June 5 Pacific Islands:
Guam
Hawaii
Samoa
Tahiti
Fiji
Papua New Guinea
Tonga
Kiribati
Nauru
Solomon Islands
New Zealand
Vanuatu
Palau
French Polynesia
Marshall Islands
Okinawa
American Samoa
Pacific Theater – WWII battles between America and Japan
1941-1945
60% of islanders died
400 military bases throughout the Pacific Islands (220 in Hawaii alone)
Bikini Atoll – nuclear bomb testing site, used 23 times, people only removed after the fifth test, concrete domes
cancer and radiation poisoning in Kiribati and Vanuatu
missile testing still happening in the Pacific
42 injured or killed last year in Okinawa alone due to testing
50% of the landmass is devoted to American militarization
Pivot to the Pacific, relocating 80% of overseas military presence to the Pacific Islands to combat China and North Korea
militarization contributes to global warming
3% of the world’s population, 15% of the global surface
islands disproportionately affected by climate change
Vanuatu most at risk nation in the world
7 of 15 most at risk countries are Pacific Islands
350 Warriors, 350 islands
Boy, 2010, dir. Taika Waititi
1984
boy idolizes his father and Michael Jackson
“potential”
June 7 Fashion of the Pacific Islands
lavalava – Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Melanesia, Micronesia (‘ie), made from barkcloth fiber, related to sarongs, pareu, tupenu
muumuu – loose dress, Hawaiian origin, formal (weddings), Merrie Monarch Festival, maternal wear
ta’ovala – Tongan waist skirt, old legend of a boat sail (Tu’i Tonga), designated an official part of civil servant uniforms by Queen Salote Tupou III
Tapa cloth – name from Tahiti and the Cook Islands, thinner barkcloth, various names in the Pacific Islands
lei – wreath or necklace made of flowers, gift for almost any occasion, circle represents family unity
maile lei – tribute to spirits of Hula
ti lei – repels evil spirits
forbidden to place a lei over the chief’s (ali’i) head
Hawaiian shirts – “aloha shirt,” can be bright/subdued, cluttered/sparse (native vs. tourist), culture, counterculture, rebellion, and appropriation
Aloha Fridays and the workplace, primary textile export of Hawaii
created by Japanese immigrant Koichiro Miyamoto
1841 – Sugar Plantation Era, influx of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Portuguese laborers
Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole)
Elements – Japanese kimono cloth, Chinese silks, Filipino barong, collar from American style shirts
Hawaiian shirts as symbol of tourism and pop culture
Polynesian Tattoos
“tatau,” honor, strength, virtues of Samoa
art form over 2000 years old
used to express personality and identity in place of writing
Western exposure to tattoos via James Cook in 1771, brought a Tahitian (Ma’i) back to Europe
banned in the 18th century, Christian missionaries attempted to purge the tradition
1986 – Ministry of Health banned tattooing in French Polynesia
Polynesia – many islands
Micronesia – small islands
Melanesia – black islands
altogether – Pasifika
Pasifika Representation
People
Dwayne Johnson (Samoan)
Auli’i Cravalho (Hawaiian)
Jemaine Clement (Maori)
Keanu Reeves (Hawaiian)
Paulini Curuenavuli (Fijian)
Sioue Takitaki (Tongan)
Nicole Scherzinger (Hawaiian, Filipinx)
KJ Apa (Samoan)
Billionna Reyes (Chamorro)
Keisha Castle-Hughes (Maori)
Vaitiare Hirshon (Tahitian)
Tamina Snuka (Fijian, Samoan)
Taika Waititi (Maori)
Dinah Jane Hansen (Tongan)
Pia Mia Perez (Chamorro)
Trina Grandinetti (Okinawan)
Jason Momoa (Hawaiian)
House of Skin The shark introduced at the start of the story is almost certainly standing in for something, but exactly what I’m not sure. Rachel mentions that “We Hawaiians are all descendants of sharks.” She seems the most attached to it when Hiro is gone, and yet, like Hiro, it is mentioned as almost ignoring her. The fact that Rachel ends up killing the shark is notable for what she ends up doing to Hiro.
Carp appear as another example of aquatic life that seem to serve a greater purpose in the story. Hiro mentions that they “await the knife without flinching.” Carp are also among the animals found tattooed on Hiro’s body, implying a connection between them.
Hiro’s tattoos are very obviously important in the story. Their exact significance is something the perspective character spends their time pondering. She at times takes it as a vulnerability, mentioning that she believes people with tattooed skin live shorter lives, and that the tattoo artist’s needle was “perhaps the first thing to pierce his unfeeling and unfelt existence.
Alternatively the tattoos are also described as “Hiro’s armor against the world.” With Hiro mentioning that he spends so much time in Hong Kong because the city leaves him alone, and the indirect manner in which he communicates most often, we get an image of Hiro as being isolationist in nature, and his relationship with Rachel seems antithetical to that part of him.
The Lipstick Tree
The woman’s role in society is a central concern of the story, and the primary motivator for Eva to abandon her society completely. We see the harsh effects of the treatment women face in Agnes, and mentions of many other women who chose to die rather than keep living this way. Eva, watching this happen and living through severe punishments of her own, seeks a way to escape to a better life. This desire is summarized with the line “Feed your mind. Live up to your capacity.”
The means of her escape seems to come from the influence of white colonizers. The earliest mention of this is in regards to language, with “she saw that the white man’s language was her passport to the outside world.” While Eva looks to this as her means of breaking away from the society that so badly mistreats her, she also takes note of the ways this influence has suppressed her people. “She reflected sadly on how her people were now paid to serve the white men they once ate.”
Various luxuries stand in for the influence of colonization in Papua New Guinea. Eva is given a perfume to use after customers begin complaining of her smell, which her husband takes to mean she’s been sleeping with white men and beats her. Lipstick (present in the title) is seen as a means of fitting in or conforming to society’s expectations, with Eva applying some from the lipstick tree in preparation to make her way to Wewak.
An interesting thing to note about Eva’s journey is what gets left behind. A literal example is Kona, who Eva abandons. Less literally, there’s mention that traces of Eva will remain in her village, just as traces of her village will remain in Eva. “You leave the Sepik. It never leaves you,” effectively summarizes that Eva will always have that history as a part of her wherever she goes. “She lived on only in the tears of the daughters of memory,” refers to the women who remain in the village.
Dragon Seed As in the previous story, characters in this one show a desire to escape from their home. For Wu and Ming, Jin served as a gateway to the wider world. Wu decides to join the army, going along with his statement that he has to “leave Honolulu or die.”
Drugs in the story are used by the characters as a means of escape when no other option is presented. The way the characters treat it shows a certain sort of carelessness, or rather a sense that if they go about it the right way they won’t bring any harm to themselves. “He promised we’d never grow addicted. If we respected Dragon Seed it would respect us.”
There’s brief mention of most of the characters being mixed race, with special attention given to Jin in this regard. “She was mix-marriage mongrel like most of us… but her carriage, her vowels were pureblood, her fine skin ‘one pound powder’ pale.” This implies a lot about the treatment of mixed people, namely that they are viewed as lesser, a treatment Jin manages to escape by appearing to be “pure.”
Lupus is referred to as “Jin’s legacy.” It seems as though, in inspiring Wu and Ming with the potential of the rest of the world, she was setting them up to do better than she had done for herself. Yet they end up falling into the same behavior, eventually suffering from the same disease.
Rosie and Jake at Top Speed One of the more recurring themes in the story is the way that Nauru is being eaten away at by the exploitation of its natural resources. This concept is best conveyed through the line “They had become consumers. If the future couldn’t give them peace of mind, luxuries would.”
Tito’s feelings towards prosthetic are made clear when he responds to the suggestion with anger, stating “I not gonna’ be no fucking entertain- ment.” This rejection of using prosthetic or other means of dealing with a physical disability are not uncommon, and I was interested to see it being used here.
Jake also reflects some of the same feeling at the suggestion of getting a pacemaker, remarking, “I don’t want that kind of life. Half-machine. A freak.” This is used to suggest the similarities between Tito and Jake and their frustrations at the conditions they must live with.
Jake’s attempts to get through to Tito reveal his belief that what is really holding Tito back is not physical disability, but a mental barrier he’s created for himself, arguing that he’s “crippled from lack of will.”
Fork Used in Eating Reverend Baker Prejudice against Hindis in Fiji makes up some of the backdrop for the story. Looking into the relationship between different Asian groups rather than between those Asian groups and white people has provided some of the more enlightening elements of this program. This is point is best made with the quote “We look down on the Indians, they look down on us. We’ve been living together so long, it’s a kind of symbiosis between the cultures.”
As with previous stories, the idea of leaving home and being changed by the outside world is a prominent concern for Annabel. “Somewhere in the breaking out and sailing forth, her many selves had begot other selves. Her mother was dead, and she was a different person, and so she same home and mourned for two.”
Another common element in many of the stories this quarter, Annabel’s decision is justified to herself by her desire for a future. “I didn’t want to stay. I just wanted a medical degree, a future. There are so few things I ever really wanted.”
The fork referred to in the title is referring to the way societies have changed with time and with exposure to white settlers. Their people now subjugated, the fork is used as a “symbol of fierce Taukei pride, reminders that they were the eaters of man.”
War Doll Hotel Exoticization is one of the more pernicious ways that racism manifests. In portraying people of foreign cultures as strange and otherworldly, even in an attempt to make these traits a point of attraction, people are really only calling attention to the differences they perceive between people, often in broad and generalizing ways. “My father said people saw her as ‘exotic,’ which is what one says about those they think of as foreign, even inferior.”
Confusion of identity is presented as one of the problems the perspective character is dealing with, showing that she receives assurances from her mother which of her identities comes first. “I tell her I’m confused, not sure of what I am, Hawaiian or Caucasian. Both she says. What am I first? I ask. She does not hesitate. Hawaiian.”
The story makes a compelling argument about the attempts at discovering one’s identity and its importance in life. “I would lose a whole decade, all of my twenties, before I understood that recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It’s the main point.”
The effect of the gaze as a means of power being exerted over others is made a point of in the story. “First, Americans look right through you. When they finally see you, they stare because you’re ‘foreign.’ Then the novelty wears off. You’re invisible again.” This quote excellently captures the effect of existing in public spaces and being seen as a non-white passing individual.
Her Walking Stick
The way traditions are commodified for the sake of the tourism industry factors heavily in this story. Sali’s efforts to impress tourists is specifically tailored to meet the stereotypical expectations they hold of him and his culture. “The sheath is for the tourists. Sali favors jeans and Nikes, speaks English, and eats with a knife and fork.”
The way that this practice begins to change and reshape the original traditions is broached as well. Sali’s mother explains the harm of what he’s doing. “White tourists want excitement, a splashy death. You make a joke of our tradition, doing it half-wrong, half-right for money. Without speech-making you insult our ancestors.”
Gender and religion both come up not only as separate factors in the story, but also come together to examine their combined effect. “She suspects if God were a woman, She would drop this expensive middle-man. Even in religion Mama is struck by the one-sided gender of things.”
I’d heard the term “cargo cult” before but never really explored what it meant or what history it had come from. This story served as a good means to introduce and explain these concepts and the impact it’s had on people, as yet another effect of people being exposed to white colonizers.
Bones of the Inner Ear There’s a chain of men returning from war damaged in this story, at first presented in physical terms but further explored in terms of the effect on the mind. This lead in serves to introduce other forms of trauma that are inflicted at home.
The inheritance of abuse is absolutely central to this story. It’s seen and portrayed as a thing that gets handed down generation to generation. Speaking of Kiki, the narrator mentions that “she was afraid she would inherit her mother’s temper.”
The justification abusers give for their behavior is given an effective and horrifying portrayal in this story, when the mother remarks that “scars make her interesting.” This echoes so many common lies used by people who seek some means to justify the terrible things they do with their power over other people, from victim blaming to attempting to portray what’s being done as ultimately beneficial.
This inheritance is portrayed as a force that can be fought against, with several choice quotes arguing that genes are not determinant of where these people will end up for having lived through the trauma they faced. “I love this woman more and more. Our genes are warped together. Her morphology is mine. I love her because she’s still fighting the hole that wants to suck her in.”
“I feel her toughness and her tremor, as if her blood is already marshaling tiny armies that will reinstruct her genes. As if she is already breaking the mold, honoring the daughters born with no clues or codes, and the mothers of those daughters – golden, slow-hipped women who should have been running, not dancing.”
I didn’t know what I was in for when I first got into Metal Gear. My first exposure to the series was Metal Gear Solid 3, which would have been around when I was thirteen. At that point I wasn’t looking to get anything out of it but to be decently entertained for a few hours at a time, without having to think too much about what I was actually engaged in. The idea of playing a game for any other reason wouldn’t have occurred to me. What I expected from it was based on what little I knew beforehand. The lead character, Snake, was familiar, as was the low growl he has for a voice. I knew the setting and the plot were at least vaguely realistic. That was pretty much it.
The thing I didn’t know about Metal Gear was that it is outright silly. Here I was coming in expecting straightforward action fare and being presented with a cast of colorful characters with over the top personalities and bizarre supernatural abilities. The game presents absurd concepts and characters without so much as a wink and a nod, and no attempt whatsoever at justification. You’re either willing to accept the things it puts forth at face value or you’re not, and in the latter case I imagine the whole thing just wouldn’t work. After its opening, the game puts on a bombastic lyrical title sequence in the style of James Bond, which was the last piece I needed to really understand what this thing was. It’s parody. It’s a pastiche of various genre elements, all exaggerated to a hilarious extent, and very clearly not meant to be taken seriously. Now knowing what to expect, I went in to see the rest of the game through. What I got was a story about loyalty between soldiers, the shifting sands of time and how they change the geopolitical landscape, and ending on an indictment of the US military industrial complex as a violent machine that puts a financial cost on human lives, and leaves those that survive sad and broken. Some parody.
The most of my exposure to media at that time dealt with the military in a very post-9/11 “respect the troops” mold. Soldiers were to be glorified, and there was no room to consider that maybe the military is actually a bad thing. Seeing a video game of all things, and one that varied so wildly between cartoonish excess and somber subject matter, breaking that mold and levying that criticism drew me in. Exploring the rest of the series revealed a similar tendency towards blending the extremely serious and the extremely inane, a technique that would prove a marker of many of my media favorites in the years to come. The best term that I can put to this concept is “liminality.” Sang Hyun Lee explores this concept in his book From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology, where he defines it as a state “in which a person is neither one thing nor another, but betwixt and between” (5). Lee goes on to explain the idea and its applications further:
liminality is a space where a person is freed up from the usual ways of thinking and acting and is therefore open to radically new ideas. Freed from structure, persons in liminality are also available to a genuine communion (comunitas) with others. Liminal space is also where a person can become acutely aware of the problems of the existing structure. A person in a liminal space, therefore, often reenters social structure with alternative ideas of human relatedness and also with a desire to reform the existing social structure. (6)
The way that Metal Gear juxtaposes such drastically different tones is only one way it embodies this concept. As Japanese games that are largely and unashamedly inspired by American movies, the series is the product of a strong pop culture cross current.
In a series of articles written from 2002 to 2003, series creator Hideo Kojima detailed a number of movies he fell in love with at a young age, and what each of them contributed to his own eventual creation. The Great Escape (1963) instilled a desire to create a game that could capture the tension of hiding from your enemies. The Guns of Navarone (1961) lent itself to the structure and objective behind the games, to “infiltrate, destroy, and escape.” Escape from New York (1981) most directly inspired the lead character, with Kurt Russell’s portrayal of Snake Plissken leading to the design of Metal Gear’s protagonist, Solid Snake. North by Northwest (1959) led to the choices around camera use for both first and third person perspectives, the use of recognizable landmarks and tourist locations for the site of the climactic action, and the decision to blend humor and tension to enhance the effectiveness of both. Dawn of the Dead (1978) led to the idea of setting the action in a singular interior location. Lastly, Planet of the Apes (1968) influenced the anti-war and specifically anti-nuclear themes of the games. In this regard the games also take noted influence from Japanese films, Godzilla (1954) especially, the titular Metal Gear being a titanic nuclear weapon capable of striking anywhere on Earth, representing the destructive capabilities of the nuclear bomb in much the same way as the famous Japanese movie monster.
Borrowing from so many sources might lead one to think of the end result as played out or derivative, but it’s a common practice in all media. The book Cinephilia: Movies, Love and Memory dedicates a chapter by Jenna Ng to understanding this trend, with what she refers to as “Transcultural Fusion:”
Thus transpires the cinephilic impulse of intertextual referencing: love shown in tribute and celebration inherent in the practices of homage and memorialization, conveying an uncanny mixture of admiration and affection – the former in implicit acknowledgment of a unique superiority of the original; the latter in the complicity of unspoken recognition deep in an affected and subjective memory. (69)
The same concept is applied to the film Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) in Margaret Hillenbrand’s article “Of Myths and Men: ‘Better Luck Tomorrow’ and the Mainstreaming of Asian America Cinema.” The film borrows heavily from both teen comedy misadventures and suspenseful crime dramas, entrenching it in a liminal territory of its own. Hillenbrand writes, “Lin’s movie is less about the recital of an encyclopedic list of influences than the bricolage effect that these influences collectively conjure” (62-63). The same goes for Metal Gear, as it goes for anything that owes its style and ideas to the groundwork laid out by the great works that came before it. As it turns out, that’s most things. The process of creating something original is less about coming up with an idea that’s literally never been done before, which is increasingly unlikely, and more about recognizing your influences and blending them together in a way that establishes the identity of your work as its own.
The last of these influences to mention for Metal Gear is the James Bond franchise. Originally novels that were adapted to film, the movies themselves are now fifty-seven years in. While the influence of these films as spy fiction and espionage thrillers is obvious, the way they have carried on for so long was itself an influence on the ideas that Metal Gear is interested in. In the last of his articles on his inspirations, Kojima writes:
While the producer, scriptwriter, musicians, main actor, supporting actors and stuntmen have all changed since the first Bond film, 007 continues. Just like parents passing on to their children and masters to their apprentices, the essence of 007 is passed on so that the series continues generating hits. The way the 007 series passes on to the future is the theme I wanted to communicate in [Metal Gear Solid]. What will [Metal Gear Solid] be like 40 years from now, created by those who share the spirit of Team Kojima? I would like to stay alive and experience it myself.
This “legacy” concept is one of the core thematic elements of the Metal Gear series as a whole, each game taking up and exploring different ideas of how things are passed on from generation to generation.
The first of them to really do this was Metal Gear Solid, its primary concern being genetic legacy. In this story the internal conflict for most characters is driven by a sense of self derived from genetics, struggling to either find some trace of history in their genes, or to break away from them entirely and define themselves as their own person. Solid Snake is dealing with the ramifications of having been created as a clone in order to produce a perfect soldier, and whether or not he can ever be anything more than what he was designed to be. The primary conflict of the game is driven by his heretofore unknown twin, Liquid Snake, and his animosity at having been made genetically inferior merely as a necessary byproduct in order to create Snake. The character of Otacon is something of a stand in for Kojima himself, having created the nuclear weapon Metal Gear based on his fascination with Japanese pop culture, the same way Kojima created the video game franchise based on his fascination with American pop culture. For Otacon, the realization that he is the third generation in his family with ties to the history of nuclear development weighs heavily on his mind. A character named Meryl Silverburgh enlisted to become a soldier in order to better understand her father who was killed in action. This particular example was called to mind when reading Asian-Americans in the Twenty-First Century by Joann Faung Jean Lee, wherein Karl Ludwig ascribes his decision to become a police officer to his biological father who he’s never met: “The uniformed services – just seems like there’s what I call a constant echo” (233).
All of these threads come together in the game’s conclusion. The character of Naomi Hunter, a geneticist, is presented as the in-universe authority on the subject. She’s been trying to come to understand herself and her place in the world through her work, and the conclusion she comes to is that genes were never going to hold the answers she was looking for. The statement the game makes is more or less that genes allow for potential, but they do not realize it. This fits quite well with the conclusion made by Theodosius Dobzhansky in his article, “The Myths of Genetic Predestination and of Tabula Rasa:”
Correctly understood, heredity is not the “dice of destiny.” It is rather a bundle of potentialities. Which part of the multitude of potentialities will be realized is for the environments, for the biography of the person, to decide. Only fanatic believers in the myth of genetic predestination can doubt that the life of every person offers numerous options, of which only a part, probably a miniscule part, is realized. (160)
This message is further solidified with the revelation that Snake, in his victory over his embittered twin, had actually been the inferior creation from the start. This defiance of “genetic predestination” is the note the game closes on.
The sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2, continues these thematic concerns and moves them into a new framework: memes. The term has come to be used quite differently in recent years, but the use here is as it was when it was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene. He explains it as such:
Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. (192)
Importantly, the passage of information this way does not rely on familial relation as is the case with genes, which Metal Gear Solid 2 takes full advantage of. Here character relationships are more often non-biological in nature. We see Peter Stillman, a bomb disposal expert whose protégé takes the skills he was given and applies them to committing acts of terrorism rather than preventing them. Otacon’s stepsister plays a role in the story, having taken up her interest in engineering from her stepbrother in an effort to close the distance between them. The central character of this game, Raiden, is a mirror of Snake’s conflict in the last game, having been raised as a child soldier by his godfather, yet another clone, Solidus Snake. Raiden’s struggle is in trying to find a reason to fight, rather than just playing the role that he’s been given. Solid Snake reappears as something of a mentor in this game, teaching Raiden that each person has the freedom to choose what they believe in, and what they will pass on to future generations. This echoes again Dobzhansky’s article. This is the “biography of the person” that realizes their potential.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the last game in the series to be released, but it is chronologically the ending to the story. This game deals with what happens to our legacy after death. Hideo Kojima isn’t dead, but he is no longer attached to Metal Gear in any way, meaning whatever happens with the property from here on happens without his involvement. One of the developments that’s been moving ever so slowly for years is the seeming inevitability of a Hollywood film adaptation of Metal Gear. I outlined this project with a conclusion already in mind: that the ongoing process to adapt Metal Gear to film was inherently misguided. There are so many things Metal Gear is doing that are entirely unique to the medium of games that trying to make it fit the mold of a movie almost seems to be missing the point. There’s a whole narrative through line in Metal Gear Solid 4 that I was going to use as a connection for this, about the misinterpretation of a person’s will. Basically, once a person is gone and is no longer able to express their will directly, it falls to their successors to interpret it, and in many cases this interpretation fails to capture the original intent. This was how I was feeling about any prospect of Metal Gear being made into a movie, that it was inevitably going to misunderstand what the games are really about.
On revisiting Metal Gear Solid 4 for this project though, I found another theme in it that I had forgotten. That sheltering things is an easy way to suffocate them completely. The oft spoken of but seldom seen “next generation” is finally given form in this game in a character named Sunny, an orphaned girl adopted by Otacon and raised by him and Snake in total seclusion all her life. The means by which a future free from oppressive control is able to be secured is due to Naomi Hunter having passed on her work to Sunny to be continued after her death. Even the closest thing to an absolute villain in the series is only given rise to because its creator lacked the faith to pass his work on to the next generation. It’s clear that a part of what the games are saying about our legacy is that eventually leaving it in the hands of other people is a part of the process. The legacy of these games is already written. A movie isn’t going to erase that. I’ll keep my skepticism about the actual quality of the thing, but there’s always a chance that the end result will actually prove itself a respectful adaptation of Metal Gear, which is more credit than I would have been willing to give it before. The prospect of adaptation shouldn’t be seen as an inherent folly, but if the adaptation is going to change the core of what makes that thing what it is, it’s a nonstarter. There’s no point in an adaptation that doesn’t preserve the identity of its source material other than a blatant and shameless attempt at exploiting a recognized name in the hopes of making money.
Media that comes to America, as people that come to America, face a pressure to conform. To change itself fundamentally, let go of the unique aspects of its identity, and slip seamlessly into the homogeneous landscape. Those that stand out are often met with scrutiny and questioned as to why they would even bother coming here if they weren’t going to adopt this country’s every custom in place of their own. This is the affect America has as a global force of cultural imperialism. This is a pressure that must be fought back. People should be able to come here with the comfort of knowing that their identity will not only be accepted, but celebrated, and that their legacy of liminality will live on in future generations.
Works Cited
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
Dobzhansky, Theodosius. “The Myths of Genetic Predestination and of Tabula Rasa.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 19, no. 2, 1976, pp. 156–170., doi:10.1353/pbm.1976.0048.
Hillenbrand, Margaret. “Of Myths and Men: Better Luck Tomorrow and the Mainstreaming of Asian America Cinema.” Cinema Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, 2008, pp. 50–75., doi:10.1353/cj.0.0024.
Kojima, Hideo. “Hideo Kojima at the Movies: 007.” Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, 3 May 2003.
Lee, Joann Faung Jean. Asian Americans in the Twenty-First Century: Oral Histories of First- to Fourth-Generation Americans from China, Japan, India, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos. New Press, 2009.
Lee, Sang Hyun. From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology. Fortress Press, 2010.
Ng, Jenna, “Love in the Time of Transcultural Fusion: Cinephilia, Homage and Kill Bill.” Cinephilia: Movies, Love, and Memory. Amsterdam University Press, 2005.
May 28 Unaccustomed Earth
Dense, traditional, affluence, degrees/advanced degrees
Literary fiction vs. popular/genre fiction
classic, serious
plot vs. character development
Bollywood – Hollywood/Bombay
My Name is Khan, 2010, dir. Karan Johar
San Francisco, Nov 2007
stopped at an airport for search, “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”
written vs spoken communication
Hindu-Muslim riots, 1983
“Good people. Bad people. No other difference.”
resentment form Zakir that Risvan is getting attention/praise
“Zakir was fortunate. He could cry.”
Mandira, arranged marriage, divorced, single mother
conflict with Zakir because Mandira is Hindu
racial tension and violence against South Asians in the wake of 9/11
May 31 South Asian American Presentation
eight countries in South Asia, history of colonization, dominant religion
India – Hindu
Sri Lanka – Buddhist
Bhutan (not formally colonized) – Buddhist
Pakistan – Muslim
Nepal (not formally colonized) – Hindu
Maldives – Muslim
Bangladesh – Muslim
Afghanistan (not formally colonized) – Muslim
South Asian Queers on Instagram
Alok Vaid-Menon, “not smiling is an act of resistance,” “the silence speaks for us”
humzer, Pakistani-Canadian drag queen (Humza A. Mian)
namkeenaveen (Naveen Bhat), lex.rama (Alexa Ramachandran)
Shorts and Animation
Sanjay Patel, born in UK, Indian parents, Pixar animator, Sanjay’s Super Team (2015)
Kiran Bhakta Joshi, born in Nepal, Disney animator, founded Incessant Rain, first animation studio in Nepal, Disaster Risk Reduction shorts
Actors, Actresses, Director
Donnie Keshawarz, The Cobbler, Law & Order, Forever
Azita Ghanizada, Alphas, Complete Unknown
Faran Tahir, Iron Man, Star Trek, I’ll Meet You There
Dilshad Vadsaria, Greek, 30 Minutes or Less
Mindy Kaling, Inside Out, The Office, Ocean’s Eight
Erick Avari, Planet of the Apes, Stargate
Daya Vaidya, Fatal Crossing
Dichen Lachmann, Dollhouse
Rahsan Noor, Bengali Beauty, Promise Land
Kamal Ahmed, The Jerky Boys
Sanjit De Silva, Blindspot
D’lo, Transfinite
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Vara: A Blessing, The Cup, Travellers and Magicians
Mohamed Nasteed, president of the Maldives
Hinglish and Code Switching
intersentational
intra-sentational
tag switching
intra word
Started with British Colonization in the 1600s
Charter Act (1813)
South Asian American Films
The Big Sick (2017), Kumail Nanjiani
English Vinglish (2012), dir. Gauri Shinde
Roadside Romeo (2008), produced in collaboration with Disney
Life of Pi (2012), Suraj Sharma, dir. Ang Lee
Lion (2016), Dev Patel
End of week Synthesis
The history of South Asia has been a long standing gap in my knowledge, as evidenced a few times this week. This was a good opportunity to fill some of that in. There was a lot of good information in Friday morning’s presentation, on the history of colonialism in the region and the dominant religions of the countries there. My Name is Khan elucidated the conflict between Hindus and Muslims and the knock on effects of 9/11 for South Asian Americans.
In the continuing trend of American film adaptations of Japanese media, it seems Akira is the next in line. The choice of Waititi to direct is an interesting one, as he’s mostly known for comedic works, whereas Akira would seem to break away from his usual tone. The specifics of what gets reworked for this adaptation remains to be seen, but there is at least an intent on the director’s part to cast Asian leads mentioned in the article. Hopefully that holds true and the end result is a respectful take on the original if nothing else.
Unaccustomed Earth The story revolves around the expanding sense that the family is drifting apart, from each other and from their heritage, in the wake of Ruma’s mother having died. As one example of this, language is something that reflects Ruma’s heritage and how her attempts to preserve it have faded. She tried to teach Akash Bengali only to start forgetting it herself.
Similarly, her mother is left unable to pass down her saris because Ruma prefers pants and skirts. Akash’s distaste for Indian food and Ruma’s struggle to cook it are yet further examples. These illustrate the way that Ruma’s mother was the one to carry on her heritage and attempt to preserve it through her children, where Ruma’s efforts to do the same are met with little success.
As the clearest example of this, we see that Akash has no memory of his grandmother. While in a very literal sense it’s because he was young when she died, in the story this serves the purpose of showing the increasing distance between new generations and their cultural heritage.
The description of Ruma feeling closer to her mother in death gives a definitive statement on the ideas being presented, that in her absence she begins to notice all of the things her mother provided that are no longer there, the connection to their culture being prominent among them. This feeling of being closer though is recognized by Ruma for what it is: “She knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding.” (27)
I didn’t know what I was in for when I first got into Metal Gear. My first exposure to the series was Metal Gear Solid 3, which would have been around when I was thirteen. At that point I wasn’t looking to get anything out of it but to be decently entertained for a few hours at a time, without having to think too much about what I was actually engaged in. The idea of playing a game for any other reason wouldn’t have occurred to me. What I expected from it was based on what little I knew beforehand. The lead character, Snake, was familiar, as I had heard a hundred imitations of the low growl he has for a voice courtesy of the internet. I knew the setting and the plot were at least vaguely realistic. That was pretty much it.
The thing I didn’t know about Metal Gear was that it is outright silly. Here I was coming in expecting straightforward action fare and being presented with a cadre of colorful characters with over the top personalities and bizarre supernatural abilities. The game presents absurd concepts and characters without so much as a wink and a nod, and no attempt whatsoever at justification. You’re either willing to accept the things it puts forth at face value or you’re not, and in the latter case I imagine the whole thing just wouldn’t work. After its opening, the game puts on a bombastic lyrical title sequence in the style of James Bond, which was the last piece I needed to really understand what this thing was. It’s parody. It’s a pastiche of various genre elements, all exaggerated to a hilarious extent, and very clearly not meant to be taken seriously. Now knowing what to expect, I went in to see the rest of the game through. What I got was a story about loyalty between soldiers, the shifting sands of time and how they change the geopolitical landscape, and ending on an indictment of the US military industrial complex as a violent machine that puts a financial cost on human lives, and leaves those that survive sad and broken. Some parody.
The most of my exposure to media at that time dealt with the military in a very post-9/11 “respect the troops” mold. Soldiers were to be glorified, and there was no room to consider that maybe the military is actually a bad thing. Seeing a video game of all things, and one that varied so wildly between cartoonish excess and somber subject matter, breaking that mold and levying that criticism drew me in. Exploring the rest of the series revealed a similar tendency towards blending the extremely serious and the extremely inane, a technique that would prove a marker of many of my media favorites in the years to come. The best term that I can put to this concept is “liminality.” Sang Hyun Lee explores this concept in his book From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology, where he defines it as a state “in which a person is neither one thing nor another, but betwixt and between.” (5) Lee goes on to explain the idea and its applications further:
liminality is a space where a person is freed up from the usual ways of thinking and acting and is therefore open to radically new ideas. Freed from structure, persons in liminality are also available to a genuine communion (comunitas) with others. Liminal space is also where a person can become acutely aware of the problems of the existing structure. A person in a liminal space, therefore, often reenters social structure with alternative ideas of human relatedness and also with a desire to reform the existing social structure. (6)
The way that Metal Gear juxtaposes such drastically different tones is only one way it embodies this concept. As Japanese games that are largely and unashamedly inspired by American movies, the series is the product of a strong pop culture cross current.
In a series of articles written from 2002 to 2003, series creator Hideo Kojima detailed a number of movies he fell in love with at a young age, and what each of them contributed to his own eventual creation. The Great Escape (1963) instilled a desire to create a game that could capture the tension of hiding from your enemies. The Guns of Navarone (1961) lent itself to the structure and objective behind the games, to “infiltrate, destroy, and escape.” Escape from New York (1981) most directly inspired the lead character, with Kurt Russell’s portrayal of Snake Plissken leading to the design of Metal Gear’s protagonist, Solid Snake. North by Northwest (1959) led to the choices around camera use for both first and third person perspectives, the use of recognizable landmarks and tourist locations for the site of the climactic action, and the decision to blend humor and tension to enhance the effectiveness of both. Dawn of the Dead (1978) led to the idea of setting the action in a singular interior location. Lastly, Planet of the Apes (1968) influenced the anti-war and specifically anti-nuclear themes of the games. In this regard the games also take noted influence from Japanese films, Godzilla (1954) especially, the titular Metal Gear being a titanic nuclear weapon capable of striking anywhere on Earth, representing the destructive capabilities of the nuclear bomb in much the same way as the famous Japanese movie monster.
Borrowing from so many sources might lead one to think of the end result as played out or derivative, but it’s a common practice in all media. The book Cinephilia: Movies, Love and Memory dedicates a chapter by Jenna Ng to understanding this trend, with what she refers to as “Transcultural Fusion:”
Thus transpires the cinephilic impulse of intertextual referencing: love shown in tribute and celebration inherent in the practices of homage and memorialization, conveying an uncanny mixture of admiration and affection – the former in implicit acknowledgment of a unique superiority of the original; the latter in the complicity of unspoken recognition deep in an affected and subjective memory. (69)
The same concept is applied to the film Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) in Margaret Hillenbrand’s article “Of Myths and Men: ‘Better Luck Tomorrow’ and the Mainstreaming of Asian America Cinema.” The film borrows heavily from both teen comedy misadventures and suspenseful crime dramas, entrenching it in a liminal territory of its own. Hillenbrand writes, “Lin’s movie is less about the recital of an encyclopedic list of influences than the bricolage effect that these influences collectively conjure.” (62-63) The same goes for Metal Gear, as it goes for anything that owes its style and ideas to the groundwork laid out by the great works that came before it. As it turns out, that’s most things. The process of creating something original is less about coming up with an idea that’s literally never been done before, which is increasingly unlikely, and more about recognizing your influences and blending them together in a way that establishes the identity of your work as its own.
The last of these influences to mention for Metal Gear is the James Bond franchise. Originally novels that were adapted to film, the movies themselves are now fifty-seven years in. While the influence of these films as spy fiction and espionage thrillers is obvious, the way they have carried on for so long was itself an influence on the ideas that Metal Gear is interested in. In the last of his articles on his inspirations, Kojima writes:
While the producer, scriptwriter, musicians, main actor, supporting actors and stuntmen have all changed since the first Bond film, 007 continues. Just like parents passing on to their children and masters to their apprentices, the essence of 007 is passed on so that the series continues generating hits. The way the 007 series passes on to the future is the theme I wanted to communicate in [Metal Gear Solid]. What will [Metal Gear Solid] be like 40 years from now, created by those who share the spirit of Team Kojima? I would like to stay alive and experience it myself.
This “legacy” concept is one of the core thematic elements of the Metal Gear series as a whole, each game taking up and exploring different ideas of how things are passed on from generation to generation.
The first of them to really do this was Metal Gear Solid, its primary concern being genetic legacy. In this story the internal conflict for most characters is driven by a sense of self derived from genetics, struggling to either find some trace of history in their genes, or to break away from them entirely and define themselves as their own person. Solid Snake is dealing with the ramifications of having been created as a clone in order to produce a perfect soldier, and whether or not he can ever be anything more than what he was designed to be. The primary conflict of the game is driven by his heretofore unknown twin, Liquid Snake, and his animosity at having been made genetically inferior merely as a necessary byproduct in order to create Snake. The character of Otacon is something of a stand in for Kojima himself, having created the nuclear weapon Metal Gear based on his fascination with Japanese pop culture, the same way Kojima created the video game franchise based on his fascination with American pop culture. For Otacon, the realization that he is the third generation in his family with ties to the history of nuclear development weighs heavily on his mind. A character named Meryl Silverburgh enlisted to become a soldier in order to better understand her father who was killed in action. This particular example was called to mind when reading Asian-Americans in the Twenty-First Century by Joann Faung Jean Lee, wherein Karl Ludwig ascribes his decision to become a police officer to his biological father who he’s never met: “The uniformed services – just seems like there’s what I call a constant echo.” (233)
All of these threads come together in the game’s conclusion. The character of Naomi Hunter, a geneticist, is presented as the in-universe authority on the subject. She’s been trying to come to understand herself and her place in the world through her work, and the conclusion she comes to is that genes were never going to hold the answers she was looking for. The statement the game makes is more or less that genes allow for potential, but they do not realize it. This fits quite well with the conclusion made by Theodosius Dobzhansky in his article, “The Myths of Genetic Predestination and of Tabula Rasa:”
Correctly understood, heredity is not the “dice of destiny.” It is rather a bundle of potentialities. Which part of the multitude of potentialities will be realized is for the environments, for the biography of the person, to decide. Only fanatic believers in the myth of genetic predestination can doubt that the life of every person offers numerous options, of which only a part, probably a miniscule part, is realized. (160)
This message is further solidified with the revelation that Snake, in his victory over his embittered twin, had actually been the inferior creation from the start. This defiance of “genetic predestination” is the note the game closes on.
The sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2, continues these thematic concerns and moves them into a new framework: memes. The term has come to be used quite differently in recent years, but the use here is as it was when it was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene. He explains it as such:
Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. (192)
Importantly, the passage of information this way does not rely on familial relation as is the case with genes, which Metal Gear Solid 2 takes full advantage of. Here character relationships are more often non-biological in nature. We see Peter Stillman, a bomb disposal expert whose protégé takes the skills he was given and applies them to committing acts of terrorism rather than preventing them. Otacon’s stepsister plays a role in the story, having taken up her interest in engineering from her stepbrother in an effort to close the distance between them. The central character of this game, Raiden, is a mirror of Snake’s conflict in the last game, having been raised as a child soldier by his godfather, yet another clone, Solidus Snake. Raiden’s struggle is in trying to find a reason to fight, rather than just playing the role that he’s been given. Solid Snake reappears as something of a mentor in this game, teaching Raiden that each person has the freedom to choose what they believe in, and what they will pass on to future generations. This echoes again Dobzhansky’s article. This is the “biography of the person” that realizes their potential.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the last game in the series to be released, but it is chronologically the ending to the story. This game deals with what happens to our legacy after death. Hideo Kojima isn’t dead, but he is no longer attached to Metal Gear in any way, meaning whatever happens with the property from here on happens without his involvement. One of the developments that’s been moving ever so slowly for years is the seeming inevitability of a Hollywood film adaptation of Metal Gear. I outlined this project with a conclusion already in mind: that the ongoing process to adapt Metal Gear to film was inherently misguided. There are so many things Metal Gear is doing that are entirely unique to the medium of games that trying to make it fit the mold of a movie almost seems to be missing the point. There’s a whole narrative through line in Metal Gear Solid 4 that I was going to use as a connection for this, about the misinterpretation of a person’s will. Basically, once a person is gone and is no longer able to express their will directly, it falls to their successors to interpret it, and in many cases this interpretation fails to capture the original intent. This was how I was feeling about any prospect of Metal Gear being made into a movie, that it was inevitably going to misunderstand what the games are really about.
On revisiting Metal Gear Solid 4 for this project though, I found another theme in it that I had forgotten. That sheltering things is an easy way to suffocate them completely. The oft spoken of but seldom seen “next generation” is finally given form in this game in a character named Sunny, an orphaned girl adopted by Otacon and raised by him and Snake in total seclusion all her life. The means by which a future free from oppressive control is able to be secured is due to Naomi Hunter having passed on her work to Sunny to be continued after her death. Even the closest thing to an absolute villain in the series is only given rise to because its creator lacked the faith to pass his work on to the next generation. It’s clear that a part of what the games are saying about our legacy is that eventually leaving it in the hands of other people is a part of the process. The legacy of these games is already written. A movie isn’t going to erase that. I’ll keep my skepticism about the actual quality of the thing, but there’s always a chance that the end result will actually manage to capture the liminality and legacy of Metal Gear. That’s more credit than I would have been willing to give it before.
Works Cited
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 1976.
Dobzhansky, Theodosius. “The Myths of Genetic Predestination and of Tabula Rasa.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 19, no. 2, 1976, pp. 156–170., doi:10.1353/pbm.1976.0048.
Hillenbrand, Margaret. “Of Myths and Men: Better Luck Tomorrow and the Mainstreaming of Asian America Cinema.” Cinema Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, 2008, pp. 50–75., doi:10.1353/cj.0.0024.
Kojima, Hideo. “Hideo Kojima at the Movies: 007.” Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, 3 May 2003.
Lee, Joann Faung Jean. Asian Americans in the Twenty-First Century: Oral Histories of First- to Fourth-Generation Americans from China, Japan, India, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos. New Press, 2009.
Lee, Sang Hyun. From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology. Fortress Press, 2010.
Ng, Jenna, “Love in the Time of Transcultural Fusion: Cinephilia, Homage and Kill Bill.” Cinephilia: Movies, Love, and Memory. Amsterdam University Press, 2005.
May 21
The Beautiful Country, 2004, dir. Hans Petter Moland
Vietnam, 1990
Binh searching for mother and father
mother working for rich family, matriarch’s son fathered her second child, Tam
Binh and Tam flee after accident kills matriarch to find father in America
Malaysian refugee camp, killing leads to uprising, Binh and Tam escape with Ling
Boat captain, “I offer you a new life, you choose an old dream,”
Amerasian Homecoming Act, Binh learns that escaping by boat and losing Tam was unnecessary effort when he could have taken everyone by plane
Ling, “I’m the same as I ever was,” “I’m ugly too”
fluidity of identity
May 24 Vietnam War, November 1 1955 – April 30, 1975
“French Indochina,” colonies of France, won independence, fighting between North and South Vietnam
The Fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975
evacuations in 1975, first wave were more advantage/had connections
Boat people, 1975-1990s, people from second wave on driven out by political and economic instability
1992, prisoners of reeducation camps released, leading to another wave of refugees
Ho Chi Minh, communist revolution leader, Boston pastry chef
Vietnamese Food
French influence
Bánh mì, originated from the baguette
Vietnamese (iced) coffee, second top coffee producing country
Crème caramel, similar to crème brûlée
Phở, noodles, fish sauce, Sriracha, rice/broken rice (Cơm tấm)
Vietnamese American Athletes
Dat Nguyen, American football
Cung Le, MMA fighter and actor
Lee Nguyen, professional soccer
Amy Tran, field hockey
Ben Nguyen, MMA
Leta Lindley, golf
Catherine Mai Ian Fox, Olympic swimmer
Danny Graves, baseball
Vietnamese professional poker players
Vietnamese American Actors/Actresses
Dustin Nguyen, 21 Jump Street, role of Vietnamese man assuming a Japanese identity, story reflects actor’s history
Thuy Trang, Power Rangers, died in car accident that injured Angela Rockwood, Dustin Nguyen’s wife
Hong Chau, Downsizing, character of political activist with a heavy accent that led to some discourse/controversy
Damien Nguyen, The Beautiful Country, left Vietnam at age three, only has partial memories of the trip
Kelly Marie Tran, Star Wars first woman of color in a leading role in the series, first Asian American on the cover of Vanity Fair, faced racism and harassment in the wake
End of Week Synthesis
Despite learning about the Vietnam War in the past, the effect it had on the people of the country was never a part of the focus. In the reading, film screening, and presentations for this week, the human element that had previously been ignored came into focus. The lasting impact of such an event between generations is especially notable, with different stories focusing on the generation that was in Vietnam at the time dealing with the war directly, and the generation that was brought to America, dealing with the cultural trauma and feeling of being out of place both in America and in attempts to revisit the country where they were born.
I think this article did a great job at explaining the significance of having this museum space for Asian Americans. The preservation of history and culture that museums provide shows what society deems important to remember and what we value, and in that light the absence of a permanent gallery space for Asian Americans until now is telling in its own way. Smithsonian exhibitions very commonly include elements of pop culture, with the article giving mention to artists like Jay Park and the band Hiroshima.
Miss Lien The power to speak and the pressure to stay silent are both strong forces in the story. Who is able to speak is who is afforded power, and in Lien’s case she feels unable to say anything about her situation, comparing herself to those around her: “They had the freedom, the luxury to speak, complain, cry, and release. Lien could tell no one of this.” (21)
The woman’s role in society has been a common subject in many of the readings this quarter. Here we see another story taking up the same idea, to examine what women were expected to go through for the sake of their families. Not only is Lien made to go to Can Tho by her family in the first place, her pregnancy there becomes a matter she must keep hidden from them for the further expectations it would bring.
Having the freedom to choose seems to be what Lien desires. In the face of so many things being decided for her, the pregnancy is the thing that causes her to decide what she will do about it on her own. An attempted abortion fails, so Lien decided to leave the child at an orphanage, finally getting a sense of freedom as she leaves alone and unburdened.
While this might seem like a choice made based on what’s best for her, it seems that Lien is also choosing what will be best for her child. We see from her experiences when she was younger what it was like to live in dire straits. Leaving the child at the orphanage assures her that her child will be given a better life than she would be able to provide had she kept it.
We Should Never Meet Kim is dealing with similar issues of freedom and control as Lien. On page 32 we see her recalling that she used how much time she was allowed to watch TV as a frame of reference for how strict her foster parents would be. In keeping with that frame of reference, she now has some sense of freedom in her current position, noting that Vinh couldn’t control her.
Freedom comes up again, on page 52. The description of Vinh’s gang and why they do the things they do specifies that “They believed they had no other choice.” Their mistreatment in America ultimately left them feeling that they had to resort to criminality to survive. While living outside of the law is often portrayed as idealistically free, here it’s presented as the natural consequence of being controlled.
Kim’s relationship with the woman who owns the gift store is based on her projecting her desire to find her mother. She seems to let herself believe that this woman really is her mother, only to realize too late that it was never a realistic possibility.
The way Kim blames herself for her situation reveals a lot of self-loathing, which becomes more evident as the story goes on. She even assumes that she must have done something wrong at three years old in order to be returned to the foster home, leading her to believe that all of her troubles and her present situation are the direct result of her own actions, even if she doesn’t know what actions led her to this point.
The Delta Predetermination on the part of Truc and Phuong’s parents shapes the way these two characters develop later on. The ways they fantasize about “creating a legacy apart from what their parents had planned” (77) shows the desire to break away from the path laid out for them, which Truc eventually loses, and Phuong holds on to, choosing to join the convent of her own will.
The description of the ducks being “born to die,” (67) goes along with this theme of predetermination. The fact that they are then compared to Phuong right after, with the connotation that Truc is strangling them, seems to reveal some of the pressures Phuong was trying to escape.
Phuong’s reaction to the babies on page 71 was a good example of the ways people will invent reasons to justify their preconceived notions. What is obviously the reaction of a scared child at seeing some truly upsetting things, the parents’ assume it as a sign of her aptitude for motherhood and take that to mean they are doing the right thing.
The structure of this story, jumping back and forth between past and present, is shared with Miss Lien. This is notable for the fact that the two stories are also connected directly, with the mention of one of the mothers who abandoned her child at the orphanage lining up with the description from the earlier story. This similarity in structure and continuity between the stories reinforces the thematic parallels between them, of women escaping from the pressure of having a rigid structure decided for them from the day they were born.
Visitors Relationships between older generations and younger generations are presented in the story. It’s interesting how the view of the characters involved changes as the perspective does. When we see Vinh from Bac Nguyen’s perspective its easy to see him as an upstanding young man, but once we realize who he is we get his perspective, and see that he thinks of the old man as a fool.
Each characters’ views on war and history are discussed. Vinh’s are very black and white, as opposed to Bac Nguyen who suggests there’s more nuance to things than Vinh’s mindset allows for.
Freedom and control are present themes yet again, most especially with Vinh saying “it would have been nice if I had a say in it” (97) regarding his circumstances in America. The frustration of younger generations feeling beholden to the consequences of their predecessors’ choices is a constant refrain throughout these stories.
Vinh’s beliefs are played up in a way that makes him seem like he thinks very highly of himself and looks down on most others, while also being quite hypocritical. In particular he admonishes the materialistic desire at the heart of the American Dream, and yet stages a robbery in hopes that the jewelry he claims will help him win over Kim.
Gates of Saigon
The effects of war are felt more strongly in this story than any other. The constant references to the war being a mobile force that could descend on these characters at any moment makes it feel like a looming, inevitable threat, lending the story a tension that can only capture so much of what it must be like to really be in such a scenario.
Steven’s reaction to the things he sees as a foreigner is matched up with the familiarity Hoa has with them. Specifically the story offers some mild criticism of Steven’s revulsion on his first exposure to these things, with the line “the place he regarded as death was what she still considered home.” (127)
Americans going to foreign countries to lend help is a common story, one that often falls prey to ideas of these people being “white saviors” whose compassion and caring is the thing needed to save the poor brown people from their plight. This story subverts that by portraying Steven as somewhat overeager/overzealous, to the point of being a detriment, which is contrasted on page 131, where Hoa quickly realizes she is in the way and steps back.
The story portrays ideas of faith that are non-religious. Ba Minh is shown to have faith in the government, taking pride in the country and believing that they will come out the other side of the war intact. Hoa has faith in her husband, believing that he is still alive or still able to return to her, to the point of being reluctant to remarry to gain entry to America, instead choosing to stay behind to continue waiting for her husband.
Emancipation
With the addition of this story, all of them seem to be connected together by the central event of the Babylift evacuation. Miss Lien, The Delta, and Gates of Saigon deal with the previous generation in Vietnam dealing with the hard choices they have to make to ensure a better life for the future generation, while We Should Never Meet, Visitors, and now Emancipation deal with what that younger generation is doing with the life they were given in America.
Mai’s concerned that she will no longer get support from her foster parents as they no longer have responsibility for her now that she’s eighteen. The distinction between having foster parents and being adopted is made abundantly clear here, with Mai feeling certain that they will no longer care for her the moment they are no longer obligated to.
Mai’s increasing distance from her former friends is a large component of the story. Having been taken in by a white family, Vinh especially feels that she has betrayed them for the sake of material advantage, calling back to his views as seen in Visitors. Mai embraces this separation to some extent, and attempts to wield it as a weapon against Vinh in her defense, outright stating that she’s better than him.
The idea of Mai lying about her mother comes up both in her essay and in her childhood conversations with Kim. The story ends on the line “I will live the way she should have.” (171) This suggests that Mai’s decisions are her trying to make up for what she never had. While the advantages of living with white foster parents are made clear, Mai’s fears are that they are still incapable of being her family.
Bound On page 190, the way it’s explained that Ronald went to war and saw the beauty of Vietnam, while Bridget went to help and saw the horror establishes a sort of unusual dynamic. I suspect it might be intended to show that the people responsible for so much violence and destruction are so rarely the same people who feel the consequences of it.
The question posed to Bridget by the reporter was striking. “What about the orphans in America?” (194) This style of questioning assumes that it has to be one or the other, that a person can only see to one issue at a time. It’s a frustratingly common assumption that persists today.
At the same time, Bridget’s answer to the question is a satisfying one. Explaining that the orphans are a product of the war and thus the direct responsibility of the United States does a good job to establish the personal investment Bridget feels in staying in Vietnam.
I find it interesting that in this collection that has otherwise focused on Vietnamese characters and their stories, here we are presented a story of an American woman and her experience in Vietnam, and what she’s putting at risk by staying there.
Motherland
The description of discrimination against overseas Vietnamese in Vietnam on page 222 stuck out in this story. The idea that people returning to their home country would have to face mistreatment there rather than acceptance adds a lot to the feeling of not really belonging anywhere.
Huan’s mother giving toys to the Vietnamese children on page 224 introduces some discussion on whether she’s truly being charitable or if it’s an empty gesture since what she is giving them will only last for so long. The children are obviously in need of more than toys, and it’s Huan’s feeling that the toys themselves are just a way for his mother to make herself feel better about the situation for having “contributed.”
The Cu Chi Tunnels having been commodified for American tourism on page 230 is a bizarre thing. The description of the tunnels having been made wider to accommodate Westerners specifically is a great detail that really gets at the uncomfortable nature of war tourism.
Kim and Huan both have a hatred Vietnam, for feeling like they were abandoned and struggling to come to terms with that. Mai also struggles with this, but in the end puts forward the explanation that it was a war, and a lot of difficult choices had to be made. “How could I be angry with them, expect them to do right when there was no such thing? When everything here was wrong?” (243)