Also– this week my beautiful sister is being featured on Journal Modiste , a webzine devoted to children’s fashion for her rocking tot-wear. Unlike the lumpen-kinder, I was wearing her psychedelic patchwork way back in the mid-80s as I cavorted around the sandbox, but how nice for you late-adopting kids to finally catch on.
Love you Rachel!
My buddy David Haskell of the great Topic Magazine has been guest-editing Gridskipper this week, and asked me for some HK recommendations. Ganghaih la! (”Of course!”, often shouted in Cantonese with a mixture of affection and derision– but no derision, only love, for anyone of the legendary Haskell clan.)
Here are some of my tips and photos currently up–
Seafood in Sai Kung
Causeway Bay’s Pet-Themed Cafes
Contemporary Art
Go get Topic when you can– any magazine founded with the help of some appropriated Gates Foundation stationary has got awesome points forever.
Stills and poster from “Shijie”, or “The World” by Jia Zhang-ke
I saw this movie last week at the end of the HK Film Festival, and it far exceeded all the hype surrounding it. Everyone has been talking about this movie (well, the people that have seen it at film festivals so far, since there is no set US release date), for a few major reasons–
1) Its director Jia Zhang-ke’s first “government sanctioned” film, meaning meaning it can legally play inside China (it just opened Friday, I haven’t heard much of the public response yet). Branded as an “underground filmmaker” since the beginning of his career, Jia has never gained government approval for his work, or was able to release his films in his own country, until now. Nobody seems to be crying “sell-out”, however most Chinese filmmakers and critics recognize that this may mark the beginning of a new, not-so-indie Chinese independent film scene.
2) It’s the quintessential “China movie of the moment”. In about two and a half hours, Jia deals with nearly all the hot-button “China issues”: globalization, cell phone culture, Beijing Olympics, designer brand piracy, industrial accidents, pollution, suicide, urban migration, diaspora, etc. etc. In short, it’s a China studies-sociologist’s wet dream on celluloid.
3) Beyond that, “The World” is bound to be a landmark Chinese film (particularly to Western eyes) because it is “sexy” and mainstream enough (though still highly-avant-garde) to create buzz and fill enough seats that it might just do what no Chinese movie has done (on a wide scale) in years: show Americans something about the lives of contemporary urban Chinese– no kung fu, no period concubines, no poor-rural-children tear-jerking. There have been hipster Taipei and Hong Kong films before, but this is one of the few Mainland movies that is gritty, hip and sophisticated all at the same time, and it couldn’t be coming at a better time.
4) This movie might also represent the newest stage of “post-modern” discourse, or “simulacra theory”, or something. Reverse Shot does a nice job at summing up these arguments with this piece, and I’m sure that the rest of academia is going to be frothing at the mouth about this movie soon enough. How can they not? The film is set at “World Park” in Beijing (a real place, the movie was shot there as well), an enormous theme park where all “the world” is reproduced in miniature. In “France”, an Eiffel Tower stretches upwards at 1/3 the scale; in “India”, Chinese girls in saris dance in front of a duplex-sized Taj Mahal. The main characters who work at the park (one such dancing girl, Tao, and her erstwhile boyfriend Taisheng) are engaged in the messy business of real life and love in the midst of artificiality- not just the setting, but other virtualities like fake designer bags and karaoke and cell-phone-only relationships (these occasional made even more false by lapses into non-diegetic animated sequences). In short, it’s also a critical theorists wet dream.
But how is the movie? Just in case you were worried all this “significance” was too great a burden for one film to bear, it’s not. The cinematography is breathtaking, the music is operatic and overwhelming, the story is startling and endless and inevitable, and most importantly the characters have real hearts that really beat. Even when they feel distant (from themselves and each other and the audience), they “tug” us all the same– Jia knows the power of a small figure in a long-shot landscape and isn’t afraid to use it. Though the ending is sad (an understatement, perhaps), and tragedy pervades the entire movie and all these tiny, fragile characters, we are left with some kind of exuberant possibility. For China? For Cinema? That just sounds pretentious, now, don’t it? But still. I walked out of the (supremely ugly TST Cultural Center) theatre into bright daylight, raw and excited for whatever comes next. It’s that kind of dihnying.
My friend Seiji Shirane, who teaches at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, weighs in with this insightful mini-essay on the anti-Japanese protests he saw on Sunday, April 10. 
[photo from Epoch Times]
Following yesterday’s public protests in Beijing, an anti-Japanese demonstration was held today in Guangzhou. Chinese students, workers, and families took to the streets in the Tianhe shopping district to protest Japan’s petition to join the UN Security Council, territorial disputes between Japan and China, and the Japanese government’s failure to revise its history textbooks and to stop the prime minister’s annual visit to Yasukuni shrine in commemoration of WWII soldiers.
From as early as 9am, swarms of extra policemen could be seen in the Tianhe subway station and on the streets, a precautionary measure to prevent riots from getting out of control. In the subway, volunteers ushered groups of students dressed in red shirts and bandanas towards the Tianhe Sports Center, where the protest would begin. People were dressed up as if they were fans going to a soccer game, wearing national colors, waving the Chinese flag, and carrying bags of water bottles and snacks to last them through the event.
As groups gathered in the subway, I saw Chinese girls jumping up and down in excitement as if they were heading to a music concert to see their favorite star. People passed out anti-Japanese t-shirts and took out their ready-made signs, written both in Chinese and English, for foreigners who might not read Chinese characters. “We won’t stop hating the Japanese until the last one dies.” “Boycott Japanese goods to prevent Japan from planning another military invasion.”
Starting from the Tianhe shopping mall, hundreds of Chinese protests walked along the main Tianhe road. We passed bystanders who watched with curiosity; a few took pictures. From the start, the noise was deafening. Although people were walking in the middle of the road, we could have been inside a stadium or concert hall. Organizers in the front would start a cheer, alternating between “Chinese patrioism” (Aiguo Zhuyi) and anti-Japanese phrases that I couldn’t quite understand. Some people would yell a random phrase and others would repeat it—I don’t know how Chinese people learned how to yell so loud and for so long. In between songs and slogans, people would clap and cheer as if China had just scored a goal.
Standing in the crowd, what struck me was not the hatred or resentment towards Japan. If I hadn’t been able to understand what people were saying, I could have easily mistaken the demonstration for a celebration. While they waved their flags, people were on their cell phones telling their girlfriends to join them at the next intersection. People were running up and down the street, pumping their fists. I passed by two old women on the sidewalk who were clapping their hands and smiling. They could have been cheering on marathon runners. “Yeah, that’s the spirit! Keep going!”
We passed by two Japanese restaurants a Japanese electronics store (Toshiba). They were obviously closed today. Though police egged the protesters to keep walking, many stopped and threw rocks and water bottles at the stores. Each time something was thrown, huge cheers erupted.
The police were everyone—on the sidewalks, on the street, in cars. But they were not doing anything to stop or tame the crowd. One policeman took out his video camera and was recording the historical event. Others cheered from their police cars. They did, however, try to keep traffic going. Buses and taxis kept slowing down on the other side of the street to watch the waves of people slowly make their way to the Tianhe police station.
In front of the gates of the police station, a student placed a stuffed animal on a long pole and raised it high into the air. The stuffed dog had Japanese flags with huge X marks on it. The crowd chanted, “Japanese dog,” as the student and other protestors tore the dog into shreds. Two foreigners, who were standing nearby, were then offered an anti-Japanese t-shirt and Chinese flag. As the Egyptian student raised the Chinese flag, the crowd roared as one protestor rushed over to hold hands with him as if to say, “We are friends in this protest. He is supporting us.” When I later asked him what he thought of the protest, he asked, “Why is it that China hates Japan?” When I explained to him what was going on and asked him why he supported China, he answered, “No real reason. I just live here. Hey, why is your English so good?”
Whether it was a young couple holding hands, parents on a family outing with their family, or groups of students, what frustrated me was how happy everyone looked. This should have been an angry protest, one where people looked frustrated, hurt, and ready to take revenge. It wasn’t supposed to be an enjoyable gathering. Shopkeepers and waitresses stood outside their stores or waved to us from their widows. The protest no doubt provided them with a break from their monotonous lives of service. But I still couldn’t understand: what were they all smiling about? Were they proud of their country, their people who were marching by the thousands in an obedient, orderly group? Were they amazed by the noise, or did they take aesthetic pleasure in the streams of red?
The demonstration reminded me of a novella (“Seventeen”) by the Japanese novelist, Kenzaburo Oe. In the story, the high-school protagonist joins a patriotic movement against the prolongation of the US occupation in post-war Japan. The protagonist is an overweight, insecure, lonely student with no sense of direction. By celebrating Japan’s “spiritual glory” and devoting himself to the antiquiated emperor, however, he gains a sense of purpose—he feels useful, important, and part of something larger than him.
Today’s protest was much more than an expression of hatred. It was a way for people to feel active, hopeful, and united. Rarely do you see taxi-cab drivers cheering on a Chinese student; nor do you often see waitresses smile and wave at businessmen on their day off from work. Everyone, from students to policemen were brought together with a common purpose. The mediocre, overweight student raising his flag with a huge smile on his face could forget his worries about finding a job—today he could pretend to be a hero, helping his country fight against an aggressive nation. The tired businessman could take his mind off work—it was more important to protest injustice.
During the entire morning, I did not see a single old man protesting. Aside from the old women who clapped their hands in glee, the old men I saw stood on the sidewalks in silence. That means that those who was protesting had been born after the war: they had never experienced the Japanese occupation nor the massacres (especially if their families came from Guangdong province). They had heard the stories from relatives or read and studied textbooks (authorized by the Chinese government), which hardly can be said to tell the entire truth.
And so few of these demonstrators have ever known a Japanese person; even fewer have been to Japan or been friends with one. Japan is an invisible enemy, one that cannot be seen or touched but has been designated as the country to fight against. In fact, it makes it easier that they cannot see or talk to the enemy. As a one-sided event, the demonstration was not an act of protest—it was an act of patriotism and a celebration of being Chinese. And this is why the Chinese government has been supportive in making such demonstrations public and quite organized.
It is obviously depressing to watch and hear about these anti-Japanese outbursts. Seventy years have passed since WWII, but Japanese-Chinese relations have improved very little. In my time here in China, I can do very little to convince such protestors to stop hating the Japanese. I can only watch, listen, and learn about how these people think. Few Chinese people want to hear from a “native” Japanese person the brighter sides of Japan. It is up to “native” Americans and Chinese people to do so.
On the other hand, the prospects of educating people in Japan seem also dim. My grandfather in Tokyo said that protests like today have little impact on Japanese people, even as they watch them on TV. “Japan has apologized and reflected on its past enough. The people here are just thinking, ‘Are the Chinese protesting and telling us to apologize again? That was a thing of the past.’” For one, I don’t think that Japanese people know to what extent Chinese people have been educated to hate Japan. But even if they did know, wouldn’t that make Chinese people seem threatening and irrational to Japanese people? Educating Japanese people how seemingly minor events (Yasukuni, textbooks, formal apologies) can create such hatred is an obvious answer,! but whether or not they will accept this and put pressure on its government to change any policies is questionable.
On a personal level, I’m sick of thinking about this topic. Even with close Chinese friends and students, I sometimes think “What’s the point? I should stop talking about it and just enjoy life.” What’s important is that my relationships with Chinese friends and students have not and will not change. Japan’s attempt to join the UN Security Council will not change how they think about me—anti-Japanese sentiment has been around far longer than this issue. Taking on the identify of a Korean on the street so that people won’t smirk and whisper to their neighbor, “He’s Japanese,” is a small price to pay for peace of mind.
check out some of the current hot jams in brazil’s emerging “baile funk” scene:
“Do Morro” translates to “of the hill”, and has been ingrained in brazilian slang as reflection of the culture of the segregated favelas that have firmly rooted themselves in the hills of Rio De Janeiro…This archive is intended to share the hip hop beat produced in the hills of Rio, the favelas of Sao Paolo, and the streets of Salvador – funky do morro: the funk of the hill…Much of this music was found with independent sellers, and produced in garages, with not much international distribution. Many of the individual artists on the track may remain anonymous to global audiences… (from the Evil-Wire page, click for mp3s, as well as here). Gritty, catchy, scuzzy, techy, news to my ears.
(courtesy of Sarah, who was, is, and always will be cooler than me)
Japan, Japan, Japan.
Just yesterday I was hanging out with a Japanese friend, walking through Causeway Bay, HK’s own equivalent to Shibuya (and often called “Little Japan”, both because of the concentration of Japanese chain stores and because it was an occupation site during WWII), after seeing a Japanese experimental bassist guest with HK musicians in a strange children’s music school, and we glanced up to the huge TV screen at Times Square (yes, Hong Kong has its own, a huge posh shopping mall) to see footage of the anti-Japan protests in Beijing. I had been following the news for days, but had yet to see any actual video, and it was pretty scary. Some other friends in China (both Japanese, Japanese-American, and everything else) have unsettling reports of the general anti-Japanese sentiment in various cities, especially recently, and it’s so odd to watch it play out from Hong Kong. In some ways, Hong Kong is so Japanese, compared to the Mainland (although Taiwan is too– but that’s a whole other story), and I doubt that there would ever be such violent protests here. Even though older folks have their bitter memories of the occupation here (or the atrocities they fled in China), young people just worship everything Yahtbunyahn.
Looking on the brighter side (of rising sun):
- My first report as “Hong Kong borderground source” (kind of like “cultural correspondent”, I think) for the Japanese bilingual webzine Shift is now online. Click on the picture below to see my thoughts about the recent public consultation exhibition for the ultra-controversial West Kowloon Project. 
- I finally got the first album by Afrirampo, an Osaka two-girl noise-rock-extravaganza that is currently taking the world (and now my bedroom) by storm
- It’s cherry-blossom time in JP, so all the Japan bloggers have beautiful pix that I am jealous of (though hopefully when I get there in May there will still be some in bloom)
(this one is from Chipple’s blog)
- In the meantime, I have the surreal symmetry of HK, its still-hazy mornings and twilights, museums, good friends, and schnauser-themed cafes. 
So on Saturday March 26th, I took a late train to Guangzhou, stayed at my friends’ flat, woke up early on a Sunday morning (early enough to see the old folks doing their morning exercises from out of Luke’s window), and got on a bus headed up to the border of Guangdong and Hunan provinces. I was headed there to see Back to Zhong Guo: Fools Move Mountains , an intriguing public art project sponsored by the awesome Guangzhou art center Vitamin Space. It took three hours to get there, and the winding roads and jarring freeways were enough to make some on our bus-ride physically ill. After finally arriving, there was a lunch, a school ceremony (of the children who had helped design the garden and would now be in charge of it), a rain storm, a sick friend, a slippery hike up a muddy mountain, some disputes with the child “managers” of the installation, the ultimate dream of a child’s playground (an “eternal garden”), then a tromp back down the hill, a cut hand on a rusty can, a soaked notebook, a broken cellphone, a lost cellphone, and somehow a five and a half hour bus-ride back to Guangzhou (resulting in a missed-last-train back into Hong Kong). It was an adventure. You can read more in the article I wrote for The Weekend Standard, an English newspaper in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong film industry may be hurting hurting these days, but for the few weeks of the 29th HK International Film Festival (March 22-April 6), movie magic was back in town. I was helping out on the red carpet for two of the opening gala nights, the premiere of A Very Long Engagement (co-sponsored by the French Consulate of Hong Kong) and the digitally remastered director’s cut of Centre Stage. For the “French night” (as everybody in the HKIFF office was calling it), I just had to stand at the mouth of the red carpet gauntlet, putting sticker-passes on all the lesser-important VIPs in attendance, and do a schizophrenic flip-flop between greeting guests in French and Cantonese. (That’s me below, looking bored as some French diplomat schmoozes with the festival director.) Jean-Pierre Jeunet showed up and was champagne-toasted by a random mix of HK B-listers and le gouvernement (that’s him third from left on the dais), and then we all went inside to watch the film (it was, well, very long. Pretty underwhelming. But then again I didn’t care for Amelie– I think it was all downhill after Marc Caro split). Night numero deux was much more exciting, what with a whole platoon of HK cinema royalty passing within arm’s-reach: TONY LEUNG KA-FAI, MAGGIE CHEUNG MAN-YUK, AND JACKIE (everybody in Hong Kong actually hates him) CHAN. The first two were radiant, awesome–Leung Ka-Fai (not Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, in case you were confused) still looking pretty hot even though it’s been over a decade since L’Amant (and my preteen crush on him); Maggie Cheung was positively glowing, as movie stars are said to do. Jackie Chan, well, he looks like Jackie Chan. Towards the end of the ceremony, one of the other volunteers whispered aggressively into my ear: “Jackie Chan is RIGHT BEHIND YOU.” I turned around to see him eating something over by a trash-can, surrounded by his entourage. This image would probably please many Hong Kongers, who generally consider him an ass these days because of all his “wild-child” (illegitimate child) and womanizing scandals. I take more issue with his recent track record of unbearable American movies.
(actually peking duck and beggar’s chicken, at the TST institution known as Spring Deer Restaurant)