Taomeow

I started late, first with taekwondo, and loved it. Up to that point, everything I was ever good at was self taught -- I'm an avid learner but I hadn't been all that lucky with teachers of anything until then. Absolutely no exceptions in school (where I was either afraid of, contemptuous of, or indifferent to my teachers), and just a few at the university. So, it was my first-ever experience, and very late in the day at that, of feeling humbled by a teacher, seeing him as a role model, admiring his skill. He spoke very rudimentary English, most of the verbal instructions were roared in Korean (as though the louder and scarier they were given, the better they would be understood and followed). The overall approach was harsh bordering on merciless -- I felt as though I'd enlisted in the Korean army. But there was this fountain of vitality about the whole thing, dynamic, raw, triumphant in its disregard for complaints and limitations that made me feel awesome afterwards. In a few months I began transforming from a non-exercising woman used to feeling physically fragile, weak, vulnerable into someone who felt like "a woman of power." I had to quit due to external circumstances -- and then I scored for the second time, and bigger, with my taiji teacher. That was 20 years ago. (I won't go into that though, I've a pretty detailed taiji blog in my PPD...)

I thought twice about it too after you mentioned that you "fear to go there." I haven't got as much steam for "controversial" subjects as I used to. And way too many stories to tell on top of that... no steam for telling them because not every political climate allows for the freedom of, um, speech (among other things), and the current one is very evocative of what I used to know and hate and fear in the Soviet Union. Just the flip side of the same counterfeit coin. So, I'm not sure it was a good idea after all...

@blue eyed snake Thanks for telling the story. I didn't know it was this bad in the Netherlands, by the way... There's never been a thread here that I recall dedicated to WW2 -- everybody is too young to have been part of it personally (I think), but family, previous generations -- some of us heard many first-hand accounts of what it was like. Tragic, heroic, terrifying, or just "during the war we sometimes couldn't even buy chicken for a reasonable price" (an American relative of mine, my mom's cousin, sharing memories of wartime privations). I think it might be interesting to start such a thread sometime.

Since WW2 so many well-promoted books, articles, movies, TV series etc. appeared which depicted how scary, ugly, stupid, drunk Russians, in the nearest future, will unleash their troops and bears and balalaikas on this or that innocent country that it's small wonder. It's institutionalized bias, not something grass roots. But with the Germans, it's the opposite?

That's what Joe Rogan opined in one of his podcasts I recall. He asserts that his MA friends and acquaintances who are accomplished fighters are the chillest folks ever in everyday life. They let off all the steam and release all their aggressive impulses in training and sparring, and lose the need to act them out in their interactions with others outside the training hall.

Not even the French? A French friend of mine here in CA is Anglophilic to the core, and another one, who's British, who has dropped out of school at 15 and wouldn't be able to tell Shakespeare from Dickens if his life depended on, loves it here because people usually assume he's a college professor based on his accent alone. Whereas I've witnessed another friend, a Russian, who IS a college professor (genetics), treated by strangers as an uncouth ignoramus and talked down to like she's 5. How did you guys pull it off?

His taekwondo ranking was honorary (unlike in the other martial arts), he got it from the World Taekwondo Federation (which is known to have given it to other leaders it liked) when things were good between South Korea and Russia, but then they took it away as part of the sanctions. He practiced martial arts since age 11. I don't think it would help though if more world leaders trained in MA -- they used to, in the olden days, but wars be warring. Although a karate match between Trump and Biden is something I'd definitely buy a ticket to see. At the very least choosing a winner in this olden-days fashion would have been no less meaningful than the modern way, and much cheaper for the taxpayers.

And I will counter with, it's NOT OK anymore in the 21st century to casually insult people of color in the style of the 19th century. Toward Russians it is STILL OK and encouraged and pretty much unchanged.

George Orwell, "1984." It was the rationale offered for perpetual wars between the three major superpowers owning the world -- Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.

Probably people from Eastern Ukraine, overwhelmingly speaking Russian as their first (and often only) language and culturally (as well as ethnically) indistinguishable from Russians (unless they belong to one of the 100+ minorities also living there.) I seem to recall you posted a video at one point where someone British attempted to explain the real history of Ukraine. I didn't watch it all but the bits and pieces that I did see seemed on point. Nothing is as straightforward there as the official narrative has led most people to believe.

"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." Russians can be pretty horrible too. Really horrible. I could say the same thing about any other people. I think the advantages and disadvantages in the way Russians are perceived, aside from political manipulations, stem from the fact that Russia is, historically/culturally, not part of the West and not part of the East ("between East and West and neither") yet has been avidly absorbing stuff from both for centuries and, in its turn, returning influence both ways. A spectrum of consequences, from multicultural allegiances to multiple identity crises, is inevitable. Here's an episode from a near and dear's biography to illustrate some of the contradictions. One dark, bitterly cold evening I got a phone call from him, which turned out to be that one call someone is allowed to make upon having been arrested. So, he was arrested in Manhattan for stealing a book from Barnes and Noble. It was a book on quantum dynamics, for professionals in the field. He slipped it under his coat and got caught. Not that he couldn't afford that book, he was a VP at a major bank at the time. But he found the price appalling. It was something like $60. He thought it was unfair to charge so much for scientific curiosity. The whole episode is very Russian. Thanks for the funny way you made me blush, by the way

Yup. Especially considering that it's not some fleeting trend, it's a reliable, solid tradition that's a no brainer to embrace. To illustrate how hoary and respectable it is, here, e.g., is a popular depiction of a Russian from a very successful 19th century American magazine of "humorous" cartoons:

Looking at some of the comments made me wonder if we should add to the rules about no bias based on race, sex, gender, religion, nationality, etc.. an amendment: "except for Russians, obviously." Just to make sure that anyone in need of insulting particular groups or individuals toward establishing their own superiority is reassured that their needs will be met and they will be provided with a legitimate officially approved target -- since so many former untermensch categories are now off limits to them.

Gypsies, visionaries, fortune tellers... welcome to TDB I have nothing like that in my own makeup -- to my knowledge, the only unusual ancestor I had was French, and the four generations that went before me were scientists. Which may explain why I had to study taoist "spirit reading arts" like feng shui, bazi, the I Ching, etc. -- the taoist way to know what you're not supposed to know. You have to put me into a supernatural context for me to manifest supernatural feats... but once I'm in, I'm in... in for a penny, in for a pound. As for "proof" -- some of those contexts could run circles around any which proof obtainable "objectively." Part of my ayahuasca adventures was dedicated to visits to the upper and lower worlds, and I met demons in both. Many. What made the experience particularly interesting was the fact that later, when I was out of the rain forest and back in civilization, I saw artistic depictions of exactly the places and some of the creatures I met. The first one in Iquitos, the world capital of ayahuasca they call that city, so the internet cafe in the center of the city was adorned with paintings by the local ayahuasquero artists. Well, visions are visions, artists are artists... but one particular painting made me gasp and almost scream. "I know this place! I've been there! I know these creatures! I've seen them there! And this one bit me on the arm!!!" It was a place in the lower world, with its inhabitants, scenery, everything as I remembered it. If I was thinking clearer (I still wasn't -- for about three weeks I was in and out of "Her Waves," as I called that in-between-worlds state), I'd inquire about the possibility of buying that painting. Or at least finding out who the artist was... And then in Lima, I went to a museum dedicated to pre-Columbian art and saw a number of pieces there that depicted creatures and surroundings exactly from my visit to the upper world. It was as though people who lived hundreds of years ago had visited the same place, not of this earth, under the same circumstances, met its inhabitants, and then left accounts of those visits in bas-reliefs and tapestries.