Bloredom

There are moments in life where you encounter things that are so bizarre that you can hardly imagine that the person behind it is serious or whether writes his post directly from a mental institution.

Shelley the Republican, or rather her blog, is one of those great examples where you first take it as a joke and then, after having laughed a lot, realize that it’s meant to be taken serious. (Thanks Antony for the tipp, it was a really good laugh.) However, I also think that this blog is a great example for the negative aspect of blogs, that they just enable every idiot on the planet to pump the shit in his head directly into the Internet. (sorry for the drastic description, but keep on reading)

Let’s start with Shelley’s article about Germany:

“Gate to Hell / Seeking World Domination : Germany”
Even the first sentence and the first picture (showing a Skinhead with the subtitle “Today’s typical German”) is memorable in many ways: “Today I like to once again warn you about Germany (even to this day they refer to themselves as “Hitlerdeutschland”).”. Huh? Did I miss something? Hitlerdeutschland? And who the hell is “they”???

The article moves on and on for quite some time, picking up almost every German stereotype: Oktoberfest (Shelley, it’s written with a “k” not a “c”), Mercedes, Sauerkraut, Beer and Eisbein (haven’t even had Eisbein for probably 10 years btw). Did you know that the takeover of Chrysler by DaimlerBenz (Shelley, it was a merger between equals and not a takeover) is just as an example on how Germany “Seeks [singlepic=39,160,112,,left]World Domination”? And that Germany is just flooded by Nazis (“hundreds of violent nazis roam around in the streets seeking victims. And they not only spread their hate in their own small ugly country.”). Thank god Shelley finally comes to a recommendation:
“I propose a total and complete boycott of all German products. Don’t buy anything with the label “Made in Germany” on it. Germany must be weakened. Otherwise they will attack us again like they did in Pearl Harbor!”. And of course the famous moustace of a guy called Adolf is “still very popular in Germany”. Right. Shelley, have you ever been to Germany?

But it gets even better:

“Don’t go to Germany on your vacations. There is nothing to see anyway, but the money you spend there is going straight to future war preparations. If you meet a German in America, tell them they are not welcome here. Tell they you know their dirty game. Tell them that America will not back down. We will confront evil wherever we find it and we will not rest until the world can provide freedom and justice for all mankind.”

Now you think it can’t get better? Wrong. I won’t make any more comments on the next post but just quote the highlights. Enjoy and laugh. :)

Abstinence: the right choice!

“The Bible is very clear about this. It says that sex is a sin and that if you have unclean thoughts and (especially) sex away from the sanctified confines of the marriage bed, you will be sent to hell to burn and writhe in agony for the rest of eternity.
[...]
Q: Will I get AIDS if I have sex?
A: Yes. [...] If you have sex in a way that is not prescribed in the Bible you also greatly increase your chances of making God angry – and thus going to hell.
[...]
Q: But the Liberal teacher told me that contraceptives will reduce my chances of getting diseases.
A: Far from it! As has already been discussed on this site, condoms have holes in them, too small for humans to conceive of. This has been stated by neutral, unbiased bishops from the Roman Catholic Holy See.
[...]
Q: Does the birth control pill or the shot cause breast cancer?
A: If you were to ask most gynecologists this question, they’d probably say, “No, there’s no link. Don’t worry about it.” They are lying liberals and they are going to hell. Ignore them.
[...]
Q: So when is it permissible to have sex?
A: In Christianity, sexual intercourse is meant to take place within the context of marriage; [...] Lust is also strictly forbidden. [...] The (heterosexual only please) couple are advised to prevent impure thoughts entering their brains, by performing coitus with a blanket blocking all but the essential mechanical regions between males and females from off of each other. And wear blindfolds.”

Any more questions? ;)

[singlepic=37,180,120,,left]I already had nightmares about this country where no one was supposed to speak English. I already saw myself stumbling through the icy roads of Seoul, alone and with no idea where to go.
But then, two days prior to my arrival, our client sent me a sheet that should save me from my destiny. Have a look yourself.

Interesting detail on the picture for the mindful viewer: Like many people in Asia the Koreans as well cannot pronounce the letter “R”. Therefore the “Ramada Plaza” just became the “Lamada Plaza”. ;)

And btw: Now I realize why it was a probably good idea to bring my winter coat all the way from Germany. Last week in Australia (while it was around 38° on most days) I cursed about carrying this bulky thing with me all the time. Now being here in South Korea with -4° during the day I can see why it was worth the effort.

Update:
As I just found out my room is equipped with a state-of-the-art 5.1 Digital Sound System (Samsung of course), a DVD/DivX/USB/WLan DVD Recorder (god knows why) and a shower that could easily be mistaken as one of those ultrasonic-showers from StarTrek. Oh, and similar to Japan I have again an electronic device in my room and no idea what is it used for. All I know is that it consumes power, has blinking LEDs and funny Korean characters on it. Welcome to Korea… ;)

Taroko (Wikipedia here, nice photos here) is the most popular of the six national parks of Taiwan. Its highlight is Toroko Gorge: steep cliffs rise from a river bed deep down, and far above the mountain road that runs along the gorge. The surrounding mountain are covered by evergreen vegetation, their peaks veiled in clouds.

Taking one of Taiwan’s clean and efficient trains from Taipei to the Eastern town of Hualien takes us about three hours. There, the adventure begins.

Enter our shiny Yamaha scooter. It took us a while to find a scooter rental place with helmets that offer more protection than your average “Hello Kitty” helmet (more on Taiwanese scooter fashion in another post), but eventually we paid a mere 10€ for a scooter, a day’s gasoline, two helmets, and two raincoats. So as you can see in the picture, we were good to go!

[singlepic=31,460,460]

Not exactly fashionable, the aforementioned raincoats weren’t very practical either. On the road they produced a nerve-wrecking noise, which just about drove me insane (and I wasn’t even driving!) — and we still got soaked… well, as you can see in the photos they were at least good for some interesting photos, with Paohui starring as a psychodelic version of Dark Helmet from Spaceballs (Lord Helmchen in German), and me and my backpack as the Hunchback of Notre Dame [update: Paohui thinks I look like a turtle].

Oh, and imagine what fun it is to ride a scooter in the evening along Taroko Gorge! A winding mountain road, on one side a steep stone wall up to the mountain peaks, with signs everywhere warning of falling rocks, on the other side the cliff sharply descending to the river bank at the bottom of Toroko Gorge. Continuous rain, speeding tourist coach busses, and the startingly rapid nightfall combine to produce quite an unsettling experience. Suddenly it made the hotel’s recommendation to stay in town after 5pm look plausible, and us all the more foolish for ignoring it.

Of course, the main attraction here are the many hiking trails, offering great mountain scenery, temples and monasteries.

The most impressive of all, however, was the Eternal Spring Shrine, a haunting reminder of the pioneering spirit that made Taroko into what it is today. After the Japanese defeat in WWII left their plans to connect West and East of the island via Taroko uncompleted, their successors from the Chinese mainland picked up the pieces in 1956. Over the next four years, the toil of thousands of former Kuomintang soldiers carved a road out of the cliffs along Taroko Gorge, which then in 1960 became the Central Cross-Island Highway. The Eternal Spring Shrine was subsequently built to honour those workers (I saw different figures, ranging from 40 to 450) who died during its construction. Visiting the shrine today, the sheer scale and daring of this pioneering work still fills me with awe.

V., I have to make an additional statement about the article about Adelaide which you quoted in your last post, now that I was accidently in Adelaide for work for almost two weeks. In a way the article is right: Glenelg and its beach is just a dream, the weather is nothing but incredible, just considering the people as just nice would be an understatement and the food I’ve experienced here so far is also great.

[singlepic=13,180,135,left]

The only problem (and that’s the main and only disadvantage I’ve figured out so far) is it’s location: Australia is probably the most remote country in the world (which I believe is also the reason why everyone here is so relaxed compared to, say, Germany), and as soon as you want to leave the country (which could be nice as it’s close to so many interesting Asian countries) you have to get on a plane and prepare at least for 4-hour-flight. Not to mention the distance which you have to travel if you want to go to Europe once in a while. But besides that I love it here. Almost as much as my favorite “second home” Singapore.

Oh, and btw: For the first time in my life I was driving a car (a red Holden Commodore, nice car, unfortunately not available in Germany) on the left side of the street to work… ;) So irrititating, you just drive with this constant fear that someone bumps into you from a direction which you haven’t really paid attention to.

[singlepic=14,440,330]

And yes, I checked it (in case you remember this episode from the Simpsons): Here in Australia not only the sun but also the water in the sink turns the other way round. ;)

And one last thing: Funny how you meet a friend (from my time back at the NUS), which you haven’t seen for over two years now, and already after two minutes you feel as if there were no time in between, …, as if just one day has passed and you were knocking on his neighbouring door at the Ridge View Residence again, asking him to have lunch and a banana ball at the Yusof Ishak House.

The next post will come from Taiwan (again ;) And remember: “No worries, mate” :)

In der Reihe “Globalisierungskritik” folgendes Zitat von Helmut Schmitt zum Thema (nachzulesen auf zeit.de), wie immer gnadenlos und ganz gleichgültig was andere von ihm denken:

Meine Erwartungen an den G8-Gipfel in Heiligendamm sind nicht hoch – aber, ehrlich gesagt, bin ich auch einigermaßen befremdet, wenn ich die jungen Demonstranten sehe, die dort am Zaun stehen und protestieren. Haben sie den rechten Sinn für Proportionen? Als ich ein junger Mann war, hätte mich eine Demonstration gegen die Nationalsozialisten ins KZ gebracht. Da bin ich auf solche Ideen nicht gekommen. Heute würde ich ebenso wenig darauf kommen, weil die reine Demonstration schließlich außer der Befriedigung des eigenen Geltungsbedürfnisses nichts bringt. Jedenfalls ist bei den aktuellen Protesten gegen den Gipfel nicht zu erkennen, was die Demonstranten eigentlich positiv wollen. Ich glaube überdies, dass kein 18-Jähriger sich ernsthaft einbilden sollte, zu wissen, wie die Welt organisiert sein muss.

Update:
In der Zwischenzeit kam übrigens die weltbeste Dokumentation “Helmut Schmidt außer Dienst” (auch mitlerweile verfügbar auf YouTube) raus. Mehr dazu auch hier.

Update 2:

Helmut Schmidt:

Vernunft und Gelassenheit sind Schmidts Leitwährungen bis heute, und auf diesem eher trocken-rationalen Hintergrund wirken einige Filmmomente durchaus melodramatisch, tränendrüsenwirksam. So, als er dem alten Freund Henry Kissinger beim Abschied – womöglich zum letzten Mal – hinterher schaut und dann mit dem Stock wieder ins Hamburger Reihenhaus humpelt, so, wenn er kurz über die fünf Fehlgeburten seiner Frau und den sehr frühen Tod des einzigen Sohnes kurz vor Kriegsende spricht, um zu resümieren: “Das muss man hinnehmen.”

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,492375,00.html

Und Robert Enke
(passt zwar nicht zu Helmut Schmidt, aber schön zum Schmidt-Zitat):

“Ich habe sehr viel mitgemacht: beruflich und privat. Ich weiß nicht, ob jemand das Leben lenkt. Aber so viel weiß ich: Man kann es nicht ändern”, hatte Enke im Dezember 2008 der “Bild”-Zeitung gesagt. “Man muss sich mit einer Verletzung abfinden, man muss sich damit abfinden, wenn man ein Spiel verliert, und man muss sich damit abfinden, wenn man ein Kind bekommt, das schwer krank ist und stirbt.
[...]
Wichtig ist, was man aus der jeweiligen Situation lernt. Auch dann, wenn sie sich negativ darstellt. Das Positive zu sehen kommt meist etwas später.”
http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,660661,00.html

Wenn ich mich ärgere, halte ich kurz inne und überlege mir, wo ich vor vier Jahren und drei Monaten stand, man wird dann schnell gelassener. Damals war ich in der zweiten spanischen Liga, bei CD Teneriffa, auf der Bank. Wenn man den ganzen privaten Bereich weglässt, kann ich schon sehr zufrieden mit den vergangenen Jahren sein.
http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,572073,00.html

It’s sunday and I’m just sorting all my newspapers which I’ve been picking up during my trip so far. Among those was also the following ad (for a golf championship at Tanah Merah Country Club). Such a pity that I’m not in Singapore on the 28th of February… ;)

@ Vik: Since we had to ban all these great pictures of the IAF, don’t you think we should try to re-open our category again? ;)

;)

Lust Caution has left me speechless, so I have spent some time finding reviews that accord with my impressions. So far none has fully convinced me, but this one in Slate is at least interesting (and short). The best critic of Ang Lee’s movies seems to be Ang Lee himself, so I recommend this write-up of an interview with Lee, as well as this piece on the movie and its director.

For what it’s worth, the film comes with a recommendation from myself. Its target audience is Chinese, however — and they liked it, with scores of mainland Chinese travelling to Hong Kong or downloading pirated version to see the non-censored version of the film, which won just about every award at the “Asian Oscar”, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.

Having been neglected for barely two weeks, my Google Reader has amassed almost 800 articles for me to read — quite a task. Seeing that I kept on top of my subscriptions over the last half a year or so, it seems that Google Reader has been a bigger site of procrastination for me than my newly-acquired addiction to Asian cinema. Time to change my habits just in time for the new (and last) semester in St Andrews, which is beginning this week without me (I am spending another week in Taipei).

But before I change anything, here are some highlights of my skimming through all these posts:

— Singapore beats Hong Kong beats Taipei beats Shanghai in living quality (old news, but nicely presented)

— Usually those criticising NATO’s reliance on aerial bombardments in Afghanistan (Stichword Tornado-Einsatz) dream about friendly peacekeepers and development workers taking over the mission. Perhaps someone should tell them to move in the tanks instead. The Danes are doing it (and, ironically, they use German Leopard models!)

— On a related topic, see this Norwegian critique of “national reservations” in Afghanistan (no mincing of words in this interview) (via Kaufmann on achgut.de)

— Adelaide Calling! (London stinks, why not emigrate?)

— There is a lot of interesting feminst writing out there, but I have mixed feeling about specialist undergraduate degrees in womens studies, to say the least. So this THS article is interesting reading to me. (via Kings of War — see the funny commentaries!)

— And a special hyperlink for Stefan (being a more faithful reader of SPIEGEL online than me, you may have read it before). The policy implication — should smokers get a discount on their pension payments? (again, via Kaufmann on achgut.de)

— Even for those without a special interest in East Asian celebrity news, this is a fascinating oddity — nude and explicit photos of assorted Hong Kong popstars (including bigshots such as Edison Chen and Cecilia Cheung) all over the web, all due to a nosy laptop repairman. Intriguing… I thought that amateur pornography is driven by people’s craving for attention, so why on earth would uber-popstar Chen and his girlfriends feel the need to take such pictures? Gosh the world is such an interesting place.

— Siehe auch: fantastische Reportage ueber Jugendkriminalitaet in der ZEIT

… and one thing’s for sure: “I’ll be back” ;)

My new favorite T-Shirt. States the obvious.
(Also refer to this hilarious SPIEGEL Online article)

Ok, I never said that everything we are writing here is self-explanatory. Neither should everything be self-explanatory. So sometimes I just enjoy writing down things / posting images that, just by looking at them, bring me and the people with which I’m sharing these memories, back tons of sweet memories.

So guess what I now accidently found out during my most recent stay in Singapore (remember: being in this city has always and will probably always cause an imense buffer-overflow of sweet memories in my head):
When you top-up-your ezlink card you can access a “check card-details” function which logs the past few MRT journeys you’ve been doing:

08. August 2007: A journey that ended in Woodlands at 10:13 pm, just a couple of hours before I was flying back to Germany.

And if you go back in history a bit more: 29. Februar 2007, roughly half a year earlier: A journey from Bukit Batok at 2:58pm back to Chinese Garden, also short before I was flying back to Germany. *Sigh*

As if it were yesterday…

Unbelievable how two data entries, probably the most simple form of information, can bring back so many old memories…

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. [...] Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… ”

(American Beauty)

Wait, how is this called? Right, …, sentimentality. And I haven’t even started writing about all the meetings with my friends which I still have here in Singapore. Most of those meetings were quite memorable, …, in many ways…

OK, I have to go to bed now…