Summer holidays

man the past month has been really epic. it was truly a long summer’s break

i went kite flying today with pearlene and it was really good. man the last time i flew a kite was when i was 6 i think, so it has truly been a while. After choosing a kite and a couple of changes, we finally bought a big black angry shark kite ‘Crunch’ because it was the most epic and it can scare all the other pussy kites away. GRRRRR!!!

pearlene was damn pro in flying kites. she flew it like instantly the moment we got it out. respect. and she said ‘luckily we didnt get 2 kites or else i would needa help you to fly yours too.’ but anyway i managed to fly it after a while.

Last week, we went to genting by car and the drive there was really nice. and the mountain roads were bloody steep, but hell it was damn fun trying to wrestle the car up the bloody mountain. i love long roadtrips. the weather was really nice and cooling and misty and stuff especially at night so it was perfect for sitting outside with coffee, coz the air inside the hotel can get quite stale. sometimes.

other than the Ripley’s museum that we visited, which was kinda scary, the main attraction was spaghetti via room service in the cool hotel room as the gusty wind blew relentlessly outside into the hell of the night, as we watched an old movie.

oh yeah, we also visited the theme park which was pretty uninspiring with rather low quality food, but we managed to find some fun of our own. a guy was walking around showing off his wonderously long snake and scaring all the girls, in a place called dinosaur land. and we were pleasantly surprised and attracted by that. yeah attracted enough to take a picture with his snake. and man it was weird holding that bugger as he slid and wriggled continuously around.

So the main attraction of genting is the weather.

thats of course unless you enjoy slogging it out and getting your hopes dashed at the russian roulette and blackjack tables.

A week before that, we went to the beautiful city of hong kong, and man was it an interesting place.

The angry people shouted at each other, and the cars screeched around the narrow streets threatening to pick up a few more for a ride around town. and in street corners, on park benches, in train stations, and behind newspapers in neighbourhood roast meat stores, old men lay in wait and leered, ever eager for another hot girl to come their way. hong kong is a city of volume, LOUD volume, every bugger in the land is Screaming! at each other, the people getting up the bus, the waiter who takes your order, the chef who screams vulgarities at his customer, hell even the escalator is screaming relentlessly throughout your ride. Yet, behind all that noise, we learnt something really important about this place, the ruder and the more noise someone makes,  the more likely are they being honest and the less likely are you gonna be ripped off. beware of the nice, polite hongkong shopkeeper, watch out, you ass is unguarded and clear for the picking.

despite all these nonsense, everyone seems to be able to skirt around the bustle of it all, in these closely packed city and exist without actually biting each other’s head off. however hell, they do it makes these city really fun and hong kong is truly one of my favourite cities.

we were there to collect some swimwear and stuff, seemingly peaceful right? No!

2 hours after landing in hong kong, we discovered that the flight backed was booked on the wrong day. which means that we were gonna have to miss Chicago: the musical back in singapore. Shit! and i also found out that i have amazingly brought along the tickets to Hong Kong. So shit we cant sell or give it to anyone at all and the tickets would be totally wasted. Shit! so we rushed to the DHL office at the train station and they were closed, because its a sunday. Fuck! so we called the hotline and all the instruction were in cantonese which was kinda hard to understand. and the bloody office was located in the next town in some industrial estate. so after a bloody wild goose chase around hong kong we found ourselves in an industrial park, where we finally managed to mail our tickets back. Man now thats the epic shit you tourists dont see.

apart from all that hong kong was really fun and interesting with weird stuff being served like

cold noodles served in plastic bags,

epic authentic roast duck restaurants where the chef cuts the meat on the street while shouting expletives at the customer,

weird spicy noodles which causes you to tear and numbs the fuck out of your mouth and makes your lips quiver,

cold milk curd with a really dairy taste, dunno what the hell it is

really powerful and amazing bubble tea

horse racing arcade games with real robotic horses racing round the track, and people armed with gunny bags of tokens ready to play at the machines,

a toilet restaurant,

fortune tellers operating next to sex toys merchants at temple street,

the tons of hidden gems and factory outlets within the malls,

running the hell outta Chungking Mansions, when we found out that the internet forums were real. That place is really wild!

the epic run down the street and back to look for a cab, and the mad throwing of our bags and stuff into the taxi which stopped in the middle of the road, as the cars honked in the background. because we had too much shit to carry.

seemingly friendly people and shopkeepers who turn violently angry the moment they find pout that you are merely asking for directions and you are not gonna give them any business. i remembered one shop, where not only the salesman, even the boss came out from the back to chase us when they found out that we were just browsing their mushrooms.

of course there were many epic memories being made like having street barbecue food while sitting on a fire hydrant, due to the lack or none-thereof  of seats on the street on a cold windy night. watching the people going by, wondering why the hell are there so many people still out at 1 in the morning, and counting the number of people wearing slippers as the summer approaches.

or dim sum at a restaurant where everyone was facing the door as in some kinda weird parade or something. where we couldn’t read the menu and had to guess what the hell we were ordering. and got some pretty nice stuff like super thin crabstick wraps.

and that time where we walked for like 45 mins to look for a claypot rice shop near temple street. halfway through the meal, pearlene suddenly said something funny like ‘hey do you notice that everyone in here is drinking soft drinks and no one is drinking the tea they gave us. maybe the tea is not for drinking and it is only used for washing the bowls. everyone is giving us weird stares’ but i said ‘ahh screw it, i saw the guy behind you drinking it’ haha but of course i was smoking her, i didnt actually see it. so pearlene refused the drink the tea till she witnessed someone else doing it, and i was praying that hell they better be quick. which they finally did. and so did we for the tea.

it is all these unforgettable epic memories that we share that makes me really love traveling with pearlene. its about creating your own fun and experiences, having a lot of room for screw ups, and not taking things too seriously, because somehow we always get to discover something new by chance, or manage to take away something really funny and exciting. i am really glad that she could stand all my nonsense, and does not take things seriously too, and always stopping for the moment. i love you pearlene, the huggable one, which i can throw into my backpack and carry along with me on my tours. Thanks for making all my trips an epic adventure.

power tip no. 2

and another tip which helps too.

Yogurt.

its the power juice. gives you strong bones to play tennis just like the smiley cow in the chesdale advertisement. the one who steals and throws away the peanut butter and jam, and replaces it with cheese.

hmm, though it lasts as long as you have it though.

speaking of throwing things away, i accidentally threw away the wrap woman’s contact lens yesterday night. coz i am used to washing out the lens case before putting any new solution in. so i just unscrewed it and did everything and only realized when i was done.

haha Fuck! when i told her, she went like ‘ why did you throw away my lens…’ in a sad voice. hahaha

and watching Friends was the best.

The secret power of Wii

a few days ago, i discovered the secret power to playing wii, which is..

dont wear underwear.

Yup simple as that.

i was invited by pearlene to spend a lovely peaceful afternoon by the pool as she took a swim. of course, it wouldnt be as peaceful as it sounds.

because i was pulled into the pool by pearlene who was taking a nice cool dip in the pool, all my clothes were wet, including my underwear. so i had nothing to wear and no underwear except for a pair of shorts.

anyway after that, i went to the living room to play wii tennis against pearlene and brandon with no underwear.

suddenly, my secret aura flowed out and i was owning everyone! Wow!

mind you, i have never won a game against them ever, at least other than my first time playing it. and now, the powerful aura was not constrained by my underwear and it was flowing everywhere! letting me do shots that i have never done before.

of course during the past few days, while wearing some underwear, sadly my amazing powers suddenly diminished. and i was now on par with them. it was no longer a walk in the park, and hell am i fighting for my life when i play.

so ladies and gentlemen, if you wanna win, here’s a little tip

TAKE OFF ALL THOSE UNDERWEAR, AND NOW!

Hong Kong!

haha im going to hong kong with pearlene! yeah! dec 12 – 18 we are all booked and ready

<3

Helloween.

The great season of halloween is here again and it is the time of the year in which many people would dress up in their most ghoulish, or outrageous outfits and parade the streets, trick or treating.

Halloween used to be a pagen festival of the otherworld by the ancient Celts. In old english, it meant all hallows’ even, the day before All Saints Day, a christian holiday. However, it has now became a secular holiday, celebrated almost entirely differently from the past.

This is due to the power of the media in changing and influencing mindsets. This is due to the close relationship between acts of communication and power, according to the cultural studies prespective of communications.

In the past, traditions and cutural norms dictated that halloween was a festival for the undead. As such, as much as people or rather children would enjoy running around the streets at night trick or treating, they have to be home before midnight when the underworld comes out.

In addition, due to the cultural influences of traditional folklore, people tend to dress as ghost, goblins, or draculas. Such forms of ghost or horror are only found in old western methology. Interestingly, the jack o lantern is an allusion to the Irish legend of the will of the wisp. 

In the marshlands of Ireland, methane gases tend to be produce due to the decomposition, and sometimes these would be lighted up due to stray sparks. The faraway traveller may mistake these fires for the light of houses piercing through the day, and unknowingly follows it, thereby sinking and drowning in the deep marsh.

As such this ancient sense of halloween speaks of ethnocentrism, in the belief that one’s culture of celebrating halloween which its old irish legends is better or more superior to all.

However due to the power of the media, whose cheif motive was the promotion of related products in th beginning, has morphed halloween into a secular, all inclusive festival. Halloween has become a day for fun, alcohol, friends and dressing to the limits of our imagination.

Gone or rather diminished are the influences of the costumes of the old, the black witches and such. Now it is totally common to see people dressed up as movie characters, cartoon character like spongebob or even make political statements through their costumes.

This is seen last year through the wearing of a facebook page as a costume. This costume talks about the perversive intrusion of media into our daily life through the example of facebook. Our private lives are being beamed across the world and we would have to worry about our unsightly comments being posted by exes or haters on our site, problems with communication we didnt have to worry in the past before. Such is the horror of media, yet it is somewhat of a horror we chose willingly.

I remembered a costume depicting a voting machine last year, representing the fight between John McCain and Barack Obama during the US presidential election last year. There, people had to place their candy into the holes showing their support for their ideal political candidate.

As such the commercialisation of festivals such as christmas, st patrick’s day or halloween has served to show us that the media could have a very strong influence in changing or modifying culture to suit their needs and thus hopefully ours. What would u make of that?

advertisements- Japanese verses Western

This week, i would like to talk about advertisements. Advertising is a really powerful medium of communications, especially so for the television advertisements.

Airtime for televison advertisements are usually very expensive especially during the peak periods of televison viewing. As a result, television advertisements need to be as short and as concise as possible so as to save airtime, save money and make business sense for the company.

In addition, the advertisement needs to be as entertaining as possible so as to capture the attention of the audience. This enables the advertisement to stand out from the rest and thus the chances of it being remembered by the audience is increased.

However, having said that, the message still has to be put across for the advertisement to make sense. Here lies the difference in advertisemnt worldwide. What is deemed a worthy message, the motive of the advertisement, and what is deemed entertaining is affected by the cultural influences in each country.

As such, I would like to compare the difference between Japanese and Western advertisements on the same product Trend Micro anti-virus software, and the totally different style in which it is done.

The video above is the Japanese version of the advertisement. First of all, what stuck me was the cheerful tone of the advertisement. The advertisement was done in a song and dance style, in which a jingle was sung to promote the product. In addition there were lots of use of visual cues such as cartoon words coming out of the girl’s mouth.

This style of advertisement is typically japanese as western advertisement do not generally use jingles, and even if they do, they are usually one liners and do not make up the whole advertisement such as ‘Always Coca-cola’. 

The words coming out of a character’s mouth is also reminiscent of japanses art such as anime, and it serevs to give the advertisement a comic effect.

Moreover, there is a use of a girl in a red dress, jumping and dancing with the the use of large amounts of kinesics to amplify the point which is being made. This is such as the excited pointing and the flashing of the No 1 sign. In japanese advertisement, young beautiful woman are always used, probably because they are visually appealing which serves to attract attention to the ad.

In addition , they are always smiling as opposed to the more edgy western advertisements and engaged in non threatening activities like dancing or even mundane ones like sitting on a beach ball or eating cookies. Compare the innocence of the advertisement above to the edginess of a knife fight in the Motorola Razr commercial below.

The aim of the japanese in creating rather innocent, happy looking, feel good advertisements is probably due to the high context culture present. There, it is not considered polite to be too pushy with facts or display too much edgy or rather aggressively perceived behaviors in advertisements such as in the Motorola Razr one. 

Instead of trying to get the consumer to associate a certain lifestyle with their product, the Japanese aim to create a comfortable environment or advertisement, so as to put the customer at ease. These positive feelings evoked they feel, would influence the customer to buy their product.

Now compare the japanese version of the advertisement verses the australian version, with in your face amounts of facts and logic below.

Which would you prefer, an advertisement which evokes comfort or one which tries to convince you with facts?

Hard Gay verses Bruno

Homosexuality has always been the butt of jokes. It appeals to the lowest common denominator and it is the easiest way to create a universally appealing joke. Every culture enjoys jokes about homosexuals due to its socially deviant nature from Kumar over here, to Hard Gay in Japan and Bruno in the United States. 

Hard Gay is a fictional character played by Razor Ramon Sumitai in Japan. Hard Gay loves dressing in small tight sado-masochism inspired black leather and latex. He enjoys shaking his hips in a sexually suggestive way, or rubbing his groin against other people to emphasize his point and storing things in his crotch.

Bruno on the other hand is played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the United States. Bruno is a gay Austrian fashion activist who lives life for fashion, and only sees the world from the narrow perspective of fashion. Like Hard Gay, he likes dressing scantily and sexually suggestively, however he only uses sexually suggestive language like such as bradwurst, arseweitch, but refrains from actually getting into any physical contact with anybody.

Through this initial descriptions, we could see that these 2 cultures are trying to create the sterotype that homosexuals are sexually promiscious, and love to flaunt their sexuality. This could explain the one dimensional sexual imagery and motives depicted in these two scantily dressed character.

However, here is where the similarity ends. In terms of aggressiveness, Hard Gay is probably more brazen due to the higher rates of social tolerance in Japan. In the video, he is seen to be brazenly pulling a cigarette out of a passer by’s mouth and putting it out in the vibrating crouch of his pants. He could probably do this in the high socially conscious culture of  Japan, where people would more likely feel embarrassed when caught breaking the law, rather than anger for being told off. Bruno would probably get hit or chased if he were to to attempt the same stunt in the United States, where the ability to make their feelings known is regarded as self confidence, as seen in the immediate put down he got after merely making some gay comments.

Next, Hard Gay is also more liberal in carrying out lewd or sexually explicit actions. We can see in the video that Bruno is rather mild in terms or physical actions, posing individually or gesturing flayboyantly. Hard Gay however ups the antte by downright grinding random passer-bys on the streets, rubbing his crouch against someone’s neck or security, lying spread eagled on a playground slide while kids are piled up near his crouch, or getting park visitors to wear something that he just pulled out from his crouch.

Amazing despite the more extreme stunts that Hard Gay commits, he doesnt get involved in the amount of lawsuits that Sacha Boren Cohen got involved in for the characters of Bruno and earlier Borat. This is despite the fact that some of Hard Gay’s stunt could be classified as downright crimes such as sexual harassment, outrage of modesty and crimes against children. This is probably in the high context culture of Japan, it is considered being a spoilt sport to not participate in a prank and thus spoiling the entertainment. In addition, with its rather homogenous society, people then to see each other as similar and thus there is a greater level of tolerance for social deviance, and lower chance of expressing outrage due to the perception of being taken advantaged of.

In addition, there seems to be a greater need in the west to appear homophobic and show heterosexism especially in males, so as to appear socially acceptable. Hence the need to sue, to either cash in on the opportunity to make some money on the pretext of feeling violated, or to publicly prove his straight sexual orientation.

Bruno and Hardway demonstrates that these 2 societies have very great misconceptions of homosexuals, reducing them to mere one dimensional sexually promiscous jokes. This is probably a coping strategy due to the fears they experience from being homophobic.

However, in Japan, Hard Gay is accepted as being one of their own, a pure born and bred Japanese. On the reverse despite being seemingly more liberal, Bruno has to adopt a foreign Austrian identity instead of a true blue American one, such as being from Houston, Texas. Bruno thus exposes that Americans are actually rather collectivist, despite their claims, not willing to dampen their all- American identity, trying to attribute the misfits to foreigners instead.

Both homosexuals are regarded as a destruction of social peace, however, important social issues are brought up in the process such as alienation in Japan, and race or the ethics of celebrity adoptions in the United States. While Hard Gay tries to make homosexuals appear more acceptable by trying to help other people, Bruno is serves as a mere target for abuse. This is probably because tolerance levels are lower in the States, and Bruno would be rejected, not given the opportunity to do so and labelled as a faggort even if he was truly trying to do a good deed.

As such the characters of Bruno and Hard Gay has brought to mind the true question of liberty, is it the Japanese idea of equal opportunities and acceptance; or the western ideal to be able to express one’s feelings without really taking into account societal expectations?

the mash up- interpersonal attraction

The scene from the movie Definitely Maybe talks about about the initial attraction and the interpersonal communication that goes on between these two characters William and April. The two of them started off having a smoke, before heading on an informal date, finally culmulating in making out in April’s apartment.

According the the Filtering theory by duck, sociological cues bought the two of them together. As they were both working for an elections office, they experienced proximity. In addition, April was working as the copy girl and he had to approach her constantly to get his photocopying jobs done. As such they had a high frequency of interaction. This greatly increases their probability of contact.

Next, physical appearences  also played a part in their initial attraction. both of them were dressed similarly in office wear and they were both about the same age, as least within the same generation. On the looks, both were relatively attractive.

It is said that people tend to form relationships with those who are similar to them. As seen in the buying of cigarettes in the conveinence store, both are equally assertive and confident. They are not afraid to raise their voices and air their views, not willing to back down.

in addition, they demostrate social perference similarity when they engage in the shared activity of smoking. Smoking is a really good social bonding activity as for that 5 mins or so in which the cigarette takes to burn, people would have a chance to relax and drop the societal constraints which hold them back. In the state of nicotine induced relaxation, and close social proximity people would allow themselves to share their inner thoughts, thereby making the encounter more intimate, poignant, and memorable.

In addition, April increases the level of interest by proposing a smoking competition to prove her reasons for buying slightly more expensive cigarettes to William.

Other than the similarities between the two, relational dissimilarities were more powerful in influencing and increasing the level of attraction between the two. This is seen in William’s conservative stance verses April’s more liberal stance towards life. In the conveinence store, he would support cheaper cigarattes because of the cost, while she supports the expensive ones coz they burn longer. Later on the roof at the end of the scene, April is seen to be pushing William to show greater sincerity verses his attempts to remain withdrawn, example mumbling and refusing to kneel during a proposal. We can see that despite April’s attempts to appear deviant and anti conformist by rejection marriage as a societal construct, we can see that she too falls victim to its advertising influence, by insisting for the man to kneel when he does a proposal.

We can see that at the start of the video, we can see the character at stage 1, the initiating stage. There, they talk about rather safe topics like cigarette brands and smoking. In stage 2- the experimenting stage, the characters began to feel each other out, through deliberate provoctions of sensitive topics like love and commitment. We can also see elements of self disclosure when April talks about her boyfriend and her feelings of neglect when they are having a smoke. William reciprociates this later by talking about his girl friend from college.

As such the Equity theory of relationships applies here as each party flirts and reveals a greater part of his or herself as the other party too shares his/her personal information. In addition, both parties try to tease and push the boundaries while still remaining comfortably engaged.

Do not talk about Fight Club

” The first rule of fight club is: You do Not talk about fight club…”

Fight Club is a thriller about societal alienation. The movie focuses on the delution and monotonity experienced by the insomanic protagonist towards the daily grind of life in the office. As such, the characters finds ways and means in which to break the monotonity of their day, anything, just anything which would serve as a form of distraction. This be come in the form of going for self help sessions just so as to experience a tinge of human emotion and social validation, or the ordering of IKEA products over the phone, just so as to feel that he exists.

This speaks of the cultural studies perspective in communications. Due to the large power heirarchy present in many bureaucratic organistions which in many large cities around the world, people may not be inclined to communicate much to those out of their ranks, or even within their ranks due to fears of mistrust. As such, this contributes to the alienation in which he feels.  

The loosening of emotions and feelings at the self help sessions speaks of the social constructionist prespective of communications. Here it is considered socially appropriate to air ones true grievances, which is the whole purpose of the session unlike a formal setting. Thus people are free to let go.

In comes Tyler Durden, the alter-ego who created fight club. Fight club is just like a social club or a bar. It is a place for leisure. This caters to the pragmatic perspective of communication which talks about our need to communicate. However unlike a normal bar, people come together at fight club for one sole purpose, TO FIGHT. We can see the Idols of the cave being depicted here, in which the group of men would pledge to uphold the distortions, prejudices, n beliefs of fight club, thereby holding a special allegiance to protecting its secrecy.

Tyler durden manages to achieve this such a level of persuasion as said by Aristotle through the use of logos: the appeal to reason. He capitalises on the diminished status of these men, that is a poor job, monotonous life, lots of built up anger, and a feeling of hopelessness. He then attributes their wretched lives to the forces of society, therfore, by blaming society, he gives them a legitimate reason to believe him. Here after gaining their trust, he has a foot in the door with them, therfore he could manipulate them to do even greater things for him.

Next, he engages the use of pathos- the appeal to emotion. Tyler knows that these men feel weak diminished and hopeless, as such he gives them fight club as a source of power. An arena in which their inner base instincts of physical strength, hunting and power could be fulfilled through the primitive fighting.

In addition, the class differences and discrimination in which they feel so strongly about is diminished or rather eliminated within the confines of fight club. Every man is thus reduced to a bare fighter, no shirts, no shoes.

Finally, Tyler demostrates the use of Ethos- the persuasive appeal of ones character. He does this by appearing really confident, even being somewhat detached from reality, appearing to be above of of them. This is through fitting the sterotype of a deviant, strong, muscled, smoking, attracting attention by wearing loud red pants. In addition, he exerts figure and ground by his commanding and authoritative tone, and his deliberately positioning himself right in the middle of the square during his speech.

Therefore, are degrees of alienation in society truly that extreme, that people are forced to fight to feel in touch with their base instincts?