04/15/24 - Do international students get accidentally addicted by breathing in second hand marijuana smoke?
“Warning before reading:
This blogpost is not suitable for reading while eating. If you insist on it, be prepared for the consequences.
Alright, now that that’s over, let’s begin:
A grandma once went to Beijing’s Wangjing District and strolled around, and was drawn by a restaurant named “Budae jjigae”. There was a picture of a hotpot on their sign, with meat and veggies and noodles, like some kind of foreign version of a Dongbei stew. Later on, I learned that the “Budae” in Budae Jjigae refers to the American military, stationed in Korea.
After the Korean War, there was a big food shortage in Korean society, but the Americans had plenty of supplies. They’d throw away a lot of canned meat and stuff as soon as it’s past the expiration date, so a lot of Koreans would gather around American bases and grab these cans that might not have gone bad yet. They’d take them home and cook them with some spicy sauce, and it’s become a Korean signature dish, the “Budae Jjigae”.
A lot of people make fun that the Koreans were the Americans’ garbage disposable, but it’s honestly not that bad. After all, Americans were pretty wasteful. They’d throw away unopened, untouched food by the crateful. It was enough to feed all the local Koreans. So “eating Americans’ left overs” sounds gross, but it’s not like they were literally digging through trash cans.
But Korea wasn’t unique. There’s another country in Asia with American bases, and these people are actually eating garbage. They’re not just eating garbage, they’ve even come up with a local name for it. It’s almost become a signature dish for them too.
This magical country is the Phillipines.
Due to the Phillipines’ shocking corruption, inconceivable politics, and weirdo laws that don’t allow contraception or divorce, although their capital of Manila has plenty of fancy skyscrapers, it’s still surrounded by massive slums. Some people say that half of Manila lives in or around the slums. Although the numbers aren’t too specific, that’s still plenty horrifying. These city slum dwellers don’t have their own land and they don’t have anywhere to go, so they have to scavenge in the city, and literally eat rich people’s left overs to survive.
Due to western influence, hamburgers and fried chicken are very popular in the Phillipines. There’s even local Phillipines chains selling them. When rich people and the middle class eat these meals, they always have some leftovers or drop some crumbs on the ground or leave a little scraps on the plate. Usually, these would be thrown into the trash. When these restaurants close at around 10 to 11PM at night, the stuff in these trash cans would be hauled to the landfill by garbage trucks. And slum dwellers waiting nearby will charge up and sift out anything edible out of the newly dumped trash, which is mostly a lot of bones with a bit of meat clinging to them. Of course, it’s usually not just meat clinging to these bones, but also napkins, snot, toothpicks, maggots, rotten bits…
They’ll clean off anything obviously inedible, and the slum dwellers will put the meat and bones into a separate bag. After they’re done sifting, they’ll sell these bags to a middle man. Yes, there’s a middle man that buys leftovers. Just before daybreak, the middle will sell this slop to a slop cooker, that is, a pagpag seller.
Pagpag comes from Tagalog, a native language in the Philippines. It’s a onomatopoeia, referring to the sound of brushing dirt off of food. Wow, that’s descriptive indeed…
And now, it’s time for the pagpag store owner to show off this skills. Since these ingredients are awful, you obviously can’t steam or stew it. So every owner has their own secret recipe. Some add a ton of spicy sauce, some add a ton of spices, some people will add bread crumbs and deep fry it. You can separate it into all kinds of varieties, some adobo-style, some Cadreita-style, but it’s all the different between boiled slop and fried slop…
Basically, they weave their own individual magic to make this slop taste semi-normal, or even appetising, so that people will come and buy it.
That’s right. You need to pay for this shit. A serving of this type of pagpag costs about 1 RMB, and the Filipino slum-dwellers love it.
You think this is their normal daily food? What are you talking about!? This is their fancy meal! They can only buy it if they’ve made good money today, or their kid is behaving, or they need to go do back-breaking labour all day. Then they’d shell out for some better food. Normally, they wouldn’t waste money like this!
Honestly, I have no idea what their daily food is either.
Of course, there’s no way eating like this doesn’t affect your health. A Filipino slum is like a breeding bed for bacteria, with all kinds of cholera and hepatitis that it’s become a part of daily life. Filipino experts are always calling for slum dwellers to stop eating these literal junk food.
I’m just wondering, like, do these Filipino experts think poor people eat garbage because they just enjoy the thrill of challenging the limits of the human body? Isn’t it because they have no other options? Nothing else to eat? What should they do, starve to death?
Now, pagpag’s so popular, that it’s become a calling card of Filipino cities. There’s no way to get rid of it entirely. So the government’s come up with a brand new way to try to put a stop to it.
They’re calling out to rich people to not waste food. Once there’s less garbage, obviously, there’ll be less people eating garbage. Perfect logic! Infallible!
Obviously, you can imagine the results of this policy. If the Filipino government was capable of doing its job, would something as inhumane as pagpag even exist to begin with?
To this day, pagpag is still everywhere in Manila slums. There are even renowed stores that sell it. There are old ladies who claim to make truly authentic pagpag, in the true artisan style, proud that their pagpag has never killed anyone anymore, drawing tourists from all over the world to get a selfie at her place…”
Comments say, “I’m about to throw up my breakfast.”
“I’ve seen this pagpag covered on the Discovery Channel before. The little kid on the show really enjoyed eating it.”
“Also a fun fact, back in the day, poor people would buy the trash of noble households too, with a couple of bronze coins. So, treasure your modern life, guys.”
“Just got some gossip. There’s a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor who’s often praised as “magical”, who often gets celebrity patients. He says that female celebrities usually come see him for psychological problems, mostly depression and anxiety. And male celebrities usually come to see him about infertility.
If a celebrity has mainstream sexual orientation and claim to be child-free, then it’s probably because there’s something wrong with their reproductive system. Either they’ve got bad sperm or they’ve got bad eggs, and they’re not going to have kids anyways, not even with the help of technology.
Among rich people, and celebrities count, nobody’s actually child-free. Even if they’re gay, they’d figure out a way to have a child of their own.
And then I saw another news story that if a guy claims to be child free when he’s young, and commits to a child free lifestyle with his wife, then he’ll probably regret it once he’s older. The problem is, by this point, their wife is usually too old to have kids, so they’ll find some other woman to have kids with.
Do we really not have any child free men in this country?”
Comments say, “How is it possible for men to be child free? Reproducing is in their nature. They all seek a legacy. Why else would women have children and give them the man’s surname? It’s to preserve his legacy. He wouldn’t be childfree unless he was really, truly, absolutely infertile.”
“I have a friend who is, born in 1997, straight man, decent qualities (985 postgrad, average height, normal looks, parents are teachers, has a house). He just likes travelling by himself and playing video games. Doesn’t plan to get married or to have kids. He just plans to live with his cat until he dies. But this type is super, super rare. I’ve only met one in all my years.”
“They have no uterus, but they sure do have a burning need to reproduce.”
“Did I do the right thing?
Last week, a young girl at my company asked me for two days off this Thursday and Friday. I asked her why and she didn’t want to tell me. I figured it was an emergency, so I didn’t press the issue and approved her leave. Today, I said, “You gotta make up for your time off. Come in for work Saturday and Sunday. That way, you don’t get any wages deducted.” That’s when I found out that her long-distance boyfriend is visiting and she wants to spend time with him. So I had to tell her, “When you come back, be prepared to resign.””
Comments say, “Did she sell herself to your company? Why would you approve her leave? Why would you ask why she needs time off?”
“Collect evidence, report it to the labour department, go through court, get double your salary in damages. Capitalists need to realise they can’t do whatever they want.”
“How long has she been working there? Does she have annual leave? What’s your leave structure look like? You’re the one that just assumed she had a family emergency. Why would you get mad about it? If you have no clearly defined regulations about leave, then either hire a proper HR manager or suck up your own mistakes. Why can’t employees take time off for just vacationing?”
A tiktok video of the famous Chinese doubled-sided embroidery. “If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed this. At first, I thought these two master craftsmen were sewing a monkey together. But then we circle around to the back of the fabric, and it turned into a doggie! It’s a single piece of fabric, a single needle, a single thread, but they can make two completely different animals out of it! How magical!”
Comments say, “But the colour isn’t even the same on both sides?”
“I’ve literally never heard such a thing was possible before! It’s amazing the way they can bring two animals to life with just one needle and one thread!”
“How teachers teach geniuses, good students, normal students, and an idiot. This metaphor is so accurate!
Teaching a genius:
Teacher: The key to sour soup noodles is ginger and green onions…
Genius: I got it.
Teaching a good student:
Teacher: To make a tasty sour soup noodle, you need to cook the fragrance of ginger and green onions into the pot first, so that your noodles become flavourful.
Student: I got it.
Teaching a normal student:
Teacher: To make a sour soup noodle, you need to first heat oil until it’s hot but not smoking, then slice ginger and green onions and put them in. Cook until fragrant, then pour in warm water. Once the water starts boiling, you can add in noodles. We all know how to cook noodles, so I won’t waste everyone’s time. Wait till it’s about right, then add spices, 2g salt, 2g MSG, 2g chicken essence, half a spoon of soy sauce, three spoons of vinegar. Taste it and add in more of whatever is lacking, and you’re done.
Student: What if it still doesn’t taste good?
Teacher: Just practice more. Or you can run through the steps in front of me and I can try to identify what the problem is.
And after a bunch of practice, most students get it.
Teaching an idiot:
Teacher: To make sour soup noodles, you must first heat oil until it’s hot…
Student: How do I know it’s hot?
Teacher: You can put your hand above 5cm above the oil. Can you feel the temperature?
Student: What if it burns me?
Teacher: It won’t burn you from 5cm away.
Student: But oil will splash.
Teacher: Oil won’t splash if there’s no water in it.
Student: But how do I know there’s no water in it?
Teacher: Didn’t we cover this in third grade? Once you’re done washing the pot, heat it over the stove until all the water evaporates. Then there’s no water anymore.
Student: Oh.
Teacher: Now hold your hand over the oil.
Student: What oil? Weren’t you just telling me to wash the pot?
Teacher: …….”
Comments say, “Nah, true idiots don’t even know what question to ask.”
“What’s wrong with idiots? Idiots can drive geniuses crazy!”
“It really is so accurate. As a maths teacher, I feel wounded T_T”
Question: “What the lowest amount of money you can spend on keeping yourself alive?”
Answer: “You can eat pig feed, bro.
How do they make pig feed? Soy beans, peanuts, sesame, corn (after it’s been rendered for oil), wheat husk, high carb, high protein, low fat, all purely organic. No need to fear malnutrition, and there’s even specially added vitamins. I’m not bragging, but pig feed is probably healthier for you than whatever you’re eating right now.
The kibble they make is pretty easy to digest, and has the texture of like corn puffs that we used to eat as kids. It’s not as tasty, though, and kinda pretty gritty, so it’s hard to swallow.
But it’s 3 RMB per pound. If you eat a pound a day, that’s just 3 RMB a day. If you buy it in bulk, it’s even cheaper. You can get free hot water at a hospital. If you melt it in hot water, it’s even easier to eat.
Once you get on this diet, you’ll poop once a day, and each poop is gonna last no more than 3 minutes. You’ll never have to worry about constipation again.”
Question: “Germans are having marijuana parties to celebrate legalisation. What do you guys think? How’s this law going to change things?”
Answer: “It just occurred to me that we could make a movie using this theme, like a Mummy 4: The Curse of the Qing. Protag is some white guy who happens upon an artefact from some ancient tomb that ended up overseas. He discovers it’s a treasure maps and goes tomb raiding, and finds it’s the tomb of some Daoist friend of Lin Zexu [politician whose opposite to the opium trade sparked the First Opium War]. The Daoist zombie fights the protag, and the protag gets a peek into the Daoist’s memories, and sees Lin Zexu gets fired as a result of opium, sees him lose his family to opium, and sees the Daoist become a favoured official by Empress Cixi’s side. The Daoist goads Cixi into declaring war on the Eight Nations Alliances, drawing them to invade China, and after China surrenders, the Daoist cursed the Boxer Indemnities, that any country that spends the compensation will become addicted to drugs.
The protagonist eventually beats the Daoist, and the Daoist laughs as he presents the protag with gold and silver. The protag is worried about a curse so he turns it down, and the Daoist dies. The protag returns home and tells his daughter goodbye as she heads out the door to meet up with her friends, thinking that he’s returned to his peaceful life.
But on the TV, news is playing of America, Canada, and Germany legalising marijuana. And her daughter meets up with her friend and accepts a marijuana cigarette from them…”
Comments say, “There needs to be a final shot at the end, where the protag finds a single bronze coin in this pocket that was snuck there by the Daoist before he died.”
“Do international students get accidentally addicted by breathing in second hand marijuana smoke?”
“That’s not even as good as Warrior Wolf 3: Adventures in Epstein Island.”
Question: “If you made 10 million a year, even if you had to pay 9 million a year in taxes, you’d still be comfortable. Why would rich people try to dodge taxes?”
Answer: “If one day, 10 million fell out of the sky and I had to pay 9 million of it in taxes, I’d hesitate, but I’d pay the taxes. If God told me that 10 million is going to fall out of the sky for me every year, then I wouldn’t even hesitate on paying 9 million in taxes every year on time.
But if I earn 10 million by running a business, and I have to pay 9 million in taxes, I would do everything I can to avoid those taxes.
Why? Because I had to work hard to earn that money, and I had to accept risks. It didn’t fall out of the sky for free. Just because I made 10 million this year doesn’t mean I’m going to make this much every year. I’m shouldering the risk of however much leverage I had to add to make 10 million a year, and work my ass off, just to make a mere 1 million at the end of the day. Who would be okay with that?”
Comments say, “Don’t make committing crimes sound so just.”
“Bullshit. Without a good environment for entrepreneurship, how would you make any money at all?”
“What do I care what you’ve been through?”
That section about how the teacher teaches different students is very reminiscent of a section in the Passover seder, where it lists four types of children and says how to educate each type about the story of Passover (the four types being the wise child, the wicked (or, in some translation, thoughtless) child, the simple child, and the child who doesn't know how to ask)
> Boxer Indemnities, that any country that spends the compensation will become addicted to drugs.
The United States returned its portion of the Boxer Indemnity in 1907. This is how Tsinghua University (and several other elite universities) were founded. The US also refused to take territory in China despite being offered it by the Eight Nations Alliance. This fact seems totally unknown in China. It seems like it's important to some sense of national pride that the United States humiliated them. Which just didn't happen historically. The US has a colonialist past in the Philippines, Cuba, etc. But not in China.
Sometimes I feel like a lot of this way of thought was developed to oppose Europeans and then sloppily repurposed to talk about Americans. If you want to say the British repeatedly invaded and humiliated China then that is true. But the Americans are not the British. The US was actually on China's side in most of those wars.