Tag Archives: asia america

My name is Lisa

and I didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.

As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even alive during WWII and you know what? Neither were my parents. But you see, even though this happened 72 years ago, you all keep blaming me in particular for it and I just don’t understand how you can make that sort of accusation. Scientifically, it makes no sense at all.

I hate the 2001 film Pearl Harbor that starred Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. Us Japs killed off that babyface Josh and so many people went wild about this FAKE death. I remember when that movie came out, I was just starting my adventures in A.O.L. chatrooms. When I found out that there was a chatroom for an interest in Japan, my eleven year old self enthusiastically entered one of these chat rooms and when I revealed my ethnic background I was bombarded with messages like :

“YOU KILLED JOSH HARTNETT”

“GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY WE HATE YOU HERE”

“JAP, JAP, JAP, KICK THE JAP OUT OF THE ROOM”

Eleven years old. How can you accuse an eleven year old to have taken part in WWII?

In some ways, I relate to Sameer. I could never tell my family the sort of harassment I was facing when I was young. I only wanted to give them good news about my life. How can I tell my mom that her only daughter was being picked on because I am Japanese. Whether it was in school or on the world wide web, I just had to swallow that pain and hope for the best.

There are so many other harmful stereotypes that different people of different backgrounds have and it needs to stop. Please, stop. I am an American. Just like you.

King of Kowloon

So far, when we have discussed the concept of resistance, one of the ways in which a lot of Asian Americans have resisted assimilation in a subtle way is through food, however I think it’s also interesting that to some extent, another form of resistance is through graffiti.

On page 181, Kato talks about the New York subway system and the graffiti marks on the trains  ”…as a means of communication and aesthetic forum that can be called their own.” (181) I feel as though this statement represents breaking the chain from the corporations that run this country and rising above it and claiming something that is the corporations as theirs. Or in other circumstances, giving a police commissioner a mocking name and tagging that name around public spaces as a means to break from the oppression, racism and power of the police force. (179)

This sort of oppression though is happening all around the world and writing on public walls is a great way to resist, or to voice your anger of what is happening to your community yet unfortunately, it seems as though graffiti is something that the youth is doing and this can be seen as a way of comparing how the sansei within the Japanese American community were angrier on the outside than some of the issei or the nisei. However, I think for someone as old as Tsang Tsou Choi to be engaged in the resistance of the colonization of Hong Kong is incredibly admirable because not only did he try to represent himself in the commotion but he represented a large community of Hong Kong who were also against the colonization.

When you write something down, you have to read it out loud and the way Kato segues into the resistant sounds of Grandmaster Flash and others was really great.

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune <3

The time has come to explore this side of Sailor Moon. This is the side of Sailor Moon that most fans are aware of but I wanted to bring some light to those who may not be as big of fan as Sailor Moon as I or others might be.

Ah yes the long awaited topic on the homosexual couple in the Sailor Moon series. Let me give you some back info here, so in “Sailor Moon S” we are introduced to some new characters Haruka Tenou and Michiru Kaio (Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune) who are genius high school students who excel in the actitivies they are passionate in and are ALWAYS together. These characters are known to the Sailor gang as just the most beautiful people they know.

Neptune and Uranus

When we see the characters first appearance out of fighting uniform, Haruka (blonde, short hair) is wearing a boys school uniform and refers to themselves with ‘he’ pronouns.The Sailor crew and the audience go wild for him! Then, it’s revealed that Haruka is actually biologically female and this completely shocks the crew but for how long? Literally a few minutes and then Haruka’s gender is pretty much never mentioned again. The unfortunate side here though is that even though Haruka prefers to wear mens clothing and refers to himself with male pronouns, when he transforms into a Sailor Soldier, he is put into the same uniform as the rest of the soldiers. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable he felt wearing that. :(

The relationship between Haruka and Michiru in the Japanese version only hints to the two’s intimate relationship with each other. We never see them kiss, but they profess quite a few times the type of love they feel for each other and even showing jealousies towards other women or men who flirt with them.

So, how did their relationship change when brought over to America?

LET’S MAKE THEM COUSINS INSTEAD!

*headdesk*

Dark blue states represents legal first cousin marriage

Well when you think about it, that makes sense to change a homosexual relationship into an incestial relationship because marriage by incest is legal in more states than marriage by same sex. Still though, a lot of young kids who were watching the American version scratched their head at this because if these two were cousins then they were REALLY, REALLY into each other and in my opinion, that made me MORE uncomfortable than the version I was watching from Japan.

Cousin Marriage source

Sochi Asian Americans!

I found a great article that highlights some of the Asian American athletes who are participating in the Sochi Winter Olympics.

I am particularly really excited for Julie Chu in the Ice Hockey category. The reason being that not only is she the first Asian American Woman to be playing on the U.S. Hockey team but also that she’s a lady! I hear so much about the masculinity of hockey and all of my super manly friends are all about the hockey fights and I just love that there’s a team of women who can bring there game on!

Here is the article:

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

Unfortunately, there is not a large representation of Asian Americans in the Olympics but at least it’s a start…

Connecting Kato

Who: David Carradine

What: Kungfu

When: 1972- 1975

Where: Hollywood

With the success of Kungfu in American pop culture, it seems like the next step for America to take after kungfu movies is to make a T.V. show about it and showcase it the people of the United States. When I was first reading about it, I really liked the idea of where the show, Kungfu was going to take. Then I get to the part where they go into details about the cast of the show and that’s where I felt very disappointed. As per usual though, I don’t really like to focus too much on the negative side of things so I’ll give it this much, I am glad that they utilized Bruce Lee as a plot consultation, at least they were trying to keep things in the background as close to authentic as they could get it. What I don’t understand the decisions in choosing someone whose white, with no interest in kungfu or martial arts in general to be the face of this show. It reminds me in of the section in Dave with the discussion of shows based in Hawai’i, why does Hollywood always want to put a white face on a completely different culture from their protagonist? And if it’s not a white face they want to portray, then instead they try to caricaturize a person’s culture or just having no mention of someones background at all.

“Nonetheless, such investment was not to introduce “realism” but rather to refine the “prop” with sophistication so that the paradigm of the kung fu genre can be processed” (95)

I understand that television is a way to escape from reality but there have been plenty of television shows in the past that try and talk about real historical events that have happened in the past and even in this day and age we have a whole genre called “reality T.V.” but even then, that genre is so misleading because it’s not reality in a lot of cases. Why does Hollywood claim that they want to show the realistic aspects of life but constantly show lies?

 

POP-ositions

One of the ways in which I can relate the globalization that happens in Kato’s book and modern times is when Kato is talking about when the writing for karate changed.

“…the schools in Tokyo saw that name as inappropriate and altered it’s spelling to “karate” by applying the Japanese phonetic system (hiragana) instead of the Chinese ideogram.” (21 Kato)

The way I see the connection is for instance, in one of Sachi’s blog posts she compares and contrasts the American definition of ‘kawaii’ and the Japanese definition of ‘kawaii’. When you read the blog you notice immediately by looking at the photos of her google image search that there is clearly a different definition for each culture.

Or another example is whenever I meet exchange students from Japan, I like to bring them to places like Happy Teriyaki or Koibito and suggest to them they try the teriyaki. I ask because I know that the type of teriyaki that they are used to in Japan, is not the same flavor of teriyaki that we have in the states. So, while I think that globalization in some ways can be a great thing, by fusing two or more different cultures together, it’s something that one has to be careful of doing. To fuse something together, for me, means to understand both cultures and what they mean and the history behind it, otherwise, rather than globalization, I think it turns into something like stealing from another culture or appropriating another culture and that’s never a good thing.

The Wedding Banquet?

I’m not entirely sure why we have watched two movies that explore the process of coming out to your family as a semi positive experience. I say ‘semi positive’ because in the end, everything is better at the end and the families in both ‘The Wedding Banquet’ and ‘Saving Face’ accept their child’s homosexuality.

I’m not trying to make a generalization here though, I don’t want to state that all families would be much harsher towards their children if they were to come out of the closet but I can say from my experience that the Japanese side of my family would never be accepting of this if I were to ever come out of the closet. The times that I have told my mom about different friends coming out of the closet, she was always very quiet about it and would occasionally make a remark on how unfortunate that must be for my friends parents.

I would have liked to see a film that didn’t have so much a happy ending.

However, like I wrote about in my previous post about ‘Saving Face’, this  movie also explores the pressure that Asian American kids feel about the obligation to their parents. It’s really hard to just live freely in America when you know that at the end of the day you need to be faithful to your family and to make sure that you meet your families needs and expectations.

Talking Points

Chapter 10

“Japanese American women in the pageant were working with white standards of beauty pageants in mind and re-creating them with a Japanese American twist” (206)

  • Who exactly defined white beauty standards? If you say blue eyes and blonde hair then isn’t that the same as what Hitler thought as the ideal beauty? Didn’t the U.S. NOT want to be like him?

“…the pageant was a way to “mimic” mainstream America and to show how “American” Japanese Americans were.” (208)

  • What were American women exactly like?

“…changed it’s racial eligibility rules from 100 percent Japanese ancestry to 50 percent.” (217)

  • At one point is someone gonna be considered not Japanese enough though?

side note: I was very happy to read from Keith Kamisugi about whether or not girls with a white last name should be allowed to enter. My full name is Lisa Elizabeth Foster and I have been told by far too many people in my life that I am not truly Japanese if I have such an American sounding name.

Chapter 11

  • Cablinasian- is that cool? Or do you really think it does make people color-blind?
  • In some ways, isn’t it good that there is more diversity in a sport that is dominated by primarily people who are white?

“When children of every race can proclaim, “I am Tiger Woods,” race becomes insignificant” (229)

  • Is the statement above true to you? And why?

Chapter 14

“…multicultural exoticization of difference” (281)

  • Discuss recent things in pop culture that has done this with other cultures i.e. anime, food, language

“Is he Asian because he “looks Asian”? Or Asian because he self-identifies as Asian? Or simply Asian because he has Asian blood?” (284)

  • This connects back to chapter 10, at one point is someone’s “Asian-ness” insignificant? Have you heard the term white-passing P.O.C.? What do you think of this term?