The Economy, Empty Malls & Revolutionary Road

We have returned from a much-needed but also thoroughly exhausting trip to New York. The flight seems to get more draining every time, and going from warm weather to frigid cold is a real shock to the system.

Due to the wintry conditions and a bout with a nasty cold, So Jene and I didn't get to do as much as we would have liked. But call us doe-eyed losers, just being in the city reinvigorates us somehow. The cliche about distance allowing for clearer vision and truer appreciation applies in our case. NY is absolutely the most diverse city in the world with the most energetic and edgy people.

Seeing DEFIANCE at the Ziegfeld was a treat, not so much for the movie but the Ziegfeld itself, which seems ever more special as large single-screen theaters all but disappear from nearly much of the industrialized world. We also caught an Indonesian film called THE PHOTOGRAPH at the MoMA, which is a great place to see films. It was the first movie from Indonesia I've ever seen.

The general feeling from seeing friends and our brief stay seems to be the same as what must be in other financial capitals. People are anxious about the economy, many people have lost jobs, and there's less foot traffic in stores. But cities are, by definition, crowded places, so the impact of a recession may not be as obvious.

This was far from the case in a small town about 2 hours north of NYC. We went to a small mall just to walk around. Granted this mall was always a small one and never drew huge crowds, but it seemed to have less shoppers than stores at 11AM on a Sunday morning. We wandered into a rather large OLD NAVY and found just 2 other shoppers. This emptiness actually spooked us a bit and spoke volumes about the current recession.

The downturn in the economy impacts everybody, and we've definitely been affected. Fortunately, we have long lived beneath our means, and I rarely buy things. I'm just not as hung up on things as the average person. I'm not into gadgets at all. I honestly couldn't care less what our furniture looks like, what car we drive, etc. And on those rare occasions when I do go to malls or stores, I'm never gripped by an intense desire to buy anything.

So what?
The last thing I want to do is preach to anyone about the evils of materialism or tell them what to do with their money---I'm just a schmuck with a typewriter, after all, and the only money advice I have for anyone is for them to give their money to me.

So what's the point of all this? Simple. Sam Mendes' REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, which I also saw during the trip, is a piece of crap.

Sure Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor, and ditto for Kate Winslet. I've long been a fan, and they have plenty of other movies, in which they show off their acting chops. But they stink in this movie because the movie tells a story that's without substance.

SUMMARY OF REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Winslet's character gave up acting to be a housewife. DiCaprio's character works as a marketing guy for the same company his old man worked for and hates it. After some domestic disputes fueled by resentment and dissatisfaction with their dull middle-class existence in 1950s suburbia, Leo and Kate decide they will leave their familiar life in the 'burbs behind and go live in Paris, where they can be true to themselves. They vow to pursue passion & whim, and escape the drudgery of middle-class suffocation & convention. This plan seems so perfect, however social pressure and lack of courage ultimately derail it. They never get to live in Paris. The wife is devastated. Husband is also sad.

THREE REASONS IT SUCKED
I'm sure plenty of people found the picture to be poignant. God knows there are more than enough people who hate their jobs and being in the rat race. Still, I found the film to be cloying, irritating, and disingenuous. Here are three reasons why:

First, its structure is as follows: Characters are miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, and then they die.

Second, its central conflict is hinged on pseudo-angst.

What do I mean by that? This is all a bit difficult to describe clearly, so I'll use an analogy. This film is like people who say that they would have been 'artists' but were dissuaded by their parents from pursuing their dream, and thus were forced to settle for a more stable and secure profession.

Both the film and such people cling to reasoning that is, at a certain level, disingenous.

The truth is, no person can dissuade or persuade anyone else to go into or out of the arts (that is unless they hold a gun to the other person's head). People become artists because they simply do (for a million+ reasons). It's not because someone persuaded or dissuaded them.

Likewise, if a person really wants to move to Paris, he or she will do so. (This is especially so for bourgeois Americans at a time when the dollar was so much stronger than the franc.) And if a person really doesn't want to, he or she won't. That's all fine. But it becomes annoying when the person, and a rather privileged one at that, doesn't, and then the blame is placed on 'society'.

Third, the film makes its rather obvious point in a clumsy manner.

It actually takes itself so damn seriously and thinks its message is so damn profound and above the audience's head that it uses a supporting character, a neighbor's grown-son recently released from a stint at a mental hospital, to spell out over and over (profundity apparently needs to be translated for mass consumption) the ennui the couple is going through. He declares, "You two are being stifled by this empty existence..."

The scene that follows is even more inane and has the couple reflect on their encounter with this clear-seeing madman. They tell each other: "He is the only one who sees things as we do. The madman is the only one who understands us..."

Some of this clumsy storytelling has to do with adapting a book, but this truth-seeing madman character could have been dropped, or at the least, the ensuing scene (described above) should have been cut.

Having trashed this movie thus, I'll add that for whatever it's worth, all this is not to discount stifling conformity of 1950s life and real social pressure. Peer pressure and conformity are real and powerful social forces. No one questions this. Conformity was stifling in 1950s American suburbs for many people who were really creative on the inside and is still resonant today. We get it.

Just don't try to pass off a nothing-of-a-movie that's mostly about bourgeois whining as if it's saying something new, poignant, or... (sorry, can't help myself here)...revolutionary.

Four Predictions for the Near Future aka Joys of Going Home

Notice to all those who have stumbled upon this site by the vagaries that govern the blogosphere of Hong Kong:

I shall be radio silent once again for the next few weeks due to a trip back to the MEI GWOK.

My time in Hong Kong to date has filled me with amazing feng shui and other uncanny supernatural powers that allow me to gaze into the near future and see what will be before they are.

Here is a Youtube video that provides a glimpse of this most unnatural of dark powers:



That said, I will now make four and only four predictions concerning momentously unmomentous events of the near future as we plod bovinely to the Year of the Ox:


1) The Eagles will win the Conference Final, and then advance to and emerge victorious in the Super Bowl, sending shockwaves of euphoria to that great city of Philadelphia, my second heimat, which ranks in my esteemed book, just below NY for hipster living.

2) There will be partying in the streets at Obama's inauguration. Strangers will hug and cry and dance and sing.

3) It will be colder in much of the U.S. during the next few weeks than it is here in Hong Kong.

4) Yours truly will return to the Big Lychee in a few weeks, having put on the now customary 10 pounds from having stuffed his face silly w/ pizza, tacos, gyros, fried chicken, and other healthy American delicacies.


Here's to going home...

Will return to posting in a few weeks, heavier and happier...

'Till then, I now take time to bestow on you a VIRTUAL LAISEE packet and bid you.....a fond.... JOY GIN!!!!

The Big Three That Once Was a.k.a. Dreaming of Cadillacs

I've written about cars in previous posts, but it seems timely to write more about my experience with American cars now that the Big Three American car companies, Ford, Chrysler, and GM, are on the brink of collapse and begging for the U.S. government to keep them afloat.

My wife and I, like most Americans, have been driving since we were 17 or so. Getting one's license and driving is truly a rite of passage in the U.S.

(Digression: What counterparts do HK teenagers have to look forward to as they creep towards adulthood? What such rite of passage do they get? Most don't even get to go away to university and many live at home until well into their 20s and 30s...Poor kids. I hope they get to at least smoke or drink a bit.)

Since I was a kid, I was a believer of American cars. I don't know what made me this way. But if I have to pinpoint something, it probably was a belief that was handed down from my parents, who have always bought and still only buy American cars. When I was a kid, the best and most impressive car that anyone we knew drove was a Cadillac. Back then, especially among my parents' friends and their circle of Korean immigrants, a Cadillac was a crucial component of the American Dream.

My parents never really got that Cadillac, but the view that American cars were top-notch was instilled in me firmly.

Anyway, after university, in our first years of grown-up life, So Jene and I schlepped around in a used Plymouth Laser that was handed down to her. It was a small hatchback with its share of dings and dents. Still, it suited us fine for a while until the transmission gave out at just around 70,000 miles and we were forced to ditch the car.

After that, we bought a new Saturn and drove that around for six years and a little more than 100,000 miles. During that time, so many things went wrong with it that shouldn't have that it undid my programming and preference for American cars.

What's more, every mechanic I took it to, said the same thing: "American cars are junk. They're the only cars we work on nowadays."

Even the Saturn mechanic shared this sentiment.

Sure these guys could have been exaggerating. And sure my experience could have been an anomaly, and sure there are lots of other possibilities and explanations... (After all, they could all have been on the Toyota payroll!!!)

But, the experience soured me on American cars.

So, when it came time to buy the next car, I bought a cheap little almost-20-year-old Toyota Corolla for $700 cash. It was a drastic move. But at that time, I was the only one using the car, and I figured all I needed was basic transportation.

This little Toyota, which didn't look like much--but then, neither had the Saturn-- ran better than the Saturn, which had the absolute worst turning radius, and was overall, a better car.

Ditto for the used 20-year-old Volvo and the 25-year-old Mercedes that followed. These used cars, which cost very little, were built and designed so much better than the GM Saturn. And they were far far more durable.

In fact, the Mercedes, which was the last car we had in the U.S. before we moved to Hong Kong, had 280,000 miles and was still running strong.

If an American car lasts 100,000 miles, you've had a good run.

Having said all that, I'm not saying whether the Big Three should be bailed out or not. That's a different question.

All I'm saying is cars made by these companies have proven themselves to be junk, and these companies have burned American consumers for a long long time now.

So, if a bailout is granted, it'll be for the now distant memory of the once grand American automobile industy, and absolutely not for any love that anyone has for the cheap inferior cars that these companies have been dumping on consumers for far too long.

I end this rather serious and depressing post with a completely unrelated random photo of yours truly outside the main Sumo center in Tokyo. Enjoy!

The U.S. is Back on Track!! I Am In Tears!!!

**UPDATE: It's 12:05PM Wednesday, Hong Kong time. ABCNews has just announced that it projects Obama to win California and Washington, and hence announced that he is the 44th President of the U.S.***

With that announcement, I was overcome with emotions. I am literally in tears. And I'm drinking a celebratory shot of my favorite Cuban rum. I am so proud of my country and the people there. This is one of the most amazing things I've experienced in my lifetime. I am so happy.

Anyway, here's the rest of my post that I wrote a few hours ago when it seemed evident that Obama's victory was only a matter of time.

-------------------------------------------------

It's hard to not be cynical about things as you get older. I was so upset 8 years ago with the whole recount fiasco in Florida and so disappointed and disgusted 4 years ago.

But today is completely different. I'm so proud to be an American and so happy that other Americans voted for the best candidate.

That said, for most of my life I honestly didn't believe that I'd live long enough to see a black President. I believed it would happen eventually but much later.

I've never been so happy to be wrong!!!!

Barack Obama is truly special. I wish I were there to celebrate with everyone. It's such a relief.

If you haven't lived in the U.S. and seen some of the awful things that have gone on in the inner cities there, it's hard to truly appreciate the magnitude of today's election.

A black president!!!

This is a validation that even though the U.S. is an experiment that doesn't always work, when it does work and does live up to its professed ideals, Americans have a common sense that transcends those shackles of tradition that hold so many other countries back.

Despite its many problems, the U.S. is still the most integrated, most diverse place on earth. People of so many colors and backgrounds rub shoulders together each and every day. And I'm not talking about just in so-called 'elite' cities like NY and San Francisco and L.A.

You travel around down South and in small towns, and you see that even in the most rinkydink towns in the middle of nowhere, you'll see different people interacting as part of daily life.

It's like the old saying: You can tell what a person's about by what he or she does, not what he or she says.

In the U.S., we live together despite our differences, despite the discomfort of being forced to deal with difference. It's not perfect and lots of people may lament this reality, but you can't argue against demographics. The country is diverse. And it'll only get more so and hence, better, in the future.

Academics and pundits and other experts can go on arguing about policy and ideology in their on-going culture wars, but in the streets and in the schools and in real life, people, rich or poor, are forced to deal with difference. In fact, it might be the case that poor people are forced to be more frank about race and have more interactions with people of other races than the rich, but that's another can of beans...

Anyway, as great and egalitarian a society as the ones that have been built in Japan and in Scandinavian countries, which I respect them so much for doing, theirs will never be truly exciting and dynamic as in the U.S. because of this diversity.

Diversity is the true legacy of the U.S. and what makes it the most special place on earth.

We're finally back on track!!! Thank you!!

***This is a little off-topic, but the local coverage on Pearl TV is so shabby, it's almost funny. Why do they even bother? Just send us the abcNews feed already.

It's like the 'stellar' English-language coverage of the Olympics that Pearl TV provided in which the broadcasters' utter and unbelievable lack of expertise or even basic knowledge of the sport they were covering was to the point that it was embarrassing. It's times like that that HK seems to be a small and parochial backwater and not the World Asia City that whoever is doing the PR campaign keeps claiming it to be.

Not Driving for Free in Hong Kong

This is along the same lines of the sentiment expressed in the HONG KONG LAUNDRY video.

I know lots of people still have cars here despite how tiny the place is, but we do not have a car. I know if we really wanted to, I could alway go and buy a used car, but there really is no use for it. And I know that not driving is better for the environment, but I still can't help it. A part of me really misses driving.



Believe it or not, even though we lived in NYC, we used our car a lot and depended on it to get around. I had a reverse commute that would have taken 1.5 hours each way on public transportation but was 30 minutes by car. And on wknds, we'd drive to Philly or to see my folks in upstate NY. Sure we could have taken public transportation but that would have turned a 2 hour trip to 5 hours (door-to-door) and a 1.5 hour trip to 3 hours (door-to-door).

Here, our trips within HK are usually at most a little over an hour. There just aren't that many places to go. And there's no real possibility of doing a long-haul road trip like the ones So Jene and I used to do back in the U.S. (NY to Key West, NY to Savannah, CA to NY).

Anyway, I'm not a gearhead, and I'm not even that into cars (new flashy cars that you see so many well-to-do HK people in), but I do miss driving, especially in our last car, a 1984 Mercedes 300D, a diesel car that I personally rigged (by changing the plumbing and installing a second fuel tank in the trunk (a converted ice box)) to run on recycled vegetable oil that I used to go pick up from the CROWN FRIED CHICKEN establishment at the corner.

Yes, folks! I was one of those people who ran their cars on recycled vegetable oil. It's a lot of work, and it's cumbersome, but it works. I drove that Mercedes on vegetable oil for around 7000 miles and then sold it right before we moved. So Jene used to hate how the exhaust would smell like fried food and did not at all appreciate how I had to keep a large barrel of recycled vegetable oil in the corner of our kitchen--what can I say? She's put up with a lot and is a saint. But she did like the leather seats, which were in good condition considering how old the car was.

That said, people who do the vegetable oil conversion on old diesel Mercedes usually tend to live out in the burbs or way out in the country. I was one of only a dozen or so nutjobs who insisted on doing it in NYC of all places. Still, it was a blast, knowing that I was beating the oil companies and driving for free on my own effort--I also got to meet some cool guys who worked at the fried chicken place. (They couldn't believe the car would run on the old fry oil!!)

The entire conversion cost me around $250 U.S. in parts and lots of my own labor. They sell kits for around $1000, U.S. but I managed to do fine without the kit. I didn't get the kit because it was more expensive than the car.

I looked into doing something similar here in Hong Kong. The tropical climate here would make it very easy to run diesel cars on vegetable oil as the main difficulty of doing so is cold weather. And I always see tons of those metal cubes of used vegetable oil piled up in backs of HK restaurants.

But sadly, there are no diesel private cars here for whatever reason. Does anyone know??

Anyway, the photos here are of that car--I wish I had better photos but I took them only to post ads when I needed to sell.



The car was an old jalopy that looked good only from about 50 feet away. I bought it from this old guy up in Scarsdale for $850 specifically to convert it to run on vegetable oil. The Mercedes Benz symbol hood ornament was so old that the inside had fallen off and was just a hoop. I hope this car is still on the road and still running strong on recycled vegetable oil.

My one regret with this car is that I didn't get to put it in a movie. I should have. It was interesting. And I got to meet many cool people while collecting recycled vegetable oil from fried chicken establishments, but that's another story...

Another Writer from the Bronx

Just reread BROTHER ONE CELL by Cullen Thomas.

It is a recollection of the 3.5 years that Thomas, an American from Long Island, spent in a South Korean prison for trying to smuggle hashish into the country.

I'd read the book back in NYC after hearing a clip about him and the book on NPR and thoroughly enjoyed it back then.

Here is a link to the amazon page for the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-One-Cell-Cullen-Thomas/dp/0143113119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224477768&sr=8-1


Rereading it after stumbling on it at the Hong Kong Central Library, it occurred to me just how much and well Thomas really 'got' Korean culture. I guess being in uncomfortably close contact w/ Koreans inside the prison and Thomas' relatively young age at the time (he was 23? or so?) allowed for that.

On top of all that, I realized that that there is a connection between Cullen Thomas and myself.

You see, after I got my MFA from NYU and had dug myself into a financial hole by making my 16mm feature film debut w/ FREE COUNTRY, I scrambled to find some source of employment and was hired as a staff writer for CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, a reference publication that's published out of a strange building in the Bronx, some 10 minutes away from Yankee Stadium.

For the next several years, I'd trek to the Bronx every day and sit in a cubicle and write 3-5 page bios of prominent people in the news based on newspaper clippings compiled for each person. It didn't pay much, but I got to read a lot of newspapers and actually learned a lot.

I also stole time from my workday and started writing my first novel BOY GENIUS there in that little dark cubicle in a forgotten corner of the Bronx.

Anywa, to make a long story short, it turns out that Thomas, too, had worked at CURRENT BIOGRAPHY as a staff writer after serving his 3.5 years and being sent back to the U.S.

There were only about 5-6 staffwriters when I was there, and Thomas was not one of them. I can't really figure out the timing, but I have a hunch that Thomas was there just before I got there. Who knows? Maybe I got the job that he left??

Whatever the case, I've since written two novels and Cullen Thomas has published BROTHER ONE CELL.

Kudos to him!!

As for all those other aspiring writers out there, the lesson here is a simple one.

Go to NYC.

Go to the Bronx.

Get a job as a staffwriter at CURRENT BIOGRAPHY.

It's better than an MFA.