Chapter 99

To get my tai chi instructionals, there are a few channels I check out a bit randomly on YouTube, one is by a guy who goes by Jake Mace, who seems to be quite the internet hustler with various video and Instagram ventures about the vegan lifestyle, living off the grid in a yurt, and of course fitness, tai chi and kung fu. After the 20-minute tai chi routine, I clicked on a related video of him at his yurt in the Canadian forest, doing calisthenics on homemade wooden structures, chopping wood and practicing kung fu moves.  I thought it was pretty cool but the comment section was full of vitriol and mockery, mostly about how ineffective kung fu is for self-defense or combat. There’s so much hater energy out there, especially when it comes to martial arts and combat sports. Some of it can be good fun banter and some is rightly deserved in the case of frauds and scammers and demonstrably bad people, but so much of that shit is pure toxicity.

It got me thinking about hater energy in general, which is observable in so many, if not all subcultures to some extent, including some I’ve been involved in. Music is definitely one, and just a few days ago I watched a short video by critic Anthony Fantano in which he advocated letting go of one’s strong opinionated attitude towards X artist or Y musical genre when among casual music listeners, which make up most of the population. Couldn’t agree more. And reflecting on that, one thing that might get the hater in me to emerge is travel, which has been my hobby for over a decade. I don’t hate on newbies or casual vacationers or people who don’t have the same adventurous (or as some might call it, recklessly stupid and masochistic) spirit as I do, which is very gatekeeperish and worse than being a hater, but I do harbor strong feelings of dislike towards the vast majority of the travel blogging/vlogging/instagramming grifters out there. Still, I try as much as I can to just ignore that shit and walk my own walk, like they say.

Speaking of walking, I got out with the dog, and he got into a bit of a staring contest with a leashed French bulldog. I started talking dogs with the granny holding the little pig-like creature, like dog owners are prone to do. She said she paid 25 000 yuan for a pure breed, and when I said our dog was free, she replied “But he’s ugly”. Second time in 24 hours!

I got to work and played what is alleged to be the 339^th best album of all time, Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson. I didn’t know she was such a big fan of the Napoleonic Wars. The album was pretty cool, some parts really reminded me of her brother Michael’s catchy pop. My workday went by like a breeze, five classes, with a lunch break at home eating leftover hummus and leftover couscous. I got back home a bit after 4 as per our Friday schedule, and did a calisthenics workout from a YouTube channel dedicated to that kind of stuff. I couldn’t do all the moves, my pull-up bar is too close to the wall to allow front levers and I don’t have anything to brace myself against to do nordic curls, but I improvised with furniture and equipment in my home gym and it was pretty damn hard, my whole body was pumped afterwards. The way calisthenics work is it uses only your bodyweight, so there’s a progression for each movement, as after a while it gets too easy to keep in an optimal rep range. I can only do the beginner or intermediate version for each and they are still pretty difficult to do with proper technique.

In the background I put on the Lotus Eaters daily podcast, they talked about the Derek Chauvin trial and looked at the report on race relations mandated by the British government. Apparently it concluded that the UK is a non-racist country in which minorities have tremendous upwards social mobility opportunities and the disparity in income and socioeconomic status can be explained by cultural, familial and educational factors. I don’t know why they had to play millions to an inquiry committee for that, seems like you can come up with that conculsion in a few minutes with Google and a pair or eyes. Of course, race peddlers from the industry of victimhood were very unhappy with these findings.

I took a cold shower, ate a bit of chicken and crab legs that I bought from the lady selling snacks in front of our building, and had a Rogue Dead Guy Ale. The girlfriend arrived from work, was jealous when she saw my beer, and asked for a strawberry daiquiri. I put the ingredients in the blender and prepared the drink like the loving husband I am. Then I hopped on my bicycle and rode to a bar in a shopping district 5 kilometers away, the dog came along and ran at full speed the whole time. It’s rather impressive to see how much stamina he’s got.

I got to the bar and ordered a burger and a Brewdog Indie pale ale. Our local chapter of the Hash House Harriers is organizing a big regional hash weekend in May so we had a meeting over a few beers, talking about budget, scheduling and other odds and ends. Then I rode to the main expat bar, it was packed, there were a bunch of old pals I hadn’t seen in a while. A good time was had. I made it home a bit after midnight and promptly went to bed.