More Bible Fun

Anyone read Judges 19:1-30 lately? I mean, reading the Old Testament every Saturday kinda steels you to some of the more "inappropriate" stories, but I was nevertheless surprised to stumble upon this, which I had somehow missed. Basically, here's what happens:

A Levite (a member of a certain Jewish tribe) goes and gets married to this woman in Bethlehem. She ditches him (they don't say why) and goes back to her dad's house, with the guy in hot pursuit. He stays at the dad's house for a while, eating and drinking, and then starts off on the journey to bring her back to his place. They stop off at a town along the way, where a nice old man lets them stay at his house. Then, in a scene strongly reminiscent of the attempt at gay gang rape in Genesis 19, a mob surrounds the house and demands the man come out (so that they can anally rape him). Instead, the old man, like Lot, offers his virgin daughter and the Levite's wife up to be raped. The Levite then gets fed up and gives the relentless mob his wife (I assume she consented), whom they proceed to rape all night long. She dies on his doorstep the next morning. He takes the body back to his house, where he dismembers it and sends a piece to each tribe of Israel, as a reminder of how terrible things have gotten in the country.

This is almost as fun as the time where Moses kills all men and women in the city and gets the Israelites to take the little girls as virgins "for themselves" (yeah, I wonder what that means...). Oh, and then they sacrifice some of them to God. Sweet.

How To Keep A New Year's Resolution, And Also Informational Content

I've figured it out -- life. How stuff works. How you can use a program like this not only to do well in school and master Chinese, but also to run your life and brainwash yourself. Here's how:

Have you ever read a really good, moving book, movie, or motivational speech? You felt really good about yourself for a few days afterward, resolved to change your ways, but inevitably failed -- am I right, or am I right? (Right. In fact, I'm always right -- get used to it.) Why? Because the enthusiasm faded away. But if you've got an SRS program to remind you of why you felt motivated in the first place, then everything's chill, right? Theoretically, you can maintain a consistent level of motivation all the time, making permanent change inevitable. SRS the quotes, mister! You can SRS quotes! SRS images, moving content, audio! Whatever the hell you want! It's your life -- do what the shit you want with it. Just like you do with Chinese -- remind yourself not of words but of ideas. Like advertising. But for good things.

And the cooler thing is, you can do the same thing with arguments or facts. Want to become a debate master? Just memorize your arguments and your facts -- most debates are just repetitions of old debates anyway. The winner is simply he who's memorized the most steps. (The same with chess; the best players are those who've studied the most old games.) You forget stuff, but you don't have to -- not with your brain in a file on your desktop, you don't! And interestingly, this way, you won't be as easily able to brainwash, because when you caught up in a whole new set of facts or theories or a certain school of thought, you'll always have the other ideas in your SRS to serve as a buffer, keeping you safely away from radicalism and firmly anchored to reality. You'll become a composite of ideas, rather than a parrot of one. I mean, you'll have all the facts at your disposal! You can make your own ideas with them even after you've long forgetten the original arguments! Isn't that cool?!

Sorry, got a bit sidetracked there -- the important point is that we humans only have a limited time here on earth, so we've got to take in as much shit as possible. This is not a trade-off situation here: this is fucking zero-sum, my friend. You waste time watching no-content cartoons, you simply loose time. Boom. Gone. Never gone get it back. It is striking how much time we waste when we could be absorbing information -- while walking (put some informational content on your MP3 player to absorb), while watching TV (watch something fun and at least somewhat informative -- military channel's my pick), and even SRSing (maximize your time -- you're doing Chinese sentences, so make those sentences facts about 70s pop stars; learn about them and Chinese at the same time!).

Maximize. Beat the boss. Win the game.

Regarding That Chinese Stuff Back There

I do want to start writing in Chinese, but Blogger, blocked in China, is not the suitable platform, especially as I will be writing in simplified Chinese. So expect to see more posts from here:

http://arieh.blog.sohu.com/

I will continue to post here in English.

Yours,
Me

你好！

对不起，更多的是我发现，汉语成了我的友语，我的爱语，本来只是某一种语言，只是课的内容，但是怎么可能还算是这样呢？我的生活是汉语，我的媒体是汉语，我的初恋是汉语，我就是汉语。我用汉语来写下来我最深的感觉！我想不到一个不会说不会写中文的我。我如何能忘记她，我的爱？怎么会忘记我写过的情书呢？想不到，我想不到啊。。。

bye

I've been doing some thinking lately. A lot of thinking. About how we don't get choose the language we were born with. about how we are so willing to let ourselves be its slaves. About how this is unacceptable, and about how this is not freedom. if i want to be free, really Free, i have to choose the language i speak and write. my choice.my goddamn choice.

not to say i dont like english i like it. but it was forced on me.i had no say.i might have picked english anyway but i might have not

so im going to write in chinese now,.
why mostly for this reason
everything i do is already chinese
mightaswellstartwritingmybloginchinese
canigomorethanthis
isitpossible
yes
好

---

好玩贺卡等你发，邮箱贺卡全新上线！

Your New Favourite Band(s): In Chinese! (Awesome Chinese Music! Keep Reading!)

No good Chinese music, right? It's all stupid love ballads, right? Nothing to listen to while you're studying nearly 17/7 and are unwilling to listen to English music, right? Wrong. Trust me, dude, you're wrong. Well, not about the stupid love ballads: there are a lot of those, and I've actually found that if you force yourself to listen to them, they start to grow on you*. But see, you don't have to force yourself to listen to crap, because there is awesome Chinese music out there: awesome, creative, weird, inspiring, original, sublime, etc: you simply haven't found it yet. You're not looking, and what's worse, you're just making excuses to listen to your sweet, sweet, Backstreet Boys. So where is it, you ask? Hey! Don't talk to me like that! Be patient and it'll come to you!

Haha, I'm kidding. (Couldn't you tell?) Here are some fantastic bands, followed by some neat tracks to get you started:

二手玫瑰 (Secondhand Rose): My favorite of all on the list. Their music is a combination of traditional Chinese crosstalk-like banter and modern rock tunes, with a whole bunch of weird sound effects (and occasionally throat singing – I've heard kids and choirs singing a few times too) and offbeat instrumental flairs thrown in. Rather unusual, but the singer's voice rocks those tones like you wouldn't believe – from one note to the next with such sharpness it's breathtaking. (At least to me. I dunno if you guys get turned on by stuff like this.) It's like he's singing Beijing opera with a backing band. What's more, a lot of the lyrics are actually pretty funny and very, very sharp. And tremendously original: there are very few bands as original/crazy as these guys. (Well, good crazy: there are plenty of bands that are crazy but just suck. Like this one.)

What should you start with? Well, basically all of their songs are worth a listen. (And I really do mean that; there are no filler tracks.) But first, a word of caution: a lot of them start off kind of slow or silly, but then get really deep and plain freaking nuts towards the end. (坚持就是胜利!) And most change so quickly from one melody/genre to the next that's it's often hard to find continuity.
Take 公益歌曲; it's a lighthearted, summer beat at first, but they throw in these Nirvana-like riffs every 30 seconds or so, and it's got this killer, epic finish.
娱乐江湖 is in the same vein, but it's even better. Probably my favorite song of theirs, actually. If you're impatient, skip to 3:20 for the good stuff.
野史 is a little too weird, but it gets nice at the end, almost like System of a Down.
因为所以 is nice; they do this cool bagpipe thing.
允许部分艺术家先富起来 is badass. Listen to it.
春天的故事 is nice, real slow, and beautiful.
命运 is just real cool.
A song that I’m not particularly fond of is 伎俩, but it's got the lead singer's voice at its best.
起飞 is kooky.

扭曲的机器 (Twisted Machine) is a heavy metal band. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but there aren't many Chinese bands like these guys, so they're worth a mention. Scratch that; these guys are great.
别惹我 is sick. Badass-action-movie-soundtrack sick.
存在的意义 is pretty cool, and not quite as heavy as 别惹我.
镜子 is similar, real smooth. Can't really put in the same genre as 别惹我.
理想的背后 is another sick, sick song. I would enjoy it more if its lyrics were vehemently anti-American. (I'm actually serious about that; for some reason, some songs just sound better as anti-government pieces.)
我快不会照你们说的去做 actually is an anti-establishment song. It's not really so good, but I'm putting it on the list because it's really interesting to hear songs like this from a *PRC* band. (Nothing explicitly anti-China, though.)
TV秀 is another song with lyrics that I'm sure try the patience of the Chinese government. It is, however, actually a pretty sweet song.

The band 刺猬 (Hedgehog) got me really excited, because they play beautifully, but then I heard the lead singer sing. Ugh. At the very least, they've got some brilliant opening riffs.
春天来了's is fantastic, end-of-the-world-grade material. Real nostalgic feel.
电影 is so light and fragile, so lovely – mmm!
They have quite a few songs in English, too, so if you're into English music, give that a try.

Carsick Cars. Chill alternative stuff. They're like China's Arcade Fire. I mean, I don’t actually like Arcade Fire, but they're all low-fi and stuff; I'm probably just not cultured enough. Anyway, this isn't my favorite type of music, but I really do like 广场, one hell of an epic song.

The album 谁是崔健; no, not a band, but it's got a bunch of really awesome songs, so go out and get it.
The first 10 seconds or so of 浪子归 are incredible; the rest are decent, with the exception of this really neat electrobeat at 2:20.
一无所有 is the best song on the album by far. Yes, that good.

The Hero soundtrack – some insane instrumental pieces on that one. No lyrics, but feel free to add your own.

Random, neat tracks I've discovered: 新长征路上的摇滚 (反光镜乐队 – awesome punk feel), 不是我不明白 (挂在盒子上 – electronic riot grrl!), 狐狸 (万晓利 – simply a sick, sick song), and 机器猫 (新裤子 – again, just a really neat song).

For the first few weeks of listening exclusively to Chinese music, I put up with Jay Chou, J.J. Lin, S.H.E., 邓丽君, 胡彦斌, etc. Alright, I shouldn't say “put up”; they're all pretty good, actually. Jay Chou is magnificently talented, 邓丽君 is obviously delightful, and 胡彦斌 has...well, some awesome socialist songs. But you have to go beyond the pop surface, because there is actually a lot behind it.

Now where to get them? Well, if you're in mainland China, get yourself straight to the incredible, thank-god-for-unlimited-legal-free-downloadable-nondrm'd-music Google Music. If you're not, well, sucks to be you. Try Baidu, because you're almost certainly not going to find physical CDs in the West (or anywhere else, for that matter). Bittorrent should have them too, if you want to break the law.

P.S. I'm just covering rock/metal/alternative music here. I highly recommend instrumental classical music, which, again, you can your own lyrics to. Give 成公亮 a go.

*Who can't help liking 姑娘我爱你? Srsly.

Swordsmanship

Have you guys seen the movie Hero? You know the scene where the emperor looks at the character painted by the best fighter of them all and goes, “Where’s the swordsmanship in that?” And then later he looks at it and finally gets it? You remember that scene? It's so plain, the character. So plain. Looks like it was made by someone with no skill at all. The artist has mastered the sword, the brush, so flawlessly that he unwilling to use it. He has reached a stage of such utter perfection that he is beyond compare entirely. A state so profound that he realizes its purposelessness. Why?

You know, life is a *lot* like this. A lot. I'm not trying to be really deep or anything, I'm just pointing out that things really work like this. Think about it.