Power and control are themes in this chapter. The main character seems to both enjoy and resent feeling powerless and controlled. She is ashamed of her fantasies of this.
Early in the story, rampant abuse in the immigrant community is noted. Disciplinary abuse against children is shown. Last summer my grandpa boasted to me and my girlfriend about how polite and well behaved his children were compared to the children of other families.
3. The main character is addicted to being abused and controlled to the point that she desperately returns to her abuser and tries provoking him to hit her. In this situation, the abuser is the one that abandoned her, so in that prior relationship, it had never gotten to the point where she herself would’ve left. Probably because there is nothing that would’ve made her leave him. Her ex seems disgusted by her.
4. The main character warps and exaggerates things in her head to make herself seem to be even more of a victim than she already is.
The presentation was great for supplementing the reading of this week. Particularly family, growing up experiences, and culture. I didn’t know Apledeap was Philipino. I didn’t know about the history of boxing in the Philippines and America. I didn’t know about the illustrators who came over from the Philippines to work on comics.
Movie:
The movie felt very straight to Tv but was pretty thorough in exploring family relationships and trying to figure out where you belong in the world. The white kids in the movie were very annoying for me, I always disliked the way high school kids, even friends, would be disrespectful and irreverent of foreign cultures and customs, etc. I get that they usually aren’t raised with respect or discipline like Asian kids are.
I skipped Wednesday to set up my table for the Spring Arts and Crafts Fair.
Frank Chin’s work is satirical. That is why his writing is grotesque, absurd, surreal, and vulgar. A quote from the Frank Chin trailer I liked was that he illustrates a Chinese American consciousness by remembering experiences that make Chinese Americans who they are.
Shaolin:
Shaolin monks have a bizarre lifestyle that seems to come straight out of stories and legends of being rigorously trained to human physical and mental limits since childhood. It’s silly to see how people who have lived like that all their lives mesh with American culture when they immigrate here. Shaolin monks who have only known life as a monk seem like very simple and straightforward people.
Joy Luck Club:
I thought this movie had as many good parts as it did bad parts. The intense childhoods and backstories were interesting, they clearly showed how the characters developed their personalities. The different angles and similarities between the life stories were interesting. It seems that the parents were trapped by their cultures and upbringing while the children were all half-trapped, with potential to be free, but ultimately still confined to the same boxes their parents were in. Something I didn’t like was the main character’s personality, it was a very generic simple movie main character woman personality. That same main character personality was in Crazy Rich Asians and that Japanese Internment movie we watched.
Unions have a lot of pressures and threats to contend with.
Candy is often a motivator for children. Against his policy, the kid takes money from a guy he doesn’t like because he’s thinking about chocolate. As a poor young child of Eastern European immigrants, Andy Warhol said that he drew a lot as a child because his mother would give him chocolate bars for his art.
The term boundaries come up a couple times. The father creates a boundary by folding arms and a boundary to the world the kid doesn’t want to leave is created by smoke.
Rico
Boundaries come up again. The boundaries of the poor neighborhood protect and strengthen the inhabitants while also tieing them down.
2. The kid has an opportunity at a better life. Rico doesn’t want him to trap himself in a box like he did.
3. People are trapped by themselves and their circumstances. What is it that makes somebody free?
The Second ROom
Simple and effective martial arts style reminds me of how in some action animes the main characters that are used to tournament style combat start facing off against opponents that use lethal fighting styles.
Building style around your strengths and weaknesses. Like Shaolin and Evergreen. This is the best way to be an artist in my opinion.
He blended legal and illegal moves to win a fight in the end. This reminds me of a manga I read called Shamo, which features a criminal main character who fights professionally.
August 1968
The part about being bilingual for talking to white people and each other is referring to coat switching. I notice that both of my parents coat switch when talking with their families.
2. He tests his friend and pushes as far as he can go with insults. Insults that only a good friend would tolerate. It’s like a test of the bond between them.
3. When he uses the n-word as an insult, he had never gone that far before, he didn’t know what it meant, he wanted to take power. It was a door that never should’ve been opened and it broke the bond. I’ve personally been on the receiving end of a brotherly bond being broken in that way. By a dipshit who tested how much he could get away with and then one day crossed a line he never should’ve when he got angry and insecure with me while I stayed nonchalant. Similar to this story, I didn’t fight back or show the hurt like he wanted me to, I responded coldly and cut him off. I always thought it was weird that I did that, but at the time it felt like the only thing I could do. I think this must be a natural response to being disillusioned.Home
1. Whenever I see accounts of the Vietnam war, it always seems so hellish. Man, it would’ve sucked to be there.
2. It’s strange how far people can split apart even when they used to have a lot of common ground. Different experiences can change people down to the core.
3. The immigrant parents got smart and left their slave lives as asparagus pickers, but Rico returned to Stockton and died. Rico is someone who I think likes to feel helpless so he traps himself. He does not solve problems, he wallows in them.
A life Well lived
1. My grandpa got gout. Chris used gout as an excuse. Chris was like that in the last few years it said.
2. Chris died on the inside when he realized that his people had forgotten their common purpose or never knew what it was.
3. Sacrificing dreams and a sense of vision for gratification and comforts. That is a problem with a lot of people growing up.
The Wedding
In old age, Leo has found that he is a self-sorry loser with nothing to show for his wasted life. A dead beat full of self-inflicted wounds.
2. Leo is like the stereotypical fun uncle though, he is fun to be around and buys candy.
3. Leo is shown to be a bit of a fool. Using constant excuses to avoid growing and then becoming a doormat to people who take advantage of him.
A Manong’s Heart
1. Old people dressed up with nowhere to go is a trend I’ve noticed in real life too. There is a very old Asian lady I see on Bus 41/48 every now and then who is always dressed fancy.
2. Ahistorical denizens of the present. Uneducated, unknowing, and unflourished, they only live.
3. Athletes represent their people and when they win they are winning for their people.
“If you’re a famous Asian American who isolates yourself from the community, you’re probably having some good effect on the perception of Americans… But I have much more respect for those who try to come back and help.” (page 12)People of color who are isolated from their communities or transcend their race as celebrities are seen as success stories of assimilation. The communities they come from are looked down on.
I agree with Dale that we are lucky to be born and raised American, in spite of the country’s problems. We have a lot of freedom and potential to flourish that most people around the world do not have.
From Toi Shan to the Olympic Peninsula Gateway
The engineer promotion story reminded me of my Vietnamese grandpa, who often boasts about his accomplishments as a programmer in the 80’s. He talks about how he gained so much knowledge that his bosses would call him the walking encyclopedia. His co-workers envied him for how quickly he would get promoted.
The Promise of America
This was a similar story to my Vietnamese family. Grandpa was in the military, they got evacuated, shipped to the Philippines and then shipped to America. They were sponsored in Utah. They were given college educations, my grandpa got into computers while my grandma got into medical lab stuff.
It’s About More Than Hitting the Books
A trend is to devalue and underpay valuable workers of color until they quit or threaten to quit and move on to companies that will appreciate their contributions more.
No Dating, Just Get Married
Something I’ve been curious about is how supporting family in other countries with earnings from America works. This is something I’ve read happens a lot for many immigrants, but I don’t know how that situation actually works. How they send the money, how much is sent, how much that money helps the families, etc.
Making a New Life
Two of my Vietnamese cousins speak good Vietnamese while me, my brothers, and my other cousin do not. This is because their mother’s side of the family does not speak much English so they had to learn and retain Vietnamese in order to communicate with them. But they will only speak English to family members that know both languages because of preference.
Changing the Tide of History
I’ve been thinking about Black Power and how marginalized people grow up with a deflated sense of self-worth. They need to take pride in their identities to reinforce themselves against the pressures that beat them down constantly in the world. Black pride, gay pride, disability pride, women pride, etc. The more deflated the identity, the more it needs to be actively inflated and reinforced. It’s interesting that Black Power inspired others to assert themselves and not give in.
Into the Governor’s Mansion
Gary Locke has a plaque downtown in by the lake. The plaques there also talk about how Olympia used to have a Chinatown that got demolished after the Chinese were removed. Olympia would be so much sicker if it had a Chinatown. Rest in pepperonis
Restaurant, Public Office, Even Bruce Lee
Interesting that this lady leveraged her community reputation to become a councilwoman. Bruce Lee having too much acne to work floor service is funny.
Grassroots Victories
The concept of Asian kids growing up having trouble dealing with present-day subtle racism is interesting. It might be less damaging but it is harder to fight against.
Marriage and the Green Card
Very gross control tactic for abusive partners to intentionally restrict their spouse’s citizenship status.
Building an Orphanage in China
It seems it is often up to the immigrants themselves to hold foreign culture communities together. American descendants have very different priorities and interests and end up just going along with what their parents can get them to do when they participate.
Cowboy from Japan
Anyone can follow their dreams! I’ve been thinking lately on how childhood influences can instill lifelong obsessions in people.
Jimi Hendrix of the Ukelele
The rare handcrafted ukeleles really make them seem special or sacred almost. I understand his point about the novelty ukeleles cheapening the image over all.
The Fortune Cookies
“How much more American could the experience be?” Yeah, I listened to one of their songs, they do just sound like a generic girl band from that time.
From Laos to Iowa
When success is denied by glass ceilings, people have to look elsewhere.
Harlan, Kentucky
Self-loathing and seeing white as normal or the default is the trend with growing up Asian American in white communities.
Growing up in Los Angeles
A recurring theme in immigrant stories is the parents sacrificing their lives to build a foundation for their families to jump off of.
Portland, Oregon
Americans really are lucky to be American. With third-world countries filled with poverty, pollution, overpopulation, boredom, and drunkenness.
Growing up in Hawaii
Hawaii is the most diverse place I’ve ever lived in. It’s interesting that the interviewee knew the different races well enough that he could distinguish between them by unique features. I usually notice the difference between Asians from Asia, but when it comes to Asian Americans I’m not so confident for some reason.
Between Continents
I never considered that immigrant focus on math might’ve been motivated by the fact that it doesn’t require high language skills and it is just memorization.
Cultural Anchors
Something I’ve learned in recent years is how important mental health is for everybody. There is a suck it up mentality where things like therapy and counseling feel reserved for people with debilitating trauma and personality disorders when therapy and counseling could be helpful for a lot of people who don’t know they could use it.
Of Work and Family
The obedient and submissive Asian woman stereotype is one that I think gets passed down and internalized to some degree even when it is actively resisted because of how much it is asserted by the mainstream.
An Editor of Entertainment News
There are many Asian Americans writing in the entertainment industry. While Asians have to do a lot to get into the mainstream, they do have a presence within the industry.
Chinatown New York
Interesting how tour bus absence impacted the Chinatown economy, like removing a species from an ecosystem.
Of Japanese Towns and Cultural Communities
Stereotypes of Asians being weak leaders contribute to their lower upward mobility in careers.
Hmong Community
A lot of knowledge is withheld until college. This guy had to get into college before learning about his community and identity in a similar way to how most people have civil rights and colonial history withheld.
Vietnamese in Maryland
My grandpa likes to boast about how he reached the American Dream by just working hard and being smart, but he did get a lot of governments support. In Utah, he was paid to learn English and go to college while from this interview it seems not all Vietnamese immigrants were so lucky. Also, my Grandpa was a soldier and the son of the Vietnamese Labor Union president, so that lines up with the guy’s theory of Vietnamese immigrants excelling due to the discipline of those high ranking military families that were taken over.
Living outside Koreatown
Immigrants staying within their community bubbles prevents them from effectively learning English.
Claiming SPace
As the years go on, America becomes more and more receptive to foreign cultures. Cultures need to be actively preserved and pushed forward.
Very Tough Times
Really sweet customers being supportive and saving the restaurant.
New York’s Chinatown Back on its Feet
I never realized until reading this book how hard Chinatown got hit by 9/11.
Within the South Asian Community
Awful how immigrants get wrongfully detained and deported so much. It’s been going on for a long time.
Reconnecting
This was a very dramatic story. Seemed almost like a movie plot.
Marriage
Being able to see representations that you can identify with is important. It is something that gets harder and harder to come by the further you are away from being a straight white male.
Adopted from Seoul to New Jersey
Sucks having to contend with racist parents. He is rejected without a clearly stated reason but the reasons the dads use probably are just plain racism of course.
FOund
Being kept in a childhood bubble is another common trend in immigrant stories. Where of course children grow up thinking what is happening is normal so they don’t think critically about their experiences until they are adults.
Of Personal Challenges and triumph
Being Asian American has always felt like a unique cultural position to be in. I like the idea that Asian Americans can pick and choose the best of both, although I personally don’t feel connected enough to my Asian side to do much choosing there.
Journey of Self Discovery
The old-school Chinese way of looking at things is hardwired by thousands of years of culture. My Vietnamese grandparents are very old-school like that and have a lot of criticisms and assertions about how things ought to be, as any old people might.
Hapa with Strong Chinese Roots
I thought the attraction to other mixed-race people was interesting. Especially because it could seemingly be any mix.
Page 3- “The thousand-year-old living Chinese meat makes dinner a safari into the unknown, a blood ritual, Food pornography. Black Magic. ”
This reminded me of a newspaper article from the 20’s I read about Chinese food. It said that anything Chinaman will not eat is unfit to eat. It had a quote from the writer’s Chinese friends that said, “The stomach likes to be surprised.”
Page 3- “I stood it. Still and expressionless as some good Chink. I watched Barbara drive off, leave me, like some blonde white goddess going home from the jungle….I’ll learn to be a sore loser. I’ll learn to hit people in the face. I’ll learn to cry when I’m hurt and go for the throat instead of being polite and worrying about being obnoxious to people walking out of my house with my things, taking my kids away. I’ll be more than quiet, embarrassed, I won’t be likable anymore.”
The quiet expressionless Asian stereotype combined with the repressed rage and emotion reminds me of Angel Island poetry. Angel Island’s angsty, depressing, and angry emotional poetry is a direct counter to the silent Asian stereotype.
Food, singing, vehicles, ghosts and sexy ladies are things that show up multiple times throughout this story. The last page combines all of this when he talks about tricking the singing teacher into singing so he can look at her breasts, and then he talks about meat and lettuce and driving through a dead Chinatown full of “ghostpiss.”
Page 1- “as if the sound of running water and breathing the warm soggy ghosts of stale food, floating grease, old spices, ever comforted her as if the kitchen was a paradise for conspiracy.”
I feel like this first page really set the mood for the rest of the story. Homey, Asian, ghost imagery, griminess, and a sense of childish mystery and ancientness.
To Eat and Run Midnight People
Page 8 “I felt the night sea crouch up gloomy, humpbacked under the starlight, near me a dark creature in a dark cape that moved closer to me, breathing a heavy breath full of fish and weeds, sighing a bad breath that hackled the beach, that faked the sounds of distant applause, the faraway screech of a treed mountain lion echoing down the hills out of the dark night woods, near my feet. I was still and shitless stone inside the lay of its breath. The wet flash of old men’s Chinatown sneezes came out of the past from the sea to paw my body with stardust and mosquitoes. I was in the way here. I was always in the way.”
This sets up the story to have a shadowy and grotesque atmosphere. The imagery reminded me of this music video by MGMT:
Page 9 “black eyes gleaming in swollen black assholes”
Woah. More twisted and grotesque imagery. Black tongue and aluminum skin.
There is a lot of horror imagery in this chapter too. Bats, monsters, mummies, creepy sexy asshole nun lady, skulls, blood, corpses, death, and funerals.
Food themes: grease, meat, meat imagery, rice, white rice. There is also the theme of the voracious Chinamen that will eat anything when he talked about peasant ancestors. There is a lot of beer and drunkness involved in this story.
Body part words – Flesh, skin, liver, flaps, muscle, nerves, bones, blood, hearts, teeth. Skin and flesh are especially used a lot in this chapter.
Animals are a theme in this one. Chameleons and dogs. Screeching, hissing, clicking. Fur and butterflies. Claws. Owls.
Shadows, darkness, and ghosts will probably be in every chapter huh. Funerals and death. Dream and unconscious are recurring themes in this story.
The only real day
Dead wife and the train are two things in this story that appear in other stories of this book. There is piss, dogs, meat, and sexy ladies (in calendars).
There is a lot of smoke, cigarettes, and fish in this story. These seem to be the unique aspects. I think print is another unique theme in this one. Comic books, calendars, and magazines are seen throughout. Eggs come up multiple times.
Page 44 – “Because nobody likes the Jews!”
In my last program, something that one of the teachers brought up in a presentation was how a lot of the times immigrants would come to America and throw other minority groups under the bus to gain favor. Black people were the easiest target for this even though black activists did a lot for immigrant rights.
Page 69 “They like the Chinese better than the Negroes because we aren’t many and we aren’t black. They don’t like us as much as the Germans or Norwegians because we aren’t white. They like us better than the Jews because we can’t be white like the Jews and disappear among the lo fan…. This is being a professional Christian Chinese”
This story is about conforming to America and catering to American narcissism. The successful Chinese are those that play along with the role that has been laid out for them by America.
Yes, Young Daddy
Summer cousin penpals. The younger female cousin doesn’t speak perfect English. Flowers, perfume, and summer are recurring themes.
This story seems a lot more sterile than the previous ones. Church, cleaning, pretty smells, summer, letters, childhood memories, beds, and houses. There is no grime or grease or meat sex.
The main character is a bit pervy towards his cousin. I think all of the main characters have been pervy in the head.
The boy definitely seems teenagery to show off his vocabulary the way he does in his letters to Lena.
Give the Enemy Sweet Sissies and Women to Infatuate Him, and Jades and Silks to Blind him with Greed
Notes part 1″ Celebration, heavy rain, metal, noise, organs, nerves, fat, firecrackers, radios. Dirigible is back. Glitter, ooze, a monster of unfathomable dimensions, incommunicable grumbling intellect, helpless fool.
Notes part 2:
A little God without religion. Chinese New year. Realm of meaningful consciousness. Superstitious practices. Funeral. Church. Buddhist. Cosmic Auntie. Mummy. Ghosts. Skin. Skeleton Shadow.
A lot of recurring themes as usual. I think in this story Dirigible gets lost in his thought on a rainy Chinese new year. He gets pulled back into reality by interactions with people, outside stimulus, and the usual pervy/romantic thoughts.
The chapter ends on a dude calling for people to help build a church as the noblest service they could offer. I have an assumption that the church is viewed with cynicism in this book.
A Chinese Lady DiesI
Paralysis comes up on page 110. I didn’t keep track of this before but I think paralysis was a thing in previous chapters.
The mention of Edgar Allan Poe makes me think that the morbid and grotesque writing style of this book was partially inspired by Poe.
Scenes out of a classic western cowboy movie keep popping up in Dirigibles thoughts in this story. There are references to classic pop-culture movies and actors like Bette Davis and Henry Fonda.
Tv and vehicles are brought up. Things are described as mechanical multiple times. I think this has something to do with the references to movies that kept coming up.
The sons of Chan Neon, hotel, radio. Electricity, Lone Ranger, Pirates, Robin Hood, Cisco Kid. Every first page of a story in this book sets up the themes and atmosphere.
There are a lot of lists of pop-culture stuff in this story. Celebrities, movies, Tv shows, characters.
Ghostly flesh. Looked like a vampire, plump and dark with blood. Spooky themes carried all the way through this book to the end.
This story seems to be a crazy and cynical celebrity Chinese life.
It was a bit Ironic to see Gandhi used in this story.His evasion on the question of self defense against male assault disappointed the main character.Gandhi himself was a sexually repressed pervert who molested a lot of women.
I guess the mother is so insistent that the daughter never get married because she herself is stuck with a dude she never loved.
So Miss Sasagawara’s madness is explained by her poem at the end.She went crazy because her Dad went crazy.
The drunk guy represents what America truly feels about Asians or at least he spells out plainly the intangible racism that is sensed from Americans.
Gambling addiction and alcoholism are two traps for dads that I’ve seen come up in multiple immigrant family stories I’ve read.The dad falls prey and the family suffers for his selfishness.
The wild dogs starving, getting overfed, and then roasting sounds pretty tasty.It reminds me of in Tampopo, the dying gangster boyfriend’s story, about hunting wild boars in the winter and roasting their intestines that are filled with sweet potatoes they had eaten.
That’s how I eat my fried eggs, I scarf em like that.
“(It is a wicked and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign).”That’s pretty hardcore to say but is also an admission of their vanity considering that they themselves were looking for a sign.
I see a lot of recurring foods in this book show up at once in this chapter.Fried eggs, rice cakes, bean cakes, pickled vegetables, fish, and vinegar rice.Japanese immigrant food staples.
The theme of quiet helpless anger and bearing disrespect is recurring in these stories.
The part about Emiko being mindful of criticalness to the art of others resonated with me.I think most people have self-esteem deficiencies in various areas or perhaps a lack of inner strength to defend their egos.So people are shaped by what gets attacked and what they let get taken away from them.The fragile parts of the ego can be torn away by critics or bullies, so all that remains is what goes untouched or what is invincible to attacks.I think art is a common thing that people get taken away from them in life because it seems for the most part only people who learn to love making art survive the pressures to give up (singing, drawing, dancing, acting, music, etc.)
Muhammed Ali fighting a sumo wrestler is really silly. I had to google that.The fight looks like it was a total mess and made everyone mad.
This story shows the discomfort and sympathy of interacting with homeless people.It also shows two detached perspectives of the Japanese from the homeless lady.Her irrational paranoia plus her idealization and identification with those idealized qualities of being polite and quiet.
Envying the child dancers for seeming worlds apart.I wonder if Chisato wants to do what they are doing or maybe Chisato just wants to fantasize about having a different life,
The man in the moon vs. the rabbit in the moon. That stood out to me as bizarre yet telling of the American perspective toward Japanese people as aliens. Even something as petty and trivial as what you interpret the moon to look like is something that indicates your American-ness. This is a comical indicator of how shallow and thoughtless the people in power were.
A point of the movie seems to be to humanize the Asian-American image giving the characters diverse and flawed personalities from each other.
A string of impulses and interactions between all of the characters escalates into a total shit show. Nobody seems to have control over their lives, themselves, their natures, or their actions, even when they try to be rebellious.
All of the characters are Asian-American. They are individual personalities from each other but they have similar backgrounds, upbringings, and pressures. As the quote shared says, them being Asian is not the point, it is a given.