situations, these voices proclaiming the prizes of other vocations are quieted. Then I, like my homeland and its ardent obsession with that bizarre broadcast branded “Lost,” warmly embrace something I don’t fully understand.
I ponder that scene frequently, and am often dumbfounded by the simple genius of Alyosha’s gentle gesture, expressing, perhaps, what words never could. However, sadly, it seems that, at least in my own experience, when riddled by those around me with questions arguably beyond responses of reason, such an affectionate answer would likely put me in prison. On top of that, I’m not so certain that the intended meaning would translate, at least not amidst all of the harassment charges. And it’s true, I am many miles removed from any Russian monastery, but, all the same, I do daily impart perhaps the most mysterious of all matters, that is, English as a foreign language.
Growing up in this linguistic system, it’s natural for me to accept its notoriously strange nuances with a learned and uncritical assurance. When given the task of teaching these in an academic setting though, it’s not uncommon for me feel like I’m explaining love to some token movie robot like Johnny 5. Only by experience will it truly compute, my steel-plated pal.
For example, from the perspective of my students, I have to think that supplying satisfactory suffixes to each adjective and verb is something akin to Minesweeper on my 1993 Compaq Presario. Will “er” let me live to click another flat grey box? Will “ed” drop me in the middle of a mine field? It’s hard to say, but at least this program did provide the player with those colorful numbers that I always assumed navigated every next step in accordance with some strange strategic protocol.
(Note: If that wasn’t the case, then I’d wager that these countable clues were actually the lump sum of “Dorf” viewings that would have been a better use of the clicker’s time. I mean that game was honest to a fault. In that way, it was the Progressive Auto Insurance of early computational entertainment.)
Furthermore, derivational and inflectional inconsistencies are only the tip of this irrational iceberg.
Speaking itself sparks many of its own subtle irregularities. As my students toggle to and fro between tied together terms like photograph and photographer, the strangeness of stressing certain syllables over others is brought to all of our attentions in a strong way. But at least with a few sloped streaks above the separated segments of the words in question, a bit of our naïve hope for normality is restored, as diagramming awards us an apparent degree of systematic structure. It’s in just such an occasion that I think back thankfully to a tenth grade lesson on iambic pentameter, leaving Shakespeare sandwiched between scholastic matinees of Space Jam and Encino Man.
For the record, these two movies were not mentioned mockingly, because they, perhaps more than any other media mechanism, brought to light many of the difficulties produced by societal differences. Quite simply, whether it was portrayed via the dissonance between ice-age and contemporary cultural or human and cartoon culture, the message rang clear: cultural quirks can be a confusing, sometimes frustrating, commodity for the outsider. I’ve come to know this all to well, and like Michael Jordan and Brendan Frasier before me, I feel that such rigors have been both rewarding and refining. However, this isn’t a one-way process, and as a lecturer of language, I often find myself having to explain the entity that entitles words to their very existence and meaning. What the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was to Marty McFly, so culture is to language.
As one might expect, this can further confound the confusion associated with English acquisition. Take for instance, the following encounter with a student politely exiting the classroom:
“Good afternoon Mr. Will.”
“Actually, you can’t say good-bye like that.”
“But you can say good night to say good-bye, right?”
“Well, yeah, but this is different. Good afternoon is like good morning. It’s a way to say hello.”
“So why are they different?”
I suppose this would have been a perfect moment to employ Alyosha’s answer, but, once again, it’s a little less than legal. So instead I admitted my ignorance and played the culture card, all the while harboring a bit of envy for those teachers of simpler subjects. Topics such as particle physics for instance. I mean Yahoo Serious seemed to make it so accessible in that gem of scientific cinema, “Young Einstein.”
Soon though, in such situations, these voices proclaiming the prizes of other vocations are quieted. Then I, like my homeland and its ardent obsession with that bizarre broadcast branded “Lost,” warmly embrace something I don’t fully understand.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Somewhere Between Central and Celsius
For the past few days, I’ve been layering liberally. Contrary to what many might mentally merit, Hanoi is often quite the cold place during these winter months. However, until earlier this week, I had to rely on my own internally guided gauge to judge just what type of temperature had engulfed the city. That’s not to say that Hanoi is without attempt in correctly quantifying this atmospheric entity, it’s just that the only results reported are read in seemingly make-believe measurements, always suffixed with Celsius. I suspect this unusual unit might be quite useful in measuring the blood pressure of unicorns or the certainty of a space rabies diagnosis, but beyond that, its validity seems questionable at best.
Thankfully though, a friend, who just returned from the States, brought with her a certifiably scientific thermometer that reacquainted all of us with that familiar friend called Fahrenheit. This moment was sweet, being both a technological breakthrough and a glorious reunification of sorts, all rolled into one. It was like coming to consciousness while suddenly conceptualizing the flux capacitor, after a nasty toilet bowel injury, compounded with a Montel Williams induced reunion with your long lost high school sweet heart, who, over the last decade, has grown much more confident and taken to wearing a classy pair of leopard skin hot pants. That is, without the burning bump on your head, or, sadly, some sound spectral relationship advice from Sylvia Browne. But, then again, you can’t have your KFC Famous Bowl, and eat it too.
However, when met with these recognizable readouts, I was a bit surprised. The mercury had settled somewhere between 50 and 55, but I had expected it to set up camp much earlier in its upward journey. So here I was, shivering like Billy Zane on the Titanic, when all along, it was really just a crisp autumn day aboard Thunder in Paradise, that is, with my first mate Terry Hogan. But there is good reason for this mistaken case of meteorological measuring.
(Side note: Why has there never been an action movie staring Paul and Terry “Hulk” Hogan? Like Hogan’s Heroes, it could take place in a good-humored Nazi prison camp. Paul could wear a POW uniform he fashioned into a sexy leather vest and Terry would always be ripping his off. The wardrobe dynamics alone would be sensational. Plus, if I’ve learned anything from Indiana Jones, Nazis are always scouring the earth for mystical relics. As such, the movie essentially writes itself. The Hogans, with the Third Reich hot on their trail, must escape the camp and find the ancient weight set that St. Paul used to bulk up with in the Philippi prison yard. However, there’s a surprise ending. This low-rep artifact is the very same set used at the Nazi prison camp, which is evident after the removal of a counterfeit Bowflex sticker. Needless to say, it takes both high-flying Hogans to solve this mystery.)
Hanoi is a city designed to engage the environmental elements. Most of the homes, shops, and cafes, comprising the cluttered urban culture, are open to the air, allowing residents, employees and patrons to, for better or worse (depending on the season), nuzzle up to Mother Nature. In the fall, this afforded a most comfortable climate in each nook and cranny the city had to offer. But, in the winter, it pits you against an arguably mild, but constant, cold that you can never seem to escape. I suppose it’s something similar to that loveable Jason that those 36 soul searching Friday the 13th films introduced us to. There he was, always waiting for you at each and every bend in the forest, his hockey mask peering down at your shivering body.
Regardless, on either count, such an atmosphere is quite novel compared to the climate-controlled heat and air I’ve known for so long, all prefixed with that delightful disclaimer called central. In turn, my biologically innate ability of temperature telling has suffered greatly. Add to that some fantastical Lewis-Carroll/Al-Roker hybrid of a quantifying unit, and even I can correctly predict the approaching of the perfect storm.
To pull it all together, and to place such things in the greater context, I must admit that much of this misfortune does seem directly connected to that muddled up metric system, which vainly attempts to map that world around us, but in the end, serves only to rob us of the wonderful enjoyment that only a myriad of conversion rates can supply. As for Celsius, in light of such occurrences, evidence appears to overwhelmingly convict it as an aiding accomplice. If you find such accusations far-fetched, let’s call a character witness to the courtroom.
In a scene from an internationally celebrated and respected Russian novel, a certain Ivan Karamazov discusses a series of philosophical quandaries with an unwelcome guest, who, amidst these intellectual meanderings, brags of Russia’s conversion to this very system. Well, I hope you’re sitting down as you read this, because that guest was none other than a hallucination claiming to be Satan. So with that, I’ll leave you with two important inquiries regarding this new-age alchemy.
Are such apparitions with evil aspirations the kind of figures you want to keep company with?
If Russia is so much better for this change, then why does the movie Miracle exist?
………………..
Okay so, our organization is holding a conference coming up in Chiang Mai, Thailand and our team is going to spend some extra days in Cambodia and Bangkok along the way, so the next post will likely be more delayed than usual.
Also, I must confess that my bedroom does in fact have a heater.
Thankfully though, a friend, who just returned from the States, brought with her a certifiably scientific thermometer that reacquainted all of us with that familiar friend called Fahrenheit. This moment was sweet, being both a technological breakthrough and a glorious reunification of sorts, all rolled into one. It was like coming to consciousness while suddenly conceptualizing the flux capacitor, after a nasty toilet bowel injury, compounded with a Montel Williams induced reunion with your long lost high school sweet heart, who, over the last decade, has grown much more confident and taken to wearing a classy pair of leopard skin hot pants. That is, without the burning bump on your head, or, sadly, some sound spectral relationship advice from Sylvia Browne. But, then again, you can’t have your KFC Famous Bowl, and eat it too.
However, when met with these recognizable readouts, I was a bit surprised. The mercury had settled somewhere between 50 and 55, but I had expected it to set up camp much earlier in its upward journey. So here I was, shivering like Billy Zane on the Titanic, when all along, it was really just a crisp autumn day aboard Thunder in Paradise, that is, with my first mate Terry Hogan. But there is good reason for this mistaken case of meteorological measuring.
(Side note: Why has there never been an action movie staring Paul and Terry “Hulk” Hogan? Like Hogan’s Heroes, it could take place in a good-humored Nazi prison camp. Paul could wear a POW uniform he fashioned into a sexy leather vest and Terry would always be ripping his off. The wardrobe dynamics alone would be sensational. Plus, if I’ve learned anything from Indiana Jones, Nazis are always scouring the earth for mystical relics. As such, the movie essentially writes itself. The Hogans, with the Third Reich hot on their trail, must escape the camp and find the ancient weight set that St. Paul used to bulk up with in the Philippi prison yard. However, there’s a surprise ending. This low-rep artifact is the very same set used at the Nazi prison camp, which is evident after the removal of a counterfeit Bowflex sticker. Needless to say, it takes both high-flying Hogans to solve this mystery.)
Hanoi is a city designed to engage the environmental elements. Most of the homes, shops, and cafes, comprising the cluttered urban culture, are open to the air, allowing residents, employees and patrons to, for better or worse (depending on the season), nuzzle up to Mother Nature. In the fall, this afforded a most comfortable climate in each nook and cranny the city had to offer. But, in the winter, it pits you against an arguably mild, but constant, cold that you can never seem to escape. I suppose it’s something similar to that loveable Jason that those 36 soul searching Friday the 13th films introduced us to. There he was, always waiting for you at each and every bend in the forest, his hockey mask peering down at your shivering body.
Regardless, on either count, such an atmosphere is quite novel compared to the climate-controlled heat and air I’ve known for so long, all prefixed with that delightful disclaimer called central. In turn, my biologically innate ability of temperature telling has suffered greatly. Add to that some fantastical Lewis-Carroll/Al-Roker hybrid of a quantifying unit, and even I can correctly predict the approaching of the perfect storm.
To pull it all together, and to place such things in the greater context, I must admit that much of this misfortune does seem directly connected to that muddled up metric system, which vainly attempts to map that world around us, but in the end, serves only to rob us of the wonderful enjoyment that only a myriad of conversion rates can supply. As for Celsius, in light of such occurrences, evidence appears to overwhelmingly convict it as an aiding accomplice. If you find such accusations far-fetched, let’s call a character witness to the courtroom.
In a scene from an internationally celebrated and respected Russian novel, a certain Ivan Karamazov discusses a series of philosophical quandaries with an unwelcome guest, who, amidst these intellectual meanderings, brags of Russia’s conversion to this very system. Well, I hope you’re sitting down as you read this, because that guest was none other than a hallucination claiming to be Satan. So with that, I’ll leave you with two important inquiries regarding this new-age alchemy.
Are such apparitions with evil aspirations the kind of figures you want to keep company with?
If Russia is so much better for this change, then why does the movie Miracle exist?
………………..
Okay so, our organization is holding a conference coming up in Chiang Mai, Thailand and our team is going to spend some extra days in Cambodia and Bangkok along the way, so the next post will likely be more delayed than usual.
Also, I must confess that my bedroom does in fact have a heater.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)