Orange County! [Not the Horrible TV Show] (Week 4)

Remember that one show on the Fox network called "The O.C."?

It was about a group of Caucasian kids struggling with their first world first class problems. well let me tell you how it actually is. In the center of Orange County: fountain valley, Westminster, Garden Grove, we have a city unofficially called Little Saigon. The reason for its name is because there is a huge population of Vietnamese people in that area. I went to a high school in the area and out of the 1600 students, more than 90% of them were Vietnamese.

And a little bit south of that there is the city of Santa Ana which is heavily populated by latino's. I believe that only a portion of Orange County is Caucasian.

The reason I bring this up is because last weekend i went to orange county to visit my friend and I noticed the business center center near his house.

Within the center, there was a Vietnamese restaurant called Cali bakery next to an Mexican fast food restaurant called Alertos next to a KFC and Jack-in-the-box restaurant (AKA american restaurants) along with doctor's offices and small business in the area.

This brings up the point in class how everything is decentralized.. People were not just living in groups of their own ethnicity and instead were everywhere with everyone else. More open and tolerant of other cultures. Of course from a business standpoint I understand how having a Mexican restaurant in the center of a Vietnamese impacted town is a really smart idea.. because no one wants to be eating the same kind of food all the time.

I of course had to help myself to the variety of food in the available area.

This video is funny to watch and pertains to race. Dwight claims that the guy at his desk is not Jim, (his co-worker) because he is asian and Jim is not asian. Asian-Jim however commerates him for not being able to see race. On a serious note, Dwight was the perfect example of how race can be erased from this world. He was not able to distinguish the asian jim from the real jim (because of the well set up scenario) but if people were able to do that today, Stuart Hall's definition of race as a floating signifier would be erased (i'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind that).

Comment Post (Week 3)

For this week, I will provide analysis and comments on this post by a fellow classmate.

I found his post really interesting because i have always driven across LA and never once used a bike as my form of transportation. The way he describes his experience sounded really relaxing and fun.. unlike the automobile commuter's experience.

The Ciclavia event was something I have heard about from my cousin, who lives in downtown LA at the Medici. and I think it's pretty nifty that a wide culture of people would come together for a bike route. This just shows the large amount of culture we have in LA and that people would unite for a good cause. This is as how the professor describes is the beginning of cities. Centralization through one idea or another is the fundamental start to a city in the past before the post modern metropolis. I believe the event is also a social event for people to get to know fellow cyclists and road sharers.

I wonder what other events would cause people to get together and then i realize protests are also a good example of people uniting under a good cause. Whether it be to protest UC tuition prices or even for union rights and better wages, people have come together for a while now and combined their beliefs to make their presence be known and their demands to be heard.

Perhaps I will indulge in this event in the future =]

Downtown Travels. (Week 2)

Honk honk! Beep BEEP!

Surrounded.. I look around me and I'm surrounded by an ample amount of cars. It looks like a scene in an apocolypse movie.. where the locals try to escape the city's disaster.. but then you realize that this isn't a movie. This is Los Angeles traffic.. rated as the 2nd worst traffic in the United states (2nd to Honolulu Hawaii). Bumper to bumper as far as you can see in front of you and behind you, you want to go faster, you dont want to wait but you can't.. you can't.. you just sit there and go at cruising speed of under ten miles.. dreading every minute of this commute.. thinking of what you can do with all this time spent in traffic.

This is pretty much the condition of the freeways in the Los Angeles area but more specifically this is the 10 East freeway going to downtown from the 405.  It is pretty much jammed packed at all times of the day with people going to or from work.

All this traffic gets you to think why it is like this. Why are the streets so congested as opposed to city. The answer may be as easy as saying its the 2nd most populated city in the United state. But it can also be as complicated as saying that it is due to high business numbers and similar interests in the city. With people constantly driving to get from place to place.. it would make sense why it is so packed.

I traveled from UCLA to downtown during the heavily congested traffic to spend time with my cousin for the first time ever and explore Downtown Los Angeles but more specifically the LA live center.


Here is a picture from his apartment that shows the downtown area (I don't remember that building's name)

This area becomes alive during the night. With flashing lights from the staple centers to the constant party atmosphere at the local private university. As the professor spoke in his first lecture of how the locals are in such a hustle mentality and state of mind. Where everyone has no disregard for each other and its just a dog eat dog world. You can see it near the LA live where there are local bars and even nightly basketball games at time. Where in this hugely populated city.. There is a huge sense of anonymity and no sense of respect for others because they are just strangers you will most likely not meet ever again in your life.

*EDIT 12/4/12*
After learning about neo-liberalism, and the Axis of Difference of class. The downtown area can be seen as a place to reproduce labor because as Marxian said: entertainment is needed for labor reproduction. Even if people work over 40 hours a week, its all okay as long as they get to go play at Disneyland or in this case at the staples center and watch the Lakers play their heart out!

What is this? (Week 1)

First of all, thanks for coming to my blog!

This blog will document my exploration of the Los Angeles Metropolitan area throughout the fall quarter of the Univsersity of California, Los Angeles in 2012. I will be exploring by bus, car, or feet the LA area and take notes of surrounding environment and people. Afterwards I will be providing analysis of the role that "social difference" plays in the city of Los Angeles and relate it to my experience.

In Geography 151, I am interested in how these differences came to be. Why are things are there differencs in differences.Why are there differences in class, race sexuality or gender and how did these come about? And how do we see the things we learn differences in today's world and possibly how do they affect us. This will follow my classwork and lecture from Geography 151. I would also be inputting my small insignificant opinion into each blog to voice my 2 cents.

So welcome to my blog and enjoy yourself!