After reading this section of the book, I’ve noticed a few valid points that grabbed my attention. One important concept that I have discovered was the importance of language between the Asian culture and the American culture and how it was used during filming of Enter the Dragon. A quote from the reading states, “Language plays a critical role in this process of identifying  the system of oppression with which they are confronted in the factory, the nation, and ultimately in the zone of the neocolony as a whole.” This is an important concept that I have grasped because it reveals language is a source of a person’s identity and culture that allows them to express themselves. The use of language was disrupted in the filming of Enter the Dragon when the Americans were oppressive towards the Chinese workers. A quote from the book stated,“The Americans often forgot that although they did not speak or understand any Chinese, a great amount of Chinese understood English…The American actor Robert Mitchum displayed a more explicit attitude of colonial arrogance to the Chinese Crew…Mitchum would call them [the Chinese crew] assholes and smile, thinking they didn’t understand. But half the crew understood and the rest found out pretty quickly” (p. 116). This tension between the Americans and Chinese occurred, but the lack of respect for the Chinese and their native language was a huge issue.

During the reading, a key term that stood out to me was the word, “Orientalism.” A quote from the reading states, “In Enter the Dragon, the narrative convention of James Bond as a transnational protagonist is aligned with the genealogy of the “Oriental” protagonist…The invention of Charlie Chan as the protagonist image of American literary ‘Orientalism’ was also formed in reaction to the British literary convention of the diabolic ‘Oriental,’ which, we will see, is based on the British imperial encounter with the Other in the framework of classic colonialism” (p. 138-139). This quote didn’t settle with me very well. The American literary idea of, “Orientalism” and the traits considered to identify the characteristics of the peoples and cultures of Asia. I feel that calling the Asian actors and grouping them to be, “Oriental” seems to be oppressive itself. Again, it reveals how much power the Americans are able to degrade the Asian culture by not understanding their identity, and accepting of diversity as a whole during this time period.

After reading this section of the book, I have noticed a couple valid points that stand out to me. One important concept that I have discovered was Hendrix’s, “alternative mode of communication.” The book stated, “Hendrix’s concept of an alternative mode of communication and cognition projected on the futurity of human communication, allows us to approach the effective mode of communication that forms the basis of decolonization from the power of global modernity” (p. 4). This quote grabbed my attention because he revealed information of how music can be an alternative form of communication that allows many people to connect no matter how much power one attains. An example would be that one person in a lower social class can still communicate and relate authentically together with another person in a middle class of society. Music brings people of different cultures, social classes or personal experiences together in an alternative mode of communication, which creates diversity.

Another valid key point I noticed in the reading was how Bruce Lee made such a massive trans cultural impact not only for the Chinese culture, but also with the whole Asian culture in general. A quote from the reading states, “Part of Lee’s phenomenal popularity in Asia beyond the Chinese cultural sphere may be accounted for by the fact that Lee’s performance not only touched the hearts but also the unconscious of the Asian people. Against the forces of image colonization of the unconscious by Hollywood and samurai movies, Lee’s expressionism and realism, communicated through in his trans cultural orientation, imparted a vernacular image common to the people of Asia” (p. 40). I found this quote fascinating because Lee’s popularity on his performance really gained a huge amount of publicity that gave the Asian culture a lot of representation and recognition that created a trans cultural impact that created a sense of acceptance among the Asian people.

Death is one of the themes throughout the reading. There were several examples that portray death through a different lens. First off, from the start of the book, Nao brings up dying by stating “I’m telling you this because I’m actually not going to be around for long and you might as well know this up front so you don’t make assumptions. Then goes on to saying “Maybe instead of graduate, I should say I’m going to drop out of time. Drop out. Time out. Exit my existence. I’m counting the moments. After reading this, I automatically thought, why is she so quick to give up on life? Then after reading further, I noticed that her father is also suicidal which explains the reason as to why she is as well; she lacks a positive role model in her life.

Another example of death in the book was when Nao had the opportunity to kill the kid that she was bullying. Since she was constantly bullied and lacked feeling in control of her life, she clearly wanted to feel a sense of control and thought by killing the kid, she would gain that. Also, she was bullied in school and treated as if she was not there because the students gave her a funeral.

I loved this movie although it was a little difficult to watch at times. It was interesting to watch the film four years later after I read this novel my senior year of high school. I noticed that I did not make nearly as many connections after watching the film in class with what I have learned over the course of the past two quarters. I noticed the evolution of my thought process over the past few years.

All of the stories shared throughout the movie about the conflicts between several Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters played a vital role to the make up of the variety of themes in the film and were key to the overall importance of the film. More specifically, I really thought Jing-mei’s character was essential in completing the entire story and brought each of the characters closer in a sense while at the same time discovering that they were able to make a change in their lives as the end of the film approached. It was interesting to see a younger generation teach a lesson to a group of an older generation of women while they were in fact helping her recollect the memory of her mother as well. The story reminded me of the recurring themes of generational and cultural gaps that we have seen these past two quarters in the variety of films, writings/poetry, and readings.

Jing-mei’s role was very important throughout the story. Although she fears that she cannot adequately portray her mother’s life, it is evident that her mother’s (Suyuan) story pervades through the voice of Jing-mei. Her mother’s story represents the struggle to maintain the mother-daughter bond across cultural and generational gaps. By telling this story as her mother’s daughter, Jing-mei enacts and cements the bond that is the subject of Suyuan’s story. Once Jing-mei finally travels to China in hopes of helping to find her half-sisters and to share the story of a mother who they do not remember, she ends up forging two other mother-daughter bonds as well. Her journey represents a reconciliation between Suyuan’s two lives, between two cultures, and between mother and daughter. Fortunately, this allows Jing-mei to bring closure and resolution to her mother’s story, and to her own life as well. In addition, the journey brings hope to the other members of the Joy Luck Club that they can also reunite the oppositions in their lives between past and present, between cultures, and between generations.

“We should not forget our roots, our culture, our tradition, our regards.”

I loved this movie. Initially, one thing that stuck out to me was the fact that after the Indian’s were forced to leave from Uganda because there citizenship was taken away yet, they kept their culture although they had moved to Mississippi. This reminded me of how America is supposed to be such a huge melting pot, and the importance of always remembering where we came from. Moreover, I was reminded of last quarter and how we discussed Japanese Americans and how much of a struggle it was for the newer generations to really keep traditional values and how they tried to restore their Japanese culture by embracing both American and Japanese cultures and intertwining them to make up another third culture. I thought it was key for the Indian’s to be able to keep their culture especially within the southern part of America where racism was prominent during this time period. It said something about the culture itself because a lot of cultures are lost once they come to America and end up confining to American/western culture.

Also, I thought it was interesting to see how quickly Demitrius’ family welcomed Mina into their home. As opposed to Mina’s family did not respect her dating a black American male although they all share the same commonality of having brown skin. It was evident that Mina’s mother wanted her to find someone to fall in love with and throughout the film she was pushing her to date within their own race, however, Mina breaks tradition by falling in love with a black American man.

In addition, there were multiple stereotypes throughout the film, for instance, in the beginning Tyrone assumed that Mina was Mexican because of her brown skin and long blackish hair. Moreover, after the car accident, one would assume that the police officer on the way to the scene was going to be a white male, yet he was actually a black male. It was surprising considering it was the south where racism was prominent. Another stereotype was when one of the Indian men went to talk to Demitrius about the accident, he states: “Your people are very good at sports” but then eventually goes on to saying “Black, brown, yellow, Mexican, Puerto Rican are all the same as long as you’re not white means you are colored.” Then they start talking about how all people of color have to stick together…”United we stand, divided we fall” reminds me of the end of the film where the Indian guys go to the motel and see his truck and walk in on Mina, the same guy tells one of them to get the cops, basically contradicting what he had discussed with Demitrius in an earlier scene…so much for “All us people of color must stick together”…just because he found out that one of his people (Mina) was sleeping with a black man.

“How’s the lawsuit, those niggas pay up yet?”

This quote struck out to me because it reminded me of the concept of internalized oppression because it was a black man who made this statement. This seemed to be degrading himself and his race considering he was black as well. This brings me further on to thinking about todays issues on derogatory terms such as the “n” word and how a larger amount of blacks have come to grips with identifying with the word and using it as a sense of pride. Furthermore, this also reminds me of how blacks and other races are sort of dividing themselves today with the concept of “light skins” and “dark skins”…why do we have to have a divider? Aren’t we all brown skin anyway? How do we make change without solidarity?

The term Mina used to describe herself as “Mixed Masala” reminded me of last quarter’s program and the discussions we had about the “mix plate” and also the film titled “Doubles: Japan & America’s Intercultural”. I liked how she described herself with this term, with the actual meaning referring to a bunch of hot spices. This showed she embraced all of herself and her variety of cultures by identifying with being Indian, growing up partially in Uganda, moving the England and then finally found her way to America.

“All you’ve done is bring such shame on our heads”

I feel this has been a quote stated in many of the films we have watched this quarter and even last quarter as well. We see the struggle with keeping ones traditional/family values as a theme throughout the quarter. The generation gap between Mina and her parents is clear especially at this part of the movie. However, Mina makes a statement by saying “This is America, no one cares” referring to the fact that she is in love with a black man who is not from the same culture or the same race as her. Yet, she still is strong enough to make the statement of doing what is best for her at the end of the day as a form of resistance.

“Struggle…I’m a black man born and raised in Mississippi, ain’t a damn thing you can tell me about struggle.”

I felt this was one of the most powerful quotes in the movie and I thought Mina’s father realized how he and his family excluded themselves from being a person of color once they got to America. Especially, since they had moved from Uganda, an African country that was filled with mostly blacks. But because he held the grudge of having to leave and that his black African friend told him that he was not black and that Uganda was for black Africans. Unfortunately, he struggled with accepting this, however, after Demitrius said this to him, he was lost with words to say and eventually came to grips with his struggle.

As we have seen, there were issues relating to family, tradition and generation gaps within this film. Wei struggled with admitting to his parents that he was gay which in return affected his relationship with his lover. As we go on to see during the movie, the struggle Wei has with his identity and that his mother continuously attempts to set him up with a woman so that he can get married and give she and his father grandchildren. The traditional wedding was supposed to be a huge celebration between the families of the two getting married yet Wei wanted to make it a small wedding so that he could get it out of the way and so his parents would stop heckling him about finding a wife.

The family/tradition issue is a common issue we have seen in multiple films this quarter. For instance, in Saving Face, Wil is unable to tell her mother that she is a lesbian which in result makes she and her mother’s relationship suffer. However, once she admits to her mother and her mother finally accepts the fact that she is not straight, forces her mother to grow as a person and to step away from sticking to just what her family expects from her but she is also finally willing to do what makes her happy, although it is not the traditional way of doing things neither is what her family expects of her. This is similar because Wei and his father suffer with having a successful relationship because his father is so focused on wanting grandchildren that he lacks having a close relationship with his own son. Wei is scared to tell his family that he is gay because he knows that it will disappoint them, and he is also breaking away from what is expected of him from his family.