Filial ... whaaaat?

If we're going to rant on the subject of filial piety and what it means in the modern setting, there's literally endless things to say. Certainly, Chinese people have institutionalized the idea of taking care of your elders in their infirmity into a religion. With the current fashionable movement to be 'innovative,' to 'break the mould,' to be against any and all institutions regardless, in addition to the ideology of democracy eroding into the Chinese tradition of age hierarchy, it's not surprising that people occasionally slip up and yell at their Grandpas. All the more appropriate to discuss the topic, with the timing near Ching Ming Festival, in which ritual tomb/grave sweeping and offerings of food, money and incense are made. (Well done Pilar, right on time!)

I just learned from my maternal grandmother that if you've relatives that are fresh in the grave, you have to visit them first, before Ching Ming day, in order to demonstrate that you haven't forgotten them so quickly. You visit the relatives that have been in the grave longer later, either on the day of, or after. The term for the newly dead isn't actually 'newly dead' - it's literally 'new mountain,' and 'old mountain' for the long buried. This is a nice way of pointing to the practice of having graves situated on hillsides or mountainsides, mostly for Feng Shui reasons. I think that if I were dead, I'd like a spot on a hilltop with a nice view too, frankly. (Pilar can you teach me how to insert Chinese characters? Ta.)

And, it all makes a lot of sense to me. If you've been dead for ages, you'd forgive your kids and grandkids for wanting to visit the people they remember more freshly, right? Though, with how intractable old people generally are, it's also difficult for me to imagine them being less than absolutely stubborn and demanding in the grave as they are in life. I have this strange image of a bunch of old dead people elbowing each other out of the way, to get the dibs on the freshest and best food offerings, just like I've seen real old folks do in the Hong Kong wet markets. (Chinatown NYC, Pilar?) Honestly, if you're that old, and that dead, no shame in giving your fellow ghost a shove, eh?

The Granddaughter Asian Grandpas Wouldn’t Want.

It’s no secret that I am a little crazy. I am easily agitated over random things. One of those things is my grandpa’s insistence on putting clothes in the dryer after they’ve been hanging to air dry for two days. It just doesn’t make sense to me. He claims that air-drying for two days first saves money because the dryer isn’t running for the full hour.

I wasn’t really in the mood because I had a really strange dream about rejection and woke up confused and slightly angry. (What else is really new?) I decided to wash the bed sheets because I equated clean sheets with good dreams but when I came downstairs, I saw grandpa stacking the clothes washed two days ago one by one in to the dryer -- apparently laying them flat helps the already dry clothes dry faster -- and I just went crazy and started complaining about it. And it turned into a full-blown argument with both of us yelling at each other. OMG and it must be a generational thing or maybe he has been watching way too many TVB shows but grandpa threw down that he can’t “忍 受” (rěn shòu, to suffer) the complaining about the issue anymore. He knew that we all thought his clothes drying methods were insane and chose to ignore them because he was stubborn. Ugh and then we ended up yelling at each other about how we should do our own laundry (which is fine with me cuz I think he’s insane).

So there you have it, perhaps the ultimate example of not being filial. Confucius must be rolling over in his grave. Hearing Grandpa wax poetic about how he is suffering the indignity of being lectured by his granddaughter made me feel bad. It was like reliving that sad Sutaitai moment again: the day when I vowed never to make the elderly feel so exasperated and defeated. woops. Looking back, I should’ve left it all alone. Both Dad and Alex have also made comments about his laundry method, but neither has been as aggressive as mine probably because they don’t spend nearly as much time at home as I do. I am probably having cabin fever and took it out on them. Still I should have known better. Grandpa and Grandma live in our home and I shouldn’t be looking at them as if they were mere guests. :sigh: This is yet another reason to find a job ASAP so I can move out and never have to deal with the guilt for yelling at people for doing stupid insane things again!!

Hollywoodization

Has anyone else seen both versions of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs? Pilar and I have. The concept is so simple it's revolutionary - a story about two moles trying to rat out each other. The comedian Eddie Izzard hit the nail on the head in the case of the Hollywood remake of Infernal Affairs. Pilar and I went to see it with a bunch of Americans who hadn't seen the original (gritty, intense, emotional, dark... a lovely movie, highly recommended, if only for the eye candy. OMG Tony Leung Chiu Wai please marry me, I'll do your dirty dishes). Afterwards, Pilar and I could not stop bitching about how the Hong Kong version was soooooo much more awesome. Our other friends got jealous about how much fun we were having and told us we needed to stop, because The Departed was a good movie. Was it bad form of us to bitch, when it was TEH TRUTH?

Any other tainted movies to mention? I would really love to hear from someone who knows a movie that was better after Hollywoodization. No, really, I'm eager to be surpised. I shall eat crow, if I am.

Where are your friends from freshperson year? To Josie Garza: a Most Stellar Dyke. I did love you, and I love you still.

Recently, I received news of the passing of a person that I knew from my freshman year at Hollins University, a woman of note (it seems strange to refer to ourselves as girls, though back then, I suppose we were), if only to me. First year at college was a bit strange for me, I don't know if I loved it or hated it: it was an eye-opener on American college culture, and on the variety and spirit of Americans. And because I find this obituary sadly lacking, I'm going to fumble one of my own...

Josie and I met during orientation, and spent the majority of our first semester doing... well, whatever it is people do during their first semester at college, I can't remember. Some drinking and dancing and talking about nothing, I think. I took two classes with her, and my strongest memories had to be of the "Female Cyborgs in Early Modern Literature" class during our second semester of first year.

Josie probably had no respect for the concept of 'off-topic' or 'on a tangent.' She was hardly the most conscientious student ever, none of us did all our readings, really, but she always added something amazing to our tiny seminar class, something wonderful and tenderly imaginative, like "Wouldn't it be great if... ?" or "Hey, what if...?" and since this was a class partly about sci-fi, you can imagine that what she said was always surprising, and sometimes laughable. It was the laughing that she incited, the genuine delight she found in sharing her non-serious, non-scholarly musings, that will always stay with me. She makes me remember the greatest thing about pure academia: that anything is possible in the mind. I don't think it mattered that we hardly ever talked about cyborgs in a scholarly way. I think it did matter that we laughed, and that Josie often had a hand in our laughing.

In my senior year, I wrote a thesis on the Image of the Female Cyborg in Film and Literature (are the caps a bit much? Yeah, they are a bit snobby aren't they, those big letters. I forgive myself. You don't need to. ) I miss that class, I miss that particular time, and I miss Josie making me laugh. I hope you're laughing now (you probably are, we look pretty ridiculous) , wherever you are, Josie Garza.

Su taitai, the Asian Grandmother I sometimes wish I had.

Not to say anything against my grandma; she is crazy and awesome in her own way, but Su taitai is really something else. I mean, how many tech-savvy, politically-opinionated, worldly grandmas do you know? Gosh, I hope she doesn’t Google herself one day and stumble upon this pseudo-love letter to her. Embarrassing!

Su taitai is an enigma for many students; she is definitely not the traditional little old Chinese lady that you see. There is hardly an ounce of “traditional” teacher in her. The worst Chinese teacher I ever head at Columbia was this guy by the name of Wang. In my mind, he was the epitome of everything stereotypical and horrible about a traditional Chinese teacher: rote memorization, rigidly structured quizzes and tests, points system based on participation, embarrassing the quieter students in front of the class, praising and doting on the non-Chinese students for their speaking abilities, etc. Ugh, what’s worse is that he had a feeling of self-importance – he was the best at everything, knew more than anyone, had infinite knowledge because he was the most learned scholar that China has ever produced in its 5000+ year history. (haha, bitter much, Pilar?)

Obviously Su taitai is the opposite of that. She genuinely cares about her students, even the ones who are quiet and don’t speak that often (i.e., me). She gave me a great big hug when she saw me in her Readings in Modern Chinese class. The work she gives isn’t hard but she expects 10000x the amount of effort you think is sufficient. She wants to push you to do your best; each writing assignment I emailed to her was returned, littered with notes and questions. No work is final until everything is discussed. And she does this with everyone’s work. Sometimes I logged on to my gmail and saw that Su taitai sent me a response at 3am. I found it especially hard when she finally broke down in class and showed us just how much we disappointed her. It was like telling your grandma that the trip she was looking forward to for weeks was cancelled because you’d rather sit at home.

Sometimes I wonder how happy she is teaching second and fourth year Chinese. In the years I have known her I have discovered a few personal facts: she was well educated in mainland China, continued that education in Taiwan, and in the US at Georgetown and Columbia. Although she enjoys teaching, I think someone of her intellectual background would much rather enjoy lecturing and discussing Modern Chinese literature without having to “dumb down” the works. I could totally see her having a Parisian salon, where she can invite people to eat, drink, be merry and talk about any and everything. Oh to be a fly at that party.

Here we are at a class dinner. Half of the class didn't show up but I think she was pretty happy anyway. Isn't she so cute?

Su Tai Tai (Look her up at www.culpa.info) and what American exchange students in China may need to take into account

This is a post dedicated to one of the most memorable professors of my college career, Su Tai Tai. As mentioned, Pilar and I met in her class, and she's probably one of the reasons we became friends, because talking about Su Tai Tai and her particular antics was so much fun.

The thing that the other American students I had the priveledge of calling classmates never understood about Su Tai Tai is that she couldn't be any other way even if she tried. She doesn't think that she is a lunatic, because her idea of being a teacher extends beyond the classroom. This is a quaint Chinese attitude, and personally, I believe Su Tai Tai carries it off with great aplomb.

Chinese professors, especially older ones, do feel the obligation to mold their students into responsible, ethical adults, which is a digression from the average professor at Columbia or Barnard, where the assumption is that you already are (though, from what I've seen... haha nah just joking.) Su Tai Tai also expects an unquestioned amount of respect above the threshold of respect that the average professor requires from his/her students, which I also think is Chinese. She meets with a lot of resistance because of her concepts and expectations of us, her students, and I feel bad for her sometimes. She gets outraged occaisionally, but she really is a sweetheart.

I recently talked to my professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong about the respect issue, and she admits she hates it when foreign students, mostly American, troop into her class wearing flip flops or tank tops, or when they put their feet up on the chair in front of them. She says that it reflects a total lack of respect for the class, their classmates, and herself, who put a lot of effort into putting the class together, encouraging discussions etc. I don't know whether to agree with her or not. But let this be a warning to all American exchange students in China: shoes and shirt are required, preferrably one with a collar. That, is the lesson of the day.

Indulge Me

What is the line between kindness and indulgence in the realm of sexual practices? I read Dan Savage and Mistress Matisse's Columns and Blogs and I find myself pondering the above question quite often. Dan Savage is mostly against bestiality, but very against it when you're tearing up a girl dog. He's generally against publicly flaunting certain kinks, if that means that you're forcing coworkers, family or friends to participate in your kink (omg, I have le not so secret diapers on and I... I... I... could be found out! *gasp* *hard-on*) . And I do see why, it's simply rude. I recently read an article about an British male taking a willing female sex slave and having her trail around on a chain in public. It's kind of like being a nudist outside of a nudist colony - just, well, uncouth.

It is mean and small-minded to denigrate homosexuality of course, but at one time, the prevailing thought was that homosexual people were simply indulging themselves in something unnecessary and amoral. Right now, we have established, in general, that involving outsiders in you and your lover's personal kink is asking for too much indulgence on the part of unwilling bystanders. But sometimes, and I WILL be beheaded for saying this, I'm sure, I vaguely understand when a certain people rant on about people wanting to marry their lamps and their pet gerbils next, in the context of arguing about gay rights. What that camp might be trying to say is "Perhaps we shouldn't forget that line between absolute indulgence and humanity. " There should be a line, we shouldn't indulge ourselves or other human beings in raping animals (actually, I just had the strange image of a lamp fighting off the sexual advances of a male like a Regency era lady... don't you think some lampshades look a bit like a frilly dress? "No, Lord Beckett, I must return to the bedside table, this tryst will ruin me!"), and... {insert here other examples of unindulgable sexual practices that that I can't think of right now}. But I'm annoyingly confused as to what exactly is unnecessary to indulge, in myself and others, and what should be given acceptance and/or dignity in the open.

And, to all the raving, foaming-at-the-mouth liberals that I've met over the years, I don't think I'm ashamed of asking either. There should be some hard and fast rules - it would , and is, remiss of the liberal camp NOT to think up something catchy like "what would Jesus do?"