Chess

Played a fun game where I was up, ended up behind, and checkmated with two rooks and a king. Weird Game.

I’m probably only going to include this section in journals if I’ve played some interesting game or learned something important.

Books

Sister Souljah - The Coldest Winter Ever (1999)

To write fiction, I’ve heard some advice that any writer should read to get a better understanding of the craft. My stories take place in Milwaukee which has a large black population, so in order to understand how to write better about these themes I figured it would be a good idea to read some contemporary “urban” fiction written by black authors.

It’s really hard to write a black character or write in the culture. There’s a fine line between Rick Holmes from S01E09 Atlanta’s “Junteenth” episode and the confident but ignorant, inexperienced front end of the Dunning-Kruger curve. Plus, even a single line that’s considered ignorant or racist could jeopardize any chance at a professional career. So my plan is to move cautiously, carefully, and respectfully forward. A method I’m finding is constant with understanding anything is first of all talking to people involved. Besides this, finding a wikipedia page of whatever it is, reading source material, and finding books mentioned in the source material and expanding that network graph. Most good books mention other books. In the case of this book, so far it’s been The Art of War, The Wretched of the Earth, and The Judas Factor.

Back to the book: It’s vivid and descriptive. What could be considered vulgar in another book comes across as the 16-year-old protagonist’s true thoughts in a moment. But the main character, Winter, so far feels like a spoiled borderline Mary Sue. It’s hard to like Winter right now. But I have a feeling that’ll change later. I didn’t really like my 16-year-old self either.

One thing that jumped out immediately at me was the similarity between this novel and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They’re entirely different worlds – One is a giant population in a country they have called home for 4000 years, and the other a minority community that has been stolen from one country and put into another within the last 400 years. One book is arguably the most popular story of East Asia and the other is a contemporary fiction novel. But the traditional male-female marriage roles (at least within the family dynamic, you can’t say that 21st century black women have extremely similar attitudes to 4th century chinese women), the community aspects of having aunts, uncles, cousins, and brothers that are not related by blood but referred as such and surround the stronger people in the family… I’m having a hard time collecting these thoughts right now, but in the past I’ve recognized these similarities and this book only drives it home. But carefully, respectfully forward. Maybe this is more of a human thing than a black-chinese thing. It’s dangerous to make these kinds of assumptions without experience.

Things I’m Liking

• Regular Cars: Just a mortal reviewing regular cars. The review on the Toyota Camry hit home.

Misc

Nanjing is a ghost town. Luckily there’s a bar nearby that’ll be open during New Year’s Eve so I can meet some other Chinese stranded in the city without a family to eat dinner with.