A really good shovel.

My Block is my village, my household my little patch of land I govern with my shovel.
My shovel, my spear, my weapon. Honestly I've never felt more in control of something. At least I have something to do. I can shovel. Even when it looks impossible, because the snow is light I know I can have a path cleared  within minutes. My overzealous helpfulness is sometimes met with suspicion and out right rejection. Whatever. The sidewalks are clear. I take out my frustrations on the snow that must be cleared. And then, after coming to terms with that rejection, I just started digging tunnels and building forts. Perhaps my body has just gotten used to shoveling and now I can't stop. I have developed techniques where I can thrust snow high and farther than I ever could have last year while simultaneously switching the shovel from a left handed grip to a right handed grip or vice versa mid air.  It would have been much cheaper if I had taken up this activity instead of Kung Fu as my hobby. Like that guy Seamus Heaney wrote a poem about. At the very least, my hobby would have actually made me some money instead of costing me money.

I love this weather. I love working up a sweat. Let's all by live in yerts and bow snowshoes. Let's start knapping beer bottle bottom shards to sticks and hunt rats. I don't care, just show me how.

I feel like I can do anything.

Maybe I'm insane.

Maybe I just have a really good shovel.

Video of Noah's Performance

This captures Jonah taking the orange from the dish. I think I should put in here that Noah had already eaten the "orange" and that someone had put it back into the dish. So actually Jonah was correct in taking the orange away at this point.

Chicken Sacrifice and a holiday visitor

Yesterday I was in Line to get fried chicken wings at Chinatown Cafe. Chicken wings and a rose. That was Grace's wish. You may say that is not very romantic. But what you want is better than something expensive that you don't want.

Anyway, everyone in line was buying whole chickens and the words "bai sun" which means bowing to the gods was thrown around. Basically the chicken would be a sacrifice, and then it would be eaten by the family directly afterward. Chinese are very practical.

But what Holiday was it? Chinese New year is next Thursday. The only thing I could get from Facebook (and not asking anyone in line because I didn't put this all together until I was walking home) was that people were probably just doing the Chinese New year's dinner now since they wouldn't have time later.

Hey Jews don't change their holiday dinners to fit in with the work schedule do they? Maybe Chinese are too practical. Actually what would really be practical would be a Chinese Holiday App. I know there is actually some sot of Holiday every month. And most of it just means you eat.

But I wasn't sure if this was  some other pre-new year holiday I was supposed to do sacrifice a chicken or if everyone was just doing stuff early despite having to wait in the snow. Not that I have an altar in the house.

This morning I woke up to see a child standing up on our bed. I thought it was Noah, but things were out of focus. I moved my foot to gently kick where Noah's legs would be. But they weren't there. I had a moment of panic as I put my hand down and felt Noah's body. The other child, which looked a lot like Noah was looking at Noah. I wanted to go back to sleep but I was sort of afraid for Noah somehow. The part where the child's head was shifted and then faded away until it was actually jut the light on the ceiling.

This reminded me of a time when I was a child and I woke up to see a bunch of Chinese kids sitting on my bed eating rice happily until they faded away before my eyes. They weren't trying to hurt me, but it still freaked me out.

This little visit from doppleganger imaginary Noah made me wonder if I had somehow missed an important holiday and some child ancestor was looking for the chicken he was supposed to get.

But hey we can just get a chicken on Wednesday right? Or maybe today we'll set up a little pretend altar and do a pretend chicken just to ease my mind and give the kids something to do.

Noah Performs for his Class

Today Noah's class did a common Valentines and Chinese New Year's and Tet celebration. Another family did some explanation of Tet and Chinese New Year and Lai Si (every kid got one with a dollar) and then explained the traditional Ao dai (pronounced Ao yai)
Then I did the Lion Dance story and Noah performed his little dance. Jonah did not hold the tail, instead Noah's friend did. The only thing I didn't like about it was the drum I played did seem loud enough. It was loud enough at home but failed to fill the space of the classroom. It was just so exciting to see my son perform and to drum for him. But I need to get a real drum or at least a louder drum.

I didn't get video but hopefully the teacher got some pictures and hopefully the other family too.

I was going to bring the Big Lion head but then realized now that Noah can actually do a real lion dance, who needs me to do it? I mean maybe the bigger head would have been a little more exciting but it might have also been scary.

The next thing up for Noah in terms of performing is our little parade we will do on our block. Maybe Jonah will start practicing so that he can participate now that he saw that it can result in a performance.

Jonah was pretty excited about being in school. I think he will do well next year.

Yoga Fu

I was working on this idea for a while. The name Yga Fu, seems to simple and silly, but Grace started calling it that and I haven't thought up a better one. Basically it is Kung Fu adapted to a map, and instead of doing a form, you try to fit in all the stretchy stuff even if it doesn't make martial sense.
It started off with two separate manuals. There was one that was Tibetan Yoga Kung Fu, that might have a pirate theme, and the other one was lion dance themed. I stopped working on it because the pictures were harder to do than I thought, and I realized that the origin story would have to come out of theis other novel I was working on Aravel, which is like Lord of the Rings meets Lion Dance. So I've been working on THAT book only. But I have been practicing my Yoga Fu to develop it further and to master it.

The basic thing it started from was this.

A Kung Fued up Sun Salutation. Like a Sun Salutation but with Gung and the Warrior one stuff done just like how it's done in Tian Gong Kuen.

Then 100 Chuen kuens or straight punches.

Sun Salutation, 100 Pows, Sun salutation, 100 cups, Sun Salutation 100 been ngaus (back fists and hooks), Sun Salutation, Punches with leg lifts, Sun Salutation 100 Walking punches backward and forward staying within the confines of the mat.

That worked with Noah a few times but then he got bored. Actually looking at it now, it looks like a lot. Even in it's basic form. But say, if you ever studied Woo Ching White Crane at our school even for a summer, you could look up Sun Salutation and some version of this. Actually I guess you would still need some instruction in the variation of Sun Salutation.

Dam it that was the simple version? Well I've made it even more complicated since then adding in strikes to the Sun Sequence. And then there is also a moon sequence which incorporates back bends. It still simple though because anyone can do these moves or some variation of them.

Then I went ahead and added my 10 animals from wheels on the bus, but made it more free style. Basically it's become something great for me, but I'm not sure it would be easy to follow anymore. Someone certainly couldn't see it once and then memorize it and work on it at home. It's not like the 5 Tibetan rites. Which is sort of what I was aiming at in terms of simplicity.

Giant Icicles

I didn't really want to knock down the giant icicles. They were pretty. But our downstairs neighbor and Grace thought they may cause damage to the house. Okay I thought so too. In truth, we have a couple of leaks but they are not anywhere near where the icicles are.
Another part of me really did want to knock the icicles down, because I knew it would be fun, but I thought Noah might get angry.
"Why did you do that!" I imagined him saying.
"I want you to use that Samurai sword to cut them and I will video it." Grace said.
I thought that was unnecessary but if it was for entertainment purposes.... okay.
Some part of the icicle, like normal icicles, just felt after being touched. But some really did indeed require the sword. In fact, the cheap sword, a manufactured replica of Tom Cruises sword in The Last Samurai, sold at one of those mall antique shops I would go into except that Grace wanted to priced at either $15 or $25, (so how can I not buy it even though it is utterly useless to me) well, it bent. Not only did it bend the weak way where you would think cheap metal would bend, but it bent where it should have been strong too. And by the way I did not swing hard. Well I didn't want the sword to snap off and fall below or somehow cut me (I could care less that it is broken like I said it is of no use to me) so I got a stick. In retrospect I should have used the ice chipper. But I didn't realize this until I had knocked all the icicles down by spearing them with the stick (if they were thick) or touch or whacking them (if they were small or simply not at a good angle for me to spear.
Stick form techniques came in good use. In fact, a lot of those techniques were pretty useful for shoveling too.
Here's what I've learned.
For usefulness: tools like you get at home depot. Those are better for shoveling, hitting and even fighting if you ever had to.

For Look or decoration: Cardboard or paper mache on a stick. You can make any sort of fantastical weapon or even animal head on a stick and even perform Kung Fu with it as long as it doesn't have to hit another stick.

Anyway, Noah squealed in delight as I hacked at the icicles. We got a video. Grace's choice of background music accompanying me gingerly touching the icicles with a sword made us laugh pretty hard watching it.

An Imagination Problem

NPR did a story yesterday about Policing in America. I've written about this before so I'm just going to summarize my thoughts.

Is it a race problem? 

Of course it's a race problem but frankly that' not going away for a really long time. With all the protests and even other stuff, that's not going to help much sorry. The being organized part, that will help. Too bad Malcom X was killed. He could have actually solved this problem now. 

Is it a police problem? 

The thing is because there are a lot of "good" cops, even victims, even black victims of police brutality still want to say, (at least on the radio) that they trust police. Part of the reason is that if you take away police completely something will fill that power vacuum. It will be gangs who are even worse than police. It will be lynch mobs who are even worse than police.  So in that sense, no it is not a police problem it a police power problem. No matter how good of a person you are, power will corrupt you. 

The power problem. 

If you beat someone and people support you, you will continue to beat people. If you cavity search them and you believe you are helping them, you will continue to do this. If you kill and you get away with it and told you were right, you will continue to do it. You're very moral compass will be warped and tainted to the point where you can watch the same video everyone else watches and see something completely different.

The brainwash problem

There are plenty of white people who agree there is a problem. But why do so many people (probably there are some older black people too) who support the police whenever these things happen. Let's not talk about Eric Garner. Let's talk about Henry Louis Gates Jr. Why do so many black people, after hearing the whole story turn on the professor, saying he should have never acted in the way he did, even though he was in his own house and old and a professor with a cane? Why did they turn on him when any old man who is tired and feeble has the right by law to say whatever he wants on his own property?

The reason why there was protest over death but not over simply being arrested (especially arresting a professor) was because now everyone realizes they can die. 

But the reason why nobody rallied for Henry Louis Gates was this, to rally for Henry Louis Gates would mean everyone, even whites, would have to admit that they aren't free in America. Even people who haven't had any problem with police, haven't had a problem because they are lucky. It is completely within the power of the person pulling you over. If Master is a good master like Benedict Cumberbatch in 12 years a slave, then you are lucky. But we change the story in our mind to say, "If  you comply like a good citizen then the Master will be a good master like Cumberbatch. It is only people who are bad boys and girls who have these experiences with a bad master."

Or

It's not that I hate Masters, it's just some individual masters take it too far.

Even in the language of the good cops on NPR you can hear a problem. They ask members of the community if anything is going on and tell them to please call in so they can do something about stuff that happens in the Community, even if it's just drunks yelling. Having called the police many times for a many number of things as a teacher and someone who ran a martial arts school, what I learned was the best and most Moral Cop, Jesus in the form of a cop, cannot help the situation. The only thing he can do is catch a murderer after he murders. Catch a thief AFTER he steals. 

The problem is people don't realize that what police are actually for what they should be for, is to work for the community. Members of the community should be able to go up and question police and see if THEY are doing there job. If not, then we are all under occupation. But to accept that is difficult, especially for a white man who follows the rules. How can he accept, that he, who might have even memorized the declaration of Independence and believes in the meta-narrative of the history of the United States, that even HE, the older white man, is not really free.

And even more so, 

How can a GOOD cop, who also believes in this meta-narrative, who became a cop to end the tyranny of murderers and gangs accept that ultimately, his real job is actually to keep the people down. How can he accept that he doesn't really work for the people in his position, he works for the Law, which is not made by the people in reality, but by the highest lobby. The cop sees himself and herself as the Savior, the Hero. Con can he or she accept that it may be the system and the position that they hold, that feeds them that makes them defacto, a dog keeping sheep in line. Yes they protect from the wolves, but also they keep the sheep from going and becoming men. They makes sure the sheep are used (perhaps not always killed) but used. And Sheep that look rebellious or look like they are transforming are killed. 

A good cop can never accept this. So they change the story. They didn't kill a sheep, they killed a wolf in sheep's clothing. It isn't the other cops fault, there must have been some other factor. As long as everyone follows the rules, things are as they should be. This is better than actually looking at the reality that things are not as they should be, that even they, the good dog, is being lied to by Master. That they are not even really part of the family and one day, like Old Yeller, they can be taken out to the barn and shot.

The system itself is a problem. We always explain this away by pointing at a third word country run by gangsters. But as Americans, we were founded to do better. We were founded to change the system even when we ourselves are hypocrites. We are supposed to have ingenuity. We can figure something out. If not steal ideas from those other developed countries that are actually working.

We can have the imagination to create a better society than the one we live in instead of leaving it up to THEM. Because even if you don't vote, THEM is us.