I always wanted to learn Chinese, until I found out that ordering a number 18 at any Chinese restaurant will usually get you something good. Then I stopped caring. I can barely speak English as it is, so I don’t really think learning another convoluted mess of a language would benefit me at all. If anything I’d probably regress to a point where I couldn’t speak either language and I’d be rendered mute. The same thing happened in high school when I tried to walk, breathe, and chew gum at the same time. I wound up having a seizure and they made me wait in the nurse’s office while she applied leeches to the other sick students.
At least Chinese doesn’t pretend that it has a real alphabet like some other languages. They just seem to make stuff up as they go along. It’s like an inside joke that 1.2 billion people are in on.
It’s Not A Party Until You’ve Burned Down Half of Beijing
Videos from Asia are always good for a giggle. Of course, Russia has the highest camcorder to drunken shenanigan ratio in the world, but countries like China and Japan are swiftly bringing up the rear. Japan has its firm foothold in the uncanny valley somewhere between early Pixar animations and Wayne Newton’s plasticine forehead, and China likes to keep things explosive. Most Chinese videos can be found on Live Leak, which is like YouTube for the sort of person who thinks Silence of The Lambs is a comedy and collects roadkill. Anyways, the Chinese videos that find their way onto YouTube are decidedly entertaining when no one’s being beheaded.
Looking back, I think I may have given videos from China a bad rap. I’m not trying to say that one type of video is better than another. Japanese videos are like having your head caved in by a scantily-dressed schoolgirl with a steel truncheon, and the Russians like to keep things light and fluffy by drinking enough vodka to make James Joyce think twice about showing up to their garden parties. Apart from the occasional snuff film, Chinese videos are the dog’s bollocks, the bee’s knees, and everything you should look for in a significant other.
Korea, on the other hand, has forever been tainted by Gangnam Style and everything associated with it. The darn thing spread like turbo-ebolAIDs, and scorched the Intertunnel clean for a solid month. Anything that powerful should be avoided at all costs.
I’m really hoping that we get some good videos out of Mongolia soon. Actually, that might not be such a good idea, now that I think of it. The last time anything came sweeping out of Mongolia most of Eurasia was pillaged.
Well, say what you want about the ethics of Genghis Khan and his band of unruly chartered accountants, at least it’s not Gangnam Style.
Way out East there was this fella — fella I wanna tell ya about. Fella by the name of Karate Master. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. Karate Master, he called himself Karate Master. Now, Karate Master — he didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise.
People need to be more careful, the pandas appear to be coordinating their attacks and going for vital organs. The guy in the video fought valiantly, but I’m sure they left out the part where he was disemboweled and eaten at the end.
Okay, I admit it: pandas aren’t the most vicious bunch. But they have bear in their name for poop’s sake. Being called a panda bear is so misleading; it’s like making a Smith & Wesson baby stroller or an Abrams throw pillow. You’d think that with a name like panda bear they’d rip someone’s face off every once and a while or eat a hiker or two. I mean, come on, koala bears are more threatening and they’re twice as cuddly.
I wouldn’t try to hug a koala bear, though — they’re just as bloodthirsty as everything else in Australia and they won’t hesitate to bite your face off and wear it like a fleshy Halloween mask.