My Respect Level for Billy Joel Just Got Bumped Up To "Okay, He Might Just Be a Badass" Status

Via Joystiq:

There are plenty of reasons artists license their music for a rhythm game. There's money, certainly, and notoriety. But what about scorn? For Billy Joel, it was more than enough reason to license a dozen or so of his songs to Rock Band 3. Here's his account from USA Today:

"I've never allowed my music to be used in a game before," but an Entertainment Weekly review of NBC's The Office changed his mind. Alluding to an episode in which characters mention a Rock Band featuring Billy Joel, "the critic wrote something like, 'God forbid that ever should happen.' So I called my people and said, 'Get me (on) that Rock Band game.' Then I wrote the critic, saying that every time I get a check, I'll give him a little nod."

We're assuming the songs will cost money, but we'd submit that reading the above story and knowing we'll never do anything remotely that cool is a dear enough price to pay.

The Calm Before the Storm

"The calm before the storm" is what some would call what the past 2 or 3 days: a lightened load of work, procrastination without consequences, enjoying the company of my program-mates without feeling guilty about wasting time. In two words, the past couple days have been completely enjoyable. When I finish writing this post, I have no choice but to submerge myself back into the hell of constant memorization and earnest work (there really is no half-assing here, unless you're cool with being reduced to stammering and forgetting vocabulary in front of 4 teachers and your entire program); but for now, I'd like to relish it for a little bit.

Midterms come next week: Monday through Thursday, one test a day, 2 oral presentations, and one discussion of current events with my favorite teach Lian laoshi (pictures of him will come in the future - adorable man that he is, I couldn't let myself off the hook for not posting pictures of him). So this week - "prep week" - we didn't have the usual 2 quizzes/2 oral exams every day and I actually got to enjoy myself! What a great feeling it is too - meandered aimlessly through the halls, watched hours of bboy videos on youku (Chinese youtube), napped at will... well, I guess I can't say it was a particularly exciting week, but god dammit these are the things I miss! I found this week to be filled with more tiny pleasures than any other week I've had here. Here's a list of the ones that stick out:

+I found some old Daily Show clips with Chinese subtitles on Youku and gave Joker and Yu Yang a taste of a couple episodes. I'm sure Jon Stewart's imitation of an old Jewish mother and a Bronx tough guy went right over their heads, but they still had a laugh at the other stuff. I wonder if they'd ever be able to understand those portions, those cultural nuances. Moreover, it made me wonder if I'll ever be able to fully understand Chinese comedy or other products imbued with such subtle hints of the culture - seems like a journey completely different than the one I'm on right now, and a daunting one at that. 

+On a related note, the Daily Show came up while talking to my Resident Director Amy today. We were talking about NPR, and she told me she heard an hour-long piece on Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. She threw in an aside that I almost completely missed, but it was so conspicuous that I even caught it in Chinese: she said she'd never seen the Daily Show. And she barely knew who Jon Stewart was. I was shocked. Noticing the expression on my face, Amy reminded me that she's been living in China for about the past 12 years. I guess that makes it a little more reasonable, but still.... Oh yeah, and she's friends with Peter Hessler. Unfamiliar with one of my idols, friends with another... guess she's still good in my book (if you're reading this Amy, of course you're good in my book - in fact you're great. I'd never hold something like that against you. Please don't kick me out of the program...) 

+Got to help Joker out with translating his resume. Some of the most fun moments he and I have together are when we're trading phrases in our respective languages. Sometimes it even compels him to speak some sentences in Chinglish. I've got a lot of examples, all of which tickle me when I'm reminded of them, but I'll just give you one or two. A little grammatical background: in Chinese, verbs can be repeated to soften their impact, for instance making an imperative ("Stand!") a request ("Could you stand up?"). So when he requested I take a look at his resume for him, he said "Wode jianli gei ni kankan" and then immediately followed up with a direct translation "I give you my resume take a see-see" after which he burst out laughing. I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard (could be the "bleacher man bleachin'" incident...), and it just felt good. 

+Ah, another god one came to mind - after we decided to take a break from translating his resume, Joker's obvious next move was to start playing DOTA. Joker, being in such a playful mood, decided to announce his plan: "Let's have a DOTA wahahahahahaha!!!!!" Joker is honestly too much sometimes. 

+Today, luckily as soon as the weather broke and the sun came out, we had a program trip out to Longjing Tea Village. This was an especially difficult trip to get excited about, since I felt I ought to start studying this afternoon and shouldn't waste time. I also didn't want to wake up at 8am to get ready for the trip. But I'm glad I did. It was the most peaceful, relaxing, enjoyable, comfortable, satiating outing we've had so far. It was a 2 hour bus ride out (due to traffic) outside the city limits and into the grassy, tea-bushy hillsides of Longjing Village - one of the most famous villages in China for its tea, Longjing Green Tea. One of my teachers, Zhang Laoshi, our RD Amy, and our academic director and one-time intimidator, Tao Laoshi, accompanied 7 of us out there. Oh yeah, and Tao also brought her adorable 5 year-old daughter, Beibei, along for the trip. I'm aware I've been lacking in the cute-asian-baby-pictures department, but fear not: you will love this little girl. Pics to come. 

Anyways, Amy, goddess that she is (are you still reading?) booked a reservation at the tea house at the top of the hill and we were treated to an incredible, if excessive, meal. Vinegary bamboo shoots, fresh eggplants, chicken on the bone, potatoes and gravy (yeah!), all sorts of greens, cold thin slices of beef - all accompanied by the famous Longjing Tea, as well as some fantastically fun conversation. I say fantastically with a purpose, because I could never have fantasized that I'd be having the kinds of conversations I had over that meal. I know I have a long long long way to go till I'm actually proficient in the language, but to think I'm having conversations now that a month earlier seemed impossible, well there's nothing more encouraging than that. Hopefully I can take that with me to my midterms, but whether I rock them or not, at least I know that I'm better - hell, a lot better - than I was when I first got here. 

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Anyways, it's time to get to that grind. I'll post when I get more pictures up. After this week, I have my week long Fall Break to look forward which I'm lucky enough to spend with my brother. Hermano arrives the 23rd, we go to Huang Shan (illy hillies) 25th, hit up Shanghai a couple days later, and eat delicious foodles all the while. Gonna be sick. Can't come quick enough. Hurry, brother, China awaits! She beckons! 

The Fasten Seat Belt Sign Has Been Turned Off

...You may now stand up and comfortably roam about the nation.

After what were a high-impact first 3 weeks, it finally feels like I've hit cruising altitude here in Hangzhou. I had my fair share of difficulties getting into the groove of life here, cause there's no questioning that this summer was as low-stress, low-impact, low-responsibility as you could make it. But of course having little to no responsibilities - as awesome as that is - makes one weary pretty quickly, which reminds me of a quote I read recently. 

~Quick note on how I came across this quote: It comes from the enlightening quote included at the end of every e-mail from the A.Word.A.Day daily that my dad signed me up for as soon as I got an e-mail address (probably been getting these for more than 6 years now) - so Dad, here's proof that I actually read them... or that I don't ignore all of them... take your pick~

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." Now, this is not to say the workload here has rendered me "serene," but I certainly feel like almost nothing I do here is a waste of time, and there is something I find pleasurable about that. That is, aside from the stress that comes with having so much work you don't have time to waste. Stay tuned for a later post entitled "Serenity Now" in which I counterintuitively reach a higher state of consciousness/peacefulness, thanks to the buttload of responsibilities I have.

So this post is about finally finding that balance between my school-related responsibilities and the things I actually want to do. It's still pretty one-sided, but it's gradually getting better. Last weekend, a group of about 14 of us made our way to Sanqingshan Mountain Range. About 5 hours by train outside of Hangzhou, it was my and my group's first big excursion outside of Hangzhou. I could spend a whole post describing the scenery, but that would be a waste of time when I could more easily direct you to my online album  http://picasaweb.google.com/dengel29?authkey=Gv1sRgCLGpnfG04IWXbw

. It was a pretty surreal experience, and the closest thing I could compare it to is the floating mountains of Pandora in Avatar. Yeah, I had to use a fictitious, hovering mountain range as an adequate analogy - it was just that cool. I could not come up with a better way to "escape" the pressure and confines of the earlier week than to literally escape that academic environment and drink in a purely physical and visceral and sensory cocktail. Couldn't have devised a better way to recharge, and much props to my friends for putting the plan together. I honestly wasn't quite sure to expect before going, as a result of the language barrier: the only details I was clear on were how long the train ride was, the name of the place we were going, the general landscape, and who was going. I had no idea we'd be camping outside, that we'd be bringing all our own food (which is why I only stocked up on oreos, biscuits, and other not-really-adequate-as-a-meal snacks), and that the hike up the mountain would be around 7 hours. Those were all, however, pretty welcome surprises. And hey, it's not every day you get to go on an excursion and have almost no idea what to expect, so I have to appreciate it at least for that novelty. 

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Though every non-academic experience wasn't as balls to the wall cool as that one, it's still been extremely pleasurable. Since my last post, I...

+Went bowling with a small group. Although I was real excited to see how "strange and different" a Chinese bowling alley would be, it was all pretty much the same: goofy shoes, bowling aliases, slippery floors, and I still suck.

+Taught taps (the jump-in-the-air-and-catch-and-pass game) to the avid basketball players among the Chinese roommates here. As big as basketball is getting here, they have yet to learn all the spin-off minigames, though I hardly feel like an adequate ambassador. 

+Played a good two and a half hours of half-court 4-on-4 with the same kids and finally got to meet some Chinese kids from outside my program, and man was that nice. Didn't have any lengthy conversations with them on the court, but who needs conversation when you can share the euphoria of competitive sport? I seriously missed that feeling of connecting with others through competition (as light-hearted as it was) and was glad to get to experience it again. I did not, however, miss the post-game feeling of a broken, out of shape body. There isn't an inch of my body that feels comfortable at this point. 

+After ballin, got to engage in a hearty conversation about the impotence of the Chinese national soccer team with Wei Feng and a new friend whose English name is Space (if you say his Chinese name, Si Pei, 10 times fast it starts to sound like "space"... I have a new appreciation for unconventional English names. As weird as they may seem at first, they've usually got some legitimate background. That said, I can't imagine my roommate, Joker, being named anything else.). The overall consensus - after I dismissed their assertion that Chinese aren't strong or fast enough - is that China needs a Yao Ming of soccer to popularize the sport. That's how China's national basketball team got off the ground, and it's pretty reasonable to think that's how soccer will gain some traction in Cina. My next project is going to the soccer fields on campus and joining some pick-up games there. 

+Talking with Space was a really nice experience - apart from coming across as an extremely gentle, soft-spoken kid, he was a pretty engaging conversationalist. I especially liked his assertion that, since he hadn't signed a contract to not speak English, he could use English in our conversations. So far, I hadn't met someone so willing to use English after hearing what my situation is here, especially as I tried my hardest to keep using Chinese, and the experience was refreshing. It was also the first time I can recall that I got giddy when a guy asked me for my phone number. Tehehe!

+I'm also glad to know that some things transcend cultures, some things that members of the same generation can both enjoy no matter if they're born in New Jersey or Ningbo. Something that proves that - no matter how different our lifestyles, no matter how drastically different our values may be - that we are all, deep down inside, essentially the same. I, of course, refer to midnight drunk-munchie runs to Mickey D's. Nothing makes you feel at home quite like getting trashed and poisoning yourself with America's finest. There's something beautiful about it. 

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Now that I've thoroughly procrastinated on this Sunday afternoon, it's time to get to work. As with last time, I heartily welcome any and all e-mails, requests, salutations, etc. My access to Facebook is much more limited than I thought it would be, so the best way to contact me is via e-mail (dengel29@gmail.com). Even the comments section of this blog isn't easy for me to access, so if you want to contact me directly please use the e-mail. 

I'm trying to upload pictures, though I'm having serious issues with Picasa: Google's poor excuse for a picture-editing software/web upload application. I'm thinking of changing venues, but I currently DO have some pictures up, so you can check out what has inexplicably actually made it onto the interwebs here: http://picasaweb.google.com/dengel29?authkey=Gv1sRgCLGpnfG04IWXbw

http://picasaweb.google.com/dengel29?authkey=Gv1sRgCLGpnfG04IWXbw

Till next time y'all. 

Let the Great Experiment, BEGIN!

And oh how it has. I arrived in Hangzhou around 11pm August 31st, thrust into my Chinese roommate's loving arms. Zhou Li (or Joker, as he goes by in English) is one hell of a roommate - well, it would not do him justice to call him just a roommate. He's a guide, a friend, a teacher - he's been a lot to me, and this is only after Week One.

I arrived early compared to the rest of my classmates, so Joker and I spent my first full day taking care of necessities - we went to the nearby supermarket, bought an international SIM ka for my phone, and shot the shit all the while. I would later learn from the programs residential direct, Su Aimei (Amy, in English, who hails from Illinois and has lived in China for the past 13 or so years in various places), that Joker and the other 12 Chinese roommates were chosen from a group of 105 candidates which explains their awesome patience and aptitude in accompanying us through this experience. Though only speaking Chinese feels anything but natural right now, Joker has done an inhumanly good job at making me feel comfortable doing so.

At first, I tried (to my own detriment) the age-old technique of pretending to understand by nodding, saying dui (the Chinese equivalent of a "right" or "uh huh") but I must be bad at selling it since Joker knows right away everytime ("ting de dong?" he'll ask me after just about everything he says). So I've since ditched that routine, asking him to zai shuo yici whenever I don't know what he's saying, and he's been a champ so far at repeating, explaining, simplifying, or slowing down if I need him to. I gotta give props to Lucas Chwe who, in reflecting his first months at high school in Ridgewood recalled how sick he got of asking people to repeat what they were saying. I can totally relate now, as that's the life I'm currently living. But I see his fluency now as a goal - hell, the guy got into Cornell while I had to settle for University of Crotch-fester: a serious showing-up if I've ever seen one.

I've got to skip over a couple days since I'd rather not bore you with every little detail, as I realize I'm trending towards. Here have been some of the highlights so far:

-Playing frisbee (da fei pan or "playing flying plate") with Shou Wei Wei (another Chinese roommate) and Joker. Joker is a serious natural - already has a whip of a forehand, if a bit unruly. I brought him one as a gift, and my goal is to make a real champ out of him.

-Played never have I ever in Chinese with all the Chinese kids and my classmates: started with 10 fingers, ended with negative 10 by the time the last person was gone.

-Got a new Chinese name from a cell phone salesman.  While Joker, myself, and several others stuck out a storm in the cell phone store after we finished purchasing our international phones, he continued to give me suggestions for a new Chinese name. The salesman overheard, and got in on the conversation. His first suggestion really stuck with me, and that ended up being the one I chose: Dai En Ge. So much better than my previous name, which Joker informed me "isn't really a name" (thanks a fucking lot Chang Laoshi).

I still don't have internet, so I've been using Joker's comp. Classes started today, though my schedule is still pretty light - everything ends by 2pm, after which I'm up to my own devices. Gonna play Frisbee again today after Joker gets back from dinner. Time to perfect that forehand. Till next time y'all.

Obama Signs Financial Overhaul Bill, Relates with Average Joes

After a 2 year battle with lobbyists and an obstructionist Republican Party, today President Obama signed an historic bill to regulate Wall Street's clearly irresponsible financial practices. But has President Obama won the war? Well, obviously the only way to judge that is to dissect the bill itself and see precisely what regulations it will allegedly impose. The New York Times supplied a summary of the fundamental changes in store:

The law subjects more financial companies to yada yada, regulates many doodads and  and creates a panel to detect things as well as a problem-solving regulator. A number of the details have been left for regulators to work out, because the White House staff was reallllly just trying to squeeze this baby in before mid-term elections and didn't have time to proof-read it... or hammer out every detail... or address every issue... or close all the loopholes. But the White House says they are "confident that this bill will make people feel slightly more comfortable trusting their money to proven thieves."

 Despite the vagueness of the bill, Obama did have this to say to the American people:

“...because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes... There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period.” 

Though this may be difficult for the American people to believe (due to the litany of promises Obama has yet to deliver upon), Obama tried dearly to give hope to the more incredulous among us, by what other method than the good ole presidential standby - relating to the Average Joe:

“If you’ve ever applied for a credit card, a student loan, or a mortgage, you know the feeling of signing your name to pages of barely understandable fine print - well folks, that's kind of how I feel right now."

When questioned on the bill's thoroughness, Vice President Joe Biden responded, "Why the hell are you asking me?"

  

This is motivational?

I'm a bit more than halfway through a supposedly motivational essay that gets passed around the Chinese-language-learning community, and so far I can say it falls far short. This brief aside was particularly uplifting and hopeful.

In fairness, it should be said that classical Chinese gets easier the more you attempt it. But then so does hitting a hole in one, or swimming the English channel in a straitjacket.

Full text here: Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard?

More thoughts later.

Fighting Wars Like Idiots

I've been reading a lot of articles recently about the sordid state of America's war on terror. I knew we were losing - I don't think anyone is under the impression we're winning by any margin -  but I didn't know about the repugnant, destructive, and downright counterproductive tactics we've been employing for who knows how long.

Let's just run through the evidence that has emerged over the past couple weeks:

1) WikiLeaks (a relatively new watchdog group attempting to check abuse of executive power, among other things) released footage of US military members in an Apache targeting suspects who they believed had guns. It turns out they were in fact cameras, not AK-47s, and the suspects were journalists and photographers, not enemy militants. A cargo van carrying that arrived on the scene several minutes after the US forces opened fire came to save the injured, but that van was also attacked. The van also was carrying 2 children, who were injured (not killed in the raid as well. If that were not enough, this tape was filmed in 2007 and suppressed by government forces. The incident also was elaborately covered up, to the point where atrocities - such as the fact that reinforcement tanks that came after the firing ceased ran over several dead bodies - were specifically explained away in press interviews (a general interviewed by the Washington Post explained that didn't allow tanks into the area since they were unable to without running over bodies).

2) Obama has authorized assassination of US citizens abroad who have been deemed enemy combatants. This requires no due process, no proof - just suspicion or "intelligence."

3) US military recently opened fire on a bus carrying civilians, killing at least 5 and injuring around 20

This is what I've got a problem with: our strategy to win the war - according to what has come to light despite apparent government attempts to stanch these facts from becoming known - is to shoot people we think carry guns. It's 2011 - phones can give us directions to somewhere in China, toilets know when we've stopped shitting and flush accordingly, cars can know when your sleepy and suggest a nappy-poo, but despite all this innovation we still conduct wars like it's fucking Duck Hunt? Are all of our great minds too busy designing iPhone apps that our war department is being run by dumbasses? Of course not, but they're not making a good case for themselves with this evidence popping up.

Even if I think it's dumb and there could be a better way to win a war, that's no case for changing the strategy. But in a recent article of the NYTimes - on their Opinionator blog - Robert Wright cites a study done by Jenna Jordon of U of Chicago that focuses on "leadership decapitation," a name for the strategy of targeting and offing senior leaders in organizations in order to pacify their organizations completely. That's what we're doing in Afghanistan, which you know due to the abundance of headlines that read "A Senior [insert terrorist org. here] Leader was killed today..." But Jordan's study finds that this strategy not only doesn't work, but in the case of religious extremist groups especially, has the opposite effect. How about that. Killing senior leaders (who not only inevitably get replaced, but Wright argues they are potentially replaced by more capable leaders, citing the replacement of CEOs and bosses at corporations). Wright deftly explains why this unquestionably the wrong tactic:

Of course, if you did enough killing, you might make the job of computer executive so unattractive that companies had to pay more and more for ever-less-capable executives. But that’s one difference between the computer business and the terrorism business. Terrorists aren’t in it for the money to begin with. They have less tangible incentives — and some of these may be strengthened by targeted killings.

He goes on:

You can imagine why, as Jordan’s data suggest, this counterproductive effect of decapitation might be stronger for religious groups than for groups driven by a secular ideology. To the intensely religious even the harshest adversity can seem like a test administered by a God who will reward faithful perseverance. And the belief that death in a holy war gets you to heaven can’t hurt when you’re looking for someone to replace an assassinated leader.

Now along with this being counterproductive in our immediate war with Afghanistan, think about the future of wars after America has set this precedent. And I know, living in America, it's sometimes easy to forget that America sets a lot of international precedents, but think about what other countries will do in future wars if this conduct goes uncontested. We're not only fanning the flames of the dangerous terrorist forces we're currently fighting - we're justifying their actions as we kill their families and we're telling the rest of the world that that's okay. It's a wonder our international allies haven't spoken out against these atrocities, but they'll have us to thank when their enemies starting fighting like us.

There is never a reason to throw lives away like this. Moreover,  when it does not even achieve the desired result, there's not a reason on earth for the government to protect and support policies like this.

[article cited: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/title-2/]

For further reading on the topic, Glenn Greenwald of salon.com has extensively covered these issues, focusing on their illegality. Here is the most recent:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/12/afghanistan/index.html

and you can find the others linked to that one.