Mushroom Heaven

It's been a wet, stormy week in Atlanta. The weather has made our neighborhood a mushroom-hunting heaven for Ojiichan, who spent the last few days combing through people's yards in search of boletes and giant puffballs. Luckily, no one reported him to the police. Last night we ate a delicious wild mushroom-centered dinner spread.

Sunny is doing well. I'm kind of exhausted right now... I'm at an intensive stage of the most recent infertility treatment. I'm also halfway through my next piece on Buddhism for Racialicious, but it's growing longer than I want it to be. I probably won't get it done before the weekend.

Right now Sunny is watching through the first season of Avatar. We don't have television, but Sunny gets to choose what he wants to watch from Netflix on-demand, and I also download some shows for him. Avatar seems like a pretty decent show. Of course, Ojiichan has determined that it's "garbage" because he happened to find out it was made by Americans.

Guy had added The Suite Life of Zach and Cody for Sunny last week. It's really not Sunny's type of show, but I think he wanted to see it again because his tween- and teen-aged foster sisters used to watch it. I had to take it back off the queue because I was shocked at how sexist, racist and moronic it was. Maybe I caught it at a bad time, but... wow. A series of jokes about how one of the boys was a total pussy because he got beat up by a guy who got beat up by a girl who knew kung fu because she was Asian. It sounded like frat boy humor, not something for kids. Sunny didn't complain too much when I took it off, since I replaced it with Avatar.

I'm so glad we don't have television, and haven't had it for a year now. It keeps Sunny from obsessing over objectionable shows. It also keeps him from watching commercials and pestering us to buy him stuff that he'd never even play with if he got. All the bad messages from commercials seep into kids' brains so easily. For example, Sunny used to be able to sing the "Free Credit Report" song by heart.

We saw Ponyo a few weeks ago. Sunny liked it. Guy wants to go back and see it again on his own, so he can concentrate on the amazing visuals without having to answer Sunny's gazillion questions: "Where is she going?" "Watch the movie and you'll see." "What's he doing?" "I don't know, watch the movie and you'll find out." "What's going to happen next?" "Watch the movie." "Mom, dad, did you see that?" "ARRGHHH!!"

I love Miyazaki movies and think they have great messages for kids. Of course, some of them are a bit too dark for Sunny. Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke would scare him too much. Maybe he'll be ready for those in a few years.

Ponyo is a beautiful movie but it doesn't have much of a plot, and the usual ecological focus of Miyazaki is not present, or else it's present in a very different form than in his other work. A lot of that comes from the fact that he's adapting a pre-existing story (The Little Mermaid) instead of creating his own. I recently left a comment defending Ponyo on that point in response to criticism from another Miyazaki fan:

I think Ponyo was more about compassion than ecology. In the movie, compassion was a supernatural force. It could destroy the world or save it.

The original Little Mermaid story has a really strong Christian influence and the themes of sacrifice, redemption and original sin are central to the story. Miyazaki translates it into a more Buddhist/animist frame (Ponyo’s mother as Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion/Goddess of Mercy) and there is neither original sin nor sacrifice remaining.

I do agree that this philosophical translation isn’t successful in that the conflict and decision point don’t have much weight. But I enjoyed the dream logic of the visuals that carried the movie along in place of conflict.

Hellboy II Was Awesome!

I really enjoyed it. Many of the visual elements reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth. The scene with the forest elemental also seemed like a homage to the the death scene of the forest kami from Princess Mononoke.

Kids, Movies and Death

Ahh... I want to see Hellboy II so bad...

My husband and I have very different movie tastes. I like big sweeping epics with big themes -- the bigger the better. I used to study and work in the fringes of the industry, so I also have a strong appreciation for cinematography and editing. Jodorowsky, Kurosawa, Tsui Hark, Herzog: those are my guys. Most American epics are just too stupid for me to enjoy (e.g. the Matrix with that stupid, stupid human battery idea... wouldn't it be a lot easier to just hook up a bunch of cows?), although I do love John Sayles and his delicate sociological style.

In the absence of intelligent epics, I'll settle for competent ones with lots of blood, explosions and pointy-toothed monsters.

On the other hand, the ideal movie for my husband is shot in black and white with cinema verite style. It's based in either Milwaukee or Lbubljana, Slovenia. It takes place over the span of a few days and follows several quirky characters in their monotonous daily routine as they go through an intensely private dysfunctional moment in a quietly painful sort of way. You might think something is going to happen, but it never does. Maybe someone goes fishing with their dog. The fish aren't biting. They look sadly down at the water. Freeze frame. Credits roll. I don't notice the credits because I fell asleep an hour ago.

But he liked the first Hellboy movie. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was the noir element? Anyway, I LOVE Guillermo del Toro and I'm totally pumped about Hellboy II. Luckily we have Nana to watch Sunny while my husband and I go see it together.

I'm so glad my mom and I live so close. Sunny really loves her too.

Sunny watched the Spiderwick Chronicles recently. I decided it was alright, despite the monster-related violence, because I'd heard it had good themes about family unity and dealing with loss.

He really enjoyed it and says he wants to watch it again. One thing he said sort of bothered me, though. He said that if Arthur Spiderwick turned to dust that would look cool... I told him it's not nice to wish for people to die, and he said that it would be OK because Spiderwick would just come back in the second movie.

It's hard to explain stuff like this to kids in a way they really understand, especially given the bad influence of video games. I did my best. I reminded him that in real life, people don't really come back after they die. Death is forever*.

It's not just kids that have a problem with that fact. We don't want to die, but we're fascinated with representations of death. We're compelled to watch and relive scenes of death over and over again in all aspects of human culture.

The clearest explanation I ever read on the subject was from Aristotle in 335 B.C.

Poetics, IV. The Origin and Development of Poetry

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the execution, the colouring, or some such other cause.

Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature.

When I first read that, it was a huge revelation for me. It answered a question I'd never even thought to ask before. Why do humans get such pleasure from representations of death and pain? Why do I love watching movies with exploding vampires and zombies?


* I'm still a Buddhist but reincarnation is a lot more complicated than just "coming back".

Thoughts and Links on Harold & Kumar

I saw Harold & Kumar this weekend. I really enjoyed it. We laughed like crazy through most of the movie. It had some groaners as well, but the pace was quick enough so that they didn't bog down the movie.

To many Asian-Americans, H&K is not just a really filthy stoner movie. I'm not going to devote a long post to it, but here are some interesting analyses and commentary:

Racialicious: GQ Writer Compares Harold and Kumar to "The Happy Go Lucky Negro" Caricature

Poplicks: HAROLD AND KUMAR: UP IN SMOKE AGAIN

The movies are, yes, extremely sexist, and draw heavily on homophobic humor as well. I'm not going to deny that. I wish they weren't. But it's something I have to deal with in order to see actual, funny, non-racist racial humor.

As a parallel, I really thought about going to see "300". I like violent comic book movies, and I'm the kind of film geek that really appreciates good editing and cinematography. But I ultimately passed, because the movie was so racist. I think I would have been too disturbed. It doesn't matter that the director of the movie is Mexican-American and in many respects seems like a pretty cool, enlightened guy. By all accounts, the movie was racist as hell, and I didn't want to see the inhuman Eastern masses slaughtered by the heroic white dudes.

I don't blame anyone who didn't make my same decision, and went to see "300" and enjoyed it.

After all, I absolutely love "Lord of the Rings," which is also really racist. Again, I don't want to get into a long discussion of it, but Tolkien's world-building is based on the premise that West=civilized=noble=light versus South/East=barbaric=evil=dark. It's global colorism on a transcendental level. Not to mention the class issues. By the way, if you want to read an awesome Tolkien takedown, check out this essay by Michael Moorcock. I love that essay. I also still love Tolkien.

It's a lot easier to draw the line when a statement or movie or figure or essay or comedy (and so on) has no redeeming value and is just purely hateful or stupid.

Letters from Iwo Jima

We went to a Sunday matinee. Dad and I missed the first few minutes of the movie. I left after an hour, before characters started dying en masse, and ran some errands and came back just after it ended to pick up Dad. I really wanted to see the movie, but I didn't want a repeat performance of several weeks ago, when I cried through the last half hour of Pan's Labyrinth. People who know me never peg me as sentimental and are amazed when I tell them I often cry at movies.

Dad liked the movie. His only complaint was that anachronistic language was sometimes used to describe the military equipment. He blamed this on both "Japanese-Americans" and "Japanese who are too young and don't know anything".

I'll see the movie later when it comes out on DVD. The first hour looked very good.

Pan's Labyrinth

This is the third and most difficult post of the night. Some movies affect me very deeply and I can't help but cry at them. This was one. I was a mess leaving the theater.

I've seen almost all of Guillermo del Toro's movies, including the semi-crappy ones like Mimic and Blade II. He always has a wonderful, lyrical visual style and I also appreciate his obsession with insects and timepieces, which started in Cronos and reappears in full force in this latest movie.

The aftereffects are too strong to give a good recap or review. It's really a perfect story. Two parallel threads of the plot affected me the most: a grown woman trying to protect her brother, an anti-fascist guerrilla fighter hiding in the hills, as a young girl also tries to protect her baby brother. It also set me to wondering whether the fantastic cruelty of fairy tales and fantasy could ever match the real cruelty of real people set against each other.

Teaching and Learning in Oaxaca

More than five years ago, I was on the track to become an academic and studying for a crucial graduate-level Spanish exam. Don Quijote was on the required reading list. I'd been putting off reading it, simply because it was so important, so daunting and so long.

I decided I needed some time by myself. I had some money saved up, so I went to Oaxaca City in Oaxaca, Mexico and rented an efficiency apartment near the town center (in fact, right behind the breathtaking colonial cathedral) for six weeks. At the same time, I signed up for tutoring at a private language school, since I was at that awkward advanced level where formal classes don't really help anymore. I'd been to Oaxaca City before. It is (or was?) one of the most beautiful places in Mexico. It has such a vibrant urban indigenous culture; I could hear the old languages spoken every day just walking along the streets or stopping by the marketplaces. The food in Oaxaca is the best in Mexico, in my biased opinion, and therefore the best in the entire Western Hemisphere… there are even many non-Oaxacan Mexicans who'd agree.

My tutor was a young man named Hugo who happened to be studying for his own linguistics degree. I'd already formed a sort of stereotype of Mexican intellectuals, and Hugo fit that to a T: slightly pudgy, wearing glasses, speaking in soft, serious tones and formidably intelligent. I really needed his help, because I'm not the most social person and find it difficult striking up friendships with people I randomly meet. Without Hugo I wouldn't have anyone to really practice my Spanish with. We never had lesson plans. We just talked for an hour each day, and he'd correct me when I said a word or phrase wrong, then give me new vocabulary and the occasional informal writing assignment. He had a wry sense of humor and once teased me for using "palabras domingueras" -- he explained these were ornate words employed by haughty, high-class families who had formal picnics every Sunday. Of course, I was picking up these words from the 17th century Spanish of Don Quijote. We spent most of the time talking about linguistics, Don Quijote, history, anthropology and culture. Hugo's ancestry was Zapotec, and he was in the process of learning the Zapotec language. Zapotec has multiple tones, like Chinese, but unlike Japanese, Korean or the Indo-European languages.

Oaxaca City is in a sad state today, and I really hope Hugo is doing OK. The whole problem in Oaxaca started with a teacher's strike. Teachers are pitifully underpaid. My own lessons with Hugo were dirt cheap by American standards but much more than he would have received in the public system. As far as I understand it, every year there was a traditional strike, and every year the government would give them a small raise, since otherwise the teachers would never get an extra penny. The new PRI governor of Oaxaca decided not to follow the tradition and instead clamped down on the teachers strike and demonstrations using paramilitary goon squads. An association including the teachers union, other unions and left-wing groups began massive demonstrations. Tourism, one of the mainstays of the economy, has disappeared. Protesters have been shot and killed, arrested and tortured, disappeared. Federal troops are currently occupying Oaxaca City.

The situation has gotten very little coverage in the US English-language press. Since a U.S. filmmaker was shot and killed there last month, there's been more of it. Sadly, he filmed his own death.

From the Mercury News:

No obvious gunfire is audible when the fatal bullet enters Will's abdomen. There's just a sickening thud and then a high-pitched scream, the final sound the 36-year-old filmmaker recorded of himself as he stumbled, then collapsed. The last several seconds of the video are clearly taken with the camera on its side, motionless.

Today a tense uncertain calm reigns in Oaxaca. Within days of the Dec. 1 inauguration of Mexico's new conservative President Felipe Calderon, the leftists who'd been leading protests in Oaxaca were arrested. They've been charged with sedition, among other crimes. Efforts to bring Will's killers to justice may tell much about whether Calderon, after a divisive election, can take control of this troubled state and nation.

Six months of unrest have taken a heavy toll on Oaxaca, a place famed for its archaeological sites and beaches, but it remains among Mexico's poorest states, with high rates of illiteracy, poverty and disease. About a dozen people have died in the unrest, most of them protesters. Hundreds more have been arrested, detained or, in a handful of international cases, deported.

What can people in the U.S. do? Here's an appeal I just ran across doing a web search, posted in CounterPunch. Oddly enough it has an Apocalypto connection.

From One of the Actors in Apocalypto
An Urgent Message on the Disappeared of Oaxaca
By BERNARDO DIAZ

Greetings from Oaxaca, Mexico.

My name is Bernardo Ruiz and in this movie, Apocalypto, I play the part of Drunkards Four.

My Oaxaca friends Emiliana and Hilaria, who now live in Austin, agreed to pass on to you my message. Apocalypto is about some of the amazing ancient history of our country and its indigenous people. But as you probably know, our struggles continue even to this day.

In recent weeks, our beautiful city, Oaxaca, has been occupied by federal troops. It came at a time when many of our people were beginning to stand up for our civil rights with sit-ins and other kinds of non-violent protest. Now the troops have started tracking down and arresting not only our leaders, but also many people from our artistic community here. One of them is my good friend the painter Gerardo Bonilla. Another is the artist Dionisio Martinez.

Some of you know Gerardo, because three years ago, he exhibited his paintings at La Peña in downtown Austin. It means a great deal to me--and I know to Gerardo and Dionisio--just to feel that you in know something about our real lives today, and to know that you are thinking of us and support us.

Call the local Mexican embassy and your state and local representatives and please send a letter on their behalf addressed to President Calderón.

Consulate General of Mexico
800 Brazos St, Suite 330
Austin, TX 78701
512-478-2866 ext 107

I said this before, but I really hope Hugo and his family and his teacher friends are OK. I will be writing a letter to my own Mexican consulate.

Mexican Consulate
2600 Apple Valley Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30319
(404) 266-2233

Weekend Wrapup

I was just reading here on the Angry Asian Man site about the Rosie O'Donnell incident on The View (a show I'm not familiar with at all), in which she used "ching chong" language to mock Chinese people. This is so upsetting to me that I can't even force myself to watch the linked clip. She acknowledged the language on her website but hasn't apologized. I was thinking about writing a blog post in the form of a letter to her TV show on exactly how it's upsetting and why it's such a nasty slur on all Asian people. When I was little I remember being surrounded by kids yelling those words into my face, and I've gotten into physical altercations over them. I could describe the feelings I had then as a young girl, and ask her if she ever wants her kids to feel that way, or to let them make other kids feel that way. But I have too much stress in my life right now to dredge that all up and order it neatly in writing. Instead, later this week I'll contribute somehow to a campaign asking her to apologize, which I hope someone will organize shortly. Ugh.

I haven't had time to see Apocalypto yet. Hopefully, I can make it this week. I read this viewpoint from an archaeologist -- Is "Apocalypto" Pornography? -- that discusses the details of some serious flaws that one would expect in the movie. The costume design is apparently as good as it seems in the trailer, though. I do take issue with how the reviewer wraps up by saying that Braveheart is a good movie. That kind of destroys her credibility as a film critic for me, since I think Braveheart was overall a boring, bombastic piece of crap interspersed with a gratuitous nasty homophobic subplot and about 20-25 minutes of awesome battle scenes.

I feel like I'm ending the weekend on a positive note... that is, as long as no one kills off any of my favorite characters on tonight's season finale of The Wire. The reason is that I've managed to create the optimal flexible timetable for adoption versus conception! It's got the family seal of approval, and now I just need to run it by the agency worker on our first homestudy appointment.

Stage One: Prep. My dad gets his ankle operation done in January, recuperates for 6-10 weeks and then departs our extra bedroom to return to Japan by April 2007. Our homestudy, which should be written by then, gets activated as soon as he clears the bedroom, but matching will almost certainly not begin right after that.

Stage Two: Waiting. We will be either waiting for matching or in the process of matching or committee, and also in a parallel attempt to conceive. I am willing to try some measures my gynecologist might suggest, but not anything on the scale of IVF or that involves a high risk of multiple births.

Stage Three: Pregnancy Deadline. I get pregnant. I call the agency, let them know what's up and say we need to go on hold within a month. If we happen to get matched before that month is up (although this isn't really likely) then great! We will be able to give the adopted child 100% of our attention for 8 months until I give birth.

Stage Four: Waiting Again (with a baby). I get pregnant without matching. We keep our application on hold until the baby is one years old, and then update the homestudy and go active again. Alternately, I could have a miscarriage, which sends us back to Stage Two to start over again. A friend of mine recently had a miscarriage so I know I shouldn't discount that possibility.

Apocalypto!

That last post was so depressing, I feel like ending the night with something more light-hearted.

I saw a teaser last night for Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's new movie. I'm pretty excited about it. Believe me, I'm not a Mel Gibson fan. I used to think of him as an unpleasant person with a weird torture fixation. Now I think of him as an unpleasant racist with a weird torture fixation. But the trailer for Apocalypto just blows all of that out of my mind. It's a big budget movie about the Mayan empire. Even if it was produced by Satan, written by Osama Bin Laden and directed by Uwe Boll, I would still have to see it. I do feel a bit bad about putting money in Gibson's pocket, but for recompense I'll donate the ticket price to a humanitarian Jewish organization.

In order to explain... no matter what the message is, the visuals in the movie are demanding that I absorb them further. The actors, almost all indigenous Mexicans, are wearing a wide variety of Mayan dress and also the typical huge piercings. This is going to be a must-see for anyone seriously interested in the world history of jewelry and body adornment. The colors are also striking. I've travelled along some of the Mayan route and seen the large ruins in Mexico -- Chichen Itza and Palenque -- and imagining them fully painted in glorious color was one of my favorite sightseeing activities.

A few years ago I briefly considered going to see that movie Memoirs of a Ho (ahem, excuse me, Memoirs of a GEISHA) just to see the costuming. Ultimately, I couldn't bring myself to do it. There are many Japanese movies that already feature beautiful traditional dress. But can you say the same about the Mayan empire? Visually, the movie seems like a revelation. It's going to be a monster hit in Mexico and very popular with Mexican-Americans too.

Here is an article from the Mexican newspaper La Jornada predicting great success for Apocalypto. It has an especially deranged picture of Mel.