All's fair, except when dealing with douchebags

Yesterday, while perusing the bookstore at the 五道口华莲 with the girlfriend, I came across a book called Romeo and Zhu Yingtai. Now, for those of you who don't know (most likely all of you, as I just became privy to this information myself not long ago), there is a famous Chinese story that also deals with two young, star-crossed lovers called "Liang Sanbo and Zhu Yingtai." At the end of the story, both lovers (spoiler) die, much like their Western counterparts.

So, as one might guess, this book essentially teaches foreign men how to pick up on Chinese girls. Although the book was shrink-wrapped, the gender/racial specificity can be inferred from the title: White emo cracker and useless Chinese chick.

As some of you may know, I've long harbored a strong resentment towards White male foreigners who carry the White-God cock-swinging-from-opening-in-pants when in China. It's not so much jealousy, as Zoe kicks so much butt, she kicks ass. During my first time here, I came to realize that my resentment is somewhat misdirected; White God-Cock-jocking foreign males were, I decided, simply the most obvious choice for my antagonism. Rather, my resentment is reserved more for Chinese women who see dating a White male as "dating up" on the ladder of eligible bachelors.

Now, I understand there is such thing as personal preference. I have a friend, for example, who will only watch pornos involving hung Black dudes banging petite Blonde barely-legals. When his taste was called into question, he defended himself by saying, "so I'm the only one here interested in watching the best porn ever?"

So yeah, there is taste. I understand that. My issue is not with Chinese chicks who love blue eyes, but with the chicks who make it a point of pride to be seen with a White guy, no matter how frumpy and pear-shaped this dude might be. Somehow, having a White boyfriend means they've "made it" like The Jeffersons. And there's the issue with how the Chinese view themselves as a people, which in my mind, isn't very high. There's a huge stink about nationalism here that just reeks of inadequacy, overcompensation, and general wariness in dealing with all things. There's also the whole thing with Asian girls having no problem finding White boyfriends in the States, but never vice versa. That these Chinese chicks actively throw themselves at all things White makes me feel, for lack of better expression, offended, to some degree, as both an American and as a person of Chinese heritage.

In summation, I guess this all leads back to the book I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I'm fielding a guess here, as I haven't been to every single bookstore in the United States, but I think it's safe to say that you'll never find a book like that in America that teaches foreigners how to pick up on White girls. Multiple languages is not a good enough reason for the lack of these books either; If Shonen Jump will cut down dozens of forests to publish thirty different manga series all dealing with emo pre-teens piloting giant mechs, logic dictates there's most likely a book for anything and everything somewhere out there. But I know there ain't no book like the one I just imagined.

Then again, I probably shouldn't be talking. Yesterday, I threatened to leave Zoe should the day I was ever propositioned by Johnny Depp or Robert Downey, Jr come. I guess I'm no better than any of these chicks.

Dear Internets, Pt.2

Or more specifically, Facebook-ians.

Although both tenses exist within the framework of the now, present simple and present continuous are marked by crucial albeit subtle differences.

Let me illustrate:

"Robert is feels like buying a Hitachi Magic Stick."

See where this sentence is wrong? The "is" puts the sentence squarely in the Present Simple, which either describes a routine habit or a current state of being. Now, the Facebook status update thingy used to be prohibitively locked in the Present Simple tense, meaning future action and et al would have to be indicated by a gerund form (or "-ing") of said intended future action.

With the new facelift (which I'll get to next) in place, the Facebook user now has the option to erase the "is" and replace it with any verb he or she may conjure up. However, this has led to yet another deficiency in proper English, with the following example becoming more and more common:

"Robert wants to buy a Hitachi Magic Stick because I have this sinking feeling that I can't please any woman that I come across."

Wuh-oh. What do we have here? It seems the anonymous Facebook user has gotten their first-person and third-person mixed up, no doubt a tricky art to master by any person of six years of age or older. Although Facebook might have nixed the "is" altogether, the user's first name, "Robert" in the above example, cannot be erased. The sentence is not preceded by an "I" or "I'm", so this means all subject indicators from this point forward must be in the third-person, ie. "he", "her", etc., etc.

English is a tough language to master. There are no vowel or consonant consistencies, and sentence structure allows flexibility to the point of verbal chaos. The only kind of person that might master such a language would be... I don't know. Someone who fucking grew up in the United States of America, perhaps? But, let's be fair here: who actually "grows up" in the USA anyway?

Welcome to America, kiddies. Hope this language that you've been speaking all your life doesn't get you down.

起来，起来，起来

So, I'm in China.

I haven't really been updating this blog (obviously), so I'm about to embark on a mad dash in the name of "making up for lost time" which means a lot of unfinished thoughts and incoherent sentences without structure or overall meaning.

I know it's somewhat distasteful to post pictures of, above all, my new "g4m33n gr4d3" mousepad before pictures of, say, the Bird's Nest stadium and my new apartment, but my brother was calling into question the firepaddiness of the "Fire Pad." To paraphrase him: "Wow. It really does say 'BURN IN HELL' on the pad." Also, I spent a year plus change here getting all cultural-y and shit. So fuck y'all.

Beijing hasn't really changed since I was last here, but in many ways, it has. The weather is still as grimy as I fondly remember, the people still haven't figured out the concept of lining up to avoid potentially disastrous bottlenecking situations, and I guess I still hate god-complex jocking expats. Well, that last one is more about me than the city itself, but isn't a person a reflection of where he calls home, for better or worse? Anyway, it feels strangely... good... to be back.

My time here will definitely be a different animal than last time. The honeymoon period is basically over, as all things I originally found new and fresh are now commonplace surroundings. Also, I'm missing two very dear part-time co-workers/full-time friends to discover new places with. So yeah, the honeymoon is over. But the romance is definitely still going strong. In more ways than one, wink wink fuckin' nudge.

The wink is directed towards my beautiful better half, she who makes me strive to kick ass at all things I might endeavor to undertake, be it powerleveling in WoW to get to level 55, or thinking with great speed and force all things regarding my future career. Yeah, I'm thinking ahead a lot. But I think I hit jackpot this time. And what does the book say about hitting jackpot? You cash out. Wait, scratch that analogy... that makes no sense. As for the nudge, it's for the cleverly placed towering edifice of an analogy I hath constructed with nothing but words as its foundation and wit as the girders and bricks that reaffirm and bolster its great power. I'm also running out of things to write about.

Same old song. Beijing rules, come out here when you have the chance.

Now, pictures:

The aquatic stadium thing-ish-ite (the actual name escapes me), where Michael Phelps blasted many a song by Lil' Wayne on his iPod. Brah. In the background is the Pangu Building, where monthly rent costs approximately my yearly salary. In America.

OMG, it's me. The Beijing subway is one of the best things ever, because it's cheap and takes you as far as your imagination can... imagine. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I'm looking at in this picture. In gaming related nonsense, that's an old-school FFIV action menu shirt from Penny Arcade.

I'll be honest, I don't know who this girl is. She's just a pretty girl I met at the Forbidden City. I pay her 8000 RMB a month to pretend to be my girlfriend and to pretend she's not completely repulsed by me.

The Olympic torch. Gives +15 agility if held on the off-hand, ranged DPS is over 9000.

The Bird's Nest at night. No captions here, except that they did a bang-up job with the lighting at night. Um, caption, caption. Chinese people like WoW?

I've gone about a week and half without any dairy products. Thanks for nothing, you dirty fucks.

These pictures were taken during the Paralympic Games, which really were a spectacle to behold. In the name of good sportsmanship and in doing it's job in symbolizing what the Olympics are really about, I'd say the Games were as much a success as the Olympics. At least little chicks weren't dubbed over because they weren't cute enough. When the Americans took first place in relay, I stood up and belted as much as I remembered of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in all its awkwardly-constructed-sentence glory. With my right hand over my left man-boob. I guess I'm still a big softie at heart.

In video game-related news, I can't get on Xbox Live here, thus negating the reason I brought my 360 out here in the first place. Fuck.

Teh Fire-pad

Behold the firepaddiness of the... Fire-Pad. Yeah, Fire-Pad. Like Spider-Man. The hyphen adds extra leetness, or sadness. You pick.


Burn in hell, indeed. That's what I'ma say to all my opponents under my breath. Behind a monitor. Without a headset. Halfway across the globe.



My very own Chinese "Professional Mouse Pad." I feel like one of the herd now, although the lack of mispellings is starting to make me question the Chinese-ness of the pad.

I think I want a Steelseries.

Well, shucks...

Getting ready to head out to the good ol' PRC, where excitement in the form of teaching a class I'm barely qualified to enroll in and strange concoctions at KFC await me with open arms.

Bags aren't packed yet. That might be a problem.

I've never been big on that whole pre-packing thing, seeing as how I'm going to be needing a lot of the stuff I'm packing away up to the point I leave, thereby negating the effectiveness-in-preparation principle in full. Besides, I've always been the type of person that could effectively live out of his suitcase for an indefinite period of time. Example: After returning back to Beijing for a month-long period and subleting an apartment, I decided not to unpack my clothes into the pink dresser in the name of my impending departure, which led to me hand-washing my clothes in the sink with Tide while listening to music from my shitty speakers and telling myself, "dude, you're going to be out of here like tomorrow, don't hassle yourself with that laundromat shit."

Again, it's going to be tough for me to say goodbye to a place that I feel like I just reacquainted myself with. I'm going to miss my family, my friends, and of course the niceties being around them affords. And it's going to be trippy setting foot in Beijing again for the second time this year. The last time I was there, I explained to my friends that it felt strange being back precisely because it didn't feel strange at all. I've lived there long enough that I could call it a second home, much akin to moving up to Los Angeles again, if the people in LA didn't stand in line, were unruly in public, and trash littered the streets in certain areas. Wait, that basically is LA. What is this country coming to?

It's been a confusingly bittersweet week for me, where I'm both eager and reluctant to leave this place. I think in retrospect, I'm even going to miss the SUV-driving moms with the "My child was an honor student at Lomarena Elementary" stickers shoddily peeling off the bumper like a half-applied brand on a cow's fat fucking ass. That's the weird effect this place has on me; I can't live with it and I can't live without it. Like that U2 song, "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

Of course, I would never admit it while living here, but I am essentially a product of OC, a place that has rendered me from a young upstart into a bitter, cynical elitist who hates his own kind and can't stand pomposity in any way, shape, or form. I think all of my rants have always had a glimmer of optimism and/or a desire and expectation for things to get better in the end. Call me an idealist, but I'm still somewhat a fan of this strange, peculiar race that preys on its own and yet is at the same time capable of creating so much beauty in the world; I'm just consistently let down by my own unrealistic standards. Then again, I'm not one to talk, seeing as how I own a video game that allows me to run around in green armor with a purple gun while shooting orange aliens that sound like bad extras from that "Clone Wars" shit that Lucas squeezed out of a week-old pimple on his ass and then managed to market as, of all things, a movie.

In this cultural war, I am an embedded journalist secretly rooting for the other side to win. That's some shit.

So yeah, I need to get packing. In the way of games, I'm bringing my DS, PSP, and last but not least by any stretch, my 360. Also, I'm considering getting a PS3 out there so I can finally once and for all play goddamned MGS4 and end this knee-jerk earmuffs move I pull everytime that picture of Old Snake slugging a PMC goon in the crotch rears its head on Kotaku. In between all that time, I would like to brush up on my Mandarin and maybe climb the Great Wall again. You think I'm kidding, but I assure you, I'm not.

I'll try to sneak one more entry in before I bounce. If not, see you all on the other side. You guys are simply the best, better than all the rest (whatever the fuck "the rest" means).

This week on Live

Dude, I'm loving me some Xbox Live this week.

First, I played the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo, and man, this game kicks so much ass. In terms of what the demo offered, it wasn't much in the way of stuff we haven't already seen: chopping up stormtroopers, TIE fighters roaring past you, and lots of lightsaber gimmickry. What's refreshing about all that is how well it's done in this game. I think SW:FU embraces what poor movie-based games fail to acknowledge, which is the fact that a game is only as good as its mechanics first and the source material second. The force grip ability is intuitive, and seeing as how the Apprentice's powers only grow as the storyline progresses, I'm eagerly awaiting the moment I can down an Imperial-class Star Destroyer by simply holding down the right trigger.

Not a Super-class Star Destroyer. Those things are like, five hundred times the size of a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Star Wars geekery, blue milk, and Sarlacc couldn't digest Boba Fett because of his armor, and all that.

Also, I read in Play Magazine that the Apprentice is bad-ass, on the scale of Strider-like awesomeness. That's a pretty specific and very encouraging comparison, seeing as how Kratos and Dante are the usual suspects.

So yeah, Force Unleashed was way cool. But what's really been capturing my attention is the XBLA title Castle Crashers.

Braid was cool. So was Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Retro-styled games seem to be making a comeback thanks to the Nintendo DS, and of course, creator-enabled XNA titles on Live Arcade, but like many things, there's always danger of saturation. It's already happened to the "casual" music games, what with Neversoft and Harmonix rushing to sign exclusive artists to their respective franchises. Pretty soon, like all things, I have a feeling these rhythm-based games will go the way of the slap bracelet and collapse under its own weight.

The problem with this competitive one-upping is that the byproducts that rear their ugly heads all lack the one quality which made the original so distinctive: heart. When Megaman 9's creative direction was unveiled, I was both fascinated and skeptical. The game, complete with 8-bit graphics and chiptunes, and deliberate system slowdown to boot, rests on a line that borders a breed of meta we haven't yet seen in a video game. Retro-styled games are fun and all that, but there has to be some kind of innovation and a forgoing of self-awareness that allows the buying fanbase some kind of faith in the forward momentum of the genre. Once stagnation sets in, the lines between laziness and homage become more and more unclear, until the audience itself isn't sure whether they're enjoying a game due to the merits of the gameplay or if it's just nostalgia making them see what they want to see. This is going to be somewhat of a generalization, but look what's happening to games coming from Japan. If there's any kind of evolution taking place, it's more of a allaying-natural selection process rather than of its own volition.

Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin, then, have made quite possibly the most charming Japanese game to come out this year. Castle Crashers is reminiscent of brawlers such as Streets of Rage where your character basically puts the smackdown on wave after wave of bad guys, with a giant finger on-screen telling you to "GO" after you've cleared a zone of enemies. Although the gameplay appears stock at first, what makes Castle Crashers so straight-up fun is how it keeps you on your toes. The boss battles and levelling up always provide you with something new, but the true fun lies in the cooperative multiplayer, where timed-button presses put a unique twist on simply pressing "A" to steal a life from your partner.

What's important is that Castle Crashers doesn't feel retro for the sake of retro. After sitting down with the game for a mere five minutes, I could gather that this game couldn't have possibly existed in any other form. Without the taint of the aforementioned self-awareness, the creators are able to focus solely on what works and what doesn't work in their game. Nothing, from the gameplay, character abilities, and above all, the excellent Miyazaki-meets-Uglydoll animation, feels out of place. Unlike Braid, where I was bothered by the lingering hint of pretension lingering in the air (admit it, you know it's there), the feeling Castle Crashers evoked for me was pure amusement. I could count the times I had a giant grin on my face while playing this game, and I suspect there's more to come.

At one point early in the game, you have the option of entering an arena that pits you against an onslaught of barbarian attackers, with two giant cats on either side lazily swatting at you should you venture too close to the edges. Castle Crashers never really explores this.

And refreshingly enough, for the first time in a long time, I didn't demand any kind of explanation from the game. I just wanted to keep playing, and that was good enough for me. Download Castle Crashers now, dagnabbit.

Nubs

Just read an article on Edge on-line, which you can read right here. The article explains that about 10 percent of all internet users under the age of 18 are addicted in some form or another to on-line games (read: WoW), and how the government is undertaking measures that regulate the number of hours someone can play a game before it automatically logs the player off, and fun stuff like that. I think a couple of months ago, I heard something where they put a cap on the number of levels someone could gain in one 24-hour period. Fun!

So yeah, government-enacted counter-measures in place to curb obsessive gameplaying? Doesn't work. It doesn't take into consideration human nature, the role of a parent in an adolescent's life, and a growing child's own ability to act in moderation in all avenues of their life. It doesn't get to the root of the problem. It doesn't fix a fucking thing.

The Chinese are a people that care the world about "mian zi" or "face." In addition to that, their nationalism is way strong. How about a family-based initiative that puts stress on a parent nurturing their child not just in the way of academics, but also imparting knowledge in the way of acting like a functioning human being instead of a bin that gorges on KFC, McDonalds, and epic purples on a daily basis? Call parents out for being irresponsible and put an emphasis on betterment for the future of a harmonious Chinese society and I guarantee you results, goddamned widespread societal changes across China. Stop externalizing the blame and force people to face the issue at hand. In WoW terms, stop bracket-camping in 19 Warsong Gulch and face 70 Arena like a man.

This isn't going to work because of the same reason jailing drug addicts in America doesn't work. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, "These people aren't criminals, they're s-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ck."

China, you have a beautiful country. The people are amongst the nicest I've ever met, and the food? Oh my dear lord. But this control? This censorship? You guys are straight nubs when it comes to effective leadership techniques, no doubt.