Realisation of truth is the beginning of hate

If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.

The unholy circle-mindfuck

Shrykull of the Sardaukar said…
Knowledge is the beginning of fear.

Insidious Demon said…
Fear is the beginning of ignorance.

NuJa Rox said…
Ignorance can be overcome with knowledge.

See but do not touch

There's a line uttered by Al Pacino that goes something like this:

"See but do not touch.
Touch but do not taste.
Taste but do not swallow."

There can be no other indication of powerlessness and weakness when you can look but not touch, touch but not taste, or taste but not swallow. It speaks of the inability to satisfy the most basic of desires.

I see so much beauty in this world, good things that I want to touch, taste, savour, yet I am told that I should not, and I am punished for wanting. Hunger from years of want will change a man. It turns some into holy ascetics. It turns others into content voyeurs. And in others yet in creates perverse and terrible motivations.

I have chosen another path. The path to power: the ability to control my own destiny, without relying on hope, chance and others. Some say that power corrupts, but power corrupts less than hunger.

Freedom

There is a certain feeling of freedom when you deny the oppressive controls society exerts over your life using shame and religious guilt. Sometimes, rebellion and subversion is not manifested outright - like firing AK-47s into the air or rioting at the WTC meetings - but done in secret as a protest and symbol of keeping the resistance alive. The following is a good example of protesting the INANE restraints imposed on people by the conservative and religious fuck ups segment of society.

http://roney69.fotopages.com/?entry=199528&back=http://roney69.fotopages.com/?page=0

For sure, many people will like it or hate it for the wrong reasons. For sure, it brings up a few ethical issues. But what is undeniable is that during that moment, she was experiencing that special feeling of freedom.

JESUS H. CHRIST

Type xxxxx.blogpsot.com in your address bar and you are directed to this bizarre ass site.

Filthy evangelists! They will do anything!

Road to Gold Mountain

Some idiot forwarded it to me and I laughed my arse off. Anytime you are confronted by Chinese Ultra-feminist white worshippers, it'd be good to remind them of Road to Gold Mountain. I especially liked the Gold Shackles of Harvard.

Book Review: The Road to Gold Mountain
By Huang So, Staff Writer
Asian-Americans are redefining what is consider a proper representation of the Asian experience in literature. Certain books who always have been part of the reading curriculum in Asian Studies courses have come under scrutiny. Asian activists have argued that these books, though written by Asian authors, tend to pander to the exoticized, backwards image, white Americans have about Asians. Amy Tan's book, The Joy Luck Club has come under harsh criticism since its literary release in 1990. Also, coming under similar protest are works of Maxine Hong Kingston. Both authors deal with such issues as family relationships, assimilation into American culture, and sexism. All of which are legitimate subject matters that should be expressed about the Asian community.
However, the works of Tan and Kingston used literary devices which exploit the ignorance that whites, non-Asians, and even assimilated Asian-Americans have about Asian culture. The books which claim to be semi-autobiographical are filled with allegorical images which are never expressed to be either true or fictitious. The allegorical images contain supposed incidents of shocking events of oppression and strange rituals that happened in the past in China. Many college professors while lecturing about these works have interpreted these incidents as true occurrences, not knowing they are just concocted allegorical tales meant to express a message. The authors seem to be aware of this misinterpretation but seem to take advantage of it to create a sense of shock value for readers based on the belief that anything can happen in the East.
Both Tan's and Kingston's books have also been criticized for mirroring the neo-mystical stereotype of Asians. Especially, in Tan's writing, whimsical dialogue and Eastern-based references are constantly used. Activists believe that more works about the Asian experience should be grounded in real life depiction as suppose to the surreal world of dragons and ancient Chinese mythology.
The subject of sexism is a viable issue that should be dealt with in all cultures. However, the approach that the writers' take is controversial since it seems to imply that the West is the heart of women's liberation and the East is the catacomb of female subjugation. Often times, Tan seems to take tales of female oppression of the past in China (which mostly are allegorical), that happened around the earliest part of the twentieth century and juxa-imposed them next to the ideal image of women's right in present day America. If we compared those tales with what was occurring in America during the same period, we would find that in the U.S., it was an era where women were not allow to vote or go to college. American women were domestic servants who had to listen to their husbands and domestic abuse was reported to be rampant in some areas and would go unpunished by law enforcement.
In modern times, one might debate what would ultimately signify equality for women. One might suggest that high number of women entering college and pursuing careers would symbolize liberation. Statistically, in the U.S., Asian women have surpassed White women as well as Black, Hispanic, and Native American women in high school graduation rates and college graduation rates. More percentage of Asian women have advanced degree and have professional careers than any other women in the U.S. Whether this indicates that Asian culture have surpassed Western culture in the pursuit of female equality is debatable based on what criteria one would use to judge it.
Activists believe that Tan's and Kingston's books portray a sort of Eurocentricism. They assert that American publishers and American literary critics may have accepted their work because they extol the perfect virtues of the West by comparing it to the alleged warped traditions and practices of the East. In addition, activists have likened the authors' work to Uncle Tom's Cabin, a tale written by a Black slave who puts a positive spin on slavery and his treatment under his White masters. The book was used widely by the South before the Civil War as a propaganda device to promote slavery. In Tan's and Kingston's case, we have Asian-American authors, themselves, putting a critical view of Asian society, indulging American publishers to exploit such an opportunity to promote the image of Western superiority.
Another controversial book written by Mary W. Cheung titled, The Road to Gold Mountain, has just been released. The book is a collection of short stories of Asian females. Using the first person narrative, Cheung recounts the tale of several Asian female figures. The author claims the book is semi-biographical with, of course, huge amounts of metaphoric layers. It is just up to the reader to decide which is real and not.
In the beginning, Cheung tells the story of the words of the "Unknown Sister," which is supposedly a much older sister.

I remembered the days when the dragons came upon me. My heart turned to stone as an incredible family shame smothered me from the sky. I can no longer breathe for I have been betrayed.
"You have been dishonored," my mother said. "Your soul has been eaten by dragons. You are nothing but an empty vessel, " she said.
I recalled the day it happened. I was meeting my friends at a coffee shop at the mall. I wanted to show them the gift of my new hand bag that my husband gave me. My Asian female friends awe in wonder as they saw the Prada label. I felt like I was sitting on the empress' high throne, as they cluster to hold my five hundred dollar hand bag. That is when the dragon veered its ugly eyes. In the instance, the Prada label fell of the bag onto the floor.
One of friend picked it up and said, "This sewed on. This is an imitation Prada bag."
With those words, it felt like a Chinese broadsword have been plunged into my heart and twisted around, propelled by the dragon's fury. I quickly got into my Mercedes parked in the parking lot and rushed home. With my cell phone, I called the maid at home to warn her of what may happen. She did not answer. I got home waiting for the dragons to come. My husband had betrayed me. Like a country bandit, he cursed me. Then I heard them. The dragons are coming. My Asian female friends had gathered together and driven onto my driveway in two BMW's. They kicked down my door and rummaged through my drawers and closet. With piercing dragon claws, they ripped up by four hundred dollar Versace dresses and my business suits. They crushed by two hundred dollar Armani shoes. I tried to stop them, but they knock me down. I just cried and cried. My tears began turning into boiling blood as I saw everything I cherished devastated. They finally left with everything in my walk-in closet and drawers shattered like the fallen ashes of firecrackers. From that day on, I live in total anguish and constant shame. I have cursed by the gods who had unleashed the dragons upon me for I committed the sin of owning imitation Prada."

In the chapter titled Jade Shackles of Harvard, Cheung takes on the role of a college bound female who view her parents' insistence of her going to college as a form of Eastern oppression.

The jade shackles of Harvard are what I called it. I have been accepted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Cornell.
"You have to go to college. You have no choice! We will pay for everything! You don't have to work! Just study hard! We want the best for you!" said my oppressive parents said almost in unison.
How they can afford to send me to Harvard baffles me, for my mother is work as a manicurist and my father was a cook. Those selfish fools have the freedom to work, but they want me to go to college.
How I longed to be like my best friend, Stephanie, a blonde girl who lived on my street. We were friends since we were young. Her father wouldn't allow her to go to college. After she graduated high school, her parents asked to her leave and find a job. She found herself in the Arizona desert working as a waitress. At that moment, as if the smoke of burning incense cleared from my mind, I had an ideal. I had to break free of the jade shackles. Defying my parents, I would sneak away to Arizona.
I had made tea for my parents before I left, and I put a spoonful of my urine in their tea without them knowing which was a Chinese tradition passed on through my family for generations to signify the breakage of family bond. That I night before I was supposed to fly to Harvard, I packed up my bags and drove my Dad's car all the way to Arizona. I felt like a phoenix which was just reborn.
In Arizona, Stephanie found me the same job at the diner where she worked at. Every day, fat, sweaty truck drivers would pat or pinch Stephanie's buttocks as she walked by. But they never pinched me. Why didn't they pinch me? Why didn't they love me? Then one day, as if Buddha shined its golden light on me, an old, burly truck driver with grease soaked fingers, reached over and pinched my Asian buttocks. I would cherish those grease marks on my dress, because now I was like Stephanie. I was accepted. I was loved. The jade shackles of Harvard have been broken."

In the final chapter of the book titled, Finally, Gold Mountain, Cheung writes about a Korean friend of her mother who would do anything to come to Gold Mountain -- America.

The drops of rain sometimes would make its way through the wooden planks of the ceiling. All the houses in my village were like this — tattered hollow remnants of what used to be vibrant homes. My family worked out in the rice field, and they expected me to grow up to do the same. I was in my teens when I started dreaming of going to Gold Mountain. I heard stories of Gold Mountain, where they have gleaming cities with contraptions and inventions that no one in my country has ever seen. My country was primitive, locked away in time. Gold Mountain was salvation from my crumbling village that seems to weathering away by the rain. One day, when my parents were out in the rice fields, I got on my horse, hoping in any way to find my way to Gold Mountain. For days, my horse trudged through wet marshlands as we pass village after village. My feet were cold as they felt naked in my torn open sandals. I met an old man, and I asked him how to get to go to Gold Mountain.
He said," You might make your way to Gold Mountain, if you go to the largest village here, Seoul. Just take the high speed subway from here and you'll be there in half an hour. From there, you can take a flight on Korean Airlines to either Hawaii, Seattle, or San Francisco . . . or Gold Mountain, as you say."
I did as he said, but I did not have enough money for the plane ticket or a visa to enter Gold Mountain. I made my way to a U.S. Army base where I worked in a club near the base as a dancer. I finally met the man of my dreams who would take me to Gold Mountain. He was a U.S. Army lieutenant. I heard rumors that he had an alcohol problem and that his first wife left him because he beat her while he was in a drunken stupor, but it did not matter. I was going to marrying him. I have dreamed of Gold Mountain. Now I will be there. "

I got this from http://asianworldnews.8m.com/story04.html

It's a funny site.

Diversions, assignment deadlines, and sucky dreams.

So I was writing out my assignments and researching stuff on the net, and god it is boring staring into the screen for hours. So I take some time off by surfing and mucking around. Check out my good friend's blog page, saw I needed to register to make a post, said "Fuck it!", mucked around some more, went back to my friend's page, registered, and posted crap. Then I thought, "Since I've already registered, why not make my own blog? It would be cool to post pictures of the - ahem - *expressive* chicks I've met on the weekends." So I spent an hour or so touching up this blog.

I've been having this sucky dream lately that's causing me sleep deprivation. I would dream that I woke up late for classes and my assignment is not complete and it is due today. I would be in an utter panic, my stress hits the roof, I can feel my heart thumping deeply and my stomach churning, I do things halfway and then rush for classes, driving to school knowing that I would get ZERO or D&C for my 25 mark assignment. I would wake up then and see that it's 6 am in the morning, and my assignment is due next week. That leaves me displeased because even though I was dreaming of the stress, my heart is actually still thumping and I feel overheated from my squirming in bed. I have to get up in an hour. I try to go to sleep but fail. The alarm clock wakes me up just when I'm about to drift off. I set it to ring half an hour later. It wakes me up again just when I'm about to nod off from fatigue. I realize that I cannot waste anymore time and prepare for college. The bath staves off the tiredness for awhile but during the drive fatigue sets in again. I then feel like a zombie in college. Zoned out. Happily, some chicks dig my vibe. They told me so.

Then the thought struck me. Maybe I wouldn't be so anxious if I didn't procrastinate and finished my assignments in one go instead of getting distracted/discouraged/senselessly perfectionistic and go surfing around.

Yes.