Reading

Truthfully, so far I just read by part IV. One reason why I choose this word is because I’m frustrated that I can’t read all of them by time limit. All books in this quarter were difficult to read for me, I don’t want to say the excuse but this is because there were many academic words. However, I did my best and I could learn many things from all books. Especially, this book is a Japanese American popular culture book, so I’ m really enjoying to read it and I am into Nao’s life. Today, not only Nao but also many people seek their identities between Japanese and America. I know one of my friends whose identity is in between Japan and America. She is half Japanese and half American. Most of her life is in Japan. However, because of her look, everyone think she is a foreigner and keep ask her “Why can you speak Japanese?” “Is your mother really Japanese?” and so on. These question made her identity cooperated. She is the opposite side of Nao.

Second reason why I choose this theme is because reading make us forget the time. I mean that many people regardless of generation read the same books. Like Ruth didn’t care how old Nao is before Oliver mentioned it. She is in the time with Nao with forgetting they are in different time. I’m really interested in this scene, because I also feel like that I am in the same time.

Communication

After Nao moved to Miyagi, her communication ranges spread more then she had been in Tokyo. She became to talk Jiko about herself, and that made her change. In my opinion, “communication” is most important thing to connect with the other people. Without communication, we can’t know anything. Also, the reason why I prefer communication is because we can share our opinions. In this world, nobody is the same personality. That means everyone has their own opinions. Like Nao, if you don’t talk anyone about your problem, you have to face the trouble by yourselves. Sometime, it’s difficult to solve by yourselves. In my analysis, Nao could sort her head out when she told herself with Jiko and also her family. Before she told everything, she had only one view, but now she has some views against her problem. I assume Ruth in this book is also the same situation. She has communication with Oliver, and to do so, we can find different opinion not only from Ruth but also from Oliver.

Life/Death

According to my dictionary, the meanings of these words are…

Life: the ability to breathe grow, reproduce, etc. which people, animals and plants have before they die and which objects do not have.

Death: the fact of somebody dying of being killed. The end of life.

However, through these pages, I find we can use these two words even people are alive. In this book, Nao thought she became a living ghost after her funeral in school. In her mind, she had death in her life. However, after moving to Miyagi during her summer vacation, I’m sure her mind is changing. She is trying to find the meaning of life in her mind. “I think holding hands makes her feel more confident, and so I got into the habit of holding her hand when I was next to her, and to tell you the truth, I liked it, too. I liked the feeling of her thing little fingers in mine. I liked being the strong wasn’t there, she used her stick. I liked feeling more useful than a stick. “(Ozeki, p189) Nobody used to have accepted Nao before living in Miyagi with Jiko. That made her mind dead. However, now she finds that she can help someone, and the feeling satisfies her mind like somebody needs her. In my opinion, this feeling makes her live.

At the same time, I also find Ruth’s life/death in her life. “My whole life is a break. I really need to do this.” “My whole life is a nap. I need to wake up.” (Ozeki, p185) She uses “break” and “nap” as explain her life. I assume, however, these words also connect with her life/death in her life. She gets her object to clarity Nao’s life, so she doesn’t have time to take a break and also a nap. In our life, finding our purposes are important to feel that we are alive.

To tell the truth, I couldn’t finish reading this chapter The reason why it took long time to read and why I couldn’t read everything was because I hadn’t know about Kung Fu well or I hadn’t been interested in it before I read this book. Without the knowledge of Kung Fu, it was difficult to read this book. Even I am Japanese and I live in the same area with the origin of Kung Fu, I didn’t pay attention it. Until I read this book, I thought I already had enough knowledge of Asian American culture because I found a lot of new things. However, through this book, I felt it might be impossible only for one quarter that I could know all of Asian American popular culture. Even only about Kung Fu, there were so many things we had to study. We need to study not only Kung Fu but also other influences relating with it like movies, music, and so on. At the first class in this book, we discussed about the connection between globalization and popular culture, and at that time I thought globalization made popular culture in this world. Now, I’m clear that globalization affect many kinds of popular culture, and I’m more interested about the connection between globalization and popular culture. I’m sure I’m going to be back this book again after reading the last book.

“The home is where heart is.”

I was really impressed by Jay’s words at the end of the movie. This movie made me consider where their homes were. Everyone in this movie was very complicated. I should say people not only in this movie but also in America. However, thinking about these words, I found that hearts were important to know where their homes are, and it doesn’t matter if they knew the place. This is because the heart makes the home. In the last part of movie, even Mina’s family separated from each other, they still had their home with their connected hearts. Before I watched this movie, I only tried to find which place they identified as being from. However, now I assume they are thinking about their hearts as the best way to find their identities. In my analysis of this movie, Jay’s heart was in Uganda because he was born there and he had his best friend there. Kinnu’s heart depended on where Jay went to, because she loved him. And, Mina’s heart was in nowhere. She would find or create the place where her heart was. The identities was in their hearts. In other words, the identities move anywhere their hearts are. Now, my heart is in Japan, because I’m Japanese and proud of my identity as Japanese. However, I don’t know the future. Nobody knows where my heart is going. And more, I assume my heart isn’t the only one. I’m finding another heart in believing that the heart will exist somewhere. Thinking like this, I believe my life will be more amazing. When Mina decided to do travel with Demetrius, I found the movie wanted to say that the life is like a journey to find the heart.

“LOSS”

I don’t like this word, so I chose it because I’d like to talk about the reason why I hate it. In this book so far, Nao lost a lot of things after moving to Japan. Not only Nao, but also her family felt some losses. Of course, the family lost money and also their bright life. Because of their losses, this family looked very unhappy. They lived in a small apartment, and didn’t have enough money to spend for recreations.

Focusing on Nao’s life, all of her words sounds very dark. I assumed that this was because of her bad experiences in school. I can’t believe she is just a high school student because in her diary she said, “Whenever I think about my stupid empty life, I come to the conclusion that I’m just wasting my time, and I’m not the only one.” (Ozeki, p22) Do you think the high school students say like this? I don’t want to think so, because many people in high school have really beautiful life. Sometimes, I want to be back in my high school life because I didn’t need to think about anything like society and reality. I just had a dream and hung out with friends every day. I’m sure it is true that some people have bad memories like Nao. However, I think one big reason why she said like that was because she didn’t have any people who she felt relaxed with. Friends, family… She lost everything after she moved to Japan.

I believe that she didn’t only lose something, but also got something which she couldn’t have had in America. I haven’t found something she got in Japan yet, but I’m sure she would have something reading more. This is because I assume that when we lose something, we can get something instead of the losses.

Through reading this book, I was looking forward to watching the fight between Lee and Ohara. This was because it was interesting that the actors looked confused in the film while in reality, according to the book, “Bruce had stated on several occasions that Bob was not a friend of his and he had even expressed outright antagonism toward Bob. … Bruce had been meeting with his stuntmen and agreed he had to exact revenge for this treacherous act.” (Kato, p122) Honestly, I couldn’t believe that Bob had made the accident on purpose, because sometimes battle movies like this have some accidents; however, I’m not a fighting specialist and I know Lee was a Kung Fu specialist, so I decided to believe his words before watching the movie.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After I finished watching, I checked the fighting scene between Lee and Ohara again because I wanted to make sure the sentence in this book was true: “Toward the end of this scene, the emotional intensity not only of Lee but also of the extras present on the screen (…) had reached its peak, projecting a strong aura from the screen.” (Kato, p122) After I watched the scene twice, I found one extra in back was jumping. I assumed it was his action made in the background of the making of this movie. I learned from this book and this film that knowing film analysis before watching movies is very helpful and important because I can know more about the movies, including background events.

This was my second time watching this movie. However, first time I didn’t realize this movie talked about Asian Americans. I just assumed that this one wanted us to talk about what happened after 9.11 and there were not only bad people but also good people in America like Mama Jenny. With studying Asian Americans, however, there was one scene which reminded me of other history. It was that Khan helped people in trouble at the church in Georgia State. In his action, I saw the picture of The 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Even they were discriminated in America, they believed they were American citizens and did their best to be accepted as Americans, and so they just did what anyone would do. In Khan’s situation, he just did what anyone would do. I found one thing in common between this movie and Japanese American.

In addition, after I watched this movie, I researched about the main actor. His name is Shah Rukh Khan same name in this movie. And, he has a wife who has a different religions, and their children believe in both of religions like in the movie. I’m surprised these facts aren’t only in the movie but also real life.

Today, because of globalization, it’s increasing the people married with other religions. Through this movie, I could learn about the love other religions.