Face, Guile, And The Commerce Of Living

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Mr Eurasian's posting rights have been withdrawn. His rants are unacceptable.

[Fast Eddie]

quote=Eurasian,2005-12-04 04:54:01]

3. Less understanding about Western Hip Hop Culture. This is due to incompatibility between Thai's Culture and American's Hip Hop Culture. Most Thai's culture rules are still ancient primitive and do not accept the modern rap or hip hop mentality such as making graffitis on the wall, dressing like a gangster, smoking alot, using "kooooool" words, using bad words in public places, kissing in public places, or accepting the truth. a==Inappropriate comments deleted==Surprisingly, i almost don't see any Graffitis in Thailand and i was the one who did kool Graffitis and they arrested me and asked strange questions and they did not wanted to understand about Hip Hop Culture's Graffitis. In Italy, you will always find thousands of Graffitis but in Thailand the Thais are down with Graffitis. The Thai Rap musics sucks, and it is very RARE to see a Thai Teenager listening to a Rap music. Hip Hop Culture does support many negativities because it is a sub-culture borned in New York, Chicago around 1970s. It looks like most Thais do not know what "KOOL" means or it is because they got their KOOLNESS STYLE but it sucks because it is not as kool as American style.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have been interested in hip hop for over fifteen years, but acceptance of American hip hop culture is not necessarily something for Thailand to aspire to. Thailand really doesn't need a load of immature adolescents trying to act like gangsters in the American hip hop mould.

It sounds very much to me that you are quite young and have struggled to integrate yourself into Thai culture. That's not a big problem as such, if you identify yourself as being more farang in your mentality, but it sounds like you need to have more respect for the values that the Thais around you are trying to instill in you. Smoking a lot, swearing in public, and generally acting like an antisocial arse is not in any way cool.

[creation2474]

Wrote this last night. It pretends to be about Asia, but is just about Pop culture anywhere and especially about some of my recent relationships.  What do you think - is Asian interaction more shallow than what we take for granted in the west?

--

You can see it in the eyes – the guile. Westerners are guileless. We are unarmed. Over here, what you see is also what you get, but all that you ever see is guile. There is nothing of interest underneath the guile. It seems a fundamentally materialistic mindspace, greed and aversion and apathy the root of all transactions. A smile is request for interest. A turned head is a snub. No eye contact is a lack of interest, or care. Business of business for business. No one smiles at panhandlers, panhandlers are professionally pathetic, everything neat and tidy and utterly useless. Hearty cackles and tight black eyes, every penny in the heart pinched. Spent only for gain, among allies. Allies, not friends.

There is no interest in education. That is saying the same thing. Truth holds no value. Same. All movements are commerce, or meaningless. There are few gardens or parks or beautiful buildings, especially here in the Philippines, unless in large private acreage to show status. The arts are barely alive in Asia, unless you count copying. No live band writes their own material, painters copy from photographs, and there is nearly no literature produced. Philosophy is not here. Never discussed here. The good, the true, and the beautiful, have no widespread following. There are no recognizable morals of truth and justice – lawers and police openly frame foreigners and the disadvantaged, as if it was obviously proper. No recognizable allegiance to any consensual reality, scientific or otherwise. No recognizable living arts. The cultures of Thailand and the Philippines amount to the importation of currently fashionable cell phones. Guile, with nothing underneath the guile – means without an ends. After the beemer and the big hair and the long painted nails and the secret phone numbers, then what? It’s got to be lonely in there, wherever there is, and I suspect no one will ever know, or question, or care. Trappings are wealth here. People get rich in order to be rich, in order to exacerbate their alienation, to drive the stake as deeply as they can into their pain, to commit their insecurities to suicide, to become as inauthentic as possible, as nonexistent as possible. As untouchable as possible. As rich as possible.

There is nothing to question. Nothing inside, or outside. Just relax, get your titillations, get as much status while you can, and don’t worry about your inevitable meaningless death.

Even love is a business proposition here, a bargain. A temporary bargain.

There is another way. There is a better way. There are reasons to wake up in the morning that are not about gathering or gaining or displaying or cultivating or changing anything about ones place in the scheme of things. Awe, appreciation, love, require not a millimeter of motion. Guile is too much work for its result. Guile marches, but always backwards. It requires a sick culture to re-enforce in full adults. Asia is sick.

The popular cultural values of SE Asia are so shallow and developmentally impaired as to be plainly diseased.

Expats who live here eventually refuse to do any business with Asians. People who date here either give up any of their own values as irrelevant, thus denying the possibility of a shared consensual reality with Asians, or don’t expect much in the way of shared values. Unless the woman is foreign educated or otherwise worldly beyond her culture, she will be myopic beyond all credulity, her only interests relating to boy hunting or family. Her mental skills, developed for those reasons, or not at all. Nothing outside of that exists.

Delirious with endless visions of gain, SE Asia has gone blind to worth. Human connections seem not so much as grounded in value here, but used for valuable goods and experiences. Boyfriends are commodities. Everything is used for a purpose, but the purpose seems so obviously a tangent from what is important. Power more important than the love and good uses it seeks. Status more important than the friendships it could open the door to. The goals are tangential to anything truly valuable. Get married to be married. Pray so that you pray. Empty rituals with no respect for the soul they could foster.

It would be satire, if enough people were in the audience to laugh. Everyone is on stage.

After the rage, should be be peace. There is no peace here – the business oriented eyes never shine back, wide and interested and naked and wild and present and without agenda. You could wait forever, all you’d ever see is guile and all it’s devilish and seductive pretenses. Honesty is guile here. Everything for a purpose. It is maddening. Once you see it and see it clearly, see seduction as seduction, see indifference as indifference, see aggression as aggression, once you see it, it is hopelessly maddening.

It is lonely when you can’t touch anything. There is nothing like that moment of looking into the eyes of a lover in moments of ecstatic love. That is polarly opposite to looking into they eyes of someone while they lie to you, or while they lie to themselves while they lie to you. The spark isn’t there. It feels different. It’s the opposite of bliss and joy and communion. It hurts. You just want to slap them, or something. Anything but just sit there, knowing that the situation is totally beyond your control hopeless. There will be no spark. There will be no reason, no purpose. Yes, I’m fine, and you?

When everything is for advantage, trust relies on treaties and agreements. It has to be chosen, created, then reconciled to. If being trustworthy were as natural as concern, and we were to naturally expect the same from others, what would that look like? Not at all like guile. Trust is just another weapon here, another handle for manipulation. It has no meaning other than that.

I have a few simple questions for people I wonder about.

1) What kind of boyfriend would you like?

2) What does love feel like, to you?

If the answer to #1 is something like “someone who loves me for who I am”, I know that the person wants love more than someone to love. Why not say instead “someone who will let me love them unconditionally all the time”?

If the answer to #2 is anything about receiving care and attention, I’ll know that the person has little feeling for the giving of love – what it feels like to give love that comes from inside her. There is probably not much love there, that is why she looks for someone to fill her with it.

So that’s it. Asia is someone that wants to be loved, but doesn’t even know what love really is. Love has nothing to do with fashionable cell phones or big hair. When is Asia going to start giving? The guileful never truly give.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How old are you?

99% of people in the world are so. It has something to do with human nature in general, nothing to do with asia in specific.

[jamman]

Wrote this last night. It pretends to be about

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How old are you?

99% of people in the world are so. It has something to do with human nature in general, nothing to do with asia in specific.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm 39. I'm aware that the characteristics I'm mentioning are part of human nature, but they are not as universal as you suggest, as human nature also can transcend these characteristics in morally, cognitively, emotionally and spiritually developed people. A level of maturity is admired and even expected of people in most developed countries.

Do you believe in cultural differences at all? Do you see any cultural differences? If so, can you be specific?

The post was recently published on the stickmanbangkok site, and so far I've received some enthusiastically supportive emails for it. Got a star sub to! I just wish I could get paid for ranting.

Edited December 7, 2005 by jamman

[OldAsiaHand]

Eurasian,

A very interesting and well-written post containing much to think about. Thanks. If we had more contributions of this caliber, the board might even be able to rise about the kind of sophomoric crap that seems to drown out most every effort anyone makes to develop a series discussion --- this thread being a prime example.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OldAsiaHand- you were extracting the urine, surely, right?

Point no 3 cracks me up, only a true troll could write such out to lunch stuff.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gosh.....was I being too subtle?

[MilkPlus]

I have a few simple questions for people I wonder about.

1) What kind of boyfriend would you like?

2) What does love feel like, to you?

If the answer to #1 is something like “someone who loves me for who I am”, I know that the person wants love more than someone to love. Why not say instead “someone who will let me love them unconditionally all the time”?

If the answer to #2 is anything about receiving care and attention, I’ll know that the person has little feeling for the giving of love – what it feels like to give love that comes from inside her. There is probably not much love there, that is why she looks for someone to fill her with it.

So that’s it. Asia is someone that wants to be loved, but doesn’t even know what love really is. Love has nothing to do with fashionable cell phones or big hair. When is Asia going to start giving? The guileful never truly give.

Love is a chemical reaction.

and love stinks.

[greenwanderer108]

Eurasian,

got to agree with Fast Eddie on this one...I'm Thai American, so I'm well aware of the cross-cultural awareness that comes with being half...

however, your points about hip-hop culture are way off. Kissing/cursing in public, graffiti on the walls, and whatever else Dr. Patpong cut out from your post are anything but true hip hop. I think you are confusing this sub-culture with the 'gangsta rap' movement started by groups like NWA in L.A.

Real Hip hop was an evolution of beat-poetry (free-flow over be-bop jazz) from the 50s, where the essence was a political or meaninful message through live lyrics and music. And I believe this still holds true today. When an M.C. can relay an important, creative, meaninful, and colorful message with lyrics, the beat comes/groove comes second, and only as a medium..

All this other stuff, where 'mcs' glorify about how big their xxxx is or how hard they xxxx that hoe, or how much money they hustle....IS TRASH i.e. RAP.

Sadly, in Thailand the youth today are following this latter trend/sub-culture, doing exactly what you suggest they do...follow the American NYC hip hop Kool trend... Whenever Thaitanium has a concert, it's a sold-out event with all these young posers/wannabes trying to dress like what they think minorities in NYC dress. It makes me sick.

Propoganda..don't be a victim, be yourself.

Dajim is more hip hop than Thaitanium or Joeyboy could ever be. Atleast he has his own original style, messages, and stories...not these self-glorifying wannabes emulating the styles of others...and more importantly he doesn't deny his Thai roots...born and raised here. Joeyboy and Thaitanium use the basis that they spent a few years in NYC (for who knows what, but certainly not minority hustlers...as anyone would know 99 percent of Thais in USA are hiso before they even got there...not to confuse with the Lao and Vietnam immigrants/refugees) so what, there supposed to be real hip hop...give me a break.

[Vladimir Yugovic]

This is one of the world's most INCOMPETENT FORUM BECAUSE MOST OF MY POSTS ABOUT THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENT AND ABOUT THAILAND WAS GONE!!! I WILL SUE THIS THAILAND FORUM AND I WILL LET EVERYONE BOYCOTT THIS INCOMPETENT FORUM. WE JUST CANNOT HAVE ANY KINDS OF DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GOVERNMENT OF THAILAND AND THE HISTORY OF MONARCHY. I AM VERY DISSAPOINTED DUE TO THE VIOLATION OF MY FREE SPEECH ON THIS FORUM. MY COMMENTS AND SOME OF MY POSTS ARE DELETED!!! WHY?!!! WAS THE FORUM ADMINISTRATOR GONE CRAZY??? SORRY, BUT IN THE NAME OF GOD, I CAN USE MY MOUTH AND I CAN EXPRESS MYSELF. THERE WAS NO INAPPROPRIATNESS OF MY COMMENTS. I DID NOT USE ANY BAD WORDS. 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I COME TO A CONCLUSION THAT THIS IS AN INCOMPETENT FORUM IN WHICH WE CAN NOT EVEN MAKE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF WORLD'S GOVERNMENT SYSTEM AND THAT MY REPLIES ARE DELETED!!! 

BLACKLIST FORUMS: WHITE POWER FORUM, THAILAND FORUM, CHINESE FORUM, NEO-NAZI FORUM, ARYAN NATION FORUM

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agreed Eurasian, infact i can't understand why we could not start a serious discussions into politics and government about Thailand.

[Vladimir Yugovic]

Mr Eurasian's posting rights have been withdrawn. His rants are unacceptable.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats not good. His posts contained many good points. I don't see why he had no rights to express. Nice work Eurasian! Keep it up!

[Vladimir Yugovic]

Eurasian,

got to agree with Fast Eddie on this one...I'm Thai American, so I'm well aware of the cross-cultural awareness that comes with being half...

however, your points about hip-hop culture are way off. Kissing/cursing in public, graffiti on the walls, and whatever else Dr. Patpong cut out from your post are anything but true hip hop. I think you are confusing this sub-culture with the 'gangsta rap' movement started by groups like NWA in L.A.

Real Hip hop was an evolution of beat-poetry (free-flow over be-bop jazz) from the 50s, where the essence was a political or meaninful message through live lyrics and music. And I believe this still holds true today. When an M.C. can relay an important, creative, meaninful, and colorful message with lyrics, the beat comes/groove comes second, and only as a medium..

All this other stuff, where 'mcs' glorify about how big their xxxx is or how hard they xxxx that hoe, or how much money they hustle....IS TRASH i.e. RAP.

Sadly, in Thailand the youth today are following this latter trend/sub-culture, doing exactly what you suggest they do...follow the American NYC hip hop Kool trend... Whenever Thaitanium has a concert, it's a sold-out event with all these young posers/wannabes trying to dress like what they think minorities in NYC dress. It makes me sick.

Propoganda..don't be a victim, be yourself.

Dajim is more hip hop than Thaitanium or Joeyboy could ever be. Atleast he has his own original style, messages, and stories...not these self-glorifying wannabes emulating the styles of others...and more importantly he doesn't deny his Thai roots...born and raised here. Joeyboy and Thaitanium use the basis that they spent a few years in NYC (for who knows what, but certainly not minority hustlers...as anyone would know 99 percent of Thais in USA are hiso before they even got there...not to confuse with the Lao and Vietnam immigrants/refugees) so what, there supposed to be real hip hop...give me a break.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that they cut him off for starting a conversation about Thai Monarchy not the the hip hop culture and i agreed that Thailand needs to be modernize more and replace the old Thai's culture with American's culture. Although i was a socialist from Russia, but my country supports alot of hip hop culture and kissing in public which became a traditional culture in saluting your friends. It is sad that Thais are still backward people but just better than Indians after Americanization has gone a while during the Vietnam War.

[Vladimir Yugovic]

quote=Eurasian,2005-12-04 04:54:01]

3. Less understanding about Western Hip Hop Culture. This is due to incompatibility between Thai's Culture and American's Hip Hop Culture. Most Thai's culture rules are still ancient primitive and do not accept the modern rap or hip hop mentality such as making graffitis on the wall, dressing like a gangster, smoking alot, using "kooooool" words, using bad words in public places, kissing in public places, or accepting the truth. a==Inappropriate comments deleted==Surprisingly, i almost don't see any Graffitis in Thailand and i was the one who did kool Graffitis and they arrested me and asked strange questions and they did not wanted to understand about Hip Hop Culture's Graffitis. In Italy, you will always find thousands of Graffitis but in Thailand the Thais are down with Graffitis. The Thai Rap musics sucks, and it is very RARE to see a Thai Teenager listening to a Rap music. Hip Hop Culture does support many negativities because it is a sub-culture borned in New York, Chicago around 1970s. It looks like most Thais do not know what "KOOL" means or it is because they got their KOOLNESS STYLE but it sucks because it is not as kool as American style.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have been interested in hip hop for over fifteen years, but acceptance of American hip hop culture is not necessarily something for Thailand to aspire to. Thailand really doesn't need a load of immature adolescents trying to act like gangsters in the American hip hop mould.

It sounds very much to me that you are quite young and have struggled to integrate yourself into Thai culture. That's not a big problem as such, if you identify yourself as being more farang in your mentality, but it sounds like you need to have more respect for the values that the Thais around you are trying to instill in you. Smoking a lot, swearing in public, and generally acting like an antisocial arse is not in any way cool.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are offending my friend and i don't like that. Eurasian is my friend and he always respected me. He is 25 years old and he got better reasonings than many Thais. I accepted him as a European friend because of his westernization. Eurasian did not even wanted to get into Thai Culture but he wanted Thailand to change for the better and for the people of Thailand because he loves Thailand and he is half Thai. Thats because you don't know him well i guess. He never use any bad-words in his posts but he got kicked out due to his discussions about Thai Monarchy. You also sounded young and you better understand him and what he is trying to say. You talk like Thais so you better change the way you talk and especially in my country, you could get your self into trouble. I know him well.

[Vladimir Yugovic]

It looks like that there are some posters who did not want to understand my poor friend:Eurasian who was just trying his best to express himself. I went to Thailand and had Thai girlfriend with him and know him very well. Despite his comments are removed and replaced with "inappropriate comments deleted", His posts are not offensive at all and there are no bad words in it. It seems to me that the posters have bad English skill and could not distinguish between what is bad and what is good. It is very understandable that his points make sense when it comes to talking about third world countries which included Thailand. How sad, my friend no longer have rights of speech and his freedom of speech was violated because he can no longer post due to his opinions about Thai Monarchy. It is very sad. I would not go to a place where i don't have rights of speech and everyone in my country are sicken tired of having no rights to talk due to communist regime but thanks god that my country is now opened. I feel sorry to the original poster: Jaman who was trying to assimilate into Thai society but he was having difficulties with Culture Clash and that we westerners do not get used to many of the Thais' habit and life style. It is sad to see that many posters in this forum showed no mercy to Jaman and Eurasian who were being honest to everyone in here. How sad. Its a shame that my friend was kicked out for "apparent no reason". Is this a public opinion forum? I hope he will come back and continue his speech as God said.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Sorry Vladimir ( oooops sorry Eurasian ) you are out again. Bye now.

[aughie]

Eurasian please come to http://bearpit.net/ . People would enjoy hearing your socialist ideas. Maybe you can put an Italian spin on it too. Bearpit.net is always looking for new members.

-a

[meadish_sweetball]

I feel sick after reading this thread.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I agree Meadish. Closed for the want of something better.