A Romantic Tattoo Date

Last week I went to get some new ink.  It's hard to make an official tally since my entire right arm is pretty much covered but by my estimation, this is my 20th distinct tattoo.  It's the word "fear" in prickly, unfriendly characters.  I chose this word for a number of reasons: Proverbs 1:7 reads "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."  That's the good fear.  The bad fear is the fear that paralyzes the world every day, especially China.  Chinese society is mortified by the fear of death, of sickness, of poverty, of loneliness, in a way that starves passion, joy, and creativity and has left an entire population largely soulless and vacant.  Now I'm not saying that Western society is any better but I do believe that China's fear is beyond natural preservation instinct and is a serious infection that leaves most people weakened and aimless.  I also chose the word fear because I have fears as well, and just as this tattoo is something that will remain with me for the rest of my life, so will my fears, and I'm just going to have to make peace and live with them.  I am somewhat cautious but I can also be reckless as well, and sometimes this is to compensate for my tendency to over-examine every possible outcome of a situation.  I went skydiving once while I was in college, and since then I've realized that sometimes you just gotta jump, just roll with it, and usually whatever worries us is not as bad as we think it will be, and can actually be fun sometimes.  The slogan "No Fear" is bull crap; the reality is "Recognize and Overpower Your Fear."  This tattoo will remind me to do that.

Tina came to the tattoo shop to cheer me on, and she brought our new chihuahua Morty.  She had been thinking about getting another tattoo for a while (she has a copy of the scorpion on my arm on her ass just below her bikini line but it's so small, it hardly counts as a tattoo) and after I was done, she announced that she wanted to gets hers done that day too.  I was a bit surprised but after confirming that this was really what she wanted, I supported her and helped her choose a design.

We had been talking about a phoenix for her shoulder for a while now.  She has a small scar on her shoulder bone that she's been wanting to cover up, and we decided on a colorful yet simply flash that would hide the scar and drape gracefully down over her shoulder blade.

The stencil was applied, and it was go time.  Her first tattoo experience had not been pleasant, and this was a decent-sized endeavor, and she definitely let everyone in the shop know how uncomfortable she felt.  There were a few tears involved, but I'm proud of her for sticking it out and getting it done in one sitting.  I've been tattooed everywhere on my torso except my chest and ribs, and I'll say that the shoulder bone is the most painful place so far, so she deserves some props.  And as you can see, the results are great.

She was mad hot before but this takes sexy to a whole new level :-).  She's totally in love with it too, and today she was talking about some flowers she'd like to add to it :-P.  I tell ya man, it gets under your skin.  Sometimes I regret having so much ink scattered all over me like a shotgun blast, especially when I see the prevalence of tattooed thugs on music videos and films, but I've made my choice and I'm gonna represent for the good guys.  Even though it was a painful day for both of us, it was a memory that we will have no trouble recollecting.

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Heavy Metal on Chinese TV

I was channel surfing today when I came across a Chinese music station.  I live in Xiamen so we don't have the plethora of programming that Shanghai or Guangzhou enjoys, and this station was not a local broadcast, but it's content was surprising nonetheless.  I almost choked on my beer as I watched a music video by Swedish heavy metal heavyweights Soilwork.  And immediately following was a video from Leave's Eyes, another currently hot European metal export.  Western music videos are by no means uncommon on Chinese TV but watching back to back videos from bands that fall into "melodic death metal" and "gothic metal" categories, as opposed to Backstreets Boys or Michael Jackson, was quite a treat. 

It got me wistfully wishing for a surging interest in Western heavy metal bands, which would make yours truly quite the happy camper.  My personal tastes lean more towards the death metal/hardcore/scorched earth styles of metal and I know that China is too upbeat for those styles to take root, but bands like Soilwork and Leave's Eyes, while maintaining respectable levels of brutality, are more melodic and uplifting in their sound and message so as not to alienate mainstream audiences.  After all, Japan is metal-crazy, though their particular flavors lack the venom and hatred that characterizes most Western metal acts, and I find this preferable actually.  Japan's intense social pressures makes heavy metal the perfect antidote to go ape-nuts and release the pressure of the daily grind, which is much healthier than snarling about disemboweling clergy members and other such topical gems you find in Western heavy metal albums.  China lacks the disenfranchised youth of the West and while social pressures are certainly substantial, I feel that China's entertainment constitution is too weak (i.e., meek) to stomach thundering riffs and wild-haired metal war gods bellowing anthems of the apocalypse.

Yet there is still hope.  The youth are becoming more exposed to greater varieties of Western music and the same prejudices about metal that exist in the West are absent here in China.  I remember seeing one Chinese program about Chinese pop music that featured intro graphics accompanied by a Rammstein ditty.  And there is also a growing fascination with the "bad boy" image and mystique while is brazen exemplified in heavy metal music.

I'm not expecting China to embrace heavy metal as the West has- in fact, I would be even more pleased if Chinese metal acts gained at least some airplay and popularity.  I know that most large cities in China are host to an abundance of local metal acts (of which I have never had the chance to witness...it's been more than four years since my last metal concert...*sniff*) but these bands are severely underground.  I know that S.H.E. and Elva won't get knocked off the top of the charts any time soon but a mouthful of metal helps to offset the continuous taste of bubble gum pop we're all forced in ingest here.

One interesting note: with the recent trend in tongue-in-cheek gothic/punk fashion sweeping the stores comes a tidal wave of heavy metal T-shirts.  At my university, I often see Sepultura, Iron Maiden, Slipknot and others proudly brandished, though the wearer has no idea who his attire represents.  And curiously is the proliferation of the Affliction logo.  Affliction is an old school death metal band with a far smaller following than the other bands I just mentioned but for some reason, I see their name almost daily, on T-shirts, bags, even halter tops.  Go figure.

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Getting Harder These Days to Hold My Head High as an American....

Pound for pound, I think America is the best place in the world to live.  And while I have found a more personally satisfying life overseas in China, I still believe that American ideals and practicality afford the best opportunities for success and fulfillment when properly understood and applied.  My decision to live outside of American has nothing to do with American philosophies of government, laws, and citizen responsibility.

I am very proud of America's abundant freedoms, particularly the freedom of speech.  Yet I am increasingly embarrassed by my arrogant and often ignorant countrymen and women who brandish this freedom as an excuse and in fact a reason to carry out actions that are in essence utterly selfish.  Being in a country such as China has made me more aware of the importance of social responsibility and courtesy, which it seems that Americans are too quick to ignore.  Yes the Constitution guarantees virtually unlimited freedom in a lawful context but this does not give the freedom-bearer license to exercise these freedoms in aggressive ways intending to intimidate and antagonize others in the society.  I find a massive body of Americans are looking for every opportunity to get in someone's face and bellow "I'm free, dammit, I can do whatever I want!  Whatcha gonna do bitch?  Just try, JUST TRY to take my freedoms away, see what happens!"  What purpose does this flagrance serve?

Many Americans cling to their freedoms and the right to defend them as a statement of machismo in a country where "true" machismo is suppressed by law, i.e., men being the sole owners of their property and not having to pay taxes on it to the government, duels, wars fought on home soil, etc.  How are you going to prove you are a man?  Why, carry guns to town hall meetings.  Or come armed with incendiary placards and bumper sticker slogans and hurl them red-faced at the local congressman whom you have no intention of listening to, no matter what he says.  Arrogant, selfish Americans applaud their friends and neighbors who go to town hall meetings with the intention to disrupt rather than converse.  "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"  Yeah well that's nice, so where does that get us?  Do blind statements of outrage help the situation at all?  The Boston Tea Party was a one-night-only show, and this is hardly equivalent to King George's taxation sledgehammer.  New predicaments call for new tactics.  This juvenile one-upmanship of who can have the rowdiest town hall meeting is patently useless as far as pushing the people's agenda into the spotlight.

It's fine to be angry- anger is a powerful motivator.  But the opposition to America's government has become a barrel full of monkeys.  Damn fools exercising their inalienable rights in a way that helps no one but makes them feel better as they thump their chest and demand to be heard.  Have something to say first, prissy self-indulgent bitch.  High decibel vocal cords and your cherry-red mug don't do anyone any good.

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In Defense of The Old Foreign Dudes with the Hot Young Asian Girls - Cut 'Em Some Slack...

Disclaimer: just for the record, I am not an old white guy with a hot young Chinese girl on my arm.  I am, however, a young white guy with a hot young Chinese wife on my arm, but I am certainly not rich and we are making our home in China, so she is not a golddigger or after my passport.  She loves me for who I am and I love her for who she is.  And in fact, she's one a half years older than I am (though she still has the body of a teenager- cha-ching).  I just want to take a moment to offer my perspective on a tired but never-ending topic.  I hope I don't offend or come across as culturally insensitive.  If you really have an issue with what I say, please leave me a comment and I'd be happy to clarify and/or correct my opinion.

Go to any Asian metropolis and you'll see them: middle-aged or decidedly old foreign guys, usually white, not particularly attractive, and actually often the opposite, looking very proud of himself as he walks arm in arm with a beautiful perky twenty-something Asian girl wearing the latest fashions and looking proud of herself as well.  These couples receive a fair share of condescending glances from foreigners and locals alike, and can usually be translated as follows:

Younger Foreign Guys: she's too hot for him, she should be with someone closer to her own age, like me.
Older Foreign Guys: Damn, I'm gonna have to get me one of those or Damn, she's prettier than mine.  Lucky bastard.
Younger Foreign Women: Ew, gross.
Older Foreign Women: Enjoy your sugar daddy while you've got him sweetie, cause as soon as you get your first wrinkle, he'll move on and leave you high and dry.
Local Men: 1. If she's pretty but not drop-dead gorgeous: She's not beautiful, why do the foreigners always choose the ugly girls? 2. If she is drop-dead gorgeous: She's just a KTV girl.
Local Women: This girl has no shame.

It's easy to hate on the old white guy/young Asian girl couple.  He's a pedophilic refugee from his home country who came to China for the easy buck and easy bang, and he seduces a naive kitten with promises of travel and luxurious hotels and restaurants just to get her into bed to satisfy his cravings for young flesh.  She's either an empty-headed girl with ridiculous fantasies about getting swept off her feet by Prince Charming and she throws herself into the arms and bed of anyone who can sweet-talk her into believing that the exotic notions she's concocted about the West are actually true or she's a desperate shameless girl who will do anyting for the promise of designer bags and a chance to live abroad.  While these notions are sometimes (maybe often) true, I think these couples get an unfair beating in society's gossip circles.

In browsing expat discussions forums, this topic frequently rears its flame-throwing head and the responses are usually very similar.  The older dudes get bashed for being losers who were unable to find true love back home so they come to Asia to plow more fertile and willing soil.  But I think that's an unfair accusation.  Okay, say Joe Schmoe has been unlucky in love back home.  He comes to Asia and finds that girls half his age are willing to be his romantic partner in exchange for security and the promise of a better life, which he is easily able to provide.  Why shouldn't he accept?  She is able to give him what he is looking for: affection, companionship, energetic sex, a helper in and out of the house.  Is he wrong for wanting these things?  These are instinctive male desires, so why should he abstain just to maintain a more moral (i.e., does not alienate his Western counterparts) social position?  If someone moves to Farmland USA and builds a beautiful mansion because the land is cheaper, do we scorn him for not striving for the unaffordable penthouse in Manhattan?  Maybe some guys can't get a quality girl back home, but I think every man who is willing to wholeheartedly love someone deserves a woman who loves him back, regardless of nationality or ethnicity.  And if it's easier for him to find such a girl in Asia, then so be it.

But now many people will counter: they don't really love each other.  He just wants a girl to make him feel young again, she wants someone to take care of her.  Okay, maybe that's not love.  But not everyone has the same needs in life.  Of course everyone is looking for their soulmate, but he or she doesn't have to come from the same culture in order for their souls to connect in an emotional and spiritual plane.  I can testify that there is a different bond between two intercultual lovers but it can still be just as strong as one between people from the same culture.  And generally, Chinese girls have the mindset that they love someone who is faithful, honest, and a good provider for them.  This is why they are so attached to their parents.  Is this love?  Of course.  Maybe not in the traditional Western perspective but there is still a powerful attraction that can go much deeper than just satisfaction of basic biological and psychological needs.  Some couples don't bother with the deeper layers, because they get what they want from the other person and that's that.  But there are many couples who truly have a love connection, one that perhaps people who aren't in intercultural relationships can't quite understand, but I assure you it's genuine.

So that's my long-winded two cents.  Yeah I still get a creepy vibe when I see Little Miss Doe Eyes hand in hand with Mr. Magoo, but it's not our place to be hostile or crass.  Could she do better?  Of course.  Is he just a horny bastard with lots of money?  Perhaps.    But he's not a child molester and she's not a sex crime victim.  They both know what they're doing, and they both have their reasons.  I just know one thing: nobody likes being alone.

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A Homestyle Wedding Party and The Death and Rebirth of the Sun

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I took a day-long train ride to her hometown in Hubei province to have a wedding party for her family.  We had already had a wedding dinner at our home in Xiamen in February but that was for our friends that live here.  Her parents had gone back to their hometown after living in Xiamen for many years, so we followed them back a couple of months later so that we could have a traditional wedding celebration there.

Tina's hometown is a small town out in the countryside, a clone of the countless small towns you pass by on those long boring train rides and never give a second thought about.  It was freakishly hot, so we were too tired to do anything but eat, sleep, and hang out with visitors.  One positive note is that extreme heat usually results in people spending a lot of time in bed together with little or no clothing, which is always fun :-).  All in all, it was a pretty boring week, but it was nice to see a new part of China and Tina's family, and also to take a break from summer teaching.

The wedding party was pretty low-key, just a lunchtime gathering of about 80 people, mostly family and close friends.  I was wearing the red and black silk suit that I wore for the first party, and Tina was looking angelic in a Western-style white wedding gown.  The beer flowed like wine, people were happy, hongbao was flung hither and yon, and later everyone crashed or played mah jong.  It was a fun experience but I'm definitely wedding-ed out.  Two is enough :-P.

On the way back, we got to watch the solar eclipse through our train window.  There was only a thin veil of cloud cover so the sun was clear enough to view.  We bought a piece of tinted glass so we spared our retinas from the glare.  I'd seen a total lunar eclipse back in America but I'd never seen a solar eclipse.  It was wild watching a black disc slowly eat the sun.  The best part was when there was just a shy sliver of light left, like a glowing eyelash.  Then- it was gone, and nighttime fell in a few seconds.  There was definitely a surreal vibe, kind of an ominous blackness like the anticipation before a catastrophic storm.  It lasted for a couple of minutes, then the sun made its encore appearance and life returned to normal.  It was a great way to end a unique week.

China Tattoo Advice Part 2: Choosing a Tattoo ARTIST

The word "tattoo artist" generally applies to anyone who creates tattoos. And if you're familiar with the tattoo process, the tattoo artist doesn't actually draw the tattoo by hand (unless he's got mad skillz); he or she will use a stencil (a pre-drawn pattern) and will apply the pattern to your skin using some transferring liquid. The process is exactly the same as those temporary tattoos that kids like to wear, except in the case of an actual tattoo, the stencil is only a line drawing without any color. This makes the tattoo artist more of a "tracer" and "colorer" than an actual artist, but there is a tremendous amount of artistic skill that is necessary to pull off a good tattoo.

The technique of tattooing is very different than drawing on paper with a pen. The machine is bulky and vibrating, and skin is not totally smooth and flat. So the technical skill of a tattoo artist must be above and beyond a skilled drawer. But where the artistic element comes is is in the improvisation. As I said before, a tattoo design is pre-applied to the skin in a stencil, but this is only a rough idea. Stencils are sometimes crooked or jagged where they should be smooth and straight, and a good tattoo artist will be able the visualize the tattoo outside of the stencil and work towards the finished product, rather than follow the details of the stencil.

As you can probably guess, this is where the difficulty comes in with finding a good tattoo artist in China. There are many tattoo artists with decent technical skills but who lack creative vision. In China, tehcnical ability is equivalent to capability; i.e., if you can execute all of the steps in a waltz correctly, you must be a good dancer. This is only half-true; Chinese culture by and large does not take into account the soul of the person performing the action if that action is not inherent to Chinese culture (Chinese calligraphy is a notable exception to this); that is to say, whether or not the person executing the dance steps with robotic precision actually feels the dance in their spirit, and more often than not, the answer is no. The same goes for tattooing. Yes, maybe the tattoo artist can stay in the lines and color-by-numbers, but there are numerous instances during a tattoo that require the artist to improvise, and the only source for this improvisation comes from the art that lives inside him, and unfortunately I've come across many tattoo artists that are good at the tattoo part but the artist is AWOL. If the stencil becomes smudged or he needs to add a little bit of flair that isn't in the original design but will certainly enhance the tattoo, many tattoo artists will find themselves floundering. I've brought crude drawings to tattoo parlors of designs that would be too big to draw on paper with the expectation that the tattoo artist could envision the design like I did and simply draw the pattern into my skin, but many times I've been met with nervous downcast eyes. My initial thought is "Are you serious? You really can't see what I'm imagining here?" But then I remember where I am and what the cultural emphasis is on. Chinese mindset: if you provide a workable pattern, I will happily fit my work into it, but if you ask me to improvise, I can't promise anything.

Of course, it's a great relief to find someone who is artistic as well as technical. China abounds with excellent artists, however most of them are holed up in smoky studios with oil and brushes. But when one ventures into the world of tattoos, it's a golden combination. It merges Chinese dedication to perfect replication as well as the creative soul that adds flourish and character to the final result. So the moral of the story is: find a tattoo artist that is an artist foremost. If he has his original artwork hanging on the walls of his parlor, that's a good sign. If he gives you a quizzical look when you ask him if he could add a little bit here or there when there is no pre-drawn stencil, that's bad. Just make sure that your artist knows how to color outside the lines (though only in a metaphorical sense).

A Few Thoughts Concerning Michael Bay

With mega-robot destruction sweeping the world cinemas and the countless critics tooting horns of lofty opinions, I'd like to share my take on the second-most prominent celebrity named Michael currently carpet-bombing the news.

In every sense of the word, Michael Bay is the People's Director. He knows what the average moviegoer wants (bouncing boobs, bombs, bright lights, fast cars, thundering soundtrack). My grandfather once referred to Bay and his posse as "a wrecking crew." That's what Michael Bay does- he wrecks things in ever-so-beautiful and poetic hues of glorious devastation, because this is what people generally want when they go to the movies. Movies are the world's waking dreams, and we want to watch on screen what we generally can't have in real life.

Now it's easy to just blow things up and have busty babes running around in slow motion, but I will contend that Michael Bay delivers such normally low-class entertainment elements with flair and bravado that no other Hollywood director can match. Bay's films are masterpieces of color and light. Many directors have their own particular tones and hues that they favor, and Bay opts to go with the disco club palette. If it's dark, it's really dark, but if it's light, it's really bright, but never glaring. Every camera angle is dramatic, every frame is excellently composed. I wouldn't call his action sequences gritty but they don't seem like watery CGI cotton candy either (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine). I guess the best word would be "visceral." It's as close to 3-D as you can get without being 3-D.

Of course it's well known that Bay favors effects over story and characterization, but most of the time (though not always), his story and characters are enjoyable, if implausible. Bay's dialogue is always peppered with up-to-date slang and contemporary humor (though the racist depiction of black people in Revenge of the Fallen's Twins was a bit heavy-handed). His films have an MTV hipness infused in them that irks critics but resonates with young people and with which I identify. But he never feels like he's reaching either. The jabs and jokes flow like wine but never feel like they're forcing the social relevance with pop-culture references, as many children's cartoons do.

Perhaps what I admire most about Bay's style is the tightness of his ship. Every detail is meticulous but never pretentious. The editing, the sound effects, the sets, everything is well-executed and solid without being overly flashy. Bay knows he's delivering a fluffy cream pie rather than a hearty meal, but damn if he doesn't make that cream pie as beautiful and sugary as possible. He makes the best-tasting cinematic junk food out there and if I'm not mistaken, he's the most profitable director active today in proportion to the number of movies that he's made.

Michael Bay is McDonald's. I've been going to McDonald's since I was a wee tot, and while I only go every so often, when I do, it's a treat, and I enjoy a cheeseburger now just as much as I did when I was five years old. The critics can say what they want, but when you have a winning recipe, it doesn't matter whether it's healthy or not.