The Official Dieworkwear Appreciation Thread

[losrockets]

Curious, what kind did you pick up? I'm still undecided to picking up a standard pair of high rise ones from Wrangler, that will likely fade to a dark charcoal, or pick up a pair of one of those sulphur dyed jeans that supposedly don't fade.

I definitely jumped on that train, don't have any regrets on OTR safari jackets. A cream and pale green one have worked pretty great for me. Going for electric blue was my problem.

Yep, for sure. I'm glad I didn't go for an emerald green suit and mostly listened on the Bal.

LOL, I have an olive seersucker suit. But I like it way more than my tobacco linen one. Learned over several expensive mistakes that Houston is too hot in the summer for "cool wearing layers" even at night. And as someone from the mid Atlantic, come October there's a part of me that can't help but start wearing more jeans and starts to veer away from linens. As for the denim, I think I got 15oz Stealth Stantons. Still smell like Sulphur months later.

 

[FlyingHorker]

LOL, I have an olive seersucker suit. But I like it way more than my tobacco linen one. Learned over several expensive mistakes that Houston is too hot in the summer for "cool wearing layers" even at night. And as someone from the mid Atlantic, come October there's a part of me that can't help but start wearing more jeans and starts to veer away from linens. As for the denim, I think I got 15oz Stealth Stantons. Still smell like Sulphur months later.

Olive seersucker would be way more useful than an emerald green IMO. You can easily break that up into separates. Due to the colour, I feel like olive seersucker could be worn year round.

Houston weather sounds too scary for my northern tastes. With the cold you just have to layer up, but can't do much about sweating from sweltering heat.

On second thought though, we run from the car to indoor heating here anyway ASAP, no one actually spends much time outdoors in winter. I wonder if people in Houston do the same, but with A/C.

Was the purchase worth it overall, or would you go back and pick a 'regular' dyed pair of black jeans?

 

[losrockets]

Worth it. Had no idea Sulphur due was unique until you brought it up, but they're a deep black color and fit well. I purchased them in store at Stag (rip Houston location) based on looks alone.

 

[TheShetlandSweater]

Regarding the "Far East", I think the common objections to the term are that (1) it is Europe-centric--it doesn't make sense to call it the Far East if it isn't way to the east of you. It is also a bit arrogant and dismissive to call it the Far East for this reason. Imagine if the place you lived was commonly know as the Far West. This would be another way of saying that you live on the outskirts of civilization, not in the places where important things happen. (2) It exoticizes the places it denotes--they are far off in the East where things are different. Here, "far" doesn't just refer to physical difference but also to cultural difference. It is important to point out here that places like Australia and New Zealand that are slightly more to the east of Europe than places like China and Japan are not considered part of the Far East, because they aren't that different culturally than Europe.

I don't want to imply that "Far East" is a super-offensive term or that people who use it are bigoted or anything like that, but I understand why the term has fallen out of favor.

 

[#dadcore]

I personally really enjoy going back and reading your old posts. Tons of great info and the image archive is great for inspiration. Would hate to see them disappear.

 

[Thin White Duke]

There's really nothing particularly odd about that either. Europe also used to be called the Occident. Both derive from Latin terms which denote where the sun sets (occidens) and rises (oriens). So an oriental scent uses ingredients mainly found in the East.

If anything, Asian should be a far worse term, as it lumps together hugely divergent nations, and is culturally specific.

Agreed. I always thought that objection to ‘oriental’ was a strange hill to die on as I find it hard to see anything negative about it, as you state by its etymology.
But people have the right to call themselves what they want. I object to being called ‘Caucasian’. A long time ago people tried to divide the world into mongoloids, negroids and caucasoids. The two former have long since fallen out of favour so why are we stuck with the third? I’ve done my 23 and Me and there is no part of my family tree from the Caucasus!

 

[dieworkwear]

I'm East Asian and don't personally have a problem with the terms Far East or Oriental. Although I do find it a bit antiquated to call people Oriental. Sort of like calling pants slacks.

I don't think the original objection to these terms was about linguistics, but rather how these terms represent a broader characterization of East Asian people and cultures. Historically, these terms came with the exotification and "othering" of Asian people and cultures, as mentioned earlier (Edward Siad's term for this was Orientalism).

It's less about etymology and linguistics, and more about race relations. I don't think people object to Occident or Causasion partly because white people are given the full spectrum of humanity in Western cultures, whereas East Asian cultures can sometimes (but not always) be reduced to tchotchkes, dirty Chinatowns, and simplified stereotypes (e.g. mathematical, polite, servile, etc). John Dower's book "War Without Mercy" is partly about how "positive" Japanese stereotypes were turned on thier head and made into "negative" stereotypes during the war, which justified various war attrocities.

When I first read objections to these words, it was through people such as Ronald Takaki and Frank Wu, who wrote about the Asian American experience. I think to understand why some people have objections to the terms Far East and Oriental, you also have to couch it in terms of the self-hate that many Asian people internalized growing up in white communities (e.g. "my food is too stinky," "my parents talk funny," "my family is too immigrant," etc). Or the schoolyard taunts like "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at theseeee"

So then when people like Takaki and Wu wrote about the fuller Asian American experience, and wrote more about how East Asians are represented in Western societies, things such as "don't say Oriental" became a "thing" in popular culture. But it was never really about the term or language, but rather much more about the Asian American experience.

I don't assume to speak for all Asian people, but in my experience, actual Asians (meaning people from Asia) also don't understand why Oriental or Far East might bother some people. It feels like a very Asian American thing, and very much rooted in the Asian American experience.

That said, again, I don't personally have a problem with the terms. I think it's more useful to think about broader issues. I suppose I think of this thing as the intro paragraph to a chapter. You use a term to show how linguistics sometimes come loaded with meaning, and then use that as a jumping off point to discuss much more meaningful issues. But the term itself is not the point. If someone used the terms Far East or Oriental around me, I personally wouldn't care.

 

[Nobilis Animus]

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that it's an objection to the connotations which have attached themselves to the term, rather than the linguistic origins themselves - which I fully understand. Sort of like how certain medical terms became misused and are now unspeakably rude when misused in that way. A lot of these discussions also seem to be oriented in the American experience, as you said.

But as an academic I get more into the true meanings behind words than some. It's also useful to note how the terms originally were used only in a literary sense, even 2000 years ago. So the resurrection of Orient and Occident to describe different cultural hemispheres, as opposed to geographical ones, is both historically anachronistic and a literal misuse of reality. Unless one happens to be an ancient Roman bard.

 

[gettoasty]

Stagg EKG Electric Kettle ordered, feel like if I waited I could've gotten a better deal but took up the BF code. Time to pick out tea leaves etc.

Just wanted to drink some green tea, all the good benefits that come with it as alternative to coffee, and now this. lol

@dieworkwear Have you ever made a big brew? I have a 1.9L thermal, is that reasonable? I imagine I will be going through a lot of green tea. Do you have a preferred tea for the weekday and enjoy a better quality for weekends? Or it is the same everyday? For now I can continue brewing at home but trying to think ahead when I return to the office.

Edit:
I may just pickup a smaller thermal to get my fill during the commute.

 

[dieworkwear]

Stagg EKG Electric Kettle ordered, feel like if I waited I could've gotten a better deal but took up the BF code. Time to pick out tea leaves etc.

Just wanted to drink some green tea, all the good benefits that come with it as alternative to coffee, and now this. lol

@dieworkwear Have you ever made a big brew? I have a 1.9L thermal, is that reasonable? I imagine I will be going through a lot of green tea. Do you have a preferred tea for the weekday and enjoy a better quality for weekends? Or it is the same everyday? For now I can continue brewing at home but trying to think ahead when I return to the office.

1.9L is a lot of tea. That's 64oz?

As you go up, it's harder to control the brew. I don't know the science behind it. But I notice it even with a 12oz cup.

If you brew a very small cup, it's easier to get the fuller flavor. The tea tastes a lot better. But as I noted, if you're brewing very small amounts at a time, that has to be your activity for that given period. It's not like you can type emails and then sip on tea (I guess you could, but it would be inefficient).

With a 12oz cup, you can put tea in a metal strainer and then just eyeball it. You kind of know how dark you want your tea at some point. But it's hard to get that fuller, richer flavor. The tea ends up tasting a bit watery. If you leave the tea leaves in there too long, the water can cool down (not ideal) or you can burn the leaves (which leaves a bitter flavor).

Some teas, such as jasmine, are pretty easy to brew. I don't know about 1.9L, but you can brew big jasmine tea balls and leave them in a big teapot with little ill effect. (Pictured below).

But for expensive teas, I don't know if I would go above 12oz. At some point, you may be missing out on the flavor.

For me, I mostly drink li shan high mountain, dong ding, and jasmine. Sometimes I'll drink hōjicha in the winter. It's a very dark, woody Japanese tea. But to be honest, it's rare. I'm mostly oolong like 99% of the time.

I would just experiment. Even relatively expensive tea is not that expensive, so it's not a big deal if you waste some leaves.

 

[gettoasty]

Thanks!

Some teas, such as jasmine, are pretty easy to brew. I don't know about 1.9L, but you can brew big jasmine tea balls and leave them in a big teapot with little ill effect. (Pictured below).

This addresses my question, I'll probably buy two to start off, something middle of the road and splurge on something expensive for for taste.

 

[florent]

Do Europeans still commonly use the term Far East?

Do people in US (guessing here) still ask if "Europeans" use english expressions?

 

[Quesjac]

Do Europeans still commonly use the term Far East?

Haven't heard "Far East" for some time in the UK but I think it was used generally to distinguish from "Middle East" (UK usage) rather than to make "East" seem more foreign, as it were. Some academics here are more likely to say "Arabian peninsula" or something but "Middle East" is still the normal term.

My other guess is that it might have been used in the UK because Asia is very ambiguous in British English as it could mean South Asia / East Asia / Asia Pacific with about equal probability. This is also regional, the default in the north of England and the Midlands is for Asia to signal South Asia because of migration patterns and cultural awareness.

 

[kaizerpi]

Stagg EKG Electric Kettle ordered, feel like if I waited I could've gotten a better deal but took up the BF code. Time to pick out tea leaves etc.

Just wanted to drink some green tea, all the good benefits that come with it as alternative to coffee, and now this. lol

@dieworkwear Have you ever made a big brew? I have a 1.9L thermal, is that reasonable? I imagine I will be going through a lot of green tea. Do you have a preferred tea for the weekday and enjoy a better quality for weekends? Or it is the same everyday? For now I can continue brewing at home but trying to think ahead when I return to the office.

Edit:
I may just pickup a smaller thermal to get my fill during the commute.

You might be better off brewing several batches and pouring them into your thermos.

 

[Nobilis Animus]

1.9L is a lot of tea. That's 64oz?

As you go up, it's harder to control the brew. I don't know the science behind it. But I notice it even with a 12oz cup.

If you brew a very small cup, it's easier to get the fuller flavor. The tea tastes a lot better. But as I noted, if you're brewing very small amounts at a time, that has to be your activity for that given period. It's not like you can type emails and then sip on tea (I guess you could, but it would be inefficient).

With a 12oz cup, you can put tea in a metal strainer and then just eyeball it. You kind of know how dark you want your tea at some point. But it's hard to get that fuller, richer flavor. The tea ends up tasting a bit watery. If you leave the tea leaves in there too long, the water can cool down (not ideal) or you can burn the leaves (which leaves a bitter flavor).

Some teas, such as jasmine, are pretty easy to brew. I don't know about 1.9L, but you can brew big jasmine tea balls and leave them in a big teapot with little ill effect. (Pictured below).

But for expensive teas, I don't know if I would go above 12oz. At some point, you may be missing out on the flavor.

For me, I mostly drink li shan high mountain, dong ding, and jasmine. Sometimes I'll drink hōjicha in the winter. It's a very dark, woody Japanese tea. But to be honest, it's rare. I'm mostly oolong like 99% of the time.

I would just experiment. Even relatively expensive tea is not that expensive, so it's not a big deal if you waste some leaves.


View attachment 1507976

Now that looks great.