On Music

So I've been a an eclectic music enthusiast all my life. My interests lie in all the genres and what they have to offer. Not being particular to any single type or style of music, I can still enjoy the main themes of the music, whether the emphasis lies in the lyrics or the construction of the songs (beat, strum patters, instrumentation, electric/synthesized effects, etc.). Most of all, I tend to enjoy the ones that find me in the right place at the right time. For example, I, like many adolescent American males, was really into Linkin Park whilst in middle school onto high school, for mostly the reason that the message about finding your own way and sorting out your values through suffering in relationships with others or your circumstances was appealing. Not to mention that the mix of styles that Linkin Park's sound represented was diverse and brought out a lot of good rhythms and beats. Then, one didn't want to be constrained, but allowed to pursue their own brand.

At another point, I got into hardcore Rap, with favorite artists being the Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface Killa, Method Man, the RZA and the GZA, Redman, etc. For me then as a high school student, I was trying to settle into a rhythm, have an attitude that spoke of experience and a rough exterior, all the while looking to beat the oppressive situations I encountered. To a very limited extent did I really understand the message of the songs I listened to, but I could understand how the beats, the gritty tones and repackaged sampled themes implied a very proscriptive worldview of reappropriation, adaptation and overcoming one's situation.

Music for me is enjoyable, not because of a musical hierarchy telling me that because I'm this or that in terms of my upbringing I have to listen to this type of music, but because it's diverse sounds and voices all have something to say about my(our) human condition, and that its a language we can really appreciate through opening the context of our own cultural worldview.

My own listening patterns are very messy and it's difficult to put a finger on any commonalities to the music I take in as a whole, which makes it equally difficult to talk music with other people sometimes. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Just in the same way that the things you pay attention to speak to you and communicate their own values (it could be anything, like sports, music, cooking, art, architecture, etc.), being able to enjoy music is an important part of my cultural/experiential health.

As an aside, people will listen to the music they identify with, which often ends up being from their ethnic background. on a superficial level and a broad way of saying so, White people like Rock music, and country, Black people listen to Rap and R&B, Asians have their K/C/J-pop and techno, etc. To an extent, they're all mainstream varieties of music.

But, as an Asian American, I see that many ABAs (asian born americans) assimilate and move towards the existing popular genres of American music. I wonder if there will ever be a time when our own musical influences will split off from the mainstream and become an entity of it's own? Like, not Jay Chou, but like (or going further than) Mike Shinoda or Amerie, Rachel Yamagata, etc.

What are your opinions? is there a movement I don't know about? what do you see?

Musings: Subrubia

Living in the suburb as a young child was OK. I grew up in a newer suburb with a mix of neighbors of diverse backgrounds. I had a fantastic education that I constantly take for granted, and my relationship with my family is, well.... normal. I didn't like the boredom that accompanied the majority of my youth, the vanities of peers or families with enough disposable income to get cars too nice for their still-maturing children, really expensive tickets to sporting events, vacation to exotic countries and buy exclusively from the shopping mall, and Viagra.


Bob from those male enhancement commercials appeals to the suburban male with disposable income, essentially playing on one's paradigm that we can all be happy and more complete if we consume more product.

Having to be at the mercy of your parents as chaperones, judges and critics of your developmental youth until driving age and college? Suck.

As a parent, it's an excellent situation because of the typical family security thought process:

1. Keep your spouse and kids away from threatening elements
2. Allow them to grow up with family values and people that are like them, further nurturing their education.
3. Go where the money is: there the infrastructure and educational institutions will enable one to live a higher quality of life.

As a kid, well, you hear of stories about suburban drug abuse, teenage car accidents, excessive use of illegal fireworks, ADD ADHD and other behavioral issues. Children may be sheltered by parents who read many books on raising their kids, cook lots of food to make sure they're fed the way they may have never been fed, etc. etc. In fact, just as many people in the US die from Alcohol/Drug/Tobacco/Heart related issues as Malaria, Tuberculosis and plenty of other diseases that affect poorer nations.

And the sense of community you can watch on TV and idealize through the visual and written media, but rarely find in most US surburbs? Not really a reality, because of many reasons. one would be America's reliance on Cars.
Cars dominate any suburban landscape, permitting easy conveyance and less walking. A book focused on the destruction of meaningful community, "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Kunstler (1993) proposes that many communities were destroyed because of the increased spatial boundaries that the automobile encouraged: larger plots of land for people to own, setbacks on housing properties, large streets that act as social barriers. This in turn affected how people travel, limiting pedestrian scaled living and contributing to health issues like heart disease, obesity and obesity related injuries (back, knees), etc.

Middle-class America, as the progressive developed societal group that we are made up to be, has issues.

(No duh, right? I mean, people have been hearing about this for years. it's all over the news, in special reports and anecdotes all over CNN.)

What if people understood the impact of putting a small house on a half acre lot? of this "sprawl" we've all become accustomed to? having to drive to the gym to take a jog? wasting water a lawn that is there because of a zoning ordinance that forces setbacks? of building Cookie-cutter housing that is made from cheap frame construction that has become the norm in the construction industry? It's safe, but certainly not the best way to live.

What do you think would be a good way to live?

Coin currency sucks.

So I was at a restaurant eating with my Mom, and we were looking at the Menu. After spending time in China and Germany in recent times, It struck me that tax was not included in the price on the menu, versus the whole number value given up front in restaurants and stores elsewhere.

It remains striking that taxes must be added to the total price at the end of a transaction, in which a person would actually have to calculate beforehand, but more importantly that one makes transactions in change: ie. most folks end up getting change back instead of bills.

For myself, I don't really understand why this must be, as the pennies, ( but also nickels and dimes) one receives often times sit in your jar at the home/office as dead currency, to be emptied out every now and again for the next bake sale or penny drive/war. Essentially, it's a hindrance for guys without coin pouches to keep change jiggling in their pockets, and for people in restaurants to have to wait for people who want to give exact change. Toll booths don't take pennies. Nor do vending machines.


There are a couple thoughts I'd like to learn more about, if anyone knows.

1. Why can't the US switch to a system where tax is included in prices up front, at least for petty transactions? It'd be relative to each state in terms of taxes, but the consumer knows he or she is paying the entire price up front.

2. Can price tags and values be made so that one never has to make a transaction involving pennies, dimes or nickels? Why do price tags have to be so awkward, like $1.39, 35 cents, or .85 cents? If vendors rounded up on everything, it wouldn't heavily affect consumer patterns negatively, as change often ends up as dead weight anyway. You stick a dollar into a vending machine to buy a 85 cent bag of chips. How often do you typically use the nickel and dime you receive in consideration of your other purchases?

Would it be a travesty to do quarters and half dollars as the lowest coin currency denominators on price tags, versus adding a cent or two to the margin? Save both the cashiers and customers some time and hassle.

How I spent my July 4th

July 4th was a fun day, I guess. it was mostly a family function, as we went to church and then did a great dinner with a barbeque. After that we went to dairy queen for frosted treats and then went out to see the fireworks.

Ok, I'm lying, my mom insisted on seeing Twlight (Full Moon). My critical opinion, as a non-pre-adolsecent-hormonally-driven-shrieking-middle-school-girl outsider perspective would allow. My dad fell asleep after the first kiss scene (one of quite a few). The lines were quite bad, and overall, the plot black-holes were so blatantly obvious that even logic and common sense were lost in the gravitational pull of Edward's beautiful porcelain face and Jacobs Bod. The love triangle in the movie is probably the worst-choreographed movie relationship since GI Joe. (my fiance is plotting to destroy the world with corrosive nanobacteria but she's brainwashed omgomgomg)

I don't want to give it all away, but consider reading some of my comments on the movie after meditating on this image below.

Sample lines:

"Father: What's going on here?

Jacob: Oh, I kissed her, and she broke her hand punching my face. It was all a misunderstanding.

Father: Oh."

"Jacob: I know you love me."

"Jacob: I know you're in love with me."

"Edward: Will you marry me?"

"Edward: Will you marry me?"

"Edward: Will you marry me?"

"Edward: Will you be my wife?"

"Red-haired woman to her cohort: I have always loved you."

"Jacob: We're perfect for each other. Being with me would be as easy as breathing."

And there is also a scene where the girl decides to hide from a group of vampire stalkers via choosing the coldest peak of the pacific northwest and not being able to retain her body heat while the cold-blooded edward looks on. finally, jacob decides to make his entrance and conveniently cuddle with her as Edward can only look on. Then the two proceed to have a heart to heart while the girl pretends to sleep in his arms.

And the whole thing about Jacob being shirtless all the time? Tell me this isn't a PAHDSMSG (pre-adolsecent-hormonally-driven-shrieking-middle-school-girl) flick. Don't ever think it's anything else.

and I just don't get why vampires effing GLITTER when sunlight hits them. or why werewolves don't need a full moon to transform. or why vampire bite's leave no trace of blood. or why all werewolves look like abercrombie/american eagle models and vampires all look like they model for express and the banana republic. PAHDSMSG all the way.

I WASTED 2 HOURS OF MY LIFE LOOKING AT THIS MAN!

"Oh no it's sunlight! I could never get rid of that glitter from that kindergarten accident from years ago..."

My top 10 observations at the Expo

10. KFC

To begin with, I will say that KFC in China is not exactly what it is in the US. The spice recipe is different and distinctly Asian, rice is served as a side, and it is probably the most popular fast food establishment in the Country. At the expo, the two KFCs on the Pudong side of the river were packed without fail during lunch times, with "lines" wrapping around the building. I waited a good hour to take my order, but it was well worth it.

9. "Lines"
In a city as large as Shanghai (~32million folks) and an expo that garnered an average of 450,000 visitors each day, lines were common. To see a pavilion in just about any non-peripheral country (ie. Spain, USA, Russia, China, Japan, Sweden, France, Germany, etc.), one would average 3-5 hours to get in. I'd also mention here that the single file line concept in general doesn't really exist here. For the most part, my experience in at the expo was usually a mob of people packed densely in the 2 meter width queue area.


8. New Technologies that bring more headaches
A big thing at the expo were the electric carts shuttling people silently from one part of the expansive campus to the other. Silent, for the most part. One thing that was of particular annoyance were the horns that were constantly honking at pedestrian traffic crossing the walkway. Divorced from the rumbling sound of an engine and replaced with the similar whining of the transmission, the general sounds you would encounter as you traveled or waited in line for hours was incessant honking and whining. It is one thing to design futuristic space-saving, noise pollution reductive, energy efficient cars, but it's another to design a means of maximizing it's benefits, which is merely a testament to the density of people jaunting in the streets.

7. Visual Projection and reflection.

A time-old element of Architectural detailing and interior design has always been to create space, and to project it by creating an illusion of it. With a futuristic projection of a better life being a theme befitting a World Exposition, it would make sense that designers intend to make the connection between new ways of seeing and percieving with the spirit of innovation and progressive thinking underlying one's presentation. A good example of this would be the Barcelona UBPA pavilion, in which mirrors and reflective glass add depth to a modest space, reflecting the light of city living from TV-screen partitions off the walls, creating an expansive and immersive atmosphere terminating in what appears to be an orb of scenes and textures of Barcelona, floating in the dimly lit space.

6. New Ways of seeing
With all of the hype surrounding 3D televisions and panoramic experiences, plenty of the expo's participants utilized these new vision projection developments ad nauseum. Examples: Saudi Arabia, Zhejian (china) Taiwan, Liverpool Vanke Pavilion, Republic of Korea, the Pavilion of Urban Being, Australia, BROAD Pavilion Pavilion of Urban Living, etc.


It's great, don't get me wrong, but not specifically life changing. It's cutting edge technology that probably took countless man-hours to set up, but technology can't sell you a utopian future dominated by...



5. Nation Branding.
Can you blame the majority of country pavilions for feeding you images upon images of beautiful scenery devoid of dirtiness and cars, with white-toothed smiling faces of the country's residents? No. There is usually a blurb about the country and it's history, and then a presentation of some sort with generic aerial scenes of urban centers and optimistic waxing about future plans and developments that will make their country better. (ie. invest in their economy so that they can continue to put forth their visions of the future). It's sobering but true: the first step to actually building and redeveloping better cities is to put forth the capital, whether it's financial or academic or emotional. Without fail, that is what many country pavilions did, keeping in mind the high traffic of people that they had to keep on circulating through. It's a numbers game, and you really couldn't offer more details than the general picture.

4. Passport stamping.
World Expo's can be taxing and maybe boring in terms of lines and waiting and it's certain that many minor pavilions may be ignored for the bigger names. The coordinators of the expo came up with a brilliant idea to stimulate optimum line waits and better distribution of visitors to pavilions by instituting the Passport stamp checkpoint at every one. For a low price to buy an official passport book from an Expo retailer, one could garner proof that they had visited a certain pavilion by getting theirs stamped there, making for a souvenir in which a person can claim and remember where they visited in their time there. It's such a successful and genius element that kept people interested throughout the course of a day. Think about it: 160 RMB (23.5 US dollars, roughly) per person to visit, multiplied by however many people visit with you implies a big investment up front to enter the venue. That, along with the long lines and waiting in the steamy Shanghai summer generally instills in the visitor a goal oriented mindset. More pavilions visited legitimizes your time and money. The passport encourages that. It also encourages the loss of knowledge retention as the pavilions and their messages themselves may not entirely be the ultimate end of a visit, but rather a visit to the stamp booth at the exit. It's fun, it's profitable. It may or not be the best way of instilling knowledge or values, but it is what it is.

3. Skins and surface treatment
A great thing about the Universal World Expos are the character and manifestation of innovation. The 1889 World's fair was all about innovations in building technology, using iron and steel to create fantastic advances in transportation and construction. The early era of the worlds' fairs were all about structure. Innovations in cultural expression and national branding in the last century have led to changing attitudes in pavilion design. As the short duration of these Expos necessitate the design proposition of having to make a deep impact (visually, emotionally, etc.) in a short period of time after which the structure is taken down, a lot of the capital spent on the design is the exterior facade and interior skin design.
Many of the structures at this expo were prefabricated or made of simple construction mechanisms that allow for easy construction and recycling. In some cases, this was highlighted as a case study of construction and architectural design (BROAD pavilion, Vancouver UBPA and Canada Pavilions) or adaptive reuse (UBPA joint pavilions 3 and 4). Just about every pavilion's main framework is glass, steel, and concrete. The skins, veneers and double facades then are designed for maximum intense visual impact, packaged with a simple story about it's inspiration (cultural, metaphorical, architectural and technological).
For example, the Spain pavilion is really an irregular steel frame construct with glass panes, but it's overall form is made smoother and more metaphorically descriptive through it's second skin, a facade of wicker baskets, irregular and imperfect in the individual weaving of each unit, but unified together as a legible whole, indicative of the country and it's puported valuing of traditional culture married with progressive policies and contemporary modern life. The wicker texture at all scales represent honesty and temporality in face of natural forces, a poetic and impactful means of visual communication as you wait for 5 hours to get inside.

2. Water is the single most pressing concern for the future of cities.
Access to clean water is and will be the determinant factor on future growth at all scales of the globe, especially at the city and municipal level. In the projection of the future, the expo planners made for gratuitous use of water for both consumption and an educational level. The first thing I experienced at the expo were large spans of water misting equipment at the top of the Expo axis underpass, providing shade and reducing the external temperature of the walkway by several degrees centigrade, all at a minimum use of water. Purified water stations are available for drinking at regular intervals all across the venue.
Many pavilions used water to reduce the heat island effect and provide a percieved coolness effect. A public square was affized with a grid of water misters, creating a foggy atmosphere in which one could walk. the Alsace-France UBPA pavilion utilized a waterfall along it's sloped facade. And don't forget about Haibao, the ubiquitous mascot of the expo was branded on every single medium imaginable, from t-shirts to gold medallions, in statues and sculptures in every single major city in China, and most certainly in the form of stuffed plush toys. He is, as you can imagine, an anamorphosized water drop, inspired by the chinese character for person (ren). That the theme, "better city, better life" is played in tandem creates an intellectual space in which a person must make the connection
between healthy cities and water.


1. Better Kids, Better Life.
The entire Expo,
if nothing else, is aimed at families and their children. The Republic of Korea pavilion performance says it best. The presentation is a hybrid cartoon-reality musical video presentation entitled "New world, just for you", in which a group of young Asian men and women fly into the city and with a wave of their hands create parks, gardens, public transportation and mid-rise developments with access to light water and food, all the while singing a simple themed music piece through the voices of 10 year olds. The logic is sound: If society aims to mitigate the issues that are ingrained in our current way of life, education of those that are willing to listen and aren't full of other concerns(ie. Kids) the best way of instituting societal change. And so it goes that the voices and virtual people that guide you through many pavilions are kids.
If you have a hard time believing that, then check out the 5 meter tall sculpture of a life-like baby in the Spain pavilion. Yessir....