One of the most game-changing inventions of this century, in my opinion, is the advent of Youtube. Curiously, though, even though Google is the parent company of Youtube, it's really not doing a good job raising its kid because Google Translate doesn't spit out translations for Youtube to Japanese or Chinese, I only got the Korean version. Good thing to research, and good thing to keep in mind now that I own GOOG stock.
Youtube has single-handedly changed my TV-watching habits!
1.) I don't watch sports games in their entirety anymore, or any of the game. I now just watch for highlights to come out when the game is scheduled to end, making sure of course not to spoil myself by checking in on social media (I'm off of it a lot anyway nowadays). It's like watching a condensed highlight reel of the game, and instead of spending 3 hours watching football I spend about 6 minutes getting the best stuff. Sorry NFL!
2.) Especially now that I have unlimited wireless on my phone (Finally, right? Welcome to the 21st century, Robert!) I can watch videos anywhere I go, and basically use it to play podcasts, and language videos where they just incessantly repeat Korean or Japanese grammar words, or sentences. 6000 common words, 6 hours. Play it on a loop.
3.) The advent of the idea of a "Youtuber" allows anyone to be their own star! when I was in high school, my dream was to be famous, a reality TV star and show up on screen so that everyone would see me! But I thought you have to be an actor or someone famous to do that, and I would have to change myself A LOT for that to happen, like build a lot of muscles, or become a genius, save the president's daughter or something, or worse (be known for a crime). Turns out though, I didn't have to change, the world changed! The world allowed each person to be his or her own star and have their own marketing campaign, ads, and content to try to attract people's eyeballs. You are your television show! And there's a wide audience for people who make their own channels, where if you make the right edits, have good content, catchy music, you can have a million + subscribers! A million is a pretty significant number! Perfect for the millenial "me" generation which is apparently very self-absorbed and into themselves and each one is the hero of their own story. We're all "special" and can be whatever we want to be, and definitely anyone can be a Youtuber.
4.) Unlike TV channels, you don't have to have a cable subscription, have to have wires plugged into the wall, or be in the right area of the country, etc., etc. While the TV stations that I grew up watching (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) are still stuck with basic TV and the whole television medium, NFLX and Amzn are moving on to digital and subscription service, you can watch anything you want anytime when you want it, without commericals (for the most part). Youtube has the same idea. It's really not a comparison anymore, Youtube and cable TV. My friend Babak was complaining the other day about having to pay for a cable service. My question is, why pay for a cable service at all?
5.) Great place to put videos of things that happened in the past! It's like a free photo album/ video album (as long as you're OK with everyone seeing it, but apparently nowadays most people are!) - or just use the "private" settings. I pull up old dodgeball videos of myself 3 years ago (ever since I started recording dodgeball games, what a great idea) and it brings back memories of glory games, and eventually will be "the glory days," once I retire from dodgeball, which might be sooner than later, I've been feeling less powerful and worse, maybe because of my time away and decreased schedule of games, but we'll see. Hope to capture a lot of memories too in the future of great trips MJ and I take or at least great moments.
6.) Speaking of which, we just got back from London and didn't make it to a couple spots, and I was anxious but then I thought, why fret? Someone out there must have gone to the same spot and taken some video, and sure enough, it's out there. MJ and I went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada (not pronounced like the country) this afternoon (great place, by the way) and they have a night lights celebration going on called the Enchanted Forest, and I really wanted to see it (pretty expensive), but then just caught up on it on Youtube, like I was really there! And since I had the other senses covered already (smell, feel of the fresh air), I felt like I was there!
Thanks to Youtube, I found a channel where the host compares words between English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. LOTS of stuff I didn't know about Chinese, like how to say "Burger King" in Chinese, or "Louis Vuitton," or a bunch of other things that are commonly known terms in English but don't show up in my everyday life for the other languages, and Google translate apparently doesn't know!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, December 31, 2018
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Bridge (다리)(桥)(橋)
Bridge is one of those words that is completely different in all 4 of English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. They share nothing in common and sound nothing unlike. Maybe the Asian scholars back in the day were confused at the concept of a bridge? "How do we get from one side of the river to the other?" We have to have something to get over it, a boat is not practical, can't swim across......what is a magical invention that can do the trick?
Luckily for us our ancestors figured it out, and bridges came into existence. And now I love bridges. I love walking over bridges, I like being on top of bridges looking down, I like the view from a bridge, I like the idea of a bridge bridging the gap between 2 places. On our most recent trip to London, MJ and I crossed many of London's famed bridges, mostly across the Thames River, like the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Westminster Bridge. I personally liked the Millenium Bridge, it was the first one we crossed upon arriving and has a futuristic, artistic design to it. And it led up to one of our favorite spots in the city, the Tate Britain. All the bridges did have their unique design and peculiarities about them though, to the point where it got me wondering why they needed so many bridges; it was almost excessive. Back home, I love the bridges in downtown Chicago, really brings the city together and connects the Loop to other great areas like River North. In San Francisco, the obvious Golden Gate Bridge is the historic icon, but the Bay Bridge is the one that gets the most traffic and the one that I saw the most often this summer working in downtown San Francisco, connecting SF to Oakland, in one of the busiest areas of the world, the Bay Area. Back home in LA, there aren't a whole ton of bridges because there aren't many rivers or bays, just one large beachfront, but the Venice Canals features some nice European-style bridges and the Manhattan Beach Pier kind of is a bridge between the land and the ocean, as it stretches into the ocean to give one the idea of what its like in the open sea, which is what a bridge usually does too. I love bridges.
I love physical bridges, but also other kinds of bridges, from being able to bridge the understanding between English to Chinese/Japanese/Korean (kind of why I like my job). There's a vast ocean of difference between those languages, but I can construct bridges to connect those understandings, and artfully too through the use of historical background, context, similar words, etc. I like being the "bridge" between being on the defensive end of basketball and passing it up to the offense on a fast break. And I like building temporary bridges from the current to the future (what's going to happen?) or from the current to the past. Really could help with the stock market; right now we're in a low-dipping jungle-like rope bridge (with jagged rocks in shark-infested waters underneath threatening to eat our portfolios alive if the bridge falls) between the all-time highs in late September to the next phase of the stock market (hopefully new highs, but also possible it could be really low lows if we falter). It helps sometimes though to take a bridge to the past like in 2011! Even in February 2011 (2/13/2011, to be exact) I was recommending on this very blog! buying AMZN, AAPL, and GOOG. All 3 stocks have at least quadrupled since then, AMZN has like gone up as much as 10x since then .What was I doing not following my own advice???? I should have a button like the one Jim Cramer uses on Mad Money every time he reminds his viewers he was right that one time in 2008 when he told everyone to sell. I was confident in 2011, and I'm confident now: I think AMZN and AAPL are still the future of technology and the future of the economy, and they're going back up despite the recent pullbacks. (GOOG, not so much, but still good!)
My twenties were a great bridge from knowing-nothing-and-being-mad-about-everything teens to the now-I-have-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-need-to-make-the-most-of-my-life 30's. That bridge of the 20's had a lot of nice views of places I visited, lots of nice locations I worked in, lots of great languages and cultures I learned about, lots of great friends I took the journey over the bridge with. And 2018 has been a great bridge year from bull market to the 2019 bear market! (Jk). Anyway, as with crossing the Millenium Bridge that first time in London, hope to arrive at somewhere really great and worth visiting!
Luckily for us our ancestors figured it out, and bridges came into existence. And now I love bridges. I love walking over bridges, I like being on top of bridges looking down, I like the view from a bridge, I like the idea of a bridge bridging the gap between 2 places. On our most recent trip to London, MJ and I crossed many of London's famed bridges, mostly across the Thames River, like the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, the Westminster Bridge. I personally liked the Millenium Bridge, it was the first one we crossed upon arriving and has a futuristic, artistic design to it. And it led up to one of our favorite spots in the city, the Tate Britain. All the bridges did have their unique design and peculiarities about them though, to the point where it got me wondering why they needed so many bridges; it was almost excessive. Back home, I love the bridges in downtown Chicago, really brings the city together and connects the Loop to other great areas like River North. In San Francisco, the obvious Golden Gate Bridge is the historic icon, but the Bay Bridge is the one that gets the most traffic and the one that I saw the most often this summer working in downtown San Francisco, connecting SF to Oakland, in one of the busiest areas of the world, the Bay Area. Back home in LA, there aren't a whole ton of bridges because there aren't many rivers or bays, just one large beachfront, but the Venice Canals features some nice European-style bridges and the Manhattan Beach Pier kind of is a bridge between the land and the ocean, as it stretches into the ocean to give one the idea of what its like in the open sea, which is what a bridge usually does too. I love bridges.
I love physical bridges, but also other kinds of bridges, from being able to bridge the understanding between English to Chinese/Japanese/Korean (kind of why I like my job). There's a vast ocean of difference between those languages, but I can construct bridges to connect those understandings, and artfully too through the use of historical background, context, similar words, etc. I like being the "bridge" between being on the defensive end of basketball and passing it up to the offense on a fast break. And I like building temporary bridges from the current to the future (what's going to happen?) or from the current to the past. Really could help with the stock market; right now we're in a low-dipping jungle-like rope bridge (with jagged rocks in shark-infested waters underneath threatening to eat our portfolios alive if the bridge falls) between the all-time highs in late September to the next phase of the stock market (hopefully new highs, but also possible it could be really low lows if we falter). It helps sometimes though to take a bridge to the past like in 2011! Even in February 2011 (2/13/2011, to be exact) I was recommending on this very blog! buying AMZN, AAPL, and GOOG. All 3 stocks have at least quadrupled since then, AMZN has like gone up as much as 10x since then .What was I doing not following my own advice???? I should have a button like the one Jim Cramer uses on Mad Money every time he reminds his viewers he was right that one time in 2008 when he told everyone to sell. I was confident in 2011, and I'm confident now: I think AMZN and AAPL are still the future of technology and the future of the economy, and they're going back up despite the recent pullbacks. (GOOG, not so much, but still good!)
My twenties were a great bridge from knowing-nothing-and-being-mad-about-everything teens to the now-I-have-a-lot-of-responsibility-and-need-to-make-the-most-of-my-life 30's. That bridge of the 20's had a lot of nice views of places I visited, lots of nice locations I worked in, lots of great languages and cultures I learned about, lots of great friends I took the journey over the bridge with. And 2018 has been a great bridge year from bull market to the 2019 bear market! (Jk). Anyway, as with crossing the Millenium Bridge that first time in London, hope to arrive at somewhere really great and worth visiting!
Friday, December 21, 2018
パチンコ (Pachinko)
Sometimes I have deja vu moments like feeling that I've written about the same topic before with the same title "Pachinko," but I can't be sure and with almost 500 entries since this blog began it's time-consuming to go back and double check. But yes, pachinko........an interesting game played mostly in Japan where little balls go into a pinball-like machine and if it goes in the right hole you get more balls that represent money........I managed to lose 1000 yen playing Pachinko in about 2 minutes, not even figuring out how to play in those 2 minutes of max money-losing (still nothing compared to the amount of money that I've been losing in the stock market recently as stocks have been in free fall). The pachinko industry is sometimes associated with the yakuza, or the organized crime syndicate in Japan because of the gambling nature of the game; I once worked on a large litigation involving a Japanese billionaire with some yakuza ties through the pachinko industry, so it's a pretty big deal.
But the Pachinko I'm talking about is the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee (I love saying the author's name because it's almost identical to MJ's name!) about a Korean family who moves to Japan during the Japanese invasion of the early 1900's, then stays in Japan and endures many hardships like racism, surviving through World War II, poverty, disease, etc., etc. It was named one of New York Times's Top 10 books of 2017 (I love those lists to identify really good writing in a world now that's watered down by Instagram feeds and social media posts), and Pachinko really checks off a lot of the qualities I seek in a good book:
1.) it's like the "Forest Gump" of Korea-Japan in the 1900's......it is historically accurate in that the characters live through many real events, so it made me understand the history of that area of the world more and feel like I was living history, not just some pretend-world where everything can fictionalized.
2.) It has great dialogue- characters are fleshed out, seem more real, through dialogue, and Lee is able to incorporate some romanized (written out in English letters) Korean and Japanese in there, I even learned some new words in both languages.
3.) Wrote about something she knew about- Lee moved with her husband to Tokyo and researched the topic of Koreans living Japan and the discrimination they received from native Japanese, how they had to hide their Korean accents and their roots; she interviewed like 30 something different people who actually lived through the times and added her own perspective as a Korean American...it really does help to write about something one knows and the characters kind of resonated that by having realistic worries about money and finding ways to put food on the table, the traditional Asian attitudes about getting a good education and avoiding "water industry" aka gray industries like prostitution and organized crime.
4.) Sudden plot twists- nothing keeps the pages turning (it's a longer book page-wise at 487, but doesn't feel that way due to the short sentences and short paragraphs moving the narrative along quickly) like those, and Lee does master the sudden climaxes, changing from the perspective of a few different characters from chapter to chapter to get the maximum character development and setup for the story. (It's like Game of Thrones where we get to understand a character from his or her point of view, then in a different chapter they are described by someone else's perspective, and then suddenly they have an accident/ pass away and it's shocking that they're ripped away from us......kind of like life I guess, which makes it so realistic).
I think the No. 1 reason I like Pachinko, though, is the insight it gives me to the history of Koreans in Japan and all Asians during the Japanese occupation times. I've mentioned before how ignorant I was before learning Japanese (and now Korean) about those countries' cultures and histories, and if nothing else I'm grateful for being exposed to those cultures, more than just the surface stereotypes that most Americans know like teriyaki, sushi, Pikachu for Japanese and KPop, Psy, Korean BBQ, and kimchi for Koreans. Pachinko just added another layer in my appreciation for those countries as well as the people of those countries, especially Koreans who had to go to Japan in the early 20th century to try to start a better life for themselves, some being forced out of their homes by the Japanese invasion, yet physically looking a lot like their occupiers the Japanese (being mistaken as Japanese or trying to act Japanese to further one's standing in life is a common theme in Pachinko) and resorting to working "dirty" jobs when in the new land while trying to learn the language as well as fit in a foreign land, or at least have their children start new lives and be able to fit in. It certainly rings true to some of what my parents had to go through moving to a new land and sacrificing themselves for their children, but it still applies in today's world of people trying to immigrate to better places. Anyway, the history of the world is not, as it turns out, just revolving around the U.S. as I was sort of induced into thinking growing up in the U.S. educational system, and Korea and Japan certainly have had a rocky, tumultuous, tenuous relationship over the years (and that's not even throwing China into the mix!), and it's good to understand where some of that angst comes from.
I would highly recommend Pachinko to anyway, but especially for those like me who are interested in history and Asian culture, or just a damn good story.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
But the Pachinko I'm talking about is the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee (I love saying the author's name because it's almost identical to MJ's name!) about a Korean family who moves to Japan during the Japanese invasion of the early 1900's, then stays in Japan and endures many hardships like racism, surviving through World War II, poverty, disease, etc., etc. It was named one of New York Times's Top 10 books of 2017 (I love those lists to identify really good writing in a world now that's watered down by Instagram feeds and social media posts), and Pachinko really checks off a lot of the qualities I seek in a good book:
1.) it's like the "Forest Gump" of Korea-Japan in the 1900's......it is historically accurate in that the characters live through many real events, so it made me understand the history of that area of the world more and feel like I was living history, not just some pretend-world where everything can fictionalized.
2.) It has great dialogue- characters are fleshed out, seem more real, through dialogue, and Lee is able to incorporate some romanized (written out in English letters) Korean and Japanese in there, I even learned some new words in both languages.
3.) Wrote about something she knew about- Lee moved with her husband to Tokyo and researched the topic of Koreans living Japan and the discrimination they received from native Japanese, how they had to hide their Korean accents and their roots; she interviewed like 30 something different people who actually lived through the times and added her own perspective as a Korean American...it really does help to write about something one knows and the characters kind of resonated that by having realistic worries about money and finding ways to put food on the table, the traditional Asian attitudes about getting a good education and avoiding "water industry" aka gray industries like prostitution and organized crime.
4.) Sudden plot twists- nothing keeps the pages turning (it's a longer book page-wise at 487, but doesn't feel that way due to the short sentences and short paragraphs moving the narrative along quickly) like those, and Lee does master the sudden climaxes, changing from the perspective of a few different characters from chapter to chapter to get the maximum character development and setup for the story. (It's like Game of Thrones where we get to understand a character from his or her point of view, then in a different chapter they are described by someone else's perspective, and then suddenly they have an accident/ pass away and it's shocking that they're ripped away from us......kind of like life I guess, which makes it so realistic).
I think the No. 1 reason I like Pachinko, though, is the insight it gives me to the history of Koreans in Japan and all Asians during the Japanese occupation times. I've mentioned before how ignorant I was before learning Japanese (and now Korean) about those countries' cultures and histories, and if nothing else I'm grateful for being exposed to those cultures, more than just the surface stereotypes that most Americans know like teriyaki, sushi, Pikachu for Japanese and KPop, Psy, Korean BBQ, and kimchi for Koreans. Pachinko just added another layer in my appreciation for those countries as well as the people of those countries, especially Koreans who had to go to Japan in the early 20th century to try to start a better life for themselves, some being forced out of their homes by the Japanese invasion, yet physically looking a lot like their occupiers the Japanese (being mistaken as Japanese or trying to act Japanese to further one's standing in life is a common theme in Pachinko) and resorting to working "dirty" jobs when in the new land while trying to learn the language as well as fit in a foreign land, or at least have their children start new lives and be able to fit in. It certainly rings true to some of what my parents had to go through moving to a new land and sacrificing themselves for their children, but it still applies in today's world of people trying to immigrate to better places. Anyway, the history of the world is not, as it turns out, just revolving around the U.S. as I was sort of induced into thinking growing up in the U.S. educational system, and Korea and Japan certainly have had a rocky, tumultuous, tenuous relationship over the years (and that's not even throwing China into the mix!), and it's good to understand where some of that angst comes from.
I would highly recommend Pachinko to anyway, but especially for those like me who are interested in history and Asian culture, or just a damn good story.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Doing Vacation Right
After going on numerous trips over the years, I've compiled some tips and tendencies to watch out for next time I'm booking a trip (or anyone is booking a trip):
1.) For me, traveling is a great opportunity to lose some weight. The two birds with one stone (一石二鳥) of not dining out at restaurants is you don't eat too much, just get the bare necessities of nutrition and food and then move quickly to the next stop, thus your wallet doesn't suffer too much neither. And having quick, simple meals also decreases the time you would normally need to prepare food or sit down at a restaurant, thus getting the most bang for your buck. (So really, like 3 or 4 birds with one stone, sorry birds!)
2.) learning about other places, cultures- doesn't mean you have to read every single exhibit in a museum or art gallery, but like the Shakespeare Globe was a great refresher course on Shakespeare- suddenly quotes from Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's dream come rushing back as well as the project I did about who Shakespeare really was or if he was another author (Sir Francis Bacon, or Charles Wren, someone else?) or a combination of various authors of the time. Shakespeare does sound kind of madeup, doesn't it? (But then again, Robespierre or Rembrant sound just as humbug but no one questions their existence.
3.) getting great video for future memorial purposes- when I traveled alone, I would often forget to take pictures because I'm alone, or just do a hasty selfie. With MJ, I have someone built in to take pictures of me, as well as someone to take pictures of, as well as joint selfies and great scenery shots. I still have like old grainy footage in the 90's when my parents took a roadtrip down to Florida for a trip to Disneyworld, with me as the 5-year-old star of the show. There was a long gap, though, between then and adulthood that I don't have many photos or videos, mainly because I wasn't very photogenic as a teen, I didn't like to be on camera, and there wasn't a mirror I liked. Nowadays, though, I've reached acceptance of my physical appearance, I do look a bit better and more stylish, and most importantly I understand the importance of preserving memories and moments in time, just as watching those 5-year-old videos of me makes me reminisce about times long gone. GoPro is nice and compact now and has about 4 hours of memory, plenty of time plus I have my phone I can use for shorter videos before I run out of upload space.
4.) Experience different weather- can't complain about the LA weather, but it does get monotnous- London was as expected wet, damp, and gloomy, but we did get one blue clear skies day! I'd forgotten what it's like to carry around an umbrella all day and have to wear gloves walking out. I'm extremely susceptible to losing all those extra pieces of winter gear, though.
5.) The airplane movies! A big part of the appeal of going on international trips. You got 10 hours on a plane, it's a great excuse to just let my mind enter different worlds 90-120 minutes at a time. It's like Netflix, though, there's almost too many options nowadays (I remember back in the day airplanes gave you one movie to watch, and that's it, no fussing over it!) with different genres. Maybe because I haven't had much time to sit down for consecutive hours and just watch a movie for a while, I thought this crop of vacation movies were really stellar. I did pretty well this time to pinpoint what I needed, including watching TWO movies that came out in 2018 featuring Asian co-stars and being 1-2 in the box offices for a week in the summer. That was Searching and Crazy Rich Asians. Searching can become a cult hit in time, I think because of the number of Easter eggs within the movie that suggested the outcome of the mystery and the fact it was done through social media and warns about the perils of using social media, while Crazy Rich Asians wasn't as great a movie as the significance it had on the Asian American community to have such a movie exist. Its plot and messages weren't bad though, about Asian mother-in-law trying to accept her son's girlfriend/soon-to-be fiance? And class differences.
Isle of Dog was typical Wes Anderson good (Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel) with animal characters taking up sophisticated human personalities, apparently the Chinese are doing a series of movies about the Journey to the West, I watched the newest release where they venture into the Kingdom of Women (only women are allowed in the kingdom), can you imagine the problems an all-woman society would have in our world today, watched 20 minutes of 28 Days Later cuz, you know, it was set in London, and even the newest Predator movie "The Predator" didn't disappoint. And I learned that there is a world puzzle competition that experienced jigsaw puzzle contestants strive to win every year! (The Puzzle- movie with a great idea that we enjoy completing puzzles because in a messy disorganized world where things don't make sense, at least you can count on a puzzle to create a clear picture in the world and have the pieces all fit together, even if life doesn't). Yes, I do think subconsciously I engage in that endeavor to achieve some order.
6.) Hotels- I used to love going to hotels as a kid because they had cable TV and my house didn't. And I liked watching TV in foreign countries to see what kind of channels they had. Turns out, I still like to do so.
7.) Handling other countries' currencies, in this case, the pound sterling. I didn't enjoy it as much this time, and with the exchange rates and converting money over and all that, I've realized it's a bit of a scam which took some of the luster off it.
8.) Have some podcasts loaded up to while you still have WiFi, then play them while walking on long hikes around the cities. MJ and I walked 10+ miles almost every day of the trip.
9.) Get comfortable shoes for walking. And get ready for your feet, back, knees, entire body to hurt since you're walking all day, unlike normally sitting in the office.
10.) Bring snacks and fruit onto the plane! They could be a lifesaver in the new country.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Ichaicha in London Part 2
People smoking all the time! If you thought Vegas casinos had a lot of people, try any street corner in London!
Shakespeare- lots of influences on contemporary English! Such famous idioms as dead as a doorknob, all the world is a stage, — all things Shakespeare can be found at The Shakespeare Globe in London.
Wicked- excellent story line- surprised Disney didn’t pounce on a story like this. A girl (!) Disney’s been focusing on female protagonists recently- who is born green and not like everyone else, discovering magical powers and having a comical friend- truly a script that was made for disney. Wicked was just one of the places around The West End that one could go to enjoy plays- Hamilton, Les Mis, Mamma Mia, and Lion King (Disney!) were all options!!!! As a high school student as part of my duties at the orchestra I would be in “the pit” playing music for the play the drama club put on every year, and it’s a pretty neat experience.... the first 5 times practice. By the time the performance rolled around I would be dreading it and just phoning it in, especially if there were 3 different performances on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or something. Props to the performers and musical talent playing behind the scenes.
For years since my adult life, If there was one last bastion of hope for restaurants on my eyes, it was that they provided water free of charge. But guess what, NOT IN LONDON! We found out the hard way that even the most plain vanilla drink, water, had a price sigh. Not a good look, London.
But at lead the museums and galleries are free, right? Yea they are, but there’s a sign posted every 500 feet urging you to donate 5 pounds. And some “volunteer” pushers who make you feel like a jerk if you don’t. And special exhibitions that charge if you want the full experience of the museums.
People in London need to figure out if they walk on the left or the right. I know cars are on the left, so that’s been figured out, but walking and seeing people approach from the other side was always a guessing game of which way to stay on, narrowly averting an accident or collision each time.
Shakespeare- lots of influences on contemporary English! Such famous idioms as dead as a doorknob, all the world is a stage, — all things Shakespeare can be found at The Shakespeare Globe in London.
Wicked- excellent story line- surprised Disney didn’t pounce on a story like this. A girl (!) Disney’s been focusing on female protagonists recently- who is born green and not like everyone else, discovering magical powers and having a comical friend- truly a script that was made for disney. Wicked was just one of the places around The West End that one could go to enjoy plays- Hamilton, Les Mis, Mamma Mia, and Lion King (Disney!) were all options!!!! As a high school student as part of my duties at the orchestra I would be in “the pit” playing music for the play the drama club put on every year, and it’s a pretty neat experience.... the first 5 times practice. By the time the performance rolled around I would be dreading it and just phoning it in, especially if there were 3 different performances on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or something. Props to the performers and musical talent playing behind the scenes.
For years since my adult life, If there was one last bastion of hope for restaurants on my eyes, it was that they provided water free of charge. But guess what, NOT IN LONDON! We found out the hard way that even the most plain vanilla drink, water, had a price sigh. Not a good look, London.
But at lead the museums and galleries are free, right? Yea they are, but there’s a sign posted every 500 feet urging you to donate 5 pounds. And some “volunteer” pushers who make you feel like a jerk if you don’t. And special exhibitions that charge if you want the full experience of the museums.
People in London need to figure out if they walk on the left or the right. I know cars are on the left, so that’s been figured out, but walking and seeing people approach from the other side was always a guessing game of which way to stay on, narrowly averting an accident or collision each time.
Ichaicha in London Part 1
Name of trip: Icha Icha in England
Previous trips: Ten or so hours in Taiwan (honeymoon 2017)
snowless in Seattle (December 2017)
honeymooning in Hawaii (honeymoon 2017)
scorching in St. Louis (summer 2017 wedding)
Weekend at The Met (New York 2017)
Dont Let Me Down, Georgia (May 2016)
Texas two-step ( January 2016)
Everything is expensive! It’s like bad weather and bad weather at New York or Silicon Valley prices.
People are polite! If I was at risk of being too negative: here’s something positive: most people are genuinely nice! In Mexico and China I noticed people giving the stink eye to foreigners or travelers or artificially nice to just get a tip, etc... it really seems that British people are nice to travelers, to the point where one can tell. That goes a long way in wanting to visit somewhere again, because really a country is a business in terms of travel: your country is your brand and you want people to have a good time and maybe even visit again! Every country gets some needed revenue from tourism, some more than others.
I’m the digital age of the internet and people connected to everywhere, visiting places is becoming obsolete... there are thousands of YouTube channels dedicated to travel, the most famous tourist areas get visited again and again by so many people it’s really not necessary anymore to actually go somewhere. Food, you can get in your own local ethnic market; just go on YouTube for a week and you can go to all corners of the world, not just your select destination....... is what I thought before coming out this time. Certainly, it’s true that a lot of things can be done online, but there’s still nothing that beats actually being somewhere new, the sense of adventure that you engender when going somewhere new, the new stimulus open experiences, the wind blowing in your face, the smell of the ocean or food being made at a restaurant( or smoke from cigarettes in London!) , the choose your own adventure of making decisions on a trip, figuring out the subway system of a new city, those experiences make a much more indelible impression in my mind, as opposed the superficial impression of another person’s travel experiences broadcast through YouTube, that draws me towards continuing to go on vacation....... no matter the cost (and yes London was pretty costly).
Randomly selected for search out of England! Starting to think my name is associated with some international wanted man In Europe, I’ve been randomly selected both in Greece/Turkey but not in Asian countries. Luckily I had no drugs, no electronics, no smuggled goods, no money! Just a ticket out of the country as soon as possible, please!
Previous trips: Ten or so hours in Taiwan (honeymoon 2017)
snowless in Seattle (December 2017)
honeymooning in Hawaii (honeymoon 2017)
scorching in St. Louis (summer 2017 wedding)
Weekend at The Met (New York 2017)
Dont Let Me Down, Georgia (May 2016)
Texas two-step ( January 2016)
Everything is expensive! It’s like bad weather and bad weather at New York or Silicon Valley prices.
People are polite! If I was at risk of being too negative: here’s something positive: most people are genuinely nice! In Mexico and China I noticed people giving the stink eye to foreigners or travelers or artificially nice to just get a tip, etc... it really seems that British people are nice to travelers, to the point where one can tell. That goes a long way in wanting to visit somewhere again, because really a country is a business in terms of travel: your country is your brand and you want people to have a good time and maybe even visit again! Every country gets some needed revenue from tourism, some more than others.
I’m the digital age of the internet and people connected to everywhere, visiting places is becoming obsolete... there are thousands of YouTube channels dedicated to travel, the most famous tourist areas get visited again and again by so many people it’s really not necessary anymore to actually go somewhere. Food, you can get in your own local ethnic market; just go on YouTube for a week and you can go to all corners of the world, not just your select destination....... is what I thought before coming out this time. Certainly, it’s true that a lot of things can be done online, but there’s still nothing that beats actually being somewhere new, the sense of adventure that you engender when going somewhere new, the new stimulus open experiences, the wind blowing in your face, the smell of the ocean or food being made at a restaurant( or smoke from cigarettes in London!) , the choose your own adventure of making decisions on a trip, figuring out the subway system of a new city, those experiences make a much more indelible impression in my mind, as opposed the superficial impression of another person’s travel experiences broadcast through YouTube, that draws me towards continuing to go on vacation....... no matter the cost (and yes London was pretty costly).
Randomly selected for search out of England! Starting to think my name is associated with some international wanted man In Europe, I’ve been randomly selected both in Greece/Turkey but not in Asian countries. Luckily I had no drugs, no electronics, no smuggled goods, no money! Just a ticket out of the country as soon as possible, please!
Thursday, December 13, 2018
先禮後兵 (Be Polite First, then resort to force)
The Chinese have many idioms that stretch back centuries to war time, tales of battles being won through brilliant stratagems, clever use of resources, or just knowing one's opponent. A lot of Chinese live their life through these axioms, and "xian li hou bing" is one of them. It reads like a self-help manual: it literally says: First be polite, then use soldiers. In fact, Chinese armies first were polite to other neighboring kingdoms (hey, respectfully, can I borrow this land and never give it back?) and when they got an expected refusal, they would summon their troops and take over the land by force.
The situation also fits well with today's warfare, or the form of warfare that people in today's society encounter: best example would be litigation: First lawyers are expected to be civil to opposing attorneys, to use convincing arguments and merits of one's case to win arguments, not have to result to use of force, or in many cases, go to trial. It's something I do well, the "first be polite part," but then the resorting to force and aggressively advocating for one's client by attacking the other side fiercely, through damnations of their case and making the other side feel bad about their case, that I feel bad out. It seems a bit disingenuous, to start a relationship amicably but then flip on a dime if you don't get your way and become highly hostile and withdrawing all pleasantries, as if you were just being nice before. I'm currently on a large international case with multiple depositions and witnesses, so the lead attorneys are constantly sitting down in the same room with their clients. It's such a weird dynamic: On one hand they're both attorneys from prestigious law firms who've been practicing law for many years (both are partners at their respective law firms), so they give each other the utmost courtesy during breaks, like talking about their evening plans, etc., but then when the deposition starts and the video starts playing, they making objections and argue with each other harshly, sarcastically, and pretty rudely, if it was a normal conversation. It's just such an interesting dynamic, that of opposing attorneys on a litigation matter, it's like no other relationship in the world.
I do understand, though, sometimes why people in litigation resort to force, and why sometimes leaders of countries resort to force: the other side isn't motivated otherwise. Without the threat of force, those polite words are only just words. Diplomacy can only go so far without the threat of something happening. That's why wars break out unfortunately; I wish there would be no wars in the world, but then there would probably be more tyranny and oppression in those countries where a dictator or group has taken over without fear of reprisal and won't listen to threats. I wish there wasnt' any tyranny nor war; but sometimes it has to be one or the other. I kind of understand it now as an attorney; I have been trying to come up with a solution for a trademark litigation case for my relative in China and have been talking nicely to the opposing attorney for weeks, months even and it keeps getting delayed; he promises to get back to me soon; he doesn't get back to me. My client and I have no choice but to wait. We wait, we wait, but eventually the clear conclusion is that they're going to make us wait as long as we can, they don't have any reason to resolve the matter, and it's up to us to give them a reason to act and resolve the matter: threat of going to trial, or "resort to force" in today's terms. Unfortunately, I think we're headed in the direction of war. Necessary war.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
The situation also fits well with today's warfare, or the form of warfare that people in today's society encounter: best example would be litigation: First lawyers are expected to be civil to opposing attorneys, to use convincing arguments and merits of one's case to win arguments, not have to result to use of force, or in many cases, go to trial. It's something I do well, the "first be polite part," but then the resorting to force and aggressively advocating for one's client by attacking the other side fiercely, through damnations of their case and making the other side feel bad about their case, that I feel bad out. It seems a bit disingenuous, to start a relationship amicably but then flip on a dime if you don't get your way and become highly hostile and withdrawing all pleasantries, as if you were just being nice before. I'm currently on a large international case with multiple depositions and witnesses, so the lead attorneys are constantly sitting down in the same room with their clients. It's such a weird dynamic: On one hand they're both attorneys from prestigious law firms who've been practicing law for many years (both are partners at their respective law firms), so they give each other the utmost courtesy during breaks, like talking about their evening plans, etc., but then when the deposition starts and the video starts playing, they making objections and argue with each other harshly, sarcastically, and pretty rudely, if it was a normal conversation. It's just such an interesting dynamic, that of opposing attorneys on a litigation matter, it's like no other relationship in the world.
I do understand, though, sometimes why people in litigation resort to force, and why sometimes leaders of countries resort to force: the other side isn't motivated otherwise. Without the threat of force, those polite words are only just words. Diplomacy can only go so far without the threat of something happening. That's why wars break out unfortunately; I wish there would be no wars in the world, but then there would probably be more tyranny and oppression in those countries where a dictator or group has taken over without fear of reprisal and won't listen to threats. I wish there wasnt' any tyranny nor war; but sometimes it has to be one or the other. I kind of understand it now as an attorney; I have been trying to come up with a solution for a trademark litigation case for my relative in China and have been talking nicely to the opposing attorney for weeks, months even and it keeps getting delayed; he promises to get back to me soon; he doesn't get back to me. My client and I have no choice but to wait. We wait, we wait, but eventually the clear conclusion is that they're going to make us wait as long as we can, they don't have any reason to resolve the matter, and it's up to us to give them a reason to act and resolve the matter: threat of going to trial, or "resort to force" in today's terms. Unfortunately, I think we're headed in the direction of war. Necessary war.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Thursday, December 6, 2018
イチャイチャ (Lovey-Dovey)
Christmas season is here, and although the stock markets aren't giving us a Santa Clause rally (Santa Clause caught in customs, Christmas is cancelled, Red Christmas, whatever analogy you want to use for the markets not doing that well), Christmas is certainly in the air here in downtown Los Angeles. Almost everywhere I go, I can see a Christmas tree, Christmas wreaths, etc., (seriously, it's like every office building has a huge Christmas tree out in front to greet their guests, every shopping mall is has lights galore, and even our apartment building has residents putting up their own Christmas decorations), giving evidence that despite all the different types of religions and types of people in the world, Christmas is still the most popular holiday of the year.
Christmas is also a time for romance, especially in Asian cultures, where Christmas is not that much celebrated as a religious holiday or a chance for family gathering but a couples holiday, taking opportunity of the aforementioned lights and celebratory atmosphere to take strolls in the park, see the Christmas lights, and snuggle up in the cold weather. Just writing that sentence would have made me kind of nauseous and sick to my stomach back in my single days and inspire me to move on to another fantasy baseball or dodgeball post, but now I see what all the hype is about: it's romantic. Japanese people even have a word for this: "Icha-icha" which means flirting and making out, usually used by single people who are jealous of the couples who have someone to flirt out and make out with, or older people who are just kind of sick of the young love. I used to be in that exact position! Trying to elbow my way through the crowds of couples who are holding each other, thus causing one less open space to pass through, the couple is usually oblivious of other people as they gaze dreamily into each other's eyes, as if there's not a care in the world. That moment is so perfect for them! Meanwhile, I'm just trying to find out the score of the football game, check traffic to see if the highway is still clogged, etc., etc. There's a lot of jealousy towards those icha-icha couples, and I'm just glad I'm one of them now!
Another chance to expand our icha-icha horizons will be next week, when MJ and I travel across the pond to London to enjoy all the sights and sounds of a winter in Britain (sounds wet and cold). But I've never been to London before, and if everything from the movie "Love, Actually" is true, Christmas will also be very romantic over there! Should be fun! I'm really looking forward to doing a lot of new activities, even if it's just in one city; (we considered doing a quick stop in Paris from London riding the Eurostar, but Paris really came under a little bit of turmoil due to the riots against President Macron, so we're opting to get away from all of that this time). And I was hoping to put that very basic French language knowledge to good use. C'est la vie!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Christmas is also a time for romance, especially in Asian cultures, where Christmas is not that much celebrated as a religious holiday or a chance for family gathering but a couples holiday, taking opportunity of the aforementioned lights and celebratory atmosphere to take strolls in the park, see the Christmas lights, and snuggle up in the cold weather. Just writing that sentence would have made me kind of nauseous and sick to my stomach back in my single days and inspire me to move on to another fantasy baseball or dodgeball post, but now I see what all the hype is about: it's romantic. Japanese people even have a word for this: "Icha-icha" which means flirting and making out, usually used by single people who are jealous of the couples who have someone to flirt out and make out with, or older people who are just kind of sick of the young love. I used to be in that exact position! Trying to elbow my way through the crowds of couples who are holding each other, thus causing one less open space to pass through, the couple is usually oblivious of other people as they gaze dreamily into each other's eyes, as if there's not a care in the world. That moment is so perfect for them! Meanwhile, I'm just trying to find out the score of the football game, check traffic to see if the highway is still clogged, etc., etc. There's a lot of jealousy towards those icha-icha couples, and I'm just glad I'm one of them now!
Another chance to expand our icha-icha horizons will be next week, when MJ and I travel across the pond to London to enjoy all the sights and sounds of a winter in Britain (sounds wet and cold). But I've never been to London before, and if everything from the movie "Love, Actually" is true, Christmas will also be very romantic over there! Should be fun! I'm really looking forward to doing a lot of new activities, even if it's just in one city; (we considered doing a quick stop in Paris from London riding the Eurostar, but Paris really came under a little bit of turmoil due to the riots against President Macron, so we're opting to get away from all of that this time). And I was hoping to put that very basic French language knowledge to good use. C'est la vie!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
Monday, December 3, 2018
河童の川流れ (Be Humble!)
Yesterday ( I'm writing this at 1AM in the morning I took the JLPT N2, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It was the culmination of a long endeavor, as I have studied Japanese for approximately 6 years now extensively (not like passively studying like going for a run an hour a day or lifting some weights 3 times a week or something) but actually devoting a lot of time and energy into it, and I believe at this point that I'm pretty fluent, not totally fluent, but able to do the main things in any language: read, write, listen, and speak. So I thought I'd be in pretty good shape for the N2, the second hardest exam offered to non-native Japanese speakers. And my study time kind of reflected that, not devoting all my energy towards the exams, not even getting the urgency the day before the exam (the exam is on a Sunday, kinda weird but theoretically gives testtakers all of Saturday to study) to go all-out, or "EXTREME" as MJ puts it. I also walked into the exam like I owned the place and they should just give me the pass certification now just based on me being there. I even entertained thoughts that N2 was kinda beneath me, that I was an N1 level (highest level proficiency) just taking the N2 test, like a major league player playing a minor league game.
Guess what? The JLPT doesn't care how much you THINK you know, it tests you based on what is needed. I was able to get through the vocab and kanji sections pretty easily, and I thought with plenty of time leftover, but the reading passages are rather difficult even for someone who reads Japanese as part of his job, they're like LSAT passages where you have to summarize essays and sense the author's tone, etc., except it's all in a foreign language, even the question and the answer choices. It takes a while. I admit I let my mind wander a bit because I thought I was doing pretty well, had 30 minutes to do like 12 questions, but each passage only has 3 questions, so that's really like having to read 4 whole essays, and then all of a sudden I was rushing, and time management became an issue, and then I was guessing for the last part. It was just like the SAT and LSAT again: rushing for every last second, something I didn't think I needed to know.
But AFTER the break was the hard part. The listening portion of the JLPT, in my opinion, is way disproportionate to the level of say, vocabulary. There are long passages which you have to digest all the information, then get it all sorted out in time to answer a question about them that wasn't given before the passage began. Miss a few words, and you miss parts of the meaning. And no repeating the passage! No matter how good one's Japanese is, it's about catching all portions of whats said and then digesting that information. Some of the questions, even if they told me them in Chinese or English, I'd have problems answering the question just because I didn't memorize all of that information, like East City is 5 miles away by car and has a nice sports facility with tennis court, but West City is just 1 mile away with no tennis court, and South City is 10 miles away by train but with a dog park, and then all of a sudden at the end they ask which city Ms. Risa wants to go to for leisure. I need a chart or something! It's hard to process all that information just listening to it once! So if I do fail the JLPT N2, it's because of the listening. Apparently they do scale the scores based on how everyone did, but a testtaker must at least get the minimum score for each section (reading, vocabulary, listening) to pass the whole test, no matter how well they did on the other sections. So who knows.
If that was the N2, what will the N1 (which I one day hope to pass) be like? Shudder!
The lesson, of course, is the title of this post, a Japanese idiom meaning "The River God can drown in the river!" The River God was a demon who was great in the river, but because he thought he was so good he went into the river dangerously and drowned! Same thing applies for human swimmers, it's not the people who can't swim that drown (they still out of the deep end) but the ones who think they're really good who drown. BE HUMBLE! Don't be cocky! Don't be arrogant! Take every challenge seriously and not like a walk in the park. I learned that painful lesson for what feels like the umpteenth time today. Other examples: losing at chess to someone I thought I could beat, going to law school thinking I would do really well, losing money in stocks thinking I was the smartest investor ever and would never lose money, etc., etc.
Also, quick note: Cal State LA has always been just another exit on the way to Chinatown where MJ and I go eat our authentic Chinese food, but it's got a pretty nice campus! In fact, most SoCal college campuses I've been to are pretty nice: Cal State Channel Islands (like an oasis in the desert), Pomona and Clairemont McKenna, UC-Santa Barbara, even Santa Monica College, where MJ attends now: they all got a nice touch to it. Only Loyola and Southwestern Law Schools kind of gave me a vibe of being enclosed, trapped in an urban atmosphere.
Guess what? The JLPT doesn't care how much you THINK you know, it tests you based on what is needed. I was able to get through the vocab and kanji sections pretty easily, and I thought with plenty of time leftover, but the reading passages are rather difficult even for someone who reads Japanese as part of his job, they're like LSAT passages where you have to summarize essays and sense the author's tone, etc., except it's all in a foreign language, even the question and the answer choices. It takes a while. I admit I let my mind wander a bit because I thought I was doing pretty well, had 30 minutes to do like 12 questions, but each passage only has 3 questions, so that's really like having to read 4 whole essays, and then all of a sudden I was rushing, and time management became an issue, and then I was guessing for the last part. It was just like the SAT and LSAT again: rushing for every last second, something I didn't think I needed to know.
But AFTER the break was the hard part. The listening portion of the JLPT, in my opinion, is way disproportionate to the level of say, vocabulary. There are long passages which you have to digest all the information, then get it all sorted out in time to answer a question about them that wasn't given before the passage began. Miss a few words, and you miss parts of the meaning. And no repeating the passage! No matter how good one's Japanese is, it's about catching all portions of whats said and then digesting that information. Some of the questions, even if they told me them in Chinese or English, I'd have problems answering the question just because I didn't memorize all of that information, like East City is 5 miles away by car and has a nice sports facility with tennis court, but West City is just 1 mile away with no tennis court, and South City is 10 miles away by train but with a dog park, and then all of a sudden at the end they ask which city Ms. Risa wants to go to for leisure. I need a chart or something! It's hard to process all that information just listening to it once! So if I do fail the JLPT N2, it's because of the listening. Apparently they do scale the scores based on how everyone did, but a testtaker must at least get the minimum score for each section (reading, vocabulary, listening) to pass the whole test, no matter how well they did on the other sections. So who knows.
If that was the N2, what will the N1 (which I one day hope to pass) be like? Shudder!
The lesson, of course, is the title of this post, a Japanese idiom meaning "The River God can drown in the river!" The River God was a demon who was great in the river, but because he thought he was so good he went into the river dangerously and drowned! Same thing applies for human swimmers, it's not the people who can't swim that drown (they still out of the deep end) but the ones who think they're really good who drown. BE HUMBLE! Don't be cocky! Don't be arrogant! Take every challenge seriously and not like a walk in the park. I learned that painful lesson for what feels like the umpteenth time today. Other examples: losing at chess to someone I thought I could beat, going to law school thinking I would do really well, losing money in stocks thinking I was the smartest investor ever and would never lose money, etc., etc.
Also, quick note: Cal State LA has always been just another exit on the way to Chinatown where MJ and I go eat our authentic Chinese food, but it's got a pretty nice campus! In fact, most SoCal college campuses I've been to are pretty nice: Cal State Channel Islands (like an oasis in the desert), Pomona and Clairemont McKenna, UC-Santa Barbara, even Santa Monica College, where MJ attends now: they all got a nice touch to it. Only Loyola and Southwestern Law Schools kind of gave me a vibe of being enclosed, trapped in an urban atmosphere.
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