Author: justin

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Over the last three weeks, I’ve been…

  • A student
  • A teacher
  • A costume designer
  • A film writer
  • A film director
  • A film editor
  • An actor
  • A cameraman
  • A sock puppet
  • A giant sock puppet
  • A news anchor
  • A referee
  • A general technician
  • A mini celebrity (referring to status, not stature)

In other words, I’ve been working on the program staff at summer English camp. More pictures (and maybe videos) will be coming.

Looking at that list, you will notice some important absences. While I’m not saying I did nothing more than the list denotes, I am going to mention that I could not include, say, correspondent on the list. Some of you have noticed. Most of you really didn’t. Either way, I did.

I’m not apologizing for my internet silence. Just explaining.

Go for the Gold!

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Welcome

I have long been a fan of making people come to my blog to read what I write. I have made a dramatic departure from that policy. Welcome, Facebook readers.

The reasons I wanted you to read from my blog itself are perhaps best illustrated by my most recent post. There is a youtube video and a popup link that just don’t work from Facebook. However, in an attempt to include as many friends as possible in my occasional musings and reports, I’ll give this a go.

I make no promises for its continued form or existence.

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Human Genesis: a definition

If I need a break from an desk-bound activity (say, grading exams), I sometimes hop on over to Youtube’s homepage just to see what they have featured. Within a minute or two I can usually find a video that is interesting enough to feel satisfied that I’ve relaxed and can go back to work. The feature tonight was Rube Goldberg machines:

Rube Goldberg was a genius, if only for the simple reason that he was clever enough to get his name attached to machines that would appear so clever as to forever link their designers with Rube Goldberg, in that the machine is genius enough to be associated with those genius machines Rube Goldberg created, or at least was clever enough to get his name forever attached to machines that would appear so clever as to forever… Feel free to repeat ad nauseam. Especially to friends who will think you clever for being able to rattle off such a gordian logic knot. Though I should warn you that if you try such a trick you very well might lose your friends unless a) your friends are actually amused, which would make them just the sort of person who would befriend a person who would read such a riddle and consider it something worth memorizing despite a rather snarky adjudication against the types of people who would memorize such a thing.

Of course, in that you ignore the warning, you exonerate its rather impolite perspective. A perspective which depends heavily on specification and generalization, to name a few, of the types of people who do certain things like read this blog. Or blogs in general, as a blog in specific is little more than a noted blog in general, as are its readers. Much like a reader of a book. An author, of course, certainly considers and crafts his creation to suit his audience, which is rather odd if you are writing a transformative self-help book. Forgive me—all books are intended to help selves, though which self is not necessarily publicly proclaimed and probably privately self referential and absurd. Which is a second reference in recent posts to such terminology (shameless self-promotion [pulled that out of the trite bloggy bag {like that? |yet another overused bloggerism—the direct appeal for comments ~though some of the blogging greats use such tactics ^shoutout!^~|}]). I think I just created a new emoticon.

…in a Rube Goldberg machine knockoff.

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It’s not what you know…

As I wrap up my first year in China and lube the skis to glide blithely into the second, I’ve given some thought to what I’ll do a year from now. I’ve realized that overseas journalism might just be my ticket.

I’ve been thinking about it and have realized that there are a few prerequisites to a career in overseas journalism.

  • Love of travel. Check
  • Love of writing. Check
  • Loving audience, or at least people willing to read your writing. Check. (Judging from the lack of response to most of my postings, I’m assuming here. However, no one can prove me wrong because that would require having read this.
  • Ability to appear intelligent and reliable. Check (see previous line for proof).
  • Silk scarf. Seriously, all the reporters in Asia have them. And while I don’t have mine yet, I consciously chose not to buy one in Thailand and Cambodia, so that makes me different, not underqualified.

There might be other stuff, too, but I think those are the basics. I thought I was in pretty good shape for this career, when my ponderings were confirmed.

I’m not announcing any plans, hopes or even desires, but I thought I’d share the joy of my first big break.

I was published in by an international media giant.

Knowing you would be skeptical, I secured proof (or you could go see it for yourself):
My moment of fame
Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, that “Justin J” in Changchun, China, is the rising star you discovered early. And before you go and pass it off as my commenting on an article online, allow me to direct your attention to the post heading: “Your letters.” It clearly indicates my piece of writing was subjected to scrutiny and selected for mass reproduction. It is not obstructed by a screen name or subjugated to the possibility of a user’s complaining about it.

I made it to the big time.

Actually, if you want to know the truth, they’re only returning the favor. Do you think it’s a coincidence that my feature in BBC’s Magazine Monitor came within a week of my plugging it? I don’t think so either. So, I know you’re reading this NY Times, but I’ve not heard from you yet. You could still beat Reuters, Slate and even the Onion. But you’ll have to work fast—the BBC and I are getting pretty cozy.