Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

Any movie with Jason Statham and Jet Li facing off as adversaries must be worth watching. War, a movie about “FBI agent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) who becomes obsessed with revenge after his partner Tom Wynne (Terry Chen) and family are killed apparently by the infamous and elusive assassin Rogue (Jet Li). His world unravels into a vortex of guilt and betrayal.”

It also stars Steph Song who has a change of adding a bit of romance to an otherwise formulaic (BUT OMG JET LI) action movie.

Overheard in New York posts:

Girl #1: So, was he at least hot?
Girl #2: No! He was Chinese!

How unfortunate.  His date, and the stereotype.

The following is a Ben-Q advert for an mp3 player that ran in China:

The Chinese reads something like “Even if the world turns dust, I still believe in music” and features images from the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. The singer is the lead of a group called Mayday.

Comments range from the intellectually absurd–”Snide nihilism is now officially my favorite phrase of this decade. thank you”–to the average American–”A-Holes anyway…. Zero respect to the victims. Period.”

Since this is marketed at an all-Chinese audience, my guess is the advertising firm simply ripped off the WTC rubble images without thinking about a possible emotional connection.  This isn’t “disruptive advertising” like Microsoft’s Zune Orgasm, or Sony’s Racially Charged PSP ads.  It’s just a bit of overreaction and repurposing.

Wee Shu Min, a rich Singaporean wrote in her blog:

Derek, Derek, Derek darling, how can you expect to have an iron rice bowl or a solid future if you cannot spell? “There’s no point in lambasting the Government for making our society one that is, I quote, ‘far too survival of the fittest…’ If uncertainty of success offends you so much, you will certainly be poor and miserable. […] Get out of my elite uncaring face.

Her father, Wee Siew Kim, is a wealthy worker for a multinational corporation in Singapore.

The problem? Elitism. And, the blogosphere in Asia reacted negatively.

Update:  For a cartoon series detailing the problems with Wee Shu Min, see The Adventures of Elite Girl. I am personally indifferent.

So I am currently studying mad amounts of chinese for my final, which means that I am writing all kinds of ?? out to try and learn them all 250+ of them before the final. So, for someone who doesn’t speak any chinese until this semester, that’s pretty hard! Today I was at home studying when my ex girlfriend (???) Kelly, who is from Shanghai (??), and in theory can speak Chinese (??), English (??), and Shanghainese (???), sent me an IM to say hi or whatever:

(17:34:51) KelLy: howz it going
(17:34:54) liten fugl: I am well.
(17:35:12) liten fugl: How about you?
(17:35:41) KelLy: still at work..but i’m tired

Naturally, since I am trying to write Chinese, and actually retain it, I ask her what the top radical of the characters I am currently writing mean. Those being ke ? and ?:

(17:41:24) liten fugl: Do you know what the radical on the top of ke and jia means?
(17:41:30) liten fugl: it’s three strokes…
(17:41:30) KelLy: yea?
(17:41:39) KelLy: huh?
(17:41:46) liten fugl: keren de ke, dajia de jia
(17:41:56) liten fugl: there’s a common radical on the top
(17:41:59) liten fugl: what is it?
(17:42:05) KelLy: uh…baseball hat?
(17:42:11) liten fugl: LOL
(17:42:16) liten fugl: I guess it looks like that.
(17:42:21) liten fugl: What is it, and what does it mean?
(17:42:39) KelLy: redskin?
(17:42:43) liten fugl: ….
(17:42:48) liten fugl: mian, meaning roof
(17:42:57) liten fugl: ok, dictionary > kelly
(17:42:58) KelLy: uh…rain and roof?

So, two lessons to be learned here, mostly about ex-girlfriends. Why on earth can’t they still be at least friendly and helpful if you have the most basic question? Why can’t they respect my desire to learn Chinese? A lot of my friends actually look down on me because I’m taking Chinese, and I get called “egg” or “asian fetisher” or who knows what else. I just want to learn the world’s oldest and most widely spoken language, get in on the next China boom, and enjoy the thrill of the structures themselves. Is that bad? To have academic passion?

It seems to me that the China’s great red wall hasn’t come down entirely. It may no longer be officially closed off from the west of the world, but there are Chinese people who themselves are unwilling to help foreigners learn more about their country, language, or culture. To me, this is a great shame, Kelly!