Capoeira is life

Capoeira is a dialogue between two people. I say something to you, you say something back to me. We have to flow together to make it look beautiful, and that's the hardest part, flowing together, just like how in life communication is difficult, but when done right, it's beautiful.



There are those who think that there is winning and losing in life. These people chase their dreams of getting rich, a beautiful spouse, a green suburban yard underneath a big American house. How to be successful is their concern. Sometimes it's the same in Capoeira, some people think there's winning and losing, so they get all aggressive, get violent, pissed off, and beat each other up. Blood gets spilled.

But those who truly understand capoeira, they know that the kicks and take downs are playful, no harm intended. Let's make it a beautiful dance. And even if we're not the center of attention in a social situation, or in the Capoeira roda, then we're at least in the circle, giving our energy to the center by singing, clapping, being present.

What is Language?

I remember watching a movie called Waking Life (2001) several years back, and feeling enlightened by the fact that words are just symbols that signify the ideas in our mind, they aren't the ideas themselves. Whether others pick up the ideas we mean to communicate depends on how they interpret our words. Since they're just symbols, miscommunication and different interpretations are possible.

Since then I've realized that it goes deeper than this simplistic idea. In my masters thesis, I'm making use of Jacques Derrida's idea of differance, which in French can mean "to differ" and it can mean "to defer" (postpone). It's a linguistic theory that argues signifiers (ie words) are not simply static signs that immutably point to static signified meanings (ie words' meanings). On the contrary, signifiers are always interpreted and reinterpreted in meaning by their positioning with other signifiers in the web of semiotic signification. Meaning depends on how the signifier (ie word) differs from other signifiers (ie other words) around it. Meaning is therefere always deffered (postponed) in an endless play of signification.

More concretely, this means that history is never a static given set of events that have definite uncontestable (objective) meanings. Instead, it means that history is always interpreted and reinterpreted, consisting of meanings always in an endless 'play' of differance with the present and the future.

Cultural identity is about "becoming" rather than "being" - it's a process, a production, rather than something to be archaeologically dug up.

Anyway, back to the question, what is language...it is a system of symbolisms and signification, but it's more complicated by that. And that's why words in one language can almost never have exact translations in other languages that capture fully their spectrum of meaning. Depending on how words have been used, developed, and "played" in fields of differance, they take on a whole spectrum of implied meanings. Which is why, for example, I had to give 4 different English words to my language exchange partner for translating the Cantonese wai daai - (偉大) - compassionate, selfless, considerate - which are all words that overlap with wai daai. And then this other Cantonese word (I forget what) that overlaps with aspects of being a good friend, a close friend, considerate, and always there to help in a very practical way (as in lending money in times of need, or talking and being a listener in times of emotional distress), but not necessarily including what the English "close friend" implies - such as talking about everything and anything (no matter if there is emotional distress or not). Closeness and being a good friend in HK culture then seems to differ from America in that it's much more practical-focused, and functional, whereas in US culture it's more emotional and romantic.

Christmas in Hong Kong (and layers of technology)

"Kev Jumba," the fan asked in his video response to the number 1 most subscribed comedian on Youtube. "Speaking of names, and race, you're Chinese right? Why is your name Kev? It makes no sense to me...you're Chinese!" (not an actual quote...just an approximation pieced from my memory)

Mark Poster in his book Information Please thinks of the internet as a way to bring chaos to your soul. Bringing chaos to your soul was conceived by Nietzsche, basically as an exploration of self-identity, putting yourself out of your comfort zone, out of your familiar world-view, almost to the point of a masochistic psychology, all in order to emerge out of this interior battle with a new cultural innovation. "One must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star." Poster thinks that the internet is a system that brings all sorts of individuals into exposure to other unfamiliar individuals, bringing the whole global society into chaos, producing cultural innovation in the end.

That's the abstract theoretical background I provide for now. If somebody can't conceive of an Asian person having an English name, then they'll have to learn to conceive of an Asian person with an english name. Likewise, Christianity, Christmas, and Christmas caroling all find their origins in the west, and sure, we could link it to the evils of European imperialism - but we shouldn't think of it as globalization as much as we should think of it as glocalization.

In Hong Kong, Christmas time is not time for family, but time to go out with friends, walk amongst the crowds, get drunk, party, etc.. That's how Western-imported holidays are like (esp. Haloween and Xmas), family-centered holidays are of course the traditional Chinese ones.

During Xmas, unlike for New Year and Chinese New Year, there are no fireworks, people are just walking around on the streets. But since Christians in Hong Kong are more firm believers than your average Christian in the US, you get caroling with strong religious overtones ('caroling' in Cantonese, bouh gaai yam, translates as spread the great gospel)
[please bear through the beginning...I walk around later]


And finally, I end with video of an event taken a couple weeks back. The layers of technology involved here are a bit much! There's my camera which is recording video of my nieces and nephews in Hong Kong webcamming with their cousins (my nieces and nephews) in America who are playing videos from their camera of sledding into their webcamera. Did you get that? Video from their camera->their webcam->our computer screen->my camera->youtube video about transnationalism and childhood friends reuniting through webcams and cameras.

"Life isn't about finding your self. Life is about creating your self."

In response to comments on my last blog:

What I meant about being a good actor was a part of a philosophy of life. On the inside I want to be calm and peaceful, purposeful and content. But this would just let others roll over me and take advantage of my kindness or passivity. That's why I have to have an external persona that can be aggressive when it needs to be aggressive. I was calling this "acting." It's something I need a lot of work on.

About choosing sociology over English, I naively thought that English was about reading fiction and doing creative writing. I didn't realize that there's theorizing, there's Marxism, there's cultural studies, there's all sorts of other components in it. Now that you mention my essay, I'll have to dig it up and read it again.


And yes, I'd be excited to be in Boston. It's not just a 'push' that's making me drop the program, it's also the pull of being in a quaint, large-sized yet manageable city. It's also a city that my family has had roots in ever since my father immigrated there almost 4 decades ago. A handfull of uncles and aunts always make a monthly ritual outing to Boston for Dim Sum and grocery shopping, and my cousin and her three children live in the 'burbs over there. There's stronger family presence in Boston, more diversity, and plenty of things going on there.


And so I think I'd only partially agree with the title quote. Life was about 'finding my self' as soon as I was given the analytical tools to do so (mostly in college). In other words, it was about understanding my present by analyzing my past (and societal influences). But now that I've more or less 'found my self' and also 'found the global' (if I can say that this world has an identity of its own), it's time to take control of my self, and start creating my self.

The Assault on Reason

"Not long before our nation launched the invasion of Iraq, our longest-serving senator, Rober Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: "This Chamber is, for the most part, silent - ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate."

This is the opening of Al Gore's book "The Assault on Reason." He goes on to explain that the US made the mistake of invading Iraq not entirely because of George W. Bush, but because the American public sphere has changed. TV no longer broadcasts congressional debates about important policy decisions like it used to in order to inform, debate, and make the right decisions. Instead, to win the votes of the American public a politician needs to be rich (ie donations from special interest groups), and buy precisely crafted TV ads:

"I vividly remember a turning point in that Senate campaign when my opponent...was narrowing the lead I had in the polls. After a long and detailed review of all the polling information and careful testing of potential TV commercials, the anticipated response from my opponent's campaign and the planned response to the response, my campaign advisers made a recommendation and prediction that surprised me with its specificity: "If you run this ad at this many 'points' [a measure of the size of the advertising buy], and if Ashe responds as we anticipate, and then we perchase this many points to air our response to his response, the net result after three weeks will be an increase of 8.5 percent in your lead in the polls." I authorized the plan and was astonished when three weeks later my lead had increased by exactly 8.5 percent."

Democracy is failing because, according to Al Gore and I would agree with him, because of the dominance of television in the way our society thinks. It's a one-way medium, there is no involvement by the audience in the "exchange" of information, which means that whoever is in control is free to put their ideas in the sphere, and this is mostly determined by who's got the most money. In fact, watching TV stimulates a certain section of the brain, whereas reading stimulates a different section that is more involved with reasoning and logic. People who watch several hours of TV in a day have fundamentally different brain processes than those who read several hours a day because they're exercising different parts of the brain. When reading, words are merely symbols with no inherent meaning...as readers we take part in the creation process when we string together the symbols and make meaning out of them. Our TV generation of people have brains hardwired with different thought processes. And it's for this reason that the majority of Americans still think Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and the reason why democracy does not exist in America.

Philosophical Thoughts (1) - Jabbering Neurons

Each one of us has tons of neurostransmitters jabbering nonstop in our brains, communicating whether or not we're thinking about it or not. Because of this, there's a little imagination game I like to play every now and then. When I talk to someone, instead of thinking "I' talk to "you", I think of all those jabbering neurons extending their connections to your jabbering neurons. When you have a meeting, it's a group of people's jabbering neurons pooled together. Writing a book or making a movie is like writing code that can be read by the masses' jabbering neurons.

I think this helps me to realize my role in certain situations...like waiting tables. With my "jabbering neurons" concept, I'm basically the connection between the customer and the kitchen, so I imagine - with Matrix kind of special effects - these magnetic forces connecting through me, extending from customers to the cooks. So instead of seeing bodies in a restaurant, I see flows of information. It's quite cool really, a play of the imagination and philosophy.

Daily Life Lesson 1

I never understood why it was that those who are most egotistical and arrogant are the ones with the least confidence. Today I learned one reason why.

People with no confidence in themselves think they cannot help others. "I'm useless, what can I do for others?" So they naturally only think about how to make themselves happy, they become selfish, only thinking about their needs, and what others can do for them. It's a cycle. They can't even make themselves happy, which reinforces the idea that they can't help others, so this lowers their confidence even more, which makes them unhappy for feeling useless.

But as soon as you start helping others, then you begin to see where your strengths are. Everyone has some sort of expertise that they can offer in service to their communities, in service to people. The people we help benefit from this, and this boosts our confidence, making ourselves happier, and giving us the drive we need to continue helping others in the way that we know how to.

Confidence is not the same as arrogance. A confident person is humble, and doesn't see the need to boast his/her strengths. His/her actions can speak for themselves, and the main purpose is to help others. An arrogant person boasts about his/her strengths. The intentions are not to help others, but to show off. People will resent this, and the arrogant person will not feel happy.