Tuesday

The Beautiful Country (film)

• First and foremost, Tam didn’t need to die to emphasize the treacherous journey of leaving your country if you don’t have money. The way they were treated like cattle and labor machines made it clear enough. If it was for shock effect, that’s even worse.
• The captain’s white saviorism made me feel very scared for Binh. I thought he’d be tasked with hard labor and inhumane working conditions but the captain was just had weird (disgusting) fetish eyes.
• Developing relationships based on English is very Eurocentric when I felt like people could have different things in common that they’d care about more like needing money for survival, familial love, etc. These things don’t have to be communicated verbally.
• To me, it seemed like the father left because he was just a GI creating war children and my heart sunk when he walked past Binh. But later finding out he was blind and didn’t want to burden his wife was probably the first sigh of relief I had throughout the movie.
• In a similar note, we see Binh lose family and hope often but I think his most telling outburst was when he was painting the fence with his father. Arguably, that was also his most expressive. I don’t recall what was said but I do recall leaving his mother, Tam, and Ling, Binh was very quiet but clearly upset. For him to throw things and walk away (aside from the time he fought the gambler on the ship or finding out about free airfare), it was more of an outburst than silent suffering.
• The theme of home was everywhere, especially leaving home as they were places, people, and livelihood.

Friday Morning

• Your theme and color palette affects accessibility and navigation – just as important as content.
• If you’re feeling confident or have some fail safes, toying with CSS would be nifty, especially if the themes don’t have the combination of features you want.

Friday Afternoon

Vietnamese Music Videos

• Both MV’s utilized English – as much of non-European pop media does anyway.
• All performers had very light skin.
• Interestingly enough, the first music video’s subtitles did not translate the Vietnamese into English but just had pronunciation.

Seminar

• Post-colonialism/imperialism doesn’t exist (yet) since the mechanics and mentalities remain the same.
• The major recurring themes throughout all texts is finding home, family secrets, war/war scars, and fathers (though this book wasn’t as father centered as the others).
• Vinh reminded me of one my sons and how I feel about him – it is because I love him I will not excuse any crimes against humanity. It really fucked me up, honestly.
• White saviors do not heal the scars of colonialism/imperialism but agitate them if not reopen.
• There was a dream like feeling sometimes and much like Donald Duk, sometimes it’s best if the reader isn’t entirely sure what is reality or if what is being described should be a literally taken.