GRE考完了！！！！

So I took the GRE yesterday, in Taipei. It was surprisingly easy, except the part where I had to get there by 8:30 in the morning, requiring me to be on the bus at 7:15 or so. It was kind of an interesting feeling, I really haven't done a standardized test in a while, so being surrounded by about 500 people who are really nervous, just like you, was kind of a nostalgic feeling. The test confirmed for me that I suck royally at math, I had forgotten pretty much all of the equations I ever learned, but since it's really not all that important for my field of study, I didn't really care. I had about an hour of being bored and then an hour of stress, bored=math stress=verbal. Incidentally there was one guy who was clearly drunk when he was taking the test. I guess he was either really confident or really dumb. I'm not really sure which.

Also, an interesting aside. I only realized at 10 pm the night before the test, that I had no pencils. Or at least no mechanical pencils. So I ran around like an idiot for an hour the night before the test looking for pencils. Apparently they sell pencils specifically designed for computer test taking in 7-11. Truly this is a wonderful country.

Deconstruction

So thanks once again to angryasianman.com I took a look at this series of articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, about human trafficking in San Francisco. They tell the story of one woman who was forced into prostitution. Originally, I was curious since angryasianman mentioned it seemed rather exploitative, although it did address an important issue. After reading the article for myself, I didn't have a very high opinion of the article. First of all the accompanying pictures, I could go on about forever. They feature an Asian woman, in poses where she's looking away from the camera, making herself subject to the camera's gaze. And it also doesn't look like she's wearing clothes, which sort of eroticizes the whole story in a really weird, and kind of creepy way. I mean, addressing the issue of human trafficking is great, and giving someone a chance to relate their experiences is great, but I don't really think continuing to exploit their body, by including pictures like that is particularly ethical.

Also the title itself, "The Diary of a Sex Slave" a diary it certainly ain't. It's a series of three articles, not written from her point of view, or even featuring many direct quotes from the woman herself. And it once again gives a sense of confidentiality and intimacy that once again seems rather misleading and exploitative.
Furthermore, the article itself frequently eroticizes its subject, describing "her black hair that fell like silk to her shoulders" (I'm paraphrasing, but that's more or less what it says) which is not only rather unneccessary, but further smacks of Orientalism, and emphasizes her "small frame" in relation to her customers. Once again, it seems sort of needlessly exploitative. I mean, it's the whole point of the article that she's not a sex toy but a human being? That's why they're telling her story right? Also their description of Korea seems a little one-sided, and according to my knowledge of Korea, which is pretty basic, not very accurate.

"Today, sex work accounts for 4 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to government reports. Prostitution brings $21 billion a year -- more than electricity and gas combined. There are an estimated 330,000 sex workers, 80,000 brothels and 69 red-light districts in a country the size of Indiana. " (I'm really quoting here.) The tone seems a little overly judgemental of Korea. I mean, it's not like Korea has a monopoly on a high concentration of sex workers in a small country.

Another thing that bothers me is who the reporters, who, from their names anyway, seem to be two white women, or at least two non-Korean women, say they get their information. "May and Fitzmaurice reported from the red-light districts of Seoul and Busan, where women are on display in glass rooms. There, they spoke with Korean military police on patrol, and "fishers," elderly women who beckon customers into the rooms. They interviewed U.S. soldiers in sex clubs near the demilitarized zone, and spoke with the "juicy girls" inside who are hired to entice men to buy them $20 drinks and pay for sex." I mean, if in fact they are two white reporters, how did they communicate with these people. Or talk to them about such personal and sensitive issues?

Anyway, I just had some problems with the article.

Furthermore, there was a response by some people in the Korean American community. What's interesting, is that they try to distance themselves from the article. Asserting the respectability of the Korean community, and quite interestingly, characterizing this in terms of class and wealth. "The exaggerated headlines and lurid photos that dominated the front page of The Chronicle for four consecutive days gave disproportionate emphasis to a small immigrant segment of the overall Korean-American population in San Francisco and California, the vast majority of whom are well-educated professionals and hardworking families. " So we complain about the model minority stereotype, but we fall back on it when it's convenient for us? They do raise some good points though, which is that they do attempt to exploit the subject, and the picture that they paint of Korean society is rather inaccurate.

Normally I really like the San Francisco Chronicle, but these articles don't really live up to the journalistic standards I expect from them.

I HAVE INSOMNIA

On a totally random note, something that makes me happy is that 7-11 now sells a green milk tea. To clarify, this is green tea with milk in it, and not green milk with some tea of an unspecified color.

My Students love me THIS much

 

New exciting (and not so exciting and not so new) things in my life

One of my students, Heidi, comes up to me often and pats my butt and says "My hips!" I'm not really sure where she's getting this. Definitely not from me.

Learning how to make frozen steamed buns without a microwave or an oven. Just some water and a pan. My cooking reaches new heights.

One of my students Evan has completely mastered how to imitate my voice saying "Sit down now!"

The Decemberists' new CD The Crane Wife. Very very cool, and new! Just when I think that all the bands I like have started to suck, I get some evidence to the contrary.

I am a nerd

A couple years ago, I took a class on Chinese vernacular stories. It was a pretty interesting class, and in it we studied a bunch of different theories about the characterization of different characters in these stories. Although sometimes these stories were thousands of pages long, they didn't really fall into the Western definitions of what a novel should be. What struck me particularly was talking about the characters, since a lot of the characters are pretty one dimensional, or sometimes morally confusing. Another thing that I remembered was the theory that sometimes two characters compliment each other by being completely opposite.

So recently I got addicted to manga and a lot of these sort of characterizations started to come to mind as I read it. Yes, I know manga comes from a different country with its own distinctive literary traditions, but still. There's always the dark haired, calm, often cool analytical character vs. the light haired, angry, passionate, not particularly rational character. Furthermore, there are often lots of characters that seem like they contrast with each other. And often in fight scenes it becomes the battle of the two opposites. Although most main characters have many opposites. As well as fighting characters that are in some ways, similar to, or parallel to themselves.

It's been a long time

I've been lazy, and not really very busy. However, the main reason I haven't posted in 3 weeks is because during these three weeks, I finally discovered youtube. Yes, I know, I'm lame. I had always heard of youtube before. But I hadn't ever really seen any way that it benefitted me. Usually it seems like people post "funny" or obscene videos on it. However, three weeks ago, I discovered that this was a way to watch anime for free. And thus I became addicted.

I finished watching Bleach, the anime based on a manga that I like. It's about a 15 year old boy who becomes a death god and has various adventures. There's some humor and a lot of fighting, some emoting.

And also recently Monster, which is about a brilliant Japanese expatriate surgeon in Germany trying to hunt down a serial killer boy whose life he once saved.

Yes, this is how I spend my life these days. Well that and attempting to write my personal statement for my grad school applications. My secret fear is that I'll flake out and I won't hand anything in in time.

Juvenile delinquents

AdriAnne and I were sitting on the steps to the fort when she said, “Hey, those kids are smoking." If you look close enough, you can see that she's right. They must be 11 tops. 

無話可説

 

A picture that I took at Taida

after I finished taking the GRE. I'm not sure why I like it, but I do. 

And slowly my life returns to normal

This was the last day of summer vacation in Taiwan. Everyone goes back to school tomorrow. Today I spent from 9:30-8:00 at school. A healthy or perhaps not too healthy part of that time was teaching. If you've been wondering why I haven't posted much in the last couple months, it's been that I'm either sleeping, at school teaching, or somewhere in transit between the two.

I've even really given up eating. For example, today consisted of breakfast: 1 rice ball (musubi) filled with tuna, lunch: 涼麵 from Family Mart 全家 the small size, and dinner was a bowl of beef noodles. The noodles I kind of forced myself to eat, because otherwise, I wouldn't have really eaten anything all day. And I'm never hungry.

Anyway, I'm free. On the upside, I've seen my summertime intensive class, in their new slot at 5:00 on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I ended up in a pile of little girls once again. I guess some things never change.

More pictures of students

Justin and Kevin (not mine) and in the back, Bess, Hubert's sister. 

I just liked this

 

Sisters

In one of my classes, I have three pairs of sisters. And it's always interesting to me how something the older sister does within 1-5 minutes will be imitated by the younger sister. It's kind of amazing. I guess I forgot how closely sisters imitate each other.

Speaking of that class, they're a very touchy class. During the break, I'll usually be in the middle of a pile of children, with one sitting on my lap, two on either side and usually someone behind me too. It's like having 9 little sisters.

Student pictures

Hubert (choker) Douglas (chokee) Cherry (in the back) 

CSI Taiwan

So I've been looking for a new roommate and briefly found one. He moved in and lasted four days. A couple days ago, I came home totally beat after a marathon of teaching and studying Chinese ready to collapse. My new roommate told me our apartment had been broken into and his savings (which he had in cash for some weird reason) had been taken out of a locked drawer. Now, this apartment was supposed to be fairly safe, and I had never had any problems. I never locked up my stuff, so my first thought, selfishly, was Shit, my stuff must have been taken too. I go into my room and my laptop, money, passport and anything else of dubious value was still there.

That seemed really weird, who goes into a house and only burgles a locked drawer and doesn't take anything else? Also how would anyone know it was there? My roommate decided to go to the police, and eventually I went over there too, with my Chinese teacher and her husband. The police then went to my house, and it became a sort of strange CSI like moment. There were all these policemen in the house. A CSI made fun of my room for being messy. It was all very surreal. And the next day my roommate left.

Some (not so) amusing things about teaching

1) One day during break I ran into a kindergarten student at my school named Eric Li coming out of the bathroom. He did this double take and then ran out to the front desk anonouncing “老師上了廁所。" The teacher went to the bathroom! I forgot that at the age of six, you don't know your teachers are real people who sometimes use the bathroom.

2) Hiccoughs in class. It's ok if you're a student and you hiccough. But a teacher isn't supposed to get them. I've had them in class. It's not fun.

Tianxiang

 

Little girls

The author of one of my favorite books once described someone as having "the cow-like face of a girl who's always told she's beautiful."

I have lots of little girls as students. And it's always sort of disturbing to see how some of their parents dress them. They dress them like little models or something. It's just weird to see a kindergartner wearing hot pants. Just the other day, one of my students was swivling her hips and shoulders, except that she doesn't have much of anything to swivel.

Also a lot of them are dressed up like dolls. I think people sometimes expect their daughters to cute and that's about it. This happens particularly when the little girls really are pretty.

Random picture of a student

Waynichiro. He's more or less like this all the time.