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.

employment pt. 2

This is continuation of my last post, this will primarily focus around the interviews I was offered.

At first I wanted to get into specifically PR/Events for an agency or a client that primarily dealt with luxury women's cosmetics. Eventually I realised no one was going to hand that to me on a plate, I started applying for any job at any company that even mentions the words "marketing" and/or "media.

I found that your dreams generally aren't handed to you.
(If this is TLDR, and you just want important advice, then scroll down to Keep Left and read the learnings there.)

Here are the ones I got interview from:

                                                                                                                                      

King Pro:

The very first interview I was offered was for some place called King Pro Marketing.

Their website seems to have disappeared.

I remember sitting down in the lobby with about 6-7 other people for the group interview session.
Black Eyed Peas "Time of my life" was pumping on the TV and I thought "fuck, if they play this music every day, I would shoot someone."

A guy walks out with a poorly fitted suit and invites us all in the meeting room. I filled out a very impersonal form with all my information and handed it to him. At this point I'm still trying to figure out what this company actually does.

He explained that he had offices in 2 other Australian cities, he was originally a backpacker from London and built this business from the ground up. I eventually figured it out, he was looking for door-to-door salesman. This "marketing company" was a 3rd party provider of door-to-door sales people, not what I was looking for.

Despite the dude offering me a second interview, I had to decline. It wasn't what I wanted.

Learnings:

A group interview generally isn't a good sign that this is gonna be a "proper" job
A bad website usually means a bad company

                                                                                                                                      

Illusive Cube:

It's very funny to me that this website has also since been shut down it seems.
A friend of mine actually came across this company and recommended me to apply there.
They had an OK website, couldn't tell what they did, but then again lots of marketing companies seemed to be like this.

I rocked up in my suit and what do you know? Group interview.
They also provided me a form to fill out that was exactly the same as the one from King Pro.

A suave english-man comes out (this time in a well fitted suit) and welcomes us into the board room.
He explains he listed these positions as "Marketing and Media" and not "Sales" as he didn't want the standard sales person.

The room was full of interesting characters whom I assumed superiority, I got into a conversation with a guy who apparently was about to go to Korea for exchange. He was also shocked to find that North and South Korea were different countries, he was even more worried when I said they used different currencies. "Which currency do I get??" he says.

Eventually I realised that this company was exactly like King Pro (door knocking), absolutely terrible. I realised this when the Managing Director was proud that his team rocked up to a marketing conference all in white suits (badly fitted no doubt) and hired people to break dance in front of their stall.

He was also originally a backpacker, from the UK.

Learnings:

Stay away from companies started by british backpackers
Probably not the right type of "marketing job" if the owner has never heard of the position "Account Manager"
If the MD is proud of extremely tacky things, chances are the company is tacky

                                                                                                                                      

Cowan Design:

The first company on my list to actually still exist it seems.
As far as I am aware, these guys seemed to be a graphics design agency. They have many offices around the world and deal primarily in FMCG packaging/ad design. Pretty cool.

I had a brief dabble into graphics design myself, and by brief dabble I mean it was a high school dream that was crushed by reality.

But hey, working as an Account Manager at such a company would have been way cool.
The office is in South Yarra and it was my first interview at a company I thought I would actually want to work at.

I was asked a lot of questions that I think I nailed, but obviously its the ones that you didn't nail that stand out in your memory.

The question was:

"Do you see a problem with a cosmetics company making products for children? If so, why? How do you mitigate this?"

I spent many minutes talking around in circles and it really looked like I was missing the keywords that the interviewer was looking for. I got a bit desperate and kept talking to fill in the time hoping if I said every buzz word I knew, I would eventually hit it.

I did eventually hit it, but only after I was slightly prompted.

What she wanted to hear was "Yes, but certain cosmetic brands position themselves as "care" rather than "beauty" which is why they have no problem making children's products.

Looking back, those 2 words was what cost me the job.
Well and the fact that the job description said they needed someone with 2 years experience.
Actually I definitely wasn't qualified.

Learnings:

Its OK to pause to think and to ask the interviewer to clarify a question
Rambling and dropping buzzwords doesn't impress anyone (who know what they're doing)

                                                                                                                                      

Adconion Media Group:

I applied for a position at a company called Adconion in Feb.
The first interview went extremely well, but after an awesome 35 minutes, I really still had no idea what the company did.

I distinctly remember my interviewer mentioning the words "digital distribution platform" and "providing the technological solution to media agencies". I had no idea what this meant, all I knew was I interviewing for a position of "Campaign Manager" at what seemed like a media company. Sounded pretty cool. Managing digital media campaigns.

I left the interview with a great feeling, I pretty much assumed I've already got the job. I also made the mistake of presuming this position was a creative one, similar to an account manager. This would heavily influence how I approached my second interview with who would be my direct manager.

Essentially, I got this role completely wrong. A campaign manager required meticulous attention to detail and a knack for doing something extremely repetitive.

So obviously when the interviewer asked the question "Are you more of an analytical person or a creative person?" I gave the wrong answer.

I was very sad when I didn't get this job, it seemed like a great company, cool office, cool director (first guy that interviewed me). Especially when I pretty much felt like I had already got the job after my first interview.

Learnings:
Don't get too attached to your applications
No matter how good you feel about the interview, the job is still up in the air until you get that email
Don't preemptively paint a picture of a role unless you are absolutely sure what it is

                                                                                                                                      

Keep Left PR:

Keep Left is an independent PR firm based in South Melbourne. By this stage I had completely given up on actually landing a PR gig. So I was quite excited when I got this interview offer.

It was a lowly 35k a year junior account role but hey, this is a good start. Especially considering I didn't even do communications at university. I saw it as my ideal opportunity to break in.

I got up to the 3rd stage with Keep Left, but by this stage I had known better than to assume that I got the job.

The 2nd stage was a written Press Release, I had never written one before (I didn't do PR or Comms at Uni). How hard can it actually be? Well... not that hard actually.

A friend of mine who was doing PR at the time helped me and gave me examples. I wrote a mock press release for Crust Pizzas, who was one of their clients at the time. Seemed to go all pretty well and they liked me enough to invite me back for a final interview.

The Account Director interviewed me in my last interview. Again, the only thing that stood out to me was the sole question I didn't nail.

"What types of media do you consume?"
"Mainly digital"

Wrong answer, you don't go to a PR agency and tell them you only consume media on your computer, regardless if you're actually reading The Age or GQ's website.

I'm not actually sure what happened with this interview though, because I got very good feedback after the interview but a job offer never officially came. And no one ever emailed me to reject me. I think that the HR screwed this up. I like to tell myself I actually got the job offer.

Learnings:
I learnt the most valuable interviewing technique in this interview, something I share with everyone when they ask me for interview advice.

Tell the interviewer what they want to hear.
It seems obvious now, but its amazing how everyone overlooks it.

Every time an interviewer asks a questions, they are looking for a particular answer. Think to yourself what the answer is.

Example: If someone asks you what types of media you consume, obviously the answer is as many as possible. If someone asks you are you a creative person? For a creative role, say yes. Or you shouldn't even be at this interview.

You can deal with the consequences of a lie later, but if you don't tell them what they want to hear now, you won't even get a chance to prove yourself. (obviously depending on context, remember how I said its OK to gather yourself and clarify the question and think about the situation?)

If you take away anything from this blog, its this.

                                                                                                                                      

L'Oreal:

I lied at the start of the article. King Pro wasn't my first interview offer and dreams sometimes are handed to you on a plate.

At the start of 2011 (as soon as I graduated), I got a phone call that seemed too good to be true.

A recruiter at L'Oreal had somehow gotten a hold of my CV and was "extremely impressed" by my experience in Shanghai. She also offered to skip me past the barrier test that apparently thousands of grads applied for. I really thought I was dreaming.

I absolutely nailed the first interview. She pulled out a few bottles of perfume and asked me to identify what kind of people they were marketed towards and why.

I don't think there was any way that this interview could have gone better for me, I was asked if a particular bottle shape was to be adapted to target 40-50 year old women, what would I change?

I said "the shape needed to communicate an elegancy". The recruiter's eyes seemed to have lit up when I said "elegancy". She tried to get me to meet a few people I'd be working with but they were all out for lunch.

I got offered a 2nd interview and found out exactly what the role was. If I remember correctly it was for a Grad Product Marketing Manager for the Yves Saint Laurent range of fragrances. As far I was aware at the time I didn't do too poorly in this interview.

I didn't hear from them for 6 months, I chased them up so many times but I didn't hear any responses. This was the first time I felt shattered. Mainly because I had no idea where I went wrong.

Learnings: ???

                                                                                                                                      

Adconion Media Group(again):

It's September now, and I guess I've kinda been desensitised. I had just finished my rounds at Keep Left.

Someone calls me from Adconion again and offers me an interview. By this time I had actually forgotten who Adconion was until I saw the address. I have applied at 80+ places at this stage, faced almost just as many rejection letters.

2 positions were available actually. Media Operations Executive and Account Executive. I still had no idea what Adconion did at this point. All I knew was I didn't want to be in Sales, the AE role was apart of sales.
So I went for the MOE, whatever the hell that was.

There were 2 people in the boardroom. I was asked a wide range of questions about the internet.
What stood out in this interview though, actually had nothing to do with the job.

The Media Director was scanning my resume again after asking me a series of questions.
"It says here, you dance. What sort of dance exactly?"
"In high school and early university, I did breaking"

We spent the rest of the interview talking about breaking. That very afternoon, I got a job offer. Sweet! Or was it? Complications arose about a month later, I'll get to that in a sec.

Learnings:

Almost everything I had learnt in previous interviews was applied to this interview.
It was extremely important that I showed personality on my resume, no one cares you worked at a MacDonald's when you were 15, but people do care that you play the guitar, sing(or in my case, dance), etc.

I never asked my director or my manager why I got offered the role, apparently after my interview, the director couldn't stop talking about "this guy who breakdances".

                                                                                                                                      

L'Oreal (again):

Complications! 1 month into my new job at Adconion, (which is about 6 months since I had last heard from L'Oreal) the same recruiter calls me.

She explained that the previous role has actually disappeared due to restructuring. I got lost in admist of this restructuring and they were still super interested in me.

I was in a dilemma, angry and happy at the same time. How could they just forget about me for 6 months? I had just found this company that seemed to be awesome.

I decided that I couldn't pass on this opportunity, my heart was still in marketing. I still had no idea what Adconion actually did 1 month in.

First, I made the mistake of driving to this interview. I was effectively 15 minutes late due to traffic. Not only this, the receptionist was at lunch and someone was filling in, the person filling in didn't know how to ping anyone on the phone, and when she found out how, the interviewer was actually from the Sydney office and she didn't know how to reach him in Melbourne. another 15 minutes very quickly passed and to my interviewer I was 30 minutes late to an interview that was meant to be 1 hour. He wasn't impressed.

I don't really recall what he asked me in this interview. I do recall him pretending to be interested in what I had to say, being 30 minutes late really ruined any chances I had. I never got a reply but I assumed he wasn't impressed.

Learnings:
Don't be 30 minutes late to an interview
Because I already had a job, I approached the interview very half arsed, don't waste their time (or your own) if you are ever going to go to an interview half arsed.

                                                                                                                                      

Conclusion:

I guess in the end you never know where your career might take you. I still wonder where I would be if I got the job at L'Oreal, certainly not at Google (or maybe?)

Would I have been happier working in an industry I had dreamed about working in?
Or discover that its nothing like I imagined and that every junior role is mundane by nature and really depends what you make of it?

I finally figured out Adconion did after about 3-4 months there. I ended up working at Adconion Media Group for 1.5 years, made friends for life, learnt tons of stuff about a new fast paced industry. The experience I gained and work I did there resulted in recruiters at Google knocking on my door but thats again another story.

I'm grateful for all the opportunities I was given, and to everyone that rejected me...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I now work at Google

Thanks for reading!

employment pt.1

The inspiration to write has hit me again,

I'm going to commit to writing down most of the stories I tell people during bar conversations.

This one is about how I ended up at Google and maybe everyone can take away some learnings from this blog post too.

I've had a lot of friends finishing their first or second degrees and feeling very discouraged by the job market and not being able to secure their dream jobs.

I guess this prompted me to review what I went through when I was grad 3 years ago.

Expectations:

I had already done a 6 month internship working with some great clients in Shanghai (Dior, Givenchy, Avene, Georg Jensen), I thought I would be invincible and would land a dream marketing job as soon as I graduated.

Reality:

Silly me

It took me 9 months to land a job.

I applied for over 80 jobs over that 9 month period, just to give an idea of what that looks like:

Those are just some of the cover letters I sent out, I got about 5 offers for interviews. (About 6% response rate). Of course for those students with super high HDs and president of every club at university, the response rate will probably be higher. But for the average uni student like me with a mid-high credit average, this is probably what you should expect.

I actually ended up 2 more internships after I got back. One of which was at Haystac PR in Melbourne, the other one was Calibre Menswear. During this time I was still working at a dead end job at Roy Morgan Research to actually have some money to live.

Meanwhile I had my parents on my back pressuring me to find a job instead of taking a 3 month holiday somewhere overseas, I strongly regret not taking this holiday and really advise people against stressing out about finding their first job.

Even though I eventually had no emotional attachment to any of my applications or the rejection letters I would receive, I started getting pretty depressed. Especially when friends around me were securing great grad positions with big companies and making lots of money, I was still a call center monkey grad looking for his first job.

As mentioned before, out of the 80+ applications I sent out, I got about 5 interviews. I'll document exactly who they were for and what I learnt from them in the next part :)

小笼包 (Xiaolongbao)

From a very young age, I have absolutely loved Xiaolongbao. And the truth is, there is no Xiaolongbao in the world that can compare with the Xiaolongbao in Shanghai. I'm highly skeptical when someone tells me they have found "awesome" "authentic" "orgasmic" Xiaolongbaos outside of China.

I consider myself to be quite a Xiaolongbao connoisseur. My personal favourite is a little franchise store in the town of Shihua. Though its moved about 3 or 4 times since I was 4, I still eat there every time I get the chance.

The common mistake 外地人/gweilos/tourists make when they visit Shanghai in search of Xiaolongbao is that they go to premium restaurants or the actual 老城隍庙（Lao Cheng Huang Temple Area) as it is quite famous for their buns, in fact my favourite franchise pictured above is named after the area.

In actual fact, no locals would go to the Lao Cheng Huang Temple Are to eat this local dish, in my opinion, the restaurants in the area have lost the touch of making the buns, possibly due to the amount of pressure involved pumping out thousands of these buns a day for all the tourists coming by.

The best places to eat them are these little shops pictured above.

A typical menu at one of these places includes of course multiple iterations of Xiaolongbao. Generally they're made out of pork, or you can get crab and shrimp ones too I think.

The menu also consists of dumplings, fried noodles, basically all you need to survive in China. And they're generally quite cheap.

So what does a true Xiaolongbao taste like? What should it taste like?

The actual taste is very hard to describe, but I can certainly describe the physical features of a perfect Xiaolongbao which would at least indicate that the chef knew a little about what he was doing.

The whiteness of the skin generally signifies the freshness of the bun (or they could have used bleach I don't know), if the bun is too yellow, it generally means that it has been sitting for a while, or that the guy who made it probably used too much mucus. Yellowing skin could also mean that the pastry was too thin and the soup inside has soaked it, which makes the skin weak and easy to break.

Generally you dip the full bun into Chinese vinegar and you bite a hole to enjoy a bit of the delicious soup/tears inside the bun before you consume the whole thing. The vinegar not only provides it with a tangy taste but also is used to cool down the temperature of the bun itself so you don't burn your noob tongue.

Having said that, it still all depends on the taste of the filling. Genuine Xiaolongbao has a very distinct taste that bursts into a beautiful soupy orgasm in your mouth. If you don't feel that sensation every time you bite into one, chances are its not genuine.

If the people cooking your buns don't look like this, then you in the wrong place.

The little blue sign is a mark for their hygiene, unsurprisingly the less smiley the face = the better tasting the buns.

Now that you've read this, people in Melbourne, please think twice before telling me how great the buns are at Hu Tong. They ain't got shit on Shanghai.

東京

Before you start reading, you should know this is not a guide or a walkthrough of Tokyo. This is a personal reflection and a collection of thoughts after visiting. Tokyo may not have the same effect on you, but hopefully this will encourage you to find your own place in the world. Enjoy

I never really understood my fascination with Japan. It may have been the endless hours of Ultraman I watched as a young’un, it may have been the countless Animes and Manga characters I admired, or it could have been the fantastic games and technologies that came out of the country. I was never sure.

A strong love of Pokémon games prompted me to take Japanese classes when I was 11, Japanese versions of the games would always be out 6 months before an English version, I so desperately wanted to play it as soon as they were released.

I learnt Japanese for 3 years in high school, but you couldn't distinguish me between someone who has learnt it for 3 weeks these days. My parents denied me an exchange to Japan whilst in high school, that combined with a general laziness resulted in me ceasing to study Japanese.

However, the general awareness and a slight fascination continued.

This year, I made a last second decision to visit Tokyo. Even though it was only a week, it would prove to be a rather significant point in my life.

I'm no stranger to large East Asian metropolis cities. I've visited Hong Kong, worked in Shanghai and studied/travelled to Korea/Seoul. Urban jungles shaped by tightly packed buildings where a large amount of inhabitants teem with fervour and breathe life into an endless night.

I was impressed by the efficiency and infrastructure of Hong Kong, constantly amazed by the tenacity and the ambitious culture of Shanghai and Seoul seemed like a perfect place where a fast moving city came to be in harmony with a peaceful culture and identity.

Yet Tokyo was the only city that truly blew me away.

I spent a total of 10 days in Tokyo, utilising each day to try and explore each neighbourhood as widely as possible. To me, buildings and landmarks are only a small part of a city. It’s the people, the culture and the subsequent vibe that entails which really define and shape the city.

I was fortunate enough to visit Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Asakusa, Ginza, Tsukiji, Roppongi and Akihabara.
Each of these areas had a distinct feel, not just to the architecture and services, but the people. I could go on for days trying to explain what the differences are, but it would not do these places any justice.

Tokyo seems to be a city full of contradiction. People work hard, people play hard and people are sexually conservative, yet it’s one of the most sexually liberated cultures in the world. You can pray in a secluded temple and walk out straight into a red light district. Everyone conforms, yet everyone is different. Customs and traditions are strict, but thinking outside the box is common. People are crazy but they are respectful. They are racists but they are extremely open-minded.

I often found myself sitting on a corner and just watching people walk past. It amazes me how significant and insignificant that simple act can make you feel at the same time. A world full of surprises.

The variety of people I met in Tokyo was astounding, hardcore rockers who went to great universities, a bboy whose parents perished in the tsunami, expats of various nationalities/ethnicities who had been working in Japan for up to 15 years, Japanese people who have been overseas and come home to their motherland never wanting to leave again and seemingly like-minded people who draw no conceptual boundaries.

The weight of each of the words exchanged during my conversations with new friends is probably not reciprocated and I guess I will never know. But chatting in an empty Shibuya at 4AM with the sun slowly rising really does inspire you in many ways than one.


At the Meiji shrine in Yoyogi, I wrote on an Ema in Chinese, Japanese and Korean:

A Vibrant Life
A Mysterious Future
A Clear Path

I never really understood my fascination with Japan, in many ways I still don't. But after this trip I think I'm getting closer. I felt inspired in Tokyo, more so than the first time I set foot in Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong or any other cities.

But once upon a time, I ranked these cities and saw them as rivals. But now I see them as different parts of myself and my stepping stones towards:

A Vibrant Life
A Mysterious Future
A Clear Path

retail australia

I booked my tickets to the land of Pokémon aka. Japan aka. Nippon a few weeks ago. I decided that I needed a more versatile lens for my DSLR so I don't miss a thing.

This led to an extremely frustrating adventure through the world of Australian retail.

The lens I wanted was the SONY 35mm 1.8F lens. Its quite a basic, cheap, low range lens.

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666254721

Sony USA had it for 219 USD.

Usually official Sony stores sell for quite inflated prices, amazon seemed to have similar prices and eBay was going for roughly 210 (shipped)AUD at the lowest price.

So I thought I will do some research looking at local retailers.

Ted's cameras has this lens for 299 + 10 delivery if you want it delivered.
That's 310. 100 dollars more than INTL retailers.

I did a quick search on static-ice. A local retailer in Northcote is selling this lens for 249. A great price for Australia it seems (though I can't find the site of the retailer atm).

I printed this out and took it to the many camera retailers along Elizabeth Street to beat that price. Given that the retailer is in the same city and not TOO out of the way, it would not make sense to price match as it would only encourage expensive retailers to inflate their price and match when the occasion comes.

To my surprise, not one single retailer wanted to beat the price of 249.
These retailers include Ted's Cameras, Michaels and Camera House (their retail for this lens was actually 399).
Both Ted's and Michaels tried to convince me that their whole sale price is 249 which I called bullshit.
I hate it when retailers try to convince me they're not making any money with a sale but are willing to sell it to me anyway, that is an insult to me as a consumer. I will never buy anything from Ted's or Michaels moving forward.

At Ted's the first attendant told me that this lens was out of stock and they needed to order it in (which would take about a week). Just as I was walking out, I saw it on display and approached another attendant if I could buy the display model, he said no but funnily enough said there was stock.

The only place that was willing to beat 249 was Sony Center for a token price of 245. But when he checked his stock, he had to order it in (would take up to 2 weeks). He said the display model belonged to "Sony Australia".

(A word of advice to stores, if you are going to call yourself Sony Centre, don't tell me this stock belongs to Sony Australia and you're not actually Sony.)

I wanted to spend my money and would have settled for 230-240. No one wanted to take my money so I spent it with an online store from Hong Kong, paying only around 200 bucks.

This is why retailers in Australia are failing, not because of taxes. But because they are stubborn and would rather lose business and lie about their costs than adapt and lower their prices.

racism

2020 June 22nd Update

I no longer agree with my views below and think this is a perfect example of my rationalization to adhere to the cultural zeitgeist of "racism doesn't exist in Australia"

There's also an element of victim blaming

I kept the below post intact as a record of my own thought process back then


------

Recently something quite tragic (though I can't say I am surprised), happened in Sydney.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/13513195/chinese-students-fear-sydney
http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshomef/13530527/chinese-students-at-risk-in-australia/

A few Chinese international students were assaulted and robbed in Sydney. What's more disgusting arguably in my opinion is the media position and how the Chinese community have reacted.

Being of Chinese decent and ethnicity, I've quite often had to deal with racism growing up. Though not quite as often the older I got, either because people become more educated or they become less inclined to show their racist ideology in the open.

But as you grow older, you also learn how to deal with racism and learn how to diffuse the situation. I've strongly disagreed with any media (even Australian) classifying these attacks targeted racist attacks and its even more ridiculous for any media (especially Chinese) to claim that Australia is somehow unsafe for international students for other ethnicities.

If the issue was racism, then the color of my skin should determine the amount of "racially motivated" assaults I'm exposed to/be a victim of. KKK did not discriminate between African American or Native Africans.Why then is it that international students seem to be the center to these attacks?

The truth is, the criminals committing these acts of violence are targeting people who are vulnerable to these attacks. International students need to reach outside of their shells and circles and learn how to avoid these situations much how you learn not to get pick pocketed or ripped off by street vendors (at times because of your race or origins) in China.

It angers me that one of the students went to social media and tweeted "Australia is not safe, no security at all" despite the perpetrators being arrested a few stops later on that same train. I would be more than surprised if he can find me an example of Chinese police doing better.

@Australian Media, please stop calling these attacks as "racially motivated" because someone threw in an ethnic slur. The focus should be on the perpetrators rather than the victims, those kids would have mugged anyone they could.

@Chinese Media & Netizens, stop pretending China is any safer for international students. A few rich Chinese international students in Australia get beat up and make headline news in China, set your priorities straight, there are worse things in China that you might want to start reporting on.

people people

This is a more humorous follow up to my post about the differences in social network norms across western and eastern countries.

Recently, I've been trying to be more active on the Chinese version of Facebook in attempt to increase my understanding potentially for future professional benefits.

RenRen net started off as "Xiao Nei" which literally translates to "On Campus". It was an exact clone (or attempt at) of Facebook right down to the color and the interface. A few years ago, their team decided they wanted to expand their demographics to more than just students and was renamed to RenRen, which roughly translates to "Everyone". This puts it in a better position to compete against "Kaixin001" which is pretty much the same thing but with a different color scheme and targeted towards young professionals.

RenRen Interface

Through my poor understanding if written Chinese, I somehow stumbled upon a beta app, an extension to the main website named YuJian, which translates to "To Meet". Basically its a lighter version of the main social network application tailored towards "meeting people". Here is what it looks like:

Yu Jian

You're supposed to list your personal details so gold diggers can check you out and be like "yo! this guy baller" I've blacked it out to avoid embarrassment as it is extremely exaggerated for the lulz.

At first you think "There is nothing humorous about all of this". Then you need to keep reading. So a big difference between this and the main social network is that you can view profiles and rate people out of 10.

Needless to say, the first thing I decided to do was go trolling, giving people 1/10, 2/10, 3/10. You know? Just being a jerk.

After I trolled some girls, I decided to explore it a bit more. A notification pops in the corner of my eye. "Oarsome, someone rated me 10/10! I'm the fcking shi.... ah fuck its just a bot :("

Within a few seconds...I had realised, you can see exactly who has been on your page and what rating they gave you. Of course these girls i trolled were very happy to give me a 1/10. Life lesson learnt, don't be a jerk...

After a while, the girls all start to look the same...actually, they all look the same from the start. I don't mean that in a racist way, I mean that they all take oddly composed photos that are either over or under saturated. Most likely taken at home by themselves in some funny pose:

And then sometimes you see girls that takes it to the next level, some of my personal favourites include:

The Ultimate Duckface

Apparently shes 19... go figure.

Toilet Seat Duckface

"Must take dump, must rinse mouth, must look cute!"

The Semen Tears

I guess Chinese guys find this cute?

I thought pretending to model in your own bathroom was only for early high school kids? I guess that's not the case in China.

Apparently this girl is like 25 so something

Oh wait, that's not from China, that's someone on my actual Facebook friends' list...guess we're not all that different then.

The most ridiculously next level profile I stumbled upon turned out eventually to be a bot. But here is a picture at how ridiculous it was. Here is a sample:

I had to give her a 9/10 for effort

It was not until this person uploaded this following photo that I realized it was a bot...

Sorry I had to censor the boobs.

And with that I end my post. To be fair, there are some pretty hot girls on there, even if they don't show their boobs on their profile.

Peace.

december

I haven't blogged for a while but for those of you still lurk around in this occasionally dead space that is my blog/mind, merry xmas to you sir/ma'am.

Looking back at this year, I didn't really blog a lot. Partly due to the fact that I had nothing much interesting happen until late September.

I guess the most exciting thing that happened late September was that I finally found a job, after 9 months of searching and random internships at Haystac (thank you!) and Calibre Menswear (thank you!).

Its ironic that when I have lots of time to blog, I don't have much to blog about. When I have plenty to write about, I don't have time. I'm happy that I get to finally sit down and jot down somethings.

I'm currently working at Adconion Media Group as a Media Operations Executive, the world of digital media is nothing like anyone could ever imagine without working in the industry. The sheer amount of media delivery and innovations that happen in this industry towers above any other medium. Sometime in the next year when I've worked for a bit longer, I think I will do a post describing exactly what we do.

Another update in my life I guess has been a new found enthusiasm and fascination with the world of eSports.
Like the rest of my generation, I've been playing computer games from a very young age, just like traditional sports like football, basketball etc. In fact I played plenty of sports growing up but it never occurred to me why I never classified the competitive nature of computer gaming as a "sport".

I played Age of Empires 2 semi-competitively online a very long time ago, played Counter-strike plenty and more recently the Halo series. Its such a non-issue if you think about it in terms of these games evolving into spectator sports just like any other sports we play. Everyone plays games in some respect, why can't the most competitive, most well designed of these be watched and appreciated in public?

I still remember being in Korea for the first time, seeing Starcraft: Broodwar on TV and thinking that it was just so lame. But why is watching Liverpool vs Arsenal any better than watching Boxer vs Idra?

I think we're all "nerds" to some degree about something in our lives, weather it be fashion, music, films or computer games.

I think this has been a great post leading into the new year. I've already got inspiration to write a post about my company and about the fantastic world of eSports.

Its gonna be a good year! Bring on 2012!

K-POP Fest 2011 Sydney

If you are Pedo-bear, then K-Pop Music Fest 2011 Sydney would have been the most amazing experience from the start. Due to the fact that I am not a pedophilic (or hebephilic) bear, my enjoyment of this event really came with some endurance, but the endurance did not go unrewarded.

From the moment the ticket prices were announced I was feeling quite unhappy. Almost 300 dollars for a VIP ticket, close to 200 for a Gold with no real benefits apart from being closer in fantasy to putting a marriage sack over Taeyeon, I decided to go for gold. For the most part, this was a good choice.

Our true realisation about the clientele of this event came when I received a call a few hours before the concert from a friend. He had a very simple message "Hurry up and come, its terrible here, I'm 20 years older than everyone else here", considering hes only 24, this was unsettling. The promise of sitting next to a cute girl (my age) was one step further.

"COME AT ME GIRLS!"

Our second realisation came when waiting on the platform at Central Station. As indicated by the phone call, the girls in fact did not exceed the age of 10. There were a few fat white chicks sprinkled through-out for good measure (the ones that watch anime, you know the ones I'm talking about, refer to video) with the odd Korean here and there wondering why there were so many Indonesians here.

every white girl at this concert pretty much

Our final realisation came when we got to ANZ Stadium, at this point we sincerely regret the purchase of these tickets and devised an elaborate lie to cover up the reasons why we were there if any cute girl of age were to ask in conversation.

there is probably a total of 5 koreans in this shot

Options included: We were Korean language students that won a contest at uni and got free tickets, We worked for marketing company that sponsored us because they wanted to make an investment in Korean entertainment companies. Basically whatever story that resulted in free tickets.

Being probably the most bad ass people out of this whole crowd, we cut in line and got to our allocated seating and patiently waited. At about 7PM, a countdown started on the screen and havoc in the form of thousands of girls screaming ensued... we decided to make the most of our money and join in the excitement.

SHINee opened with "Lucifer" and the screams got louder. Ring Ding Dong came on next I gave up what dignity I had left and sang along and danced, intentionally laughing to suggest I was only doing so in humorous purposes (rather than you know, actually enjoying myself).

It was too our delight that alcohol was served at this event and I quickly downed 5 coke and bourbons. This was when shit got real.

Sistar took the stage and man... they looked hot. By the time "Ma Boy" came on, I was rocking out like I was at a club (though being careful not to stray too close to the underage girls in front and behind of me). Martin however, lost all sense and began yelling profanities at the stage such as "SHOW US YOUR TITS!" "I WANT TO PUT MY COCK IN YOUR MOUTH" etc. He had very little regard for the age of the people around us, I kindly reminded him that its against our wishes to be arrested.

I really got in the mood to dance when Secret played their set, "Madonna" is such a sick song. I'm not sure if the people around me were shy or they were just retarded, coming to a concert with danceable music and just standing still trying to film rather than getting into it. (I don't care that they're 15, I was much more bad ass when I was 15).

Boy bands were really filler time for me to go get more drinks and to visit the rest room, or in Martin's case, get a nap. I also noticed that the camera man was probably specifically instructed to film as many white people as they could find, so that they can pretend that the concert wasn't 95% Australian Southeast Asian girls.

Miss A performed "Good Girl, Bad Girl" and "Good Bye Baby", 4 Minute performed "Muzik" and "Hot Issue", one awesomely notable performance was the cover of Kylie Minogue's  "Can't Get You Outta My Head". I felt like we were part of a very small handful of people who were alive when this song came out. I pretty much died and went to heaven during the "set me freeeeeeeeeeeee" part of the song, dear LORD it was good.

It wasn't long before I saw what we came to see... S.N.S.D.
They started their set with a song that was very true to their words, they had brought the boys out. Though their set was short lived with only "The Boys", "Kissing You" and of course unarguably the greatest song of all time "Gee", it was possibly a good contender for the greatest 20 minutes of my life(yes I realise how ridiculous that statement sounds). I'm glad they didn't do too much off their new album, it was classic SNSD, classic adlibs from Taeyeon. I chuckled at how adorable Sunny was when she flinched at the fireworks and I was sad when they handed out roses, sincerely regretting not spending an extra 100 bucks (having spent close to that on drinks already at this point).

CNBlue's set was actually quite good, their music was surprisingly catchy and they were a lot less gay boy than I had previously imagined. I'd say comparable to the "Songs About Jane" period of Maroon 5. Quite fun and funky pop rock. Except their instruments weren't plugged in on stage and somehow played their songs?... hrmm weird.

Our appreciation for CNBlue was very kindly rewarded by KARA's performance of "Jumping" "Lupin" and of course "Mister". This was the moment we started to grope the air in front of us as they taunted us with their extremely fit bodies. Martin "the Hulk" Won, had truly released the hulk inside of him in the form by wiggling his ass around (again disregarding the girls behind us), but the tight leather outfits of KARA really negated all of our morality and will to stay out of jail.

TVXQ closed the show with some surprisingly good songs, I still can't get over how homo-erotic "Keep Your Head Down" is.

Despite a slow start, it was a very enjoyable experience for me, despite the music being drowned out by preteen screams at times, I thoroughly enjoyed the performances, the price is a different story. If the tickets are not made to be cheaper, then I would strongly reconsider going again (or I might just have to go all -out with VIP tickets and a marriage sack ready next time).

I'm not a big fan of taking photos and videos during live events (I'm there to enjoy the performances) so I didn't take many, but heres a shot of the gold and vip areas.

There is no doubt how much money there is to be made in the coming years

We managed not to get arrested and I managed to resist my urge to run away with Taeyeon and grow old together.

edgy

Something I noticed recently that brands are trying harder and harder to be "edgy" in attempts to gain controversy and publicity as well as strengthen(?) their brand awareness and philosophy.

From the obvious attempts of the french connection campaign (fcuk off, too busy to fcuk etc) to recently this "stupid" campaign for DIESEL.

I think brands have been acquiring tunnel vision in "edginess" and focused on outdoing eachother that they are really forgetting about the message they are sending.

Here are some examples of advertising from Diesel's campaign:

Ad 1

Ad 2

and the irony in this one is great:

Ad 3

in effect, Diesel is calling their target market stupid. And if they truly embrace their own message then they are calling themselves stupid. Nothing that really makes me want to buy their products. But nothing I didn't expect from a label that I already thought was stupid.

today I saw this:

http://mumbrella.com.au/dangerfield-fuck-off-poster-slammed-by-asb-57381

and this after they had to recall those gun and sword shaped umbrellas, it seems like their management staff just doesn't want good PR. (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-descend-on-umbrella-gunman-20110517-1er0z.html)

Diesel should buy them

free

I remember in grade 6, when we graduated. We all ran around screaming we were finally free.

I remember at the end of year 12, we were all looking forward to our last VCE exam, again: "freedom".

As I sit and stare at my facebook newsfeed, everyone's screaming out that they're free as they finish their last University exams.

I wonder what occasion would warrant this feeling of apparent "freedom" again.

When we retire? When we die?

busted

photobomb win

source: http://www.collegehumor.com/picture/6474378/mythbuster-guys-photobomb-seth-rogen-and-fan

lyn

On my last night in Korea, I watched episode 18 of Invincible Youth. Martin had left in the morning and Ahyoung was busy shopping.

It was the last time I could watch live Korean TV for a while so I decided to switch the set on for any Starcraft or Kpop Shenanigans.

I came across a show called Sketch Book and there was an acoustic cover of a 2PM song in process. I'm not a 2PM fan but man this cover was so smooth that it kept me watching, soon they started playing this ridiculously awesome version of SHINee's Ring Ding Dong, I just had to keep watching. Keeping in mind I have a overwhelming bias against korean boy bands. The lady on stage finished her set with a cover of 2NE1's "I Don't Care".

I just had to write down her name which was apparently "Rin" or "Lin", I couldn't tell based on the Korean script. Eventually I found out it was "Lyn".

Here is the original performance.

Now last night, I decided to check if she had done anything else since, I was to be impressed.

That T-ara cover at 3:20 blew me away. If you want a taste of the original song to get a full appreciation of how good that cover is, check this out:

I acquired Lyn's albums, even though her vocals are still amazing, they were not as good as these covers. I would pay big money to see her just do these covers live.

crazy wings

so I went to crazy wings last in Melbourne last night with a bunch of gay boys.

We spent about 14 dollars each and we ate 4 chicken wings, a stick of pork and some enoki mushrooms.

It attempts to mimic the taste of street side vendors in China, and does this very accurately. However street vendors in China sell this for 10cents AUD where as I'm paying about 4 AUD for 2 chicken wings.

The whole novelty of this place is the "crazy wings". If you didn't know, they are ridiculously spicy chicken wings. And by ridiculous, I mean, half my face went numb after taking a bite.

Literally. No exaggeration what so ever.

I ate 2.5 tubes of wasabi at one point in my life, I am not sure which one was worse to be honest.

These wings lack flavour, you can not taste the chicken and struggle to find the logic behind someone eating this for reasons other than to torture themselves for humorous purposes and/or filming the humorous results as your eyes water up and snot dribbles down your nose due to you losing control of the nerves in your face.

You may as well just be punching yourself in the face whilst drinking lava.

This is not an ironic endorsement, nor a challenge, this is a dire warning, DO NOT GO THERE!