Chinese, Koreans, Conspiracies and Bath Panels

Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, let me right off the bat say now, that this blog entries title is not in any way my own form of shorthand in directing accusations towards anyone of an Asian origin that may or may not be involved in a conspiracy involving accessories of a bathroom nature.

 

No, it is merely the jumbled up thoughts and events that have happened to me in the last forty eight hours.

 

Friday night I was fortunate and honoured by my friend at work to be invited along to her birthday party. This particular friend is Chinese, as is her boyfriend and also were almost all of the birthday party guests, so you can understand why I, being the only person invited from work and definitely not of any Asian culture or background, felt both these emotions.

 

It was not the first time that I had met most of them, as I was equally honoured and grateful that they came along to my own hosted office quiz night, though it was the first time I met her long term boyfriend / fiance.

 

For a few moments I was not sure what he would make of me, as I still remember back when I first joined the company and having took quite a shine to her ( and not knowing she already had a boyfriend ) I finished a long running joke between the two of us by having a whole lobster packed in ice delivered to her in reception. Luckily for me he was kind and said that he had heard many things about me, but all good things.

 

The evenings entertainment was a karaoke party, and true to my best outgoing and sociable nature I managed to sing just more songs that anyone else without seeming to steal the show or hog the microphone all night. Although, admittedly, partly this was because I did actually know most of the songs ( well most of the English songs at least ) chosen quite well and also partly because I harbour a secret delight for singing when I feel fairly sure that people will not do their best to take the mickey and thus steal my confidence.

 

It was a great night, even if I did get all turned around few minutes after leaving the Chinese restaurant by a side entrance, for the private party function room above the main restaurant and had a winding circular set of stairs that threw me totally at eleven at night.

 

The second to last train home was shared with a bunch of overexcited half drunk teenage lads and laddettes, so of course for me this was a both a joy and delight ... NOT !!!

 

My Saturday was a bit of a shock after receiving an email from my Korean penfriend who had not wrote in almost five months. It was a very short email that didn't say much except that she was not angry with me, as I thought this could be why she was not writing any more, but instead that she is now married to an American G.I.

 

This did surprise me greatly as only five months ago she was still very much single and wondering if she will ever find true love and happiness. The fact that she can meet, fall in love with and marry in only four months ... to an American soldier posted in South Korea, to me seems an act of desperation or blinded romance.

 

Sadly for her married life is not how she expected it, and neither is he, and I feel that deep down she is regretting it, although I surmise that it is still too soon for her to come to terms and admit this out loud yet.

 

Sunday afternoon was spend trying to clean my bathroom and repair the simple two partition sliding shower rail. With no moving parts I could not believe that I have had to dump it rather than fix it after the two screen doors became jammed together and even after removing it from the wall mounts and hitting it with a big hammer it would not budge more than a few centimiters.

 

Sunday night I chose to watch Anzacs with my good mate only to be temporarily fazed by the fact that it was the wrong region for my dvd player. At this point my friend laughed and asked why I had not already unlocked it for all regions.

 

Puzzled I asked what me meant by that, and he simply informed me that there were dozens of free websites where you could obtain the unlock code for any DVD player.

 

In almost disbelief I felt obliged to at least go through the motions before telling him that he was mad, but sure enough with no more than a few seconds on google search up popped a site that had the correct unlock code, and free to anyone. Thats one in the eye for anyone who says the internet is all bad.

 

So within two minutes of turning my computer on to try and get the unlock code I was sitting back down with a drink in one hand and the remote control to a newly multiregioned dvd player in the other.

 

What makes me laugh is that he accepts that the whole locking is done as a way of increasing revenue, as is the locking of mobile phones for different providers, yet he still claims to be a staunched anti-conspiracy nut.

 

It never ceases to amaze me that people in general can easily cut through the lies spread by the government and the media on individual cases IF they have already experienced the truth personaly, yet at the same time they are willing to go blindly along with most of the rubbish around them  without any real thought and seem equally desperate to distance themselves from the"C" word.

 

If indeed it is true that "that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist" then so too must be that "the greatest trick the true men of power ever pulled was convincing the world that conspiracy is a dirty word".