Street Dogs

One of the many immediately recognizable differences between Taiwan and Thailand are the Street Dogs .

The first week I was in Taiwan I made a comment to some other students that had studied in China about how Fat the street dogs in Taiwan looked. I walked through the FuRen Campus on one of the first days I was in Taiwan it was also one of the first days that the students were on campus. Everywhere there were groups of students preparing dances for a year opening show, and I saw some students feeding the dogs. This was heartwarming and it reminded me of the street dog that used to run around Zhejiang University campus with clothing and shoes that the students would buy for and put on the dog. The dogs on the Zhejiang Campus were very skinny and mostly small, so I was wowed when I saw the Fat and tall dogs that ran down the streets of Xinzhang. I was told that in Taiwan many people will buy puppies and when they start getting too big, the owners will drive the dog far away from the house, somewhere that the dog can't remember the way home and let it go.

Since arriving in Thailand, to Khao San rd, a major tourist destination of Bangkok I have noticed that that street dogs are skinny when compared to the dogs in Taiwan. Also they strangely are missing large chunks of fur, the only dog in Taiwan I noticed missing hair was missing it in a thin bad around the mouth where it had been muzzled and the skinniest street dog I saw was "Three Socks" a three legged dog that lived near our hostel. The dogs also seem dirtier in Thailand than they were in Taiwan. More to come on the issue of street dogs.

Biddy or not?

Biddy!?

Today I learned a new word. Well, a new slang term. My friend who is in a fraternity mentioned something about how he and his brothers refer to women as "Biddies". In it's most innocent form a biddie is a young, single attractive woman or a way to refer to a friend but it currently connotes a specific social group of women based on appearance. This use leaves no value for these individual women.

It pissed me off that my friend would use this term. Especially when he talks about his fraternity being known as the "gentleman's fraternity" on his campus. This title seems contradictory because of the dangerous effects using a loaded slang term to refer to members of the opposite sex poses. Biddie's etymology and current use is best explained by this definition listed on Urban dictionary (in England Biddy is an old woman):

"Biddy" is actually a very interesting word because it has two separate origins, both fairly well-documented, which is unusual for a slang term. The primary meaning of "biddy" is "chicken," and it first appeared in the early 17th century. The word probably came from the nonsense syllables used to call chickens -- something like "here biddybiddybiddy," I suppose. By the late 18th century "biddy" had been adopted as a derogatory slang term for women, much in the same unfortunate way that "chick" was in the 1960's.
However, "biddy" in this sense might have died a welcome death had it not been for the influx of Irish immigrants into the U.S. in the early 19th century. Young Irish women often had their passage paid by upper-class American families, for whom they would then work as domestic servants while they paid off their debt. The practice was so widespread that such women came to be known as "Biddies," from a shortening of "Bridget," a common Irish women's name. This use of "biddie" reinvigorated the word, and ever since it has been employed by insolent children to torment their elders. [And still is in England]
Sometime in the last 20 years or so, the term was recycled to mean a woman of any age...

From here biddie's meaning continues to change, this first reinvigeration was perhaps when men started referring to attractive women as biddies; women react in two ways (three or four if we count apathy or ignorance) to the use of biddie. Some women have reclaimed the term biddie from the common use which implies shallowness and slutishness, they are in fact proud to be referred to as a biddie and will call their friends biddies. There is one particular facebook group - yo mad biddies - (the creator of this group is male) where men and women bond over the title biddie: the men are in the group to look all the attractive women and the women come to flaunt their beauty and submit photographs of themselves under the title biddie. There are also many facebook groups that are groups of friends who refer to eachother as biddies. There are also a variety of "self-help" facebook groups that detest the people known as biddies. One of these groups is called "Stop the Biddie Revolution!". The description of this groups is (the creator of this group is female):

Biddie: A high maintenance girl who, though reasonably attractive, is usually meant to be a space-filler at parties. She travels in packs of fellow biddies and does not offer social skills or intelligence. Biddies usually keep to their pack of biddies and rarely leave other than to have sex with some guy. They can be seen drinking bud light from a straw so they do not smear their lipgloss. They play beerpong only when shitfaced, and they suck. Often described as a "dumb ass bitch who sometimes sluts around." These girls are usually invited to parties so that the guys at the party can get laid, easily. They wear mostly preppy expensive clothing and Ugg Boots (if you see a girl wearing ugg boots and there is no snow on the ground she is 99% likely to be a biddie). When taken away from the pack one may find the girl is not actually that bitchy, or that slutty, or that dumb, but when in the pack she resorts to group mentality.

LETS BAN TOGETHER AND END BIDDIE-ISM!!! We must stop this now before all girls get a bad rap. If you know someone who is fighting from biddie-ism, or if you are suffering yourself please join this group. If you would rather hang out with girls who actually have a brain rather than a bunch of dumb space fillers join this group.

This particular definition of biddies resonates with the fact that my friend does say that biddies are a large portion of the population attending the fraternity parties on his campus and the other times that he has said that all the women who go to fraternity parties just want to have fun. By "have fun" he means: dancing, drinking and finding some one to hook-up with. This makes me not really optimistic about the potenital effects using the term biddie will have on way that these men will veiw women. For example, my friend considers himself quite worldly but when he speaks about his experiences at fraterntiy parties and talks about the women who attend the parties this it is very obvious that the world he is part of is much smaller than he realizes. Being part of this community has has created a set of terms for him to apply to this very small sampling of the population, but this sample seems to him to be congruent with all women on his campus and most women in America. This is very dangerous, as Stop the Biddie Revolution acknowledges, the context in which a women will be refered to as a biddie is just one portion of this women's life, looking like a "biddie" doesn't reduce the IQ, modivation or the character of a women. This is exactly what lipstick feminism tries to show us, women can symultaniously be smoking hot and highly intellegent. The idea that most women, even on college campuses where this term is most often used, fit the discription of a biddie issued by "Stop the Biddie Revolution" is false. So the use of biddie in this way creates a warped ideal women atleast from the prespective of a non-leg-or-armpit shaving, teeshirt wearing woman that does not want her character to be judged by her appearence (I don't deny the importance of presentablity, but the reality that it comes in many shades and styles).

Using a term that can be applied negatively to a wide variety of people limits the potential for interpersonal relationships. For example, how many times does "Look at those fricken' hippies!" lead to a conversation between the speaker and these hippies? Not very often. Perhaps in situations like these negative words are only used if there is already limited to no intention for an interaction. However, it is when people approach another person or percieved type of person with only negative bias and no hopes for communication that misunderstanding and hatred are bred. This happens between cultures, nations, religions, sexes and it can only lead to further seperation and eventual conflict unless people recongnize what their preconcieved notions are and work to test them. Not every mindful interaction will be positive (all sterotypes have some truth) but they will be more honest and this breaks the idea of a stereotype as a controlling reality. I've seen this in action in Bangkok. I was afraid of comming to Bangkok. I was afriad Bangkok was going to be all prostitution, despiration, sexuality and attempts to swindle the farang. Coming (I've only been near Khao San Road) hasn't changed this but it has made me understand what part these aspects play in daily lives and the economy, or, in other terms: why they are present. This understanding puts me at peace with Bangkok and leaves me wanting to learn more about it. This desire to further understand a person I would hope would be a leading motivation any time a person interacts with another.

I know Biddie is just a silly code name used in a Fraternity and that my friend doesn't used it in it's worst form, but i can see how its use has impacted the way that my friend enteracts with reality and in this way (because is it objectifies, simplifies and reduces the creditablity of women) its use poses a problem. I posted a picture of my self under the title, and question Biddie!? and wrote this long post about what I percevie the potienial dangers of biddie's s use are, because I wonder who I, or any woman becomes when she is viewed only in varrying degrees of biddie-ness.

Appendixes:

Further examples of the horrible uses biddie can have:

1) Another definition from Urban Dictionary:

A dumbass bitch, usually 18 or younger. picture it: short shorts, ugg boots, string straight hair and mad eye makeup for a high school frosh. they go out at night looking for the party so they can get shitty on mikes hard, cheap wine, or other people's alcohol. they have a bun on the top of their head as if they rolled out of bed looking like a pre-pubescent prostitute. being a biddy means being dumb is the cool thing to do.

2) The words that appear as links of ideas associated with "biddy" on Urban Dictionary:

biddy bitty, slut, girl, biddies, biddie, bitch, whore, sex, ho, old, chick, hot, fuck, woman, chill, prep, pensioner, biddy fiddler, head, hot girl, jawn, mamacita, fogie, holla.

3) The discription of "Biddies R' Us" another facebook group founded by a women against biddies:

Biddies are skank ass hos. We are not biddies. We are ANTI-BIDDIES! If you are a biddy and try to join our group we will kick you out!

biddy- bi-dd-ee- (noun.) often times classified as a girl who thinks she is the shit but is in reality just a stupid, little, smut that boys make fun of behind her back as she is sucking their dicks completely oblivious to the fact that she is being used. Often times, "biddies" are found traveling in packs, or groups, wearing tight ass jeans and shirts that expose their often pierced belly buttons. Biddies always wear too much make up and always straighten their hair and put it in weird ponytails, occasionally on the side of their heads. FOr Example-- boy:yo bitch come over here biddy: hahAHhaha like, whhy!? boy: i want my dick sucked, come on its fun Biddy: hahahah like, are you sure its fun boy: yeah trust me biddy: hahaha okay but i need that one beer it takes for me to get retartedly shitfaced first hehe lol


the following is a quote from a grimy guy in 30th street station, "eenie meeney minie mo, catch a biddie by its toe." its just too easy, isnt it?

Ponderings on Collectiveness

One crisp winter evening during my freshman year in College, I walked about a half mile from my dorm to a hill that rose just over the lights of the campus. The moon was bright and illuminated he snow covered ground. The bite in the air was not unpleasant, it did not cause wind and it prevented clouds from covering the sky, the only variation from black and stars was a halo caused by moisture framing the mostly full moon. I was armed with my film camera and a notebook. I tried to capture the scene (the photographs weren’t every engaging never used them, I think that the negatives now live in a box under my bed) then I wrote. The words flowed out of me, I wrote about the universe and our connection to it, the springs, summers, autumn and winters of a person’s life and all life. I ended without knowing how I began or what I had written other than the last paragraph resounding in my mind. The final question lay in whether humans were like snow, individual flakes that become part of grand and growing snow covering, or whether since we are all born without knowledge each of us has to re-invent the world for ourselves. This excerpt from The Origins of Inequality by Jacques Rousseau delves further into a scenario where we each must learn the world.

Let us conclude then that man in a state of nature, wandering up and down the forests, without industry, without speech, and without home, an equal stranger to war and to all ties, neither standing in need of his fellow-creatures nor having any desire to hurt them, and perhaps even not distinguishing them one from another; let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation; that he felt only his actual necessities, and disregarded everything he did not think himself immediately concerned to notice, and that his understanding made no greater progress than his vanity. If by accident he made any discovery, he was the less able to communicate it to others, as he did not know even his own children. Every art would necessarily perish with its inventor, where there was no kind of education among men, and generations succeeded generations without the least advance; when, all setting out from the same point, centuries must have elapsed in the barbarism of the first ages; when the race was already old, and man remained a child.

Teachers, parents, friends, books and all of our experiences create our personal worlds, it is also their existence that allows for men to not to remain children. In our seminar classes we often talk about Chinese/Eastern societies as collective and Western societies, specifically America as not. However, the simple fact that I have a language to that I can communicate with, a language that was given, and taught to me implies that society is by definition collective.

Every individual creates their own world based on their experiences, if we imagine our worlds as circles of Venn Diagrams, there must be a part that can overlap with any other person we meet, people from our home culture we might have a larger overlapping point initially but upon inspection we may find we have similar ideas to individuals all over the world. The point my classmates are making is that, current Chinese culture is born out of two teachings that would say individuals have large common areas, Confucianism and Communism. Confucianism which gives a system in which people in a society should interact with each other, if you apply the Venn Diagram visual to Confucianism you would say the teachings designate points that circles overlap with others in a society, and the designated points might incorporate more area intrinsically than if you tried getting to know someone and discovering commonalities. Your circle might overlap more with your mother based on Confucius’ teachings than if you tried overlapping only where interests were shared. The idea of communism in our diagram example would hypothetically combine every person’s circle into one.

I would say that I assume overlap with individuals I do not know based on how compelled I would be to help them if I knew how, there is no one I would not help the same is true for my friends. Following this example I assume a commonality between myself and others so I was offended by the statement that American society is not collective. I have found some truth in the statement for example: I am studying what I want to(the definition of a Friends Global World education) because I can, as opposed to my Chinese friend who is triple majoring and studying economics so he can be assured a good job, and will be able to support his family. On a material level, since China is not on a rationing system anymore, families in both countries still purchase food together but everything else varies case to case (as does the example of food).

I think it is up to the individual how to how many people and in what circumstances they incorporate others into their world. Right now, I am trying to incorporate too many ideas to attempt to make any solid arguments so I am stepping away. I would like to continue with the visual of the Venn Diagram to show relationships, between, people, societies etc perhaps do this in each country we visit, and separately discuss compassion for others and what the religious traditions describe compassion as. I have learned by flushing these ideas out that that I understand compassion as making someone/something part of your collective.

NYS Absentee Ballot!

This evening I returned to room 205 of Tomorrow's Star after: attending a Qigong class, being held captive at a local Tudi Gong temple and made to watch incomprehensible Taiwanese opera while sucking on a milk candy a sweet silver-toothed Ayi gave me, eating dinner at "the cheap place", and purchasing glue to fix my badangle as well as a really cool eraser. When my eye beheld an AWESOME sight!

My New York State Absentee Ballot!!!!

I have done my best to recreate the wondrous event with writing enhanced by photographs:

I walked across room 205, past my roommate's bed, desk, and dresser. Glancing at our mirror before focusing my eyes on my desk. I saw something strange, an envelope. Who would be sending me mail? Conclusion: No one. It wasn't very long before I recognized the red squiggles above the address as the "Official Election Mail" logo that appeared on my absentee ballot registration form! During the afternoon's excursion I pondered when my ballot might arrive, tentatively concluding that the ballot would arrive after we left Taiwan.

My mother had informed me that someone from the voter's registration office had contacted her stating that the office intended to send the ballot to my home - as that was the only place they were allowed to - despite my request for the ballot to be mailed to Tomorrow's Star. I heard reports of the ballot's printing, but assumed it would take days for the ballot to arrive at my house, days for my mother to bring it to the mailbox and weeks for it to arrive in Taiwan. So, I was hopeful but not optimistic that it would arrive prior to our departure. Consequently this was my reaction:

(For the visually illiterate that is me saying "Yeah!!" not just making a pig nose.) In my ecstatic state I opened the envelope, hardly allowing a moment to breathe from the time that I sighted the red-squiggled envelope to the time that I was dumbstruck by its contents.

Hence, the face of horror.

Luckily all of the physical contents of the envelope, how to vote, and how to submit the ballot were well explained. Unfortunately, while I have my mind made up on the presidential election, I have 5 other things to vote for that I am not even moderately knowledgeable about.

I thought this voting thing was going to be easy. I recounted my ballot receiving experience to my teacher who accurately summed up my feelings: "Yeah, we think we are concerned citizens then it comes to a simple thing like voting..." I certainly have some research to do before casting this bad-boy. While the major party candidates - the de facto bipartisanship of American politics does not tickle my fancy; however, I recognize it is a present reality - appear in more than one place in the voting booths as they do on my ballot? This seems strange, wouldn't it increase the likely hood of a miscount?

I don't know; but, I do know my badangle is back and the weather in Taiwan the past two days has been just as fantastic as the New York autumn I have been homesick for.