I live in the Korean part of town. My school is Korean, my students are Korean, there’s a No-Rae-Bang next to my work (Woo Hoo!) and every other business in the building is fundamentally Korean. This is fine, I like Korea and Korean culture in general. After all, I did spend over three years there. But there was one thing I didn’t like in Korea, one small but very major flaw in their social fabric. I am talking, of course, about corn on pizza.

Not so much the corn itself, repulsive as it may be, but the whole laissez-faire approach to Western food that Koreans have. Korean recipes are revered like some sacred text, whereas Western recipes are regarded as some kind of rough guide that is neither here nor there. Time-honored recipes such as pizza, tacos and sponge cake become completely different entities, looking right but tasting oh so wrong. They butcher brownies, cannibalize cream puffs and do horrible, horrible things to hamburgers. Even the simple sandwich gets a culinary smackdown at the hands of buttery bread and incomprehensible ingredients.

When I left Korea, I thought it might be over, that Koreans in China would try other foods and see the error of their ways. Oh how wrong I was. It seems China has worsened this situation. Korean cooks in China have completely lost their minds. Without their usual social order to preserve what little inhibitions they had, they have decided that, when it comes to food, nothing is off the counter.

Now I warn you, the following picture is quite shocking. Please, look away if you have a sensitive stomach. For those who are brave, continue and observe the horror that is the Fruit Pizza:

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You’ve heard of an all-night bender. You know, paycheck comes in Friday night, you hit the ATM, grab a wad of cash and drink yourself into the next morning. Well in China they don’t have benders, they have crackers. Everywhere you go you can hear the sound of fireworks exploding.

Now when I think of fireworks, I think of beautiful streams of light whistling through the air, then exploding in a burst of light. You sit down on the grass or at the beach, lay back with someone special, maybe even get a kiss if all goes well. Not so much in China.

You see, Chinese fireworks are more of the personal variety. When people feel like a pick-me-up or have recently come into some good fortune, they celebrate with a fistful of fireworks. The trouble is, these fireworks don’t elegantly whiz up into the air, but rather go off like artillery fire. The first time I heard some, I dived into a nearby pile of garbage so as to avoid the firing squad that I was sure was behind me. Even now that I know they are fireworks, I still get adrenaline pumping through my veins and instinctively check my torso for bullet wounds.

However this obsession with fireworks has been hard for the Chinese. It seems that now any excuse is a good excuse for fireworks. People can’t stop cracking off. Children are going hungry when their father comes home penniless, smelling like smoke and in an overly celebratorial mood. Companies are going under due to overblown ‘party’ budgets. Even the elderly are blowing their hard earned savings on a few seconds of chaotic explosion.

That is why the government has stepped in to try and curb this social ill:

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A few weeks ago, South Park had a trilogy of episodes called Imagination Land, in which terrorists waged war on our imaginations. Despite it being an hilarious series of episodes, I meant to comment on its relevance in the global situation we find ourselves in right now. As a satire it is perfect, even if most viewers won’t read that far into it. In the world today, terrorists have essentially hijacked our imaginations such that we live in fear of their reprisals. As a result, two wars still go on, a third potentially on it’s way in Iran.

In my usual reading of Ron Paul news, I came across this comment about the War on Terror on rollingstone.com, posted by user Republicae. I post it because it sums up what exactly is happening in the war and what the terrorists are really hoping to achieve: the bankruptcy of the United States.

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Eventually, it will become apparent that the ignorance of rage that characterizes our War on Terror, will betray this government, this nation and its people. We have thrown our natural rage into the game of war with those we consider terrorists and an immediate threat to our future however, in that rage we have overlooked several very important and perhaps critical issues that will affect our futures in ways that we are yet unaware.

In all the rhetoric, the hatred that we believe our enemies deserve and the reaction to their attacks we have, it seems, willingly played into their plans while pursuing our quest for revenge and defense. It is commonly stated that the devil is in the details, in this case that is absolutely correct. We have been confronted with an enemy that is not bound by convention, by international boundaries, by nationalities nor even by the values that we have long considered familiar in terms of Western or traditional warfare. There is a very important and critical disparity between the style and effectiveness of our enemies and those of our military efforts based upon our policies. This contrast is most distinct when viewing the degree of effort and expense used to affect each side of the conflict. There is also a very distinguishing difference between the ideals and motivations between the two forces; those differences are rarely taken into consideration and yet because of the nature of this conflict it plays an extremely important role in the overall effectiveness of each side in the conflict itself.The main contrast, that is seldom mentioned or considered when judging the effectiveness of each sides role in this conflict, is the disparity of expenditures needed by each side to effect substantial damage on the other. In the case of the terrorists, the level of expenditure is miniscule compared to that of the United States. As is common with all super-states, our response is natural to the characteristics of such a super-state. In our eyes, the proper response is to throw everything you can at the enemy and it will, at least in our minds, do the job. The problem is that it rarely does in such cases and there is plenty of evidence to support that fact.In the case of al Qaeda and other terrorists groups, the need to produce massive attacks is not needed, especially after the events of 9/11. In fact, a terrorist group need not attack at all, but only use its ability to induce fear, sometimes massive fear, as the ultimate effective and extremely inexpensive tool of their trade. Because of such tactics of potential terror, they need only threaten and it not only achieves a predictable result, but also prompts their enemies to expend massive amounts of resources to defend against the perceived potential attack.

While the threat of physical attack is always to be considered real and dangerous, the more effective and therefore most insidious attack is that of psychological terror. Psychological terror, particularly if it is not recognized, is extremely dangerous because it has the potential of effecting drastic changes in the behavior and character of a society; not to mention the manner and means of the response that society willing to take both domestically and in its dealings with other nations. Psychological terror causes the victim nation to react in ways that while appearing defensive can exacerbate the entire situation and increase both external and internal dangers. It causes reason to be set aside for reaction and places the country in a position where effective decision-making is compromised. The nations center of gravity is pushed off balance, its traditional character is morphed into a vision that eventually becomes unrecognizable and its laws become disposable. Eventually, the effects of the terror are a success and psychological conquest has effectively changed the way the people of the country see themselves, see others, live their lives, believe, behave and conduct their business and affairs. The countrys politics too can easily become contorted, manipulated and, in some cases, extreme.

Both physical and psychological terror will find its ultimate use in causing the economic resources of the country to hemorrhage, bleeding the life-blood from the most vulnerable sector of the society. Given the differences between the expenditures of the terrorists and our own expenditures, it is easy to see that eventually the expense of such a war will take an increasingly heavy toll. Once again, it doesnt take an actual attack to press a country into a massive and extremely costly response; it only takes the correct application of fear to implement its effectiveness on the countrys resources.

While our rage, combined with degree political expediency, has caused us to choose to believe certain things about our enemies, many of those beliefs are not based upon fact or intelligent assessment, but solely upon that rage. In that rage we blind ourselves to a reality that is not only necessary to understand our enemy, but also to effectively counteract and defeat the potency of their methods.

For those who have never read The Principles of War by Carl von Clausewitz, he presented a very powerful argument on the methods of defeating an enemy through attacking that enemy at his Center of Gravity. Now, in our rage we might not think that the terrorists would consider such a strategy as it is spelled out in The Principles of War, particularly because many of us have a carefully manicured vision of the Islamic extremists, but in fact, those crazed Islamofascists have not only read the book, but they have instituted many of the principles found throughout its pages. Abu-Ubayd al-Quarshi stated in his essay: A Lesson in War, that not only had he read it, but that al Qaeda would utilize those principles in its attack on the United States. Of course, in our rage, our anger, we rarely consider such facts or understand the importance of recognizing that our enemies are not just Islamic crazies, but warriors intent on using any and all methods to achieve their goal of defending their religion and their lands from what they view as invaders.

Now, to understand what al-Quarshi was talking about, lets take everything about Islam out of his writings and then read it as though it were a simple plan and explanation of their purpose:

We must understand the American essence and nature, and indeed his center of gravity. A conviction has formed among us that American public or political opinion is not the center of gravity. The actual American center of gravity is its economy. Supporting this penetrating strategic view is that the United States of America is a mixture of nationalities, ethnic groups, and races united only by the American Dream, or, to put it more correctly, the U.S. Dollar and the economic wealth of the nation. We must take away the American Dream. Furthermore, as we have seen, the entire American war effort is based on pumping enormous expense of its military machine therefore, the economy is the weakest sinew of its war effort.

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As I strolled along the street, enjoying my Monday walk, I noticed something odd on the footpath beside me. Not thinking anything of it at first, I kept walking. But something about it seemed strange, so I decided to go back and have a second look. What I saw was an apparently docile group of Bok Choy drying in the sun. Yet, even as I took out my new phone and snapped a shot of them, something about their grouping seemed odd. It wasn’t until I went closer, did I realize that they weren’t drying at all. Their menacing leaves and stiff stems bristled with aggression. It was then that it dawned on me that this wasn’t a group of Bok Choy, this was a Bok Choy army.

The Bok Choy Army in attack formation.

But what could an army be doing on the sidewalk in the middle of a Monday afternoon? They sure didn’t look like they were taking leave to catch some rays, for these were some intense Bok. Then I noticed it.

Now it’s not uncommon for armies to engage in war games or military exercises to test their might. Well in this case, this army of Bok was doing just that against a smaller, but from what I could tell, no less intense army in the distance.

Neck and neck, the armies compete

As the cars and bikes whizzed by, the quiet race of the Bok Choy armies progressed. Which would be the first army to reach the road and thus solidify their position as dominant vegetable of the footpath? It was amazing to watch.

That is, until the old lady came and took them into her restaurant.

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Yesterday I decided to get connected back to a mobile network. For two weeks here in China, I’ve kind of enjoyed the feeling of being unreachable. Being connected to a phone means that anyone can track you down and that can sometimes be annoying. However, there’s also the downside that I can’t call to say I’m running late, something which my friends and family will know is quite a regular occurrence.

I decided that, as China’s network is GSM, I’d get a phone which I could happily use in Australia too, thus allowing me to get something reasonably cool. In Korea I existed on hand-me-downs from friends, knowing that I may leave and never be able to use that phone anywhere else. I was almost going to get the iPhone, with it’s flashy touch-screen and other awesome features, but instead I decided to get a regular phone with a better camera and a lower price tag, the Samsung SGH-908i:

I’ve updated the Contacts section of this site to reflect my new number, but for those reluctant to make that extra click, here it is now: +86 135 1212 1512

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I haven’t been getting a good sleep lately. It may have something to do with my bed being hard enough to split diamond. I don’t know why it is this way, possibly an ongoing practical joke which continues to amuse my hosts. Normally, Koreans like their hard beds, but my surreptitious tests of the other beds in this apartment made me realize that something was very very different about mine. Sometimes I’ll roll onto the floor and get a better sleep, it’s that hard. The other day I finally got my boss to try my mattress to prove that I wasn’t moaning about nothing. After sitting down and promptly laughing for a few minutes at my expense, they too agreed that my matress was awfully hard.

Then again, my lack of good sleep could also be due to my nightly suffocation at the hands of the supplied pillows. If my mattress is the most extreme of hard, then my pillows are the extreme of soft. My head sinks down into them like I was resting it on a pile of cotton balls, balls which fill the holes I usually like to breathe out of, oh I don’t know, every few seconds or so. I’ll wake up every few hours, feeling more tired than I did when I first lay down and wondering why my co-workers can drink more, sleep later and get up before me.

I’d throw away the pillows and rest my head on the mattress, but any sudden moves might give me brain damage. I’m not entirely sure which is worse though, suffocation or brain damage. When those are my two choices it’s no wonder I’m sitting here writing blogs into the wee hours of the morning.

Oh well, back to my slab.

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