If anyone is interested in seeing a good presentation of Miss Saigon, which is what King and I are discussing here, check out this Youtube page–you can see the entire production.  There are scenes that are not in the CD soundtrack, although I’m pretty sure I remember them from the original production.  This was done by the kids at JJ Pearce High School.  They’re highly talented, especially the two kids who played Kim and the Engineer.  I hope both of them have a future as actors–I see lots of potential.

I don’t want to debate the production itself–they’re kids, after all–but I’d like to go back to my original activist proposal in the review of Miss Saigon.  What if we redid the casting so that there were Asian American actors playing Chris and John?  Would it be racist?  Or would it be as racist?  Larry posted this article, and I agree with much of what the author Yoshikawa wrote during the ’90’s, but looking back from our standpoint in 2010, are we missing some positive aspects of Miss Saigon?  Could an Asian American theater group possibly use the production to create something bigger and better?

Already, I can think of many ways in which just the high school production above could teach these kids something about deeper emotions.  What if we could use this creation for something good?

(Sorry for posting the embedded violent scene above.  That was the only scene between the two Asian American (I think) actors.  :)  )

bigWOWO rating: Asian American Silver

I only use the bigWOWO rating system for works created by Asians or Asian Americans.  In this case, I believe I’m being consistent since Miss Saigon isn’t just a work written by a bunch of White dudes but also a musical performed by one of the greatest voices in history, which happens to belong to an Asian woman.  I also don’t usually review plays twenty years after seeing them, but since I’ve been on a Lea Salonga kick, I figured now is as good a time as ever.  I got the soundtrack from the library, and I’ve been reliving my initial impressions of the musical.  (I never got to see Lea perform it.  I think she was sick on the night I went to the theater, so I saw the understudy.)

Miss Saigon is based on Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.  According to the book jacket, the writers saw a photo of a Vietnamese woman with a mixed race child, and they modified the Butterfly theme to create a love story between a Vietnamese bar girl named Kim and a White American GI named Chris.  Along the way, there are interesting characters such as the Engineer, Kim’s Eurasian pimp, and John, Chris’s best friend.  There’s also an evil Vietnamese suitor for Kim’s affection, whom she dispatches with a bullet as he tries to murder her son.  As with the Madame Butterfly story, Chris eventually remarries a White woman, and when he and his wife go back to Vietnam to see the son he had with Kim, Kim kills herself.

If you asked me in high school what I thought of Miss Saigon, I’d say that it was racist.  This was back in the day when Frank Chin destroyed my life by making me question anti-Asian racial stereotyping and caricatures.  Frank was right, and I was right.  Listening to the soundtrack after all these years confirms that I had at least an ounce of intelligence in high school.  I still can’t sit through the whole thing, what with the racist caricature of Thuy, the Vietnamese suitor/stereotype which the writers use as a foil to make the White hero look good, and I cringe every time I hear him sing.

That being said, I’m giving this a silver rating.  Here’s why:

Even though this work is racist against Asian men, it’s portrays some high quality expression for Asian women.  Think about it–the character of Kim proves loyalty towards her romantic love, strength and maternal love in protecting her child, and an enormous capacity to see beauty.  Aside from possibly the Asian hooker stereotype, the portrayal of Asian women isn’t bad.  In fact, it’s quite good.  Kim is as fully developed as any character in the Western musical world.  Lea Salonga’s voice is absolutely beautiful, and this musical gave her the opportunity to shine.  The world received a great gift through the opportunity to hear her voice.

There are also other very well developed relationships.  The bond between Chris and John, for example, demonstrates brotherhood as the men look out for one another during and after the war.  Chris’s American wife Ellen, demonstrates fortitude and support behind her man.  The Engineer demonstrates a love for capitalism and entrepreneurship, and even though he’s a pimp, he’s an endearing character.

Artistically, Miss Saigon was good.  The music composition is top notch, and the producers found actors with incredible voices and range.  If I remember correctly, the helicopter scene was spectacular.  You gotta love Broadway!

So in sum with regards to the rating: I can’t give this a gold rating since it’s racist against Asian men, but I can give it a silver rating since it was artistically great AND portrayed Asian women well.

I also have some activist words to add to this post.

If you all remember, when Miss Saigon first came out, people were up in arms about the fact that the Eurasian Engineer was to be played by Jonathan Pryce, a White guy.  You can see the story here under “Controversy.”  The argument was similar to arguments that we hear today–roles for Asian Americans are so few and far between that when one comes up, they should reserve it for an Asian person.  As it says in the Wiki entry, there was a well publicized international search for the Asian female lead which led them to Lea Salonga, but there was almost no search at all for the two Asian male roles of the pimpin’ Engineer and the evil Viet Cong Thuy.  In the end, they gave both roles to White guys who wore yellowface. Thuy, of course, was a minor role anyway–his main function was just to make the White man look good, and to make the Vietnam War look like an act of Asian male aggression against the West. Kim puts a bullet through Thuy before the end of the first act.

I agree with the Asian actors who complained about the casting.  Sure, some detractors were saying that Asian actors shouldn’t be fighting over a role for a pimp, but I thought the role was decent.  Besides, I understand where these Asian actors are coming from–it seems that Asian actors do a disproportionate amount of waiting for roles.  If I were an Asian actor, I too would be impatient.

But here’s something that is funny if you think about it: these Asian actors were fighting over the Asian roles–the Engineer and Thuy.  They weren’t fighting over the White roles–Chris and John (I think John was played by a black guy in the version I saw).  Here’s the question: why couldn’t an Asian man play the male lead character of Chris? Marketing, you might say.  You might say that Miss Saigon would not be as successful if they put a fellow yellow opposite an Asian female lead, especially as the main point of the play was to demonstrate love between East and West (or, to be more accurate, love between Asian Women and White Men).  And you’d be right.  It would’ve been a complete and abject failure if they put anything other than a White man in the leading role.

However, now that we’re twenty years past the opening of Miss Saigon, wouldn’t it be cool to put an Asian man into that role, just to give an Asian man the ability to use this musical, along with the beautiful singing and instrumentation, to express himself?  Wouldn’t it be awesome to see an Asian male and female in opposite leading roles?  I’m thinking not about commercial success, but rather about how people could use this musical to move ideas, to create community bonds, and to serve as a launching pad for greater activism.  If I were an actor, I would love to be able to sing Chris’s part.  I actually think the play would be better if you filled all the roles with Asian actors and removed the racial component.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.

Thanks to everyone who wrote letters and signed the petition!

Etain, thanks for sending this.

In the video above, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie talks about what she calls “the danger of the single story” and how stereotypes can warp a culture’s perception of the people of another culture when there are not many stories told about that other culture. She talks about growing up in Africa reading the stories of Americans and British, and how she felt people like her could not “exist in literature.” She talks about how power comes into the equation, and how stories can make or break the dignity of a people. My favorite quote was this: “The problem with stereotypes is not that they’re untrue but that they’re incomplete.” (around 13 min.)

Check it out.

The video above is encouraging Taiwanese Americans to check the “other” box on the U.S. Census and to write in “Taiwanese.”  In other words, don’t check the “Chinese” box, but rather write in “Taiwanese.”

I’ve found that the best way to make yourself unpopular is to discuss Chinese and Taiwanese politics. Don’t do it. Don’t ever ever do it. Sure, rail against rice chasers who poison our communities. Rail against the angry Asian men who oppress Asian women and supposedly bind their feet. But do not…DO NOT discuss Chinese and Taiwanese politics. When you’re in a room full of Chinese and Taiwanese people, the two worst moves you can make is:

1. To say that you think Chinese and Taiwanese is the same ethnicity.
2. To say that you think Chinese and Taiwanese is different.

The best move you can make is to just shut up and let everyone around you talk.  I’m a dark brown Southern Chinese, so I’m not going to share my own views on this.  But here are two perspectives from the youtube comments:

#1:

dancer131822

i am taiwanese american and i am proud of it.
tw is not just a political mvmt, it’s a nation of individuals, a culture, an identity
we have our own language, but the more commonly used one is Mandarin since we know it will be an asset in the future.
the people of tw do not see themselves as chinese because they are not. many fled because they disliked communism, not because they were KMT.

#2:

rdshen

This is clearly a blatant attempt to split Asian American unity and to betray Chinese American organizations such as the OCA who have fought vehemently for our civil rights for the past 40 years. By writing in “Taiwanese,” these organizations will lose clout and funding due to a potential undercount of Chinese Americans. So in return for what the OCA and others have fought for us, it appears that some of us will seek to undermine them. I am Taiwanese American and I will be marking “Chinese.”

Those who use anonymous handles can feel free to comment below.  Those who don’t…well, comment at your own risk.

(Thanks to to one of my anonymous readers for this.)

In accordance with FTC disclosure rules, I received a free copy of this movie.  I’ll try to be unbiased.  I thank Laurel at Take Part for sending it.

Before I begin, let me share why I was interested in seeing this film.  As you know, I’m a quiet environmentalist who is interested in preserving the earth.  I’ve blogged about fish and shark fin soup in the past, and I wholeheartedly believe that we all need to do more to protect our seas.  I also love eating fish, and I encourage people to consume fish responsibly.  Hearing that this film was set in Japan where I spent a year after graduation sealed my interest in finding out what this film was about.

The Cove was a documentary about a group of Americans and Canadians who travel to Taiji, Japan to stop the slaughter of dolphins.  According to the documentary, Taiji is located along a path that dolphins have swum for thousands of years, and it has developed into one of the world’s top cities for the capture of dolphins for both show and for meat.  The leader of the group, Ric O’Barry, who was the trainer of the dolphins for the 60’s show Flipper, believes that dolphins do not belong in captivity.  The film makes the case that dolphins are animals of higher intelligence that do not belong in captivity, and that dolphin meat is dangerous because of high mercury levels.

So first let me start with my criticism.  This is an Asian American blog, and as such, I’m obligated to describe the racial aspects of the Cove.  In this film, ALL the White people are good, virtually all the Asians are bad, and all but one of the Black people are tools that the Asian people hire to thwart the moral agenda. I wish this were an exaggeration, but it isn’t.  A bunch of White people went to Japan to tell Asians how it’s supposed to be done, they met a whole bunch of resistance from the evil Asians in Taiji, along with unfortunate ignorance from the Asians in Tokyo, and along the way, they discovered that Japan buys influence in the International Whaling Commission by bribing poor Africans whose loyalty is for sale–one former IFC White guy even accuses the Black people from poor countries of “prostituting themselves for a few yen.”

Now I’m way beyond pointing out racial portrayals just for the sake of racial portrayals.  I understand how in the zeal of the moment it’s possible to miss the racial stereotyping, especially when you’re moving forward towards a cause that you really care about.  But I think there were some areas that could have improved through better inclusivity and awareness of different cultures.  I’ll quickly list a few:

1. How is it possible not to find or report or connect with any environmentalists in Japan?  Are you telling me that a country of 127 million people has no dolphin lovers?  O’Barry and Company could have benefited from a partnership with these Japanese animal rights groups.  I think that’s an unfortunate non-use of good resources.

2. There were quite a few, um, culturally insensitive moments when the American and Canadian people were screaming at rural Japanese fishermen in English. Having spent time in a rural area of Japan, I can tell you that it’s useless to yell at rural folk in a foreign language, and it’s a bit arrogant, given that one should not expect Japanese people to speak English.

3. O’Barry accuses the people of Taiji of lying about cultural whaling/dolphining traditions, and then the filmmaker “proves” them wrong by asking people in Tokyo about “Japanese” traditions.  It’s like asking a New Yorker about traditions in small town Kentucky.   “OMG, you don’t know about the annual turkey hunt?  Those people in Kentucky must be lying!”

Moving on…

The film is beautifully shot, well researched, and engaging.  Aside from the criticisms above, the crew did what activists do–find a cause, try to create change, educate people, and get on the news.  O’Barry, who has the fame/notoriety of training the dolphins who played Flipper, lends the campaign credibility as an expert who has spent lots of time around dolphins.  There were a number of areas that the film covers well.

First, they did an excellent job of describing why dolphins do not function well in captivity.  Dolphins are primarily sound-based animals who communicate and navigate through sonar.  Trapped between walls of concrete in front of cheering crowds can be torturous for the animals. They also “humanized” dolphins well, discussing the numerous stories about how dolphins have saved humans and seem to have empathy.  Having Ric O’Barry share his personal story about “Cathy,” one of the dolphins from Flipper, was heartrending.  This film did an excellent job of presenting the true majesty of dolphins.

Second, I appreciated the research that went into the activist campaign.  In order to focus and expand on this campaign, the leaders had to find Taiji, and then they had to do all the research on where the dolphin meat goes, how it is related to the Tsukiji Fish Market, and how the politics of the International Whaling Commission work.  I knew a little bit about the Tsukiji Fish Market, but the other stuff was all unknown to me.  Props to them for their research and work in tracking down the relevant data.

Third, smuggling the hidden cameras into the cove was a great idea.  Some of the footage they got were chilling.  The ocean literally fills with red blood as the fisherman spear and slash the dolphins.  It was gruesome.  This was exactly the kind of footage they needed to make their point.  You can see the dolphins struggling to live as the fishermen slash and stab.

They wind up making their point, and if you look at this follow up from O’Barry, it looks like his campaign was successful, at least temporarily: Dolphin Slaughter Suspended.

I think people should see this movie.  It was highly informative, and I fully support the filmmaker’s goal of protecting dolphins.  Coming from a Chinese background and seeing how the Japanese have whitewashed their history textbooks to exclude Nanjing and other war atrocities, I understand the frustration in getting government support in Japan.  Dolphins ought to be protected, culture or not.

I question how we could achieve an alternative–Japan has been suffering from a stagnant economy for almost twenty years now, and with a falling birthrate along with a terrible immigration policy, there would have to be a dramatic reorganization to put those Taiji fishermen to work in other fields.  The work question is one which goes outside just environmentalism–it’s hard to get people working in other fields when there are no other jobs, especially in rural villages where unemployment is bad to begin with.  That was also part of the cultural insensitivity that I harped about earlier in this post–they might be doing something wrong, but there needs to be an alternative.

In any case, check out this movie.  You can rent it from Netflix.

I should’ve been writing last night, but I couldn’t stop watching the video above. I think most of my readers are around my age, but for those who are younger, Lea Salonga, the original Miss Saigon, was the international Filipina superstar of my youth. I think she was the first international Filipina superstar period. She was like the Manny Pacquiao of our day.

Her voice is BEAUTIFUL. And for you haters out there (haters who hate Asian men, that is), she married an Asian guy. She eventually played Eponine in Les Miserables and was the singing voice for Princess Jasmine in the Disney animated Aladdin.

Check out the video below. Her voice conquers the room.

I’m literally years away from finding out what happens when you complete a novel and market it, but if you’re wondering exactly where the money goes when you buy a book at Barnes and Noble, click the image above or check out this informative article by Motoko Rich comparing print and E-books. 

If you had asked me a year ago about this article, I probably would argue that the economics are flawed since people invested in a Kindle and who therefore have access to lower priced books might be willing to buy more books.  I would argue that there would be more money because of the greater volume.  I’m not bullish on the economy these days.  It looks like the media in general is hurting.  As Anne Rice mentions at the end of the article, however, building a dam isn’t going to stop the inevitable.

I was shocked.  I didn’t know what to say.  I was out of words before the war of words even began.

One of my black female coworkers quickly shot in, “Well, Jamie [I think that was his name], they didn’t give one to you!”  Everyone laughed again.  Once everyone dispersed, my female coworker said, “Byron, you gotta defend yourself.  Put him in his place!”

Coming from a monoethnic background (haha…white), I later learned that many African Americans play a game when growing up called “Playing the Dozens.”  In the game, people throw playful insults back and forth in front of a public audience.  It helps develop wit, quickness, and confidence.  It explained a bit about how easily Jamie owned me, and how easily my female coworker shot him down.

Just last week, King mentioned another game that some in the African American community play.  It’s called “Working on Your Mack.”  In this game, boys and girls playfully exchange flirts and rejections.  I’ll reference King’s words:

In my neighborhood (African Ameican) growing up, there was an old tradition of “workin’ on your mack” which was kind of a game. Every guy tried out all the most ridiculous lines on the girls—it didn’t matter if you liked them or not. The guys threw out the macks, the girls always shot them down, and it was kind of a joke that everyone enjoyed. Guys thinking of creative and clever ways to mack up the girls, and girls thinking of even more clever ways to turn down the guys. But since it was a game nobody took the put-downs personally. You were going to get a “no” either way and this annulled any pressure . Every now and then, a guy came up with something so creative, so smooth, so dap, that everybody had to give him props. But success was rare and hard to come by.

But by time we were in our mid- teens, we had been soundly rejected so many times and so badly, that we really were all quite immune to it. If a girl said “no”, it was “no,” but we didn’t really sweat it, because it was just like in our little game, you try again with something better later. Also, the girls all got used to guys asking them out and throwing pure BS at them. In the end, the boys turned out bolder, and more confident, and the girls ended up wiserm confident, and knew how to deal with male BSers.

I think games like this are great.  As King later mentioned in the thread, games teach us a lot that we need in life.  In this case, “playing the dozens” and “working on your mack” both achieve the same goal–they teach confidence, quickness on one’s feet, and fast creativity.  Jamie owned me because he was faster than me, and my female coworker owned him because she was faster than him.  We have all this talk in the AA blogosphere about PUA, canned lines, negging, AMOGing, and all these other dirty tricks.  This kind of negative thinking appeals to some Asian men because our culture doesn’t have the games in adolescence that build personal speed and display personality.  How great it would be if we could somehow change our culture to incorporate similar games in order to help our young men and women today?  These games wouldn’t just help Asian men either.  They could help Asian women develop similar speed and performance ability to stand up for themselves as well.

What do you all think?

(I actually had a lot more to say about this.  I was going to talk about stereotypical sales styles and flirting styles among Asian American men, etc., but I’ll just open the floor for more enlightened contributors.)