Dan Crooner

It seemed like recently there was a lot of attention to the Walmart being built in Chinatown. Some believed that a Walmart in Chinatown will endanger all the small “Mom and Pop” businesses in Chinatown. I think otherwise…

It is not a Walmart Superstore being built, it is a “Neighborhood Mart.” It is a line of grocery stores by Walmart and not the “oh i’ll buy my motor oil as my mother buys clothes, and my little brother go play demos of Modern Warfare at the Electronic department” kind of Walmart.

Competition? Since it’s in the “grocery business,” maybe it is a threat to the Chinatown supermarkets. Wrong again. If you are a local in Chinatown and visited Ai Hoa or Far East, you will notice that there is a lack of american food brands. Most of the Chinatown markets carry brands geared toward the Asians. We have the Lee Kam Kee, the Panda brands, bok choy, live fishes, durians, jackfruits, lychee… etc. Last time i was at Walmart, i was staring at aisle after aisles worth of frozen Jimmy Dean Frozen Sausages and Eggo’s. There was no bok choy, or ong choy, no panda branded oyster sauce, no live fishes, or pig’s brain. It is like a burger joint competing with a Taco stand… it’s two different type of business. 

and so WHAT if it does create competition? we are in America, a capitalist country. If you have a problem with Capitalism, get the hell out of my beloved country!

Ps. Hey somebody still gotta tell them overpriced “I heart Chinatown” cups and postcards to them tourist…. i doubt Walmart will put those in their store!

Unfair compensation? I know… i know… Walmart and their horrible reputation for cheating their employees…. but, honestly, no matter how bad Walmart can get, It’s still better than working in Chinatown. I had a friend that once worked in a local store in Chinatown’s little Saigon Swapmeet. He gets paid 30 dollars working a 8am - 6pm shift, under the table. Do you think Walmart is that bad now? My friend’s hourly wage was the grand total of 3 dollars/hour. My mother used to sew for a living. She makes about 200 dollars a week… YAY! Medical Insurance from the employer？that never existed in Chinatown. Walmart is like heaven to these Chinatown workers. Although it might not seem fair to the eyes of the public, Walmart is like a dream come true to some Chinatown residence. Walmart promised 12+ dollar hourly wage to full time workers…? Where do I sign up!!

Corporations taking over Chinatown? How even dare you to say that if your a Chinatown local. If you really really genuinely believe in this…. you are a hypocrite.  I can bet my life on the line, that you have eaten at Burger King or Jack in the Box or that Subway. I am pretty sure you had shopped at CVS. And… if you had done that before… what does that make you? a supporter of major corporations in Chinatown. Every time you spend money there… you are basically saying “yes, i support you guys and you guys are great!” so is major corporations killing Chinatown? no… YOU ARE!

Jobs, JOBs, JOBS!!!! A Walmart in Chinatown will definitely create jobs… and with the big Chinese population in Chinatown, guess who is Walmart going to hire? Chinese speakers!! They will need Chinese speakers to help Chinese customers.. it only make sense right! so is it really hurting the residence in Chinatown? 

A month ago (Feb 12) at around 6:30pm, I received a phone call that changed my life…

I was taking a nap after a long day, when i was awakened by a phone from my mother. When i answered the phone call, i was in disbelief. My mother was on the other side of the phone, crying telling me that my father had passed away. It didn’t make sense in my mind. I mean, i just saw him a few hours ago and he was healthy. After a moment, processing such overwhelming news in my head, i calmly responded. I will be right there. 

I got dressed and ran out the door, slamming it behind me. I was juggling my car keys as i was trying to make a phone call to my brother. I started my car as it stumbles down the street for it wasn’t warmed up properly. The condition of my car was the least of my worries. Stoplights seems to last for hours and i sat at the intersection, waiting for green. “F**K!” i screamed as i repeatedly struck the steering wheel with my fist. My mind was still in disbelief as I thought about my mother’s words on the phone. It was becoming more and more real, beginning to sink in.

I was at Daly/Mission, slowed by a car in front. I was probably driving 60 mph down the residential streets. I smacked the steering wheeling yelling at the car in front “MOVE! MOVE!” The car in front finally changed lanes, giving me a wide open lane. I was on Wide Open Throttle.

I slammed on the brakes to make the left turn, but i was going too quick and overshot the intersection and stalled my car. Restarting my car seemed to take forever. It was cranking forever before it started up again. Finally i reached the parking lot.

Parked at the closest spot i see, i got out of the car and went on a full sprint to the hospital, which was about two blocks from the parking lot. I ran and ran until i reached the stairs. On my way up the stairs, i stumbled on a step and fell, breaking my fall with my hand. 

I was laying flat on my stomach on the stairs in front of the hospital. Finally, I came into full realization. I push myself up again, but just to collapse again. This time, in tears. I sat there at the steps, wailing and screaming, punching the wall like a mad man, startling the pedestrian in the street. It was the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. There was nothing i can do to change the situation, nothing anyone can do. My heart grew heavy and my chest felt like it was getting ripped out. Pain and sorrow filled my lungs as a struggled to exhale. Tears fell like raindrops on the concrete steps. I was weeping with my face against the wall. It was the end of the world for me.

It took me a little bit to get myself together again. Finally i stood up and walked into the hospital….

It was time to face my fate. 

I was never the ambitious kid in my academic career. I guess it was easy to put the blame on my father for my lack of success. I often complained about my father’s instability in income, or the fact that my father was rarely home. 

I attended Nobel Middle School in the valley. Being a Chinatown kid, I struggled with competing with the local students. In 8th grade, I was taking a Science class. One of the projects in the class was making a model of an “atom.” Now there’s a problem. The project requires material, and material requires money. 

When i asked my father for money to go to an art supply shop, my father turned me down. Doomed for failure, i decided to slap something together and turn it in, hoping to at least get a little credit for it.

I was in the living room, looking at old ping pong balls, trying to figure out how i am going to piece this mission impossible together. My father, who was sitting next to me watching TV, looked over and asked me what i needed to make. I opened my textbook to the element i needed and explained it to my father. 

My father decided he’s going to help me with it. We dug out what a bunch of useless materials… ping pong balls, old wired clothes hangers, left over threads from my mother’s work. My father pulled out a plier and began bending the clothes hanger into a circular/spherical shape. He instructed me to use a sewing needle and poke holes into the ping pong balls and using the threads to string them together. We worked together and pieced everything together, I was really impressed with the finished product. 

I was really excited about showing this project to my teacher, it was the first and only project that this “father/son team” had completed. I was proud of it, but my teacher wasn’t impressed. My teacher told me that there was no creativity and a lack of efforts, saying that I was slacking off and settling for minimum. 

After school, My father noticed that i was down, and asked me what’s wrong. I told him that my teacher wasn’t impressed with my project. He looked at me and said “how did the teacher get his credentials? She have no common sense at all, don’t worry, you did a good job!”

Now i thought of it:Although it was a flop, it was the best project I’ve ever done in my academic career. The time spent with dad was well worth the failing grade for the project. 

Thanks 爸爸! we’ll be missing you!

I was driving back from class. When the it suddenly hit me. Daddy is gone.

In my head, the phone call from mom was replaying itself.

“Ba ba is dead! Ba ba is dead… (爸爸死左啦， 爸爸死左啦）” my mother cried.

As those words played in my head, it felt like my chest just got dugged out and all that was left was a cavity, a void. It felt like I had forgotten how to exhale and that my heart had stopped for a second. I punched the the steering wheel with my hand, but didn’t feel any pain. I let out this wail, screaming my lungs out at the steering wheel. Just the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. There was nothing I can do anymore.

My vision blurred as tears started to fall. The wailing and the screaming turned into this slow sobbing. And finally I exhaled.

And I am back into reality again. The sun still shine, the birds still sing. The earth didn’t stop spinning. The world didn’t end… Even though it felt like it for a brief minute…

“Don’t they know that it was the end of the world?”

I always liked my mother more when I was little; dad seemed too strict. I guess it was just the typical “asian dad” thing. I was scared of dad all the time. He had his unique discipline style when I misbehave. He would bite his lips and look at me with those fierce eyes.

“I give u the count of three, danny” he would say threatening me to do as he asked. By the count of two, it would scared the daylights out of me and I would have no choice but to abide.

As a kid, dad was the scariest person in the world. But as I think about it, dad never complete the count… Ever. It always ends at two. The gap between two to three never ends. Its just a ongoing “two and a half.”

I also remember that when I was little with a fever. My father would carry me on his back as he run down alpine street to the doctors. as he carried me, I rest my ears on his back and I heard his heart beat and his breath as he ran across chinatown. I still recall feeling the sweat from his back and how out of breath he was when we arrived at the doctor’s office. It was something I will never forget.

Although dad gave me the impression of a strict dad in my early years, I know inside, he was, to me, the most loving and caring dad and he would sacrifice everything for his family.

<3 爸爸

Many would argue that freedom and equality is limited in America and that it is not as “good” as it is supposed to be.

I am not saying that america is “perfect” or had always been fair. We all know there many still many imperfections in the system.

I think every group of minority had faced their share of discrimination and injustice sometime since the birth of the country.. I.e. African American slavery, Chinese exclusion act, Japanese concentration camps, etc.

But to me, it is the flaws of the system that made me proud to be an American!

I am not saying I support discrimination and injustice, I am saying that it is because of those events that make me realize the progress we had made.

From ending slavery in the 1800s, to women being able to vote in the early 1900s. We had made progress to become a country of equality.

United States was founded with values of equality and justice, but “with values” doesn’t necessarily means “it is accomplished.” There are still a great deal of work to be done and we must continue to fight for the freedom. That doesn’t mean joining the military, but rather living everyday fighting for equality and welfare of our community. May we continue to make progress toward the values America is founded on.

Let Freedom Ring!
D. Crooner

Warning: I think this post will be a really controversial and may offend some Christians.  

I attended one of the Corey Witt’s workshop recently. Corey Witt is in the music industry and had experimented with differently equipment to produce a particular sounds and tones. you can find out more about him on http://www.thetonechef.com

During his workshop, he said something about “overwhelming climax of a song.” He explained how a worship song is normally arranged and that there is a part of the song that “so many different tones are playing at the same time that it overwhelms the listener” bringing them into a state where they are “feeling the presence of God.”

when i first heard that, i felt it was quite blasphemous. If what he said was true, then there is no such thing as “presence of God” or “leading by Holy Spirit,” but instead just hypnosis/induction. Mind tricks that puts the listener into a trance, thinking that he/she is experiencing God’s presence and that there is NO God.

In my past years, I have studied a little bit on rapid inductions, hypnosis and Neurolinguistic Programming. I am no expert, but I do know how rapid induction works. 

Rapid Induction happens when the hypnotist would direct the subject’s attention into an object. With the subject’s attention fully devoted to the object, the hypnotist then would slam on a table or jerk on the subject’s arm, Overwhelming the subject. Now the subject is overwhelmed and confused, the Hypnotist will yell out “SLEEP” with a really directive tone. The subject in the confused state, becomes extremely suggestive, will obey the hypnotist command and fall into a “induced” state.

Can the composition of worship music induce the listener into believing there is a God? Can it be that the supernatural experience of meeting God in worship is simply an act of hypnosis? 

Apostle Peter fell into a trance and saw a curtain of forbidden food, which God told him to pick up and eat. (Acts 10)

Was Peter really having a Godly vision or is it just merely hypnotized?

Science and Theology often contradict each other, trying to find flaws in one another. Hypnosis and God’s presence is one of those battles between science and theology.

I thought about this for a while now and i concluded with this answer:

Induction Hypnosis helps us experience God’s Presence. 

How does that work? 

When Jesus walked on water, the disciples were terrified.

Mark 6:52 states that the disciples didn’t understand because their hearts were hardened.

To the disciples, none of the miracles really made any sense. it is beyond reason. A man should NOT be able to walk on water or multiply food or command the sea to be calm. It was difficult for them to accept that idea. 

Because of our harden hearts, we are not completely open to God 

1 cor 3:18-20 

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”; and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.”

I think that maybe it is because we have heart that are hardened that we can not experience the presence of God for we stand so strong on what we see and know. 

now this is where hypnosis comes in: the subject that is induced becomes suggestive. 

I believe that when we are overwhelmed by music and we fall into a suggestive/induced state, which soften the harden heart. When we softened our hearts, it is where we become “open” and more “aware” of the presence of God. 

some may say that it is blasphemy to say that because the Holy Spirit shouldn’t need the help of “hypnosis” to enter into a person. 

I feel that maybe hypnosis is the scientific proof that the Spirit IS working and manifesting in a person. i mean when Peter got the vision.. he fell into a trance. so maybe the induction of a person is the prove.

Feel free to convince me otherwise… i want to hear from you!