ukraine

here we go again US and Russia creating another Vietnam, another Korea...

US has no interest in Ukrainian freedom, they have every interest in a non NATO member being invaded by Russia and increasing demand for NATO membership in the future and arms/supplies from the US, ensuring they will have a strong military and political foothold in Europe for decades to come.

Russia has no interest in Ukrainian freedom, they have every interest in controlling a buffer zone to NATO weaponry only they can control, Putin wanted a war to prove himself as a worthy successor to the USSR but may soon self fulfill his own doom prophecy.

The media has no interest in Ukrainian freedom or peace because more eyes on screens = more revenue.

Autocratic, Oligarchical Imperialism vs Pseudo-Democratic, Military Industrialist Imperialism

If Ukraine makes it out of this as Ukraine, then they only have themselves to thank.

Rest In Peace Dr Prideaux

Whenever I think of Dr Prideaux, I think of her soft spoken voice and smile and the way she used to say Break "Dahnce". I wish we had the opportunity to tell her just how important her support of our club in those first 3 years was to the school, to the club, to us and for breaking culture in Australia.

I arrived at Melbourne High School in 2003 - lost like many others who wondered the halls. A cross roads of puberty, racial identity, academic pressure and teenage angst was all about to clash and because of her, what came out the other side with Soul Power.

She saw a group of passionate young kids who had all the energy and motivation in the world but didn't fit in and instead of setting us straight, she encouraged us and provided us with the space for us to grow as artists, students and people.

There's not a week that goes by that I'm not reminded exactly how much of an impact being in Soul Power and having Dr Prideaux's support meant and continues to mean.

Honour the Work

Rest in Peace Dr Prideaux

Culturalism

(Originally written in 2016)

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I haven't written on my blog in awhile, 2 years it almost seems.

A few days ago I was reading an article on SBS about racism and how it affects the asian community.
Let me start by saying what I'm about to discuss is not really limited to racism and asians, though being an Australian of Chinese origin myself, I might only have authority to comment on the asian aspect. You decide.

The article in question can be found here:
http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/health/article/2016/02/16/why-do-my-co-workers-keep-confusing-me-other-people-im-asian

TLDR:

• Asians in Australia experience "casual racism", that is racism that is not malicious.
• Asians avoid calling instances of "casual racism" out, as we want to avoid uncomfortable awkwardness.
• Asians are often identified in the workplace as "the asian" and for the most part is defined by our race and not our character.

I can identify with this. I've worked at a few digital media companies, one of which includes Google.
Generally, our industry is seen as progressive. Yet still these are some experiences:

• Being the only asian male across a whole sales floor of a few hundred people.
• Being confused with members of our Japanese team (even though we speak with different accents and look nothing alike)
• Have a colleague during drinks comment "You're pretty good looking for an asian guy"
• Witness an asian colleague be called countless asian nicknames apart from her actual name

Like the article says, I generally avoid calling people out as I don't see the intent as malicious.
However the last example I give, it would almost be unimaginable if you replace "asian" in the phrase "You're pretty good looking for an asian guy" with any other race.

This got me thinking not just about my identity as an Australian, but our multicultural facade.
And I call it a facade because that's all it is. Australia is a collective of cultures that have learnt to live together as long as we adopt enough of the mainstream "western culture", but we are not a society of multiculturalists.

HK

Before you start reading this, the TLDR is...

1. HK never had democratic rule, even under UK. In fact HK citizens were second class citizens within the British Empire.

2. The above can not be used to justify why HK/Chinese citizens do not deserve an accountable government that serves the interest of its people in 2019.

To all my friends wondering what is happening in HK (in slightly more detail)?
I'm not a history professor so please take everything I say with a healthy dose of skepticism.

To understand the situation of HK we need to go back a couple of hundred years to the Qing Dynasty, the last ruling Dynasty in China before the Chinese civil war was won by the Chinese Communist Party.

Opium War in a nutshell:

• Colonial UK and European powers wanted to trade with China (Tea, Silk, Spices, China etc)China didn't have demand for a lot of European goods.

• UK introduces Opium to China.
  Chinese government destroys British stockpiles after realising what the UK was trying to do.

• UK demands compensation
• China refuses
• UK invades
• China loses
• HK is seceded to the UK on a lease that ended in 1997

Past

By 1997, the Qing Dynasty is extinct and Mainland China is run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the People's Republic of China (PRC) after winning the civil war and sending their enemies ,The Nationalists to Taiwan, which is formerly administrated as the Republic of China (ROC).

The UK during this time, had built HK into a thriving economy in Asia acting as a western access point into a huge set of local South East Asian markets as well as the reforming Chinese market.
It was Asia's gateway to the rest of the world.

This period is often seen in the eyes of HK citizens with rosy lens as it represented HK's golden age of being a developed economy is a part of the world where economies were largely destroyed by WWII with British and western investments pouring in.

UK's rule over HK however was far from democratic. HK citizens were not full British citizens with voting and movement rights within the Commonwealth. Even though a British parliamentary system was put in place, HK citizens did not have the right to vote and was ruled by a Colonial Governor appointed by the UK.

In 1997, as part of the hand over agreement CCP agreed to a 50 year deal where the CCP would guarantee no changes to HK's independent government and independent judiciary system.
However, the CCP has looked for every opportunity to violate these protections in every creative legal and illegal way possible and this tension has been boiling over since 1997.

Whilst all this was happening, the CCP squashed one of the largest student democratic movements in history by attacking and killing countless civilians, often represented in the media as the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989.

Present

In 2019, the HK government, ruled by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, tried to introduce changes to the judiciary system where it was possible legally to extradite criminals from the comparatively transparent HK legal system to the opaque at best Mainland legal system.

On face value, the CCP used vague examples of criminals slipping through legal loop holes to avoid justice. I say vague because the only examples I heard/read within Chinese media were not specific with stats or impact, just vague anecdotes.

Timing was extremely poor as the government decided to announce these changes during the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre when tensions regarding authoritarian rule and government oppression are already high and existing vigils and protests were already been organized.

HK citizens are suspicious of these laws as it would legalize an extradition treaty with the CCP that was vulnerable to abuse. These suspicions are not unwarranted as the CCP has a history of arresting and extraditing political opponents illegally.  HK citizens also see this as a violation of the 50 year guarantee that they would remain largely independent.

Future and thoughts?

HK's movement is largely decentralized in that there is no controlling political body or organization that is coordinating political strategy. This makes it much harder for the CCP to end the protests by banning/arresting their way out of this mess.

However, without coordination, CCP also has a clear advantage in controlling the narrative globally and I would argue more importantly within its own mainland borders.

The CCP controls most media in China and has successfully framed the HK protests as a tantrum thrown by an unruly kid that needs to step back in line. Mainland Chinese do not see HK's protests as a protest for all, and in some regards its not.

Without the hearts and minds of Mainland Chinese citizens, HK would largely be a contained incident and without 1B+ people pressuring the government to back off, then the CCP is emboldened to make drastic and risky moves (ie. Beijing in 1989).

The story has also been framed as a war of cultures, Democracy vs Authoritarianism, West vs East. But subscribing to that logic would also mean subscribing to the logic that Chinese/Eastern culture is somehow inherently not compatible with the values of a liberal democracy, something I don't believe.

I think Democracy is incompatible to how the CCP wants to run China, but the CCP likes to frame Democracy as being incompatible with Chinese culture itself.

The HK movement also suffers because it's not been framed as a democratic movement for all Chinese but a protest to protect their own rights which makes it harder to gain support from the rest of the population.

I hope it does not descend into madness, I hope the CCP has learned from their mistakes of the past and as a whole are truly dedicated to improving the lives of its 1B+ citizens, including those in HK.
I hope the CCP, the HK government and the people of HK can resolve this without using military force on a population it's supposed to protect.

I hope I'm not wrong.

Just out there... on our own

Symbols

The other day I was having a chat with a friend of mine of Jewish heritage.
We were discussing parallels of atrocities committed both by Nazi Germany under Hitler and the Imperial Japan under Hirohito.

I'll get into the depth of that conversation another time but it was interesting to discuss expectations of post-war Germany and post-war Japan.

Now I could just type more but today I was shopping and saw something very apparent and relevant to our discussion. The discussion was centered around amazing efforts done by the post-war jewish community as well as Germany themselves to attempt to relieve some of the atrocities committed during the way, Post-War Japan is not and has never been held to the same accountability.

Article 1: Boy London

This shirt received a lot of media attention and Western Media is very quick to jump on any fashion designers trying to cash in with Nazi related symbols.
Boy London's design language is obviously inspired by Nazi imagery and received a lot of media attention

Some examples of mainstream media attention

• www.nypost.com/2017/08/07/company-tries-to-re-brand-swastika-as-symbol-of-peace-fails-miserably/
• www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-marriott/extremist-symbolism-in-fashion_b_1930025.html
• www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/fenwicks-department-store-withdraws-boy-london-clothing-over-nazi-eagle-logo-complaints-9176927.html

TLDR: Basically what you would expect to happen to a company that uses Nazi imagery to sell their products.

Article 2: Peace with Swastika - KA Design

English speakers are extremely quick and rightfully so to call out these issues

The Swastika itself is another interesting example, many of my contemporaries don't know this but it was originally a symbol of prosperity in many cultures, Hitler hijacked it. And what was super interesting to me when I was researching for this post, I came across a conscious effort to return the Swastika to it's original meaning was met with overwhelming opposition

The swastika obviously has been hijacked and injected with context that simply can't be removed no matter how much we tell people and no matter how many rainbow colors you add to it. People have the right to be upset but I also think KA Design was extremely brave for exploring this.

• www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/36981/1/a-weird-new-clothing-brand-want-to-reclaim-the-swastika
• www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/social-media-users-slam-ka-design-swastika-line-170807221839647.html

Article 3: Flying Tigers 

This one can still be bought

At first glance, this seems like a pretty innocent military inspired jacket. I first came into contact with Alpha Industries when a friend of mine had a NASA jacket and boy did I want it.

The reason why the above jacket should be an issue is because the "Flying Tigers" were a group of American pilots (notice the US shield patch on the right arm), fighting in the Republic of China's Airforce to defend against the invading Imperial Japanese Army.

Key phrase: Defend against the invading Imperial Japanese Army

So first question is, why the bloody hell is there an Imperial Japanese flag on an American World War 2 tribute jacket to a squad in the Chinese airforce?

I also thought perhaps that the "Flying Tigers" logo on the front might have been a throw-away aesthetic choice but the jacket is indeed dedicated to that squadron, even with their logo proudly displayed on the back.

2nd question is, why not a Republic of China flag?

I actually don't put blame on the designers themselves as I see this as a product of miseducation and lack of emphasis on Japanese war atrocities during World War II in english speaking countries. Whilst I would hope designers and companies dig deeper into the symbols that they decide to feature on their fashion, I don't expect that many of them do.

One can only imagine what the outrage would be if there was a bomber jacket dedicated to the 101st Airborne that has a Nazi Swastika attached to the front...

USA: Los Angeles

Prologue:

NYC and by proxy the rest of the USA has been a mecca for me since 2005. Close to a decade later, I finally had the opportunity to visit a handful of its great cities (with the exception of Las Vegas, I hate that place).

The last time I wrote a blog about visiting a city, it was purely a personal reflection. Within a blink of an eye its actually been 2 years since I wrote it. This time round I thought I will combine elements of a regular travel blog with a bit of a personal reflection. I've started writing this sitting at LAX at the end of my trip (having just flown from NYC to LA with very little sleep), I hope I am coherent enough and I certainly hope this is as entertaining for you to read as it is will be for me to write.

3 weeks. I had 3 weeks to prioritise my time between about 100 different cities I wanted to see.

Obviously this wasn't possible and we had to cut our list down to 3 cities and some how Las Vegas managed to squeeze its way in.

Places that got cut included: San Diego, Washington DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, New Orleans and whole lot more.

The places that we considered quintessential to our experience were of course: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York City.

Los Angeles

What more can I say? Welcome to LA

Prior to visiting LA, no one had anything good to say about the city. "Its a shit hole" was the general consensus. Suffice to say, my expectations of this city weren't high.

I didn't know much about LA apart from what was taught in rap lyrics from NWA, Kendrick Lamar, Tupac and Snoop Dogg. My impression was that it was city filled with gangs and there were some beaches somewhere. Oh and of course the 3 Ws.

We didn't see much gangland warfare in the 4 days we were in LA, but the 3 Ws certainly held up. Though I won't lie, we didn't really get to meet many locals (girls).

We had 3 nights and we were willing to give this place a shot.
LAX certainly doesn't make a good first impression, it is by all means a "shit hole" of an airport. Its a draw of luck which terminal/gate your plane arrives in, another stroke of luck on how patient the TSA staff are with you that day.

Luckily though, we had some local connections who were more than hospitable and really made our LA experience something to remember (shout outs to GleeMoney aka. Young Glee aka. Doctor Gleenthumb and the rest of the crew). On the day of arrival, we had been to Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Fairfax and bunch of other neighbourhoods. Its obvious that if you didn't have your own car or someone to drive you around, you would hate LA.

Oh did I mention we saw Usher in Fairfax?
So we are about to cross the road to the Supreme store and a ridiculous car pulls over:

We had no idea who was in it, but I said "Wow, whoever drives that car must be an absolute douche bag".
We walked into Supreme and a short statured black man walks passed John and I in a purple shirt and a bush hat... lo and behold, it's Usher

Venice and Santa Monica beach were quite a sight to see. I met one of my heroes, a true west coast OG Mr. Animation doing a street show on Santa Monica pier.

The man himself: Mr Animation!

The Santa Monica area very closely resembles (in my opinion) the Bondi area in Sydney. Lots of bars and cafes and full of young professionals that don't want to live downtown, who move next to the beach "for the life style.

After spending 100s of hours playing GTA5 it was absolutely surreal to be visiting all these locations.

In fact at one stage in the car, I knew which way to go to get to the Chinese theatre, purely based on recognizing landmarks from GTA5.

Malibu was pretty cool too, in my mind I always thought of this touristy almost "Hawaiian" atmosphere (not that I've ever been to Hawaii). But it actually turned out quite the opposite, there were a lot of beach houses but beaches themselves were very very empty.

We had some great times getting absolutely shit faced drinking at a rooftop bar in LA on a Sunday and eating ourselves silly at Roscoe's fried chicken and waffles. LA definitely as a lot better than most tourists before me has let on.

Needless to say, our introduction to the US of A was seamless and absolutely fantastic. Again, shout outs to Glee Money aka. Young Glee aka. Doctor Gleenthumb and the rest of the crew (Des, Bryan and Dewan).
As well as Cindy for driving us to Malibu.

SF and NYC are just around the corner.

Notable places:

Santa Monica Beach/Pier

Venice Beach
Malibu
Abbot Kinney Blvd - Venice
Super cool area with lots of cool/cute stores and places to eat, walking distance from Venice beach.

Roscoe's Fried Chicken
If you've come from a country with a very limited selection of fried chicken beyond KFC, then you need to check this place out. The crispiest of all crispy fried chickens (not that big of a fan of the waffle+syrup combo though). If you're ready for a heart attack then try the chicken with the gravy, make sure you eat it whilst its still hot, the gravy is actually just lard and is terrible cold lol

Eight Korean BBQ - KTown
Great place for KBBQ, apparently its usually really packed. Its specialty is the 8 types of marinated meats. Very tasty!
The Boiling Crab - KTown

Most of the sights you'll want to see are really spread apart and traffic is absolutely terrible.
It took us almost 35 minutes to travel about 4km

I would almost recommend staying in Santa Monica if you can't be bothered renting/driving a car around.

I was originally going to write a section about Las Vegas too, but I can't be bothered and nothing that interesting happened there anyway.