We read it the newspapers. We hear it on the news. We see it in the bookstores. There are countless programmes on countless networks. Those all about serial killers,murder,dark obsessions and other things that go bump in the night. We tend to forget despite all the media attention that is normally focused on the US that there are places in the world that have similar obsessions. We not the only ones with this obsessions as I have learned thus far.  It seems to me compared to Asian television,books and other media outlets we are no where near how bad it could be every time a new,dark,evil person appears on the scene either.

Out of all the places in Asia I have researched about in this quest for Murder Most Foul Japan seems to be leading the charge in the amount of media that is published about the latest crimes and victims. It comes in the form of comics,interviews,TV shows and perhaps most disturbing of all is a cannibal with a food column in Tokyo. Just what I have always is food tips from someone that had romantic notions with the entree that happened to be their date for the night. Disturbing to say the least. Everywhere you go there is something to capture the imagination about this subject,Japan is no exception to this rule.

While the subject that I have chosen has evolved and it has devolved as well in the fact that it is too easy to stay focused only on the crimes and not the pop culture aspect which is easy to overlook given the subject matter. Where does one go from here then? To delve further into the pop culture pheom that is murder in general and to discover why it is so popular if not often discussed in the polite society that is Asia. Why the Asia people contiune have their own slight obsessions with murder most foul.

When we think of Hong Kong the first thing that pops  into our minds is not usually someone offing someone in particular gruesome  manner. More to the point Hong Kong brings to mind the beautiful waters of Victoria Harbour,the fireworks of New Year’s Eve,exotic travel of the Far East and more often than  not a James Bond movie or two. Murder,serial murder in particular,is rare in the tiny city island that is Hong Kong and in fact in the history of the area that has been only two known serial killers recorded. Which for the people that live there is probably a good thing,however, like Japan comics,television shows,lectures,magazine articles to name a few have published on a near cult status albeit some of them in the underground.

We have our setting in the exotic locale of Hong Kong a former British colony. So let’s meet our freak of the week,Hong Kong style. In this corner introducing Lam Kor-wan the infamous “Jars Murderer” of Hong Kong.

The Crimes: Lam  was a taxi driver in the city which gave him ample chances to find his victims that would remain unnoticed as missing until much later simply because they got into a taxi. A normal event in any city to be sure unless you happened to have gotten into the wrong cab and for 4 women that is exactly what happened.  Lam would pick up the women in the usual locations,get them to the family home,sexually assault them,strangle them with electrical wire , and placed the female organs in Tupperware containers in the fridge,hence the moniker of the “Jar Murderer”. And if that doesn’t do for you friends and neighbours there is more. There is always more. He is was a very keen photographer and you guessed it;he took hundreds of photos and video of his crimes up to and including necrophilia. While cannibalism has the decided squick factor it is however slightly more acceptable than necrophilia,by a long shot. Add videos into the mix that he filmed of his last victim;eye bleach,stat!

The more interesting aspect the case is the fact that he shared housing with a family member who completely unaware of what was going up until the time of his arrest. You have got to wonder how in the hell said person did not noticed the containers in the fridge filled something other than leftovers from dinner. Not to mention the blood and most assuredly the smell. Try to wrap your head around that for a minute or several. Your family member is completely clueless to the unhinged mind in the kitchen.  Leftovers anyone? Didn’t think so.

The Arrest: Surprisingly Lam decided that he would go to the local Kodak shop in Hong Kong and for reasons know only to him he decided that this would be just a dandy place to develop his “art”. The store manager thought things were a little hinky,called the local cops who in turn showed up when he did to pick up his photos. Lam tried to play it off as someone else’s work with no such luck. The cops excuted a search warrant finding whole lot of grisly things including some Tupperware containers. He was convicted of 4 counts of murder most foul, sentenced to die and later had the sentence commuted to life in prison where he remains today. And this would have been the last that we heard of him except for a few factors in which he achieved cult status.

Lam is one of two known serial killers ever to grace the island that is known as Hong Kong remarkable considering how many call Hong Kong home. The first of what become several movies of varying degrees of good would elevate his status to the dark inner recesses of our minds of freakiness. The first of which is a low budget flick called Dr. Lamb that was shot on location,loosely based on the crimes and the pursuit of the evil dude. It came out in 1992 a full 10 years post-conviction while never having a full release anywhere in the world except Hong Kong it became one those films no one ever admits to seeing,but, we know you have.

A couple of years later and seemingly the folks can’t get enough of the bad stuff another in film loosely based his crimes pops up again called the The Underground Banker in which he is released from prison,becomes a monk and reforms his evil ways. What makes this one a stand out of the films that he is featured in, is that he returns to a life crime only after his family is brutally murdered. I just bet you can guess how they murdered too. Again, with limited release it was one of those films that was very popular in Hong Kong because of the subject and subject matter. The buying public at the movies has interesting if a bit strange taste in what they consider good or is it perhaps the ye olde train wreck again?

Finally, 28 years later another film is made and this time it is a documentary based on the actual case evidence,people that were involved, case inspectors;the whole smear. It brought Lam to the forefront of the media again because unlike prior movies it was based solely on the facts of the case. The pubic again ate it up despite a nearly 30 year gap since the last movie that anything to do with him however remotely.

My take on why this particular person has  cult status in the small place that is Hong Kong is while there are the Tongs, Yakuza etal there is had not been up until his arrest a serial killer of any kind ever recorded in the annuals of crime. He was the first. If you going to be first at least do it right which he did complete with some things are again decidedly icky with film to just add to it. Perhaps it is ,also, the well known aspect of the Chinese culture having a great deal of respect for life,family and culture that makes the people wonder where in the world that they went wrong that they could not see Lam slowly,but, surely going off the deep end with no help in sight. Perhaps it is a more mundane reason of that pesky thing again that is the train wreck of the human condition where we must look at the darkness. We must see the wreck. We become consumed by the violence of the murders to the point that movies are made. Because as we well know movies aren’t going to made unless someone is going to watch them.  Furthermore, a recurring theme that crops up is exactly that,movies. For the most part in a part of the world that is not known for crimes of this nature there certainly tends to be a lot of movies be made about the crimes. Why is that?

Because we are watching the train wreck hoping against hope that we are not going to be it.

Further reading for your freak of the week:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lam_Kor-wan

http://www.miditech.tv/content.aspx?page=The+Jars+Murderer

http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/kwok-wai-lam.htm

I find new difference between American and korean  pop music. There is the list of the most viewed music videos in America.(2/17/14) from MTV

As the list above shows, the singers are mostly soloists.

On the other hand, there is the list of Korean pop music chart from Youtube.

1. 24 hours — sunmi

2. EXO — Growl

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Attraction –Bunkey

4. G-Dragon — Crooked

5. Block B — “Very Good”

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. 2NE1 — Do You Love Me

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. Tiny G — Miss You

Click here to view the embedded video.

8. F.T. Island — Memory

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Sun Mi — 24 Hours

10. After School — First Love

Click here to view the embedded video.

Popular songs in Korea tend to be sung by groups frequently.

Today, as my obsession; food, I’d like to talk about the difference of manner between Japan and America when people have noodles like a ramen. In America, making noisy with having meals have been rude before ramen came here. This is because the noise made other people uncomfortable. So, it is usual for Americans to have ramen without making noise. On the other hand, Japanese don’t care the noise from other people. This is because Japanese people think about that it is natural to make noise having some meals. So, for me, it is really strange beaver that people have noodles without noise. I can’t eat noodles without noise actually. I want you to check this movie, and you can understand more the reason why Japanese people make noisy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I asked some friends in America that they think making noise having noodles would be rude or not. The answer was fifty-fifty. Through this question, I found that today there are mixing with a lot of different kinds of cultures in America, so some people already get use to these difference. I’m interested in that someday there might be usually manner which is from Asia.

Most video games have their highs and lows happen rapidly like a quick burning candle, bright and brilliant but quickly to fade into nothingness without a trace. However this doesn’t stop all kinds of people from dedicating an extreme amount of time to further their skills at these games, potentially ruining their future life in terms of living in comfort rather than struggle. Games that hit the eSport scene might last a few years on an average. Such games like Counter Strike, Quake , Call of Duty, Starcraft, DOTA and countless others have had  spot in the limelight if only for a moment. The player base will bask in the glory of all their seemingly dedicated fans but as the sun must set the games lifetime will reach the end of the line.

With the recent rise of League of Legends as the current powerhouse it is a wonder if this candle will ever burn out since it only seems to grow with each passing year. The company itself has put forth millions across the globe to make sure they are “the game to watch”. While a huge risk to do so this only shows Riot Game’s confidence that their game is more than just a typical hot and drop online game. While personally I have found myself burnt out of playing the game. I can only watch as millions of fresh players create accounts to play the game all their friends have been talking about. Then again I’d put myself in a special category where I’ve played quite a number of hours in the past and became quite good but not enough to be a professional. As such I know the game like the backside of my hand which makes it boring. Yet the game has massive depth with the over 140 completely different characters to choose from. All with customization outside of the game to mix-max strategy with balance patches the developers release about each month to ensure nothing is too strong or too weak for too long.

I regress, when one has played through the game enough and achieved enough skill to play with the top 1% of the ranked ladder(which is separate from the pro-tournaments) you understand that the game will behave like any other and follow the same old patterns. So while I might be moving on to the next game, I am apart of the minority who is bored with League of Legends.

ka·bu·ki- a form of traditional Japanese drama with highly stylized song, mime, and dance, now performed only by male actors, using exaggerated gestures and body movements to express emotions, and including historical plays, domestic dramas, and dance pieces.

  Created around the year 1600, around the same time the English began to form colonies on the American continent, the history of Kabuki is as long as that of the United States and just as multi-faceted. While it barely scratches the surface, the brief description of the history of Kabuki that follows will attempt to give a general overview of the theater.

Kabuki was created by Okuni, a shrine maiden from Izumo Shrine. Her performances in the dry river beds of the ancient capital of Kyoto caused a sensation and soon their scale increased and a number of rival companies arose. Early Kabuki was much different from what is seen today and was comprised mostly of large ensemble dances performed by women. Most of these women acted as prostitutes off stage and finally the government banned women from the stage in an effort to protect public morales, just one in a long history of government restrictions placed on the theater.

This ban on women, though, is often seen as a good move because it necessitated the importance of skill over beauty and put more stress on drama than dance, putting Kabuki on the path to become a dramatic art form. Another development was the appearance of onnagata female role specialists, men who played women.

So..It wasn’t a big deal that men dressed as women..or Female illusionists…and wore make up and female clothing…Obviously they thought that it took more skill to be an actor…than be a women..I laugh at that a little bit.. Anyways, drag essentially has been around for centuries and it wasn’t seen as a problem in Japan. Of course, drag is drag no matter how you look at it..But it definitely was the not the drag culture that exists today.

I’ve started looking up some texts that have to do with gender and race in video games and I’m gonna start reading them and writing my preconceptions of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Z.O.T.) in light of the texts. If people know of anything please pass it along!

First up this week is an article coming from Cracked.com, 5 Prejudices That Video Games Can’t Seem to Get Over by J.F.  Sargent.  The five categories talked about are: “Racism as a Gameplay Mechanic; Relationship Mini-Games Create Exclusively Unhealthy Relationships; Strong Female Characters (Are More Satisfying to Demean); There Are No Gay Men, Just Lesbians (And Those Chicks Can Be Converted); The Fundamentals of Game Design Make Racism Easier”. Except for the, “There Are No Gay Men, Just Lesbians (And Those Chicks Can Be Converted)” and somewhat the “Relationship Mini-Games Create Exclusively Unhealthy Relationships” part of this list, I feel that the prejudices are very relevant to Z.O.T.

“Racism as a Gameplay Mechanic”:

In this section Sargent talks about how depending on characters race/humanoid species they have certain characteristics that are solely because they come from that race. Sargent also points out that most of the races are based off of real races and use real stereotypes for portrayals. Sargent just so happened to mention the Gerudo race in Zelda as one of the examples. Sargent states that they are based off of Gypsies, and I would say have some Indian undertones as well and are referred to as a the “thieving Gerudo race.” It’s also pointed out that Ganondorf (for those of you unfamiliar to the game he is the protagonist), who is the only male of that race (I’ll get into the male part later), is a non-white character and is very power hungry. Looking further though the other races in the game from Gorons, and Zoras to Kokiri and Sheikan all of them have certain characteristics that end up affecting Link (who is the Hero).

“Relationship Mini-Games Create Exclusively Unhealthy Relationships”:

Sergent uses this space to talk about how female characters are used in romantic ways in video games for the hero’s gain, and how in some games these relationships are based off of what character you chose to play. However in Zelda it’s pretty simple, while there is only one obvious “romantic” relationship, all of Link’s interactions with females in up with him gaining something from them. Starting with his friend Saria, she gives him an ocarina, and ends up being one of the seven sages who’s power helps him bet Ganondorf. Till the last female character Link encounters, Nabooru, who sorta ends up forfeiting the Silver Gauntlets and also ends up being one of the seven Sages.

Gerudo Gaurd

“Strong Female Characters (Are More Satisfying to Demean)”:

Basically the more independent and stronger a female character is, the less clothes she is wearing or the more sexed up she is. While there are a lot of female characters in Z.O.T. the most independent one is Impa who is Princess Zelda’s bodyguard and then there is the clothing for the women of the Gerudo race. While Impa’s outfit is nothing compared to

Impa

the Gerudo’s, compared to other females that war dresses, she is in a skin tight short body suit that accent her boobs. As a race the Gerudo only have a male born every hundred years and besides that they are all women which makes them pretty independent from men and because they are thieves they need to guard their treasures. They wear low cut pants and basically bras.

“The Fundamentals of Game Design Make Racism Easier”:

This basically talks about how the bad people in video games are usually people of color and that you need to kill them in the game. It’s pretty obvious from the other implications with the Ganondorf, but in case you’ve missed it he’s non-white and evil and you need to kill him in the game to win.