work ethics to each
The Radio France, anohther program from 91.5 FM that I always leave on whenever I am at home, seemed never on over the weekend. Instead of the longer broadcasting in the morning on weekend and regular hours at night weekdays, the radio kept on playing slightly ethnic but still on the side of French music. It is monday night, and I made sure finally they seemed to have gotten back to the routine broadcasting w/o any explanation. At some point, around Satuday morning, I just assumed them to be on strike in which they take pride. What else could it be?
A little ago, when I was in Barns & Noble in Forest Hills, there was this funny incident that I ran into, so let me jot it down here.
I approached to one of those clerks behind the computer to ask to locate a copy of a title that I was looking for, and addressed him as "Hi, I am looking for this title..." just to realize he would not react my words. He was staring at the computer screen seemingly on some research. I paused wondering if I should try further to get his attention when I was right beside him. Consequently I was looking at the screen he was staring at without a word, and the screen switched into a new one to be set for a new search. He still did not pay attention to me, so it took another while to figure out that he was anticipating the title that I came to talk him for, w/o urging me verbally, sending any sign of his recognition of my presence; he did not seem to see me at all.
"The Inheritance of Loss, the latest winner of Man Booker, " I hurriedly uttered the word, as if to overcompensate the wasted moments due to his disconnection.
He typed the word into the search engine, looking at the screen to groan and eventually said,
"No, we can't find it. I don't know the spelling for 'INheritunse'. I am sorry."
His blunt words and behavior rushed me to walk out.
I was too amazed but amused as well, and did not bother to spell the word out for him. Is there such a way as his to decline to offer their service? Even if there was, it should not be the primary store policy, I suppoed not, to surrender the service for cus tomers simply due to one's incapacity.
It was just right that I retreated without wasting any more time with the first clerk. I went down to the first floor to catch somebody from the customer service counter, and got informed they did not carry it for the moment. Perhaps for the adjustment in a rush along with the announcement made recently for the newest booker winner.
It was still the funniest moment in Forest Hills, where I never felt at ease. This place felt more like a suburb and not very culturally intuned area, and actually it was to me. Sorry, I am a Bklynite after all.
the Club Xia Xue
illiteracy
I always leave the radio program News and Notes on from nine in the morning. This was precedently hosted by Tad Smiley, and later named as it is currently after he left the show. Although Smiley is no longer there, the tone of the show still carries his presence. The show is produced first and foremost for Afro Americans by Afro Americans. I love the show and I am solely dependant on it as the source of informations that I need for current affairs from domestic to global level.
Today I caught one of the round table panels say
the low voting system in African American community is because a lot of them are not confident about the voting process, and that is how they end up giving up their rights.
It means that the voting process becomes a hassle for them due to their low rate of literacy. I felt so sad that I could not describe how low it is. And that makes me feel more strongly and passionately to become a English teacher in public school system in NYC, where is known as the hell for teachers. If only they hire me.
A redneck from Bronx
I paused to think for a while where to publish this post given that I have three different blogs to sort my writings out acording to their subjects and contents. Usually I do not write complaints in daily life, such as who wronged you and who you still have grudges against for unresolved matters, which I am not sure whether theycan be done without boring readers. But what about this musing that is dragged for a while? It might be worthwhile putting down here for a good amount of time was already invested in it to be rid of, in vain.
A little ago, I had a couple of assistants of my husband over to get some urgent job done overnight. All of them that I had known well did not make me think twice of their offering the workforce when in need, except this guy that I was skeptical about and never liked to get too close to, D; he is in his mid twenties, who talks a lot of his movie project and some other Asianphile interests including Kung Fu. This dude seems to be sufficiently educated (a graduate of SVA for film production) especially for a typical Random Family background in Bronx, you know what I mean; a mother from Africa with two boys, the older was D and the younger one grew up to be a drug dealer and got arrested. I am not saying this from prejudice, but from knowing the reality in the inner city life of youth (I have worked with them and got close to the point that I say no more). The movie project he talks the talk of is a gangster movie features some Asian man, who 'hiya!'s his way through the NY noir environment (sorry, but I cannot stop laughing at this point for his retarded and naive view on the industry and people) where is full of stereotypical portrayals of each and every race except Afro-American one. Yes, a typical brain smashing silly project for retards. He not only talks the talk of the embarrasing movie production but seemed to complete the process for Vol.1, so I do not know if I should sneer at his talk, or should try harder to shun the talk. I did not know what to say to explain how bad the script was unless it was for a school assignment; I unwillingly read it when I was asked to admire as opposed to feed him back as sober as possible, for the script was filled with clichest of cliches (sans accents, pardon) of gang movies, and I went to myself and to my husband as well as 'do we still have to see another silly movie like this without getting paid?' (I am a film critic/theorist as well as a hooker put the job on hold/housewife) And as in an independent film? Please spare me. Besides, I never wanted to pass the script as B- or less for that was filled with tons of sterotypes and prejudices, especially how much Asian people are objectified to capitalise the ultimate theme of the movie; kung fu. Tell me how stupid this sounds already.
I did not know if I should laugh it off for how silly the movie seemed to be, would be completely a wast of time and energy or suggest he could do any better than this when& nbsp;I discovered that it would take roughly estimated $13,000, and he counted partly on my husband for the financing.
So he is a young director who talks his way through to make a kung fu movie at the cost of suckers and Asians. This is a black dude, by the way; he seems quite guilty of trying so hard to become something, anything that is not black, and clinging onto Asian sterotypes as if those things are talismans to protect him from whatever cathes just as he is. He is a typical Asainphile black who never ceases to try to exploit whatever he could. But to be exploited by a moron like him is the last thing that I want to let happen. For example, he never gives me a break when he brags about how much he is attached to Asian people and cultures when he is completely ignorant about anything more than kung fu. He says he has got this friend and that friend in Tokyo, where 'the cost if living is the highest all over the world.' So what? He said he had got a role in TV program in Japan. So what? I had a hard time faking my interest in this sort of his incessant attempt to get attention from people including me, while, and more importantly, he never offers sufficient workforce when he is supposed to work as a crew for my husband. I wonder what can you do with this annoying and the racistic situation where I do not deserve to take just because I am an Asian, or because I am dealing with my spouse's employees?
The very first thing he said when we met for the first time was
"You look so much like this Japanese girl I know,"
and he seemed to expect me to take it as if he was saying something nice to me (!); but I wondered what if I commented the same kind of thing like I knew this Black guy named this and that who looked the same to him, to imply that I could not tell any difference between him and other dudes because they are clumped as one; black guys? I have got keen eyes to tell people regardless of their races, so this is the ultimate sarcasm, but I thought he woud be too dense to get it.
OK, so he is ignorant and insensitive in terms of political agendas that is not to be dismissed even amongs minorities. I know that I cannot expect everybody to be sufficiently educated to know what to say and what they mean by them when encountering other people regardless of their color. Or did I get hurt because I unconsciously expect more from people of color? Maybe, maybe not.
I owe Afro-American studies to sort experiences here as a woman of color out and theorize them to the point that I claim loudly that you have to know what it means to be marginalized and live somewhere edgy to understand the structure of the whole society. Is it too much to expect him to be more educated, if this guy claims to be interested in others and actually using the interest to exploit others and acting the same as how rednecks do; well, it actually is too much. I should just reckon him as a redneck who happened to be dark and stuck in Bronx.
the remedy
“When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.”
- Albert Einstein
I picked the above up somewhere, and found it very true, so pasted.
I like the new design of this blog, but there other things to think about/bugs me and kept from posting more and more.
The first things is that I am just wondering how come other bloggers post more than a good amount and in almost everyday basis, which I wished I could do but never would be able to. Certain bloggers that I regularly check such as Izzy still amazes me for her vigorous writing and its volume.
The second thing is the nature of contencts of my writings do not make me want to drop a post casually, and once I wrote, I usually do not feel like re-reading to error check and/or revise, probably because I am already enough tired.
The third thing is usually I am wordy, too much to be brief and be happy about what I have just said; this might be some pathology that I have been suffering for for a long time.
The forth is that this blog has such a limited set up that I cannot have any spelling check system. When I happen to read back some of my old posts, my head starts hurting for its very bad writing with tons of mechanical errors, and I still do not feel like correcting it for I have no idea where to start and how long it would really take. I wonder how others cope with this sort of situation. Once in a while, I read ultimately low quality writings ever published so that I can make myself feel at ease for my writings without patience or decipline; the one I curretly love to resort to whenever I have this anxiety is this author of the L magazine, the monthly give away for events infos, ads and such in NYC. I am uncertain if I am remembering her name correctly, so let's say it is Rebecca Shuman just for here, whose writing so brain-smashing that I got most puzzled to encounter in any official text media in last a couple of years. I still wodner why she still has a column, and why no editorial advice seems to be given to her, unless the magazine wants to offer a comic relief for its bad quality and to comfort struggles of writers like mine?
Kiffe Kiffe Demain
The English translation of Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow seems to be doing very well. The original in French was a huge seller and even won the readers' prize of 2006 livre poche. If you asked a French reader about the book, the one would absolutely laugh it off as saying,
"Mais oui, ca fait longtemps (sans accents, for the limited quality of the type system that I have here)!"
Indeed, ca fait longtemps; it has been a while since the book was published initially in 2004 and took Europe by storm. The novel aqcuired its recognition and popularity in the literary scene in France first where the book was received as the long awaited voice to locate the right kind of vocabulary to capture the new generation of North African immigrants in the country, where the Arabic descents are ignored and dismissed for 'not to be French enough' as any other citizens. Think about what it means.
The blunt writing style and the sassy voice did draw a new and clearer image of the generation, which obviously hit the collective nerve, and I enjoyed it as well. At the same time, however, I found it slightly fall short for a regular novel reading experience. The first person narrative of 15 years old Doria living in the project where the new immigrants predominantly reside seemed to be right for teen audience rather than marketed to be a regular novel that happened t o use a teenage point of view. It is the right reading for young adults. I might use this for a reader if I still teach French as I used to in Japan. (I know it sounds twisted, but that was one of a few methods to make my living in Tokyo when I was there.) The author herself is the second generation of Algerian immigrants, who were described in the novel as 'their war did not seem to end in this country.' The protagonist is deliberately set to be a Morrocan descent, though, perheps to distinguish the fictional character from the author Guene herself.
Just when the fist work of Guene is put out here in English translation, her second novel "The Dream of Eggs" is launched in Franch. Let's see how the new one goes.
By the way, the interesting thing that I found about French literary scene is that their young adult market is not as established or big as the one we have in the US. The US YA market is way more developed and equipped with muticulturally educational elements, and fulfilling demands of those who want to have books to sufficiently represent themselves as indispensable part of the society no matter what they are; you name what kind of ethnicity you want to read about by rule of the PC climate that is dominant in the industry as well as in the society, especially for female ethnic kids readers. (Well, this is just the rule to play with, and that is one thing. How much it is reflecting the reality those kids live in is another.)
When it comes to French literary scene, though, the market seems not to be narrow, to say the least about how much they are faciliated with the ethnic diversity/PC rule/tokenism.
This phenomenon seems to be a bit difficult and disproportionate given how many immigrants decsents, especially North African, are quite dominant in France populationwis e but somehow ignored, and you cannot ignore how much they are perpetually frustrated for their cultural identities torn and dismissed. All they have got is the frustration on how underappreciated their cultural heritage is and how French society has been dismissive about the contribution of their diaspora experiences, as pointed out in the novel.
There is this passage that I found to be the very core of the message the novel conveys, and the part is the very favorite of mine as well; an Algerian woman who is a friend of the protagonist's mom speaks very limited French although she has been there forever. Her husband left her with three sons when he used her up and moved onto another woman to start his life afresh back home in Algeria (this explains that having no son cannot be the only reason to leave his wife, as Doria's father did, but when the wife is worn out as well). Her sons call her DJ ZOZO for her re-mixing French that Moliere established and now making it into her own sounds. Her linguistic limitation in French adds a new value and it is the refinement her sons' generation recognize. This is the phrase to be remembered for the author's trait, and conveys the very condensed idea of the novel as the title itself indicates as well; the mix of French and Arabic; Kiff Kiff as same o in Arabic and kiffer as 'to like' in French is stating the author's wish to create values out of the predicament their&nb sp;parents struggled to be out of.
The most interesting aspect of ths book is the protagonist's criticism on the third world's treatment of women, and how it is carried around even in the supposedly new country; the protagonist's father left her mother and herself to marry a younger woman in the name of his entitlement to have a male child, which was not possible in the marriage. In that case, the wife becomes an official failure, as in any case that does not meet demands of the husband; having no son is bad enough to leave the marriage as well as that his wife grew too old to attract him, you name it. The protagonist is doomed to face how undervalued and exploited women are in the culture, and she dares to question the distorted logic made by men to serve only men's interests. When the culture imposes and even justifies the institutional abuse system against women, and if the women themselves are lucid and educated enough to say that is the bullshit that deteriorates the community, what could be the right manner and method to revolt the system? Is there any way to pursue justice for women? This is the third world feminism issu, and the novel is completely aware of the importance of giving voices to the voicelessness women have suffer from, and how to say the firm no to the predicament. I felt relieved to hear the fresh voice of a girl saying no so effortlessly to those lame fathers and useless male figures in the culture, and still does not lose her dignity as a member of the community; she keeps her head above water, and grows wise to distingusish right men from wrong men even in the same culture where her father was created from.
You always have to know how to say no and when to go if you are a woman, and the earlier you learn it, the better your life gets. (The message YA market is to convey to female kids and young women all around the world. THIS IS THE MISSION OF TODAY'S LITERATURE.)
This book also reminds me of another best seller on the same agenda of third world feminism, Reading Lolita in Teheran by Azar Nafisi. I was not entirely for the book when I read it; it has got a couple of obvious flaws, but I read it through any way for it offered a rare documentation of the underrepresented culture and curious stories of how feminism wa s studied and practised in the limited condition of the society of the particular time, under the Khomeini goverment, when the basic human rights, both men's and women's, were japordized.
One of the obvious flaws the book suffers for is that the author seemed to have a rigid game plan (=hyperthesis) she knew she would write on and did not seem to utilize the secret book reading group to the fullest; she would discuss anything but the harvest came out of the real interaction with those readers she invited to share in the text and the occasion. The author, who had been teaching and quit the position for her political and ideological incompatiblity with the regime and fled to the US eventually, wanted to criticise the goverment for its inhumane treatment of their people, especially women, which sounded just correct to everybody outside of the country, inculuding a reader like myself. But the way the author compares those texts as Nabokov, James etc. to the political system in the society sound so stretched and exaggerated that I almost called too unscientific, too much departure, or almost a kind of sophism. The biggest trouble even the author is not lucid about, or could not care less, might be that this is another text of narcissism of a super elite member of the society, and this point is not really examined in the context, for the author was supposed to be a victim enough to be female in the society. She keeps on and on about how her family is long run previledged one in Iran, and I know that it matters a lot, but I just got turned off. Just as Majene Satrapi, another Iranian female author of Persepolis did turn the readers like myself off for her elitism. And this jsut reminded me of the time when Marxism was still fashonable item to associate oneself with to show off like 1920's when all the artists were automaticly Marxists. Those who brag about their social standings and previledges coincidently seemed to like to consider themselves to be Marxists as well.
I believe what Nafisi had in mind to write would not have been any different whether she had or not had the secret reading group with her own students who shared the struggle with her, because her subject and ideas remained unaffected by the experiences of the group. She had those fellow reader/students to pursue what she believed to be read in those texts, and/or she just made associations with anything forcefully and put them altogether as if they had to be told as their irreplacable stories, which did not really convinced me. Those students were more like hired to present data just to support her theory, and to offer an excuse to write about the author's previleged stance; she was there just to come back to the US where she had been before she started teaching there when anyone scacely had the previlage or luxury of the exile. This is what is shared in common with Satrapi as well.
The book is well written because she was after all a teacher who could handle literary criticism and knows how to read texts. But when it comes to using them to make scientific enough connection, consistency, proper cmparison&nbs p;and/or careful examination between those selected texts and the reality they were in, she fails. To draw any meaning regarding for the comparative studies on women's conditions or human conditions under oppressive states people often succumb to, the book marvellously succumbs to trivial and unfortunately self indulging one. There are so many departures in the book that I thought that you can use any social condition as an example or as a metaphor if you can make comparisons with these students and texts and call them relevent connections. It really could have been on anything and on any text when she forges such irrelevent evidences just to say 'the government is bad, the victim is everybody's womanhood in the culture, and I can catch it because I am previledged.'
I say this because I do understand that this sort of phenomena are j ust about everywhere when we try to see it in the level of universality rather than in particularity. If that was her attempt, however, what was the point of writing on the time, the place and the people she brought up as the subject? If she used the reading group to back up what she already knew she would write on, why didn't she read and write alone?
Another flaw that I could name was that the handle of the issues such as the silenced problem of sexual abuse women suffered from but hardly brought to light, and connecting it to the text of Lolita appeared to be too naive and shallow. But then, it might be always this awkward and uncomfortable when something that was not revealed before gets revealed. Therefore, if the aftertaste of disclosure was unpleasant, I believe it is not to be attributed to the book's limitation, but more to the cultural sore that has been untreated too long, but what else can be done but to expose when the sore is there? Let's not forget the time when the reading grounp took place was before Edward Said and his school Post Colonial Theory came to rise as the new and necessary tool of literary theory; the reason that those chosen texts appeared to be very ancient and uncool to be studied in the readers' community as the authors. Demn it. If only the author was more aware of the fellow literally scholar's on-going effort at the time. I got axcited and kicked myself for the what if fantasy that never happened in the reality. Nafasi's choice of texts were nothing to make students aware of that angle of reading English literature.
Summing up, Reading Lolita brings up issues, and the author did not really resolve them. It might be too much to ask the book to have sorted them out before none of those issues gets taken care of or recognized by people there. But contradictorily, that might be the reason the book read insufficient and just exploiting the novelty value on Muslim women by a Muslim woman author. Still, this made me think; how much can you really ask for people who are midst of immediate survival to fulfill needs that might be beyond them. At the same time, there was another element that stirs the muddy enough water already;
I wound up feeling torn and uncomfortable when a sort of then lover of mine-a college professor- vohemently rebuked the book saying that the book was doing harm to the Muslim community and someone like himself (North American Middle Eastern descent) who was making an extra effort to defend Muslim people's rights as a whole regardless male or female in the US when odds were ultimately low under the current affair; the conflict of interests was tearing the community into pieces at the time, and he was ultimately frustrated, and he raised the book as the worst example of Muslim women's pointless claim ;that was destroying the community. The crucial point was/is always if women remained silent or not, as so in the history. I think back and remember that I wondered how difficult it might be to be a woman in the culture and still be proud of oneself in the community.
I consider this issue somewhere so close to my own because I am still in the process of survival by denouncing the background of the likes more or less; I refuse to conform or silence myself under anything that negates each and everyone's life in any form. And I understand to my bones that the whole process would take sacrifices of any sense of belonging. Women often end up free only if they are disowned from communities they were originally from.
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow was the book that got accepted for the voice nobody dared to voice nor to hear out until the riots broke out recently by those kids in France exactly like the protagonist of the story. And I have got to say that French twist of Muslim culture is more sophisticated than at least the one we observe here in the US even if it is underrepresented for subcultures often paradoxically thrive as resisting to the mainstream ones to battle over human rights restored for each and everybody in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity.