Four movies you could watch over and over:

Four places you've lived:

Four TV shows you love to watch (can you tell I don't have cable???):

Four places you've been on vacation:

Four websites you visit daily:

Four of your favorite foods:

Four places you'd rather be:

Four albums you can't live without:

Four magazines you read:

Three cars you've owned:

Mon, 24 Oct 2005

Belief-O-Matic
thanks, yet again, to Queenkv for pointing out the quiz site Belief-O-Matic

the following was my result:
Your Results:

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards.

Sat, 08 Oct 2005

bunny butt
thanks to Queenkv for pointing out the quiz site which happy bunny are you?

the following was my result:

congratulations. you are the "you smell like butt" bunny. your brutally honest and always say whats on your mind.

which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

speaking of speaking my mind, they used the wrong form of the word "your". it should be "you're". get a life.

anyway, in general, i don't necessarily think i speak my mind in a brutally honest way. i'm usually more calculated. although i suppose tequila changes that pretty quickly...
[/online] permanent link

Wed, 28 Sep 2005

OO.org 2.0 beta for OS X finally found!!!
here it is:
Free OpenSource Software Mac User Group

[/travel/china] permanent link

Wed, 14 Sep 2005

culture: fashion, family, friends, isolation
last night we were hanging out with one of priscilla's students turned friend. she's very sweet, has a gorgeous apartment, and was probably the prettiest and most well-styled chinese person (rare!) i've met on my china travels . the magazine China Vogue came into existence this month, which apparently is regarded as a sign of the maturation of china's fashion scene. the chinese director of vogue said that while chinese people are familiar with "quality" brands, china generally has little sense of a true style. I have to agree. by no means do i expect all chinese people to have style, but even the people that can actually buy expensive clothes still generally look bad to me. i know it's probably some side effect of growing up in OC that has brainwashed me, but i really can't help it. fortunately, i don't think i care quite as much as i'm making it look like i do right now, but i had to at least point it out.

anyway, we were all talking (and priscilla was thankfully translating) about differences between chinese and western people in terms of interactions with strangers. in china, strangers generally don't talk to each other unless there's some specific event that occurred to them simultaneously that would necessitate an initiation of contact. and without a specific reason to initiate a conversation, the one who would initiate the conversation would be considered either acting inappropriately or just plain crazy. for example, if a chinese man were to talk randomly to a girl on the bus, it would be perceived as inappropriate and possibly even perverted. even without the potential gender dynamic issues, chinese people would probably consider a random conversation weird or nuts. but, that's not to say that you wouldn't try to at least say hi or strike up a conversation with, say, your neighbor.

on the other hand, western foreigners in xiamen are perceived as more "open" and any contact, random or otherwise, would be perceived as normal. not sure if that's a xiamen thing or not... western foreigners in xiamen are pretty scant, so perhaps this phenomenon would not be quite the same in a place like beijing or shanghai.

this type of thing is interesting to me because i'm constantly feeling as though social norms in the US are increasingly centered around isolation or gathering based on capitalism. everyone is socialized these days to want their own everything: cars, houses, furniture, broadband internet, mobile phones - you name it some company is trying to sell you an individualized something or other. at the same time, we increasingly regard places like starbucks as the place to meet and hang out, rather than a park or a public space. so, even though westerners may appear more "open", to me that's simply a facade that's been built up over time to deal with the already limited interaction that we're getting on a daily basis. we, as humans, still need to interact, so those few moments we get with strangers are treated with a capitalistic approach (i.e., "what can i get out of this?") and with a face that is not truly reflective of the self. at the same time, it's amazing to me that in a country like china, full of potential random interactions with strangers, there's such a stigma attached to those random dialogues. it seems no culture has overcome the dichotomy between isolation and interactoin.
[/travel/china] permanent link

cathay pacific & some US vs. China transportation observations (not reserving judgment, of course)

for some reason, i always had it in my head that cathay pacific was a luxury-style airline where even economy class had you feasting on a fancy, gourmet meal while being massaged to a soft tissue mass. well, 3 flights later i have to say they're better than most but certainly not the well-pampered existence i had (too willingly) anticipated.

here's a pic of my meal on the 1hr flight from xiamen to hong kong:


an interesting sandwich with pork, green onion and mushrooms, fruit (most notably lychees stuffed with pineapple), and a overly sweet not-quite-juice drink. overall not bad, certainly for a 1hr flight. but not "gourmet" as i had imagined all my life.

in general, my complaints about cathay pacific would include: