I had always wanted to see Enter the Dragon ever since I was “wee las”…My dad has a strong background in MMA with a specialty of Ju Jitsu. We have tons of Bruce Lee movies all around the house, so of course it’s surprising to me that I had never seen it. BUUTTT anyways…Reading this chapter and watching the movie together was a good mix to see and hear more about popular culture involving kung fu and Bruce Lee’s own Jeet Kune Do and from a character that has shocked the world and put the art of kung fu in a sense into production because Bruce Lee did things his own way with a lot of dedication, respect, having the knowledge background, and was a martial art guru. He was a master at his craft and everyone know’s that his legacy is not forgotten.

The movie ¨Enter the Dragon” starring Bruce Lee had many striking scenes that are connected and displayed in Chapter four of the Kato reading this week. However I found one seen and quote very profound and would like to focus this blog post on the connections I have made between the book and this scene.

At the very end of the film during the climatic fight to the death between Lee and Han in the room full of glass mirrors Lee hears the voice of his Shaolin teacher reminding him “The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives.” I found this scene very meaningful when it comes to the relationship between Hollywood and Kung Fu. Hollywood has a long history of masking the “real” and twisting and distorting it until it is invisible to the audience. We have seen this throughout prior Kato readings such as in the case of the one dimensional camera angles used while filming Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, or through the show Kung Fu in which a white man plays the role of a Shaolin Monk and they only consulted a few experts in the art of Kung Fu and Philosophy. They hide there motives of concealment and containment of authentic Gung Fu and its philosophy behind images they select to convey to an audience. That’s what makes this scene so great because it shows Lee breaking these mirrors and images put up by Hollywood.Kato states early on in the chapter, “… the script writer was skilled in translating the kung fu plot into a narrative format accessible to a Hollywood audience.(119)” Furthermore Kato discusses on page 155 how Han can be seen as the image or the illusion created by Hollywood and by the breaking of the mirrors Lee is able to remove the power of images from Han (Hollywood). In effect countering Hollywoods goal of seeing the “real as taboo” and its attempts to comodify and process the real therefore tearing down the “Orientalist” villain image creating throughout Hollywood Kung Fu films(155).

From reading this chapter I found that perhaps I should start being more observant of the images Hollywood in conveying in films, and in so doing, will be able to distinguish between the real image of a film and the processed image Hollywood is trying to display.

After watching the film “My Name is Khan” which happens to be the first Bollywood film I have ever seen, I have some mixed emotions on the film. I found the film very enjoyable and uplifting on one hand, but also felt that the film dragged on and some of the parts were unescassary.

The enjoyable parts of the movie, for me at least, can be seen  through the main plot line involving Khan and Madura and their son Sameer. I loved this storyline and how Khan who has Asperger’s syndrome is able to make a happy life in American with which fulfilled his mothers wish. Furthermore I felt it very uplifting that a man with his disability faught so hard to get back that happy life after Madura sends him away following the death of her son Sameer from injuries received while being beaten because of his being seen as a Muslim, depicting the hysteria that took shape in America following 9/11. His ability to stay steadfast in his mission his wife Madura set him upon of telling the President of the United States that he was not a terrorist and neither was her son was completely uplifting and was enjoyable to watch. However on the downside I thought sometimes the film would go off on tangents such as his efforts in helping Mama Sherry (an African American woman he met early on in his odyssey to find the president) during a hurricane was slightly unecassary. Also I felt the whole setting of the villiage in which Mama Sherry lived was highly unrealistic because it set the African American inhabitants of the villiage in almost a different time and place from the modern day rural America. It had the feel as if they were stuck in the mid 19th century and was a little far fetched.

However I felt that the film was still very inspirational and entertaining, and I particularly liked the message in which Khan’s mother taught him when he was a child. She taught him that there are two people in the world, good people and bad people, and nothing else matters. This I feel is a good lesson for anyone viewing the film because, with so much racism and hate in the world it really puts things in perspective and simplifies things. Race, religion, or sexual orientation shouldn’t be what your feelings towards someone is based on but whether they are good or bad.

Though the film did drag on and there was some aspects of it that I didn’t enjoy, overall the films main plot line and some of the messages it was trying to convey made it pleasurable to watch.

While sitting in my armchair contemplating the approach I would take to this post and how I would articulate what I have learned from the reading I thought I would shift things up a bit and write not on just the chapter and how Bruce Lees Jeet Kune Do and Hip Hop ” share a comparible aestetic principle.(Kato 171)” Instead I want to discuss some of my own life experiences in which I stepped out of my comfort zone and where I learned to utilize what was useful and throw away the rest. This very concept that both Jeet Kune Do and Hip Hop use to great effect has been the key to the success I gained in my own pursuit of excelling in sports.

My passion for baseball started at the ripe old age of two when I watched my first major league baseball. I watched the game from the first pitch until the last out was recorded and even cried when the game came to an end. However as I progressed in the sport and received coaching from several different individuals who all offered different twists on how to swing a bat, or field a ground ball, or on how to approach an at bat, I realized I couldn’t possibly incorporate everything I was taught. I remember it becoming overwhelming and frustrating to be instructed on how to do something one way by one coach and another way by another coach. I expressed this one day to a coach by the name of Josh Fulton who I feel had the greatest impact on my education of the game, and his response was simple, ” Take what is useful and that works for you, and spit on the rest.” Astonishingly after reading this chapter I thought about Fulton’s words and realized the comparison advanced athletes have with both Kung Fu and Hip Hop in that they are able to perform the fundementals of their sport superbly but twist these fundementals and create their own style. This I feel comes from their ability to take in what they have learned and filter out the garbage and then are left with their own creative style of playing the game. This is completely evident in baseball when you look at a baseball players swing for example. You can see how fundamentally sound the swing may be, but no two swings are identicle. One may have a different way of holding his/her hands, or have a larger stride when starting their swing, or perhaps a completely unorthodox stance.

As I aged as a ballplayer I realized this idea of knowing the basics and absorbing information and sorting it out is the key to success and the way to overall advance in the sport. Since I have hung up my cleats and left the game I have realized this concept of taking in whats useful can be garnered to everyday life outside the playing field. I use it in how I approach my studies in school, to how I shape my workouts in the gym (I am still an avid weight lifter). All in all I feel that by being able to adapt to what is thrown at you in life and use what you have learned that is useful and discard the rest allows you to grow as a person and keeps you moving forward. Therefore I urge all who have taken the time to read this blog post full of excessive rambling, to look at your own lives and see if you can make a connection between Jeet Kune Do and Hip Hop and how its aestecics may be intwined in your own successes in life.

The theme that intrigued me the most throughout the first 108 pages of Ozeki’s book A Tale for the Time Beingis was both life and death. While reading I was trying to wrap my head around all the concepts such as time, place, communications with other, and realized they all correlate with both life and death.

Moments in time, interaction with others, and places of meaning all are incorporated into life regardless if they occur in the past, present, or future. It is like Nao’s Hello Kitty lunch box that Ruth comes upon, washed up on the shore of her British Columbia Island. Inside is a representation of time which can be seen as both life and death in the sense that memories can be suspended in time, and everyone has a point in which their “time is up” and they meet death. Within this unknown allotment of time you exist on earth, you have memories of both people and your communications with them and places you have been, which though they have become the past, now live on inside your mind. The physical state of being in that moment may be dead however inside your head it still can be alive if you think about it.

However that is what is so intriguing about the Hello Kitty Lunch Box. Though I might be quite wrong and am almost positive I am, I like to look at the box as a representation of life, within which Nao has put her diary which could represent the physical form of her mind for others to see. Which then allows for a piece of herself to live on within the pages of her diary. Also the watch that isn’t working at the beginning begins to work again after Oliver fixes it. It is almost symbolic of how Nao’s time on earth may have ended (which I am not sure because I haven’t finished the book yet) but with Ruth finding the Lunch box and its contents, Nao’s story and the piece of her life and memories within the Lunch box is revived just like the watch.

This all may be very hard for any of you reading this to understand but I wanted to give you all the thoughts I had on the theme of Life and Death running throughout the book, and the possible symbolism of the Lunch Box and its contents. I hope that you will respond with comments of your own thoughts about the subject of life and death and maybe some of the symbols you think Ruth Ozeki (the author) used in telling this story.

On page198, Kato couldn’t of described the “groove” any better. “The groove, therefore, could be grasped as a spontaneous and natural momentum that unifies body and soul (on an individual as well as collective level) in a movement harmonized with the rhythm of life or the forces of nature.” Bruce Lee is in the groove when he is performing his Jeet Kune Do. There is nothing that can stop him, he essentially is in the moment and not thinking about anything. His mind is clear and focused on what he is doing.

In the very beginning of Enter the Dragon, Bruce was teaching an aspired Kung Fu artist about emotion and emoting what you feel. “Kick me. … What was that? An exhibition? We need emotional content. Try again. … I said emotional content. NOT ANGER. Now try again. With meaning. … That’s it. How did it feel to you? … Don’t think, feeeeeeel. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that Heavenly glory. Do you understand? … Never take your eyes off your opponent, even when you bow. … That’s it.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

As we discussed in class on Friday life and time have so much to do with A Tale For The Time Being. On page 86 Ruth talks about suicide. In the United States most people fear the word suicide. We think that ending your own life is not acceptable. Many that believe in God would say that committing suicide is a sin, she even mentions that in the book. “Harry” teaches me that suicide in Japan isn’t really a bad thing. Which looking at it I can see why people might believe that it is your life and you have to choose how to live it. Now I ask myself why do we think someone is out of their mind crazy when they decide living isn’t what they want to do anymore? Everybody dies but when you are living to die, are you really living?

Time… As we discussed not only does the title have time in it but in the first part of this book time is a word that is consistently used. Rather thats for expressing time on a watch or time throughout ones life. On page 30 she quotes a man that says, “time itself is being, and being is time… In essence, everything in the entire universe is intimately linked with each other as moments in time, continuous and separate. I think that the author keeps expressing this quote without even mentioning it. She expresses throughout the book how time links us together. On page 85 she mentions how the watch had many similar watches that were manufactured by Seiko Company in WWII. She explains how they were manufactured in large numbers, but many didn’t survive. By linking time and the watch together it sounds like soldiers in the War. Many were trained to fight and battle but only a few remain today. She gives us history lessons without explaining the entire history. She gives us meaning to life even if its only caught with time linked to a watch. She expresses how time is so important but also so easily lost.

  “An ordinary man, An extraordinary journey … FOR LOVE.”

  Rizvan Khan is a simple man with a complicated life. He is Muslim and suffers from Aspergers Syndrome. With that, he is not understood because of the way he acts, moves, and talks.

One of the theme’s that really caught my attention was the discussion we had in class about race and disability. Which, this film screams..to me, very clearly. When Rizvan was a child, that’s when he found out he had Aspergers Syndrome, and then understood why he didn’t have relationships with other people because of his disability. However, just because he has a disability, it does not mean that he is mentally handicap in any way, he is very intelligent. Rizvan came from India was he got to America before 9/11. So up until 9/11 there was no animosity. Rizvan and his wife and her son, led a very happy life and adjusted well to Rizvan’s disability.

However, when 9/11 happened…That’s when racism exploded against their ethic community. To make a long story short, the racism was so bad that Sam, (their son) was killed due to a racial attack. Rizvan’s wife freaked out on Rizvan, and pretty much told him to meet the president and say…”My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. It’s a disabled man’s fight against the disability that exists in the world—terrorism, hatred, fighting … My Name is Khan is also about Islam and the way the world looks at Islam but we are not taking any sides. We are only trying to say that there are only good people and bad people. There are no good Hindus, bad Hindus, good Christians, bad Christians. Either you are a good person or a bad person. Religion is not the criterion, humanity is.