Finally...

Nian-mobile has a legal driver.
*jump-clap-honk*

Burma/Myanmar

Joo, Mayee and I once shared exhilarating moments dissecting a certain "Burmese courtship ritual." Then our joke became real and I alone faced the Burmese one night in a dark bar. Without alms, I asked him why he always only referred to his country by its pre-military-junta name.

"Burma" is of course the name used before Ne Win's coming into power and Aung Sun Suu Kyi's house arrest. "Myanmar" on the other hand brings back memories of British colonial rule, captured famously in Rudyard Kipling's "Mandalay." I never quite got to see that place and those fishermen whom he would spend weeks with, neither did I manage to smuggle out for him books that only foreigners could exit the country with. Similarly, he never quite got round to explaining why he preferred the old name. I'm reminded of his silence that night when I came across this remark:

"Even colonialists never shot a monk."

And of course, it just so happened that between us, it all started with monks (some violence, some Foucault, etc etc). As to the truth or falsity of the above remark, it suffices to leave it to the thin line, in between wherever his gentle palms now rest.

Beefy face an' grubby 'and--
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Double Ten

While the-clown-of-a-Taiwan government held the first National Day Parade after a 16-years hiatus, I recreated my own double-ten revolution by writing a proposal on Chinese triads in 19th century America, re-watching Once Upon a Time in China II and wished I was Sun Yat-Sun and not just his wife's namesake.

Happy 96th birthday to the 1911 Revolution. May Ma Yin-jiu win the election next year so I can quit school and help run the bootiful island while eating a lot of good ol' street food. Er, or maybe just eat the good ol' street food.

look doc, no hands!

Re: Cars and the city or episode #89 of why these emails feed the seminar fodder for yours truly, addled.

"... my early cars were truly from the gutter, dredged up from the darkside and with any number of things malfunctioning, including of course brakes--I was reminded again in today's CS lecture, talking of Baudrillard and the starting handle!--I bet you don't have one of those--but no matter, you have wheels, you might as well be flying, as we say in Blighty: got a new mota?" - JWP.

Chinese Restaurant Tango

Maybe it is true, that we just can't get over our own.

I kept stepping on your toes in that restaurant near Maxwell market and my noodles went cold.