The Longest Day In Chang'an (i.e. Twenty-Four Hours In Chang'an)

Don't we all like the current epidemic going global? It's quite obvious we don't. And it should be equally obvious that I'm also mocking certain people. Okay, it's not mocking. Rather, I have a problem with expressing myself due to being the only Jew in the local education system. The Jewish part is figurative, but the persecution was very real. Hence, the fact that no one understands me and that quite likely only a PhD student/graduate in psychology knows how to deal with me. This is not to say I need a descendant of Sigmund Freud named Klaudia Freud to help me out. Rather, it's not easy for others to believe the only Israeli Jewish thing about me lies in expressing myself.

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!!!!

At this point, I need to state any accusations of me being a son of a golden cow should be discounted due to two factors:

1. Tokugawa Ieyasu never swore partisan allegiance to Oda Nobunaga.
2. Tokugawa Ieyasu never declared partisan loyalty to Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

So what does above portion has to do with a Chinese period drama associated with an ancient capital arguably more famous than Beijing? There are a few reasons.

1. Despite the increasingly cynical world we're living in where the line between cynicism and idealism is blurred (e.g. refer to the Roe v. Wade definition of abortion), the warmth of humanity does shine forth at times like a hearth burning in the wintriest night.

2. Even if your life is one of a wrongfully condemned criminal due to the sins of society, it merely means you have a choice. Being a victim of the society doesn't mean you should ignore victims of sexual crimes or the mentally unstable demonised by descendants of Charles Darwin.

3. In America, either your role model is Obama or Trump. In Singapore, your role model is Lee Kuan Yew. In Japan, it's quite likely either Abe Shinzo or Koizumi Junichiro. In China? Not Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong, or Deng Xiaoping. Rather, it's a person who never played by the American rulebook. He's also someone who would be demonised as "crazy, weird, and scary" because his nickname happened to be the Five Statues Of Yama (i.e. 五尊阎罗). His name?

No, not Calvin Cheng. I'm referring to 张小敬.

Note: Here's hoping my friend Claudia is currently okay in a particular part of the U.K famous for a bloke named Eddie Howe. Because she's as Singaporean Chinese as yours truly (never mind the weird fact that my eyes and jawline resemble either a Taiwanese aborigine or an Ainu), there's definitely a risk of being discriminated. No, she's my friend, not my girlfriend. The Klaudia Freud comment was clearly a joke only a PhD student in psychology can understand (?).

Add note: It looks like there can only be one progressive, his name is Bernie Sanders, and he's a literal Jew unlike yours truly. Seriously though, the Colonel Sanders march may end up exacerbating the power struggle between the moderate Democrats and their progressive counterparts. This is fast looking like Ma Chao and Han Sui. No, I'm not a genius in psychology because that'd mean my church would be in some kind of trouble just as bad as the current one.

More add note: Come to think of it, the only reason behind Jia Xu's second advice being a success was because Zhang Xiu refused to heed the first one (i.e. "...已破將軍，必輕軍速進，縱留諸將斷後，諸將雖勇，亦非將軍敵，故雖用敗兵而戰必勝也。").

Okay, too much crap is being spoken here...

P.S: Before I up the last one and go having my dinner at Burger King nearby, I'd like to point out that a particular favourite of mine was inspired by the historian Sima Qian where Jing Ke was nobler than Kermit Gosnell for a reason. So much for being an Asian.

赵客缦胡缨，吴钩霜雪明。
银鞍照白马，飒沓如流星。
十步杀一人，千里不留行。
事了拂衣去，深藏身与名。
闲过信陵饮，脱剑膝前横。
将炙啖朱亥，持觞劝侯嬴。
三杯吐然诺，五岳倒为轻。
眼花耳热后，意气素霓生。
救赵挥金锤，邯郸先震惊。
千秋二壮士，烜赫大梁城。
纵死侠骨香，不惭世上英。
谁能书阁下，白首太玄经。

P.S: This one is for Ryan Shawcross. I know you're a fan of the wuxia genre where real men proved themselves via merit of honour and integrity instead of might and mightier hormones. I still remember your Sunflower Manual comment in reply to Patrick when he mentioned YouTube and MJ forty degree below. And that was like more than 10 years ago. Why I namedropped you is because I want to test your wuxia knowledge concerning the late Emperor Louis I.

Do you know one of his lesser-known works involved a bastard and the flair of the correct Mr Li?

Be a real man

Just now, I came across an article triggering anger inside my heart quite literally. The source of my ire? This. So why was I angry? Because I've suffered much at the hands of hypocrisy. Doing nothing for victims of voyeurism is a sick reminder of a pretentious standard of morality. But using evil to justify evil?

Alas for irony, your name is monster.
Alas for the monster, its name human.
Never alas for the human so long dignity remains.
Never alas for dignity lest mortals become demons.

Spoiler: Unlike shows like The First Temptation of Christ and The Last Hangover, Hellsing doesn't feature the Son of God, let alone God Himself. In fact, the world of Hellsing is all about Christianity minus Christ. In a world of 404 God not found, this means Hellsing is a series reserved only for the intelligent.

Because it's been a long time since I've done something here, you can be very sure I've gotten rusty. So why the post title?

When you see a man, what do you perceive? There are only two possibilities, whether you like it or not.

Possibility 1

Possibility 2

There are a few reasons why Emiya Kiritsugu was a real man (I say was because he died before Fate/stay night).

1. He understood suffering because he suffered in the first place.

2. He understood the price of righteousness, yet he kept moving forward because justice cannot be denied.

3. A real man bears the burden of his own sins and no one exemplifies this truth better than the man himself.

Note: The presence of Eden Ang is never about whether I see him guilty or not. Rather, I'm making fun of toxic masculinity in Singapore.

Spoiler: Emiya Kiritsugu wasn't a saint. He was effectively a one-man terrorist organisation whose evil modus operandi was only surpassed by the evils of the world. In other words, Kiritsugu's life was meant to be screwed.

Lyrics

Pretty sure it's a coincidence that all seven Masters were guys. Either that or we need to ask the Notorious UBG.

Special MAD mentions

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P.S: Feel like uploading some more Fate/Zero music vids, just that they're related to another real man.

Add P.S: To all my fellow Singaporeans who look even less of a Chinese than yours truly because you happened to be Malay, I must point out that Iskandar as a Malay name is as Persian as Darius I. Therefore, the next time someone insulted you because you're a Malay, you can remind him/her that he/she can never be a Persian or a Greek military genius.

Final P.S: It's quite scary to see Emiya Kiritsugu being every bit a tactical genius as Alexander the Great with the difference akin (?) to that between Tokugawa Ieyasu (i.e. Kiritsugu) and Oda Nobunaga (i.e. Alexander the Great).