Updated at the bottom: We speak with a worried friend of Jeon’s from UCLA, who says Jeon is a “thrill-seeker” trying to “test himself.”
Sorry, Westwood: The raddest, most absurdly wired math major ever to grace your homogenous hell of a dorm-tropolis has officially left the building.
UCLA student Chris Jeon bought a one-way ticket to Cairo two weeks ago, telling his parents he was going on a tame little vaycay. Then — like a man on a motherfucking mission — Jeon made his way to the heart of foreign unrest: He’s currently in a town called An Nawfaliyah, on the road to Tripoli.
Apparently the UC Regents budget-cut walkouts weren’t cutting it for Jeon, on the rebellion meter:
“It is the end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels,” he told an Australian reporter from The National, clearly floored to find an Asian-American dude in an L.A. basketball jersey out in the middle of the desert. “This is one of the only real revolutions.”

His story only gets zanier from there. Jeon makes civilian Osama-hunting look like child’s play:
“How do you fire this thing?” he asked on Wednesday as a bearded rebel handed him an AK-47. Locating the trigger of the assault rifle and switching off the safety, Mr Jeon fired it in the air in two short bursts.
“I want to fight in Sirte!” he proclaimed, using hand gestures and pointing west towards Sirte. Whether the rebels understood him was far from clear. “It’s hard to communicate. I don’t really speak any Arabic,” he said.
The Arab Spring rebels with whom Jeon is running have nicknamed him Ahmed El Maghrabi Saidi Barga, awesomely. The name also serves as something of an awkward-silence breaker, reports the paper: “When communication invariably reaches an impasse, he merely repeats his name and the rebels erupt in raucous cheers.”
Oh, and here’s the reason Jeon didn’t buy a return ticket (though he does still plan to graduate in May, being the shruggishly optimistic dude he is): “If I get captured or something, I don’t want to waste another $800.”
How did this human come into existence? And in a place like Cypress, California, no less. His Facebook profile makes him look surprisingly normal; he’s in groups like “I <3 Cali” and “Texts From Last Night-UCLA.”
But don’t be fooled by these inane attempts at status-quo! And please, readers: If you have the honor of knowing Chris Jeon, or even knowing someone who knows Chris Jeon, contact us immediately. We need to find this kid. And marry him. After a supreme talking-to.
Best quote for last: “Whatever you do, don’t tell my parents,” Jeon told the paper. “They don’t know I’m here.”
Keep reading…