Thursday, August 31, 2006

Seoul Man



I saw a doctor yesterday about my stomachache. He prescribed a medicine and told me to come in 3 weeks. I didn't have pain last night. I hope it's improving.....I have a "drinking appointment" tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I can resist the temptation while watching others drinking...

It seems that not only Japanese women but also women all over Asia are crazy about Korean men. According to today's Washington Post (a front page article), Korean male celebrities are huge in China, Vietnam, Taiwan and even in Mexico. The article also mentions that Daniel Dae Kim, the Korean-born actor from "Lost" was the only Asian chosen for People's magazine's "sexiest Men Alive" edition last year. A room of my 70-year-old aunt's house is like a museum of Korean soap opera actors with an extensive collection of posters, photos and videos. She now lives alone (she used to be a groovy "Modern Girl" in 60s and 70s. She gave me a lot of tailored 60s style clothes. She was one of the few Japanese traveled in Europe at that time) . Those hot Korean stars make her life lively. Actually, many Japanese middle-aged women are blessed by the Korean stars. On, gay men, too. According to the Post, in Shinjuku nichome (Tokyo's biggest gay area) there are increasing numbers of bars with names like "Seoul Man."

So, why Korean? I understand Japanese women are attracted to them because Japanese men never say "I love you." Generally speaking, Japanese men are not "romantic." Men with few words have been considered the best in Japan. Saying "I love you" could be very embarrassing. Correction. For Japanese middle-aged men it's embarrassing. For younger generations it may be a different story. Washington Post said Koreans are "the Italians of Asia." "....typically rich, kind men with coincidentally striking looks and a tendency to shower women with unconditional love" it explains. There is a quote from a director of a Korean star management company: "It's a type of character that doesn't exist much in Asian movies and television, and not it's what Asian women think Korean men are like." Ok, I got it. Korean men have Asian looks and Western style of sweetness. But this director also points that: "But to tell you the truth, I still haven't met a real one who fits that description." Hmmm. Ok, maybe it's just a fantasy.

But I remember my Korean teacher of a language class I took briefly like 10 years ago fits exactly that description. He is handsome and with a lot of sweets words for every woman. And he openly said "I love my wife." That kind of man barely exist in Japan. Really. Oh, did I mention those Korean stars usually have beautifully built body? Korea has two years mandatory military duty. Maybe it adds some attraction to them.

Having said all of these, I still think Singaporean boys are the cutest. Hong Kong actors are the second. I love Tony Leung!!

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Miss Saigon


My new Karen Walker high waist jeans arrived yesterday. It's soooooo cute! And it fits me perfect. I'm so happy. I will match some 70s style shirts with this jeans.

It is nice to receive mails (real mails, not e-mails), especially air mails. My friend Roberto sent me a post card from Argentina. It was nice even though it arrived after he was back in town. I remember Steven sent me a card from somewhere, and Nida from Jordan . That made my heart really warm. Well, I should do it myself when I have chance to travel abroad next time.

I remember it was so troublesome to make an international calls in Saigon, Vietnam, back in the early 1990s. Since I was staying at $5 per night motel, there was no phone with international connection. I had to go to a post office. I explained to the clerk at the window I wanted to call may family in Japan and filled up a form. Then I was assigned to a booth, picked up a phone receiver, the clerk said "ok, now you talk." Internet connection was out of questions. Oh, and I remember when I tried to cash a traveler's check in a Laotian town, a bank teller told me he was going to charge 25% fee. 25%!!

Well, I heard Saigon has been transformed into a modern city, and it is now one of the favorite destinations of Japanese "OL" (office ladies....one of the Japanese English term). Good for local people as it brings a lot of money to the city. But I have to say I somehow miss the atmosphere of old Saigon. Waking up with voices of peddlers, chatting with locals at a street stall, sometimes having quarrels with cyclo drivers over the charge, taking a nap along the Saigon river watching boys swimming.....I really miss it.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Bad Education


It was a fun weekend. On Saturday, I and my husband were invited to a Japanese journalist's home BBQ party. Huge house with a big patio, which can have about 10 people, and a swimming pool! The party was fun. I met some new people (including bunch of Americans fluent in Japanese...It was a good reminder that some people in the metro or on the street may understand when I'm cursing in Japanese!) and friends who I hadn't seen for ages. Then we moved to another party, a farewell Karaoke party for a Japanese gov. official. We went home around midnight.

Sunday was a movie & cooking day. I and my husband watched "Inside Deep Throat" and "Brokeback Mountain" on DVD. I had seen Brokeback Mountain already, but he wanted to see it. I noticed when Enis found blood stained shirts in Jack's closet, Jack's shirt was hanged with Enis' shirt inside. But in the final scene, the shirts were hanged in Enis' closet next to a postcard of Brokeback Mountain---Enis' shirt now on the outside. I didn't notice this when I saw the movie in the theater (and I couldn't understand what Enis was saying at all....without subtitles). Does this shirt arrangement imply that Jack wanted to cuddle Enis and Enis wanted to protect Jack? And what did Enis mean by saying "Jack, I swear..."? Hmm...I guess these are too belated questions that may have already been discussed on-line a lot.

"Inside Deep Throat" was surprisingly a good documentary. But it seems that my husband thought it was a porn. Later I saw him secretly watching it again...but I pretended not to notice it. He learned some new vocabularies from the movie....like "clitoris" and "blow job" (these words will increace traffic to my blog) . Maybe I should buy a real porn to educate him. I haven't found any good porn video here, though. I sometimes watch porn video when I'm on a business trip...from curiosity (I've never charged it to my company's account! I swear!) . I found them boring. No story line, just sex, sex, huge boobs, sex, sex (more traffic to my blog)....

Anyways, yesterday I cooked for whole week as I usually don't have time to cook weekdays. I cooked nimono, a Japanese stew of vegetables with soy sause, chicken stew with tomato sause and chicken soup. I also cooked chirashi-zushi, a kind of easy sushi for a dinner. Yum.

The photo has nothing to do with this posting. This is a photo of a New Orleans hotel I stayed before Katrina.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Not very sweet hangover

I'm still recovering from a hangover....for two days. Now I have a heart burn/stomach pain. Ugh. I wonder which will be discovered first: a remedy for cancer, or a remedy for hangover. I think the former. I'm not sure if I can go for Happy Hour tonight....it sucks.

Why does this metro station escalator near my apartment still need repair after a year long "modernization project"?? The escalator works less than half of a year. This country can launch Space Shuttles and can't make escalators work? When I was visiting my hometown in Japan, I saw an escalator at a train station wasn't working. I thought, "huh, just like DC." When I approached the escalator, shweeenn.....it suddenly started moving! Yes, it had a sensor. It works only when people approach to save energy. Japan has some good stuff besides sex services.

It's Friday! Yey!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

"Too stimulating" story


Ugh. Hangover.

"Tokyo subway officials have backed off on banning the publishers of Harper's Bazaar from displaying ads featuring a nude and pregnant Britney Spears, just a day after claiming the posters were 'too stimulating' for its young passengers" according to AP. Whaaaat? "Too stimulating"?? Then what about those Japanese businessmen openly reading magazines full of nude photos in a subway? Huh.

I believe the most advanced and creative industry in Japan is porn/sex industry. Japan is a "mentor" for other Asian countries in terms of sex services. There are too many variety....the most popular one is "soap land" where naked girls wash your body with their soap covered body. "No-pan (no-panty) Shabu-Shabu" was once very popular among high-ranking government officials. Girls in micro-mini skirts (and no-panty) serve you Shabu-Shabu, a type of hot pot. For some reason whiskey bottles are hanging from the ceiling. When you order whiskey, girls stand up and try to pour it in your glass...and suddenly wind comes from under the table.....Ahhhh...how stupid! And there are places like you can play as a groper in the world famous super crowded Tokyo commuter train. I saw this stripper who can chop vegetables with her vagina.

When I was traveling Cambodia in 1993, I visited a red-light district. The sex industry was blooming because of UNTAC peace keeping operation, and many Vietnamese prostitutes were working there. I was shocked when I heard the price. $10 for Europeans and Japanese, $2 for Cambodians. I was drinking beers with some girls when this girl, no more than 15 years old, asked me if I wanted to sleep with her. I laughed and said, "No way! I'm a woman!" Then this girl said "I can sleep with a woman, too. I'm good. $7 for you." She was very serious. I drank a lot more of beer. There was one girl who said not prostituting anymore because she was getting married with a UNTAC soldier from Ghana. I hope she really did and became happy. Really.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Back in the USSR


Last night, I had a dinner at Bacchus Restaurant with a Japanese government official and my friends Yasuko and Yoko. Yummy Lebanese food, a lot of laugh and the official's interesting adventure stories about Middle East and Africa. I had a good time.

I miss traveling. I used to travel a lot. My first travel abroad was to the former Soviet Union in 1989. I and my late friend, Yumiko, flew from Niigata Airport of Japan to Khabarovsk. We took the Siberian Express (not really an "express"...) from there to Irkutsuk, "Paris in Siberia" (um, yeah, kinda). It took 3 days. Then we flew from there to Moscow, where we walked around desperately looking for something edible.....and we suddenly found the shining big "M" sign...Woo hoo~! Vive capitalism!.....then it turned out to be a sign of a metro station. Yes, it was the pre-McDonald era of Moscow. We finally found a local restaurant filled with proletarian comrades. Yumiko actually fainted when she tasted a bowl of rice gruel there....I couldn't explain the real reason to the restaurant people (I spoke some Russian then)....she fainted because the food was so terrible.

Anyways, we kept going....from Moscow to Kiev (now the capitol of Ukraine), Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) , Murmansk (a port town in the Arctic Circle), Tbilisi (now the capitol of Georgia), Tashkent (now the capitol of Uzbekistan) and Samarkand. Samarkand is beautiful. Poets and historians called it "Rome of the East" or "The pearl of the Eastern Moslem World." It really is.

I made another trip to the Soviet Union in March of 1990 (I think). Thanks to the Glasnost policy promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, I could visit my grandfather's grave in Ulan Ude, a small city near the lake Baikal. Nope, my grandfather was not Russian. He was captured by the Russians in northern China (he was deployed by the Imperial Japan) and sent to a labor camp. According to the available record, he died there from typhoid. He was 36. I also visited Yakutsuk to see a frozen mammoth.... and I was frozen there. It was -35F. Seriously. I also went to Sakhalin and Irkutsuk. I visited Russia again in 1999 with my parents. My dad wanted to see the grave of his father whom he barely remembered. I saw my dad crying for the first time.

Ok, other countries I've ever visited so far......Vietnam (5 times), Thailand (7 times), Cambodia (twice, one time for sightseeing another for internship), Laos, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong (3 times), Singapore (I believe Singaporean boys are the cutest), Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Cuba. I may talk about those trips sometime.

BTW, the movie "Good Bye, Lenin!" is a great movie. I loved it.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Some statistics

I've found 3 categories of visitors to my blog:
  1. my friends
  2. visitors referred by VUBOQ (arigato!)
  3. those who searched words "Asian big boobs" or "big boobs Japanese"
Apparently nobody searched the word "big nipples." Hmm. It seems that my theory about straight guys' preference of boobs is universal.

I've just found out my co-worker R thinks Kevin Federline a.k.a the Britney hubby is "very cute, handsome and cool." She also thinks John Mark Karr, the suspected JonBenet killer, is handsome. My another co-worker M said, "when I was a child, I thought women with acne and/or drooping boobs were beautiful." Hmmm. My another theory is confirmed.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

7 years


I've just added a site meter. I found someone in Brazil visited my blog....interesting. How did she/he find my page?

It's Saturday. I'm working. It sucks. Well, not all day. Before coming to the office around 4:00pm, I had my second Pilates class and also tried "Step" class which is like aerobics using step. I saw myself in a mirror and....I looked pathetic. Very clumsy.

It somehow reminded me about my friend, Yumiko. She was beautiful, smart and....a bad dancer. Yes, "was." She passed away 7 years ago. She was my best friend from a college. We made a month long trip to the former Soviet Union. She was working on her Ph.D in Turkey when she had a heart attack. She was 30. She had a fiance. We all asked, "Why her??"

I've lived 7 years more since then. I can't help but wonder, have I used this precious 7 years meaningfully? Hmmm....maybe not.

BTW, I've just started reading "The Devil wears Prada." It's fun. I'm not sure if it's "meaningful"......well, sometimes you need some fun:)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

A Woman Under the Influence

I've finally come up with a title. It's still tentative. I appreciate your opinions.

As some of you may notice, it's from the title of a Pedro Almodovar's movie "Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown)" (1988). I love, love his movies. I saw almost all of them. Subtitle is from my most favorite, "What have I done to deserve this?"(1984).

I also thought about "A Woman Under the Influence"(1974), one of my favorite from the movies of American New Cinemas.

I remember Steven suggested something when we were at Cafe Citron for Happy Hour last week....What was that? I don't remember....

Ok, I'm really busy today. Gotta go.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Am I too old for this?


I'm too busy to blog today....

I'm thinking of buying a Kara Janx (from Project Runway season 2) Kimono dress....ok, I admit I've alreay ordered it.

I can still wear this dress, can't I? These days I have to ask myself twice : "Am I too old for this?" Sad. But I don't want to look a 37 year- old woman trying to look 20-something girl. But I love funky clothes. I at least try not to dress down too much. It makes me look miserable.

NO to flip-flops! NEVER!

No offense, flip-floppers, but I just don't wear them with dresses or business suits. That's just.....not right. Plus, as an Asian, I don't think we should make our legs look shorter.

Oh, I blogged.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Big boobs, small boobs and my scar-faced yakuza boob


According to an article in a Japanese magazine, Iranian women do nose jobs to make them smaller. And Iranian men think small boobs are sexier. I'm sooooo going to Iran once the government abandon nukes! Yes, I have teeny tiny boobs as all Japanese women used to. These days, those pin-up girls on Japanese men's magazines all have huge boobs...and they are teenagers, sometimes even 13 years old! Japanese straight men have kind of obsession with those "innocent" girls with big boobs (and no big nipples are accepted). Or is it universal?

Ahem, this post is getting a little inappropriate. What I wanted to say was that the definition of beauty could vary in different cultures. One day, in a lady's room in my office building, this woman from an office on the same floor told me "oh, we were talking about you today. You look like Sandra Oh, the actress who appears in Gray's Anatomy." "Um, well, I'm not very happy about that," I replied. She looked surprised. "Why???? She's very attractive." Ok. I believe that from most Asian people's view, she is not very beautiful. Like Lucy Liu. All of my Japanese and Taiwanese friends say she is kind of ugly. So, please be careful to make compliments to someone from different culture. I should note that I did appreciate that woman's compliment. I'm in the U.S., where people consider Sandra Oh attractive, after all.

I remember this guy I dated briefly (very briefly) long time ago. On the second date, he said "You're beautiful." I said "I don't think so." Then he went, "well, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I immediately dumped him.

Oh, about my scar-faced yakuza boob. I had surgical biopsy called "wire localization biopsy" in July. Thank Buddha, it turned out to be benign. Girls, don't forget annual mammography. It saves your life. I know it's humiliated and a lot of pain. Nurses always exclaim "Oh, it's so difficult...because your breats are so small...oops, sorry." Huh. I hope someone eventually invents mammo equipment for small breasts. But seriously. 1 out of 8 women in the U.S is diagnosed with breast cancer. Studies show that Asian women living in the U.S. have almost the same level of risk.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Lovely, Lovely weekend and bad, bad usage of prepositions


It was a lovely weekend. Friday night, I went for Happy Hour at Cafe Citron with my friends, Steven, Roberto and Terry to try "the best Margarita in DC"--- claimed by Roberto. Margarita was good, but I like the one at Alero in Cleveland Park more....sorry, Roberto. I guess the difference is the atomosphere. At Alero, we usually have margaritas at patio (I still can't figure out the usage of prepositions...at, on, in or what???). It makes them taste better. When I drunk Singha beer at a riverside restaurant (or a stall) near Golden Triangle in Thailand, I thouhgt it was the best beer in the world....well, I still think it is, but it doesn't taste as good as it did back in Thailand.....I and my friend emptied 8 big bottles of Singha and became a local legend "Two Japanese girls drunk 800 bottles of Singha and the stall owner bought a Japanese TV."

Anyways, Friday night. We went on to have some drinks and then have a dinner at Straits of Malaya, joined by Mike. I ordered Gado Gado despite Roberto's warning. I should have listened to him. It was a beautiful night.

Saturday morning, I went to my first Pilates class. It was challenging. I still have some mustle pain....I guess it means good. I've realized how much I've cheated on working out. Then Steven called to ask if I want to go for a picnic. Steven and Mike picked me up at Dupont Circle and we went to Rockcreek Park. Steven prepared pita sandwitches and "the second best" pasta salad. Yum. OMG, it was chilly! We played croquet to warm ourselves up. Mike won. I was terrible.

On Sunday, I woke up late and prepared sandwitches for my husband working at a swimming pool as a lifeguard. Beautiful day. Oh, I gotta go. More to come later....maybe.

Friday, August 11, 2006

A drop of sake is a drop of your own blood


It's a busy Friday. Damn. I want be relaxed on Friday....But I'll go to happy hour with my friends after work. I should wrap up my works early and be ready for drinks, drinks and more drinks....

I love alcohol. Yey. All kind. My most favorite is "Awamori," an alcoholic beverage inidigenous and unique to Okinawa, Japan. It is distilled from rice, not brewed. Vintage Awamori, "Ku-su," is especially fantastic. My most memorable alchohol beverage is..."Lao-lao" which I tried in a mountainous village in Laos. It is distilled from sticky rice, and believed to be the origin of Awamori. No wonder I loved it. Some local women were making Lao-lao in an old oil drum....Another memorable one is home-made vodka some drunk workers offered me in the Trans-Siberian Express back in 80s when I was traveling across the former Soviet Union. Now you know how much I love alcohol.

Oh, I shouldn't forget Korean wine "Makkori." (I don't know how to spell in English) It is a kind of unrefined sake. I haven't had it for ages....I miss it.

My favorite Japanese proverb (or maybe my drunk college friend made it up). "A drop of sake is a drop of your own blood." So, you never waste any single drop of sake.

Now I feel drunk. I must go back to work.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

house husbands


Last night, I had beer & dinner with a Japanese journalist who's been here for past 25 years. I was surprised to hear that he was planning to give up his career here and move back to Japan...for a woman he fell in love. I said, "wow." He may be ready to go back to Japan after 25 years living in a foreign soil. He has more than enough experience and talent to start new career in Japan. But still, you know, "love" has made him decide. And he looked very very happy.

I broke up boyfriends for my career in the past. And now I'm married to a guy who I don't have to give up my career and my own life for. Maybe I'm lucky. Or am I selfish? Maybe I've never loved anyone more than myself. Hmmm. Well, but I think he, a Japanese journalist, has made the decision for himself, too. Maybe he thought being with her would improve his life. It may not be a sacrifice (BTW, this movie "Sacrifice" is one of my most favorites. I admire Andrei Tarcovsky) . I'm officially confused.

According to the article I found recently in a Japanese magazine, there are about 80,000 "house husbands" in Japan. Impressive change of the Japanese society. This article also mentions the statistics in US...."house husbands" often have shorter lives than "working men," likely because of more stress. Huh.

BTW, the photo is a shoe I want now.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

mermaid meat


Here's another reason why I've started this blog. I can't stop thinking about what will happen when I die. I consider myself a Buddhist, and want to believe in the life after death and the reincarnation. But I can't completely believe that. When I die.....there'll be nothing?? I will just vanish away? This thought scares me.

In a Japanese (or maybe originally Chinese) folklore/superstition, it is believed that if you eat mermaid meat, you will have eternal youth/immortality. I want it! Usually in falk tales, those who obtain eternal youth have to bear lonley miserable life forever. But I think I can enjoy it. I'm just afraid of death. Yes, I'm coward. Because I love my life!

Well, I don't know where I can get mermaid meat, besides, I don't want to kill them. So, I just thought maybe I should have something to prove my existence.....even after I.....

Bobby Hebb


I was listening to this song, "Sunny" by Bobby Hebb (1966) on my MP3 player (not iPod..."mobiBLUE") this morning. I instantly loved this song, when I first heard it in this movie "Monsieur Ibrahim." Then I tried to download the song...couldn't find it anywhere. I searched his CD on eBay and everywhere on the web....I finally found it in a CD sold in Argentina! It seems that he is now more popular in Europe and in Japan than here. I've found mostly Japanese and British websites talking about him. Hmm.

BTW, "Monseiur Ibrahim" is a beautiful movie.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

to buy, or not to buy: that is the question

I bought a beautiful emerald green dress by Dolce & Gabbana at Filene's Basement last week. I have been thinking, thinking and thinking...if I should return this dress. It's soooo expensive. It's the most expensive clothes I've ever bought. $700!!! Well, the original price is $1,600. I tried it on and showed it to my friends asking their opinion. "It's f&$@ing gorgeous!" Steven said. I agree. "But you can buy fabulous dresses less than $10" Roberto said. I agree. Totally. I usually don't spend a lot of money for my clothes. I love cheap vintage clothes (especially from 60s and 70s). But there's something about Dolce & Gabbana. I have two pairs of D&G suits, each cost around $150....they make me look much much much better than I actually am. What should I do???

What a stupid first post for my blog. But I have to admit I love clothes. Oh, there's another stupid obsession I have now. Karen Walker high-waist jeans. I can't find them!

I'll try to write something more meaningful tomorrow. Or not.

Hello

I have felt guilty reading my friends' blogs and not having mine. I have hesitated to have a blog because I don't have exciting stories to tell...and my English is still shaky after living here in the U.S. for 7 years. Well, I'll give it a try. Let's see how it works...