Author Archives: kmlynn

The Pop Hunger

This past week the class has been reading Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore. After reading a good chunk of the book I have already found some similarities from the reading to the Hunger Games trilogy.

2012Starting5One of the first similarities I found was, in general, all the Asians were somewhat separated. They all worked in different areas or kept with their own race; for instance, Japanese usually kept with the Japanese, or Chinese kept with the Chinese for the most part. Also, they all had their own place of work. Most Chinese worked on the railroads or in the mines. The Japanese usually worked in the fields with the Pilipino/a and Koreans. In the Hunger Games there are different districts, a total of twelve, but they are all kept to be with their own district. They know of each other and can communicate, but very minimally. Each district is known for something; for instance, District 12 is known for the coal mines and District 7 is known for its lumber. Each district is responsible for gathering what they are known for and giving what is asked to the Capital. The Capital of course is the government that runs all twelve districts.

Secondly, I found that all the Asians expected to be taken care of and be rich in America. America was portrayed as a land of opportunity and better living; unfortunately, that is not how it worked out and they ended up being oppressed by the government. In The Hunger Games the government portrays themselves as the districts saviors and is giving them better living situations, but in reality the districts are suffering.

2012Starting5Next, riots were handled the same. In Takaki, he talks about how when riots broke out the government would cut off all their resources and make the Asians need them; or authorities or land owners would fight them or beat who ever acted out. In the Hunger Games, any sign of resistance or riots, action was taken very quickly. The Capital would cut off food supply or punish the individuals involved physically.

Also, not only in Takaki but in The Beautiful Country, a film we recently watched, Asians were given contracts, deals, or debts to pay off for them being brought here. In The Beautiful Country Binh is supposed to pay off , $5,227 in two years of slave work. In Strangers from a Different Shore many Asian men and women had to pay off their debts as well: for the men they paid it off in slave work and women had to pay their dues off in prostitution. For The Hunger Games people from the districts can “buy” food, water, or other resources from the Capital to give to their families or business in exchange for their service in the Capital or more name entries if who was asking was under 18 years old. For instance, Gale, Katniss’s good friend is given bread from the peace keepers (officers of the government) for his name to be entered 42 times in the next reaping.

Lastly, the JACP (Japanese American Curriculum Project) was a group of Japanese who wanted to go along with the government to gain America’s trust while other Japanese members did not want to do it or did not understand. So there was sort of a divide between the Japanese based on who wanted to trust the government and who wanted to stay tied to their own cultural ways. In The Hunger Games many districts trusted Katniss Everdeen to be one of them; however, in Catching Fire (Hunger Games second movie) she goes along with the Capital and converts to their way of how they depict she should be. This leads to the other districts to distrust her and causes a divide between the districts, even her own.

I find these similarities very interesting because what is being talked about in The Hunger Games has somewhat already happened. I wonder if anyone who is not taking this class or other cultural/history class knows that these events are similar to real life happenings. Anyhow, I am anxious to see what else I can compare to the Hunger Games with this class to better my understanding and knowledge of Asian/American Pop-Culture.

Better Luck Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a new day, but for what? Is tomorrow a new day to repeat what was today? Or is tomorrow a new day to start over? For Ben, Virgil, Daric, and Han tomorrow, is what ever you make of it. Better Luck Tomorrow was a very interesting film. It states simple Asian stereotypes and breaks it, it creates the ideal student image and makes the image crumble. Overall this movie had an entertaining storyline and interesting themes.

The storyline of this movie is that the main character, Ben, is a hard working Asian student who is joining clubs, playing sports, doing extra curricular activities to amp up his college applications. His best friend Virgil is also a very smart student, but is not so bright in his choices and he hangs out with his cousin Han. Han is more of the “bad-boy” of the group. Daric is the fourth member of their circle and he is he president of most clubs on the school. He does an article on Ben and that’s how they meet. Daric offers Ben money to do a cheat sheet for him. Ben takes up the offer and all four of them end up befriending each other. All four of them get into mischeif by drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and even scamming people. They essentially have a “gang” going on and they become the popular students of their school. However, with their great power of being popular and pressures of their mischeif, they also pay hefty prices.

One of the themes of the movie is based on stereo-typing. All of the main characters are different kinds of “Asian.” Also, most of the main characters are very smart and are very capable of getting into ivy league schools because of their grades and their extra curricular activities. A second theme I found would be the image of the perfect model student. Ben got good grades, he studied hard by practicing a vocabular word every day, played basketball, and participated in many different clubs; however, when he befriends Daric he ends up doing drugs, smoking, and drinking. Sadly, he ends up almost killing someone. It’s like the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” As soon as the audience gets passed the exterior of the model student, Ben really is not the model student after all. Lastly, the one theme that stood out to me was the different kinds of pressure. Ben, Daric, Virgil, and Han all dealt with the pressures of school and being able to move onto college. However, when they began to scam people, drink, and do drugs, did it seem like the pressure was really on. Ben was peer-pressured into staying with the group and scamming against Steve (who Ben almost kills). Daric pressures Han into going through with the plan to hurt Steve as well. At the end of the movie Virgil feels the pressure of actually killing Steve and attempts to kill himself leaving Ben and Han very heavy-hearted and Daric unaffected by Virgil shooting himself; but Daric felt the pressure and worry that Virgil would confess their crimes to the police. At the end of the movie all four of them end up feeling the pressure of all the responsibilities they put on themselves and the audience sees how they all broke the mold of the model Asian students.

I think that those three themes are very important to breaking the “images” or stereo-types that are put against the model student or citizen. Things are not always as they seem.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie more than I enjoyed The Beautiful Country because I think that this movie was less upsetting. For instance, in The Beautiful Country, Binh goes through all this trouble and heartache just to find his dad who he doesn’t reveal himself to and I just wonder if it was worth it? Was leaving his mother alone worth it? Was holding his little brother until his last breath worth it? Or the one woman who paid any attention to him who ends up choosing someone else over him worth it? The movie Better Luck Tomorrow was different I feel. We saw how each character benifited and there were multiple things going on in the movie. It could be that I already knew how harsh things were going to be in The Beautiful Country so I knew what would happen, opposed to Better Luck Tomorrow where I did not know what to expect. I believe this movie had a lot to offer for my learning in this class in so far as there were many themes that contribute to the challenging against stereotyping.

TAKAKI ch. 3&6 THEN 4&5

Chapters 3&6

      -1790 Federal Law: only whites could be citizens:
      -White guys accused of murder found guilty BUT witnesses were Chinese and do NOT count at citizens so defendant is not guilty.
      -Chinese were mostly in railroads, mining, or laundry mats.
      -Whites did not work as “hard” as Chinese but got paid more, when whites
      -Riot, Chinese took their place (causing more trouble)
      -Chinese were “model workers” but still got paid less.
      -Because white workers are easily dispensable and Chinese took their work: ANTI-Chinese poems are made (ie pg. 103)
      -In 1850′s China towns begin to form.
      -PAPER SONS: there was a big fire/earthquake so all paper work of who is really a US citizen is lost. Chinese began to do all they could (even if it means lying) to become citizens. IE: man says he has 6 bros and sis, but he really brings anybody he wants over. HOWEVER, extreme interrogating happens IE: how many steps in your house do you have? Which position do you sleep in?
      -Women: become or tricked into prostitution to pay off their debt of being brought over to US.

Chapters 4&5

      -Japanese children become educated and then learn about Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, etc. So they learn in theory what is supposed to be happening to workers (their parents) but do not see it in reality. BACKFIRE: children learn about the country but are not living it.
      Compromise language Pidgen: combo of english and other languages to compensate for language barriers.
      -Women and Men turn to opium and alcohol to escape their reality of slavery in the sugar cane fields in Hawaii.
      -Asians and Hawaiian’s begin to have babies together and their children do NOT choose one certain race, they are “locals.”
      -Picture brides: women would be married to men in pictures, but would end up being a lot older than they really are.
      -People kept track of who ran away, (ie woman runs away from husband and HE is fined for her like she’s his property).

Obsession Intro

katnissOne of my biggest obsessions right now is the movie trilogy, “The Hunger Games.” I have read all three books and I am waiting impatiently for the third movie to come out on the big screen. However, I was not a tribute to the books before the movies. I had watched the first movie and found myself wanting to watch it all the time. So after the first movie I decided to read the book and I could not stop myself. A week and a half passes by and I finished the trilogy. Since then, I make a lot of references to the Hunger games and I have given myself a nick-name similar to “Katniss Everdeen” when I throw javelin for track- “Kameo Evergreen.”

The main storyline of this trilogy is the story of a girl, Katniss Everdeen, who defies the Capital in more ways than just one. There are 12 districts of the Capital and from each district one boy and one girl is “reaped” (chosen to fight for their lives in an arena against each other) and is shown on live television in all districts. Her sister gets reaped and she volunteers as her tribute instead. A boy from her district, Peeta, gets reaped as well and soon enough they will be fighting 22 other tribute, and each other, for their lives; however, Katniss and Peeta create a love story between each other to gain the Capital’s sympthay and adoration.

During the games Katniss befriends a little girl named Rue. Katniss does all she can to protect Rue and does not try to kill her; however, Rue gets killed and Katniss lays her in an arrangement of flowers and cries over her. As this is shown on live television a “spark” (of rebellion) was created and riots started taking place. Eventually, Katniss and Peeta both manage to somehow win the Hunger Games, thus defying the Capital and their meaning for the Hunger Games. Katniss’s image eventually grows to be the face of the rebellion. Her challenges towards the Capital gives the 12 oppressed districts hope that the Capital will fall; unfortunately, with the spark of hope the Capital does not hesitate to extinguish it. As Katniss gains the momentum of the districts and rebels she also loses many things about her along the way.

Anyways, after the first week of class and Chico had said that we had to pick one obsession of ours and compare it to the class. The Hunger Games is the perfect obsession for this class. There are many similarities to what we’ve read and watched already, but I’ll post that here.

The Beautiful Country

I think this movie has some historical truths to it as far as the ships conditions when they were travelling and people dying because of disease or illness.  Also, the woman Binh had fallen in love with, Ling, was a prostitute and I am not at all that surprised about it. I did enjoy the movie and I somewhat enjoyed the ending. Like I had said before, I am more of a happy ending kind of girl, so I wanted to see Binh reunited with his mother and father together, but of course that did not happen. However, I cannot say that the ending was not a happy one since Binh did end up getting to meet and live with his biological father.

In the movie, I also thought some of the characters were symbols or allegories. For my first example I felt that Mai, Binh’s biological mother, was an allegory for the “reality of the dream” if you will. What I mean by that is she works for the “Big House” opposed to being on the streets or working in a run-down restaurant, so she has a “high” position or job; however, in reality she is still like a servant or slave. Many Asians wish to come to America because they see this higher form of living when America-for Asians- is not really that great. Also, Mai’s boss’s son (I cannot recall his name) to me is seen as the government. He has the power and feels he has the “right” to do what he pleases to Mai. Which in turn, is the government thinking that because these Asians are in America, they have the right to give or take whatever they want from the Asians. In addition to that, I saw Ling as an allegory for the Asians who’s American dream did work out. At the beginning of the movie Ling says that she’s “dead on the inside” and so thats why she can careless about her ways of prostitution. I feel that many Asians have felt that way if they do not want to live in their own home country. Then at the end of the movie she tells Binh, “Tam is dead. You’re alive. I’m alive.” At this point, she is somewhat a singer and she is seeing this other guy Jerry. She has a job she loves to do, she finds “love,” and she finally sees herself as the star she knew she was. Obviously Binh loves her and he tells her that she does not love him and she kisses him then leaves. That moment she walks away from him, is (to me) symbolic of Asians walking away from their past, their homeland, and conforming to the new American ways.

I do not think that any of these allegories are purely accurate, but I do think that they stand for more than just the characters they play. Overall the movie was very enjoyable and eye-opening since it’s different from reading it from a book and actually seeing it happen.

47 Ronin 2x

The first time I watched 47 Ronin I was a little dissapointed and confused. That reason was because I expected it to be one of those typical movies now-a-days where everything works out, you know what to expect, and there is a happy ending. Everybody who I wanted to live ended up dying, I was hardly right about what to expect, and I did not get my typical happy ending. However, after watching it the second time, I realized that there was more to this movie other than entertainment.

The second time around watching this movie, I understood that there were some truths to this tale. Though it was whimsical and magical, there was some historical facts behind it. In today’s society, we see suicide as an awful act no matter what the cost; however, in 47 Ronin, each samurai graciously accepted their punishment to kill themselves and be layed next to their master, with great pride, I might add. The first time I watched the movie, I was disappointed, but I now understand that that’s how things were back then in Japan. I see now that the movie is about loyalty, dedication, and pride. Every samurai in 47 Ronin had a place, a role, or a duty to fulfill and seeing the characters that way opposed to an entertainment character makes me understand the movie in a new scope. Overall, I ended up enjoying this movie and appreciating what it had to bring to the big screen.