jooksings.com

I've moved this blog over to a wordpress format and have changed the domain directly to jooksings.com rather than a forwarding page.

check it out here. www.jooksings.com

Switching over blog engines

I apologize to my readers. I haven't posted in a couple days because i was prepping some backend work because it's time. I'm finally moving over to the wordpress engine and using only the domain of jooksings.com rather than a forwarding page. The engine is a lot better to work with and i'm seeing a lot more potential with it. I just wanted to take the time to thank all my readers. I try to update this blog as much as i can and hope that you can continue to support me. When i see you leave comments i'm more than happy to respond...when i hear others praise the content, i'm ecstatic...when i hear people criticize the site, i'm open ears to your suggestions.

Chris

How to maximize your red packet earnings on Chinese New Year

I wanted to wish all my readers a Happy Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the pig and it's time to collect!! Chinese New Year's has always been this funny tradition that i've always tried to understand growing up in the america's. I've learned a few things over the years and i'm happy to share them with you. Just stay away from me when i get married!

First and foremost..you have to respect the tradition. Chinese New Year is about fortune and prosperity so you'll have to follow a few guidelines first.

Wear red when going to dim sum, dinner, and/or some weird orange eating ceremony.

Why do you need to wear red? Red symbolizes good luck and you don't have to listen to your parents nag at you. Just stay away from any calgary flames jerseys, red shirts with skulls or devils on them, and if you don't wanna suffer from bad pictures...put the sanrio stuff away. (unless you are 10 years or younger)

Clean the whole house BEFORE Chinese New Year.

Why clean the house? firstly, your parents will see that you are actually doing something productive. Secondly, you can't clean your house on Chinese New Year because it brings bad luck for the rest of the year! It's believed that cleaning the house sweeps away the badluck and makes the home ready for good luck.

Brooms are BAD!!!

Do NOT bring the brooms out on Chinese New Year. You'll sweep away the fortune.

Showering and/or bathing is BAD!!

Why is that bad? Apparently, you'll wash away the good luck for the rest of the year. Plus, hair in cantonese is "faht" which is a homonym for "get rich" so if you wash your hair...you just washed away your wealth for the year. It's a bit gross...but f*ck it...i can do a couple days without showering...i'm not gonna screw around with my lucky money.

Do NOT CUT YOUR HAIR

The same reason as above. why would you want to jeopardize you year?

Know your new year sayings.

This is one of the most important things you should know. If you don't know chinese for shit...then just memorize the following...you'll just seem smarter to the rest of your asian family..who knows...they might slip in an extra 5 or 10 bucks. That's lunch man!

Gong hay fat choi
Sun Leen Fai Lok
Bo Bo Go Sing
Chut yup ping ohn
Sun Leen Dai Gut
Say Gwai Ping ohn
Leen Leen Yau Yu
Mahn See Yu Yee
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE OF ALL. "LAI SEE DOW LOY" or if you speak mandarin you can say "hóngbāo nálái"

you can help me add more. I'm a jooksing...i'm limited to these ones. haha

Target the married couples.

Offer to drive them to the party. Call them on their phone. Just get them to come out to the party because once a couple ties the knot...it's no hold barred...they can't hide anymore. They now have to give you the red packets. If you are nice, you can go easy on them...otherwise...lai see dow loy!

Party with the elders

You have to respect your elders and this is a perfect time to do that. Have some fun with your family. You don't wanna sing karaoke at home...but just do it..have some fun. Drink if you want to...maybe it will get you in the mood. just be content with rice wine.

Do not refuse food

You may not know what the hell you are looking at but it doesn't matter. Eat up. It's a rude thing to not eat the food at the table. Plus, relatives that see this might give you a dollar rather than the 10 dollars.

Try to stay young as long as possible.

If your family is like mine...as you get older...your red packet amount of money gets smaller. Try to stay young and act happy. Talk about your good grades or how you are starting up your own business. It will only help you get the most out of your new years.

Count your lucky money in private.

Don't hold it up to the light. Don't open up the package in front of everybody. These things are disrespectful and you need to show face.

Doing these things should help you maximize your lucky money opportunity.

From one Jooksing to another...

Gong Hay Fat Choy.

so..again...wtf is a jooksing?

Many of you are still wondering wtf a jooksing is. Let me try to explain because there's not really a concrete answer...which is one of the reasons why this blog exists in the first place.

if you look up Jooksing in wikipedia it says "Jook-sing" means a grain-measuring container made of bamboo. Bamboo is hollow and compartmentalized, thus water poured in one end does not flow out of the other end. The metaphor is that "jook-sings" are not part of either culture: water within the jook-sing does not flow and connect to either end."

Anyway, Nowadays, the term jooksings is still used in a derogtatory term..usually from your fob buddies or ignorant parents from HK.(well..from my view anyway) I knew the term but i could never explain it to anybody so i hope that i can help you.

What is today's modern definition of a jooksing? I believe that it's our job to define that word. If you are reading this blog and you can relate to some of the topics that i write then you are helping me define the word.

In a nutshell we are asian but we may or may not know how to speak the language that our parents speak (or grandparents), we are either born outside of asia or moved when we were young.

The Black community has their own cultural icons of hiphop music, martin luther king, ali, blues music, bob marley, reggae, cosby show, lebron james, etc etc...

The Asian community has cultural icons like bruce lee, jacky chan, karaoke, toyota, instant noodles, korean dramas, etc etc...

BUT...notice i used the word Asian and not the word Jooksing. Jooksings is for sure a niche market. Theres so many of us and we make up a huge % of population. The jooksing community sadly has well known icons as sigh...William Hung....SHIT...I can't think of anybody else that has a foot in the door for cultural icons.

While i know that I'm leaving out the few like margaret cho, bobby lee from mad tv, kristen kreuk (i used to date her...she just didn't know it.) My point is that even in the media...we are pushed aside into one group called asians and that's why we get associated with stereotypes.

So please help me carve out a definition of what a jooksing is. It may forever stay an inside joke to all of us...but it will help us create cool new things like asian commercials for asian products...in english. I mean..can you imagine..a Soya Sauce advertisment in english specifically marketed to Jooksings only? that'd be crazy.

Chris.

Valentine by David Choi

Since today is valentines, I thought I'd introduce to you David Choi and his Valentine's song. I think it sounds great. David is from the Los Angeles area and is a songwriter/producer/singer. He's Korean and he doesn't have an accent. In fact he sorta sounds like John Mayer. I've been listening to some of his stuff on youtube and on his myspace site at www.myspace.com/davidchoimusic. David seems a little monotone at times but he's actually really funny. Watch his vlog and he'll answer lots of questions from the public. He seems like a real humble guy so please support him in anyway you can.

FUSION: Year of the Boar concert in Las Vegas

Can you imagine a concert with Kanye West, MC Hot Dog, A-mei, Gnarls Barkeley, and Jackie Chan? It sounds far fetched but it's actually happening. East meets West in Las Vegas this year as FUSION 2007 by AOB media combines the biggest names in music from Taiwan, China and the US onto one stage at the Aladdin on Feb. 13 and 14.

Other acts also include Lupe Fiasco, Supergirls, Mayday and shin band. This should be one hot event!

via fusionyearoftheboar.com

Snowboarding Idiocy Day 2

Snowboarding on the hills was nice this morning. I was really feelin the glades. It's nice and smooth powder down here and every jump feels like you're hoppin on marshmallows. It wasn't too windy until about 3:30...then it started to come down heavy. I was pretty messed up from the night before and my muscles are sore. I'll post my video of going down a hill later but i wanted to post pictures up before the sun rises so people can see stuff when they rise from their hangovers. haha.







you can see more pictures on my facebook profile. Don't forget to join the jooksings group.

How to do an asian squat!!

This is some funny stuff. Daniel Hsia from Los Angeles puts on a hilarious clip of something that all asians can relate to. Everything is so funny when it's true. Jooksings like us don't squat like this because we want to blend in but have you ever had a friend or a cousin from HK or Taiwan and they squat like that???..you think it's funny but you don't say anything. hahahhahaha



That was awesome Daniel. It's great to see someone make such great shorts like you.

Snowboarding idiocy- Day 1

I've been itching to hit the slopes this year and I really need a vacation. I need the rest. It's been crazy managing this Jooksings.com project and my day job at Pressure.org. I signed up to a snowboarding trip a couple months ago with DC Events. I love snowboarding. I live for it. I can do it all day and night. Maybe it's because i'm from out west in calgary. I'm here for 3 days and i'm going to live it up. I don't usually drink...so i'm going to this weekend.

My friends and I went up to Jay Peak Resort in Vermont. It's nothing like sunshine village or whistler but out east...it's not bad. Better than Blue mountain...ugh.

Here's some video's and pictures of day 1 in vermont.Jay Peak Tram that wasn't opened.

10 of the 20 dollars i won at poker! suckas

pizza party...most ppl took them back to the room. sux. it's freakin windy!

me gettin' ready

I climbed out the window here to board down the back balcony.

that didn't go too well. haha.

this is how windy it was.
just a picture i like.

Where to get a quality haircut for 7 bucks

I refuse to go to American and Canadian Franchises like Supercuts or Fantastic Sam's because frankly everytime i go...it aint so super or fantastic. In fact, i feel like i'm getting ripped off and they just don't understand asian hair. on the other hand...I'm not really into steppin into salon types of places for my haircut because it will run me up to 30 dollars for a haircut not to mention the hour of time that i have to waste plus i have to remember to book the time. (i'm a busy guy...i just can't do that no more.)

If you're like me...all you want is a 15 minute haircut, light talking, a shampoo with a light massage, a rinse and out the door you go. It's challenging to find a chinese place that can do all this. One time, I went to this place called Onyx Barbers in Downtown Toronto and i had the worst haircut ever. Maybe it was because the place was full of black guys and girls. Not that they can't cut...just that they can't cut the asian style i want. but whatever...i had to do it cuz i had a meeting in an hour and i didn't feel like driving around. The place was cool though...I watched Rush Hour 2 during my haircut.

So...i resort to cheap chinese places. There's a few around the GTA and they all have silly sounding names. If you are in Scarborough, then it's "david image design" and if you are in Markham, there's "Hong Kong White Rose Salon" That's where i go. Just turn a blind eye to the old ladies walking around in slippers, the crappy bathroom, the popo's sweeping the floors, and there's usually a middle aged woman with badly dyed blonde or red hair that looks like she wants to smoke a cigarette. Whatever though...the place is actually pretty friendly and i've been going there for the past 2 years. They cut my hair in fast time. they don't screw up and the blonde hair lady is always smiling. It's at highway 7 and valleymede and is beside a mcdonalds..you can't miss it.

Bobby Lee - 24 clip with Mary Lynn Rajskub

My favourite tv shows are 24 and Heroes. Bobby Lee takes two of my fave shows and produces this hilarious clip. I love when he scrunches his face to travel in time. That is classic!

Loreal Paris with Gong Li

Gong Li is a very respected female actor in my books and she looks amazing for being 41 years old. She's the spokesperson for Loreal Paris and here she is in an advertisement for revitalift double lifting cream. Whatever that means. Girls...help me out here. what does it actually do?