JJ Chinois and Terminal USA

JJ Chinois and Terminal USA were probably the two strangest films I've watched for this class -- I felt like I was in HA89 (Contemporary Art) all over again. These are definitely "underground" films -- interesting cinematic and subject choices, and the exploration of Asian sexuality was pretty fascinating. At a few points I found myself asking, "What is going on?!?", because seriously, many of the events in Terminal USA were bizarre and disturbing (Kazumi's leg injury, the dying grandfather, etc).

After reading more about JJ Chinois, I feel that I understand at least that film a little more. But Terminal USA -- huh? The characters are obviously meant to be very extreme, almost caricatures, and I see that there's clearly a spoof of American soap operas/pop culture/B-movies. The dialogue and delivery is all rather strange; I'm interested in finding out what Terminal USA is meant to be saying about Asian America.

Asian American Music: Asobi Seksu

I first heard Asobi Seksu's album a year or two ago, and really liked the sound. Their music sounds sort of like a collage, with transparent layers and textures and sunny colors. However, I didn't really know much about the artist until recently, when a Wikipedia search turned up some interesting information.

"Asobi Seksu", which I've learned means "playful sex" in Japanese, is a NYC-based rock band. They've got a really innovative sound, and as an occasional fan of foreign language music, I think Asobi Seksu has a great fusion style. The band consists of Yuki Chikudate (vocals, keyboards), James Hanna (guitar, vocals)... thank you WIkipedia.

Their album Citrus is the one I listen to when it's sunny outside, and I'm cheerful. Which, in Providence, happens only occasionally (the sunny part, not the cheerful). This is one of my favorite songs of the album -- cute video, too:



Here's another, set in NYC:



Enjoy!

Sa-I-Gu and Twilight

I remember being very young and watching footage of Rodney King being beaten on TV, as well as news stories about the riots. I'm not sure why, as a four-year-old, I would remember these things, but I know that after that, I was left with a very clear feeling that my Asian family sided not with the African Americans, but the Asians, regardless of which side was "right" or "wrong".

So it's really interesting for me to watch Sa-I-Gu now, remembering that racial tensions are still strong in the United States, and how my family felt about the riots. The incident definitely became a part of pop culture, in films, in rap music from the West Coast to the East Coast, and in many articles/books written about this period in LA's history. There's still, I feel, residual anger about the riots. While I was watching the TV show LOST a while ago, a black character on the show told a Korean (not Korean American) character that "black people and Korean people just don't get along, don't like each other, in the United States).

I've also watched Anna Deveare Smith's documentary film about the riots, Twilight, and for me, it was even more striking than Sa-I-Gu, because Deveare-Smith manages to portray all her characters so realistically and so honestly; what they say is made more obvious, more bare, because Deveare-Smith is the one who repeats all their words, their actions, their mannerisms. Many of the Korean characters in Twilight express the sentiments and attitudes that the subjects of Sa-I-Gu feel. In both films, as well, I sense that there is a major disconnect between the black and Korean-American communities of LA at the time of the riots -- what explains this barrier of understanding? Cultural differences, racism, or just indifference? I suppose that's the question of all of America's race history.

Mississippi Masala: Different Cultures, Common Ground

Mississippi Masala explores the relationship of "the other" in a place away from home, dealing with family, assimilation, and discrimination. However, in this case, "home" is Uganda, the family is Indian, and the surrogate homeland is the American South. So, the dynamics are very different, and race relations are especially complex. Culture clashes and racism are prominent themes in this film, as well as family.

Anil and his wife, newlyweds of an arranged marriage, have a relationship without passion; this is in contrast to the intense love affair between Mina and Demetrius. They, I suppose, are meant to represent modernity and fusion, whereas Mina's family represents tradition and self-segregation. However, in both cultures, the concept of family is very important, and family relationships are tight-knit.

I found it interesting that the concept of color within race is similar between both Indians and African Americans (not always, but often among the older generation). Mina says, "Face it ma, you got a darky daughter", and skin color plays a role in the "correctness" of relationships, in the eyes of others. Anil says, "As long as you are not white, it means you are colored. Isn't that so?".

In the American South, both Indians and African Americans are discriminated against. Similarly, Mina's family is expelled from Uganda because "Africa is for Africans...black Africans", as Okelo says. Idi Amin wants Asians gone from Uganda because "they have refused to let their daughters marry Asian men." Interestingly, I feel that this is a mirroring of the race relations of the United States, where blacks are othered, interracial relationships are taboo, and nativists feel that whites are the only "real Americans." Also, I really liked the dialogue between Mina and Demetrius' brother, in which Mina says, "I don't know, I've never been to India," and he replies, "Well, you're just like us -- we've never been to Africa neither."

All in all, I thought this was a sweet, heartfelt movie, and a different take on American race relations than the usual black-white.

Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow, though employing a rather cliche premise ("nerdy" kids plotting to overthrow the system), seems as fresh and shocking as the blood spatters on Daric's face after Ben bludgeons Steve with a baseball bat. That is to say, I liked the movie, despite (because of?) the gratuitous drugs/sex/debauchery.

To me, this is very clearly a teenage movie, even a coming-of-age movie, if you will. The characters seem much older than most high schoolers I know, but their experiences with cheating, drugs, parties, and the opposite sex are common in suburbia, as is the disillusionment they all seem to have. I really liked that the film focused more on the characters' lives outside of school; I think that this created more complexity. I'm not sure if it was intentional on the part of the director or not, but I feel that some of the characters, Daric and Steve in particular, came across as very cold and jaded. Stephanie, the cute cheerleader, seems to be the only innocent -- she wasn't really in a porno, and is always portrayed with a sort of chaste naivete (despite her oh-so-badass theft of a "Music to Hump To" CD). Is she meant to be 'tragically whitewashed'?

All in all, I enjoyed this film -- it's rare to see a cast of young Asian actors in American films, especially Asian actors who aren't Long Duck Dong-types.

Global Chop Suey: Chinese Restaurants in the Diaspora

After watching Cheuk Kwan's documentary, Chinese Restaurants, I've gained a newfound appreciation for Chinese restauranteurs and their families. Kwan's subjects are, overall, portrayed as very hard-working and aspiring, often sacrificing a great deal in order to keep their dreams afloat.

I like the fact that each segment of Kwan's documentary focuses on a specific area of the globe. Of the three parts I watched, my favorite profiles were the ones Kwan did in Cuba and in Norway -- I hadn't even known that Chinese restaurants would be popular in these places. The cultural perspective Kwan provides focuses on the cross-cultural exchange that occurs between the Chinese immigrants and their surrounding locales. I especially found the interviews of the Chinese restauranteurs' children intriguing, because many of them faced the conflict of being a "hyphenated Chinese", caught between their parents' Chinese customs, and those of the country in which they were raised. In Trinidad, for example, Maurice's son says that he thinks of himself as "Trinidadian first, and Chinese second". In Cuba, one interviewee says that "a true Cuban is one part Spanish, one part black, and one part Chinese" -- I hadn't even been aware that there was a sizable Chinese community in Cuba! The Chinese parents of the diaspora often wanted their children to marry Chinese, and to continue the Chinese traditions in their adopted countries. many of the older Chinese people interviewed also expressed a wish to be buried in China, underscoring their strong attachment and longing for their homeland. Noisy Jim's story, in this regard, was especially poignant.

Also interesting was the fact that many of the Chinese restauranteurs had modified traditional Chinese cuisine into a fusion of Chinese and local foods, especially if Chinese ingredients were difficult to come by where they lived. In Norway, I was especially impressed by the dedication the Wongs had -- long, long hours, virtually no vacation time, and little opportunity to spend quality time with their children. Their life seemed very hard, and I wasn't sure if they were really happy or not; they emphasized that this was not a business they would want to pass on to their children.

The Chinese restauranteurs create a rich culture in their adopted countries, mixing Chinese and local cuisine, as well as interacting with the local people. The next time I visit a Chinese restaurant in a foreign country, perhaps I will ask about their story, and I wish, that as Kwan says, it will be one of perseverance and hope.

Wedding Banquet: Cross-Cultural Confusion/Collusion

The Wedding Banquet presents a different take on generational relations than most films involving Asian families that I've seen. The classic nagging mother, and the wise, quiet father appear in this movie, but in the end, their roles are somewhat out of the ordinary.

Wai Tung, a Taiwanese queer businessman living in Manhattan with his white lover, Simon, is cajoled by his parents on a regular basis about getting married and producing an heir. His parents, back in Taiwan, are so eager for him to marry that they enroll him in various dating services to find his "perfect woman". However, he chooses instead a "marriage of convenience", to give one of his tenants, Wei-Wei, a greencard, and to get his parents off his back. Everyone seems to think that this is a great idea. However, once Wai Tung's parents decide to come visit him and witness the wedding, things get out of hand.

After reading Chiang's "Coming Out in the Global System", my opinion of the film changed significantly. The nexus of the banquet as a point of change from comedy to melodrama makes the film more complex and less fluffy, and I appreciate how the characters grow and change over the course of Wai Tung's parents' visit. The women in this film are both empowered and weak; Sister Mao and Wei-Wei have both been "Westernized", each is accomplished in her own way: Sister Mao speaks five languages, has a PhD, and is a classically trained opera singer, while Wei Wei is a struggling but talented artist. However, they are both forced to marry; Sister Mao by her parents, and Wei Wei by her need for a greencard. They want to be modern, but are constrained by tradition and/or family loyalty.

The wedding banquet itself was quite interesting to me. I've been to a Chinese wedding before, but the one portrayed in the film was notable for its melding of Chinese/Western elements. Wei Wei wears a long, white, American-style bridal gown, and there are white guests at the wedding (I kept waiting for one of them to get drunk enough to announce Wai Tung's sexuality, but fortunately, that did not occur); the rituals, however, are mostly Chinese: the lotus flower soup, the invasion of the newlywed suite. At the end of the wedding, we even meet two Chinese male wedding crashers. As Wai Tung's friend, The Law says, "This is a cross-cultural event -- everything goes!"

At the end of the movie, I was both pleased and dismayed. Wai Tung's father, ever the sagacious paternal figure, confesses to Simon that "if [he] didn't let them lie, [he'd] never have gotten [his] grandchild". The joke, then, is on the audience. However, the fact that Wai Tung's sexuality is never openly discussed among all the members of the family is rather dismaying to me, even though they're all aware of it. It only serves to promote a culture of silence around homosexuality in the Asian community; even though Wai Tung's parents are accepting, it is only because he has already complied with their wishes and given them what they wanted. I suppose this compromise is the best possible outcome for the family, but I'm not sure if I find it "right".

Enter the Dragon: Kung Fu 007?

Bruce Lee's kung fu moves in Enter the Dragon doubtlessly inspired generations of young American kids to learn martial arts. However, I found the film problematic for several reasons, namely, in its portrayal of Asian men, its rampant sexism and objectification of women, and the fact that it seemed to lift a lot of its material from the James Bond series.

The tournament arranged by Han, the arch, sinister villain of the movie, brings together martial arts masters of various races and nationalities. The noteworthy characters are Williams, an African-American man, Roper, an white American playboy (who looks *suspiciously* like Sean Connery), and Oharra, a white man of dubious nationality, who is also happens to be Lee's nemesis. Han's games are held on his private island, where the masters are invited to stay, and are provided with liberal food, hospitality, and promises of sexual encounters with exotic Asian females.

Han's army of martial artists, all Asian men, do not really have speaking roles in the film. His guards are nameless and identity-less; they are there to provide Lee a chance to show off his prowess. In the first glimpse we see of Han's extravagant hospitality, Asian men sumo wrestle as exotic dishes are carried around by waiters. Lee's voice, when he exclaims while making his kung fu moves, has been dubbed over with a strange, high-pitched squeal -- is this meant to parodize Asian men? I'm not quite sure. Lee, I must say, is really bad-ass, and an excellent hero. However, I was rather flummoxed that the American army had to come in and save the day... why couldn't Lee have all the glory?

The women in Enter the Dragon, with the exception of Lee's sister (who is driven to kill herself by Han's men and Oharra in a flashback at the start of the film), are submissive, silent, and slave-like. They are, essentially, sex slaves for Han and his male cohorts. In addition, we learn that Han has been drugging beautiful women with heroin/opium, and keeping them captive in his underground lair. These women we encounter are mostly white -- I suppose this is meant to signify white slavery by an evil Asian opium den lord.

I'm a big James Bond fan, and I know that many of the Bond films predate Enter the Dragon. Therefore, I was a little annoyed that this movie seemed to borrow so much from Bond -- it clearly would be able to stand on its own, I think, and many of the Bond elements seemed cheesy or out of place. The music, for example, sounded quite Bond-esque, but it clashed with the more "Chinese" music at the beginning of the film. The styling and shots were also very Bond. And Han's white cat? Totally Doctor No. Also, the fact that Roper so closely resembles Sean Connery was probably no accident. One thing that was different: Lee refused to use guns, and this made me happy. It prevented the film from veering into Asian-remake-of-Bond territory and made Enter the Dragon really unique.

Flower Drum Song: West Side Story of the West Coast?

I was surprised that most of the cast of Flower Drum Song was (or at least looked) Asian-American, and that there seemed to be only one Caucasian actor in the film (the mugger). Master Wong's remark that "All white men look alike" seemed rather ironically humorous to me. The characters seemed to run the gamut of Asian stereotypes: the Lotus Flower, the Dragon Lady, the Confucius father figure, etc. The story was rather cliche, but as entertainment, the costume and set designers did an excellent job.

This film reminded me a lot of West Side Story in its themes, choreography, colors, and cinematography. In fact, the two films were both released in the same year, 1961. The colorful costumes, the culture clash, the forbidden love affair are subjects echoed in both movies. I think its interesting how each film treats the immigrant experience in America. Upon Mei Li and Dr. Li's arrival in San Francisco, they discover that many of the Chinese people they encounter can't read or speak Chinese -- they are assimilated. When they go to Sammy Fong's club, Celestial Gardens, for the first time, they discover that most of the patrons are Chinese and that the performances are more Vegas-showgirl than traditional flower-drum song. What's more, the announcer tells the audience that all of the girls performing are "college grads", implying that the "new Chinese woman" is smart, sassy, and talented.

An emphasis on generational clashing was definitely evident throughout the movie, especially in the song "Chop Suey". Master Fong's kids are all "Americanized", playing baseball, dancing the cha-cha, and complaining about their ancient dad. Madame Liong's supermarket order of octopus, seahorse, dried snake meat, "longevity noodles" and a dozen thousand-year-old-eggs ("Make sure they're fresh!", she says), seems to be poking fun at traditional Chinese food. Master Wong complains that he wants a traditional Chinese girl for his son to marry, since the American Chinese girls are "without reverence or filial devotion". The elder characters in the film all cling to their customs and traditional ways, while the younger generation has attached themselves to American culture.

The "picture bride" system, therefore, would obviously seem archaic to someone like Sammy Fong. Sammy looks at Mei Li's picture, and dismisses her by saying "Mom picked her out for me," as if Mei Li was a new suit or pair of shoes his mother had purchased for him I found it difficult to like Mei Li, for all her meekness, deference, and modesty (she only slightly redeems herself at the end by breaking her marriage contract with Sammy). She submits herself to be practically auctioned off to the highest bidder -- one particularly troubling scene is when Master Wong inspects her teeth and comments on her fertility, while Dr. Li declares her "strong as a cow". Mei Li has no problem being treated as an object, because she wants to obey her elders. Linda Lo seemed much more interesting to me, although herself a stereotype of 60s femininity -- she says that although she has hobbies of ". . .singing, cooking, and first aid; the main thing is for a woman to be successful in her gender".

Although I feel that this film was still problematic, pushing Asian stereotypes and objectifying women, it was an entertaining study of a 1960s Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Its message is not what I'd personally want white American audiences learning about Asian-American culture, but it's nice to see so many Asian actors on the big screen in a movie from the pre-civil rights era.

Who is the Broken Blossom?

Broken Blossoms (1919) was made and released during a period of strong anti-Asian[-American] sentiment in the United States. It was also produced by D.W. Griffith, who directed the controversial and seminal Birth of a Nation, a film about the Ku Klux Klan's "formation" of America. I was mildly surprised that, despite this, Griffith chooses to portray Cheng somewhat sympathetically, relatively speaking. 

The use of Caucasian actors to portray the Chinese lead roles is not surprising. However, it is interesting to note Cheng's exaggerated, stoop-shouldered posture and shuffling gait, and his extreme meekness (really apparent in this line from early on in the film: "The sensitive yellow man shrinks in horror"). The portrayal of Cheng's "Chineseness" is stereotypical and rather derogatory to today's audience, but I suppose that during the era it was made, this was not an out-of-the-ordinary picture. The opium den, Buddhist temple, and various scenes of "life in China" would seem so hackneyed in a picture today, but I suppose they added an element of the exotic to Griffith's film. It's quite likely that many Americans viewing Broken Blossoms had never come into contact with an Asian-American, and relied on media to "show" them the nature of these "heathen Chinee". 

The viewer is meant to sympathize with Cheng and his unrequited, pure love for Lucy Burrows. Lucy and Cheng are similar in many ways -- Lucy's cowering and Cheng's hunched shoulders, Lucy's abuse from her father and Cheng's abuse from white soldiers, and their inability to be happy in their environment. But by being compared to Lucy, Cheng is emasculated -- he is weak and effeminate, in contrast to Battling Burrow's raging, testosterone fueled masculinity. The audience, however, is not meant to like the alcoholic Burrows. It seems rather shocking when, at the end of the movie, Cheng defeats Burrows. Cheng's suicide can be read in different ways -- an act of honor, of heartbreak, or of cowardice.

Race, in Broken Blossoms, is really a confusing concept to me. The film portrays a taboo interracial relationship, between a white female and Asian male, no less! The threat to white female purity was certainly a major issue for many nativist Americans during the time that this film was made. Also, the racist characters in the film (Burrows, the soldiers, etc) are generally cast in a very unflattering light -- they are uncouth and unlikable. Yes, this film is still a problematic portrayal of Asians, but for its time, I think that it is actually somewhat sympathetic. What was Griffths' intended message? I'm still not sure.

Chan Likes Mariachi Music

One thing that really struck me about Chan Is Missing was the musical score. I found the choices of songs quirky, amusing, and very, very interesting. To me, the soundtrack of a movie really sets the mood, the tone, the scene... this was no exception. The music, I found, was an unexpectedly eclectic mix of genres. But, I suppose, Chan is Missing incorporates a similarly eclectic mix of Asian and "American" culture.

The film opens with Joe driving the taxi, his face obscured by a glare on the windshield, and a Chinese-language version of "Rock Around the Clock", a classic, all-American, catchy tune by Bill Haley and the Comets. I'm sure any viewer of this movie when it came out would have recognized the melody instantly. So while this song is playing, we can't see the taxi driver's face. Is he white? Is he Chinese? Who is he? Then, as we realize what this American song is, we see that this taxi driver is Asian, as his face is finally revealed. 

At the Manilatown Senior Center, Presco, a man who worked there and remembered Chan as "Hiho", recounts, "Chan's crazy about all different kinds of music". I thought this was the perfect line -- it was almost as if Chan had created this film's soundtrack. I appreciated the inclusion of the Spanish-language mariachi music during the scene at the senior center.

I don't speak Chinese, so I feel that I really missed out on the meaning of the Chinese language lyrics of Jenny Chan's heavy metal music. But I was curious -- does Chinese heavy metal have the same subject matter as American rock? Was the Chinese "Rock Around the Clock" about rocking around the clock, or did it just appropriate the melody and transform the message into something completely different?

The subject of translation comes up a few times over the course of the film. Many of the Chinese-American characters say that in Chinese, ideas themselves are transmitted differently when one is speaking (such as the Asian-American lawyer in the beginning of the movie, and the man working at the English language center). But in the Chinese version of rock around he clock, the skeleton of the song (its melody) is the same, but the words are foreign. It seems, in translation from Chinese to English, that even the structure of the thoughts are different, the way of explaining an event is really a whole other language.

Chan is Missing really embodies a dilemma that many immigrants face -- how to preserve one's culture? Chan, much to the chagrin of his wife, was "just too Chinese!" But should he have been forced to assimilate? By listening to "all kinds of music", Chan was appreciating culture in a different way. As the "brains behind his brother's invention of the first word processing system in Chinese", maybe the only "problem" was that Chan wanted to preserve his usage of Chinese language. 

Chinese apple pie? Chinese "Rock Around the Clock"? "Samurai Night Fever"? Chinese-language heavy metal music? What are we to make of these cultural blends? Certainly, they enrich our understanding of what culture means in America -- an amalgamation of different ethnicities.

"Our" America

From the opening scene, with Renee Tajima-Pena enjoying an All-American can of Coca-Cola in front of the classic stars-and-stripes backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, before embarking on a quintessential American road trip, the message Tajima-Pena seems to be sending is that Asian-America is America -- not separate from it, but intertwined in America's events and stories. Renee Tajima-Pena interviews a fascinating span of people, from coast-to coast, proving simultaneously that Asian-America is everywhere, and that Asian-Americans occupy a vast array of roles in shaping America's history.

Discarding many Asian stereotypes, Renee's subjects prove that Asian-Americans can be freedom fighters, southern belles, or movie stars. I remember being really struck by the Kochiyamas, especially -- it is not often that the role of Asian-Americans in the Civil Rights movement is discussed. Activism seems to play a major role in many of the interviewees lives, and this, to me, was especially inspiring.

I feel as if the film was also effectively able to tackle the subject of racism; the subjects didn't hesitate to describe discrimination they had faced, even within their own families. The Seoul brothers of Seattle were especially effective in dealing with racism head-on, with clever lyrics, in a normally African-American dominated medium. However, in the story of the Filipino-American sisters in Louisiana, who proclaim, "We're Americans first, then Southerners", I found an interesting twist -- they considered themselves white, though still retained a strong sense of their Filipino culture. I wasn't sure what to make of them, though I did find their story fascinating.

The diverse stories of all those interviewed shows just how rich our stories are, and how inspiring. Tajima-Pena shows that Asian-Americans are not "the other", they are America.