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Wednesday, September 08, 2004
If you're suffering from Olympics withdrawal, there's an interesting article in the NYT today about the after effects of China's Liu Xiang winning the gold medal in the 110-meter high hurdles. Apparently the physical stereotypes about Asians being biologically inferior to whites and blacks in track and field events are as prevalent in China as they are here. Liu's victory is being heralded as a turning of the tide, proving that Chinese (and by extension, all Asians) can excel at sprinting and jumping and on a level competitive with the Americans and Europeans who have traditionally dominated the sport.
Since winning, Liu is the second most popular athlete in China (after Yao Ming, of course), and has been besieged with endorsement and sponsorship deals. What I found most striking however, was the way in which the victory and ensuing adulation was cast, even by Liu himself, in racial terms:
"I think we Chinese can unleash a yellow tornado on the world."
While part of me cringes at the vision of a "yellow tornado" (reminiscent of the swarming hordes of the "yellow peril" concocted Stateside), I'm happy to see the term "yellow" being recouped by Asians as a mark of pride. It's also heartening (in a sad way) to see that even Asians from the homeland are afflicted by the same kinds of racial inferiority complexes that impact Asian Americans. I've often considered it a big difference between Asians and Asian Americans -- that Asians are more likely to grow up as members of a "normative" race/culture and to participate in the confidence and entitlement that that status confers. But racism is and always has been a global phenomenon (I mean we wouldn't be living in this country were it not for racist and imperialist economic policies). It's odd to be comforted by that fact, but it does bring back the argument for a "yellow" consciousness that has all but disappeared amid (very important) arguments for ethnic/historical specificity and difference.
So once again, we're the same, but different.
9:33 AM
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Thursday, September 02, 2004
They made one of my favorite animes of all time into a television series. Originally broadcast in Japan in 2002, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is now out on DVD here in the States, and will appear as part of Comedy Central's Adult Swim in November. Based on Shirow Masamune's popular manga, Ghost in the Shell is the film the Wachowski's ripped off for The Matrix. It's a beautiful, haunting (and action-packed!) meditation on the nature of human consciousness and its relationship to machines. The TV show does a fairly good job of capturing the intellectual and philosophical bent of the original film, but it can't help but lighten things up a bit -- after all, the characters and storylines have to hold up over 26 episodes. I can't wait for Mamoru Oshii's film sequel, Innocence, due out September 17.
Read my review of the first four episodes of the TV series on PopMatters.com.
3:47 PM
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