Two Weeks Worth

Hi girls!

Wow! What a week! I’m sorry I couldn’t write my journal last week. I just finished my Econ 1 midterm today/yesterday (I see that it’s past 12 midnight now but I still feel like it’s the 23rd) and have been studying this past week. I’m so dead tired and yet, I still managed to turn in my short response for Obasan. I must say, this week is more stressful than last week. So I guess I’ll just double my words on this essay to make up for last week.
Precious, I know what you mean about the test. It was quite a hard one. At least we know that we’re not the only ones who struggled. I’m sure Christine and Chia-Chi will put that into consideration so don’t worry. At least this quiz showed us the intenseness of college quote tests because before this exam, I did not consider quote tests this difficult. But according to Christine, this exam is considered simple compared to other quote exams where you have to identify about 80 quotes in an hour. Now that’s difficult! Hopefully none of us will have to experience that!
So let’s talk about Obasan by Joy Kogawa. Firstly, I admit that I didn’t get to finish the book this time. I usually do but because of the midterm, I had to rearrange my schedule. I’ve read up to the part about Naomi talks about when she first learns about Hastings Park, where the Japanese/Japanese Canadians are interned. I’m actually excited to read about the Japanese Canadian internment because I’ve heard so much about Japanese internment in America but have no clue about the Canadian internment. I also find the themes and symbols in this book very interesting. I enjoyed the presenting group’s thoughts about themes and symbols. I will be sure to look out for them when I read through this book. I also find that this book ties with a few of the books we’ve already read, like the “perpetual foreigner” idea from My Country Versus Me, the search for identity from The Namesake combined with A Gesture Life. This book ties a lot of these themes with the other books and I find that interesting. Since this is the last book we’re reading, it seems like this book is a combination of past books. The only thing that is confusing is the constant flashbacks and the fact that this story is not told in chronological order. But then again, we have experience reading non-chronological ordered novels, like A Gesture Life and The Gangster We Are All Looking For.
Ever since I was young, I’ve always wondered why is it that in elementary school, I’ve read a lot of books about WWII and a lot about the internment and genocide of the Jews in Germany but my class never emphasized about the internment of the Japanese. I can see that, in some ways, the genocide of the Jews is a more serious situation and more horrible than what were happening to the Japanese but still, I think schools should also show the perspectives of those Japanese in internment camps. I feel like when I was in elementary and middle school, I learned much more about the imprisonment of the Jews than the Japanese—almost like they don’t really want to emphasize on that because the internment of the Japanese is the U.S.’s government’s fault while in the story of Jews in the camps, the U.S. government was viewed as the rescuing hero. I have a feeling that the U.S. government wouldn’t want to teach the students the various mistakes and racisms the U.S. made. This is why I enjoy Asian American classes so much and have taken Asian American Studies 20A, joined APATH, and am now taking Asian American R2A. I feel like I was never provided information about Asian Americans in the U.S. during elementary, middle, and even high school. I mean, why do we have to learn about the Civil Rights Movement but not about the discrimination and hate crimes against Asian Americans? What about some of our “civil rights movement”? Even though these movements are not as huge as the African Americans’ Civil Rights Movement, I think it’s still important to learn about it.
I don’t know if this can tie into Asian American studies, but last week on Thursday, as some of you know, there was a early screening of Jackie Chan’s and Jet Li’s new movie, The Forbidden Kingdom. Christine actually mentioned this movie during our discussion. Well, on that day, a bunch of us from APATH went to watch it (the line, by the way, went from Wheeler all the way up to the Campanili). I also noticed that the majority of the people are Asian. So the movie starts and of course, there were trailers. One of the most memorable trailers is the trailer for Bangkok Dangerous. This movie stars Nicholas Cage and takes place in Thailand. It depicts the Asians in this movie as evil or bad (at least that’s what I sensed). They were either gangsters or drug dealers. And Nicholas Cage, for some reason, is the hero and tries to stop the crimes. So again, the Caucasian is the hero and Asians are seen as criminals. In the whole movie, I only remember Nicholas Cage being the only non-Asian. Even being a foreigner in Thailand, Cage is seen as the only good person, seen trying to talk some “sense” to these Thai people. I think it’s movies like these that generates further stereotypes of Asians.
Anyway, to the actual movie: I’m not going to lie. This movie is funny. I personally like Jackie Chan movies but hate it when they insert stereotypical things. But in this movie, Jackie Chan and Jet Li are portraying ancient Chinese people so there was less of that. To me, this movie is a major improvement for Asian Americans because they eliminated a lot of stereotypical roles of Asian Americans, like the Chinadoll. In the movie, the main character (who is White) naturally falls in love with the Asian main character girl. But he never really got her. The movie doesn’t make the White guy almighty and powerful, getting all the girls or learning martial arts easily. And for once, I think, the movie credited Jackie Chan and Jet Li first, before the White main character. I was very surprised at that. But there were some flaws with the movie. Again, the movie portrayed China or ancient China as some place foreign, some place mythical and mystical. The Chinese were portrayed as kung-fu fighting people again. There were other things but I forgot. But overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was hilarious. More power to Asians/Asian Americans!!


-Jennifer Yeung