(An expansion of a post I made in the Portajohn section today)
HOW A NON-GUN PERSON BECAME ONE OF THE MOST PRO-GUN INDIVIDUALS ONE WILL EVER MEET.
For some people, it takes absolute physical suffering and injuries to wake them up. For my younger cousin, it was love.
Before he went to South Africa to start his restaurant business, he did not care about guns. To him, these were military tools, and the military world could not be more farther from his own sphere living in the urban cyberpunk sprawl that is Shanghai. Sometimes he went to the Shanghai Municipal Shooting Range and rented various guns available there to shoot on the premises with his buddies from work. Shoot for fun, that is it. Expend a magazine or two and then head out to a bar for a night of Tsingtao beer, Moutai rice wine, and a round of Mahjong at the card table. Guns are just for fun. Who needs to own one and constantly have one around anyway?
Until he met Eleanor in Johannesburg, a girl from Ireland. The moment they struck up a conversation and ended up talking to each for almost an hour under the shade of an outdoor market, he fell in love with her. And when she reciprocated her feelings for him, he could not have been more elated. His mind was filled with vows of how he will always protect her and keep her from harm. Anybody who has truly been in love will know that they felt the same way too.
His challenge, and his proverbial line in the sand came almost instantly. For South Africa has a problem. Over the years the criminal gangs empowered by the murderous ANC regime had grew more bold in their terror campaigns against white people. Gangs routinely raped and murdered with very little consequences. My cousin feared for Eleanor and her family's safety far more than his own. After all, he professed his love to her, and she said yes. If he cannot protect who he loved, what kind of man is he? How will he face his ancestors' spirits once his own miserable and pathetic existence has passed and he is in the realm of the Jade Emperor Yuhuang, who judges all who come before his throne?
The answer my cousin was looking for came to him quickly. For in Johannesburg's Chinatown, like many Chinatowns elsewhere, there is a very lucrative backdoor business underworld flourishing with trade in illicit and scrutinized items stowed away in nondescript containers that arrive on freighters in Durban and then make their way to lucrative buyers in the tobacco smoke filled backrooms of Johannesburg's Chinese logistical companies and taverns. Through people he knows in the trade, he came in possession of a QBZ-95 assault rifle and several magazines loaded with cartridges. Holding the compact, blocky, powerful and futuristic looking Chinese military standard issue infantry weapon in his hands and working it's mechanisms in a deserted office at the back of his restaurant later that night, he realized that this was not an item merely to "shoot for fun" at a range anymore. It was far more than that. It was franchise and individual empowerment in a world where all-powerful mobs dictated what people should believe, and which skin colors deserved to live or die. For the first time, he realized that he could actually PROTECT himself, Eleanor, and her folks from harm, or at least make the circling wolves pay extremely dearly if they chose this place to pounce on next.
He had already envisioned what was the worst that can happen, going by the horrific and tragic stories that flooded the news every day. If the worst were to come, he would have Eleanor leave through a roof access hatch which led to a catwalk that encircled the whole row of shops before descending into a back street, and run to her family and another British family who knew the quickest way out of town while he would bait all potential attackers toward himself in the restaurant and hold them off there until his final gasp of breath. Five magazines of 30 rounds of 5.8x42mm each, fired on semiautomatic mode and with each shot aimed for count, would exact a hell of a price on the attackers even if they got to him in the end. They will not get their prize, except high velocity lead and copper, hot brass casings, and "this bloodied Chinese corpse".
For my cousin, the worst never came, and he and Eleanor are now living in Shanghai, but these years in Johannesburg placed him in a mindset which he would never stray from, or persuaded by anyone to think otherwise. It was not "indoctrination" by "right wing talk radio", "conspiracy theory forums", or "MAGA propaganda" which turned him into someone that the gun banning, tyrannical leftists would dread with each new one created. It was love. Pure and simple.
If he cannot protect who he loved, what kind of man is he? How will he face his ancestors' spirits once his own miserable and pathetic existence has passed and he is in the realm of the Jade Emperor Yuhuang, who judges all who come before his throne?
A man who truly loves the ones in his life would do anything to protect them and will be ingenious in all methods of fighting back against potential predators.
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The Tale of the Ghost-Pepper Farmer. A popular folktale that is told by almost everyone today in Shanxi Province, China.
Shanxi Province, like it's southern brother Sichuan, is known for it's mountainous valleys and extremely spicy foods. The hottest peppers in all of China are cultivated in Shanxi, and out of all the pepper farmers, Li Zhao, who lived in one of these mountain farms, grew the hottest of them all. Li Zhao's ghost peppers were so potent that even a direct whiff of one burning will elicit a nosebleed and a potentially fatal, suffocating cough. For years, Li Zhao won all of the local spicy culinary contests and his farm became the talk of everyone who wanted some of his prized ghost peppers. Then one day, the war came to Shanxi. Even in the weeks prior, distant accounts of entire cities being burned and their inhabitants massacred reached his corner of the world, but Li Zhao and the other townsfolk brushed them off as mere rumors and exaggerations of yet another one of the many civil disturbances that the country has been all too familiar with. But one day, Li Zhao heard the rumble of heavy truck engines and the clattering of tank treads, and as he looked out over the valley, he saw column after column of Japanese soldiers marching down the mountain pass in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes. The war had come to Shanxi. Over the next year, a calamity like no one had ever seen before befell the entire province under Japanese occupation. Almost everybody Li Zhao knew were killed or rounded up in indiscriminate sweeps by the occupation forces. His farm had been seized, his crops were destroyed, and he himself was left destitute and reduced to begging for scraps from the streets of the occupied provincial capital. And the Japanese troops were everywhere. Anybody who even walked out of step received a full powered swing across the head with a rifle butt or had a bayonet thrust through them. One day, a disheveled, weary, and battered Li Zhao half walked and half crawled back to the burned wreckage where his pepper farm had once been. In the wreckage, he found a small stock of dried ghost peppers that had miraculously escaped the fire, a sack of saltpeter that he uses as fertilizer for his fields, and a single metal leaf spring that had fallen off of a broken wagon years ago. What could Li Zhao possibly do with these items??? In this movie adaptation of this folktale, we will find out:
A GHOST-PEPPER FARMER'S REVENGE
HOW A NON-GUN PERSON BECAME ONE OF THE MOST PRO-GUN INDIVIDUALS ONE WILL EVER MEET.
For some people, it takes absolute physical suffering and injuries to wake them up. For my younger cousin, it was love.
Before he went to South Africa to start his restaurant business, he did not care about guns. To him, these were military tools, and the military world could not be more farther from his own sphere living in the urban cyberpunk sprawl that is Shanghai. Sometimes he went to the Shanghai Municipal Shooting Range and rented various guns available there to shoot on the premises with his buddies from work. Shoot for fun, that is it. Expend a magazine or two and then head out to a bar for a night of Tsingtao beer, Moutai rice wine, and a round of Mahjong at the card table. Guns are just for fun. Who needs to own one and constantly have one around anyway?
Until he met Eleanor in Johannesburg, a girl from Ireland. The moment they struck up a conversation and ended up talking to each for almost an hour under the shade of an outdoor market, he fell in love with her. And when she reciprocated her feelings for him, he could not have been more elated. His mind was filled with vows of how he will always protect her and keep her from harm. Anybody who has truly been in love will know that they felt the same way too.
His challenge, and his proverbial line in the sand came almost instantly. For South Africa has a problem. Over the years the criminal gangs empowered by the murderous ANC regime had grew more bold in their terror campaigns against white people. Gangs routinely raped and murdered with very little consequences. My cousin feared for Eleanor and her family's safety far more than his own. After all, he professed his love to her, and she said yes. If he cannot protect who he loved, what kind of man is he? How will he face his ancestors' spirits once his own miserable and pathetic existence has passed and he is in the realm of the Jade Emperor Yuhuang, who judges all who come before his throne?
The answer my cousin was looking for came to him quickly. For in Johannesburg's Chinatown, like many Chinatowns elsewhere, there is a very lucrative backdoor business underworld flourishing with trade in illicit and scrutinized items stowed away in nondescript containers that arrive on freighters in Durban and then make their way to lucrative buyers in the tobacco smoke filled backrooms of Johannesburg's Chinese logistical companies and taverns. Through people he knows in the trade, he came in possession of a QBZ-95 assault rifle and several magazines loaded with cartridges. Holding the compact, blocky, powerful and futuristic looking Chinese military standard issue infantry weapon in his hands and working it's mechanisms in a deserted office at the back of his restaurant later that night, he realized that this was not an item merely to "shoot for fun" at a range anymore. It was far more than that. It was franchise and individual empowerment in a world where all-powerful mobs dictated what people should believe, and which skin colors deserved to live or die. For the first time, he realized that he could actually PROTECT himself, Eleanor, and her folks from harm, or at least make the circling wolves pay extremely dearly if they chose this place to pounce on next.
He had already envisioned what was the worst that can happen, going by the horrific and tragic stories that flooded the news every day. If the worst were to come, he would have Eleanor leave through a roof access hatch which led to a catwalk that encircled the whole row of shops before descending into a back street, and run to her family and another British family who knew the quickest way out of town while he would bait all potential attackers toward himself in the restaurant and hold them off there until his final gasp of breath. Five magazines of 30 rounds of 5.8x42mm each, fired on semiautomatic mode and with each shot aimed for count, would exact a hell of a price on the attackers even if they got to him in the end. They will not get their prize, except high velocity lead and copper, hot brass casings, and "this bloodied Chinese corpse".
For my cousin, the worst never came, and he and Eleanor are now living in Shanghai, but these years in Johannesburg placed him in a mindset which he would never stray from, or persuaded by anyone to think otherwise. It was not "indoctrination" by "right wing talk radio", "conspiracy theory forums", or "MAGA propaganda" which turned him into someone that the gun banning, tyrannical leftists would dread with each new one created. It was love. Pure and simple.
If he cannot protect who he loved, what kind of man is he? How will he face his ancestors' spirits once his own miserable and pathetic existence has passed and he is in the realm of the Jade Emperor Yuhuang, who judges all who come before his throne?
A man who truly loves the ones in his life would do anything to protect them and will be ingenious in all methods of fighting back against potential predators.
----------
----------
----------
The Tale of the Ghost-Pepper Farmer. A popular folktale that is told by almost everyone today in Shanxi Province, China.
Shanxi Province, like it's southern brother Sichuan, is known for it's mountainous valleys and extremely spicy foods. The hottest peppers in all of China are cultivated in Shanxi, and out of all the pepper farmers, Li Zhao, who lived in one of these mountain farms, grew the hottest of them all. Li Zhao's ghost peppers were so potent that even a direct whiff of one burning will elicit a nosebleed and a potentially fatal, suffocating cough. For years, Li Zhao won all of the local spicy culinary contests and his farm became the talk of everyone who wanted some of his prized ghost peppers. Then one day, the war came to Shanxi. Even in the weeks prior, distant accounts of entire cities being burned and their inhabitants massacred reached his corner of the world, but Li Zhao and the other townsfolk brushed them off as mere rumors and exaggerations of yet another one of the many civil disturbances that the country has been all too familiar with. But one day, Li Zhao heard the rumble of heavy truck engines and the clattering of tank treads, and as he looked out over the valley, he saw column after column of Japanese soldiers marching down the mountain pass in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes. The war had come to Shanxi. Over the next year, a calamity like no one had ever seen before befell the entire province under Japanese occupation. Almost everybody Li Zhao knew were killed or rounded up in indiscriminate sweeps by the occupation forces. His farm had been seized, his crops were destroyed, and he himself was left destitute and reduced to begging for scraps from the streets of the occupied provincial capital. And the Japanese troops were everywhere. Anybody who even walked out of step received a full powered swing across the head with a rifle butt or had a bayonet thrust through them. One day, a disheveled, weary, and battered Li Zhao half walked and half crawled back to the burned wreckage where his pepper farm had once been. In the wreckage, he found a small stock of dried ghost peppers that had miraculously escaped the fire, a sack of saltpeter that he uses as fertilizer for his fields, and a single metal leaf spring that had fallen off of a broken wagon years ago. What could Li Zhao possibly do with these items??? In this movie adaptation of this folktale, we will find out:
A GHOST-PEPPER FARMER'S REVENGE
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