Linkage and thoughts

[oyceter]

Wah. Woke up today and rushed to work for my 9:00 meeting, only to discover that... I had no 9:00 meeting.

*headdesk*

Need to check my calendar better.

Things that I've sort of been thinking about/reading online:

chi_zu complains about the Memoirs of a Geisha trailer.

Most of my complaints are in the comments. I liked the book when I read it, but that was a while back. I suspect I would be sporky reading it now. Also, I feel somewhat guilty in complaining because I don't feel like I know enough about the subject or the time period. But there is the instinctive sporky reaction.

Will probably end up seeing the movie anyway and have to bite my tongue through the whole thing!

greythistle's post on Crusie's Bet Me has some interesting comments on race in romances.

I also saw a book called Desperate Tigress in a bookstore during the last trip. It's by a Jade Lee, so I assume the author is Asian?

And here is where I feel guilty feeling better about the author being Asian, or at least assuming an Asian name. I mean... it by no means indicates "cultural authenticity" or anything, and I have issues with the entire notion of cultural authenticity and one-upsmanship in the name of authenticity. (and because I am self-promoting and also entirely too lazy to hijack this entire post, I will simply link to an older post which has more in-depth thoughts)

On one hand, yay non-European romance! Yay Chinese romance! On the other hand, the back cover copy made me cringe. White barbarians and Tao sexual enlightenment indeed. I flipped through the first two or three pages, and the very language made me cringe as well. It's hard to put my finger on why, just that... it feels like it's trying too hard to be "exotic" or "Chinese" or something. On the third hand (or tentacle?), people had good reviews on Amazon. On the fourth tentacle, the reviews set off my spork-o-meter (to coopt yhlee).

Has anyone read these?

I was telling fannishly my theory yesterday on her feeling imposed on by me and racism (I know, this sounds awful!). But it was just that what was an isolated, individual comment/incident to me was one more thing in a long chain of events to her. So, when I was sort of dismissive of the issue at first, it probably felt incredibly brush-off-y to her (lemme know if I am putting words in your mouth!). It feels like that with me too, only re: racism and feminism.

Maybe the one person who looks askance at me in a meeting for being young, Asian and female has got his reasons to doubt me. Maybe one book has got good reasons for having an all white cast. Maybe a tv show episode has a nifty creative reasons for killing off a homosexual character. Maybe another television writer just didn't have the opportunity to write in female friendships with all the other plot points. Maybe one con-goer just goes to a con without thinking about being white, like everyone else. Maybe one LJ-er writes without thinking about not having enough money.

They're all good reasons. They all happen. There are always good reasons (and often, really stupid reasons as well). And to each individual person, it's just one isolated incident in their lives, and he probably doesn't get at all why someone like me would want to make a giant fuss about racism or misogyny in reaction to one little thing. But for me (and probably for others), it isn't one isolated incident. It's one more incident in another long chain of incidents, all connected by race or ethnicity or class or gender or sexual orientation.

And that long chain of incidents is gradually strangling some people.

Should someone have to think about all these factors every day? I don't know. I know I think they should, but that's because I see these factors as a trend, as a cohesive whole. It seems rather unfair that the burden should fall on the people who perceieves the problem as a problem, as opposed to the many people who add little by little, bit by bit, to the problematic atmosphere as a whole. But even though I disagree, I can also see why

And this is not an accusation of racism or misogyny or classism or any other ism. But I suppose it is a request to think about this once in a while, because sometimes small things are not so small after all.

That was actually going to be some giant essay on race in romance and in genre, on race in fandom (I remember being one of three Asians at Norwescon, or so I felt. And one of the other Asians was my roommate). Or a ranty thing on being young, female and Asian in terms of my group, which is largely young, female and Asian and comfortable; in terms of my department, which is mostly young, female and of more than one race and of more than one nationality; in terms of my company, which is mostly male and of more than one race and of more than one nationality; in terms of my company's upper management, which is almost invariably older, white, male, and American. But I am too lazy to actually write it.

Comments

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

It's by a Jade Lee, so I assume the author is Asian?

Yes. I tried one of her books, but the writing didn't work for me.

[oyceter]

Hrm, that's what I sort of suspected myself... I flipped through the first few pages and bounced off, sporking all the way.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw the book and was turned off, too. Other Asian romance writers I know of: Marjorie Liu (haven't read) and Karen Harbaugh (part-Asian, part-white, writes Regencies and European historicals; pleasant but not outstanding; haven't read the historicals). There was also an anthology of contemp. Asian-American romance a year or two back, but I didn't get it, which I regret now.

I've been thinking about a giant essay on race & romance with some mentions of other genres, too. I'd love to see yours if you felt up to writing it. Not to pressure you!

[oyceter]

Hrm, interesting! Sigh. I want to support non-European (or even just non-set-in-Great-Britain) romances, but... gah, the writing!

Ooooooooo, I'd love to see your essay!

I am very much debating it now. Either something like that or race and nationality and anime/manga geekery in different countries to submit to that anthology thing (maybe, if I end up not being too tired or something).

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

A bit random, and out of curiousity, but, is there a romance novel tradition/genre in other countires the way there is in the states? I'm trying to think of what I've been exposed to. I know that there are definitely Filipino romance novels, written in tagalog no less. Though the Filipino culture is particularly reflective of American culture as seen through a funhouse amplifier, if that makes any sense. I would consider a lot of shoujo manga to serve that purpose in Japanese culture, but I couldn't speak to solely textual novels. I don't know enough about other kinds of literature to make an observation about other forms.

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Further clarification, I guess by other countries, I mean non-English speaking. I know that England has a romance, nay even chicklit tradition very similar to ours, I assume for some reason that Australia and Canada do too.

But it's harder to imagine say a Chinese romance novel. I don't know what that looks like, sounds like. It's like when I checked out a book from the library because it was a translation of a contemporary Chinese sci fi novel and I realized, "holy crap! I don't know anything about sci fi in China!" And I was really curious to see how the Chinese imagined the future. Sadly, I couldn't finish it and I feel kind of bad about that. And this is making me think completely different thoughts like, do all cultures have sci fi? Do some have considerably less to virtually none? Is an inability to imagine the future, or is imagining the future a privelege something that not everyone has the time or luxury to avail of? etc.

ANYWAY. I'm also reminded of how the only time I was ever in China all the music videos were at least vaguely patriotic and nationalistic. I couldn't find a pop culture like one has here, in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, even the Philippines or Thailand. My sampling was hardly broad or varied, and I don't mean to say Chinese pop culture doesn't exist outside of, say, Taiwan or Hong Kong, but it sure has a different feel to it.

um, this doesn't really have anything to do with what you were saying. But your thoughts made me have these thoughts.

[oyceter]

Oooo interesting!! Your thoughts are nifty and interesting thoughts!

(i adore figuring out local pop culture and how it interacts with national pop culture and global pop culture and all that lovely tsuff)

But yes, I wonder about Chinese (as in China) pop culture as well! I know that Taiwan and HK have large pop cultures and that they somewhat influence each other, although I was very surprised by how much HK pop culture-y stuff I didn't know when I was there for my internship a few years ago.

And for Taiwan, I know that the music pop culture industry is pretty big, and it's sort of cool because the island is so small that you actually have a pretty good chance of seeing famous singers for not so expensive (as compared to seeing U2 in the States or something). Also, I feel like there's not as much music coming in from HK, as opposed to Korea or Japan (Japanese pop culture was very popular when I was in high school, and Korean pop culture was very popular when I was in college... not sure what's in right now).

I do know that there are Taiwan singers that are popular in HK and HK singers that are popular in Taiwan. And I think that Taiwan singers are popular in China as well (just because I remember the Zhang Huimei scandal thing when she was banned from going there for singing at Taiwan President Chen's inauguration or something).

Eee, where are you from? (I feel bad! I don't know!) Do you know anything about those pop cultures? Eeee this is cool and I want to make more people comment!

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

Well, the answer is complicated, so don't feel bad!

Geographically, I'm from California, SF Bay Area. It's where I grew up (with the exception of one year in England in 2nd grade--Dad's job) until I went to school in Rhode Island. Now I live in Florida.

Heritage-wise, I'm an Asian mutt. Primarily Chinese with a healthy dash of Filipina. Then in smaller doses, Japanese, English, Malay and only God knows the rest. I didn't even know about the Malay until I was 18, my parents just assumed I could feel the Malay blood coursing through me or something. I actually don't really understand what Malay is, my mom insists it's different from being Malaysian, but can't explain it better than that. I'm pretty sure there's other stuff thrown in as well and being Filipina makes me automatically mestiza anyway seeing as there's all kinds of races mixed in there to begin with. I don't look obviously identifiable. Vaguely Asian, but my face is sort of an ethnic rorsach test. People tend to assume I'm whatever they are, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, Latina. People try to speak to me in Spanish all the time or offer me Spanish language brochures. I once mistook a photo of myself in my high school yearbook as being a picture of an Indian girl. Ironically, Filipino people don't tend to think I'm Filipina, they think I'm Latina.

Growing up in Silicon Valley and having mostly immigrant friends, I was actually more familiar with foreign pop culture than American. I watched more FujiTV than any of the major networks here. I was at one point up on Japanese, Korean, Indian, Taiwanese and Hong Kong pop culture to varying degrees. But I've never really been immersed in any of it firsthand.

I have a decent sense of the cross-pollination that goes on in Asia. Both from outside of Asia and within. For a long time it seemed that the Japanese had a cultural juggernaut with anime, manga, and jpop, but then Korea started encroaching on that too. H.O.T.! S.E.S.! Yeah!

I was in China basically overnight, and it was Shenzhen so, not deep in the heart of China or anything. But I was fascinated by the little bit of tv I saw, every single music video was sort of vaguely historical, a lot of rolling fields and noble workers. It was so different and propaganda-y and not what I was expecting at all.

Where are you from? I get the impression that you're Chinese and spent substantial time in Taiwan?

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

Am wandering around reading LJ posts on race; hope you don't mind my butting in.

I actually don't really understand what Malay is, my mom insists it's different from being Malaysian, but can't explain it better than that.

Malay's a race/ethnicity (as well as the language that race/ethnicity speaks). Saying you're Malaysian is like saying you're American; it conveys nothing about your race -- for example, I'm Malaysian, but I'm also Chinese.

[oyceter]

I've always wondered the same thing myself! I mean, more about sci-fi/fantasy than romance, but yeah.

I think there very much is a romance/chicklit genre in Taiwan, at least. I've seen historical romances set in China or the Qing Dynasty (from the covers), but alas, I've never actually read any of them because I get frustrated with how slowly I read. And I think there are modern ones as well, but I remember the historical ones more (mmmmm costumes). And it's really interesting, because I've always thought that they were sort of related to the dramas on TV.

I love historical dramas! The ones in Taiwan (the good ones are mostly being done in China now, from what my mom says) are very soapy, like Korean and Japanese dramas, but my favs were always the wuxia/martial arts ones and the historical ones (lots and lots of tangled romances and whatnot).

There's also definitely chicklit -- my sister gets them every so often and likes them. She says that they are very cute.

I suspect that there isn't much sex in them, but couldn't say for sure until I actually read some.

I've seen sci-fi sections in bookstores, but those bookstores were a mix of Chinese and English books, and from the brief glances that I took, it seems like most of them were translations of English works that I knew. I think the really big genre would be wuxia (I think if I grew up reading Chinese, I would be a wuxia/manga geek instead of a sci-fi/fantasy geek), but that is my personal theory.

Ok, now I totally want to get these or at least investigate more when I go back home!

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

I know! My main exposure to chicklit-y, romance-y literature in other cultures is like I said, manga. I've seen Filipino romance novels which look basically like Harlequins but in Tagalog. I kind of assume that Taiwan and Hong Kong have at least chicklit-y type stories.

I don't know about written texts, but in India I get the impression that the entire Bollywood/popular film culture is essentially romance. Everything seems to boil down to, "boy meets girl--often in Switzerland." I also find it interesting that the only pop music there is derived from movie soundtracks.

Now I'm wondering, is there sci fi in India? I haven't come across any.

I am having many thoughts in many directions and I would have to read a LOT of books to come to conclusions. ^_^ But I'm wondering if a society or culture with more disposable time and income is more inclined to make disposable stories than others. It would seem logical for the answer to be yes.

And your comments on wuxia vs. sci fi are interesting too. The interest seems to definitely lie in the past rather than the future. Why is this? Japan on the other hand has sci fi out the wazoo. I read a few years ago an article that I wish I could remember better saying that Japan lives in the future, that they're truly a postmodern society. I sometimes wonder if that's why there are so many cyberpunky stories, if the Japanese are grappling with neogtiating the territory between man and machine, virtual and real on a day to day basis in ways that we are not.

And now I'm reminded of how someone at my theatre was saying that theatre is going to undergo a renaissance over the next decade because as we move farther away from analogue into digital we long for the "soft touch." That immdiate human connection. The technology that is supposed to connect us actually isolates us. Everyone can be tuned into their own, personalized channel. So in our leisure time we will seek out other people because we increasingly spend most of our interactions with or mediated through machines. I think this speaks to the number of stories coming out of Japan that are about young people who feel adrift, disconnected, and suicidal. I think part of it is cultural, suicide is viewed very differently in Japan than it is in other places, but I think a lot of it can be read as a reaction to a life that is increasingly held together by the connective tissue of wires.

And now I'm totally rambling all over your journal.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Bollywood movies are frequently called "masala movies," because they have a little bit of everything: some romance, some action, some comedy, some drama, some (lots of, actually) music. (There is also a big indie film industry that makes movies that are like any indie films anywhere, but that's nit what you asked about.) I'm not sure that they're primarily romances-- there are plenty that seem to be primarily action, or primarily comedy, or primarily family drama, but they'll usually include at least a token romance.

I don't think sf is a big genre in India. There's plenty of fantasy (mostly much more like what I'd call magic realism than high fantasy), though.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read your essay (or rant) if you ever get around to writing it.

I've been contemplating writing some sort of essay on being a geeky Asian female to submit to that "She's Such a Geek" anthology, but I don't know if I'll have the time for it.

[oyceter]

Oooo, I'd love to read that if you had the time!

I've been thinking about doing the race and romance and genre thing for a while, mostly because I am totally copying coffeeandink and she's mentioned thinking about that essay as well and I'd love to see hers.

I've been also thinking about doing some sort of thing on being an anime/manga fan in different countries and how different it is for that anthology.... not sure, will see.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read your thoughts on race in genre. I worry about getting the balance right between not mentioning race unless there's a very good reason for it (the occult is still very much a white boys' club, so Andrew in the late 80's is going to pay attention to any staff or customers in his shop who happen to be non-white and female). Richard's family are far more bothered about whether people are entirely human, than if they had a non-white grandparent or great-grandparent (even though the latter covers both James' family and Olivia and Imogen's in my head). Susan's been involved with Taj for six years, and she's more bothered by the nineteen year age gap than by the race/culture differences.

So do I need to make more of it, or should I leave my readers to fill in the racial mix of my characters where I've not mentioned it?

Gina

[oyceter]

I think it is a difficult balance! And I think it's tough to say if race is an issue or not. Mostly I guess I notice when a cast is all-white or if there are only one or two minority characters, because my life is not all-white. I've also found that I really like it when race is just sort of casually slipped in -- the minority characters aren't just a sum of various minority traits.

It's hard to say (sorry this is so rambly), but it's sort of... I get irritated when, say, there's an Asian character and all she can do is talk about Asian-ness and how Asian she is blah blah blah, but I also get irritated if race has absolutely no part of her life as well. Does that make sense at all? Wow, that must be tough as a writer.

But I've very much liked commercials airing here in CA with Asian spokespeople, just because it was like, wow! Asian person on TV! And I've liked books in which white isn't the fallback skin color (this is more sci-fi, since if your story is set in midwestern America, obviously one cannot ignore things). Or when there are minority-stereotype subverty things, and etc.

Uh. I hoped that made even remote sense...

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

It made total sense. I think part of my problem is that Oxford University in the 1980s is a very white setting, especially when you're looking at the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology. On the other hand I do wonder whether to give Charlotte in my current novel a black boyfriend so I can explore Susan's reactions in one of the subplots. Especially since I can turn that on its head and flashback to Charlotte's reactions when she first met Taj. Yeah, I might do that.

Gina

[oniko.livejournal.com]

Hi. I came here for the Veronica Mars commentary, and I'm staying for the like-minded Asiany thoughts. :) And friending you, if it's okay?

It's one more incident in another long chain of incidents, all connected by race or ethnicity or class or gender or sexual orientation.

I know exactly what you mean here. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, with the recent start of the Fall TV season. I was making an effort to catch as many pilots as I could, just to find something new. And out of maybe 9 or 10 new shows I checked out, there were a grand total of 2 Asian characters. Neither was a major role, and one of them was just mined for green card jokes. (The only show I'm still watching is Everybody Hates Chris.)

Is it that hard to include non-white characters? Even *gasp* more than one per show/book/whatever? You'd think it inflicted physical pain, the way writers avoid it. It's unrealistic, and it's insulting. And I like Jennifer Cruise's writing, but I'm freaked out that her ideal fantasy world is all white. And even more freaked out that people don't have a problem with that.

Ugh, sorry. This is a ranty topic for me. And I'm just now cautiously dipping my toe into the world of romance novels, and it's depressing to think that it's actually less diverse racially than genre TV. But yeah, I'm right there with you on the "Racism=death by a thousand papercuts" thing.

[oyceter]

Hallo! I don't mind at all! Alas, I have been savagely hacking down my flist due to not enough time in RL, so I may not friend back, but I do drop by people's LJs and check stuff out even if they are not friended.

It's very depressing, but romance novels are incredibly, incredibly white. I suspect a big part of that is because 90% of them are set in Regency England (or so it feels), and obviously, not that much racial mixing going on then. But I get irked when I see that in contemporaries. Or even when I think about the fact that a giant part of the market is Regency historicals. I mean, it feels all genre-trope-defying when something is set in Edwardian America, for heaven's sake, much less a non-English-speaking country!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Hello. I used to write for TV, and the big problem with getting non-white characters who aren't black (or better yet, black cops) onscreen is that you don't have to get one person to include them (ie, a novelist just has to write them in) but they have to get past about twelve different people, from the writer to the showrunner to the producers to the network execs, all or almost all of whom will be white men who think they're liberal but actually are stuffed to the gills with white male priveleged assumptions.

So basically, every time you see more than one non-white character in a TV show, it means that someone fought like hell to get the second one there. (Because one is a necessary token.)

This is one of the reasons I dropped out of TV writing.

[renedieu.livejournal.com]

Seeing as you seem to want someone to chime in about mainland China, I guess I'll give it a shot.

What has been said about China and Sci-Fi is generally true. In fact I often hear statements such as "Americans like stories in the future. Chinese don't like." (On a side note, such a statement has another aspect that is worth noting, that Chinese people often make generalizations. I think this is both cultural and psycholinguistic, as in consider the different usages of "our" and "wo-men" between English and Chinese. On a side, side note, please excuse the generalizations that I myself will make from here on out.)

For an example of this, please check out the following article from the Chinese press:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-06/06/content_3050889.htm

I was surprised the other day to find a street magazine peddlar selling a science-fiction magazine. I honestly didn't think such things would exist in China. I kick myself for not buying it. Besides that, I cannot recall ever coming into contact with anything resembling domestically produced sci-fi. The closest thing would be Wong Kar-Wai's movie 2046, but that's really Hong Kong-made, although it stars several mainland Chinese actresses.

My theory (more intuitive than empirical) is that the extent to which Sci-Fi and/or fantasy is popular in a country correlates to the extent to which the country is considered developed. My datapoints for this are mainly China and Japan, with some consideration of Korea, but I think it's reasonable.

I think it's natural that as technology becomes less a wonder and more a part of everyday life to more people that's it's natural to use media to express sentiments about the role of the technology in our lives, and I think this is why Sci-Fi is so popular in the U.S. and, to a greater extent, Japan. Korea, somewhere in the middle between China and Japan in terms of development, respectively has more and more fantastic elements in their media: last year I watched an alternate-reality film called 2009, and horror movies are becoming more popular (e.g., A Tale of Two Sisters). Whereas in China, horror too is largely unexplored. (I link horror thematically with Sci-Fi and Fantasy).

I think it's also important to consider Sci-Fi and Fantasy as outlets for social critique, and in this area too some countries are more developed than others. In this way, you do see Japan contemplate suicide through it's media (take, for example, Suicide Club) whereas China is not quite ready to openly discuss that topic through creative outlets, although suicide certainly does happen (a lot, in fact).

So what does China have? Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that everything in China is "patriotic." I'm not sure when Chi_Zu went to China; perhaps the environment has changed substantially since then. In fact, China does have a substantial pop culture that is not just based in HK and Taiwan, although both of those do play a huge role. I think Chinese media products can generally be categorized in three ways: classic stories, historical and domestic. I will tackle these in turn.

[renedieu.livejournal.com]

(Sorry my original post was too long, so here it continues).

Chinese people are very happy to tell you that they have 5000 years of history. As such, they have a lot to draw on when it comes to pulling out stories. For starters, there are the four classic novels (such as Dreams of Red Mansions and Journey to the West). In all honesty, if I turn on the TV, there is likely to be at least one TV adaption featuring the Monkey King, if not two. Many Children's programs are also based on classic stories.

Historic pieces, I think, can be broken down into several sub-genres. Each, in fact, tends to have its particular characteristics and typical themes. There are the stories set in ancient Chinese dynasties. I think most of the wuxia works that you have already talked about would fall in this category. Second, I think there is the proto-modern China period. Some exemplary work would be some of the older movies of Zhang Yimou (for example Raise the Red Lantern or the Road Home) or Chen Kaige. These tend to take place in fairly rural areas and are often rather slow-paced. Third, I would dedicate an entire category to works set during the Cultural Revolution, as this continues to be a very hot topic (watch Chen Kaige's Farewell, My Concubine or read the works of Yu Hua for example). Finally, there is the modern, which I think is still getting off the ground. I think this comes particularly from the influence of HK. Unfortunately, it's hard to come up with examples that have reached the US, however, I can mention the sub-sub-genre of what I call urban feminist literature which includes such books as Candy by Mian Mian and Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui.

Lastly, I will briefly describe what I call the domestic genre. I think it's important to differentiate this from the previous modern historic genre. In domestic-style media, the focus is not on contemporizing the action, but merely presenting images of slices of (usually) family life. Most TV shows that are not set in ancient dynasties tend to be of this ilk. They are typically fairly light and lack the satire that marks television in the States.

That's all for now. I hope that this gives you some insight and that it's not too incoherent.