Read on a Metafilter Article about the Chinese Heritage of Australian which is a website chronicling the Chinese Diaspora´s contribution to the development of Australia as a country. The should be something similar in the US. Few people associate Asians in America as recent immigrants who either get engineering jobs, or open up restaurants, or run laundromats. People would be surprised to know that it was the Chinese who built the Western Pacific Railway, and was one or two teams who drove in the Golden Spike (who were excluded from the famous historic picture). In the late 1800´s the Chinese immigrants were probably as influential to the development of the country (at least on the west coast), as the waves of European immigrants were. If it weren´t for the Exclusionary Act the Chinese would probably be as prevalent and established as the Italians, Irish, Polish, etc... Would we be as integrated and assimilated? Probably not, because we can´t pass for white people.

Eh, Oh well... Just historical interest, I guess...

Met Amy tonight at Freerer Gallery on the mall to catch a flick for the HK film festival. Unsurprisingly, although they had postponed the film LONG ago (it´s even in the printed brochures they released at the beginning of summer), the changes weren´t reflected on their website, nor on a bunch of other adverts... that´s government efficiency for you.

However, it was a blessing in disguise, because instead of the flick, they had a performance by a "persian-jazz fusion" group called Axiom of Choice. They turned out to be really good. At first, I was a bit offput by the fact that they seemed to be mostly persian (or maybe modern persian), and lacked jazz for the most part, but I was quickly mesmerized by their music...

Munched on carrots throughout the concert (quietly), but still managed to annoy the man sitting next to us.

sleeeepy

going to bed..

Article in the Japan Times:

Hiroshima mayor rips U.S. on anniversary of A-bomb. I guess the Mayor of Hiroshima has more right than anyone to speak about nuclear weapons.

Article in the Chosun Times:
o Agenda for 6-Way Talks Widening (Chosun) - "The government will bring up issues other than the nuclear crisis at the coming six-way talks, such as the abduction of Japanese citizens and general inter-Korean relations. Tokyo also wants to challenge Pyongyang on the abduction issue."

I'm starting to feel that they're setting up this for disaster. It took us long enough and enough energy to convince NK to come to the table in a multi-lateral session. Their stated fear was that multi-lateral talks would just give the US an opportunity to use several nations to "bully" them (Although a realist would probably convincingly point out that NK wants bilateral talks because it cannot blackmail (using the WMD card) the US as easily). In any case, piling on other grievances just gives credence to NK's claims of bullying. True, we don't want to bend backwards for NK, we want to play hardball. But NK is like a scared rabid dog backed into a corner. There's a right way to subdue him, and a wrong way.

Now, if we wanted to talk about NK-SK relations, and the abduction issue as some kind of confidence building, leading up to more serious talks about WMD, then fine. But as it is, I can't see NK moving any ground in the upcoming talks, and worse, I can see them getting pissed off and doing something rash.

so I don´t really feel any impulse to write here these days. I guess working regularly 9-5 kinda dullens your day... or at least makes it such that there´s not that much to write about. But I should write - writing is good...

We really don´t write much these days. Back in the olden times, people would write letters regularly as a form of communication. When we went to Monticello last last weekend, we learned that Thomas Jefferson left behind something like 50,000 letters (pieces of correspondence, not scrabble pieces). There´s so much distraction these days and alternative uses of our time, people don´t really write much anymore. I wonder 80 years from now when somebody great from my generation passes away, will they show people his archived emails do document his greatness?

Blah.

Anyways, getting ready to move out, so I´ve been spending a lot of time posting up ads, but the apartment is really clean so that´s nice...

ohh, scrabble time