Oliver: Has quirky trains of thought that can often lead to annoyance. Fortunately for Oliver, by the time his tangents end, an important connection has usually been made. Some may say that he connects with Pesto, his cat, the best out of anyone on the island. A voice of reason, or maybe just a voice of nature…

Hey it’s Pesto! ;]

Ruth: Communicates not only through spoken word but through the medium of novels as well. Her latest work has been brought to a halt by writer’s block, but have no fear! She will get it done…..some day. Her communication with Nao is definitely an abstract idea of conversation, but that is the best type right?

Okay, maybe I took the type thing a little too far for this one.

Nao: A journal is Nao’s weapon of choice. She writes about the past, present, and future. She also writes to the past, present, and future. In some odd way, she achieves time travel through communication and writing. She doesn’t always know how to communicate with other people, except when it comes to old Jiko, but her journal shows a confidence through her voice.

Nao must have had one of these.

Jiko: Jiko’s words were always worth listening to. She could break down the most complex ideas into short phrases that were packed with meaning. Her last message was the Kanji for sei, or ikiru, and that puzzled many people. Some thought it was unfinished, others thought that it was perfect and simple. Only Nao and her father really knew the true meaning behind it. Jiko had a way of communicating not only with people, but with the world around her as well. She had Buddhist prayers for many activities and she did not take anything for granted. Her slow yet graceful nature was like a smooth dialogue with the planet.

Jiko’s final word.

Haruki #1: He communicated through a secret journal, just like Nao, except his was written in French so no officers could intercept his mail and read his true thoughts on the war and being a kamikaze pilot. Jiko had the official letter that arrived but she knew that they were not his last words. Haruki #1 also possess the power to communicate through ghost form, although his messages can come off as “cryptic” (no pun intended).

Haruki #2: Nao’s father was never very great at expressing himself or talking with the family. When he became a hikikomori, it got even more awkward. He was able to communicate with some of the greatest minds of western philosophy but that didn’t always help his cause. Origami bugs where another hobby of his, which helped him hide his attempts to keep Nao’s auction from going to some hentai in Akihabara.

Origami C. Imperator

The wonderful thing about this movie is that although it focuses on 2 people who come from different races, neither of them are Caucasian which allows for many interesting relationships and conflicts to be brought up. Meena’s father and Demetrius showcase one of these conflicts when they have a conversation about whether Demetrius can see Meena anymore. Jay does not want Demetrius around, making assumptions about him and his family even though in reality, his family had treated her extremely well. Demetrius retorts back saying that Jay does not see the connection between himself and Demetrius, but he has no clue that Jay was kicked out of Uganda for his race and he was well aware. Two very different circumstances brought those two families together in America, yet America seemed to pit them against each other.

The fact that this movie was directed by Mira Nair, an Indian film maker, makes it that much more powerful and relevant. She is obviously aware of these complex relationships and this awareness adds more depth to the movie. While so many movies are directed by White men, the perspective of Mira becomes a fresh breath to an already unique movie and plot. If you mix all that together with a wonderful soundtrack that shows the contrasts between the different worlds and cultures, you get a Rom-Com with lots of room for reading and understanding.

Mira Nair layin’ down the law on set :]

Here is some visual food for thought, making connections between Kato and the world around us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kato didn’t talk too much about Lauryn Hill but she was mentioned, along with Erykah Badu, and I thought that it would be great to share some of her music. Lauryn Hill has been an influential artist ever since she appeared on the scene and has played a large role in furthering the presence of women in hip hop and rejecting the the objectified image of women in gangster rap. Much like kung fu, she has fought and resisted through the medium of music.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Body Count was an interesting band, fusing rap and metal together with the help of Ice-T. The whole idea of this song shows obvious resistance to the conditions of the urban communities in America. The resistance manifests through a unique form of dancing in the mosh pit, where people can “safely” release their frustrations with other like-minded people. Crosscurrents run deep, young padawan.

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This classic N.W.A. track screams Bruce Lee with a chorus about self-expression.

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Acknowledging the roots of hip-hop and their connections to Jamaica, here is a Bob Marley and the Wailers tune that speaks of resistance. The big tree that he refers to can be seen as “the man” or the government, but it also directly relates to their label Big Tree Records, who were profiting off of the band’s success by taking large cuts of their earnings.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This song by Reggie Spice really illuminates the urban situation in Jamaica. Trenchtown is one of the major urban landscapes in Jamaica, where many reggae and rocksteady artists got their start. Trenchtown has also served as the battleground for political violence in the 1970′s.

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Some old skool hip hop and Kool Herc throwin’ it down.

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And to end, a short clip of RZA and Shifu Shi Yang Ming of the USA Shaolin Temple in Manhattan. RZA even performs a kick at the end of the video :] I am sure that any of these videos could take one far down the internet rabbit hole. It’s just another red pill kind of post I suppose.

The environment seems to influence a variety of characters in A Tale for the Time Being. One of the more obvious examples would be the character Oliver. Oliver is Ruth, the character,’s husband; he studies nature and is an environmental artist. He is also the reason that Ruth decided to move out to an island in Canada. With an environment like that of the Pacific Northwest, it can be easy to understand why Oliver is so entranced by his surroundings. Oliver’s knowledge of the ocean’s currents helped Ruth gain a possible lead on how the book arrived on the beach. He studied up on birds and made a connection between Nao’s diary and there own island. Oliver and Muriel both confirmed that there was a Jungle Crow in their yard, which comes from Japan. These were some interesting instances that may bring Ruth closer to finding out the history of the diary and Nao. There are other ways in which the environment plays a role in the book.

Nao writes in her diary about her trips to school with her dad. On their small morning journeys, they would always stop at a temple in the city. Nao writes about spending time at the temple and how much it meant to her. It brought her closer to Jiko in a sense, even though she first went before she knew about Jiko, and it gave her a refuge before going in to the school grounds. She continued to go the temple, even after her dad became a hikikomori and stopped leaving the house. Nao talks of the temple as having an air that seems to be ancient and pure, compared to the contaminated city air of the crowded Tokyo streets. She writes “I read about how the scientists in the Arctic, or the Antarctic, or somewhere really cold, can drill way down and take ice core samples of the ancient atmosphere that are hundreds of thousands or even millions of years old. And even though that’s cool, it makes me sad to think of those plugs of ice, melting and releasing their ancient bubbles like tiny sighs into our polluted twenty-first-century air.” (pg. 46) This can be seen as a crosscurrent between the theme of environment and the theme of time, since Nao is talking about essentially feeling like she is traveling back in time.

Pollution, environmental disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes, natural forces, and even animals and their habitats play a role in the book by Ozeki. The differences between Ruth and Oliver’s island in Canada and Nao’s island of Japan allow for deeper investigation and connections as well. Japan is a densely populated island with vast amounts of technology and popular culture. The small island in Canada has a population of no more than fifty and is extremely isolated. Ruth feels like the forest is swallowing her house and all the locals know each other. These parallels make the transmission of culture between Nao and Ruth even more interesting. Ruth also longs for her former city, New York City, so she can relate to Nao on that level as well.

Jim Kelly basking in the moonlight

The tensions between “Lee” and “Ohara” represent a direct connection between the Hong Kong factory workers and the management, as well as the Chinese crew members and the Hollywood management. The first time I watched this movie, I was puzzled by the reaction of  the henchmen and martial artists in the background when “Lee” handed “Ohara” his own ass on a silver platter. I was unaware of the tensions that made rise into the film but after reading the Kato chapter it made more sense. The henchmen, who were supposed to be backing the evil “Han”, became ecstatic during “Lee’s” victory despite the fact that their boss was the opposing force. “Ohara” had not only done some dirty things in the plot, but the actor Robert Wall also did something questionable on set during the filming of that fight scene.

At the end of the fight, “Ohara” comes at “Lee” with one last-ditch effort, a glass bottle. In the fight, “Lee” hits the bottle out of his hands and finishes him. When they were filming it, however, something went awry. After a few takes, Wall held the bottle too long so when Lee tried to knock it out of his hands, the bottle broke on his hand and wounded him. Bruce Lee had felt like this was intentional and got upset about the whole ordeal, not to mention that Bruce had expressed that he did not get along with Bob. This could be seen as a bit of a turning point for Lee and the rest of the Chinese crew/cast. Throughout the filming, the Chinese workers had been treated terribly. There were many instances during the filming of the movie where the Americans would assume that the Chinese workers couldn’t understand their English, and they would in turn say demeaning things to them. With tensions between the workers and between Lee and Wall rising, the final shot of the fight scene was packed with raw emotion and expression. And instead of showing their loyalty to Han, the henchmen all revealed their true feelings, as well as Lee.

Outside!

post in progress

Just making some connections again. Let’s link the documentary to some music :] To start it off, let’s take a look at a more obvious example.

Wu-Tang Clan

Wudang (Wutang) is a Chinese martial art that holds some similarities to the Shaolin style but incorporates less variety of forms. One form includes the Wudang sword style. The name comes from the Wudang mountains where it was rumored that Shaolin style actually came from, although that is believed to be false. So there is a connection just by looking at the name of the group. Now, let us move on to their first album.

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin was a popular Shaw Brothers kung fu movie that released in 1978. The movie was slightly following an old tale about San Te, a Shaolin disciple that achieved legendary status. The movie follows San Te as he trains at a Shaolin temple and works his way through the 35 chambers. He then leaves the temple to help the people fight against the Manchu government. San Te finally returned to the temple triumphant and created the final 36th chamber.

The link goes further than a love for a kung film, however. The Wudang martial artists had gained an understanding of the 108 pressure points in the human body and discovered that 36 of them were deadly. The group can be seen as the masters of the 36 chambers and the 36 pressure points can be seen as their list of deadly rhyming techniques. The group carefully selected clips from different kung fu films and sampled them in many of their songs while making metaphors that link martial arts to hip hop and life through their eyes. RZA, the founding member of the group, has gone on to pursue more involvement in martial arts and kung fu films. He scored the movies Ghost Dog and Kill Bill: Vol 1 and eventually starred in his own kung fu movie, The Man with the Iron Fists. He has also scored martial arts films focusing on martial arts from other countries, such as Tony Jaa’s The Protetor, which is a film about a Thai martial artist. RZA has even created the soundtrack for an anime series, Afro Samurai, which features Samuel L. Jackson voicing the main character. Here is a link to RZA being interviewed about his involvement with kung fu. He talks about the parallels between emceein and kung fu fights, how he first got introduced to kung fu, and also about his movie scores.

*music and RZA interview contain some adult language, yo

RZA’s Edge

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Their are also some links to Supreme Mathematics, Supreme Alphabet, and the belief of the five percent. I won’t try to explain all of that but there is some interesting number work that can be done with the Wu-Tang Clan. In Supreme Mathematics, the number 9 is understood to “bring into existence”. So the Wu-Tang Clan has 9 members, and each member had a heart. Each heart has 4 chambers and what is 9×4….. 36. What about the 108 pressure points? 1+0+8=9. And just for fun, if you add 9 to 36 you get 45 and 4+5=9. This is all speculation but I have a feeling that this wasn’t just a coincidence.

Rap Genius: Top 10 Martial Arts Songs in Hip Hop

Here is a great list of some hip hop songs that have martial arts influences on rapgenius.com. It also draws from the connections between hip hop and both the martial arts and philosophy aspects of gung fu. I find these connections important because they connect other forms of popular culture to the already vast connections between African Americans and kung fu films. The documentary The Black Kungfu Experience
explored many of those connections and it turned me onto a path of finding more. New artists are still making references to kung fu and martial arts, partially because they are interested in the same things or follow those beliefs, but also to acknowledge and honor the importance of the strong connections between kung fu and African American culture. For instance, the group Pro Era has made many references to martial arts, including a song titled “Like Water”. This comes from this famous Bruce Lee quote.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When it comes to America, things are just…. well… different. Being an immigrant from another country, or the child of immigrant parents, brings up many obstacles. From tensions at home and clashes with traditional culture to dealing with racist Americans and trying to adjust to a life in America; there are many reasons to push people towards secrecy and deceit. I loved how this movie showed these different aspects throughout the film, even if it had some sort of happy ending. The whole movie was based around secrecy and conflict. It showed the differences between the generations that lived in America and their parents who remained in Taiwan. As the movie progressed, I began to think about the article from East Main Street on Keanu Reeves and Smallville. Although these characters were not trying to pass as white, they were trying to pass as heterosexual. This made me wonder if an average viewer of this film would look at the sexuality of the characters before their race, and how that would impact somebody viewing this movie. We know that it is not easy living in America and being from a different country or having parents from a different country. If you add on top of that the struggles of being different from the sexual norm in America, you get a plot full of tension with many moments that almost expose the secret for Wai-Tung and Simon.

While Smallville had many hidden messages that can be read in to, The Wedding Banquet dealt with those same issues but on a much more up front level. While in Smallville, the relationship between Clark and Lex is kept very secret and protected, this movie used the relationship between Wai-Tung and Simon to drive the plot. Similar questions can be drawn from both sources but The Wedding Banquet was definitely not trying to leave those for the viewer who can dig deeper. It presented the issues and questions throughout the movie and left them there for the viewer to tackle. Smallville, on the other hand, could be viewed through different lenses, depending on one’s initial knowledge and ability to read into the show, that could change one’s outlook on the show. I like that The Wedding Banquet was able to bring those things to the forefront of the film and was not afraid to raise awareness to the issues regrading race and sexuality and how those may come into play for somebody in a position similar to Wai-Tung.