January 14th, 2005 by Eshin
Tony Blair must be upset with his bitch-daddy Bush for calling off the search for weapons of mass destruction before the upcoming UK elections. Uberfuhrer Bush, having been voted in with that landslide margin of 51%, feels that he is safe to call off the primary reason for going to war, backed up by his blithering lapdog Tony. If there is any justice in the world, Tony Blair should not be re-elected on account of him being wrong.
Sure, the apologists for the war say that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and now that we’ve removed him, the world is a better place. But it is a dangerous precedent when countries are allowed to get away with invading countries based on a hunch that their security is threatened, which even before any action is taken, is unsubstantiated and now after the action, has also since been unsubstantiated.
Can we blame North Korea and Iran for wanting arm themselves silly with nukes?
January 14th, 2005 by Eshin
George Bush ran some newspaper ads in leading international newspapers thanking the world for their efforts for the victims of the tsunami. Arrogant bastard. It is not his right to thank the world for their generosity and to harvest the world’s unity for his own political benefits. As leader of the United States, he isn’t the elected leader of the democratic nations of the West nor the world’s spokeman, despite what he might think. If you really gave that much of damn, then you would have donated more of your own personal wealth and the riches you have plundered from the oil in Iraq.
Fuck you, George Bush.
January 11th, 2005 by Eshin
Clubbing in other countries is always fun. Checking out Amsterdam with my mate Daniel and my cousin Koen, I got to see some funny things.
The first was that my cousin actually tipped the bouncer on his way out from a place. Tipping bouncers? I hear it is expected in the ‘Dam and it might even be a relic from the bygone era when clubbing was more of an exclusive affair. I might try an experiment in Hong Kong and London where I actually tip the bouncer when I leave. Of course, I’ll have my running shoes on.
The second was that in Escape, the club we ended up in after being rejected by the exclusive Jimmy Woo’s, they had a toilet assistent who actually chased after people if they didn’t leave at least a 0.50 Euros tip in the not-so-discretionary tip plate. Apparently, you have to pay to pee. Wonder how much a quick shag with a bird would be?
The upside of the place was that they had two topless dancers sitting astride some wooden horses on the stage. Apparently, this was tame by Amsterdam standards and I hear tell of regular clubs with pole dancers. There’s Dutch liberalism at work for you.
Anyway, it was good to go out in Amsterdam. Being away from Hong Kong for a while now, I’m missing Chinese girls but having now been in the Netherlands for a while, the Dutch girls are starting to grow more on me. Dooie!
January 8th, 2005 by Eshin
One of the things that you encounter when you don’t blog anonymously is that people have the power to use your site to basically find out everything about you before you meet them. I had that situation this week when I met up with my old friend Wendy and her boyfriend Peter. I had never met the guy yet he seemed to know so much about me already by reading my site. Of course, since I hadn’t updated certain areas for a while, he seemed to be under the impression that I was a vegetarian and a non-smoker after my failed experiments last year.
The recent Asian Weblog Awards have made me wonder whether I’m blogging for popularity or myself. One of the questions that I asked myself is whether or not I held back because I’m open about who I am. Should I take the cowardly approach to blog from anonymity and without the need to censor what I say for fear of consequences in my offline world?
At the end of the day, it is nice to blog in the light, so to speak. While it was strange to meet someone who knew me more through my blog than actually ever meeting me, it puts it out there on the table. I pretty much write what I think. I might be wrong, I might be right, but in any case, it’s me. You won’t know the whole me, but you’ll go further in knowing me by reading this site. If you don’t like what you read on this site, chances are you probably won’t like me in person but then do remember that you might not know the whole me.
One of my uncles seems to be a regular reader of the site and since I don’t get the opportunity to speak to him all that much, it was kind of cool when he said to me that he felt that he knows more about me through my site than the time we’ve seen each other. It is nice to know that my site helps to foster that connection between people I know and people I don’t yet know.
Even if only three or four of you can be bothered to comment on my posts…
January 8th, 2005 by Eshin
It is with a strange sense of relief to read that I’m not the only one a little skeptical about all this aid effort for the tsunami. Fumier took the first shot with questioning the US motives for donations in his post Oh, Well. Now I read that HKMacs in Aid Fatigue is wondering where all the aid money actually goes to, considering the amounts involved.
I think this whole tsunami appeal has degenerated into one big feel good circus for the world. The charity of Dutch people raised close to 122m Euros in a televised pledge drive featuring famous people of note, singers, etc. That’s almost a $150m USD from the Netherlands. Admirable indeed but did we need the gourdy dog and pony show to whip up the donations? Being away from Hong Kong, I’m not in a great position to judge the TVB specials which saw $6.2m donated from the Hong Kong public. When I read that Emporer Entertainment Group’s Twins raised $526,000, these amounts suggest that this is a drop in the ocean compared to the amounts they rake in from other more lucrative areas of their business.
Maybe I’m a little too cynical or have become more cynical. As a kid I watched Band Aid with a great sense of optimism that the world is changing for a better place. When I watch Band Aid 2000 I see a whole bunch of younger artists trying to make their marketing mark rather than a real concern for the issues involved. And when I hear that it’s become the Christmas No. 1 single in the UK, part of me wonders whether people buy it to make a difference or whether it helps them remind themselves of a cracking tune when they were younger.
But I’m sorry to say that when I watch a lot of these TV evangelicalesque pledge drives, I get a little sick at how donating has become entertaining. I have donated and my family have donated before the death tolls were high enough for the world to give a damn and before I had a nice rock concert on TV to entertain me and feel like I’m getting something in return for someone’s well-being.
But it is a tough call. The aid is needed and the money is needed for the countries and victims of the tsunami and quake. Perhaps we need that cheap entertainment trade off to get the money where it is needed.
At the same time, Bohemian Philosophy reminds us of the ongoing disaster that is AIDS in Stop the Shame. No, numbers aren’t dying instantly in huge numbers in comparison with the tsunami, but they soon will be if predictions are correct. This is a tragedy just as much as the tsunami. And I won’t go again into the death toll by voluntary human genocide. Lisa is at least consistent in her generosity to a cause - she’s an ongoing AIDS volunteer.
People like Lisa and Yan over at Glutter have these consistencies (Yan is full steam ahead with her efforts, which doesn’t surprise me, but at least she’s consistent). In donating, I’m not looking for that feel good factor. In fact, the whole situation makes me feel shit still. No amount of Twins or Leon Lai parading around on TV will make me feel better about it. And 150,000+ people wiped out in an instant, and the tragedy that brings is not lost on me but I know myself, donating doesn’t make me a better person. If I was, I should volunteer to do more charitable work but I think like most people, my concern for my fellow man doesn’t extend that far.
So, long after the TV specials have ended, and the pictures of the dead, dying and traumatized have stopped being flashed on your screens for your own morbid titillation, the work and the challenges continue to make the world a better place. Lisa will, I assume continue being an AIDS volunteer and Yan, if she’s true to form, will continue to champion the right cause. These are really the people that get to sleep better at night, feeling better about themselves.
