March Ramblings

Big Brother is at it again.  They have blocked 2 blog sites over the last two weeks and I fear that they may do the same for Xanga.  If they do, my premium services will have gone to waste!!!  Let's see, I've had Xanga for about 1,000 days, technically, I've spent about $0.10USD a day.  Or, assuming an average of 3.5 blogs a month, $28.57 USD per blog.  (Article here.)

For my friend Tito's birthday, his girlfriend, Carol,  rented a limosine and we spent an evening riding around Shanghai with Jay-Z in the CD player, windows rolled down halfway (child protection windows) and sharing 6 bottles of Moet & Chandon.  Being the exhibitionists that we were, we showed up at the clubs, got the driver to park on the sidewalk and 8 of us scrambled out of the 6 person limo.  The funny thing is that it was agreed that we should act nonchalantly about riding around in a limo in Shanghai, as if it were a common thing for us, but jumping out and taking pictures of each other in front of the limo quickly gave away our subtle intentions.

Speaking of which, my friend, Tony, is trying to bring Jin from the Ruff Ryders to Shanghai for a concert.  I wonder how that will be received?  What I do know though, is that hip hop in Shanghai is really starting to take hold.  The hip hop clubs you go to in Shanghai now play most of the latest tracks, albeit commercial ones.  All these kids I see are really starting to deck out hip hop.  There aren't really any rap videos played in China, so most of their inspiration comes from asian stars who look to the realest hip hop stars in the US.  As much as China deems hip hop as a genre that is culturally offensive, you can't stop the kids here from embracing it.  The way they understand it though, I'm sure is much different.  It's rebellious, lots of swearing.  What about the bling bling?  Isn't that what it's all about?  For real.

I need to make a more conscious effort in limiting the length of my posts.  But can you believe the deep dark secret that Sloane keeps???  That's CRAZY!  And I know you like the picture of the Chinese ship from my last post... CRAZY.

Happy birthdays to Rob, Andy, Charissa, Elita, Danielle, Carol, Chris and Grace!  Congratulations on the engagement, Karen!

Baby Baby Baby

I can't get over Alicia Keys's track "You Don't Know My Name".  The tune is so catchy, and the video is pretty neat.

Looks like I haven't been using my newly premium services enough.

It also doesn't seem like people are too interested in the Chinese sailing expiditions of the 15th century.

For those who are too shy to admit that they are interested, I'll continue briefly... Essentially, the authour continues in his novel to outline evidence that he has been able to connect to his theory either through reasoning or from actual evidence that has been found over the centuries.  Some of the claims he makes includes:

1.  Flora along the coasts of America, North and South, originate from Asia and could only have been brought by these Chinese travelers

- Botanists tasked with finding new medicines also brought their knowledge out with them, Menzies claims that among other things, these botanists had planted plants that are of Asian origin in areas that they planned settlements in, or met people to trade with

2.  Pockets of native communities in the Americas contain Chinese DNA

- It's not important where, but he basically says that some Native American tribes have Chinese DNA and theorizes that some Chinese concubines were captured and forced to stay with their captors.  In other instances, Chinese would have settled in areas where they could mine for precious metals and established ports.  This was particularly evident in Australia, where there were also traces of Chinese DNA in Native communities.
- Also, Menzies claims that Native folklore have myths and stories about large sailing homes in the water (the Chinese ships apparently looked like floating houses) with friendly people dressed in long white robes from them (the Chinese wore long silk clothing in robe form)
- Also there are claims that there are Chinese wrecks and architectural buildings along the coast of the Americas.  Too detailed to get into though.

3.  Asiatic chickens prevalent throughout Americas

- From my understanding, Menzies claims that chickens in different parts of America were chickens from the Asian area.  He postulates that they were brought over by these Chinese junk ships and in relatively large number.  Since chickens cannot fly, how else could they have got there?

Also of note is the fact that Menzies used to seafare himself, which sets him apart from all the other historians.  There is not much physical evidence about this because at that time, there was a lot of political turmoil in China, and years after the grandoise expeditions set sail, it was determined that this was a big waste of money and the Chinese destroyed everything that had to do with sailing, exploring etc.  All records, ships everything was destroyed leaving historians little evidence to trace history with.  These historians criticize Menzies' theories.  However, since Menzies had experience sailing, his argument is that the Chinese must have traveled to certain areas simply because water and wind currents have for millenia gone a certain direction.  Taking certain givens and knowns, he made his assumptions in a large part based on things like this.  It goes on and on and on. 

Happy Birthdays to Jamian, Mars, Tito, Michelle, Harmonie, Sandy, Jay.