Robot Stories

I must say that I do not know whether I liked this film or if I did not like this film.  It was a bit confusing and really had no point, or perhaps it did, I did not grasp it.  I got many different messages from the different chapters of the movie so here they are:

My Robot Baby: At first I really did not find any significance in this section of the film.  Here is what I got from it later on.  An Asian couple, Asian woman with an Asian man, want to adopt a child.  One of the first things I noticed was that this couple seemed to be living an American Life.  They wanted to have the perfect family with a nice house.  In order for them to adopt and receive a real child, they had to take care of a robot baby first.  The robot was designed to act like a real baby, you had to feed it (energy) with a bottle, tickle it, treat it as if it were a real child.  When Roy leaves for work, the robot child is left with the mother.  The robot warmed up to the father more so every time the mother held it, it would scare her and lash out at her.  The woman tried to cheat by programming the robot to feed itself and to make itself happy, but in return the robot became worse.At the end of this story, the robot hides in the closet after it trashes her house, reminding the woman of her childhood and the way her mother treated her bringing her back to the memory of her hiding from her own mother in the closet.  The robot sees the woman crying and then warms up to her.  I think this is significant because many children warm up to their parents when they are sad.  I did it to my mother, so I think it is something that bonds a child and a parent together.  I did not really like this story and I didn’t really see the significance of it other than two Asians together trying to have the perfect family that is not working out quite well.

The Robot Fixer: I thought this was the saddest story of all of them.  I do not really know why the boy was in the hospital, but It was sad.  When the mother tried to make him talk, and he didn’t, that was the worst part.  I think parents, when their child is in trouble, do not want to believe the severity or the condition their child is in such as the mother.  She fixed up his robots and brought them into the hospital and put them next to his bed, she tried talking to him as if he could hear her, not wanting to realize that her son is basically dead.  When her son final passes away, she gives all of the robots to the store owner, which I thought was great because he loved those robots and her son will live on in the robots.  I still didn’t see the relevance of this section with the movie as a whole.  It was confusing.

Machine Love: This story was very strange, but interesting.  A Caucasian male robot falls in love with an Asian robot.  The robots have human feelings such as the robot baby did.  These robots felt love, hurt (when the people they worked with called them freaks), and they were able to cry.  I thought it was significant because I think the message is that interracial couples are sort of robotic.  Sometimes people do not want to accept the fact or let interracial love happen.  They called the robots freaks and did not want to let them loose and I think that is the message.  People don’t want to see interracial love.  They don’t want it to happen in society and when it does happen in society, these couples get racial slurs and all that jazz.  That is what I got from this story and I think it was the most significant one out of all of them. 

Clay: This story was interesting and a little difficult to comprehend. I thought it was cool that they could take your brain out of you body so when the body dies, the brain, your soul will live on and they can put you in another body.  Like the previous story, we see interracial love, but this time it is an Asian man with an African American woman.   I found this to be significant because in the article we read about the movies, it sad that the tension and hatred between African Americans and Asians does not exist and in this story it does not exist.  This couple is in love, but the only real way they can be in love is through or by computer.  This definitely has to do with people today.  Interracial marriages and love seems none existent, but it is.   

Overall I don’t really know what this movie was about other than interacial love and robots.  I think that it was a shocker to see an Asian with an African American because we really dont see that today.  More today than earier years, but still not that much.  I don’t know, but that is what I got from it.

 

Ideas on Asian American Film

I found this article to be interesting, but at the same time I felt like it was a repeat of what we have been discussing in class and reading.  The whole theme about identity popped up in this article.  What I got from what Feng was trying to say right on the first page was that many Asian films and filmmakers make the films so that they are American viewable.  Do you know what I am saying?  Like they create Asian themed movies intended for the American audience.  I get this notion when Feng mention Jackie Chan..”Jackie Chan has repackaged his Hong Kong movies for the U.S. market and, in 1998, teamed up with Chris Tucker for Rush Hour.  While these films represent marriage of Hong Kong and Hollywood production styles, none of them tells a story about Asian Americans, any more than Fritz Lang’s Fury(1963) was a German American Film.”  Feng also mentioned the racial tension between Asian Americans and African Americans.  He argued that “tensions between Korean Americans and African Americans are more media construction than reality, and that the best way to address that is via cinema.”  Feng shows this with the whole Rush Hour ideas.  Jackie Chan is Asian while Chris Tucker is African American as they team up in the film. 

Feng also mentioned the whole “identity crisis” theme.  Feng says “If Asian Americans generally experience a crisis of identity- a crisis fostered by continuing American racism- it is not surprising that Asian American cinema continues to thematize that identity crisis, and that Asian American filmmakers face similar crisis when attempting to market their films and themselves.  Asian Americans are continually asked to choose either an Asian or an American identity: in cinematic terms, the most successful filmmakers have either submerged their Asian identities to make films about white Americans or have added Asian ‘flavor’ to Hollywood m.”  I think this quote ties all that I think together.  They create films to satisfy the American audience and by doing that, they create fims that are more American such as Rush Hour and Face Off.  I thought the whole identity crisis having to do with American racism is true. 

One more thing I thought was interesting was when Feng mentioned the filmStrawberry Fields.  I thought it was interesting how this film sort of highlights the events of WWII and talks about the internment camps.  It also mentions the book burning and burning of Japanese momentums and this is something we encountered in Nisei Daughter as well as the Murayama piece.  I would actually like to rent some of these films Feng mention.  They sound interesting.

My Year of Meats prt 3

This book is definitely one of the most strange, but good books I have ever read.  I have never read a book with “meat” being the basic theme of it.  I found the ending of the book to be very interesting as well as events that happened in it.

Interesting facts:  I thought the facts that Dave was talking about to Jane were very interesting about the cows and how much meat people eat in the united states.  On page 250, he asks Jane “And do you know that the average American family of four eats more than two-hundred sixty pounds of meat a year?  That’s two hundred sixty gallons of fuel, which accounts for two point five tons of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere and adding to global warming…”  I thought this was interesting because I don’t think many people look the eating of meat being hazardous to the earth.  One thing I thought was disgusting was how they talked about what they fed to their cattle.  They fed their cattle cement, plastic pellets, other manure or their own manure.  I find this to be absolutely disgusting because the animals eat things we never imagined eating, and then we eat the animal so we consume the animal as well as what it ate.

Akiko’s story:  I thought Akiko’s story was compelling.  It hooked me in and I was surprised to find that she was pregnant with a girl.  Her life finally was able to be turned around as she left John and moved to the United States in order to better herself.  At the end of the book, Jane helps her get an apartment and get her started and back on her feet.  Akiko has a very happy ending.  She will be able to live the life she wants now..away from someone who beat her, away from an unwanted life into a fresh new life.

Jane’s story:I thought Jane’s story was interesting, just not as compelling as Akiko’s.  I did think that the relationship between Jane and Sloan was a very strange and different one.  Jane likes Sloan, but at the same time does not like him and then she gets pregnant with his baby.  I don’t know, I thought it was more Sloan loving Jane and Jane seeing Sloan as a fling and is more concentrated on her job.  I thought it was sad and unfortunate that Jane had a miscarriage.  Any mother would be horrified.

The end:  I think the most important theme of the book was motherhood.  Both Jane and Akiko experienced the wonderful news of being pregnant and with that comes responsibility and a happiness deep inside the heart of a women.  Periods,birth, motherhood is what ties woman around the world together and I think that is what ties Jane and Akiko together.  They are double of eachother or halves.  Akiko is Jane’s Japanese half and Jane is the American half.  Like Sone described her feeling of being both Japanese and American as double headed. 

Overall..I liked this book.  It kept me wanting to read as it was interesting.  I am actually kind of sad that it ended..I really would like to know what happens to Akiko and Jane in the future.  Will Jane get pregnant again and marry Sloan?  Will Akiko live the life she wants?

My Year of Meats prt. 2

I have to say that I am not so interested with Jane’s story, but I am more interested in Akiko’s story.  I feel like there is more drama, realism, and an actual interest in Akiko’s story.  Like any wife, Akiko is trying to do the best that she can and tries with all her might to make her husband, “John,” happy.  That is the problem, “John” is never happy with her.  It is obvious that Akiko wants to make her husband happy and want to have a child as it says on page 78 “It would be nice to raise a child in a rough ‘n’ tumble family.  Maybe she and “John” could adopt, if this problem of hers didn’t work itself out.”  I do not think Akiko is purposely making herself sick so she cannot conceive a child and the whole doctor visit from page 80 to 81angered me.  The doctor implied that Akiko was doing something to herself on purpose so that she could not have a baby and was so rude when he said “I must say I have no patience with stubborn wives like you.  There are so many young women who are desperate to have a baby, who would cut off an arm or a leg in order to conceive and are honestly incapable of doing so.  But you, you are not honest.  You lack fortitude.  Simply put, you have a bad attitude.  This is my diagnosis, which I will give to your husband.  I hope for both your sakes, that he will be able to help correct your problem.”  I really wanted to punch the doctor at that point because I do not think Akiko was making herself sick on purpose.  I think she would want to have a baby just to please “John” and get him off her back.  That is the point.  I do not think she wants to have a child..with “John.”  She talks about adoptions so many times during this section.  I have to say that I dislike “John” very much.  His idea of a real perfect family is ridiculous and fake.  when Akiko fills out the questionnaire for the show and tells “John” she did not like the Thayer family, but she liked the Beaudroux family.  “John” gets angry at this.  The Beaudroux family is not a delicious piece of meat like he likes.  A perfect family.  “John” says “How could a Japanese housewife relate to a poor black family with nine children?  That Takagi keeps choosing the wrong kind of families.” 

I found it very interesting that Akiko had gotten her period.  She is hiding it from “John” and it definitely makes me wonder if she really does not want to have children with this man.  If not, I completely understand, because he is an ass as he hits her and beats her, yells at her all the time.  I don’t blame her.  I don’t know, I just find the story of Akiko to be more interesting.

My Year Of Meats

I know I have been really bad at blogging lately but I am back in business with reading the book My Year Of Meatsby Ruth L. Ozeki.  I have to say that I am enjoying this book.  I was not really into Native Speakerall that much, but I find this book to be interesting.  Just as we have seen in many of the other books we have read, especially in Nisei Daughter,  The main character Jane is half Japanese and Half American.  This makes her feel as if she were a freak of some sort as she states on pg 9 “In spite of the Little, my dad was a tall man, and I am just under six feet myself.  In Japan, this makes me a freak.”  Jane, just like Sone, feels like she is a freak and does not fit in because of her half Japanese and half American heritage.  She feels as though she does not fit in well at all and goes on to rebel in a way.  She cuts her hair short, which is not a Japanese tradition at all, and dyes it.  I see this as a way of expression.  One thing I like about this book is that we can relate it to alot of other books we have read in this class.  I can relate it to Native Speaker  with the topic of how important a name is.  Jane’s mother believes it is important for her to have a name with meaning and when she asks Jane’s father what the last name “Little” means, he says it had no meaning.  on pq 9 it holds this conversation.  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Dad would say. “It’s just a name!” which would cause Ma to recoil in horror. “How you can say ‘justa name’? Name is very first thing.  Name is face to all the world.”  Here the meaning of a name is very important.  “Name is face to all the world”  A name is what people call you.  A name somewhat defines who you are.

I like how the book is about a film maker.  It is different from what I have ever read.  It contains alot of weird things as well such as the whole “Meat” thing, the sexual innuendos, and Shonagon.  I find the Shonagon at the beginning of every section of the book really interesting to read.  They basically highlight what will happen in the section before you get to it, and also contains somewhat of a poetry thing.  I don’t know how to describe it but I enjoy reading these more than the book itself.

Another thing I found interesting was the way Jane and her crew were kind of trying to convert Japanese to American.  They hire Suzie Flowers, An American, to play the role of a typical American housewife who cooks meat all the time.  They describe the American woman as beautiful with basically no flaws and describe Japanese women as ugly, too skinny, things like that.  I don’t know, but I do like this book.  I think all the characters are interesting and the relationship between Jane and Sloan is very strange, but interesting.  I can’t wait to see what will happen next in the book.

Native Speaker + Takaki

First of all I have to say that I had a hard time understanding the first two sections of this book.  After reading them I am afraid I might not understand the book throughout the whole thing and/or I may not like the book all together.  I wasn’t really sure what Henry did as a job/living.  I knew he was some sort of spy person, but after we discussed it in class I kind of got a better understanding of what he does.  He helps find illegal immigrants living in the United States, I think.

Henry as a person- I think Henry comes off as cold and possibly uncaring of his wife.  Although he asks her if she has enough money for where she wants to go, I do not think it bothers him that she is leaving.  I don’t know about Henry.  He seams secretive and somewhat held back, as if he is keeping a secret form us as readers.

Lelia as a person- I don’t know about her yet.  She seams like a nice, kind, good person overall, but I feel like their is an underlying bitch in her.  Although she may not mean it, I think it is there.  Like on page 13 when Henry is talking about when He first met Lelia.  When Henry asks her if she ever kissed an Asian before, she replied  that she “wasn’t thinking about it that way, but no.”  then Lelia says “You taste strange, but only because I don’t know you.  Hold on”  she then kisses him and says after “Definitely Korean.”  Lelia comes off as being this non racist person and so helpful because she bring food to the hungry and teaches the people how to speak English.  I don’t know what to say about her really.  She seams too nice.  There has got to be some fakeness to her niceness.

The note-I found the note Lelia gave to Henry was interesting.  It seams as though she has been writing this note for over a period of time as some parts contradict itself.  Such as when she says great in bed and right after it says overrated.  Spy, Follower, and Traitor highlight the fact that he is a traitor to his own people because he spies on them and reports them for being illegal aliens.  I thought the note was meant to be a stab at Henry or possibly a hopeful wake-up call for him on who he really is.

Takaki-I found many things in Takaki that were interesting.  The motives of the Koreans to move to America were very much like the Chinese and the Japanese.  They thought America held money, opportunities, and was made out of gold.  They were told false information such as money grows on trees in America and life for them would be better there.  Like the  Chinese and the Japanese, Koreans had a hard time fitting into America.  They were discriminated against and many people confused them with the Japanese.  Koreans were well educated just as the Japanese were when they immigrated to the United States.  I really found this section in Takaki to be very interesting.

Vietnamese- Korean American + Takaki

I thought this was very interesting to read about.

Takaki :  I thought the Takaki was very informative when it talked about the Vietnamese citizens living in America and their views about America.  One thing that really struck me was the difference in the way the Vietnamese felt about American culture compared to the Chinese and Japanese.  Unlike the Chinese and Japanese, the Vietnamese actually “claim” their identity whereas in pieces we have read such as Asian Born American and Nisei Daughter, The people in these books are not comfortable with their Japanese or Chinese culture and therefor do not feel they have an identity.  In Takaki, he explains how many of the Vietnamese do not want to stay in America.  They would want to go back to their own country.  A Vietnamese women wrote “I get angry, mad when I see Vietnamese children who can’t speak Vietnamese.”  Unlike other stories we have read, the Vietnamese actually care about teaching their children their culture and language.  I just though it was interesting because it seemed as though the Chinese really did not care if their children learned Chinese or not. 

My Hmong Father by Kay Vu-Lee

I thought this poem was very interesting as well as sad.  In the beginning of the poem, it was about a father that was strong, courageous, and took care of his children.  He read from the bible and took care of his child.  After living in America for twenty- three years, “[he] [became] weak and scared, trapped inside [himself], this family, this religion, this ethnicity.”  The child now takes care of the father because the father does not know how to speak or write in English.  There is a role reversal and it is very sad because the father is forced out of the country he loved and was comfortable in to a country he had no idea about.  He didn’t know what language to speak in or how to write.  The father is lost , scared, and weak.  Perhaps the father is scared of himself because he is not who he was before.  He is in an unknown country.  Weak and helpless.

Immigration Blues

I thought this story by Bienvenido Santos was very interesting and sad.  In order to stay living in the United States, women would marry any guy they met to stay.  Monica and Mrs. Zafra, as well as Alipio’s former wife, married and are trying to marry to stay in the country.  I thought that it was very sad that #1: Monica is trying to get Alipio to tell her she can live with him or marry him so she can stay in America.  The two women try to lie to Alipio at first which I thought was very wrong and conniving even though they are trying to do it for survival.  They then tell Alipio the truth, Monica is trying to stay in America.   #2: Alipio’s marrage was sort of a lie if you think about it.  His former wife Seniang married inorder to stay in America, not for love.  Although she may have fell in love with him in the years to follow, she did not marry for love, she married for citizenship as it says in the quote “Alipio realized that Seniang was not joking.  She had to get married to an American citizen otherwise she would be deported.”Pg. 433  I felt this was a sad thing.  Alipio was taken advantage of and these women were forced to marry people they did not know or truly loved in order to kepp their citizenship in the United States.  The quote “Accost the first likely man and say, “Are you an American citizen.  If you are, will you marry me?  I want to reamain in this country.”" definitly shows the extremes these women went through in order to stay in America.  Interesting, but very sad.

Takaki and “All I asking for is my Body”

O.K. I saw many similarities between these two readings and Nisei Daughter.  In all of these pieces,  I found the Japanese to be shocked and appalled at the actions of Japan’s bombing on Pearl Harbor.  In Takaki on pg. 379 he writes “We just couldn’t believe it, but he told us that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  I remember how stunned we were.  And suddenly the whole world turned dark.”  The whole world became dark for all the Japanese.  Just like Nisei Daughter, the family of Murayama burned their Japanese possessions. On pg.16, Murayama wrote “Tosh turned to father, “You have a Japanese flag in the tansu.  Burn it or burry it.  Hide all your Japanese books in the chicken coop.  Don’t talk in Japanese when there’re any non-Japanese around.”  To me this is sad because they are basically trying to hide the fact that they are Japanese.  The Japanese felt shame not because they participated in the bombing, but because they felt they were American citizens and they let their country (America) down.  Muryama wrote “I feel ashamed I’m Japanese.  I feel a shame I can never erase, and here I havn’t done a single bad thing.” These Japanese did  not participate in the bombings, yet they feel the shame and hatred for their own race.  This feeling has got to be the most terrible feeling.  They do not fit in now and are taken to internment camps when they were not even part of the bombings. 

Something that I found really interesting was the reasons why some of the Nisei joined the army.  on pg. 23, Murayama wrote “Mr. Kuni and the older niseis went to talk to the ones who hadn’t volunteered, “I’d go if I were young. I’d jump at this chance to see Europe. It’s a free trip.” That wasn’t the point.  Everybody in Kahana was dying to get out of this icky shit hole, and here was his chance delivered on a silver platter.”  This just shows that these people wanted to get out of the terrible living conditions they had to deal with.  These people wanted to get away and if war was the way, they went.  It is just sad.  I did enjoy reading about this subject because I have never read it before and it is interesting, but it is just so sad to read about.  Imagine being ashamed of yourself and your race every day of your life while living in a shitty internement camp.  I wouldn’t want to.

Nisei Daughter VIII – END

I have to say that I enjoyed this book more than any of the other ones we read so far this semester.  I have to say that Reading Sone’s memoir was so much more refreshing and easy to understand.  I did not like Kingston’s memoir at all and I thought is was nice to read something raw and “real.”

The bombing of Pearl Harbor was probably one of the most shocking events that happened in history and there are many things that infuriate me when it came to the Japanese internment camps.

1. The people were removed from their homes and put into camps all because they were Japanese.  These people were Americans.  Although they posed Japanese heritage, many were born in America.  Many had American friends and were living like Americans.  They were Americans and yet they were treated terribly.  I feel that the Japanese should have never been treated like this.  In many ways people would argue that this event was not at all comparable with the events of the Holocaust.  I have to disagree a little.  Like the Jewish, these people were stripped from their homes, stripped from all of their possessions and belongings, and were thrown into a camp.  I realize that none of these Japanese were killed or murdered as the Jewish were, but these people were still held against their will.  I think it is so wrong that we do not learn more about this in school.  I never new anything about the Japanese and how they were treated when Pearl Harbor happened.  I felt terrible as I read this.

2.  One thing that really infuriated me was how recruiters were sent into these Japanese internment camps to try to get volunteers to help fight in the war.  The statement the president sent out read

No loyal citizen from the United States should be denied the democratic right to exercise the responsibilities of his citizenship, regardless of his ancestry.  The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and the heart.  Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry.  Every loyal American citizen should be given the opportunity to serve this country wherever his skills will make the greatest contribution…whether it be in the ranks of our armed forces, war production, agriculture, government service, or other work essential to the war effort. (pg 198-199)

I absolutely hated writing that and I think this was very shocking to read.  First we take these people from their homes and put them into camps and then we ask them to help us with the war.  This infuriates me.  We treated these people like animals in a pen and then we ask them to help us with the war?  If these people were in fact loyal citizens, then why were they treated differently then other “American citizens?”  That is my question.  Although these people were treated like this, some of them still volunteered to participate in the war.  After all they have been through they still help the “American Citizens”  I don’t know, this part of the book really irritated me as well as make me very sad.  I think it is so terrible and heartbreaking how people can be so cruel to others.