 |
| Park Saeroyi encounters his arch-enemy, the boss's son and bully, Jang Geun-won in Itaewon Class |
I'm going to share all the Asian pop culture — movies, shows, podcasts, music, and language learning apps and resources — that's made isolation easier these past 3+ weeks. After a rise in anti-Asian racism, affection for my Asian cultural roots has grown, and now that it's culminated in finishing Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰) with Park Seo-joon (박용규), a story about the underdog hero, Park Saeroyi — the kind of hero we need right now — I'm ready to share. I'll save my favorite Itaewon Class for the end. I highlighted the shows that affected me the most, and tried not to include too many spoilers...
#1 Terrace House
 |
| Haruka Okuyama and Kaori Watanabe in Tokyo-based reality series, Terrace House |
It started about 3 weeks ago when my sister and brother-in-law recommended I watch Terrace House (テラスハウス). I was surprised I binge-watched Love is Blind, and Terrace House was like that but more intense for me, and though I had to stop watching after the first and second round of members left, Terrace House got me thinking in 日本語. Of course, I enjoyed the community living aspect (there are great share houses in Tokyo like Ryozan Park in Ōtsuka 大塚 and Sugamo 巣鴨) and witnessing the sweet, intimate conversations in the guys' room (聞いたことない). I appreciated seeing mixed race and cross-cultural representation with cast members like Japanese-Beninese basketball player, Rui Hachimura (八村 塁) and Italian manga artist ペッペ Peppe. I often wanted to skip the commentary though (うるさすぎた), and wished cast members didn't have to date one another (友達だけで面白いだと思う).
#2 Tigertail
#2 Tigertail
I heard Alan Yang's Tigertail was coming out. I had seen episodes of Little America and Master of None, but hadn't seen many Taiwanese American-directed films, with the exception of Emily Ting's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong with Jamie Chung and Jon M. Chu's Crazy Rich Asians with Michelle Yeoh 楊紫瓊 (I love the Interview Magazine photos and can't wait to see Everything Everywhere All At Once!!) and Constance Wu (吳恬敏), so I looked forward to Tigertail.
Many Asian Americans can probably relate to the terror of playing piano on stage as a kid — and the shame of not meeting our parents' hopes and expectations, which was captured so well in a similar piano concert scene and throughout the beloved Amy Tan (譚恩美) classic, Joy Luck Club (喜福會) — however, besides that scene in Tigertail, my experience growing up Taiwanese American and being in Taiwan felt very different. My Taiwanese side is big, bustling, and loud, so the quiet scenes felt unfamiliar to me — growing up, I thought the Tâi-gí (台語) or tâi-uân-uē (台灣話) I heard sounded like fighting, but only because guá thiann-bô (我聽不懂). My sisters and I would be the ones doing the dishes in the scene with Angela, played by Christine Ko (葛曉潔), and her dad played by Tzi Ma (馬泰). I like sharing chores, but didn't understand that scene at all. The vintage scenes felt closer to ones I'd seen in Wong Kar-wai (王家衛) movies, and when the young mom arrives in New York, (I know the subtitles said otherwise but) I heard her say "我台灣中國來的," and thought, "what?"
Nevertheless, I'm glad the movie made one family's Taiwanese American story visible. I had the sense from seeing the movie out in the world that it was helping to put Taiwan on the map, culturally speaking, and opening the door for other Taiwanese American directors. I'll also credit Tigertail for what happened after...I started to really miss Taiwan and the feeling of being there.
#3 J-Style Trip, Pleco, Bailingguo News, Bite-size Taiwanese
 |
| Jay Chou (周杰倫) in the Paris (pa-lê 巴黎) episode of his magic show, J-Style Trip (周遊記) |
I started searching for that feeling...the funny little quirks...the food...the sounds...how they really talk...the humor...the night market...the style of fashion...and I started watching Jay Chou's magic (môo-su̍t 魔術) show, J-Style Trip...and less than a year later, I'd move to Taiwan and stay as long as I could. Jay Chou was like the Justin Bieber (小賈斯汀) of Taiwan over a decade ago, and is grown now. I know my friends don't talk just like Jay Chou, but that's how they talk in Taiwan. They speak fast, it's very international, and it's great for practicing my 中文 listening skills. I started a few rounds on Duolingo, looked up words on an app called Pleco, and practiced my characters and pinyin as I watched and listened.
I also found Bailingguo News (百靈果 News), a podcast that's mostly in 中文 and a bit of English, and started refreshing my vocabulary as they discussed American pop culture. I also started listening to Bite-size Taiwanese, a Taiwanese language learning podcast by two super-friendly co-hosts, Phil Lin and Alan Chen, who make it really fun, clear, and easy to learn Tâi-gí. I started 中文 and Tâi-gí <-> English language exchange on Skype.
#4 Formosa Evergreen VR 360, AccuseFive
#4 Formosa Evergreen VR 360, AccuseFive
I heard about Tainan Art Museum (臺南市美術館)'s Formosa Evergreen VR 360 art exhibit (藝術展覽) featuring Taiwan's longest scroll through Taiwan's Ministry of Culture (文化部) and was excited to virtually view the artwork in Tainan, where my dad is from.
I also stumbled upon AccuseFive (告五人), a Taiwanese rock band from Yilan (Gî-lân 宜蘭) who created the songs "Somewhere in Time" (愛人錯過) and "Night Life. Take Us to the Light" (帶我去找夜生活). I also love Maki Asakawa (浅川マキ)'s songs from the '70s — 特に「こんな風に過ぎて行くのなら」— and Taiwanese singer, Teresa Teng (鄧麗君)'s "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心).
還有, 其實我大部分聽不懂可是我覺得 Voices of Photography 的 podcast 對攝影師有意思, especially this 沖繩專題 Okinawa Issue. I also visited Takao Books today and loved this photo book, 表面張力Tension/Surface by photographers 曾義欽(Marbury Tzeng)、蔡佳桓(AJ Tsai)、陳尚平 (Shang Chen)、and 李威辰(Wei-Chen Li). It's so good! 對我來說, the images said so clearly there's visual delight all around you and you can capture it. Here are more photos in The Reporter (報導者).
#5 Triad Princess, Gatao: The Last Stray, Little Big Women, American Girl, Alice Wu
 |
| Eugenie Liu as Angie, the boss's daughter, and Jasper Liu as actor, Jasper Xu Yi-hang, in Triad Princess |
From there, I watched one of the very first Taiwanese Netflix original series, my favorite goofy rom-com, Triad Princess (極道千金). Many of the characters use Tâi-gí and 中文 very naturally, so it's a great way to practice.
I loved the protagonist in Triad Princess (極道千金), Angie Ni, played by Eugenie Liu (劉奕兒)! It was the first time in my life seeing a Taiwanese tom-boy heroine who is goofy and badass, and falls in love with the softer-spoken heartthrob played by Jasper Liu (劉以豪). She embodies that Taiwanese helpfulness I've seen in so many friends and relatives, kicks gangsters' asses into the river, uses her butterfly knife to crack beers open, chops her own hair, and wears punk-style outfits.
Angie's best friend, Ding-ding, a convenience store clerk whose guitar song goes viral, falls in love too, with Lin Gui, the Tâi-gí-speaking gangster who works for Angie's Triad father and is played by Chang Zhang-xing (張再興). It's the first series I've seen to represent a queer Taiwanese romance on-screen. Triad Princess is super-goofy and cute.
Chang Zhang-xing also makes a cameo on the bus in the surrealist My Missing Valentine (消失的情人節) with Patty Lee (李霈瑜), which won top awards at Golden Horse (台北金馬影展) along with films like Little Big Women (孤味), and as Qing's best friend in the bloody and brutal Gatao: The Last Stray (角頭－浪流連).
 |
| At the iā-tshī-á 夜市, Qing surprises Qi with a Jupiter camera lens to replace the one he broke (left); Bao and Qing (right) |
In Gatao: The Last Stray (gatão means 'big cat' in Portuguese), Nikki Hsieh (謝欣穎) plays a photographer whose romantic relationship with Qing, a lieutenant in the North Fort gang, played by Cheng Jen-Shuo (鄭人碩), is star-crossed. Chang Zhang-xing plays Bao, who grew up with Qing in an orphanage before they became gatao brothers who work in organized crime for Ren, the North Fort gang leader. There is extremely heavy violence in the Taiwanese gangster genre (混混的電影), and the Gatao series contains extreme violence that may be triggering for some viewers.
 |
In Little Big Women (孤味), a Taiwanese film set in Tainan (Tâi-lâm 台南) and spoken mostly in Tâi-gí, Shu-Fang Chen (陳淑芳) plays a Taiwanese matriarch with three adult daughters played by Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄), Hsieh Ying-Hsuan (謝盈萱), and Sun Ke-fang (孫可芳), and Buffy Chen (陈妍霏) as her granddaughter, who process her husband and their estranged father's death, learn uncomfortable hidden family secrets, and meet his 小三, who was his companion in his later years.
I also enjoyed A Beautiful Life (不再讓你孤單) with Shu Qi (林立慧) and Liu Ye (刘烨), and Man in Love (當男人戀愛時) with Ann Hsu (許瑋甯) and Roy Chiu (邱澤) from Dear Ex (誰先愛上他的), both unexpectedly. In both story arcs, very unconventional people get together in very untraditional ways, grow into surprisingly sweet love stories, but their time together's cut short when both of the female protagonists lose their partners early to disabling health conditions.
Writer/director (編劇/導演) Feng-i Fiona Roan (阮鳳儀)'s American Girl (美國女孩) tells the semi-autobiographical personal story of 13-year old Fang-yi (Fen), played by Caitlin Fang (方郁婷), who returns to Taiwan from Los Angeles with her younger sister and mother Lily, played by Karena Lam (林嘉欣), who returns to get treatment for her breast cancer. They're picked up at the airport by their dad, played by Kaiser Chuang (莊凱勛). Fen struggles to adapt to living in Taiwan as an American girl just as SARS hits. It's very honestly and uncomfortably told — capturing what it's like to move between two worlds, two very different cultures, as a teenager amidst experiencing intense feelings, joys, awkwardness, family dysfunction, a harsh and punitive child-rearing culture, and childhood abuse and trauma.
 |
| Michelle Krusiec as 'Wil' Pang and Lynn Chen as Vivian Shing in Alice Wu's Saving Face |
If you're looking for queer Asian female representation in film, definitely watch Chinese American director Alice Wu (伍思薇)'s tender and beautiful coming of age dramedy, The Half of It with Leah Lewis, and her trailblazing film, Saving Face that centers a queer love story between 'Wil' Pang and Vivian Shing, played by Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen (陳凌), who also just came out with the film, I Will Make You Mine that stars local Oakland indie musician, Yeah-Ming Chen (陳雅明) from Dreamdate.
#6 Tomorrow, With You
 |
Shin Min-a as Song Ma-rin and Lee Je-hoon as time traveler, Yoo So-joon |
After a fair dose of Taiwanese content, I moved on and watched the entire South Korean romantic drama series, Tomorrow, With You (내일 그대와), about a time traveler Yoo So-joon, played by a hilarious K-heartthrob, Lee Je-hoon (이지훈), who recently starred in the dystopian, gritty Korean heist thriller, Time to Hunt (사냥의 시간), and plays Seok-i, who visits his boyfriend Min-soo in the military in Kim-Jho Gwangsoo (김조광수)'s cute short film, Just Friends? (친구사이?). So-joon and his friends look like they stepped out of a Zara or UNIQLO catalog and aspects reminded me of Russian Doll with Greta Lee which I loved (Tomorrow, With You 내일 그대와 preceded it), but it's a love story with a lot of suspense, mystery, laughs, and blood. The female protagonist, Ma-rin is a photographer, who's a bit of an airhead it's infuriating, and whose mom is played by the housekeeper in Bong Joon-ho (봉준호)'s Parasite (기생충). I was surprised to find similarities in several Korean and Japanese words, like 約束 and 약속.
#7 Itaewon Class
 |
| Park Saeroyi, played by Park Seo-joon (박용규), on the ground after breaking Yi-seo's fall off of Geun-soo's scooter |
After seeing Lee Je-hoon in Tomorrow, With You 내일 그대와), I kept wondering why I hadn't heard about the K-heartthrobs. The only heartthrob of Asian descent I'd seen play a hero was Keanu Reeves in Speed. Once I really saw Park Saeroyi in Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰), I was in shock that I never got the memo. He's very unassuming at first, a bit mild and shy-seeming in his hoodies and bomber jackets, and he already has a tendency to step in to help people from being harmed.
After the first encounter with Jang Geun-won, he faces Geun-won's father, Jangga boss Jang Dae-hee, and decides to stand up for himself against an unjust authority trying to make him obey. That felt so familiar. The ride doesn't stop, and they go straight into it, a tragic turn of events and heartbreaking injustice, and Park Saeroyi's friend Oh Soo-ah, played by the gorgeous Kwon Nara (권나라, who stars in my new favorite K-drama, Bulgasal: Immortal Souls 불가살 with Lee Jin-wook 이진욱 and is an original member from K-pop girl group, Hello Venus 헬로비너스) and a detective help stop the bad situation from getting worse.
 |
| Oh Soo-ah with Park Saeroyi (left); To-ni, Geun-soo, and Hyun-yi with Yi-seo at DanBam (right) |
Of course, it doesn't stop there, and he soon attracts an eclectic, quirky, and loyal team of allies to help build small startup, DanBam into a major enterprise: Lee Joo-young (이주영) plays Hyun-yi, a trans woman chef, Chris Lyon (크리스 라이언) plays To-ni, a Guinean-Korean server searching for his father, Kim Da-mi (김다미) plays Yi-seo, a social media influencer who becomes a star manager (she and Choi Woo-shik 최우식 from Parasite 기생충 are so sweet and hilarious in the romantic dramedy, Our Beloved Summer 그 해 우리는), Kim Dong-hee (김동희) plays Geun-soo, a server and Jang's other son, and Ryu Kyung-soo (류경수) plays Seung-kwon, a server who was Park Saeroyi's former prison cellmate. In To-ni and Hyun-yi's stories, we see how anti-Black racism and anti-trans discrimination show up in an Asian community.
They unite to take down the crime boss, played by Yoo Jae-myung (유재명), and his incompetent bully son, played by Ahn Bo-hyun (안보현), and expose the cover-up, corruption, and abuse of power that often feels familiar to what we're seeing happen in our own country. The vendetta with Jangga also had a back and forth that felt like the Bordelon family's fight to protect their land from the Landry family in Ava Duvernay's Queen Sugar with Dawn-Lyen Gardner. Yoo Jae-myung (유재명) also plays a corrupt head in the Netflix series, Stranger (비밀의 숲), with Cho Seung-woo (조승우) and Bae Doona (배두나). If American heartthrobs didn't melt your heart, watch Itaewon Class. If you're looking for an underdog hero with the kind of fighting spirit to fight back against a crime boss, corruption, and massive failure in leadership, watch Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰) with Park Seo-joon (박용규).
#8 Crash Landing on You, Bulgasal: Immortal Souls, Our Beloved Summer
#8 Crash Landing on You, Bulgasal: Immortal Souls, Our Beloved Summer
 |
When I first published this blog post, I did not know I could love a show more than Itaewon Class. The South Korean Netflix drama series, Crash Landing on You (사랑의 불시착), stars Son Ye-jin (손예진) and Hyun Bin (현빈), who previously starred together in The Negotiation (협상). He also played a satirical version of a prince hero in the entertaining period zombie movie, Rampant (창궐). To paint the landscape a bit, I may spoil the first few episodes, so feel free to skip reading and go straight into watching Crash Landing on You (사랑의 불시착). You will not be disappointed.
The very successful CEO of Seri's Choice, Yoon Se-ri, heads off on a paragliding adventure-gone-wrong when she encounters an unforeseen tornado. She finds herself in a beautiful and lush green forest that she mistakes (hilariously) for a national park, where a very handsome and brave North Korean soldier, Captain Ri Jeong Hyeok, and his very funny and sweet team of Special Forces attempt to secure her in the demilitarized zone where they patrol. A looming State Security Department presence that includes a corrupt military leader that Ri Jeong Hyeok begins to investigate for strange and fatal truck accidents leads Ri Jeong Hyeok to bring Yoon Se-ri cover in his home inside the military housing village where the North Korean military officers and their families live.
 |
| Yoon Se-ri & Ri Jeong Hyeok (left); Special Forces react after Se-ri flashed K-pop finger hearts the day they were beaten up and interrogated by the State Security officer (right) |
We learn Yoon Se-ri is quite brave too, and she and Ri Jeong Hyeok become like husband and wife as they fight to protect each other from threatening adversaries, including villainous members of Yoon Se-ri's family, who endanger her life to pursue her position as their father's successor, and the very corrupt and dangerous State Security Department military leader. In spite of them, Yoon Se-ri and Ri Jeong Hyeok persevere, and there are many breathtaking scenes and hilarious, heartwarming, and joyful ones, interwoven with a few subplots that feature their families, life in the village, and a relationship that grows between two people they dated. I loved this series so much. It may go down as my ultimate favorite (UF) of all time. Also, Son Ye-jin (손예진) and Hyun Bin (현빈) are now married in real life.
 |
| Min Sang-woon begins to fall for Dan Hwal before they have to face Ok Eul-tae, played by Lee Joon |
Bulgasal: Immortal Souls (불가살) stars another talented duo with excellent chemistry, Lee Jin-wook (이진욱) and Kwon Nara (권나라), as bulgasals — monsters who feed on human blood — and whose karma is interwoven through multiple reincarnations and very torturous past lives. Lee Jin-wook (이진욱) plays a wounded, curmudgeonly bitter, sternly paternal — and on more than several occasions with Kwon Nara (권나라)'s character, Min Sang-woon — a physically and psychologically abusive and cruel bulgasal whose adoptive father names Dan Hwal and makes him promise to never feed on humans after he's shunned by his village, orphaned, and bullied as a very brave young boy (who is played by the very talented Lee Joo-Won 이주원) for 'carrying a curse.'
 |
| Young Dan Hwal (left) and ensemble cast with Gong Seung-yeon, Kim Woo-seok, Kwon Nara, Park Myung-shin, Jung Jin-young, and Lee Jin-wook (right) |
Min Sang-woon, a compassionate bulgasal who later reincarnates as a human, sacrifices herself to protect young Dan Hwal, and in the current lifetime is abducted by him on the premise that she viciously killed his wife and child in a past life. Dan Hwal's family members reincarnate and form a chosen family who live together in his home with Min Sang-woon as they band together to fight off dangerous, powerful bulgasals, and he and Min Sang-woon finally learn and resolve the root cause of their karmic suffering from a thousand years ago.
I haven't seen it yet, but heard about the Indonesian animated documentary (film dokumenter animasi) film Homebound about Tari, an Indonesian migrant care worker and her experience living abroad in Taiwan for over 10 years. Tari longs to return home but her plans are complicated by racist policies toward migrants and the shadow side of Taiwan during Covid that we rarely if ever hear about told from her point of view. Here's the trailer for the film and a few stills with animation by Wulang Sunu. I'll keep an eye out for the film's release.
After learning about the health benefits of jujube tea for insomnia from Our Beloved Summer (그 해 우리는), I've been drinking it before bed to treat my own pandemic insomnia. I may spoil the jujube episode of Our Beloved Summer (그 해 우리는) below, so you may want to skip this part if you haven't seen it yet.
 |
| Yeon-su and Ung (top); Ung sees the jujubes Yeon-su laid out to dry; earlier, he drew the jujubes he found (bottom) |
In Our Beloved Summer (그 해 우리는), Yeon-su, played by Kim Da-mi (김다미), by instinct, picks up two bags of jujubes and finds herself walking to Ung's house. A few drop out of the bag on her way, and spill out inside his house. As she leaves, she runs into NJ, a K-pop star who has a crush on him. As Ung, who's played by Choi Woo-shik (최우식), walks home, he steps on one of the jujubes that fell out from her bag, picks up a few from the ground, and finds more by his house. He's perplexed. He finds another one in his house and decides to sketch them. When Ung doesn't show up the next day for the final day of production of their documentary, she goes out to find him. Meanwhile, he runs into her grandmother (할머니) and helps her carry her groceries home where she lives with Yeon-su, notices the jujubes Yeon-su had laid out on the ground to dry, and remembers the time when Yeon-su brought him jujube tea to help him sleep. Yeon-su finally finds him alone at a restaurant, where they speak from the heart and reconcile.
#9 A City of Sadness, Chen Cheng-po
 |
| Hinomi reads a letter and learns the news of Wen-ching being detained by the KMT after the 228 massacre |
On 228 (Jī-jī-pat 二二八), I watched A City of Sadness (悲情城市) by Hou Hsiao-Hsien (侯孝賢). The Golden Lion (Leone d'oro) and Golden Horse award-winning film by a 外省人 director follows a 本省人 family, the Lin family, during the early period of White Terror (白色恐怖) and post-war transition from 50 years of Japanese colonization to authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT) rule.
Hong Kong (hiong-káng 香港) actor Tony Leung (梁朝偉) from Wong Kar-wai (王家衛)'s In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, and 2046 plays Wen-ching, a deaf photographer, doctor, and youngest of four brothers, who is detained by the KMT after the 228 incident (Jī-jī-pat sū-kiānn 二二八事件). As Tony Leung's mother tongue (母語) is Cantonese (kńg-tang-uē 廣東話) — by removing Tâi-gí from his speaking part — he portrays a tâi-uân-lâng convincingly, communicating often with his friend who he later marries, the nurse Hinomi, and others by writing on note paper. Hsin Shu-fen (辛樹芬) plays Hinomi, whose interaction with a Japanese woman settler-colonist who visits her to say goodbye conveys the mood around that time. Her brother, Wen-ching's friend Hinoiei, a progressive, moves to the mountains where he organizes an anti-government resistance.
Aspects of life and culture back then felt familiar, however, the political views expressed by some men at dinner tables and over tea, especially around "reunification" with a "motherland," couldn't be further from what I've felt and heard from many Taiwanese who see Taiwan as the motherland; while this too means recognizing that Taiwanese indigenous (guân-tsū-bîn 原住民) peoples and their Austronesian ancestors lived in Taiwan as sovereign peoples for many thousands of years before Hoklo (bân-lâm-lâng 河老) and Hakka (kheh-ka 客家) people migrated and became settlers, and the Taiwanese people became subject to Japanese colonial (ji̍t-pún si̍t-bîn 日本殖民) rule and KMT (Kok-bîn-tóng 國民黨) authoritarian control, state violence, and forced cultural erasure.
On a trip to A-má (阿嬤)'s hometown, Chiayi (ka-gī 嘉義), I learned from my relatives that a famous artist lived and painted in a studio above the shop long ago. My language partner told me that artist was Chen Cheng-po (Tân Tîng-pho 陳澄波), a prolific international Taiwanese painter and educator known for his oil paintings of Taiwanese rural landscapes and urban street scenes, who was very tragically executed by KMT government military forces during White Terror following the 228 massacre. I also learned that my Taiwanese family members had been in Chiayi when the US bombed Chiayi, Kaohsiung, and Taipei during WWII as the Japanese colonial military forces were based in Taiwan.
 |
| Chen Cheng-po artwork from 尊彩藝術中心 Liang Gallery #10 Jeepney, Miss Andy, Haunani-Kay Trask, Mountains That Take Wing, WHOLE |
 |
| Lee Lee-Zen as Evon and Kyzer Tou as the young son (left); vintage archival image of folks checking out the artwork on a Jeepney (right) |
This APAHM, I recommend Jeepney (dʒipni), a documentary about the vibrantly hand-painted, former WWII military jeep-buses — the most popular form of public transportation in the Philippines — and the very friendly Jeepney drivers and their story captured by Filipina American filmmaker Esy Casey, featuring a festive and stimulating soundtrack by Pinikpikan.
The story of Evon — a trans sex worker in Malaysian-Taiwanese film, Miss Andy (迷失安狄), who takes in an unhoused Vietnamese survivor-mother and young son (who calls her "Aunty Evon") in need of shelter and vulnerable to police scrutiny when she finds them one night sneaking food from her fridge — is so heartbreaking with several scenes a bit too painful to watch and may be triggering for some viewers.
In Finding 'Ohana, a very impulsive young girl Pili, played by Kea Peahu, and her family return to Hawai'i to spend time with her grandpa. She grabs her family Hawaiian-English dictionary, starts to learn her family language and Hawaiian cultural heritage, and takes interest in finding treasure. The colonizers in the story are narrated by Pili hilariously, however, it masks the harm they brought to the land and the people.
In The Struggle for Hawaiian Sovereignty, Haunani-Kay Trask — author of From A Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i, whose fierce voice advocating for Hawai'ian self-determination can still be heard calling out injustices long after her passing — outlines the devastating impact of tourism, occupation of Hawai'i by the US military and settler state, and haole (white) colonization. She speaks about US colonization — from how the Hawai'ian language was banned to connecting the continued land dispossession and health impacts across international borders to struggles in Kenya, Tahiti, or Palestine and the importance of learning the history of white supremacist violence. She goes deeper to expand on the harms of cultural prostitution of Hawai'i.
While it's not Asian popular culture, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States and Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion are essential reading or listening for every one of us, including descendants of immigrants and Asian diaspora, to understand the truth of how the US was founded and the long legacy of violence and exclusion in the US — long before the Page Act, Chinese Exclusion Act, forced incarceration of all persons of Japanese descent on Indian reservations, or anti-Asian violence during the pandemic. The VOX video piece produced by Ranjani Chakraborty, How the US stole thousands of Native American children, is also essential to hear first-hand accounts from Native adoptees and learn about the violent genocide, assimilation, and cultural erasure that has been ongoing for Native Americans.
Colonization and white supremacy have seeped into almost all aspects of life, are so insidious and often invisible, and their abusive effects can be internalized. As a Nisei who was disconnected from the Buddhist teachings my ひじじ and おばあちゃま practiced due to being separated by generation, distance, and a language barrier meant connecting with the teachings through English-speaking teachers — the Dalai Lama, Thích Nhất Hạnh, and Pema Chodron — while also continuing our family cultural practices of 拜拜 and praying to our ancestors at the 仏壇, honoring 阿公 and 阿媽 during 清明節 or お墓参り at the Sōji-ji (總持寺) during the summers but maintaining that connection has been harder during the pandemic. In the meantime, I found the Soto Zen Heart Sutra and Dharma Drum Mountain. We've Been Here All Along by Funie Hsu is a good starting point, and Young Buddhist Editorial and Chenxing Han, who wrote Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists, also share resources.
The short film OBAIDA documents the story of 17 year old Obaida Jawabra, one of 700 Palestinian children who've been detained every year by Israel in Western Asia, and who was killed a year ago on May 17th.
Today, on Yuri Kochiyama and Malcolm X's birthday, I will re-watch Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama: A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation, a series of conversations between scholar-activists and revolutionaries, Yuri Kochiyama and Angela Davis, across multiple decades with very powerful archival footage from the time of their childhoods experiencing white supremacist terror and being incarcerated with other Japanese Americans and others of Japanese descent during the war; the international coalition-building in the movement, including the rarely told and omitted history of how Malcolm X visited the hibakusha (被爆者), or Japanese survivors of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki nuclear bombing perpetrated by the US government, at Yuri's home in Harlem; how they wrote letters to each other, and how she was there cradling his head when he was assassinated. It was directed by Black and Asian women filmmakers, C.A. Griffith and H.L.T. Quan.
Come As You Are directed by Richard Wong and written by Erik Linthorst is a very hilarious comedy about three men with disabilities who take a road trip to a brothel for people with special needs in Montreal to lose their virginities. Ravi Patel plays Mo, Hayden Szeto plays Matt, Grant Rosenmeyer plays Scotty whose mom is played by Janeane Garofalo, and Gabourey Sidibe plays their driver Sam. The story, writing, and acting are so funny, joyful, and at one point, absolutely devastating.
In half-Japanese, half-Pakistani filmmaker Bilal Kawazoe's 『WHOLE／ホール』, a friendly Makoto, played by Usman Kawazoe, befriends a shy Haruki, played by Kai Hoshino Sandy, at a ramen shop and invites him to stay the night when Haruki gets locked out of his parents' house. Both are hafu, or mixed-race Japanese/half-Japanese, and the short film follows their friendship. Through their friendship, they start to heal or 'become whole,' and recover parts of themselves that may have felt lost or missing either due to being separated from an absent or estranged father figure by geography, language, or cultural barriers; or due to feeling like an outsider within Japanese society; or due to a mismatch with a primary caregiver who was not able to love or care for them in the ways they deeply needed.
I'll continue to update this during the pandemic. Are there films, shows, podcasts, or cultural history and language learning resources that you recommend? Please feel free to share in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment