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I've acquired avatar to view at my pleasure but you know, the more i watch this movie, the more i realise something crucial that was overlooked by many people.

there are some very obvious themes to this movie such as colonialism, racism etc. this movie has been praised for dealing with these themes.

however, i feel there are points that need to be critisized. one very outstanding point needs to be considered, an american made this movie. a very rich white american came up with this story and filmed it.

it seems funny to me that Jake Sully (a white male), mastered the arts of the Na'vi, that usually take a whole life time of training and conditioning within a few months. and it's ironic to me, that though there has been only 5 Toruk Makto's throughout the entire history of the Na'vi, Jake Scully was able to capture a Toruk with 3 months of training.

This suggests to me a few things:

The white male is far more superior than any other ethnicity or race.

The Na'vi are stupid and only 5 of them have ever thought about flying higher than a Toruk to capture it.

It is even more ironic that the Na'vi, a culture rich in history and traditions, needed a White Male to lead them to war. Yes, he was a US Marine Corporal, but apparently a US Marine Corporal is better than anyone native to that entire planet.

Jake was able to defeat Tsu'tey, apparently the finest warrior who has trained all his life in the arts of the Na'vi, in hand to hand combat with ease, didn't even need his knife.

Not only did he tiger knee Tsu'tey, he stole his girl too...



James Cameron, instead of debating an issue, subconsciouly reinforced all the negative imperalist stereotypes of Western Culture.

"the last samurai, starring tom cruise, get the hell outta here"

fashion promotion

for those of you who are any interested, i am doing fashion promotion as a subject this year and i decided to start a blog to track my progress

here are my attempts at designing/marketing/being cool:

likeled.blogspot.com

i'll be updating it regularly and i'll probably make the blog more presentable
in the near future

analogies

now i read these when i was in year 11 but i discovered them again last night...enjoy:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

the king of mimis

a friend of my (matt pastor) just released a new movie, its a short film about a japanese girl, check it out yo:

dreams from beyond 2

so i just woke up from some...interesting dreams again.

part1.

so i was working at roymorgan research, except it was at an old secondary school that was converted into a call centre. i also had samuel l jackson as my supervisor. halfway through the shift, samuel l jackson says to me that he is mfckng hungry and he wants me to get him a mfckng whoop.
what is a whoop? i asked him, he was like a mfckng whoop, english mfckr do you speak it? after some pointless ramblings about how hes never heard of a country called what and threatening to shoot me, he explained that a whooper = whooper. he ordered hungry jacks before and ate the chips and drank the tasty beverage but left the burger under the seat because someone came in and he didnt want them to see.

i try to use the elevator but its not working and lucky for me theres a industrial elevator, i head down and i see two guys with assault rifles aiming at me, i was like wo what the hell, whats up. and they thought i was the one thats been causing some disruptions in the city today, i had no idea what they were talking about so i went to find the whoop.

funny enough, i found two burgers, one was a quad-mighty angus pretty much and the other was a quad-bacon whooper, i was hungry too, so i decided i was gonna eat some of the quad-bacon whooper and tell samuel l jackson that thats how i found it. just before i do that, a supervisor on the bottom floor (i cant remember who or what they looked like) screamed out NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. and warned me of the dangers about eating a whoop like that, i said i was hungry but i was only gonna take two bites and give it to samuel l jackson to finish it off. and he was like "oh samuel l jackson? why didnt you say so, carry on"
so i take two bites out of it and almost died, took the burger upstairs, samuel l jackson didnt even realise that there were two bites missing and then....something goes wrong (continue to part 2)

samuel l, the fact that i can understand what you are saying renders your query about my english speaking abilities obsolete.

part 2.

the aliens from district 9 attack. those commando guys earlier were refering to them when they almost shot me. now the rest of the dream was a bit of a blur, now someone i know gets stripped by the aliens, samuel l jackson is no where to be seen so i had to help her out. she just happened to be wearing extremely sexy lingerie underneath her work clothes and i was like yo, thats dope. so we're running for our lives and im fighting off prawns. one prawn latched onto her ...bottoms and ripped them off, so we had to like go into a small shack and ask for the kind villagers for some pants. thats as far as i can remember...

bloody prawns, get off my planet.

stories from abroad

so i haven't really made a blogpost about the humourous and exciting stories that happened overseas when boon and danh came to visit in shanghai and then i subsequently escorted them to korea. Heres one story that i've been telling:


The Dump:

So my mate Chester tells me that hes got some friends at Richys on a friday night and I decided to take Boon and Danh to this balla club. At Richy's, there is no entry fee, the dance floor is like the size of my room so if you want in, you have to book a table. To book a table, you need to spend 2000 AUD on alcohol that night, and thats why it is baller.

Initially we couldn't really get in, because my mate's table was pretty damn full, so we decided to head somewhere else first and come back later when there is less people. (we also bumped into people that we knew....sorta from melbourne this night...weird)

We arrived at this rip off white person bar called Rendevous at Xintiandi, where cocktails were 85 Yuan each (i had the same cocktail somewhere else for 25 Yuan) and decided to just have one cocktail there and move on, Danh got very drunk and generous and shouted us 4 rounds of cocktails. As the night progressed, 2 ladies approached us speaking Chinese and said "hey you guys wanna play together?", i realised the status of these "ladies" fairly quickly and directed them towards boon and said he was our boss for tonight, they broke into english and asked him to by them a drink so they would "play with us" for the rest of the night, boon did not buy them a drink and thus they did not play with him.

After a generous amount of long island icetea, we proceeded back to Richys. This is when the trouble started. Boon and Danh were very drunk and getting drunker. When i checked up on Danh, i thought he was getting pretty into it, chatting to women and playing drinking games. Boon on the other hand, just kept saying that he lost his jacket and camera for about 20 minutes, womenless might i add.

It came to a time eventually when neither of them were in my sight anymore, eventually I became a little worried for their kidneys and decided to look for them. Danh was easy to find, he was in the toilet vomiting in the sink with 10 ignorant people behind him thinking he was just taking a long time to wash his hands. Boon was outside crying (no joke) and vomiting into the gardens at the same time, he did not have his DSLR. I searched for about 30-40 minutes for it in the club and eventually found it under a pile of clothes. There was music, more alcohol and plenty of women...I did not want to leave, Danh and Boon on the other hand were close to death, (Danh did not win a single round of drinking games with that Shanghainese girl).

In the cab ride home, Boon started crying about how no one appreciates him, Danh was trying to calm him down. When we arrived at the apartment, Boon was still crying about how no one appreciates him, I eventually pulled out a picture of Sunny and said "BOON! LOOK AT THIS FACE! DO YOU WANT HER TO BE SAD BECAUSE OF YOU? SHE WANTS YOU TO STOP CRYING AND GO TO SLEEP" and not suprisingly he did...

but wait a second...where is Danh? Perhaps he fell asleep in one of the two bedrooms? nope, i opened the toilet door and there he was: pants down, fresh from a number 2, passed out and feet soaked in his own vomit.

"Danh", i said "what are you doing? wipe your arse and go to bed!"
"I Can't..." he replied slowly "just leave me"
"Danh, you are sitting on a toilet, there is vomit on your foot, your faeces is in that bowl and probably on your arse, you can not stay here!"

I took some toilet paper and put it in his hand

"Close the door..." Danh mumbled

I closed the door and waited for about 5 minutes with no response. I opened the door again, he had passed out in his attempt to wipe his arse and dropped the toilet paper in his vomit. I grab the toilet paper, making sure i did not touch the corners soaked in stomache acid and put it back in his hand. (Now this exchange actually went on for a few cycles, but for progressions sake i'll move it along.)

I reiterated that he was in a lavatory and could not spend the rest of the night in there. Eventually i closed the door and i heard a flush, that was good, he came out and i realised he only had one sock on. Passed out immediately on the inflatable mattress. I walked into the toilet and discovered one of his socks inside the bowl, clogging the toilet, i removed the sock carefully, making sure i only made contact with the dry part and threw it in the bath tub and hosed it down. I mopped up the vomit and finally went to sleep, the next morning Chester told me how they clubbed more and went to Karaoke and all sorts of crazys...damn you Danh and Boon!

here is a video of Danh the next morning (sorry Danh, haha)

racist

so what is stating a fact and what is racism?

i am asian. fact

but lets say i said, asians all have black hair... is that a fact? or is that racism?
maybe there are asians with different hair colours? but its accepted as fact

now you could say that its only racist if its offensive or harmful

now if i said asians are all good at maths which probably isn't a fact. but is it racism? its not offensive...or harmful, its potentially untrue, just like hair colour.


anyway, we had a very elaborate discussion of race and the concept of asia during my "modern asia tute", quite interesting, but i think the funniest/worst thing i ever heard during the tute was when a rich white girl said (after much discussion of indian students and having concluded that many of the attacks probably were not racially motivated, they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time):

"i don't want to sound racist or anything, i'm not racist, but i think the indian students bring it on themselves"

i think she was just lucky there wasn't any people of indian decent in the class haha.

what is more scary? being a racist? or being racist and not realising?

kaist poster boy

pretty soon, every korean mum who wishes their kids to attend kaist will be wondering who that handsome slightly blurred guy in their kaist poster is.



damn you lucas, you know the only reason they used this photo is coz you're white! haha

happy birthday!

金泰妍, 生日祝賀합니다!

my key?

I, unlike most Melbourne commuters was joyfully looking forward to the statewide adoption of the new myki system. It is very similar to what I have become accustomed to in China and Korea. Leave the card in a wallet/bag, scan when you get on, scan when you get off. No more cheap frail paper tickets. I was even more happy to hear that you can buy passes that exceed a monthly, which meant I did not have to buy a new ticket every month.

One of the first things I did when I got back from overseas was sign up for a free myki card. One of the first problems I realised was that my concession Myki will be useless by next year because I won't qualify for concession status, I thought maybe they might work out some system where they could send me a full-fare card for free, no problem.

The day came when I finally had to use my Myki, I realised that I had no cash in my wallet, but then I remembered I could charge the card on the internet, so far so good, very convenient. I logged on, charged 10 dollars and clicked ok and thats when the second problem came up "please allow 24 hours for top ups to go through"... that should have been shown before i pressed ok, I potentially just wasted 10 bucks, but I thought it probably would go through and it says 24 hours just in case. But as a plan B, I asked my mum for some change. And I was quite right to do so, when I scanned the card it had "0 balance".

All those negatives can be mitigated with experience and planning ahead, but just a few days ago, I heard somewhere that Myki can not be used on trams and buses. Now this got me boiled up, apparently I am expected to purchase another ticket if I want to ride a connecting bus or a tram, that is just bloody ridiculous. I go to uni in the city with buildings all over the cbd and now they tell me i can't use this on the tram...

The bottom line is, this system would have been great if they pulled it off correctly, frankly I regret having jumped on Myki so early but lucky for me I had only purchased a 31 day pass, i shall be returning to metcards until they can pull myki off correctly.

Just to give you a perspective of some other countries.

Shanghai Public Transport Card:

I think it averages 50 cents Australian a trip, one of the fastest growing networks in the world and definitely one of the most used. I've only ever caught one metro that was about 2 minutes late. Metros come every 2-3 minutes during peak time and 4 -5 minutes at other times. You can also use the transport card in taxis.

(just another day in people's square station (so many people and yet...rarely any delays))

Hong Kong Octopus Card:

Now i can't remember how much it cost average a trip, but it definitely was not alot. You can use them on all forms of public transports, including ferrys. Similar to Shanghai in terms of scanning on and off, but you can also use the card to make small purchases at corner stores and fast food outlets like Macdonalds, I'm also aware that you are able to use it to pay for parking in certain areas. I think 3-4 million people use the metro every day, the same company that runs this system, currently runs ours. (the metro system, not the ticketing)

(parking made easy)

Seoul T-Money Card:

Not only could you get them in different colors and patterns, you could also get them in different shapes and objects. My "card" was a phone dangler and pretty much just scanned my phone every time I used the metro. 50 AUD lasted me a good month, keeping in mind that I made multiple trips back and forth a day, as opposed to a 85 Zone1-2 monthly in Melbourne. Also one of the most used. You can also use it to buy things from participating convenience stores, vending machines inside the station usually accepts T-money and like the other cities you can use these in taxis too. And I also think theres a push to get it running nation wide as I noticed some taxis in daejeon also accepted T-money, but not the metros.

dangles

In these cities, a car was pretty much only needed when the metro stopped running after midnight, even then taxis were affordable and i could use my card in there too.

Myki...fail (so far)

my question is why did we spend billions of dollars developing this fail of a system, when we probably could have bought one of these very well developed and proven systems for alot less?
And how are hongkong (approx 7 million population), shanghai (approx 20 million) and seoul (approx 10 million) able to maintain such a good system and keep metros running every few minutes without delays, when melbourne which only has around 4 million population can't do it?

philaharmonics

i vaguely heard something about this, but for all you who don't/didn't know, back in 2008 the New York Phillaharmonic orchestra did a show in Pyongyang that was broadcasted world wide. today i saw the documentary of their experience on sbs. Me, i have a huge interest in North Korea and would like to visit some day and have seen sooooooooo many documentaries on the country (recommend me one if you know any) and well the documentary about their performance was really inspiring. i hope you all have the time/gather the amount of effort to see it, here is a video of their encore performance of "arirang"



just beautiful given the context of performance

Sandara

i'm sorry but this picture has got to be the cutest thing i have ever seen. god damn



she broke her trophy and shes crying...god damn

dreams from beyond

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employment

so i've had some friends who have graduated recently who are getting paid pretty good, now im 90% sure i want to work in Shanghai after i graduate, or maybe even Hong Kong and Seoul (unlikely because i can't speak korean...(yet))

looking forward to my last year of university, my electives are all pretty interesting:

fashion promotion
modern asia
mass media in asia
introduction to public relations
client relationship management


anyway...updated flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ji_ken/

소원을 말해...누구?

A Chinese group very, maybe too similar to Korea’s proud Girls’ Generation is making headlines!

This Chinese group is called Idol Girls, and they are consisted of 9 girls. Okay, so the number of members can easily be the same, right? But that’s not it. According to a Chinese site, the Idol Girls are an average of 18 years old, and are supposedly talented not only as singers, but as actresses, models, MCs and more.

Meanwhile, cosplay cover groups other than the Idol Girls are making even the Girls’ Generation fans do a double take because of the amazing similarity.

So how similar is too similar? Look for yourself. A cover group is seen here posing in similar clothes to SNSD’s “Tell Me Your Wish” days!

Remember last August when a Chinese singer was called out for copying Girls’ Generation’s choreography? They were so similar that netizens started calling the dance not even a copy, but a parody. Regarding the group in general, Chinese netizens had commented, “If the Koreans saw, they would burst out laughing. I’m embarrassed.”

Girls’ Generation and the Korean netizens may feel bad, but don’t forget!
Imitation is the sincerest flattery after all.

-stolen from allkpop

the problem

so as many of anyone who reads this, i'm back home from my "year". i sit here quite satisfied with my rich experiences but at the same time hungry for more. it is a matter of interpretation and perspective how much i have grown in this year and how much i've learnt about the world around me and more importantly, myself. now no one wants to read a highly conceptual/abstract/impossible to actually understand blog about myself so heres about the world around me.

When I arrived in Shanghai, I preached tirelessly to my relatives and colleagues how great Seoul was and how much Shanghai could learn from Seoul. Both were huge cities with a huge population, one was classified as a developed, the other is still developing. In truth, both are still developing.

Something I noticed on the Seoul Metro is the number of elderly passengers, they seem to be everywhere. Seoul also has a pretty defined curteousy system, where of course you give up your seat for someone who looks over 50, usually female. Everyone does it, it is just a matter of fact. Of course that is a great thing but I found myself afraid to sit down as I probably have to get up for someone within a few minutes.

Now I preached how great that was in Shanghai and how rude it was of Shanghainese people that no one gave a crap about the elderly when they came on the train, especially if they looked like they were from the country side. Now I practiced what I preached in Shanghai and many times the elderly were unexpectly grateful. But eventually the spirit of the city seemed to hit me, when I got up for someone and they didn't see, instead a schoolgirl sat down. I thought to myself, if no one expects it and no one else does it, why should I do it? why should I be the one making sacrifices? ...and I stopped giving up my seat.

Another thing that was eating me was when I saw a limbless beggar on the metro system in Shanghai. People gave him change here and there and then when i reached into my pocket, i found it empty, i only had 100 yuan notes. I thought to myself, I was buying jugs of beer for 120 yuan each last night, jugs of beer that i don't need. 100 yuan is so much more to him, if i bought one jug less last night, i could have made this man so happy. But I didn't want to give him 100 yuan, it was too much, I could buy a drink to woo a girl at a bar...

we're all apart of the problem

worst week of all time.

of all time...

so the week started with my hot water system breaking down. ive had no hot water since. ive resorted to turning my heater up and just wiping down my body with a wet towel.

i hooked up my younger cousin to play piano on Wednesday at this media conference for avene, in my opinion, she played crap. i was not happy with her performance.

on thursday night, the biggest failure of my life happened, but thats another story.

Friday morning I finally got the poster I ordered last week, it was really awesome, BUT the edges were a little torn because the guy that sent it didn't use a real poster tube, instead he used a pvc pipe that wasn't cut properly, so when you put it in, it ripped a little....sigh

thats ok i thought, because a mate of mine organized a gathering tonight with apparently alot of girls and unlimited alcohol for 20 aud, where i could drink my sorrows of the week away and sing my failures of Thursday night away. We got there, there were like 4 girls and 20 guys and everyone was ugly and singing Chinese songs from the 80s.

We ended up going to this bar that played really shit music and i had 1 free beer and decided to bail to my friends apartment where we were gonna watch some dvds, but that beer made me so sleepy, i fell right asleep on his couch.

i woke up in the morning, thinking what a crap night but thats ok. I was going out to watch 2012 or This is it with Lydia and then eat some dinner tonight. i go and buy a new shirt because all my other shirts are unwashed and creased, 30 minutes after i bought the shirt, Lydia messages me: My cold on friday has turned into a fever, im so sorry, i don't think i can come out tonight.

fml

(i still dont have hot water)

sittin on the toilet

today, i was on my way home. i checked the bag pocket where i usually put my keys, they werent there. i thought i must have left them on my office desk, lucky i had spare keys. i bought some baked goods and some shanghai mini buns for dinner. i really needed to pee.

got home, reached for the toilet door. gg. it was for some reason locked, i noticed there was a slot for a key on the door, i checked through my key ring and found no such key. called my landlord to inquire weather he possessed this key which would enable me access to the lavatory, negative. he said he will call the locksmith. i desperately waited until i could wait no more, i considered peeing into the sink but then realised its a bad idea, i finally got a bottle, unscrewed the cap, took off my belt and....the doorbell rang, the lock smith was here. phew

"The noble art of losing face will someday save the human race" - hans blix

tales from shanghai (new sigma = happy times)

Foreword:

today i bought a new sigma 10-20mm wide angle, the result was an instant adventure. but not the type i had hoped for and certainly too instant. From this point on, all dialogue in english will be in bold.

i was eager. eager to experience the adventures my new sigma was about to provide.

i happily stepped out of the store having been convinced (scammed?) to purchase a kenko UV cover.

i put the viewfinder to my eyes, my right hand was trembling with excitement. there was no time to look for the right lighting, i needed to take a photo as fast as i could manage, a masterpiece is about to happe...oops, lens cap is still on. i embarrassingly remove the lens cap secretly hoping no one had saw such an amateurish mistake. "must happen to everyone at one stage," i convinced myself.

as i press down to take what could have been a masterpiece, i see with my preferal vision, someone walking with extreme direction, that is to say they were moving in my direction with strong intent. "Someones in a hurry," i thought out loud in english "better step out of their way."

i move forward just enough for this man to pass behind me, though the space was not very generous, it was all the distance i could spare without ruining my masterpiece of a photo. "finally...i can take my photo".

as these thoughts moved through my head, i felt a bony hand placed on my shoulder also with extreme direction and strong intent. "GIVE ME BACK MY CAMERA"

"What the hell?" i asked rhetorically.

"Why did you steal my camera?"

"Buddy, you better let go of my tie, i did not steal your camera," I said as I contemplated the possible reasons for his violation of my personal space.

This guy is most likely trying to cause a scene, make me show him my camera and then run away after scamming me of my camera. I just bought this new lens and I was in no mood to be that generous. He was definitely going to ask me to show him my camera.

"Show me your camera, let me see it!" he demanded.

"Buddy, you are not touching my camera, i did not steal yours, if you let go now, i'll pretend nothing happened and i'll let you go."

After that statement, he paused for a second, maybe to contemplate my offer. At this stage i had my left hand on his neck and my right hand firmly gripping my SLR. This would be scammer was very skinny, looked like maybe he was suffering from malnutrition. I could count the amount of hairs coming out of his chin, they were whisker-like, like that time me and John Low decided to do Movember and failed. I snapped out of this thought just as he pulled on my tie which was choking me, he then grabbed my shirt and ripped two buttons off. I had no hands free to strike him with, for a second i thought maybe I should pummel him on the head with my camera, but i was not willing to sacrifice my camera either way. I still had my fingers tightly wrapped around his neck and i pulled his face close to mine and semi-bluffed "Friend, I'm traveling on a passport, not only will I beat you up, not only will the police arrest you, my government will look for you."

The Australian government most likely would not do anything for me in this situation except tell me they couldn't do anything.

Just as I realised I was close enough to head butt him in the nose, 3 men surrounded us and attempted to break us off.

"Stop! We're the police, what the hell is going on here?"

I examined the face that these words came from, a tall middle aged man, he had a greasy comb-over and an extremely wrinkled face. The two men standing next to him, one slightly overweight with a semi-guile-from-street-fighter haircut, and another man who was darker than I and missing a tooth. My instincts were telling me these guys are probably apart of the scam, they will probably ask me to handover the camera in a few seconds.

"He stole my camera!" the scammer yelled

"Buddy, this is my camera, if you lost a camera, tell me the model number."

"Give me the camera," the first cop calmly stated. (ah-ha! scam indeed)

"Sorry, I am not letting go of this camera, I can't be sure if you really are indeed a cop"

He quickly reached for a badge and displayed it, i apologised again and stated i don't trust it.

"How about we go to the police station then, is that enough to prove we're cops?"

"Sure," I said "but this camera isn't leaving my hand."

At this stage the scammer had a sudden change of expression and his eyes seemed to have lost the strong purpose it had before.

"I can't go," he said as he started backing off "I have a friend still waiting for me in KFC, my things are still there."

The police were quick to grab a hold of him, after a short negotiation, we decided to go into KFC and I wanted to see if this guy really lost a camera or if he was trying to scam me. After questioning some people in KFC, turns out he had been sitting in KFC for about 45 minutes prior to our incident with his girlfriend who was waiting for him at the seat. Surveillance cameras revealed that whilst he was passionately "displaying his affection" for his lady friend, a man some would consider obese simply walked by and put the camera in his bag and mingled away. The police pleaded that i don't press charges, I assumed it was because I held a passport and would definitely mean more paperwork, I initially refused and wanted to teach this guy a lesson about taking action before thinking. He had lost a Canon camera whilst I was taking photos with a Sony that had a strap clearly visible displaying the brand name. He clearly was not thinking straight and he clearly was distressed, I contemplated for a while and decided not to press charges, he just lost a pretty expensive camera and almost had his ass whooped for no good reason (apart from ruining my shirt). I gave him a 20 minute lecture about how to be a decent human being and just because he was wronged doesn't give him the right to act like he did. The lecture also included how he is embarrassing himself, his girlfriend, his city and his country.

I departed KFC with a friendly chat to the police, apologising for my distrust and thanking them for their timely arrival. They apologised again on behalf of the foolish man and hope my views on Shanghai weren't tarnished by this experience.

The End

Regardless, I'm still pretty stoked on my new lens (Sigma 10-20mm f3.5). As you can I gave my blog a mild update with another picture of my wife. Now i need to purchase an external flash and a camera bag, I'm gonna be out of money real soon.