I knew nothing about Bruce Lee before this class. Having read From Kung Fu to Hip Hop I’ve learned why he was so important to minority communities. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I looked up how Lee died (I know, I knew that little about him). I had no idea that he died while filming Game of Death. Seriously, if that isn’t ironic then I don’t know what is.

Something that I really liked about Game of Death was that the final showdown would be between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbal. When we watched Enter the Dragon, I later found out that the final fight sequence was supposed to be Lee and Williams but of course Williams died and the white guy fought alongside Bruce. So yeah, it would’ve been cool to see two men of color as the good guys BUT having the two being the strongest fighters, pitted against each other? Still pretty cool.

Some could still argue that the black man was the villain. But I’d take a ‘villain’ like Kareem over a gangster like villain any day.

Something that stuck with me in this reading was the idea of death. Not in a morbid way, but more of a spiritual way like the book explains. “To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday…” (pg. 194). I guess not fearing death is the ultimate expression of freedom. It’s funny that death is the only thing that is guaranteed in your life. Nothing you have today was promised when you were born. The only thing we all really know is that we’ll die someday. Yet death is something we all fear. It’s something that is held over our head on a day to day basis. Think of all the risk you didn’t take because you could’ve died. That was Kareem’s advantage. He didn’t think about things as trivial as life and death. He focused on the now. Maybe we start out with simpler things, like not caring what others think of you and eventually work your way to not fearing death. Think of how life could be if you didn’t fear anything?

On a side note though, reading this chapter also made this episode of Spongebob make sense. I remember seeing the episode but I had NO IDEA that it was based off a Bruce Lee movie! See, this class has done wonders for me.

**Also, the music doesn’t link up with the video and you should just mute it**

Theme: Growing up

“Do you have to live to be a hundred to really grow up?”

This particular quote really had me thinking and relating to my own life in this time being. I remember when I was thirteen, I’d imagine myself ten years in the future. Where would I be at twenty three? In my head, I would’ve already graduated college and be in California, living on the beach. I’d have a stable job and be taking care of myself. I’d be an adult. I’d be a grown up.

I turn twenty two in May and I can tell you that my life has not turned out like I thought it would. I don’t feel like an adult AT ALL. Sometimes I think I do things that are adult-like. For example, paying bills, not living with my mom, going to work, doing taxes, blah blah blah. But more often than not, I’m doing things that aren’t traditionally ”grown up”, like playing Mario Kart and spending hours in bed on Netflix.

So what does being a grown up entail? When does it start? Would you consider Nao’s dad a grown up? Because being an adult has a stigma as always having your shit together. When you become an adult, you accept responsibility and stop having fun and you ‘do what you have to do’ (whatever that means). But Nao’s dad has literally been doing the exact opposite of this…as in not accepting responsibility and doing what has to be done. Maybe being an adult means not taking short cuts? And if that’s the case then her dad is deff not an adult.

But maybe there is no age when you become an adult. There are fifteen year olds out there that are more responsible than me. And there are fifty year olds out there who have yet to step out into the world on their own. What does it mean to grow up? Why does growing up and being happy always seem to be polar opposites?

When can I just be like old Jiko and live forever?

Theme: Endings

I think an appropriate theme for this Ozeki post would be endings.

In this section of the book Nao’s grandmother dies, which was particularly upsetting to me because I really liked her character. But when I was reading this part, I expected Nao to be more…emotional I guess? I found it funny that I was having this reaction to this section because of my own experience with death. Like I’ve said in earlier post, my brother died when I was 8 and he was 12. My mom, sister and I went to see a therapist and apparently I was the only one that was adjusting to the accident. Looking back now, I didn’t show much emotion, in my head, there was nothing I could do to make him come back so there was no use freaking out.

I think that’s how Nao felt. I expected her to be really sad because her grandmother seemed to be the only good, positive, stable, person in her life. But she didn’t, she kind of just…let her go. Ruth’s story ended kind of the same too,her writing a letter to Nao as a kind of goodbye before she let her go. I guess we all deal differently though. Some of us need physical closer, like a face to face goodbye or a letter that you’ll never send. And some of us just let it go as easily as they let us go.

Endings can be confusing.

If you’ve ever seen a movie with a mostly black cast then you know that usually, someone dies. And it isn’t because of natural cause like cancer or something. Can you take a guess as to what it might be?

Gang Violence!

During all of Mississippi I was waiting for something bad to happen. I was waiting for the younger brother to get shot in a drive by. I was waiting for someone to get called the N word. I was waiting for something really racially wrong to happen. And even though there was a clear diversity happening, not once did something ever go really wrong. Yeah, the parents forbid her from seeing him but that didn’t stop her! (She was in love which is on a whole different level of being ridiculous.) No, her parents said no and she ran off with him anyways! That’s how the story ended! They ran away together!

I did enjoy the movie overall. It was interesting seeing how race doesn’t necessarily determine  culture. Mina was racially Indian but she was born and raised in Africa. Demetrius was racially  African but was born and raised in America. There was definite similarities, like who important family was to both of them, but at the end of the day they chose love. That could be an American thing though, culturally, we don’t look up to our elders and keep up with traditions like we used to. Honestly though I felt like this movie portrayed my black culture pretty well. Like I was saying earlier, it was nice to see a black family and not see gang violence with it.

Family Relationships/Superpowahs

I’ve always found the bond between family interesting. I had never really thought about the impact our immediate family has on us. My senior year of high school I lived with my friend Catherine. We always joked that we’re basically the same person but opposite races (she’s white and I’m black). Catherine and I grew up on completely different ends of the spectrum. My family has always been lower class, my parents were divorced, I’d lost a sibling, the only time I’ve traveled out of the country was to Vancouver, Canada and I’d only moved towns once in my life. Catherine was born in London, she’d moved around Europe until she was twelve, her parents are still together, her family was constantly taking family trips around the country during the summer and she lived in a huge three story house. Despite these differences our personalities are very similar. Home and family life clearly has a large impact on our life outside of the house.

Nao is having trouble at home with her dad’s repeated suicide attempts. Her mom is so concerned with keeping a roof over their heads and keeping an eye on her husband that she doesn’t have time for Nao. Having all of this on her mind, Nao’s last concern is herself. I think that people feel that sense of vulnerability. Despite everything that happened in my life, none of them had long term affects on me. I had my mom and she has basically been the only stable thing in my life. Maybe that’s my superpowah? Having one person in my life that I can trust. Maybe that’s everyone’s superpowah.

Nao didn’t really start coming into herself until she spent the summer holiday with her grandmother. You could argue that her sense of self was from getting away from her home and just being away from the negativity. I think it was more than that though. She felt safe.

Its that simple, to me at least. It comes down to feeling safe. And not the kind of safe that involves you staying inside your comfort zone. The kind of safe you feel when you have someone in your life that you can rely on. That kind of safety makes it feel like one wrong move won’t cause your whole life to fall apart.

I moved to Bellingham when I was 12 years old with my mom after she got into Western Washington University for graduate school. We lived in a two bedroom, one bath apartment that was down the street from the college and probably designed for younger college students. You know, it was meant to be someone’s ‘first’ apartment. It wasn’t meant for a mom and a daughter. But I loved it there. It was home and I loved it.

Reading Nao and her situation after moving back to Japan it was hard not to remember being the new kid. Honestly, my first days there were kind of a blur but I remember being like, one of ten black kids in the whole school. And I remember kids calling me Denzel because my last name was Washington. And I remember a kid (who would later become one of my close friends) asked me to tell him what a 50 cent song was saying. Because he was white. And he couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about. Because he was white. At the time it was all kind of funny to me because I liked the same things the white kids liked. We were only 12! We all liked the same things because we were kids! But I took it in stride and to this day I’m pretty sure that the only reason I was remotely known throughout middle and high school was because I was ‘that black girl with the dreads’. Which I’m okay with because reading Nao’s perspective I’m aware that my grade school days could have been a hell of a lot worse.

I could relate to her though. I spent a lot of nights alone, making my own dinner and putting myself to sleep because my mom worked at night. Or sometimes she was just studying at the library. And that’s get lonely.Or being the kid at school that doesn’t have the latest fashion because you can’t afford it. Or hanging out with friends when they go out to lunch and not being able to get any. But the difference between Nao and me is that I had friends.

I once heard somewhere that if you have one friend, just one friend, then you’re good. I believe that. Anyone that has been through middle and school school knows that. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without my friends. I commend Nao though, she still has this sarcastic and sometimes hopeful tone in her voice. I think its because she knows its only for a time being. You knows something that a lot of kids in high school don’t. That one day, this will all be over and none of it will matter. Take it how you will, whether high school won’t matter or if in the grand scheme of THE WORLD your actions make little to no impact. When times get hard that notion can be a double edge sword. Do you just give up because it won’t matter anyways? Or do you decide to make the most of it while you can?