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Week 8, Friday. Ozeki, pages 305 – 403

Sympathy.

sym·pa·thy
noun \ˈsim-pə-thē\
: the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, misfortune, etc. : a sympathetic feeling
-Merriam-Webster

There is  website called doesthedogdie.com which has compiled a list of movies with an animal in it and next to each title is an icon symbolizing the outcome of the dog; it lives, it’s injured but lives, or it dies. And isn’t it funny how if I search “does the dog die” on Google, the first five results are about accessing whether or not fictional dogs die in films or literature? But, if I search “does the person die” or “does the character die” I come up with sites on dealing with death or specific television spoilers that seemingly relate to current media events.

I immediately identified the theme of sympathy for the last 100 pages when it’s revealed that Benoit’s dog has been killed by wolves.  Despite feeling sympathetic for the human (and animal) characters before that, I hadn’t seen it as a theme until the little dog died.One my even argue that Ruth begins reading Nao’s diary out of curiosity but continues as she begins to feel sympathy and care for the voice behind the purple ink. But why is it that it’s not until the end that Ruth’s overwhelming care and sympathy for Nao, her father, Jiko, and Haruki # 1  begins to spiral into fantasy and maddening dreams while we as readers are swept into it with the mirroring of animals lost and dying?

In my previous posts, I note the theme of loss and the theme of nature which are both maintained through the entire plot. But as those themes combine and the reader watches as characters lose their connection to nature we also grow with discomfort. It isn’t until Jiko’s death that the sympathy manifests itself into progression and understanding. Jiko herself stands as an ultimate sympathetic character. She states that she hates only one person (because he is a war criminal) but prays for everyone. I imagine it would take a lot of sympathy to understand the pain of many people, especially those you did not agree with. But Jiko understands the reality of nature is not always pleasant and loss is inevitable, and therefore she can accept her sympathy and channel it as she pleases.

On page 393 Ruth touches the diary but it has gone cold, parallel to Nao touching Jiko after her life had fully faded. Nao’s narrative is over and Ruth has discovered the reasons why there is not trace of her diary-friend anywhere on the internet; the search is over. As Ruth can accept not knowing but just being she gives away her grief and so we can let go as well.

Week 8, Thursday. Ozeki, pages 204 – 304

Nature (animals/environment) as symbols and emotions. 

Nature is a complex Time Being. Animals, plants, soil, and water all hold their own memories and histories. All around our bodies are other breathing and living beings. At times they seem to exclude us from their world, such as the whales leaving Whaletown or the wolves taking a temporary leave. Sometimes they seem to communicate with us, such as Chibi, the temple cat, who comforts Nao with her company or the Jungle Crow who warns with caws while perched above. And sometimes, they coexist complexly, like the constant rhythm of a wave or the inevitable PNW rain storms. But like the rock with inscribed “Do not build beyond this point”, we have come to learn from nature’s memories and find symbolism through them.

“How had she become a woman who worried about wolves and cougars eating her husband?”  The influence of environment is blatant in this book. his phrase specifically reminded me how fearful people are of “the wild” but how complacent they have become within man-made structures. Compared to life in New York city, are the worries of cougars and wolves truly gone? Think of what you often hear an attractive older woman called: a cougar. And the phrase “wolf in sheep’s clothing” portrays something that appears to be innocent but is really filled with malicious intent. Is the path she created any different than it would be, surrounded by constant stream of people who all mirrored the ferocity of nature?

Similarly, the constant cycles of life and death are like the cycles of moon and tide. The sea and its magic is a constant theme throughout the book. The water is what brings Nao’s story to Ruth, ultimately giving it life. The sea is the divider between California and Japan as well as Canada and Japan; a boundary of communication and culture. The sea’s tide is in direct connection to the cycles of the moon; on page 291 Nao cries for the first time (in response to the fighting insects) and it is her own inner ocean and her own influenced cycles that move her.

The synchronicity and coincidences created by nature’s magic (the Jungle crow arriving the time of the diary and then leaving once it is finished) is also an apparent theme. The tension between Oliver and Ruth during Pesto’s absence is uncomfortable and heavy but once Ruth finds answers Oliver finds Pesto. The crow warns us for what is ahead and the wolves stand for the worst possible outcome.

Week 8, Tuesday. Ozeki, pages 111 – 203

Sight. 

When I first learned what foreshadowing was I looked for it everywhere. Anytime something peaked my interest in a story I immediately deemed it as foreshadowing and claimed I knew what was going to happen. Most of the time, I was wrong. (But to be fair, it was an eleven-year-old me up against an old, dead white guy hailed as Great. Funny… when considering my lifestyle interest of feminism, that sort of seems like foreshadowing in itself.)

The first time I was assigned to read Oedipus at Colonus, my teacher introduced it with a grin and said, “Keep your eyes open and really look for the themes.” I missed it. Later, when he assigned us The Crying of Lot 49 I frantically underlined any mention of sight or visibility with hopes to understand Oedipa’s connection to Oedipus. I think I concluded that she was looking for herself; searching for identity through possible global conspiracy.

When I began A Tale for the Time Being I fell into usual habits; looking for themes and trying to make connections. As Ruth looked for hints about what would happen I looked with her. I distrusted Nao’s writing and in doing so, connected it to post modern methods. (My final senior year paper in high school was on post modern themes: merry tricksters, intertextuality, nontraditional forms, distortion in time, fiction about fiction [meta-fiction], untrustworthy narrators, contains many POVs, kaleidoscopic narratives. I appropriately titled the paper M.I.N.D.F.U.C.K..) I understood Jiko’s lack of physical sight but clarity and wisdom though spirituality to be similar to Oedipus’ shift of lens. Nao’s writing as super power led me to believe that she was rewriting parts of her history so we would only know her as she hoped we would, hence the distrust. I connected so quickly to the post modern-themes that when I found something similar I connected the two. But in doing this, I began to miss things. My distrust of narrative seeped into my distrust of fantasy and I almost lost my own sight of the book.

Jiko shares spiritual vision similarities to post-gouge-Oedipus and Ruth may be like Oedipa, searching for answers through conspiracy, but they are no more than similarities. They are themselves their own contribution to the reader’s vision. Just as Nao finds importance during her summer with Jiko, her sight and might changing, I too find importance in allowing my sight to be changed.

 

 

Week 7: Friday. Ozeki and a chosen theme (part 1)

Loss. (Running away. Abandonment.)

If your whole body cannot survive the sea, maybe a piece of you can.

The reality of losing others by way you can’t control and realizing you have also lost yourself. Trying to gain clarity by writing everything down, hopefully so those thoughts will lose themselves from your brain and instead stick to pages, staining them with hurt of your father and the friendships you were told to expect. Turning what is real and intangible onto something that can be closed and put away and learning how to manipulate the letters which represent you. Finding a way to turn a situation which you did not ask for and which is out of your control into one that you can handle. Feeling angry towards those around who have abandoned you and left you alone and so deciding that you will abandon them, too.
“So right now, I’m a ronin” (page 41).

Loss of reality. Is reality what has physically happened or how it is remembered? Do you trust Ruth? Do you trust Nao? Do you trust their realities? A young girl feeling alone and writing stories the way she dreams of them happening (empowerment through knife to flesh and being the hero of her own story, because she has abandoned her once-self to recreate the way we visualize her) versus an older woman trying to make sense of her life as she experienced. Ruth as the present, Nao as the future, Jinko as the past. Or perhaps, Ruth as young girl, Ruth as herself, and Ruth as she hopes to be at some point in time. Or perhaps, Ruth as the past, I as the future, and the present: keep reading and see.

Is Nao now or are we tricking ourselves by repeating a word so many times we lose what is true?

The loss of time. Mid-life crisis. Trying to do it over or finding your “true” (alternative) purpose. Feeling neglected and so turning your attention to another being, another anxious voice outside your own bored mind, and putting new energy into their struggles. Spending hours on the internet, looking for some clues as to whether you believe her or not. A watch with a serial number as evidence. The name of a town where all the whales ran away as evidence. In sending her journal off, Nao runs away from the reality she has made permanent. Like the tagging of subway trains, we believe in Nao because she gave us evidence of her existence. But is that evidence Ruth’s outlet to run or Nao’s?

Something was here. Do not run away. This is a story of survival. Pay attention and turn the page.

Week 7, Thursday. Kato, Chapter 5.

“The uniqueness of style and individuality was of utmost importance to a writer’s signature, for it was at one time, the only significant vehicle to represent one’s existence” (page 181).

This chapter concluded the relationship between hip hop and kung fu, but it also spoke of survival and existence. It tied the medium of hip hop (and all it included such as tagging) with mediums kung fu and Jeet Kune Do together by showing us how they are representations of a people forgotten. Later on page 181, Kato writes of how the use of Subway trains was meant to remind those who rode them (“corporate clones”) of the ghetto’s youth and existence.

The survival is also seen through the use of sampling, for both hip hop artists and Bruce Lee’s creation of Jeet Kune Do. By sampling all the best parts of their respective practice, they are recreating a part of their past to fit their present and deelop their future. I described this as an “immigrant’s art form”, because it mirrors the necessity for immigrants to accept parts of their new world without forgetting parts of their old world. For example, Bruce Lee is trained in kung fu and can never fully rid himself of this. For many, he is the face of kung fu. However, his use of sampling what works and creating a new art form allows him to the ability to neither deny nor be overwhelmed by kung fu. And for him, and others, it becomes the most fluid and workable representation of what they can do (which is later explained in more detail on page 192 in reference to the fight scene between Lee and Abdul-Jabbar).

And while both of these art forms have been comodified and put into the capatilist machine to be pumped out for mass consumption without any ingredient labels, they opportunities that have arose and the expression of “I exist!” have become even larger.

Week 7, Tuesday: Kato’s Chpt 4 up against Enter the Dragon

Book-inspired scenes to watch for prior to film: page 199– cannot be neutral. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” – Desmond Tutu
Why I’m watching for it: To identify the difference between neutrality (doing nothing) and reservation (doing something in what would be seen as an irregular way/reaction).
Post film thoughts on the scene (The review):

Click here to view the embedded video.


While Roper (John Saxon) demonstrates neutrality (and it is true that with neutrality he isn’t actively doing anything bad, but the amount of good he is doing is equal to the amount of good Parsons is doing) , “Lee” demonstrates how to demonstrate defense in a way that involves no physical contact. I think this is important because physical contact, violence, and usual forms of defense are not always possible or safe; it allows for an alternative way to manipulate the dynamic of control.

Book-inspired scenes to watch for prior to film: page 123– yellow/white uniforms- Lee vs. Ohara (with special attention to the “spectator clapping” which shows us the reality of the cast dynamics) page 152- lack of acceptance for of yellow gi by Lee.
Why I’m watching for it: The context for “Lee’s” refusal with the uniform and to see the reactions during the fight. Also, to better understand Ohara as symbol (“personifies”) of imperialism (page 133).
Post film thoughts on the scene (The review): In this scene, there is a guard of Han’s that comes into “Lee’s” room and uses definitive words when referring to the (yellow) uniform: “you must attend the morning ritual in uniform.” With must, there is an “or else” attached to the end of it, even if it’s not spoken. With the yellow gi, “Lee” is refusing to be identified in a way that he has not chosen for himself. The book also mentions this theme among Lee’s real life actions in his resistance while making films and how he did not accept the traditional “Orientalist” themes. Likewise, the book explains how the reactions of those who were watching and clapping during the “Lee”/Ohara fight were real. Because of the tensions and discrimination that they [reactors] faced, the ways Lee had stood up for them, and especially the original scene with the glass bottle where Robert Wall actually cut Lee’s hand the fight scene between the two men symbolized more than just a dramatic fight scene in the movie.

Book-inspired scenes to watch for prior to film: page 126– Sin-Lu (Angela Mao Ying) and her “battle against patriarchy”
Why I’m watching for it: From what we’ve read, kung fu movies were not made with female roles as the main protagonist, so to have a woman in the film (which was made in the 1970s) fighting for herself and standing for so much– of course I was excited to see this scene.
Post film thoughts on the scene (The review): My initial reaction after seeing this was “seppuku? But the character is  Chinese…?”. I thought this was important because of the constant use of “Asian” as an all-inclusive culture and to have a Chinese character imitate an exclusive Japanese ritual did not seem to combat that idea. However, this is not a traditional seppuku and the important details on how it is done are missing. But the choice to have her stab herself in the belly instead of hypothetically slash her neck seems to be symbolic of dying honorably by her own hands. Sin-Lu’s screen time was completely spent on her fighting off the advances of the men and also running from them. While she was defending herself completely and competently, she came to a point where she was surrounded and immensely vulnerable. The only option for her that was still her own was to kill herself. So while I have mixed feelings about the details in the way she killed herself, I do think that the scene made a powerful statement.

Other notes!!
Page 146 mentions some writers who used “Oriental” themes in their stories, one of which being Arthur Conan Doyle of the Sherlock Holmes series. While I do not watch the show myself, I immediately thought of the modern television show Elementary where Lucy Liu plays Joan Watson.

My last note is very brief; merely pointing out the use of opium in Enter the Dragon and the way that stereotype continued into the 1970s.

Week 6, Friday. Kato, chpt 3: Mutiny in the Global Village

“As if it were attempting to sea the leakage of ‘reality’ from the factory of fantasy, Hollywood resorted to every possible means to eradicate the voices of labor. It ranged from an outright violent repression- deploying thugs, private police, and the (social) department (in case of Warner Brothers)- to the use of collaborative unions, and, most significantly, the rhetoric of ‘anti-communism’” (page 75).

While it is important to look at the lack of representation in films when it comes to oppressed people it is also important to look at the representations that do exist, especially when there is an overlapping theme among those who portray characters. On page 74 there is a quote on motion pictures being silent propaganda; a visual stimulant that one subconsciously takes with them past the time the screen is turned off. I once heard that Leave it to Beaver‘s June Cleaver was meant to show women who had “forgotten their place” outside of the home post-WWII how incredible the pumps-and-pearls lifestyle was. It was meant to remind them how glorious it was to be a stay-at-home mother and wife. Of course, the “them” that was being reminded of this American dream were not those who had already found the dream one they weren’t allowed to experience in waking life. Looking back, we can clearly see how the absence of opportunity and representation for women of color was exhibited through a women meant to represent only the white, middle-class family. And, in this representation the propaganda for who was middle-class, who was pumps-and-pearls, an who was the all American wife was obvious.

It is through this form of representation that stereotypes and type-casting becomes problematic. On page 104, Kato describes how the extras for what seems to be the “bad guy’s posse” were contrived of Chinese addicts without housing in Hong Kong. Not only does this give us a view on how people treat those with addictions (immediate villains)and in poverty but it creates this face-to-the-lifestyle sort of propaganda. Our subconscious remembers the bad guy from on screen and moves that image out of Hollywood. And as discussed through pages 100-104, there is a large amount of concealing the reality of those images that goes into the production of the film. No one wants to see the green screen, and that is understandable, but it’s the “Disneyland myth” in terms of labor that proves to have the negative impacts; “[...]where the trace of labor, not to mention of resistance, is completely erased in the final product” (page 104). The viewer begins to become disassociated with the labor that is necessary for the product and this issue expands into clothing and food production (among others).

However, there remains to be activism through alternative methods . I looked into this when researching the art that came from the American Japanese Internment Camps during World War II and found that by discrediting resistance that does not fit the common definition, we are erasing both the voice and the courage that came through the art. On pages 89 and 108, we are given examples of how Hendrix and Lee (respectively) used their power as pop culture icon and their art to fight back as activists.

Containment

con·tain·ment
 noun \kən-ˈtān-mənt\

:  the policy, process, or result of preventing the expansion of a hostile power or ideology

Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee experienced the corporate mediation of their image. Kung Fu films and Hendrix’s music have revolutionary potential that was “contained” by Hollywood’s repackaging and production. The rebelliousness inherent to youth culture was endorsed only on a symbolic level within a contained framework.  Similarly, the idealogical threat of Third World resistance present in Kung Fu films was contained by processing the films with Hollywood Orientalism, essentially producing a simulacrum of actual liberatory media.

The “containment” model that Kato references is not limited to the sphere of Hollywood.  ”Containment” is also the term used to describe the strategic foreign policy the United States adopted during the 1950s-60s to stop the perceived spread of communism. The communist threat of USSR was to be contained and isolated, lest it spread to neighboring nations. The containment policy eventually lead to the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The foreign policy version of containment sounds eerily similar to Kato’s model presented in From Kung Fu To Hip Hop.

Week 6, Tuesday. Pop-ositions and Kato readings, Chpts 1&2.

Poposition:  The use of vernacular in pop culture by means globalization by turning certain words into buzz words,.  Examples; merci, voila, skosh/sukoshi, sayonara, and various tattoos (such as kanji on those who do not know kanji).

I’m choosing this one of our our four pop-ositions because it was influenced by a chapter I wrote a previous blog entry on, so instead of focusing on that again I chose to focus on the vernacular of this book and how the book takes the subject of pop culture (which some might argue as lacking substance) and place it into the academic realm (which has a high level of importance placed onto it).

First,  the language of this book, as discussed in class, is heavy with culture theory words. Occasionally, some of these words are turned around  be seen as negative or condescending. For instance, how “privilege” has become a word around Evergreen that some use to make fun of how “PC” people are. On the other side of this, however, is that the book’s “vernacular” in other realms, such as blogs, creates a barrier between those who are only venturing into the blog to “troll” (internet language) and who will be deterred by the language. Of course, this backfires, as it also lowers its accessibility to those could highly benefit from the material. This somewhat mirrors the way that vernacular among people of color also keeps them safe because it allows them a voice that is their own an which creates barriers that keep others out. However, as mentioned in the proposition, those words can be caught ono as a catch phrases or buzz words and then appropriated or misused.

A common theme throughout the first 2 chapters of Kato’s From Kung Fu to Hip Hop was the wide-spread student riots that were taking place, something that combined both youth culture vernacular and academic speak. This sort of cross between cultures allowed students to speak for the families and cultures they were from (such as the Chican@ movement or the Black Power movement) while creating a new vernacular that was deemed “safe” because it was within the “intelligent” community. It also created a bridge; if you’re coming from one side, the bridge becomes accessibility by using vernacular into political academia while the other side leads into representation of themselves. To have a pop culture representative was another way in which youth and entertainment culture merged with activism in a way that was accessible (and subconscious through representation) an another instance as to why Lee was so beneficial to the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Week 5, Thursday readings on Davé (focus on article 5)

I’m focusing on “‘Pappy’s House’: ‘Pop’ Culture and the Revaluation of a Filipino American ‘Sixty-Cents’ in Guam¨ by  Vincent M. Diaz for this section because of the use of vernacular and because we didn’t discuss it in class. This article also strongly demonstrated the way that context really influences translation and how language has been used both as an oppressive tactic and cultural resistance.

First, the oppressive tactic. The roots and usage of pappy/pappi and then leading to Mammy in this article put the words into a new light. While Diaz illustrates how pappy/pappi has been used to signify race relations (page 104), the use of “papa”, “daddy”, and “padre” in a mixing of languages still produces pappy to signify the patriarchal father figure (page 110). However, Diaz also points out that the use of mammy brings one general archetype to the mind; the women who lived the real life hardships of the Southern Mother without ever being given credit to what she did and how she worked. We do not picture a white southern women when Mammy is mentioned because even if the white women was the female head of the house and the mother of the white children, it was the black women who became the Mammy. And while these are two exact examples that are given in the article it demonstrates how vernacular has been used to impress stereotypes in such a subliminal way that it can be hard to recognize the intent withou knowing the history.

Despite this (and secondly) this vernacular can be the cultural resistance which powerfully remains after physical resistance is pushed down. As discussed in the lecture, resistance vernaculars (Tony Mitchell) usually associated with native/local/indigenous languages. (Those which have been historically ridiculed and used as a way to discriminate.) By using one’s own native/cultural language, and thus vernacular, it is a form of cultural resistance.) It is not only in the actual usage and speaking of the language, but also the reappropriation of terms. Throughout the article Diaz uses vernacular to pull the reader in and to also use words that may not have always been acceptable in an American academic writing. His style goes against the created and accepted “norm” and in doing so he establishes the racist history from where some words came from (107-109) as well as using humor to show how normal the “not normal” truly is. (Seng it out, page 103!!) Contemporary artists do this in mainstream music, such as lecture-introduced artists Blue Scholars and Black Eyed Peas. Both use pop culture and personal history vernacular to challenge their images and their stereotyped identity.

However, another point this article led me to was the response to this year’s Superbowl commercial from Coca Cola:

Click here to view the embedded video.

**Here is where I add that I have no affiliation with Coke and rarely drink it nor do I watch the Superbowl but Go Seahawks and hey, yeah, here’s the commercial**

I wanted to mention this not because I think Coke is doing some amazing thing because I’m sure the speculation on their intentions can go one way or another, but because of the unbelievable response to this commercial! The outrageously racist comments this commercial received demonstrated how native languages other than English are still being majorly rejected. NPR did an interview about the responses to the commercial which can be found here (includes both a written dialogue and audio). I will allow you to make your own judgments on the interview, but I did have a few things I wanted to point out.

1. I don’t speak any of the languages used other than English, but it’s stated the one of the languages is Keres Pueblo. Meaning that every other language used is, at the root of it, an immigrant language.

2. When two people are trying to communicate and both are doing so in different languages, that is frustrating (for both parties). But not being able to speak a language does not inherently mean that one person isn’t trying or that there is a personal attack happening, etc. When I lived in Arizona and came across people who struggled with English because it wasn’t their first language, my frustration did not give me an excuse to be an indecent, rude person. The song “America the Beautiful” is a known song so it being sung in a different language- whether parts of it or the entire thing- is not language barrier. You still know the song.