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So... what does the 'minority' blog have to say about 'mainstream' (and tax circuses)? | Jun 30, 2005 22:12
I belong to a group in this country that is fast becoming culturally ascendant. In the birth of our identity, 'mainstream' was and still should be, the lamest thing you could ever call anyone. You know who I'm talking about: The Grunge Generation.
I've seen those 90s retro-parties break out aaaall over town. It's our time, baby.
It seems redundant for me to comment on this 'excluded-from-the-mainstream' outrage issue when the demographic status of most people in this country renders Brash's comments absurd. All I want to ask is this: When the hell did people start being so proud of being mainstream?
I don't seem to be able to find a photograph of myself between 1992 and 1994 in which I am not wearing a Badmotorfinger t-shirt. I tried to go Goth, but wasn't pale enough. Remember 89X? When I was in form three, that station was like, so alternative. This meant it was a good thing. It wasn't really a very alternative radio station, it was actually totally mainstream. Which means it was lame. Remember 'alternative'? Before we were old enough to realise we should be saying 'indie' or even just 'bFM'? When women were grrls and no-one had to worry about tailoring? It was a great time to be a young teenager with no wardrobe allowance.
Mainstream was for suckers, Rock Stars were for Killing. Kurt Cobain shot himself on my sixteenth birthday. Probably just as well. You can never go mainstream if Kurt Cobain shoots himself on your sixteenth birthday.
Recalling my simplistic grunge revisionist music history now... the baby boomers rejected The Mainstream Establishment, punk reacted against the smug complacency of boomer hippies (who everyone knew would sell out), and grunge was a reincarnation of punk, reacting against the now fully sold-out Mainstream ex-hippy baby-boomer Establishment. Oh yes, that's right. Now I remember. Baby-boomers have mainstreamed themselves, but are guilty about it. But I think Don Brash totally missed the 60s.
You could take this all as an allusion to being an ethnic minority. Substitute mainstreamed boomers for the post-Cold-War liberal-internationalist consensus, Grunge for the Western-raised children of the postcolonial coloured diaspora, and Kurt Cobain shooting himself in the head for the the 1996 general election, and you have the makings of a truly hideous and fascinating extended metaphor. Would Rushdie's 'Imaginary Homelands' be The Trip Volume 1?
OR you could think about my next question: Was anyone else quite surprised at the utter repulsiveness of (blogger) David Farrar on the Tax Debate TV thing? Kind of freaked out by that one intense spurt of bitterness and vitriol against people getting better tax breaks than him through Working For Families "just because they choose [as one would pick out a package holiday] to have children"? At the air of total disgust for human reproduction? You really, really wouldn't want to let him near your child. I can see it now. "You've devoured my tax break! I will devour YOU, filthy woman-spawn! AAARHGHERERRGH!!!" Still, the silver lining was immediately apparent – Mr Farrar obviously isn't choosing to reproduce anytime soon. It was kind of the lacklustre equivalent of the 'Great Race Debate' "bloody Maoris eating people" moment, which shows how much less exciting tax is than race.
There will be plenty of other comment about the show from more qualified people I expect. But aside from the pall of pointlessness that lay over the set, given the Opposition Finance spokesperson being totally unwilling to talk about any details of his policy, it also seemed Simon Dallow was having real problems controlling the debate (maybe Margaret Wilson would have been a better choice). The only person he seemed able to cut off was the only person who was prepared to politely outline a party tax policy that we didn't already know, but could certainly have benefited from hearing: Professor Whatarangi Winiata of the Maori Party. He was just too much of a gentleman. The only (no, wait, there was one other) woman present, from the NZIER, was also very polite, self-effacing and knowledgeable, and wasn't into shouting over anybody either. So we didn't hear much from her. Looks like the Maori and the Woman just weren't mainstream enough for that.
Increasingly, it seems mainstream must mean loud and rude. This, shockingly, is where my Grunge vs Mainstream analysis really does break down. Grunge is loud and rude, and ALL about the shouting. Crap, it looks like grunge is more mainstream than I ever wanted to admit. Help us Kurt, what are we to do?
自由's just another word for 没有东西在丢.* ......................Or, Beyond Googled Evil | Jun 27, 2005 23:02
In solidarity with censored Chinese bloggers, this special post will replace the offensive and banned English words for 贪污地共产党, 民主, 西藏, 妓女, 法轮工, and 自由, with 'the Chinese Coprophagist Party's colonic-irrigation', 'demography', 'Titfest', 'wholesome', 'Feel-my Dong' and 'fucktown'.
The internet-nerds-that-be quickly found a loophole in the Microsoft blog-censorship software the other week. Mainland Chinese bloggers can now use these banned words and expressions on their Microsoft myspace websites by registering their site in the opposite language to that they use to write in, then switching to their preferred IME. Cold comfort while witnessing US corporates wholesome themselves to the Chinese Coprophagist Party while personally enjoying the full benefits of fucktown and demography.
Fast on the heels of the Mainland blog-registration clampdown and the circumvention of Microsoft came murmurings, then confirmation last week, that all Typepad sites have been blocked. Her blog now inaccessible from China, Glutter is back, blogging from Australia, and boy is she mad.
So yeah.
China is so damn free. People are just so happy because of the new economy. Except all of the people who are under arrest, know they cannot speak, and damn it, I had to asked all the people in China not to sign the petition for the release of Mr. Ching Cheong, not that they could get into it anyway.
And here I am in Australia surrounded by a huge huge Chinese population. People wonder why there is such an influx of immigration to western countries. Because of all of above. Most of us are political immigrants, but it doesn't sink in for everyone coz we aren't refugees. Chinese people do want [fucktown], we can't vote, so those who can, elect to leave.
Update: the Typepad block has been lifted - for now.
China accounts for 63 out of 75 of all cyberdissidents imprisoned globally, according to Reporters sans Frontieres.
Meanwhile, Of the 10,500 internet signatures collected by Reporters sans Frontieres to Free Ching Cheong, New Zealand numbers were significant enough for a mention alongside Singapore, his actual employer. A big thank you to everyone who clicked through from Yellow Peril. But we're still waiting for the Coprophagist Party to release him into fucktown.
Here is some RSF background on Cisco's complicity in building the Great Firewall of China and the PRC's cyberpolice state. Cisco has also laid seige to fucktown by courting business with the 公安 (Public Security Bureau), notorious torturers of those seeking a Free Titfest, credible demography, and practitioners of... ah, this is just getting silly.
And despite its 'Don't be evil' motto, Google has danced on the borders of ethically compromising China territory.
Former CNN China correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon wraps up the issues in her last two blogposts, keeping it staunch on the side of fucktown and demography, while also highlighting the pitfalls of ethical dualism, and the importance of questioning Western corporate technologies in authoritarian states on a very specific level. The latter, I'm totally unqualified to do. Hubs? Routers? Somehow related to mag wheels maybe?
But as the for the former: As Hannah Arendt knew, you do not have to 'be' evil to do evil. It's far more banal than that. Google's 'Don't Be Evil' motto will therefore neither prevent them from becoming complicit in evil, nor from actively doing evil. It won't stop any of us. Mottos have their limits.
On the local front, I ventured for the first time into the hipster/indie whiteboy venue Shanghai Lil's with my hipster/indie whiteboy friends on the weekend. The shabby, crammed, hyperorientalist decor certainly delivered valuable and authentic elements of Old Shanghai life for hipster/indie whiteboy edification, elements which are now, sadly lost to that city forever, crushed beneath the juggernaut of modernism. Namely, bad architecture and extreme fire-risk.
*Fucktown 只是另外一个次, 表示nothing left to lose. And my Chinese is half-assed, due to an imbalance of demography during my childhood. Actual demography.
can't stop won't stop | Jun 25, 2005 12:09
Please send me on a hip-hop tour to the States to start breeding a clan of Chinese hip-hop geniuses with two Chinese hip-hop genius husbands O-dub and Jeff Chang. I wouldn't contribute hip-hop or genius... but even Dancing Stevie concedes I can booty-dance. Would that be enough?
Not that you'd ever need it, but here's another reason to love Jeff Chang: his graduation speech just given to UCLA's Department of Asian-American Studies.
The possibility of another world can begin with the project of recuperating a progressive Asian American identity, one that stands against the totalizing push of global capitalism and the new imperialism, the disintegration of an anti-racist movement, and the destruction of other oppressed communities, particularly African Americans and indigenous peoples.
The primary recent reason to love Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop, is coming out in Australia this July - perhaps a few copies will float across the Tasman? Chang's acclaimed history is not so much a history of hip-hop than of
the emergence of the hip-hop generation, through the cultural and the political changes that we've made and that have made us.
Some reviews from Hua Hsu at the Boston Phoenix and Negro Please.
Why are the two biggest hip-hop brains in America Chinese? Is it for Black kids to make hip-hop and history, and Chinese kids to write about it? Is it because we're all big geeks? As Chang said to the UCLA 44s:
For us, the Duboisian question is turned upside down, and is made to haunt us: How does it feel to be a solution?
More on geekiness will follow, I assure you. But not today.
Though he'd be horribly embarrassed by the comparison, New Zealand's current answer to Jeff Chang is my good friend Gareth Shute, author of HipHop Music in Aotearoa. Bizarrely but wonderfully and deservedly, this book is up for a Montana in the 'Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture' section. The bizarre part is his competition: a Moroccan cookbook, and a book on vineyards. Just comparing the cover art is a hoot. Even more so if you know what's going on at the end of that cropped-out hand.
As Gareth says on his blog: "If [Tze Ming] and I are the new intellectuals of this country then New Zealand is in big trouble..."
I certainly agree. But if the goddamn vineyards or tourist cookery win over hip-hop, we're in even worse trouble than he thinks.
You can vote for HipHop Music in Aotearoa in the Montana Reader's Choice section before the 15th of July here.
Oddly enough, Gareth owes his discovery of hip-hop to his childhood going to international school in Singapore.
As Chang says to Wang here, hip-hop is an:
intense mass longing to create history, to paraphrase Don Delillo, a deep desire to crush invisibility, to make culture that impacts the world and says "we're here". That's hip-hop.
Singapore is not hip-hop. I remember going to Zouk circa 1997, then and now the danceclub with the biggest rep on the island, or so I believe... The Other Mr Brown or Miyagi may beg to differ. The DJ spun Push It, I busted out the, uh, booty-dancing, and got stared at by girls in pastel doing the Singapore Side-to-Side-Shuffle. Ah, but that was a long time ago. These days we have the likes of Sarongpartygirl. [SPG's blogspot site not worksafe... Wait a minute... Sarongpartygirl is in Auckland?!? Watch this space folks...]
I also remember a big rap hit in Singapore being a song called 'Why you so like dat?' Sample lyric, I think: 'Why you so like dat? Ah? Why you so like dat? I give you my Kit-kat! Ah? Why you so like dat?'
Again - calling all S'poreans of age: did I dream this song?
A quick scan reveals a budding, though somewhat disdained, local hip-hop scene in Singapore. And wouldn't you know it but the gahmen is already attempting to suck the subculture into the state apparatus. Lee Hsien-Loong wants to use hip-hop to teach Singaporeans how to abandon Singlish, presumably in favour of Ebonics. Make this stop one? Can or not? Cannot lah. Do'wan!
But that's okay - Masia One, Singaporean-Canadian, is showing'em all how it's done.
While we're on the regional round-up:
The Shanghai scene is still rumbling along, and you can hear it here.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, can anyone answer this query on the Chinamantaggin talkboard: did Kanye really lift an intro from the Lazy Muthafuckas? And one from me: If DBF can make it as far as KL, why can't he get his Lazy MF ass over here? My dad managed it in 1973.
Stateside, making O-dub and Jeff Chang proud, newly released live West Coast footage capturing the overwhelming sexuality of the Notorious MSG is onsite now.
How does it feel guys, to be part of a solution?
Not the Chris Anderton band | Jun 23, 2005 20:17
Known homosexual and racially impure Jeremy Lambert is indignant that he has been left off the hitlist taken out by Redwatch Downunder against 'anarchists, reds, homos and multiculturalists.' Outrageously, myself and Ahmed Zaoui have also been excluded! Who are these Redwatch people, racists?
From Fightdemback, the main targets of the trans-Tasman neo-fascist Redwatch hitlist:
Lambert's emergence has caused an enormous amount of tension between the Australian and New Zealand factions of Fight dem back!. Campaign founder Mat Henderson-Hau issued a brief statement last night.
"It's hurtful. You put in all this hard work to be the number one enemy of racist bigots on both sides of the Tasman and Lennie Lambert and Neville Nobody come from the clouds to try and take your crown. I will continue the fight regardless. I too have some fantastic photos available. Some of them include drunken party shots with real live black people and Asians. I have a whole batch from a post Mardi gras party as well, I'd love to see Lambert top that," he said.
The National Front, whose members have been given an open pass to submit candidates for the hitlist, have also really let me down. According to NF veteran Kerry Bolton, in a comment deleted by the moderators of this page, I led a Communist mob in a vicious assault on the National Front last Labour Weekend. Not to mention my part in the West's cycle of decline. Kyle Chapman has also threatened to personally sue me for defamation, before realising that it would be rather easy for me to demonstrate what I said was true. All this affirmation and now they classify me as a non anarchist-red-homo-multiculturalist? Such bathos.
So: A late laugh anyhow. Although I lurk on the fightdemback forum, and nudged The Herald into covering the hitlist issue, I've been slow in deciding whether to join in the gagfest or keep silent on this.
Because, how funny is this, really? From Redwatch Downunder Hitlist coordinator Ben Weerhym to a person unfortunate enough to be on said list:
"I WILL seriously assault you, I don't care if I go to jail dickhead, I will stomp on your fucking head, I couldn't care who reads this,you are a filthy peice of shit that deserves to be badly assaulted... It may not happen straight away but I will store it in my brain for another time. You think I am an evil nazi? I will go out of my way for you to definately think so."
And how funny are these experiences, really? From norightturn's comments
Have you had your grandparents gravestones attacked by neo-nazis?
Have you been followed down Cuba St (one of the main streets in Welly) by 3 neo-nazis, who have been sent your photo by people who have emailed you threats against your life?
No?
I didn't think so.
# posted by Asher : 6/21/2005 12:21:43 AM
Asher: I think in this case, The Police Are Your Friend. As is a PXT phone and ss 307 ("threatening to kill") and 311 ("attempting to incite or procure") of the Crimes Act.
...
# posted by Idiot/Savant : 6/21/2005 12:33:59 AM
I/S - The police know all about this, and have not done anything.
[...] At the end of the day though, all it takes is one lone nutter to cause serious damage. This is especially true when they realise (as they have) that going the "legitimate" political route is never going to bring about their aims or achieve any success.
# posted by Asher : 6/21/2005 01:11:04 AM
And I joked about it at the time, but how hard was I really laughing at this?
Anonymous comment May 28, 2005 - 02:19 AM
"How about i try a little fast-moving fist on your face[?]"
I called the police and asked them how funny it was: they said 'go on your gut'. My gut rumbled for a minute, then told me not to be a pussy.
Not only do I not really want to be on the list, I also don't want to be seen to be mocking the list in an attempt to get on the list. But, like Jeremy Lambert, I am also in the phone book, and here's a nice photo of me and and a few other potentials to include.
The fingertipful of rabid, disorganised, but possibly dangerous white supremacists lurking in the suburban wastelands would never take on people such as myself, with friends in the mainstream media, or real ethnic and refugee community leaders like Pancha Narayanan and Dr 'Ras' Rasalingam who are respected public figures. We're just not vulnerable enough to be targeted, unless the perpetrators are complete fucking morons.
Wait a minute... That was not a strong argument.
But face it, me, Ras, Pancha, Deborah Manning, Chris Carter, Witi Ihimaera, we're not in trouble. The people at risk are the anarchist kids: skinny balaclava'd teen and post-teen deep-cover nazi-watchers and streetfront nazi-baiters. The ones who stick up posters, set up political communities in condemned buildings, who chain themselves to bulldozers, who the cops hate, and who the media don't listen to. Though they may get carried away with internet-facilitated braggadocio, they also do the work that 'respectable' public figures don't have to. They dig for information on illegal activities and hate-crimes, they find it and then they publicise it when the police will not. And they take the brunt of the consequences when push comes to shove. Punk and hippy kids, mainly Pakeha, have been bashed and bullied by skinheads in Wellington and in Christchurch, and who stood up for them? You assume that these activists go into this with their eyes open. And they have the bravado of youth, that Aristotelian foolhardiness that shifts courage from a virtue to a vice. All the more reason to make sure they are protected, because how prepared are they for those consequences? Who's got their back? They aren't just out there for the thrill of the chase, the confrontation and argument. I have noticed some real achievements come out of the recent FDB Trans-Tasman coordination around intelligence and publicity, which has played a strong role in the collapse of the New Zealand National Front. With the intensity of this network of scrutiny, I think there's a good chance that mutant planned eruptions such as that marae fire-bombing, or those graveyard desecrations, could be prevented from happening again. I give them props, not the least for allowing the rest of us to laugh at the expense of confused neo-nazis.
A very good Sri Lankan friend of mine had real reasons to fear skinheads while she was growing up in the UK. There and then, the National Front roamed in mobs, smashing shopfront windows and terrorising Asian families. Another friend, a young Somali, has felt the end of a National Front baseball bat on the streets of Newtown, Wellington. As luck would have it, they're both acting in a new ensemble play Migrant Nation, directed by Chapman-Tripp nominated Jade Eriksen. I unreservedly recommend it - don't worry, it won't be some amateur 'worthy ethnic' guff. Jade's previous work with with Yatra and Penumbra has been outstanding. Trust me, I'm a snob. And the cast showcases the finest, truest, and funniest acting talent we have to offer, including the very spunky Katlyn 'oh-my-god-you-have-the-same-name-as-my-brother' Wong Tsz-Hung. My desi pals have a theatre company called The Untouchables, and I hope to one day start up a theatre company with Kat called The Unpronounceables. I mean... Tsz doesn't even have a vowel! I look at her name and feel blessed. The Auckland run (1-5 July) will, I believe, feature guest appearances from Ahmed Zaoui. Book now before Redwatch Downunder snaps up all the best seats.
Anyway, feel free to vote for the real reasons why I'm not on the Redwatch list, or suggest your own:
1. It's impossible to figure out who to target in the Chinese community because there are no clear leaders and there is too much disagreement, including disagreement over whether the Chinese community actually exists
2. Redwatch don't think that Asians actually have the ability to be individually threatening because we are so inferior (despite being invaders).
3. Only the homosexual ruling cabal comprised of faggy jew communists, civil servants and the mainstream media (I suppose they all qualify under the heading of faggy jew communists) read Public Address.
4. Redwatch can't spell my name, and therefore haven't found me on Google.
5. Redwatch know they'd never be able to tell me apart from all the other Asians in Auckland.
Exploitation Flicks | Jun 19, 2005 18:47
Are there any Chinese people left in Auckland who have not been approached for 'research' purposes for a script-development being backed by Owngoal Productions [not real name], to be written and directed by Guy White [not real name], a film known only as Chowick? [real name. REAL NAME.]
I was 'researched' this year for the 'Chowick' project just after 春节, on Lantern Festival weekend, although Mr White didn't tell me the name of the project at the time. He never did. I found out later by looking it up on the internet. If I had known, if he had been upfront about this, would I have agreed to meet him? It's too late now.
How the hell could the Film Commission possibly give $15,000 to a non-Chinese writer/director, for a project called 'Chowick'? The Film Commission is based in Wellington, but is that enough to excuse such ignorance? Would they fund a Pakeha writer/director who had never heard of fried bread, to write a film set in Ruatoria called 'Hori-town'?
I'm not saying that non-Asian directors can't portray Asian characters and Asian cultural themes, while avoiding being exploitative, dehumanising or Orientalist. An example of a non-Asian director doing this particularly well momentarily escapes me. But by way of bizarre inverse example, one of the most classic pieces of Orientalist claptrap film-making I've ever seen was written and directed by Hong Kong-born Chinese-American Wayne Wang. I am talking about Chinese Box, another good reason to put Jeremy Irons out of his misery - 'Alas! Hong Kong is like a beautiful, mysterious woman, for example, Gong Li playing yet another high-class prostitute! I understand her not, and never will, for it is impossible! Oh woe. Whatever can a colonial do?'
Yeah, some people just live there buddy.
The problem with Guy White is that from the get-go, he knew nothing. He understood it not. Oh woe. Did we help him? Did Owngoal's endless round of 'research' make a dent? When I met him, he was resistant, defensive, even recalcitrant when his ideas were questioned. You see, he has had an interracial relationship (not with a Chinese) - and this gives him a ghetto-pass. Oh yes, and he used to live in Howick. In 1985. He'd not heard of Pearl Tea until the very week we spoke.
The arrangement for the meeting hadn't started well. A PA from Owngoal had contacted me, saying Mr White had read my essay, and wanted to meet me to talk about being Chinese in New Zealand, to help develop the Chinese character in his film - a 16-year old Taiwanese immigrant schoolgirl who lives in Howick. I replied saying that had no idea how I could help him, considering that, as seems quite clear in my essay, I'm not 16, nor Taiwanese, nor an immigrant, nor from Howick.
But I met him anyway, at 菜林楠 foodcourt. Mr White had a strangely guarded, almost reptilian, unmoving manner. He gave me no sense of human warmth, and wasn't interested in communicating his motives, his angle, his take. I had to dig it out of him. Meanwhile, he subjected me to the most intense feeling of commercial objectification and exploitation I've ever personally experienced. I really did feel like he was slicing me up under a microscope, looking for cells to sell.
I asked him, as the film was being pitched as the 'Romeo and Juliet' of the Eastern Suburbs, whether there would be equal screen-time for the Pakeha and Taiwanese leads and their warring families.
Apparently not. The film was to be primarily from the perspective of the white protagonist, because Mr White felt he couldn't tell a story from the perspective of The Other character, i.e. the female Taiwanese sixteen-year-old love interest. (Heaven forbid that a teenage Taiwanese migrant boy would hook up with a teenage Pakeha girl. Oh woe.)
I put it to him that Juliet got half of her play, and Shakespeare was neither a girl, nor Italian. I also said to him that I thought a mark of a good filmmaker is that you can tell anyone's story, that you can find universal human experiences anywhere. And that therefore his approach was unjustifiable, given that he was using the Asian theme as the main drawcard of his film. Basically I was asking, what the hell kind of a director are you?
He got antsy. 'I'm an auteur' he said, it was all about his personal vision, and political considerations weren't going to sway him from his narrative path. Perhaps the word he was looking for was 'autistic'. He admitted that his 'vision' was of a teenage white-boy-centred narrative of self-discovery and redemption. To my ears, he sounded very much in danger of using the exotic denizens of the Eastern Suburbs as the market attraction, the point-of-difference in his film concept, and yet relegating that exoticised world to the role of a dramatic backdrop. While trying to avoid saying 'fuck you asshole, how dare you?' yet pointing out the problems of this approach as politely and accommodatingly and as truthfully as possible, I seemed to put the wind up him. During our conversation, he shifted ...well ...shiftily, from saying a third of the cast would be Chinese, to no... nearly half! No, half! A full half of the characters would be Chinese!
He also tried to put it to me that I was the first person out of dozens whom he'd interviewed, who had voiced these kinds of concerns about his project. But I think he was lying. Either that, or totally oblivious. Probably a mixture of the two. He did display a complete lack of knowledge of Chinese cultural interactions, for example by not even trying to pay for my lunch at the beginning, despite the purpose of the meeting being to pump me for cultural insights. So I doubt that he would have been able to sense, while interacting with Chinese people more subtle and verbally guarded than I (i.e. all other Chinese people in the country, if not the world) that they were finding him weird and exploitative.
Either that, or he had just been interviewing sixteen-year-old schoolgirls with not much background in critical theory or cultural studies.
His line of questioning was very personal, somewhat robotic, and at times just dippy.
'Do you have Asian friends?'
Yes. (Easy enough)
'Where did you meet your Asian friends?'
(I didn't know what to say here. Uh... Kung Fu class? Opium dens? Margaritas? The Secret Asian Kid Hangout? The answer of course, is I've met my 'Asian' friends whereever I've met all my other friends, because uh, Auckland is like that. We're everywhere.)
'What do you talk about with your Asian friends?'
(My deadpan response) 'We make fun of white people.'
He didn't blink. 'What jokes do you tell?'
What?
I didn't quite understand. If it does ever come down to 'making fun of white people', it's really just a matter of telling each other about the ridiculous cultural interactions we might have had that day. This one for example.
I also had to tell him that despite his interest in the subject, I didn't want to list undesirable attributes of Chinese guys to explain why many Chinese girls date white. I'm not interested in stabbing my bros in the back. But I mentioned to Mr White that a subject that comes up fairly frequently when talking to my 'Asian' girlfriends, is gross old white guys with Asian fetishes coming on to us. Mr White, fortyish, got rather defensive about this.
He later got a slightly gooey look in his eye when he told me he'd just discovered that there was such a thing as Pearl Tea that week, because his new 16-year-old female Taiwanese research-subject took him to the Lantern Festival. He said he's been talking to a lot of teenage Taiwanese girls. Naturally, this was a source of much amusement later when I was making fun of him with my 'Asian' friends. It only struck me then, that the reason he asked 'what jokes do you tell?' was that white people tell 'Asian' jokes in private, so therefore Asian people must tell 'white' jokes in private. I don't know any white jokes. I don't know any Asian jokes either. People don't tell them when I'm around.
'Good luck,' I said as I took my leave.
'I'll need it,' he admitted, sounding weary.
But I meant it. On one hand, it's tempting to take these fools down, to tell them to not even try. On the other hand - well, good on them for trying. Or something. Understanding has to start somewhere. In this vein, right wing conservative gay Maori blogger Craig Ranapia linked to my Banana conference post, while acknowledging that:
Tse Ming Mok is probably not going to thank me for this... Personally, I find it oddly conforting that the 'Yellow Peril' seem awfully familiar - a messy, complex pack of human being[s] who don't have the questions sorted, let alone the answers.
No, no - thanks, really. Thanks for spelling my name wrong. But yes, it's true. I am a human being, and so are other Chinese people. I suppose it's good that he finds that... conforting. Though I am rather ...disconfited that he wasn't aware of this previously.
Would you pay Craig Ranapia $15,000 to wander food courts and cultural festivals, learning that he doesn't know enough to make a film about Chinese people? I heard the other month that Owngoal were trying to hedge against Guy White's 'auteurism' by looking for a Taiwanese writer to help him along. If they're serious about it, maybe this film will not turn out crap. Maybe they'll even change the name before I have to start up some serious bitchslap-action. But ultimately, I'm hoping that this project does not become 'the first' New Zealand feature film to go into the Eastern Suburbs. Maybe the one being co-written by Lynda Chanwai-Earle will beat it to the punch. I'm also about to crack into my preview copy of buddy Roseanne Liang's documentary, Banana in a Nutshell, first feature-length work by a New Zealand Chinese to appear in the International Film Festival. There are real and better alternatives to this flaky Yellow Fever in the film-world - actual Chinese film-makers telling their own stories. Hopefully the Film Commission and other funding bodies will wake up to this.
But (sigh) where is New Zealand's Justin Lin? The whole 'Chinese conservative family conflict' story is so overdone. Can we get a Chinese film made with no parents in it, please? I've heard it's been done in Hong Kong.
No dis on my folks. In fact, quite the reverse. If your mum and dad weren't traditional conservative repressed Chinese parents, you don't feel the need to watch the Joy Luck Club over and over in different forms.
By the way: Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi. Me and mum won't go back to Burma until you say it's okay.
Hot Asian Politics | Jun 14, 2005 22:54
Promising feedback was received in response to my fundamentally important question: 'Where are all the hot Chinese guys at?' In Christchurch, said Roy Tan of Christchurch. In hell, said Winnie Chang of Bananaworks:
Migrants living off shore are captured in between time and space from where they left and where they wanted to go, and cannot evolve with the home folks nor along with the host country, holding onto a concept of cultural identity that was once true (decades ago). This is universal; we are seeing male migrants from Middle East and Africa struggling in NZ right now, and this is making lives of their females counterparts difficult. Men are territorial rulers. Losing their land and not [being] able to forge out a piece of territory in the new found heaven is hell for them.
Yes, in hell. That, I assume, is why they're so hot.
And a week later, Chris Cheung was still talking about identity. No, really.
Human Rights digression: Global voices has an interview with Shanghai blogger Isaac Mao, (whose blog is often overloaded these days) on the ins and outs of China's nationwide blog-registration crackdown. If you have a blog on your own server, please consider adopting a Chinese blog to do your bit for global democracy and free speech. I'd do it myself but am a technological incompetent and don't know how it works.
Which brings me to this: was anyone else feeling Asian shame at the Banana conference's tech-support the other week? A very nice old guy was taking care of it, but he seemed unfamiliar with the mysteries of the mouse. We younger folk were asking ourselves, what kind of Chinese conference is this? Are we so assimilated that we've lost our ingrained cultural mastery of Powerpoint? Blame my bro Dr Drasnor aka RIC1Er, who was scheduled to hook up the multimedia, but was off on an emergency white-chick-chasing weekend.
We caught up tonight at the Lim Chhour (菜林南) foodcourt, where he noted that, in my last entry, I sounded like I was "gagging for it." No, no, Dras, I protested in my own defense, it's all political. We need to make the wider world acknowledge that Asian guys are hot. Just as Asian women are encumbered with the stereotype of being meek and submissive (but hot), Asian men are subject to Western-culture-wide slander regarding their masculinity and general attractiveness. Which is very unfair. Because they are hot.
If people end up thinking I'm some kind of online slutty-ass ho'bag, I'm satisfied in the knowledge that it's all in the service of the Movement. I'm taking one for the team.
It's easier for Asian girls to overcome our stereotype. All you have to do is develop an attitude. Getting shitty is easy. Check out this little Chinese girl for instance. Story of my life. But suddenly acquiring masculine sexual-confidence is a bit trickier. Dras confirmed my perception that times are changing. He admitted that a few years ago he would have been too afraid to ask out a white girl - and he, like me, is first-generation New Zealand born, so it wouldn't have been for lack of English language competency. But now he knows it's a whole new world - "they all think we're hot!" he said. And added, "whenever I see an Asian guy with a white chick, I wanna give him props!" Drasnor doesn't speak without exclamation marks.
You go brothers. Show them 老外 the way of the Dragon. But save some of that action for your sisters in the struggle, if you can.
As I mentioned in a previous post, being a cool and sexy Asian in Auckland has a lot less baggage than in America. Witness this Giant Robot interview with Better Luck Tomorrow's Sung Kang, the hottest Asian-American alive, hotter even than John Cho (notice how in the American canon, man + motor vehicle = hot?), and just pipping Kalpen Modi at the post.
Getting the feel of a masculine self confident man [his character, Han, from Better Luck Tomorrow], it was difficult. My whole life, I was a second class citizen ...I think for us, as Asian Americans, I don't know speaking personally, it's been tough to understand to know what it means to be a sexual male, where's there's self-esteem. I grew up insecure.
Now that's depressing. The hesitancy even shows through in the syntax. I repeat, this from the hottest Asian-American alive. Still, this is the country that gave us Asian Pride Porn (worksafe; satire) - so at least sexual inferiority complexes can result in something positive.
Who has complexes like this in New Zealand? If anyone would, it would be the New Zealand-born Asians who have had similar experiences growing up as insecure minorities here, rather than sliding in, as fully fledged confident individuals. I've been thinking about these basic touchstones of personal strength and identity and their relationship to political engagement - how to some extent, migrants from all parts of post-colonial Asia - from India to Malaysia to Hong Kong - are more likely to openly speak their minds on migrant issues and multicultural politics, compared with either Mainland Chinese or Old Generation Chinese. It's almost as if total government repression on the Mainland, and total social assimilation of the 'Bad Old Days' here, have led to a similar kind of Chinese silence.
Following this parallel logic through, this would mean that Mainlanders and OGs are the least sexy of all the Asians in New Zealand, and Southeast Asians and Hongkies are the hottest. Though I am Southeast Asian, this really seems an unfair call. If anyone has done any rigorous quantitative or qualitative research on this, let me know.
For the record: Errol Kiong (Southeast Asian) notes that a 'Kacang-sweet buttercup glow' is the pungent cloud of pollen released from a fearsome, venomous, sensuous tropical plant found only in Borneo, that can digest entire Orangutans in under an hour. You don't mess with the kacang.
Extra special Human Rights digression: after emailing simoncollins(at)clear(dot)net(dot)nz to book your place at the Aung San Suu Kyi Birthday/Burmese IDP medical aid fundraising dinner this Sunday (did I mention my mother was born in Burma?), check out the Committee to Protect Bloggers, allied with Reporters sans Frontiers, and go back as often as possible. Iran and China are the perennial hotspots, with Malaysians also taking some serious heat. I haven't clarified yet whether Hong Kong blogs come under the new PRC blog-registration rules, but will be getting in touch with Glutter, as soon as I can get over how we seem to have had exactly the same thoughts for the last few weeks (regarding Ching Cheong, Tiananmen, and the progressive legacy of the Sun Yat-Sen era), and how she looks very much like me, but with more manageable hair. I was about to vote for her in the Freedom Blog awards last month, but got too freaked out at her author-photo.
Banana Battle II: the fruit flies | Jun 08, 2005 22:24
'Whither the New Zealand Chinese community?' people were asking. 'How oh how shall we navigate the perilous and two-faced seas of political identity?' But the most important question was ultimately this: 'Where are all the hot Chinese guys at?'
You'll have to wade through to the end for the answer to that. Sorry. It does say 'ultimately', doesn't it?
Before the full Banana report, may I briefly note four things.
1. Screw the Australian government.
2. Screw the Chinese government.
3. Free Ching Cheong (please follow this link).
4. Make any jokes about Ching Cheong's name and I'll smash you.
Right. Bananas.
The crowd was Old. Old Generation, and largely, well, just Old. This was a reflection of the organisers - the New Zealand Chinese Association, which is an Old Generation Association, and full of old people. But there was a younger contingent, including a fair amount of overseas-born Southeast Asians, 1.5ers, and on the first day of the conference, probably about 20 international students. A hand count on the first day put the proportions at about 70-80% old Generation Chinese.
There's too much to cover, the speakers will be putting their notes onto the conference site shortly, and you want to get to the end to find out about the hot guys. But these were some highlights:
Yuk King Tan talking quiet mellifluous iconoclasm, in front of a video of her artwork, which consisted of burning down art galleries. Stunning.
Mua Strickson-Pua, pointing out (and I keep saying this without anyone ever believing me) that Tana Umaga is Chinese.
The snippet of Roseanne Liang's documentary on her parents' ruling that she can only marry her Pakeha boyfriend if he asks for her hand in marriage in Mandarin (screening at the International Film Festival).
Mayor of Gisborne Meng Foon, in between talking a fair amount of assimilationist nonsense after the conference dinner, coming up with an absolute gem that I've been waiting a long time for someone to say: that Chinese people really need to chill out and relax.
After which I went home and studiously wrote my speech between 11:30 pm and 2:00 am.
And then there was the final throwdown. The heavyweight clash. This was nothing to do with me, I assure you. There were noticeable growing pains on display as the new generations outstripped the old, and we strove to hold it all together. But there was certainly no clean 'Old Generation'/'New Generation' split.
I was the last scheduled speaker of the conference, and after my speech, we broke for afternoon tea, whereupon lots of Old Generation types came up and said nice things to me. Eventually struggling out of the lecture theatre, and back to the company of my younger comrades and media hacks, I was granted the full benefit of the Errol Kiong kacang-sweet buttercup glow, and the Keith Ng anarcho-Hobbesian pixie-grin. Said Keith: "You fucked some shit up man!"
"What?" I said, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" I didn't know what he meant.
Then, Tony Chuah of the conference committee came by to alert me to the fact that I had "really pissed everyone off" including himself, although I still can't quite figure out who he meant by 'everyone', or what exactly in my speech had pissed them off, and he didn't tell me. He might have thought that I would automatically know, or that I had even written my speech expressly to piss someone off. But actually, I'm just so totally out of touch with the Old Generation, that I have no idea what they expect from me.
Given that the conservative element of the Old Generation community seems to think that everything I say is controversial in some way, I have no way of differentiating one degree of their perception of controversy from another. None. I honestly have no freakin' clue. I generally assume they are mortified by my behaviour, not because of my actual opinions, but because I'm fairly honest, direct, and outspoken about my opinion. The great thing about being a Chinese person subjected to the approbation of the conservative end of the Old Generation Chinese community for being outspoken, is this: they find being outspoken so unnerving that they never actually tell you that you suck, why you suck, or …well …anything to your face at all actually.
So you can just ignore them.
But this is not very productive. I was totally bemused about Tony's comment even by the end of a lunch the next day at which Keith Ng (even less Old Generation than me) made an exhaustive and heroic effort to explain it to me, or at least come up with a hypothesis. And sure, I can see why my speech might have confused or unsettled some people's idea of their own identity… but still can't figure out what was so specifically angering.
The existence of the Old Generation Chinese community only dawned on me properly when Dragons on the Long White Cloud came out in 1996. My father gave it to me for, I think, my eighteenth birthday - and you know, I was damn excited. It was election year. I thought it would be a radical ethnic-pride touchstone with which to fight The Enemy Who Shall Not be Named. So I went through the bloody thing looking for my own family, but all I found was this: "...and this figure does not even take into account that some Southeast Asians, such as Indonesians, Malaysians etc, may be 'Chinese'..."
Right.
I may be…
'Chinese'.
'Thanks a lot Manying!' I thought. 'I'm Chinese! If this book isn't about me, who the hell is it about?'
It was only then that it really hit home that there were all these Chinese people in New Zealand with …big extended families! Who all spoke English with Kiwi accents, even the parents and old people! Who couldn't speak Chinese! Who clumped together in these… things called …communities! Who really were all related and that this is why when white people met me they would ask if I was related to blah-blah-blah Wong-Doo and I'd say 'no, and that's not even a real name' but actually, it is! That some of these people based their sense of New Zealand belonging, and their sense of entitlement to belong, on the fact that they'd been in the country five times as long as my family. Suddenly, a lot of things made sense.
It was also around this time that I heard elements of the Old Generation community were actually disapproving of people who spoke out to criticise racism and defend Chinese people.
Now that was a total mindfuck.
Because I never had any contact whatsoever with them growing up here, I find it quite difficult to gauge Old Generation community reaction to my opinions. This is why I've inserted all the audience reactions to my speech that I recall, to help me figure it out. From the comments I received after the speech, there had to be, in that lecture theatre, a split in opinion between the conservative older leadership and the majority of the crowd. But the bulk of the crowd was Old Generation. And they were behind me (though they didn't necessarily always share my sense of humour).
Wong Liu Sheung who was chairing that session, said in her introduction that she thought that my opinions are courageous, and that I rush in "where angels dare not tread", but I don't believe this is true at all. All I do is express my opinion, and that is not an act of courage when I have no disapproving community to slam me down or throw me out. Aside from Derek, my parents are my only family in this country and they generally agree with me. Even when they don't, they're happy that I participate in political discourse, given that they grew up in countries that paid lip-service to democratic procedure, but where meaningful democracy was not possible. That's a large part of why they came here. So it's no big deal for me to say what I think.
But what would be courageous would be if someone from the Old School did what I did. Now that would be putting your balls on the line. And somebody did so that day. It was the most impressive moment of the conference.
The issue was exclusion and exclusivity, and it all happened in the final open-slather forum session, entitled 'Where to from here?', chaired by NZCA Chairman Kai Luey. This was after I had 'pissed everyone off' with my speech, so what I'm about to describe doesn't factor into my bemusement over that issue (sure, I can see why they might be pissed off at me now, but not because of the speech). Kai Luey had just rebuffed a suggestion from the bright young president of the International Students Association of Unitec. Ben had suggested that International Students had been somewhat underrepresented, and could play a greater role in the next conference – perhaps even by hosting it at Unitec. Kai said, in essence, that International Students are not real New Zealanders and therefore not the NZCA's concern. And that they could have their own conference if they wanted. I responded in a fury to this, as anyone could have expected, slamming Kai for being divisive, ungracious, and being out of touch with the importance of the transient yet permanent International Student presence in our cities – particularly the impact it has on the cultural life and cultural identity of Auckland. I didn't make the obvious point that the first generation of his family in New Zealand were probably not permanent residents when they arrived either. Neither were mine. In fact, my parents were interns at Auckland Hospital when they came to New Zealand. That's right - international students.
I didn't expect anyone to back me up, but lively discussion continued. And suddenly, Kai Luey came under sustained attack from Dr Jim Ng, prestigious historian and Chair of the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Fund - the Oldest of the Old Generation. It was OG vs OG. Jim seemed truly outraged that Kai had drawn these lines around language, citizenship and communities, and harangued him for missing the point of the whole conference.
It's terrible to say that a lot of the old Chinese guys there looked similar – but I suppose that's what you get at a certain age, especially if you are all Cantonese, originally from the same few villages, and often somewhat related to each other. Kai and Jim are two similar looking solid grey Cantonese men, with cheerful jowls, dark ochre skin, and pouchy eyes. And one of them was yelling, bawling at the other from back row centre, "that doesn't equate to leadership!"
Kai, in classic Old Generation style, said nothing.
When it all drew to a close, myself and a bunch of my friends who have taken to calling ourselves 'The Movement' in not entirely facetious terms, clamoured around Jim Ng who emerged from the theatre looking shaken, accompanied by his frowning wife. We were slapping his back, and pumping his hand, shouting "people's hero!"' and "you da man!", and he was overwhelmed and surprised. "I was getting kicked in the leg, and elbowed" he said mock-querulously, gesturing to his wife and relatives, "I'm not going to get any tea tonight!" I'd believe that. Now that's courage.
Kai is now proposing a series of seminars to keep the momentum and debate going, and has written me a very gracious email.
So, this is as exciting and dramatic an ethnic political community as I've ever been a part of. It's laudable that the NZCA had the vision to even bring people who disagreed with each other together into the same space so that we could disagree face to face. For some people, it's the first time they've met other young Chinese people with an interest in political and community engagement and activism. And you know what? There are more of us than you might think. It would be lazy and cliched to say 'the Chinese community has finally come of age', but tonight, I'm taking Meng Foon's advice about slacking off to heart.
So where were the hot Chinese guys at? My favourite relative in the world (we made a deal I'd say that, but it's still true) step-cousin-in-law Derek Cheng, notes that he was in Hamilton, and also, later, speaking to The Enemy Who Must Not Be Named. Manying Ip's son was marking Law School test papers. Wait a minute, no he wasn't - that slacker was blogging! Chris Cheung and his other hot friend just wanted to talk about identity. Word of advice: 'let's talk about identity issues babe' no longer works as a pick-up line. Chinese guys really do just want to talk about identity. For god's sake. The rest were either gay or journalists. And still wanted to talk about identity. I think I got more attention from the Old Guys. I suppose that's not all bad.
Edit: this just in from Tony Chuah
Oh god I hate being misquoted, and what's worse, cut short to look like some kind of old school conservative bigot. That's the last thing I'd want to be identified with (completely). Maybe in terms of geneology I can make some (half) claim to belonging to the old crew. [...] I wasn't speaking for all of "us". It was just me that was "pissed off" because you mainly right. I hope that clears some things up for you.
No wonder I didn't get it. Frankly, I'm still confused, but will get back to Tony on that one.
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