whatshouldwecallme:

hahahaha, amazing :)

Last weekend was three days, thanks to Buddha having a very well placed Birthday. Some friends and I decided to take the opportunity to go out to the east coast and get some beach time. The weather was beautiful. Sunny, warm, and with a nice breeze blowing across the water. It is the first time I have been to the beach since last summer so I definitely needed it. It was also a great opportunity to be reminded that not all foreigners I meet out here have to be quite so strange. I must admit, it shakes your faith in your own normalcy to be abroad too long. “Am I the weird one?” “Am I the creepy anti-social guy?” Believe it or not, it seems to not be the case (thank god). I made some new friends and reaffirmed some older ones. I had an amazingly relaxing time. Late nights sitting outside and laughing till my sides hurt. The day spent out on the beach, burying my feet deep in the sand. That is what it’s all about.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/china-clinton-visit/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

If this man ends up back under house arrest I will literally be sick. He came to the US embassy because, whether or not we believe it, people still think of us as a place that always puts ‘freedom’ first. It is easy to be cynical about our role in the world but he wasn’t cynical about it at all. He could have gone anywhere, and he came to us. If we willfully allow him to be returned to house arrest or to god knows where else his government sends him, the State Department can no longer say that human rights and freedoms are their primary focus. It might be inconvenient that an actual activist came to us for help but our reaction has to be one that follows up from our lip service to his ideals. Nothing is ever simple, but if we walk away from this man now China knows for sure where the power in their relationship with us lies and we know just how far we will go for the freedoms that we preach. It just isn’t quite far enough.