Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

The soft power of China part 4

You know, I don’t expect LeBron James to actually stand up against China; he’s got too much vested interest with the country, what with his immense relationship with Nike, and his inroads into Hollywood production. So I wasn’t surprised yesterday to hear LeBron take a neutral position - like many players have - on the matter that started with a tweet by Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey in support of the Hong Kong protest movement.

However, I was very surprised and somewhat shocked that LeBron went further than staking a neutral stance: he threw Daryl Morey under the bus! James said Morey was “misinformed”, that freedom of speech has “ramifications”, and Morey was being selfish for not considering the consequences his actions carry downstream. This is wild stuff coming from a player who stood with Colin Kaepernick in his protests during the national anthem at NFL games.

I guess in relation to China, no one or entity on earth has enough “fuck you” money. LeBron, one of the richest NBA player in history, certainly doesn’t seem to.

Of course, the populace on twitter descended upon LeBron’s blatant hypocrisy, with Boston Celtics player Enes Canter - himself suffering the consequences of speaking out against the Turkish authoritarian regime - putting it best by tacitly pointing out James’ quoting of MLK, yet not living up to those standards. It appears to me an entirely self-inflicted wound: a quick “no comment” from LeBron would have sufficed. For sure there will still be naysayers, but the subsequent furor would be much less and likely subside once basketball season starts. In actually criticizing the substance of Morey’s tweet, James seems to have crossed a line, and the public is not having it.

I believe athletes - or anybody - don’t owe anyone a responsibility to take a position or have an opinion on absolutely everything. If an NBA player doesn’t want to speak on the China situation, that’s completely okay. It’s also okay if a player wants to support China; he just have to deal with the ramifications here in America.

This whole episode is far from over.

iPhone 11 Pro’s night mode is freaking awesome. The power of computation to overcome laws of physics is incredible.

Rest in peace, Choi Jin Ri

Today is a very upsetting day.

I woke up to the immensely sad news that South Korean singer and actress Sulli has passed away in her apartment; an apparent suicide. She was only 25 years old.

Depression is a monster.

Sulli used to be a part of the Kpop group f(x), a group I hugely adore and whose musical influence can be seen and felt in contemporary Kpop. f(x)’s second studio album Pink Tape remains one of my favorites ever. Since Sulli’s departure from the group I haven’t followed up on her happenings that closely, though I know that she’s since become a full-time actress, and even had her own pop-up store.

A beautiful life, cut short by the demons of the world.

I hesitate to play the blame game, but Sulli’s suicide has got to be on the hands of Korean Netizens. These cowards have relentlessly attacked and criticized her since her debut in the entertainment business, and it’s so sad and frustrating it’s turned out like this. No person should have to live with such constant ridicule, and even the strongest can and will wilt under such pressure. These keyboard warriors get to live on; would they feel an ounce of remorse? I wonder.

So I’m quite upset because I feel this could’ve been prevented. Jonghyun’s suicide nearly two years ago was due to his inner turmoil, while Sulli’s death was caused by external forces, of people’s inability to be kind to another person, just because she’s a celebrity. It’s needlessly tragic, and I can only tear up at imagining the sort of pain Sulli was in that led her to such a decision.

진리씨~ 수고 많이 하셨습니다. 잘 가세요.

Parked on the street because it can’t make it up the driveway without scraping.

The soft power of China part 3

The NBA’s ongoing scuffle with China in its refusal to outright condemn the remarks made by Rockets GM Daryl Morey has brought back to the surface of other incidences where companies and brands have capitulated to the whims of the communist regime. Noah Smith posted on twitter a list of such companies and their particular acquiescence.

I understand that these brands want to protect the Chinese golden goose: there’s shareholders to answer to, after all, but what I’m not understanding is how seemingly easy these companies are folding to the pressure from China, as if they themselves don’t hold any cards of power. Have they all forgotten about their own intrinsic value? Surely a product’s popularity in China isn’t solely because the government allows it to flourish; the product itself have to be good and desirable in the first place.

If China outright bans the NBA from broadcasting in its country, Chinese basketball fans will find a way to watch it regardless - because it’s a beautiful game. It’s the same reason we see Chinese nationals on twitter, even though the app is banned in China. Companies like Apple should remember a time before they were officially in the Chinese market, when Chinese scalpers traveled over the world to procure iPhones to sell back home. Rich people in China will find a way to buy Louis Vuitton bags even if China bans them from sale.

It’s simple: make something valuable, people will want it. Brands need to remember that they too have power, and removing their products from China via a ban by the government can be equally threatening towards Chinese consumers. Despite what some people have said, the 1.4 billion people of China are not a cohesive monolith; many will want an iPhone no matter what the government’s stance towards Apple is. Don’t forget that speech there is suppressed, and we in the west only hear from those the party want us to hear.

Perhaps the NBA should go: “Fine, we’ll cease our presence in China; sure hope Chinese basketball fans enjoy the CBA!”

PG&E is shutting it down

Starting today, PG&E is shutting off power to different areas of California, affecting some 800,000 households. According to the company, this is a necessary preventive measure to avoid a repeat of the devastating wildfires that have afflicted the state these past few years.

Imagine that, an electric company is unable to provide electricity.

Vast swaths of the Bay Area are effected by the scheduled blackout: the Caldecott Tunnel, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the region, will be shutdown due the lack of electricity to run the ventilation system; UC Berkeley and other colleges have cancelled classes for at least a day (must be nice); residents in affected areas are battening down the proverbial hatch: filling up the car and buying emergency supplies. It’s as if we’re preparing for a disaster event, but one that’s self-inflicted.

People are finding it entirely dubious (me included) that PG&E must resort to such tactics, endangering essential services and affecting the everyday lives of people in over half of California. It truly asks the question: why aren’t they instead spending resources towards overhauling the supposed old and frail electric infrastructure? Again, it really rings it home to say it again: an electric company is currently unable/unwilling to deliver power to its customers; I feel like we’re all made to suffer for PG&E’s own incompetence.

At least the company has setup “resource centers” to help people in a pinch when the power goes out, though according to the pictures, the accommodations look like it belongs at the Fyre Festival.

I have to be clear that I am definitely not advocating or showing nonchalance towards future wildfires: I think it’s important to be proactive in preventing the next big one. However, what PG&E is enacting the next few days just doesn’t seem like an appropriate solution, for the short and long term. No doubt bankruptcy proceedings is hampering the company from investing the huge amount of capital required to overhaul the grid, but either them or the state government will have to take on that challenge sooner or later.

Having to resort to rolling blackout, that we don’t even know for sure is preventing anything, is downright embarrassing.

The soft power of China part 2

In a surprising (for me) turn of events, NBA commissioner Adam Silver released a further statement late yesterday reaffirming Daryl Morey’s right to free expression, and that the league will not suppress or regulate the speech of its teams and employees. Later on in an interview, Silver recognizes that expression has consequences, but the values of the NBA are non-negotiable.

For a league that’s been pilloried by both sides of the political spectrum for kowtowing to China and seemingly choosing the profitable bottom line over American ideals, the statement by Silver puts a strong rebuttal to those criticisms. Prominent figures within the NBA and its media partners in America have been dancing around the issue to avoid further stoking the ire of the Chinese, so it is good to see the commissioner himself be so unequivocal.

Of course, as Silver himself stated, there are consequences. Apparently China remains unappeased with the situation, and Silver’s remarks is seen from their perspective as defiance. CCTV, the broadcast partner for the preseason games played in China - and de-facto state TV for the communist party, have announced they will no longer be showing the games; more Chinese companies have severed commercial ties with the league. It appears China will not accept any less from the NBA than a sincere apology and the strongest rebuke and condemnation of Daryl Morey: make him persona non grata.

This whole incident, stemming from a simple tweet of solidarity with the Hong Kong people by Morey, is far from over. It’ll be intriguing to see how Silver and the NBA thread the fine needle: uphold the bedrock values of an American company, while repair the damage with China, a country with an obvious different set of values.

The amount of non-Type R Civics I’ve seen with the Type R wing fitted is far too high.

The soft power of China

Daryl Morey, GM of the Houston Rockets NBA team, caused quite the stir this weekend when he tweeted in support for Hong Kong people fighting for their freedom. A seemingly ordinary and inoffensive tweet - for us here in America anyways - set off a negative chain reaction in China, culminating in the Chinese broadcast partner of the NBA to cease any and all operations with the Rockets.

The immense soft power of China was on full display, and in quick succession, too. To go from an “offensive” tweet (keep in mind that twitter is officially banned in China) to then mere hours later a total severing of relationship is surprisingly rapid. It certainly gets results: Morey was (let’s face it) forced to offer a follow-up concession for hurting the feelings of China, and the NBA office released a statement acrobatically apologizing to Chinese basketball fans without outright outlawing Morey’s right to free expression.

It’s amazing to watch all of this unfold. For better or worse, China is now the preeminent super power on this planet. The Chinese market is so lucrative for the NBA that it had to reprimand one of their own for supporting democracy! This is the same league that moved its All Star Game from Charlotte in protest of a bathroom bill, and is widely recognized as the most progressive of the major sport leagues.

I guess money still speaks louder than woke-ness, and when billions are at stake, capitalism will always triumph. Personally I’m not surprised the league groveled to China in such a fashion; let it be a reminder that it’s a machine to make money first and foremost, and the NBA support for progressive causes only goes so far as the impact on league profits. Hating on the orange man at the White House is seen as a positive; criticize anything about China is most definitely not.

Basketball players will speak to power on the treatment of migrants at the Mexico border all day long, but anything to say about the situation in Hong Kong? Not a chance. When actual paychecks are at stake, mouths will shut.

It’s interesting to watch.

Time to pay up to Chase

Yesterday I got charged the annual fee for my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, a quite hefty sum of $450 dollars. My Asian mother would never approve of paying a yearly fee for a card, much less one in the hundreds. Indeed, on the surface I do not fit the salary profile of a person who carries credit cards with high annual fee, but the beauty of Chase Sapphire Reserve is that it literally (?) pays for itself.

It’s just one of those things that catches you off guard when it shows up on your bank statements, like the annual membership for Amazon Prime. Just yesterday I wrote about being austere through the rest of 2019, and this charge was certainly a sudden shock. Thankfully, unlike Amazon Prime which has hiked its rates many times (I can remember when Prime membership was only $70 dollars), at least the Sapphire Reserve card has stayed consistently at $450 per year since inception. I’m very glad Chase did not follow the footsteps of American Express, who raised the fee of their premium Platinum card to $550.

It’ll be my fourth year with the Sapphire Reserve card, and as long as I remain traveling on a consistent basis, I completely make the annual fee back through points accrued. The $300 travel credit is still there, and that not only can reimburse for obvious stuff like airfare and hotel, but Uber rides and public transportation also count. Via rudimentary math, that cuts the net annual fee down to a manageable $150, which will get canceled out once I spend a cumulative $4,000 on travel and restaurants next year (a very easy target for me to hit.)

I reckon there will come a time when I will divorce from the Sapphire Reserve card and switch over to a pure cash-back variety (hello, Capital One!) I don’t suppose I’ll keep on traveling as I have done for the past few years, and at that juncture there won’t be enough appropriate spending to offset the annual fee. In the meantime I think Chase would be smart to split up the annual charge into monthly payments, because us millennials love that sort of accounting: my phone only costs me $40 dollars a month!