asia

Not sure if American culture is commercial capitalism phony nonsense or the chinese are even bootlegging holidays

/ knox / 1 Comment

As you know Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I find myself on http://www.taobao.com (chinese amazon) shopping around only to see Thanksgiving sales banners all over the place.  Not even the europeans do that. I had to check my url and make sure I wasn’t on amazon. I have no idea what relations china has with thanksgiving but that is weird as hell. A country 5,000 years old is copying a country that is 300 years old.

I guess the real question, is why?

Is American culture so mainstream and commercialized that people are willing to install our culture and use it to sell products? Is that the power of capitalism? Or maybe its so sad that people don’t see any importance in our holidays (they’re not) and just a means to sell products (which it is). Even the chinese are jumping at the opportunity to make money on these superficial days, they can’t have america’s stock market have its weekend jump all alone, now can they? I find it remarkable that even here, I see halloween, thanksgiving, valetine’s day (there is also a chinese valentine’s type of day which is ancient) , christmas, just about every holiday that isn’t ‘national’ like independence day (for obvious reasons). I’m not exactly sure what to make of it or how to feel about it. I came here with the idea that I left that commercialized superficial bullshit behind, and that I was going to have spring, autumn festivals (which are ancient holidays with a lot of meaning) and the many other interesting chinese holidays which follow ancient folklores, and I do,  but to see american capitalism in full force where you can see a starbucks attached to a temple, in such an ancient rich-in-history country like China is a bit disheartening.

Ah well. It is what it is.

 

Updates

/ knox / 2 Comments

I haven’t been blogging much. Basically my birthday just past and on the same day I ‘damaged’ my camera for the third time, I swear the lens is weak as piss because I’ve had to go to the notorious computer city for the third time now. I’m still alive and well, but recently I’ve been doing a lot of freelance work and making beats on my spare time trying to finish up this instrumental mixtape (clips down below). But other than that, life has been good, Qingdao is getting colder and I’ll probably be more indoors this winter making music and playing PS4 with the dozen or so games I haven’t been able to play lately. Seriously, I’m aging, and I have the love of my life, the club scene and wildin’ out has faded from my life, and quite frankly I’m glad. Everything is falling into place exactly as I wanted it.

That doesn’t mean no fuckery though, you’re subscribed to me, you know there’s always fuckery. So last weekend (here we go), I wake up with a toothache. Now typically I use champagne to numb whatever dumb shit is happening to my teeth because to be honest I have teeth problems (they’re not crooked or rotting, just aches here and there) due to my love of (sour) candy, I can’t help it, it’s an addiction since I was a teen. But anyways I wake up like whoa whoa what is this????? side of my face felt like a big girl sat on it and it was half flat…that’s around the time I knew hmmmmm maybe I should get this checked out, it kept throbbing more intensely every hour! whoa whoa. By 4pm, I was hauling it to the dentist office, luckily we have one literally a half a block away right next door and they are western educated and speak english. Now, I have  been to this place before they wanted to take a wisdom tooth out and it was fail (I’ll get into this another time) but I had a new dentist named Dr. Irene. I swear, within 5 min of going there she had me in the seat, x-rayed and shot up with novocane, 10 min after, teeth pulled and one root canal, best DR ever! I was feeling great, she pulled a tooth which had already been broken in half from a root canal that was neglected. Kind of strange to see a chunk of bone come out of your mouth, it threw me off.

My jaw is a bit sore and I’m using my secret champagne remedy to numb the area since they don’t have painkillers (thank god), but it’s kept me out of commission these past few days, it’s getting better though, so don’t worry.

I’m doing aright other than that, just living life, going to sort out my camera in a couple of days, and I’m supposed to travel to Korea in a week, hopefully its fixed by then and I can have some cools shots of the DMZ.

Anyways, it’s late and I’m tired, but I just wanted to let yall I am safe and sound, take care folks!

tracks:

Review: North Korean cigarettes

/ knox / Leave a comment

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Although I quit, I couldn’t let a rare gift from my Russian friend Kristina, go to waste. North Korean cigs? Don’t mind if I do.

Review: It’s actually pretty good. Smells a bit ‘different’ almost sour-ish but all and all it hits very smooth, clean (for it being cigs) and I don’t taste any chemicals, in fact its like a smoother American Spirits but without the harshness on the throat. I was quite surprised. I guess when you live in a non-capitalist society there is no need to cut corners or cut your tobacco with 42 other additives. I’ll give the DPRK some props, they have  good cigarettes on their hands.

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This is what I smoke now. Ecig review: The subox mini starter kit by Kangertech. Great device! It comes with everything except the battery, mod box, tank, and 3 atomizers (2 are sub ohm). I used to use a cloupor mini with an atlantis tank, bit over kill, heavy but leet. but this thing is more than enough for me, and half the price, it also goes up to 50w!!!!!  No leaks from the tank so far either which was a surprise because my big kanger subtank not only leaked, it had loads of spit back, this has neither or, small, sleek and stylish looking and surprisingly light with all the accessories. I am very very happy with this device and recommend anyone trying to quit, to switch to ecigs. I went from  6mg nicotine to 0. It’s pretty must a cloud blower with flavor.

While in China, we are content with things being poor quality

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When in Rome China.  One of the things you learn to accept within the first month of living here is that the quality of things are just not up to par with the rest of the world, which is odd since China MAKES everything around the world. Things like rusty gates, rusty lobby doors (damn near every gate/door to enter someones complex is rusty), heck even stainless steel goes rusty, clothes wear down after 6-12 months, cotton starts to turn into thousands of lint balls, colors fade, car and house paint fainting are every day occurrence. Now that I write this I wonder if it’s the quality or just pollution causing all this. HA. Anyways this blog was to talk about how a cool bridge in Henan made international news for being the longest glass bridge in the world. 

Most people in China were excited, but shortly after excitement most people, much like those abroad who had heard about it, questioned it’s quality. “But will it hold up?” “I won’t dare walk on that thing in China”, now me being a foreigner, and completely ignoring the many lessons I have learned, met the comments with optimism “It’ll hold, this is an international attractions, they wouldn’t fumble this, they wouldn’t want to lose face”

WRONG. LOL

I just never learn my lesson, I keep waiting for the day that the tide turns and everything starts to be made in japanese and german quality, yea, no. That bad boy cracked yesterday, and of course now every news circuit has caught wind. Face

lost. Comedy ensues.

bridge cracks, tourists flee in horror

China, we got to do better man, cmon lol.

At what point do we recognize traditional chinese medicine doesn’t work?

/ knox / Leave a comment

It’s common to hear people avoid a nice cold glass of water because apparently the chinese are under the impression it isn’t good for your system as it lowers your body temp (wtf). Avoiding things like ice cold drinks, pharmaceutical pills and other technologically advanced items which might strike fear in a some grandmothers (remember how she used to think cellphones gave brain cancer and we shouldn’t stand too close to the microwave when it’s on?) is a common trait.  Many chinese, in 2015, still believe these things. It’s common to be served hot water at a restaurant and although that doesn’t bother me as it’s cultural, it somewhat irks me when I order an ice cold glass of water and folks act like I’m going to catch pneumonia, or eating 5 seeds will cure my asthma, no it won’t, and that inhaler won’t give me cancer, in fact it’ll help the asthma within seconds while the seeds won’t do anything. Listen, hot water and tiger nuts haven’t knocked out a cold in 1,000 years. 2 tablespoons of tussin will knock out a cold in less than 8 hours, quit playing games. technology > witchcraft.

At the same time, I could see how a country with loose regulations (FDA? HA!) could make a few folks skeptical. It’s just weird how some are concerned with a pill for a headache might be bad for one’s health, and cold water giving you pneumonia, but no one is saying anything about the various pollution, or how the water appears to rust even  stainless steel. Forget the cold water, you didn’t see the gray haze on the way here?

Now that the one child policy has been relaxed….

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There will be actual brothers and sisters again. Interesting fact, in China, cousins act as a sort of replacement for the lack of brothers and sisters during the one-child policy, prior to the policy the chinese had large families, then there was the implementation thus  you had a lot of siblings with only a single child. This generation grew up with loads of cousins, however, with the one child policy generation, there will be a generation without 1st cousins, their children however will have brothers and sisters again. The one child policy generation sounds like a lonely one without nieces and nephews.

Today is a holiday. Chinese Victory day.

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Yes, you heard that right. Today is the day the Chinese defeated the Japanes….wait that didn’t happen, last I checked Japan surrendered after America dropped 2 nuclear bombs.

So why then are they having a victory parade as if they won the war? No idea.  I mean, I get it, it was a day of relief, but lets be honest that’s real strange. I could see if it were like a memorial day, but they are actually having a victory parade as though they defeated the japanese army. That didn’t happen. In fact, having a victory parade on the day another country defeated your enemy is a little….well. I’ll just stop there.