Guest Appearance: Fishing with Dynamite

While Alex diligently runs overtime protein immunoblots at the Lehigh department of biology, let us take a brief gander up the family tree to our father, Brian. To an even greater extent than his youngest son, Brian Chen has spent his life off the beaten path, blazing his own trails of habit, philosophy, and humor. Evidence of this has been documented from time to time, and among other things, he's been dubbed the Netflix Zen Master and arguably post-produced Lord of the Rings better than Peter Jackson himself. A story he told me today presently makes him our guest appearance.

Brian Chen attended National Taiwan University as an electrical engineering major. For those unfamiliar with the structure of Taiwanese academia, all prospective college students take entrance exams and each student is placed solely on the basis of his or her scores (an elegant system--albeit one indicative of a very troubling attitude on how students and people are valued). With this system--unlike, say, the American system--an objective comparison of schools based on their academic merit becomes quite simple. Within this scale, National Taiwan University is the very best, and at National Taiwan University--at least for men--the electric engineers (the "EEs" as they're called) are the very best. In the average year as well as my dad's, the top 0.1% of EE test scorers is invited to NTU. I say this both as a proud son and, more importantly, in order to undergird the acute idiocy and irony I'm about to describe.

According to my dad, back in the day at NTU one's area of study usually determined one's social life as well: the EEs hung out with other EEs. If they wanted to hang out with the opposite sex, then they'd go find the English majors, which was apparently the female equivalent to EE--that is, the most prestigious and competitive major upon entrance (it seems these folks were all incredibly elitist, refusing to date or even spend time with perceived lesser areas of study). Commonly on weekends, the EEs would invite the dames of the English department on trips to the beach. According to my dad, the local beaches were usually deserted and quite undeveloped; they were extremely rocky in parts and sparkled with smaller pools of water that collected in recesses between tides. At low tide, these pockets of sea would fill with fish. And on these day-long trips, these NTU scholars would often get very hungry.

Now in his retelling of these halcyon days, he failed to mention any reason why fishing rods were out of the question. But whether fishing rods were in some way unattainable or they just chose to forgo them, he and his friends opted for an alternative: cyanide.

I gather it went down roughly as follows. The EEs would find a good-looking pocket of fish and throw some cyanide in. When the fish died (which apparently happened almost immediately), they would float up to the surface for a few seconds before sinking. In this time, my dad and his friends would need to dive into the pools to snatch their prize before it sank--careful all the while not to ingest even a drop of the poisonous water. Then they would proudly present their catch to the beautiful English majors waiting on the beach before gutting, cleaning, and cooking the fish over an open fire.

When I inquired as to the possible toxicity of the fish, my dad simply replied, "Well, we had a theory. Because the fish died instantly when the cyanide-laced water passed through their gills, we figured if we just cut out their gills we'd be fine..."

Taiwan's best and brightest, folks.

spoiler alert!

For the last few days, Andy has been playing his way through the single-player mode of Starcraft 2, the recently-released military/science fiction computer game. A major draw of the single-player mode, other than the gameplay itself, is the intricate plot that governs the gameplay. At this point, Andy has finished the entire game save for the final mission.

Andy: "So because I didn't get to play it right after the release, almost everyone I know finished the game before I even started--which unfortunately means a lot of the plot has been inadvertently spoiled for me. It seems whenever I talk to anybody about the game, someone reveals something I don't know yet."
Alex: "That sucks."
Andy: "Yeah, it really does. However, I'm up to the last mission, and I still don't know how it ends! I've gotten really, really lucky in that no one has given away the ending--"
Alex: "Snape kills Dumbledore! Bruce Willis is a ghost!!"

Man v. Wild

First, apologies for the month-long hiatus; I was traveling for a while and away from Alex. And even when I was able to get him on the phone, he was far too engrossed with the recent release of Starcraft 2 to be giving any life lessons.

***

Alex is sitting at the kitchen table and reading silently. A fly buzzes by. He looks up, then back down. A few moments later the fly buzzes by again, and he swats at it. This continues for a while until finally, too perturbed to continue, Alex obtains a flyswatter.

He tracks the fly around the room; it lands a few times but takes off before he has a chance to kill it. After a while, frustrated, he swings at it in the air a few times, even comes close once or twice.

The fly swoops around his head and lingers for a while around his waist. He swings swiftly and forcibly--then stops, the flyswatter stopping inches away from his own crotch.

Alex: "Tricksy fly..."

He stops, sets the flyswatter down, and returns to his reading.

after-dinner darts

Andy and Alex are playing darts. Andy is winning handily.

At a pivotal moment, Alex takes a deep breath and exhales slowly before throwing his three darts. All three miss his target.

Andy: "Rough round."
Alex: "Indeed... My ch'i is not free and flowing. I must meditate beneath the waterfall."

Exit Alex.

there's music in the air...

After dinner, Andy and Alex are standing around the sink washing and drying dishes.

Alex: "Do you think our lives would make a good musical?"
Andy: "Yeah, I guess so."
Alex: "Dude we could revolutionize musicals. Listen to this: instead of having the music just come out of nowhere, there would be an actual band playing in the background of the scene."
Andy: "Well, would the actors sing?"
Alex: "Nope. The band would have a singer, and he would do the singing... Like right now. If this was a normal movie, we would just be standing here doing the dishes in silence. But as a musical, it's us doing the dishes, band behind us... do DO do do. Bad to the bone! do DO do do. B-B-B-B-BAD!... do DO do do..."

I know who rides with Theoden of Rohan...

Andy, living at home for the first time in years, searches the garage for a basketball. After several minutes, he resignedly picks up an old, torn-up ball. He takes a few shots, missing most of them.

Andy: "Damn, I suck now."

Shoots a bit longer, accuracy fluctuates a bit but remains about the same. Sighs.

Alex (appearing suddenly, holding a shiny leather basketball): "Maybe your fingers would remember their old strength better--if they held your old basketball."

Taiwanese Lu upsets Roddick in Wimbledon round of 16

As Lu hits a winner at match point...

Mom: "YES!!!"
Andy: "Dammit."

(Post-game interview of Lu begins)

Mom (glowing): "What a nice Taiwanese boy."
Alex: "Yay! Ohhhh! What nice Taiwanese boy flom good Taiwanese famiry!"

do we have to share a bathroom?

Alex's "boom-box grenade"--

"When someone's taking a shower, I put a boom-box playing a really annoying song on repeat in the bathroom. Then they either have to get out of the shower and dry off to turn it off or listen to the song for the rest of their shower."





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(one man's trash is another's treasure.)

Blowing out the Candles

pang-pang, n.
A variant of table tennis played on a dining room table using cut-up and taped-together tissue boxes as a net and junior high diploma covers as paddles. For regulation-size arena, including exact table specifications and placement of cupboards, sideboard, vases, chandelier, and other obstructions, see the childhood home of Andy and Alex Chen, New Jersey.