kevinamiles.com

Taipei will never see a clearer day

2008-05-13T19:22:00.000-10:00

Life is beautiful

2008-05-13T19:20:00.000-10:00

It really is the simple things in life that make it all
worthwhile...like a plate of dumplings ....so far my burberry suit is
stain free!

Life could be worse

2008-04-24T02:54:00.001-10:00

mmm chimay....

Fighting words

2008-04-23T23:42:00.001-10:00

Sent from my iPhone

1987 part II

2007-07-13T11:11:00.000-10:00

1987!!

2007-05-14T15:08:00.001-10:00

My honolulu acting debut, from April 2007

Just in case your xmas card was lost in the mail....

2007-01-08T20:34:00.000-10:00

Beijing Police Arrest Appellant Outside the 'Exhibition of Human Rights in China'

2006-11-22T07:51:00.000-10:00

My friend Peijin couldn't read this, since he's in Shanghai and this website is blocked. So i'm posting it here...

Beijing Police Arrest Appellant Outside the 'Exhibition of Human Rights in China'
By Feng Changle
The Epoch Times
Nov 22, 2006

Appellants gather under a sign which reads "Exhibition of Human Rights in China" (The Epoch Times)
CHINA—Human rights defenders and appellants have been refused entry into Beijing's "Exhibition of Human Rights in China" and one appellant was arrested after he displayed a sign which said "We are bitterly and painstakingly waiting for China to have human rights."

A local Beijing appellant, Wang Jianping, said that the arrested man, Zhang Lianxi, had been refused entry into the exhibition, held at the Cultural Palace of the Nationalities in Beijing, for the last two days. He protested on the morning of November 19 and was immediately dragged into a police car by several policemen. His current situation is unknown.

Wang said, "This morning the police started to arrest people outside the exhibition. They did not dare to arrest anybody yesterday, but just took videos. Today they have started being mean."

She said that she has been to the exhibition for the last two days and will continue to go there until the end of the exhibition. Wang's husband committed suicide by drinking pesticide because their house was forcibly demolished by the government.

Policemen on duty outside the exhibition. (The Epoch Times)
Wang said that she took out her video camera when she entered the exhibition hall on November 18 but was stopped immediately by an official who ordered her to leave.

Many appellants from Beijing are now being monitored by the local police because they went to the exhibition, and Gao Yuqing is one of them. Gao summed up the sad irony of the situation, "The Government is exhibiting China's human rights. We are demonstrating the human rights condition in China. Do ordinary people in China have human rights?"

Gao told the reporter that she went to the exhibition on November 18. She just walked around and did not do anything, but the police office in Xuanwu district warned her that night and started to monitor her 24 hours a day. They monitored in three shifts.

Silent protest: "China has no human rights. Appellants have no human rights." (The Epoch Times)
Gao told the reporter about an incident at the exhibition. A well-dressed old man in his eighties, spoke in front of the reporters' cameras. He said, "China's human rights are better than all the countries in the world. No country can compare to China…." Before he finished his talk people surrounded him and asked, "Where are you from? Do you know China? What evidence do you have to say China's human rights are the best? How can you tell a bare-faced lie?" As a result, the reporters could not finish shooting. The old man was later driven away in a luxury car.

The exhibition ends on November 26.

Click here to read the original article in Chinese

profiles in courage: the chub chub burger

2006-11-21T11:54:00.000-10:00

Ft. Bellows, Nov 18, 2006.

under the sea

2006-11-09T22:52:00.000-10:00

When I hit the water after jumping off the boat, I immediately noticed two things: first, I was never given a snorkel. Second, I was nervous as all hell. Having a snorkel is important when you're scuba diving so that you don't waste air when you're at the surface. My nervousness made me miss having a snorkel because I had to continue breathing through my regulator--the black thing you suck on that is connected to your air tank. the more air you breath, the less time you have down at the bottom.

The current was strong as predicted, but my dive master was impatient.

"Go to the line! the Line! kevin! by the boat! Go to the side of the boat," Gabe yelled. I didn't actually hear everything he said, since i was bobbing up and down, but i can fill in the blanks. I was already on edge after fumbling through the equipment check.

"Kevin: fix your mask later. work on the rest of your gear." I was embarrassed to forget what connected to what, and how to suit up-- so this was all I needed. I swam earnestly but I was moving slow; the 40lbs weight belt and other equipment attached to my back weren't helping.

To tell the truth, I hadn't been diving for almost two years. Since Thailand 2004. I had talked about diving every week for the first month or two i was in Hawaii. "I think i'm going to go dive this weekend," I would tell my coworkers. But every monday, there was a different excuse. Before I came to the islands, I told myself i would get in a dive before I started work. In my defense, I suppose it was mostly money more than laziness that made me wait. Which is why i
didn't want to do a refresher course: I didn't want to pay an extra $50 for the humiliation of diving in a swimming pool and going throughall the safety stuff. But maybe I should have. I had told the instructor that I would be fine--no problem. I was wrong.

Once I got to the rope, which tethered the boat to the bottom of the dive site, I felt a little a better. But i was still breathing way too heavy. I started to descend, but the air was pushing its way down my lungs hard. I started to panic. Underwater, I could hear myself breathing, and it wasn't good. I sounded like Darth Vader running on a treadmill. there were divers below me and above me oblivious to my predicament. My instructor floated by imploring me to go down. Heprobably thought i was just being lazy. He wanted me to fix my mask and move on. It was fogging and my hair was caught inside.

I think it was then that I realized i was panicking. Panic is the worst thing for a diver. It's basically the only thing that can cause trouble down below. People who don't know how to dive worry about sharks, or running out of air, etc. But when there is a problem, nine times out of ten it's because someone--for no good reason--panics.

I couldn't go on. I decided to ascend. i was only a few feet down but i knew i couldn't go down further. I'd cancel. I get back on the boat and hang out. I already had the ensuing feeling of embarrassment swelling up inside and I started making excuses. All the while, other divers from our boat were passing me, with less interest in me than if i was a fish.

When i surfaced, took the regulator out of my mouth, and breathed real air, i started to calm down. I was still breathing too hard, but I started to make calculations; i figured my odds of actually dying were low enough and determined to avoid humiliation of not going down. I didn't want to be that guy. I gave myself a pep talk started back down.

I was relieved when I saw my dive partner on the line just a few feet down--this meant i wouldn't have to search for my instructor. he'd be waiting for us at the bottom. Before we were to explore the site, the instructor and my partner were going to do some diving skill test (my partner was getting an advanced certification).

While waiting for them to finish some sort of underwater math problem, I saw two sea turtles, floating along playfully. I followed them for a while. i didn't want to loose them. Sea turtles are the Cadillacs of the sea; no creature can match their style. To see two of them act in concert was arresting. It was like a serious moment in a film where the director cues the subtle-yet-touching score because he wants to have a moment of beauty; the action slows down allowing the audience to absorb the emotions of the scene.

But the skills assessment didn't take long, and the they began to move on toward the opening of a sea cave. I was a captive audience, with no choice but to follow where their story was going.

My second dive went off with out a hitch--except for the fact, despite a much clearer mask, that i didn't see anything.

thanks Gubey!

2006-10-15T00:41:00.000-10:00

Artist's rendering of my awesomeness.

Won't Somebody Think of the Children? Beijing Closes Schools for Migrant Kids in Pre-Olympic Clean-Up

2006-09-26T16:51:00.000-10:00

I apologize that, after a long hiatus all i can offer is some liberal clap trap whining, but I thought I should forward this as evidence of the "new China." This is my "executive version" for the sophisticated yet busy kevinamiles.com reader.

From Human Rights Watch

(New York, September 25, 2006) – Over the past two weeks, Beijing municipal authorities have shut down more than 50 schools for children of migrant workers , Human Rights Watch said today. The schools' closure – part of a campaign to close all unregistered schools for migrants by the end of September – threatens to leave tens of thousands of children without access to education.

The campaign, which began four months ago, appears designed to discourage migrants from staying in the capital. In mid-September, city officials discussed expelling a million migrant laborers from Beijing for the duration of the Olympic Games.

On July 12, 2006, the Beijing Municipality issued the "Notice of the General Office of the Beijing Municipality People's Government on the Work of Strengthening the Safety of Non-Approved Migrant Population Self-Schools." That document set a deadline of September 30 for the "clean up and rectification" of all unregistered schools through "dispersion, standardization and closure." According to the document, 239 unregistered migrant schools in Beijing provide education to more than 90,000 children.

In some cases, the Beijing authorities have dispatched large numbers of police to close particularly popular schools. On August 29, more than 90 policemen forced the evacuation of the Weimenkou school of Shijingshan district. Petitions to the Beijing Commission on Education, signed by hundreds of parents in support of certain schools and denouncing the brutality of the closures, remain unanswered.

The Beijing government has justified the wave of closures on the grounds that many migrant schools are unregistered and substandard. They quoted the lack of qualified teachers, inadequate or dangerous facilities, and noncompliance with hygiene regulations. However, school operators say that the authorities arbitrarily refuse them registration or impose unreasonable conditions, such as possession of half a million yuan, about US$63,000, effectively preventing them from gaining legal status.

The director of a school closed last month, which had served about 1,000 students, told Human Rights Watch, "All of this is because of the Olympics. They close the schools not because the schools are no good, but because they do not want this to attract further migration to Beijing. Of course I have applied for a permit to the government, but they never give it to you. Above all, they want to control and limit the development of
these migrant schools."

----

Human Rights Watch's China page: http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=asia&c=china

Plugged in to rock you like a typhoon (there are no hurricanes in the pacific i think)

2006-08-23T23:15:00.000-10:00

Well, i am pleased to report that my good roommate and friend Kilin has sold me "the del ray" as featured below in this file photograph. All it cost me was a pizza + beer dinner in Kailua and some good conversation. Turns out, he was workin' in santa cruz in the bagelry in 1999 while I was a junior. At the time, I had yet to go to Taiwan, and I was complaining incessantly about hippies. funny how this September marks 10 years of friendship with Chris and Sam, and 8 with the Gube. Anyway, I know what you're thinking: Kevin, the action looks a little high on the guitar. Don't worry. Kilin is an expert guitarsmith (?) and makes guitars, ukeleles, and mandolins. He said he'd fix it, and he's a man of his word.

Some Great Reward

2006-08-22T00:21:00.000-10:00

writing my thesis was probably the hardest thing i've ever done and it shows. My friend Peijin, who is now in Shanghai took this picture while we were hanign out at Happy Donuts. they had free wifi, copius electrical extension plugs, great hazel nut coffee, and the donuts weren' half bad either. Good mix of Stanford grad students and Russian & Japanese kids who were going to community college to learn Engrish. Peijin and I had a special bond that quater that i don't think I can do justice, we shared something that no one could possibly understand: a deadline that was staring us in the face like a serial killer to his next victim. I ignored so many of my friends that quarter, but Peijin and I could talk. we understood each other's mood. our frustration and fears. and Happy donuts was our place, for a few short weeks.

kashgar video

2006-08-19T11:12:00.000-10:00

Calling all cars! many of my photos from my travels in East
Turkistan/Xinjiang/新疆 were used by KK Fung, a professor who contacted
me on flickr, for a video collage he made. you can check it out
here.

Not Sweating it

2006-08-16T21:55:00.000-10:00

CIMG4960.jpg
Originally uploaded by kevin miles.

So i started playing ultimate frisbee. yes, i know only hippies play it. hippies and guys who just moved to a new town. A cool canadian started a saturday pickup game in Waikiki. To celebrate, I went to the mall and bought myself a puma sweatband. I think i look like richie tennenbaum. Well, maybe not.l. I have a history of buying and promptly loosing cool headbands. click here to see the other pics from the set.

Photos: Fieldtrip to the USS Abraham Lincoln

2006-07-31T17:04:00.000-10:00

Last week we went on a work field trip to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and took the tour. Click here to see the pics. This time, I added a lot of comments and whatnot to the pictures, so i suggest you check them out. I must say I was quite impressed with this vulgar display of American power, ingenuity, and moxie.

Come Take the tour!

From the Archives: Xinjiang 2005

2006-07-26T17:07:00.000-10:00

Say, would you like to buy a...
Originally uploaded by kevin miles.

Not the most mannequins I've seen on a donkey cart. This Uyghur wanted the equivalent of $12 for each, but the picture was free.

saturday hike with Stacey

2006-07-23T10:02:00.000-10:00

saturday hike with Stacey
Originally uploaded by kevin miles.

I let Stacey down. When she invited me to hike on saturday, she said it wasn't going to be easy. But i told her i could handle a five hour hike. "No problem!!" i exclaimed. Of course I was wrong, and the Mauumae Ridge (Lanipo) Trail got the better of me. I couldn't finish. I suppose part of growing up is acknowledging one's limits. As she is a coworker, I am worried she'll tell the boys at work. Can i blame it on not owning a pair of hiking shoes? To see evidence of my defeat, please click on the pictures below or here

Keys

2006-07-23T09:51:00.000-10:00

driving on the h3 (file photograph)
Originally uploaded by kevin miles.

My car, featured in this file photograph, has been giving me grief lately. actually, it is not the car, but car keys in general. . Please allow me, dear reader, to update you on some humdrum happenings of late. Friday night I met up with my friend Fernando at an Indie rock show, featuring Linus. After the show ends at approximately 1am, I say my goodbyes to Fernando only to pull out my keys and realize that my car key is missing. it is not on my keychain. I race out to where my car is parked and thankfully it's still there. Yet, the key remains gone. Pockets, bathroom, curb, Security, bartender, strangers--I ask and look everywhere. At one point, an older woman grabs the flash light I had borrowed from Vic the nice security guy and asks what I'm doing. annoyed, i tell her tersely. She asks: "Do you wish to consult the oracle?" I guess I should have, because after an hour of looking, I still couldn't find them. Fernando is true blue because he stayed with me until the tow truck came to pick me up. $140 later, we are in Kailua. Several days and a car rental later, i am able to pick my keys up from the dealership. BMW, even back in 1996 had fancy keys that have a computer chip in them. so the keys were $50 each.

So my new friend Margaret--who is old friends with wendy--makes fun of me constantly last weekend, and though she requests I drive, will not let me handle the keys. Sunday we got to the north shore to snorkel at Shark's cove. After finishing a mediocre poke lunch, we set on the beach. She disagrees that i should put her keys in my shoes, so i suggest burying them. "It's okay," I say to her objections. "I'll put my shoes on top of them." Spirits were high as we finished snorkeling and began discussing dinner options; we were set on mexican. As we picked up our things and walked toward the shower...I realized i forgot to pick up the key. Now, there is no one else on the sand, to give us a reference point. I will spare you the details of not-so-helpful nine year olds incessantly asking me why i buried the keys, and simply tell you that 1.5 hours and two firefighters later, we found'em. with about 15 minutes of sunlight to go.

Glory Days II

2006-07-20T12:40:00.000-10:00

For the sake of providing regular updates, i present to you, dear
reader, a copy of an email sent to be included in my HS reunion's
memory book. whatever the hell that is. They asked for an update on
our life and our favorite HS memories. So, for those to lazy to go to
the reunion such as myself, please enjoy the following.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kevin Miles <kevin.XXX@XXXX.XXX>
Date: Jul 5, 2006 3:46 PM
Subject: reunion bio bvnwhs 96
To: careXXXateverestkc.net

Most memorable school event/prank:

Senior year, a leading cadre of girls bought ringer t-shirts that said
"SENIORS." Our clever reply was to make t-shirts that said "WANKERS"
in the exact same style. Ten years on, I'm not sure who were the
wankers--us or them. Another fond memory was sharing the stage with
"Skinny Loggins" and watching the owner of Adrian's Café cut the power
once he realized it was simply the nom de guerre of the John C. Holmes
Band. For those present, I'm sure none will forget the be-mulleted
janitor's impromptu pep talk at the battle of the bands senior year…or
the fact he was arrested for domestic abuse just days later.

Bio:

My four years at UC-Santa Cruz were spent studying Chinese, playing
air hockey at the boardwalk (at one point I was ranked #55
internationally), and figuring out clever ways to upset hippies.
After graduation, I returned to Taiwan to follow my dream of becoming
a cheesy Taiwanese pop-star. I studied Chinese full-time, worked for a
computer company as a translator monkey, and even started a punk band
(the Choose Your Own Adventure Gang), but stardom eluded me. To extend
my visa, I would periodically take one-night gambling sea cruises out
to international waters. Taiwan is sweaty and crowded, but the people
and food are top-notch. After spending a few months rotting in
Oakland (my nadir was a temp job applying stickers on ID cards at
UC-Berkeley), I moved to Washington DC in 2003 and worked in the China
human rights research and advocacy industry. Sick of DC, I went to
grad school at Stanford in fall of 2004 to study China's restive
Central Asian Muslim population and their language, Uyghur. I spent
the summer of 2005 studying/researching/wandering in China and
Kazakhstan. I graduated in March 2006 and now work in Hawaii as a
professional pontificator. Yeah, it's a hardship post. To pass the
time here I snorkel, dive, play guitar, and I am trying to learn
Japanese. Cheers to all i've lost touch with.
Regards,
Kevin Miles

Every Rose Has its Thorn

2006-07-12T16:45:00.000-10:00

Sic Transit Gloria
Originally uploaded by kevin miles.

So my 10 year High school reunion is coming up, and it just sort of hit me as I received an invite to an after party thrown by Arjun entitled "DAVE YEN AND KENT BERNHARD CELEBRITY EXTRAVAGANZA!" everyone is invited...click the link to RSVP. Anyway, all of this has got me a bit sentimental. Not sentimental enough to spend the 600 dollars to fly from here to KS and use up my whopping two days of stored leave, but sentimental enough to provide this link to my old High School "just a thought" columns. They seem quite silly now, but it seemed like Hemmingway at the time. Favorites are "burma schmurma" and "mexico loaded with fun." Funny, you can actually trace the development of my narcissism. Sadly, with my "string book" stolen in Taiwan, i don't have original copies, and i don't have a copy of my last column (i'm guessing someone like Mike Vest would have a copy). I will try to post pics of the bill wennington fan club (link is my old site from 1997), but for now this will have to do. If you are sitting on a ol' BWFC picture, feel free to send it to me. As that sappy old 97's song goes, "hang in there friends forever."

lesson learned

2006-07-09T11:50:00.000-10:00

let this be a lesson to those who think they're too cool to apply sunscreen properly and thoroughly. Yep, I got a sunburn yesterday, but only on my ankles. Ouchie!

why'd you ever leave

2006-07-04T04:40:00.000-10:00

boyztown fall huntin jacket (archery position)

Your money goes far at the salvation army. I just picked up several matching jackets for boyztown. If you don't know what boyztown is, it's somewhere in alaska. anyway, they're good b/c they have many pockets for bowie knives, slingshots, and rolls of $$$. Oh you see the pic where i'm lifting my arms up? that's me, holding up the bow, in celebration of a kill.

idle hands are the devil's playthings

2006-06-26T23:27:00.000-10:00

新闻
はじめましぇて
マイズルケビんです。おなめわ？
どうずよろしく
米国政府の官员　こちわどなたですか。。あたなのべんごしですか？

YEP, you heard it here first, I started taking japanese at a local community college. well, i shouldn't say local because it is about 45min drive from work, and a 25 minute drive from my home in Kailua, but who's counting? I have no particular reason to take japanese, i suppose. but there's no french class happening at UH. merde! and there's no chinese class that is commensurate with my level. 他妈的. so then there's japanese. Japanese has the advantage of being spoken everywhere in Hawaii, that and I have Yoko, Andre, and Max to lean on (the latter two are stanford chumsーーplease picture me with my monocle everytime i reference that place). and the Japanese Kanji are based on Chinese characters. and the non character squigglys (hiragana and katakana) are pretty easy to learn alphabets...easier to type (as seen above)...so there's that. My work will pay for it too. and I get a bonus on each paycheck if i learn it decently. still, it's probably mostly out of boredom. what else am i going to do on a tuesday and thursday night from 630 to 9?

still, i like the challenge. my uyghur teacher is leaving the island soon, so uyghur is sort of out of the question. generally, i look forward to spending the next year trying to get the hang of it...but much like french (see below) there are a couple of attention hogs who love to shout out random japanese words like it's a japanese game show or someone just walked into a sushi bar. Tip to the 40 year old guy: no one is impressed by you confusing the teacher with your insipid questions about what to say when you meet teenagers!

in other news, i've written three songs in the past three weeks, a personal best. except the songs aren't very good. I'm trying to figure out garage band to record them, but perhaps i should worry more about keeping time. but don't fret, i will post them on line once they are finished. my hope is to play an open mic night here at some point. for those of you who never heard me play guitar, imagine ferris bueller when he says "i never had one lesson."