Week 6′s rock v. scissors.

So, earlier today on Tumblr I stumbled across some gifs of Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu reacting to finding out he won gold for the men’s short in Sochi Olympics. And because I wrote about Asian Americans in this years’s olympics I figured I would add an update since last week. (And I know that Hanyu isn’t a Japanese American but from what Tumblr tells me, he has quite the following in America and should be celebrated, none-the-less!!) So that video can be found here and it’s pretty heart-warming.

In other news, there was a webpost on “7 Real AAPI Men to Watch”, done by asianfortunenews.com. From the beginning of the post,

Asian American men have traditionally been emasculated and stereotyped in mainstream media. As Justin Chan writes in his PolicyMic article: ‘Despite iconic masculine Asian role models likeBruce Lee, Asian men are often portrayed as scrawny males who spend more time studying than lifting weights in the gym, appearing in popular culture as soft-spoken, reserved types who rarely take part in activities that people qualify as “masculine” like professional football or construction work, as characters playedfor laughs.’

The name-dropping of Lee seemed like it was meant to be and because the list was posted on valentine’s day it includes relationship advice! That can be found here.

And then, bringing it finally back to tumblr, I found notyourmodelminority.tumblr.com. It’s a collection of blog posts that introduce you to Asian Americans who are politicians, activists, and artists but unfortunately seems to have been abandoned three years ago. Despite this, the blog posts still work and most of them are new to me! And then to finish off this post I want to link y’all to a post I found about a month ago that I have wanted to share but keeps slipping my mind. It seems as though I am unable to link to the original poster, but was able to find it reblogged on someone else’s here. This post also links to a vimeo video entitiled yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool [sic].

Chapter 3 of Kato

I found the context of taking one medium and making it your own in Thursday’s lessons fascinating. In the chapter it’s mentioned that Hollywood was oppressive during World War II, the “Jimi Hendriz Experience, and their use of the antiestabilishment. Film went from a format that was used to try and push corporate agenda to a “thematic pattern of endorsement of the rebelliousness of the youth culture within a contained framework.” So while it was contained, it was also allowed to show counterculture. Bruce Lee also found his way into the film industry, even though it was mostly because consumers were so enthralled by martial arts. He wasn’t given a lot of options because he didn’t want to portray a stereotype, but his act gave pieces of his culture to consumers, and even if they saw it as mere entertainment, it was a way to share what he had to offer with America.

Something else that was interesting to me was the Black Kungfu Experience, and how these men used a culture that wasn’t theirs in order to bring peace to their life, and to excel in something where they previously weren’t allowed to. They adopted a lifestyle and an art in order to feel at peace in a place where they were discriminated against and even abused because of their color. They were able to excel in this art from a different shore to the point where they forced others to respect them, even winning competitions and becoming teachers.

API news (stereotypes)

First off the article I am posting about is referring to a television series called Nikita. I got a summary off of wiki for reference of those who don’t know what the show is or haven’t heard of it. “Nikita is an American television series that aired on from September 9, 2010 to December 27, 2013 in the United States. The series focuses on Nikita (maggie Q), a woman who escaped from a secret government-funded organization known as Division and, after a three-year hiding period, is back to bring down the organization.” Actress Lucy Liu is where the basis of this post begins.

Heres the article for the link (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/arts/television/maggie-q-and-lucy-liu-asian-americans-as-leading-ladies.html?_r=0 ) Otherwise the rest of the post will be summarizing the article as well as my thoughts.

Even Maggie Q and Ms. Liu haven’t completely escaped those archetypes. Both are playing the latest iterations of durable characters traditionally inhabited by white performers, so it would seem that race shouldn’t have any particular bearing. But the truth is that they resonate with two of the most common sets of images — or clichés — about Asian women: the high-achieving, socially awkward Dr. Joan Watson is a refined example of the sexy nerd, and the lethal, sometimes icy Nikita, able to dispense violence while wearing tight, microscopic outfits, evokes a long line of dragon ladies and ninja killers.

In both cases, though, the actresses and their writers have avoided or transcended easy stereotypes. A lot of effort has gone into humanizing Nikita,

That’s the fate of some other Asian-American actresses in roles that play more obviously to geekiness or braininess, and are visually coded for easy comprehension. Liza Lapira wears fright clothes and dowdy haircuts as the sidekick Helen-Alice on “Super Fun Night” (ABC), something she already endured as the eccentric neighbor on “Don’t Trust the B — — in Apt. 23” last season. On “Awkward” (MTV), Jessica Lu, as the rebellious daughter of strict Chinese parents, sports a hat with ears while Jessika Van, as her Asian rival, is dressed in starched outfits that make her look like an Amish schoolteacher. Both Ms. Lapira and Ms. Lu are accessorized with glasses — big black ones — something neither appears to wear in real life. Also occasionally donning glasses is Brenda Song as a video-game company executive in “Dads,” on Fox, though her most distinctive costume remains the sailor-girl outfit she wore in the pilot, part of an extended joke about the sexualization of Asian women that didn’t accomplish much besides sexualizing an Asian woman.

Still writing

Friday’s Kato Readings!

Jimi Hendrix!!! One of my all time favorite musicians ever! On friday when we did the “Who, What, When, Where, Why” activity, it really help me to organize my thought process more and be able to actually talk about a specific thing a read about and make connections.

On page 84 of Kato, he discusses how Jimi recorded his own version of the “The Star Spangled Banner”. It was in reference to the Vietnam War but also “the daily war which was being fought on the streets of the USA.” This was all connected to Woodstock and out of that was creation of a countercultural utopia within Woodstock.

Here is the performance in Woodstock of 1969!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

And for your viewing pleasure..here is some more AWSHUM music from the one and only..

Click here to view the embedded video.

POPositions!

Hollywood has a desire for the kine-aesthetic and performative narrative in the forms of Samurai and Kung Fu films, which is the art born of reclamation of culture from post-colonialism.- POPosition, Kato, Group 5.

I think that Hollywood’s crave for these arts is comparable to wanting another child’s toy. There are these epic fight films that Japan and China had that showed battle and extreme physicality and the early Hollywood didn’t have that. These films could be foreign enough to entice viewers, but not enough to turn them away.

Yet, when viewed with the Western lens, there is a slight discrepancy between the stories being seen. With the Western gaze, you see something like the equivalent of a cowboy movie. However, in the originality, the story may play out much deeper with such deep rooted cultural meanings and history that may otherwise go over the knowledge of someone outside.

As an art of politics and liberation, the kinetic arts like kung fu are often disregarded. People often just take it at face value instead, enjoying it for the kicking and action. Therefore the political messages through kung fu are often lost.

here comes the new kings

APIs in the news &
From Kung Fu to Hip Hop pg. 71 – 112

Truthfully, I had some difficulty finding what I thought might have been the most relevant thing to this class about Asian Pacific Islanders in the news when I went digging. API stands for more than just Asian Pacific Islander, and more than one search attempt resulted in a few links to sites about Catholic masses. The sort of links that, after clicking them and attempting ctrl+f, you can no longer find the term you search for on the page as google told you it was. Then, after skimming a few articles, I found one of particular interest on kitsapsun.com.

Though dated to 2013 (with the article claiming to have been posted in October), it talked about how the Asian-American and Pacific Islander groups in a place called Kitsap county had come together for a summit meeting. The meeting dealt with education, health benefits, crime… a number of things, with their ideal being to come together and help immigrants.

The article was very much about good intentions. It was about a community coming together to try to help the people that otherwise weren’t being helped – it also said that at least seven different ethnic groups came together for it, despite it being mostly informal.

The thing that struck me as odd is that I have never heard of something like this happening. I’m from a primarily white area in a very white state, so that may be part of the issue, but is this different elsewhere? It’s sad to think that it might be normal that this doesn’t happen, that it might be abnormal that these people came together to try to make a difference for strangers who had it worse than they did.

It’s a pretty short article, but anyone interested can find it over here.

“Foundation of Subversion in the Making of Global Commodities.” (Kato, pg. 102)

Ghosts are a means of fighting back, and a way of honoring memories. Kato talks about how ghosts are a way of losing great amounts of work hours, of how people will refuse to work regardless of what it means for themselves if someone else has said that they have seen a ghost. The lengths to which people will go for the memories of someone else they barely know is amazing, but it also holds a deep, awful implication.

If there was a ghost, then there was a death. If there was a death, it was the death of someone that worked there once upon a time. It was someone that died under the same conditions that they did, and there is a very good reason that they’re haunting the place they’re in. I think that’s why the idea of ghosts is so frightening at times, especially to people who are treated horrifically.

“How I Learned to Feel Undesirable” – Noah Cho

“I look mostly Asian, and like so many other heterosexual Asian males before me, I have internalized a lifetime of believing that my features … make me unattractive and undesirable.” – Noah Cho

This week I read this article on NPR about a Korean American man, Noah Cho, who finds himself undesirable due to his mixed heritage. The article, written by Cho, is about how he feels that his appearance, as a mixture of his Korean father’s and American mother’s, isn’t appealing to any prospective partners. He voices his confusion over how White women could find Asian men attractive. He recalls how when he was younger he tried to alter and hide his Asian side by dying his hair and wearing green contacts.

He admits that he can’t believe whenever his partner, a Japanese Chinese American woman, tells him he is attractive. He just can’t see himself in that way.

He ends the article by saying that he eagerly awaits the day that he can look himself in the mirror and not be disappointed by the face looking back at him.

As a teenager, I completely felt like he did. Looking too white to be Asian, and too Asian to be white. Can’t look like one or the other, so how are you supposed to appeal to someone? It’s frustrating, but since there is so little to do about it, all you can really do is accept it and learn how to best accentuate the features you like best.

Drag Queens in Indonesia

Sexual liberation is and has been a part of Indonesia’s ancient cultures for some time, with a long history of transvestite entertainers, hostesses and prostitutes in Bali, known as ‘banci’, ‘waria’ or ‘bencong’. Banci is a nationwide (and some what derogatory) term for male to female transvestites, to well known bahasa gay/banci variants of the term are binan and bencong.

Although homosexual behavior is not illegal, there is little more tolerance towards homosexuals or transvestites within the Hindu Balinese culture compared to other parts of Indonesia.

Here is an example… Just like in my earlier post about Rupauls Drag Race, Raja is a queen from Indonesia and won a season of RuPauls Drag Race.

Asian Americans in Sochi

Sochi Olympics, of course! There are more than I was aware of, and I think it’s really interesting. I knew about J.R. Celski since he’s from Washington, but there are others that definitely deserve mention!

Julie Chu – Women’s ice hockey

Madison Chock – Ice skating

Maia and Alex Shibutani – Ice skating

Felicia Zhang – Ice Skating

Jen Yung Lee – Sled Hockey (Paralympics)

Here’s an article that talks about each of them. I think it’s interesting how many figure skaters there are, though I don’t remember seeing if it mentioned why there were so many, if there’s even a reason.

http://www.asianfortunenews.com/2014/02/asian-american-athletes-at-winter-olympics-2014-in-sochi/

Friday’s Kato Reading (2-14)

I enjoyed reading about Jimi Hendrix in today’s reading. It is refreshing to read about people like Jimi Hendrix because he was so inspiring and didn’t pay attention to stereotypes. He also contradicted colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. It is too bad that most of today’s music doesn’t have as much meaning to them as songs used to.

“Hendrix’s performance, nevertheless, was undoubtedly of historical significance, as revealed by the video that exclusively features his performance. It marked the beginning of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsy’s period, which broke free of the genre of Rock and the style defined by the psychedelic artistic paradigm of the 1960s. Dressed in a Native American fringed jacket, blue jeans, and moccasins, Hendrix led an unusual ensemble in which his conventional trio format was expanded with the addition of a rhythm guitarist and two bongo and conga players.” (Kato, P.83)

A-POP, Don't Stop

Winter 2014