Author Archives: Gregster

Pop-osition Bruce Kato

Bruce in this quest of KungFu was a mastermind of the craft. He was such a impressive instrument of going through barriers to put Asian American and individuals that wanted to go out and learn, teach and pursue the art of Martial Arts. He was a person who took action in his studies and was a great person that has stunned and inspired my life. He was a great Martial Artist and a philosopher. He connected Martial Arts to life itself and nature. He did go against all others and did his thing in this world. Great as he was, he had no technique in particular. He had his own way of talking, kicking, punching, everything he did either KungFu or not he was unique about it. He says, “Martial Arts means to express yourself.” I saw this video about his philosophy that astonished my way of thinking and would like to share it with you. Don’t mind the Greek subtitles and one part of the video sounds weird high pitch noise, but the video in general I believe is cool and interesting.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Bottom line Bruce broke the barrier for Asian Americans and all who wanted to do something great with Martial Arts. R.I.P Bruce Lee, The Legend

From Kung Fu to Hip Hop pg. 89

On this journey for finding out stuff about culture and heritage, I had no idea about some stuff that happened. During the 1960′s particularly 1969 where a event in San Francisco united the rising forces of the Native people during the decolonization struggle. Also with Alcatraz where it states seventy-eight Indians landed on the Island to reclaim their land, later joined by six hundred fellow compatriots representing more than fifty nations.

This I’m like holy ****. I was always told the story differently and just hearing about the truth now, what other untold mysteries have I not heard of. This is interesting to me because being of Native American descent and to hear about this in my life just now, WTF world. High school never told me, media of course didn’t tell me and yeah, this is surprising the hell out of me. The fact that Jimi Hendrix is Native as well and made a song dedicated to the existential condition of his Native American identity in the process of ongoing extermination. Thanks Jimi Hendrix for this that. We have come along way, but we still have some ways to go and I would like to find out about more on what happened before that time and of recent events. Thanks for assigning a book that I could draw some more of my history together for better awareness and understanding so I and probably a lot others are in the dark about the real stories that are made up so the government doesn’t have to look like the bad guy. I want to learn more about the struggles that happened during these times even though the truths may not be what you want to hear, it reminds me of the debridement.

Black Kungfu Experience

This documentary was a great one to me because I always remember growing and seeing so many kungfu movies with Bruce Lee and I had no idea about the other masters of the art of Martial Arts. The actors turn kungfu masters from learning their techniques and applying it to others so that the tradition and style doesn’t die and thought that was very cool. The Afro Asian connections that the guys learned and talked about in this documentary was so surprising because how one of the guys saying that the black guy was mainly the bad guy in the films and I’m like that sounds right those days, but then after that they have a super hero. A leading role for an African American in a Martial Arts movie and that was great to me. I want to see the Black Dragon now that I know this. I like that these guys were so truthful about their lives and some of these things I wasn’t aware of at all. I was in China some years ago and wasn’t looked at differently. I felt as I was one of the people. I was always judged differently while growing up because I was two races, but attending a predominantly one race. I was the odd one in the group because of my skin and in China was the complete opposite and I was like wow and that one of these guys felt the same way in Hong Kong as did I. I really appreciate that all of them were encouraging and supportive to reach their goals and really enjoyed that I got to experience the Black Kungfu Experience. Great documentary and hope that all of them are still teaching. Keep up the good work.

Notes

The notes that I take vary from week to week. I wrote something like this.

Talking about Tiger Woods and when he said when he was growing up that he called himself,” Cablinasian” and that right there I thought I was the only one that kind of combined my races together. Blactive that’s what I claim as. Black/African American and Native American so to intertwined. I love that it was in a book that we was reading for this class.

I also wrote about the music videos that we watched and I had no idea about the ABC and what it stood for. That was a surprise to me and the fact that there are abbreviations that I had no idea that were applied to Asian Americans.

Yoko I also wrote down as interesting just wanted to get better clarification on the word and its meaning as it relates to Asian Americans because I’ve heard that in a song and was wondering what it meant. Anyone???

Apu’s Brown Voice

As reading this chapter, I thought that is was ironic. The idea of a popular TV show and one of characters of color, especially Indian American is played by a American actor and he is sounding just like an Indian, but some may not know this.  I didn’t know of this because I don’t watch TV that often, but now reading about it in a published book and that was a surprise itself to me. In the beginning of the chapter where it says,” Apu vents his frustration about falsely posturing in both dress and accent as someone who is culturally and stereotypically represented as American. Also in the book, “Although Indian independence was achieved over fifty years ago, the image of Indians in the world is that of the highly educated English speaking immigrant.” Who says that Indians can’t speak English just as well as a American English speaking person. Just saying that underestimating a nation is not always the best thing to do in general. Every nation I know have their own set of skills and talents that maybe some may not be able to accomplish and to have something as a TV show actor an Indian American actor at that is being played by a American. Just saying that everyone deserves a shot in this world even if its one part because he probably made a bundle on that show because its gotten popular in the world of TV. Everyone deserves a shot.

Tech/Race/Gender and Music with the music videos

On page on 301, where it says, “To put it another way, hip hop and electronica use various technologies to deconstruct and reconstruct sound fragments in much the same way that marginal subjects create identities for themselves in a society that refuses to acknowledge them as wholly human.” I thought about this when listening to blue scholars and the black eyed peas with some of their songs. HI-808 was a good one to me because they combined hip hop with a jazz feeling so in a fact taking to different genres and put them together and also being in that Asian American melting pot of culture that some may not be used to seeing on TV or a music video. To see that this group which just of recent was introduced to me, they are really good. Combining the two surprised me a lot. I never knew this about Asian American in general and I guess goes with the saying, “Don’t judge a book by the color of the cover.” I really appreciate the music videos that were shown today and that I learned more about music, but more about Asian American which I know a lot about music, but not about this kind of music. I know more about music out of my own genre that can last for awhile, even MC Jin, I didn’t know that he was a rapper let alone to rap in his own language and that was impressive and made it flow just as it would in English. Shout out to all the other Asian American rappers/artists of hip hop that I don’t know about, but will find out about.

The Wedding Banquet-Loyalty in the family

This movie was interesting, yet deceitful. This movies story was crazy in thinking to myself does this really happen in the world today, I’ve heard of it in some places, but not something like this. Where this fake marriage to make your parents happy and off your back and to live your life at ease. I’ve never heard of it in this case where the intended wife becomes pregnant and the husband is a homosexual. I’ve never heard of that. This world is full of people that can do what they want, when they want and with whoever they want to do it with. This is 2014 and the world isn’t the same as it used to be, but in some places it may take longer than others, but sooner or later everything will fall in place. In this movie with family traditions being a crucial part of Wai-Tung parents life and not to be different would be disgraceful, but later in the movie whenever the family of Wai-Tung found out from Simon and had that moment by the water and that relief and reaction of the father was a surprise to me and was joyful to see that from a Asian American culture and to see that in a movie is remarkable and should be awarded not just nominated. I would award it because there are some of these cases around the world just cause we don’t see it, doesn’t mean its not there hiding in plain sight. In the crisis aspect of the family where the father sicken and fighting through these strokes and seeing his son become a man. It was great to see that and not have a sad ending. It was a good ending and I really like that movie.

Info on movie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Banquet

Check out the trailer and watch this good movie

Dave-East Main Street

A part I examined in this book was where it says, “Through a consideration of cross-cultural influences and global cultural trends, the essays here thrive at the interdisciplinary intersection of Asian American studies with media, literature, sociology, film, performance, and cultural studies.” I like this because its a great part of what were learning here in this class and also from last quarter as well. I really like how were learning so much about Asian, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese Americans and through contexts such as books, music, films, documentaries and I’m just like oh my god, I’m learning more than I dreamed of with all this stuff and after this quarter I don’t know whether to learn about a different culture or to go ahead and advance my knowledge that I obtained in both classes and excel it more for it began to continuous standing point of the here and now. I would love to do both, but there’s just so much a full-time student can do. Love this class and hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.