For Lack of a Proper Goodbye

And ideally the chime of this
Will come to have the fascination of a remembered thing
Without avatars, or so remote, like a catastrophe
In some unheard-of country, that our concern
Will be only another fact in a long list of important facts

-- from "Voyage in the Blue" by John Ashbury

Another bites the diva dust

Contrary to self-perpetuated myths, I have survived this crazy semester with three classes and TA-ing for another, graded 120 papers in total, successfully written 30 + 25 + 25 pages of papers 5 days before they are all due and actually even got to like 75% of it. It doesn't take a maths genius to figure out how thick and dark my eyebags are in the aftermath. Here's onto major shao-time for the next month: dumplings on the couch, here I come!

Heh narcissism has never felt so good. This is like passing my driver's the second time round. But sshhhh, don't say I said so.

More Rain on the Ethnic Parade

Two of the many archival research that I'm doing for my 'Secret Ethnicities' paper. (Yes, the bluff archival without the fever kind.) The first is a photo taken in present-day Chinatown in L.A., Bing K'ung T'ang. It is the nearest relic to what used to be the largest Chinese secret society in the States, Ch'ih K'ung T'ang, ambiguously translated as 'Chinese Free Masons' in English. When I walked up the stairs hoping to find Chow Yun-Fatt lookalikes mending the bullet holes in their trench-coats, all that greeted me were two tables of angry old men and women playing mahjongs. I ran down the stairs before one looked like she was going to throw her tiles at me. Never mess with Triad-women with mahjong tiles. Don't count on the 2000-years-ago-same-dragon-descent-thing. Comparatists ? Die faster.

The second image is a 1904 New York Times article, where a drill of Chinese soldiers from the Western Military Academy in the Pasadena Rose Bowl was treated with no less aplomb than what you might expect in the lines of "yellow-skinned, slant-eyed, don't play play, etc." Click on the picture to read the article, it will not dull even your most desensitized, diasporic sentiments.

As for the progress of 'Secret Ethnicities,' no doubt you'll have to drink pig's blood if you wish to know more. Ash water if you are really, really hot.