Being sick is difficult, especially during the New Year's holiday when everyone is in such a festive mood.......but my whole family got sick at home this week and I breathe the same air they breathe, so I became sick. Getting on top of a rooftop in downtown LA and watching the New Year's fireworks didn't help neither as the wind blew into my face, but it's better than having the flu and/or a cold. I've learned some natural remedies for stuffed noses! Drink lots of hot water from time to time, but also to get some fresh air outside! (if it's sunny and warm like in SoCal, I know not everyone has that luxury) Incredibly, as if my noses had survivor's guilt, sometimes one of my stuffy noses will clear up but the other nose will get stuffy, and they alternate back and forth, and after clearing up will have a hot tingling feeling like I ate something really spicy. It's a frustrating feeling of having something not quite right all the time but being unable to fix it.
A stuffy nose has a similar feeling to witnessing police activity ramp up at the end of the year to catch minor traffic violations as the month of December and the entire year winds down; I have no official confirmation of this but many more patrol cars and police on motorbikes seem to be patrolling highways and city roads during the week leading up to New Year's. They try all sorts of tactics like hiding under bridges, waiting in alleys. I find it to be rather hypocritical that officers commit minor traffic violations themselves to catch those committing minor traffic violations, like crossing double yellow lines, not making a complete stop at a red light before turning right, etc. I understand urgency is needed in certain situations like an ongoing chase or rushing someone to a hospital, but the pre-New Year "catch-up" police activity (police are catching up on their numbers) is mainly just doing "gotcha" police work by finding rule violations that aren't normally enforced but are violations based on the letter of the law. Perhaps I'm still traumatized by a pedestrian walk ticket I got (arbitrarily, in my opinion) but if police look past certain activities most of the time (police drive past without worrying about it or do it themselves), they shouldn't be allowed to enforce it for just a few days of the year to catch people. It's an inconsistent standard and alters the expectations of what's acceptable driving/walking for common citizens just trying to get by (not blatant criminals) and also harbors distrust of police officers in citizens. I'm sure not all police officers engage in the behavior I'm describing, but enough do that makes them all look bad as a class. I saw an officer on a motorbike waiting on a corner the other day waiting to bust someone for a violation, while another officer drove by in the same kind of motorbike for what seemed like the same purpose. Really excellent police work, like shooting fish in a barrel. No wonder cases like the Sandra Bland (read about it in Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers book)
A stuffy nose is similar to the feeling of listening to Ali Wong's comedy. There is no doubt that Ali Wong is a talented comic who made me laugh profusely in her comedy specials and did great work writing for Fresh Off the Boat and starring in "Always Be My Maybe," but her comedy includes jokes that enforce Asian stereotypes, both positive and negative. Racist jokes are not OK, even if the person that's making the joke is of the same ethnicity as the group they're making fun of. I understand being "edgy" is sometimes necessary for a comic and to say provocative things to get the audience's attention, I sometimes exaggerate too when trying to get others to laugh, but Ali Wong uses blatantly demeaning jokes to get laughs and support her living, which I can't agree with. For example, categorizing Filipinos and Vietnamese as "jungle Asians" and Chinese and Japanese as "fancy Asians" is offensive, implying that certain groups are less fancy or of a lower class than other Asians. Jungle itself conjures images of primitive beings and uncivilized people. Even if she's not saying it's true and just using it for comedic material, the audience will have that image implanted in their head next time they speak to any Asian person and wonder if they are "jungle Asian" or "fancy Asian," and that's not helpful in trying to understand someone and who they are.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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