by Mugurel Stejar

Created on: April 24, 2008

A young man enters a bar and asks for a beer. The barman looks at him and before taking his order, asks him in a raspy voice: "Mr., are you Chinese?" "No" answers the young man surprised by the question. The barman keeps staring at him and asks again as if he did not hear the client's answer: "Mr., are you Chinese?" The young man thought that the barman had one too many, but decided to be calm, if nothing else he really wanted the beer. "No" he replies. The barman did not think that the answer was satisfactory, and with a menacing look, asks him again; "Mr. you must be Chinese". Already irritated by the strange situation, the client decides to play ball and hoping that he was going to get the beer, he answers: "Yes, I am Chinese" This time the barman looks at the client again, and in a calm voice, he asks: "now then, why don't you have slanted eyes like the rest of the Chinese people"?....

The situation seems illogical, and may be it is, but it came to mind when trying to rationalize the events I am going to talk about. Although I would have liked to tell a story which was happening entirely in my vivid imagination with no connection to reality, the sad truth of the matter is that all the events are real.

I kicked and screamed when the probation agent sent me to an anger management course. I took a few classes in college in Psychology and I never trusted the methods used in controlling anger. Although a small percentage of individuals have inherent and genetic anger problem, the high number of angry people today, is very much environment induced. It is too bad that anger these days is a problem of national proportions. Unfortunately, everyone refuses to acknowledge that fact that only the symptoms are treated while the causes are constantly kept alive.

After my fist class of anger management, I have to thank the agent for sending me there. There was no better way to document the absurdity of the process than being part of it.

The classes were scheduled in a building located in the inner city. Although the street the building is located on, crosses the city from East to West, it is passing through all kinds of neighborhoods. It took me a while to find the street address, because the building number was hidden in a regress, dark in color, while the digits, dark themselves blended with the background. After I identified the door, I stepped in and I found myself in an office, quite large I would say, with a very clean and professional look. The room was partitioned

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