Stone, Ink, Brush and Paper

The Sunflower Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:25:00 +0000

You may have heard about the recent democracy protests in Taiwan, where students staged a multi-day sit-in at the Legislature, and then a reported half-million people marched in the streets about a trade agreement with China. TaiwaneseAmerican.org has a wonderfully comprehensive list of sources about the event: http://taiwaneseamerican.org/ta/2014/04/26/taiwans-sunflower-student-movement/

And here is my favorite video of the sit-in (I get teary-eyed every time I watch it):

What is February 28th?

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:27:00 +0000

Today is February 28, and the 67th Anniversary of Taiwan's 2-28 Massacre. I'm reposting my 2-28 post from 2008, "In Memory."

In Memory

I first heard of waterboarding in 2003, when I interviewed a survivor of Taiwan’s 1947 “February 28th Incident.” His uncle had run a printing press, and was suspected of working against the Chinese Nationalists. Early one morning, the military police came looking for the uncle and, not finding him, they arrested the nephew, still in his nightclothes. First, they beat him until he passed out, then they threw water on him to wake him. He answered honestly that he did not know where his uncle was, so the officers moved on to water torture. They covered his face with a cloth and poured water over it until he could not breathe and passed out. Finally, he confessed a made-up story and they moved him, feverish and bloodied, into an underground cell. Eventually, he was released, but his family and friends ostracized him, and for years, the government watched him.

Sixty-one years ago today, on the 27th of February, a widow selling blackmarket cigarettes on Taipei’s Nanjing West Road was approached by Monopoly Bureau officers. When they tried to confiscate her wares, she protested. They beat her with their pistols. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered around the argument. The Monopoly Bureau officers were Chinese from the mainland, part of the Chinese Nationalists who had come to the island in 1945, after Japan’s defeat in WWII (Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895-1945). The widow was Taiwanese. The crowd was Taiwanese. The crowd rallied against the officers’ rough treatment of the widow, and the officers panicked and fired their guns to disperse the crowd. They ended up killing a bystander.

Through the night and the next day, word of the incident spread and people came out to protest—not just the officers’ behavior (and their subsequent treatment—the officers went unpunished) but the corruption of the Nationalists, who had been milking Taiwan’s resources to fund the war against the Communists on the mainland (meanwhile, there was a rice/food shortage, and inflation skyrocketed so high that it took a wheelbarrow of cash to purchase a kilo of rice). Mainlanders were beaten, shop signs mentioning China were torn down and a number of other violent clashes occurred around the island.

The Nationalists tried to tide the rage. Committees were set up, a curfew enacted. It seemed that change would be possible. Meanwhile, lists of prominent Taiwanese were secretly being drawn up (careful note was taken of who had attended these committee meetings), and the Governor-General called for troops from the Mainland.

In the first days of March, a tenuous calm settled on the island. Businesses cautiously reopened though there were still spurts of violence. Then, on the 8th, ships of soldiers arrived from the Mainland. Reportedly, they strafed the shore as they approach. The crackdown had begun.

Throughout the rest of March, men were dragged from their homes, arrested, tried in kangaroo courts, executed. Many were disappeared. Others tried to escape and were never heard from again. US papers reported on the massacre, noting that young men had been found in the mountains, castrated, and with their faces disfigured. Foreigners noted indiscriminate killings in the street. A number of witnesses have relayed to me that the walkway near the Kaohsiung Railway Station was thick with blood. Hundreds were dumped in the rivers and ports. Women went out to look for their husbands, sons, and brothers, and drag their bodies home.

20,000 men died, and two years later, martial law was instated permanently, lasting until 1987. During the forty years of martial law, people continued to be arrested for thought crimes, for speech crimes. No one was allowed to publicly speak of the February 28th Incident until the late 1980s.

For the past 6 years, I’ve been working on a novel about this period of Taiwan’s history. I dream of the incident, of the children who grew up never knowing how their fathers died, the wives eternally waiting for their husbands. Those who were old enough to really remember the Incident are mostly in their 80s. The 2-28 Incident is now acknowledged and commemorated in Taiwan. The holiday is called “Peace Memorial Day.” There is a park and a museum in Taipei dedicated to the Incident. Every year, there are concerts, and the President and/or Mayor of Taipei attend the largest memorial event, laying wreaths or lilies before portraits of the dead. There are hats and t-shirts. The 2-28 Incident has become a tool for a hundred different claims, always tweaked for the speaker’s use.

Nationalist Party politicians use their sympathy to indicate their interest in pan-ethnic unity in Taiwan, while the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) uses it to show that the aims of the Nationalists are not the same as the aims of the "Taiwanese," that they are different people. On February 28, 2004, the government held a “Hand-in-Hand” rally, in which people formed a human chain all the way down the entire length of Taiwan “as a peaceful means of protest against China's military threat.” Like many others, I still try to make sense of the “true” meaning of the incident, its origins, and how its significance has evolved over the last sixty years.

This year, however, I think the 28th is a good day for the rest of the world to reflect on Taiwan’s international status, especially in light of Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence and China’s impending leap onto the world stage with this summer’s Olympics.

For the past few years, President Bush has repeatedly referred to the US’s “commitment to democracy.” We have spent billions fighting for democracy in the Middle East. Yet, in the Pacific, a small island-nation has come to democracy on its own, and embraced it so enthusiastically after forty years of martial law that the voter turnout in their 2004 presidential election stood at 80% (compared to a 64% turnout for our 2004 election). So why won’t we let Taiwan join the WHO and the UN? Why do we pander to China’s claim that Taiwan is a “renegade province”? We are all eager to create strong relations with China, but should it come at the cost of one of the world’s liveliest democracies?

Today, in memory of the 20,000 men lost their lives in the fight for their country, please reflect on what a “commitment to democracy” really looks like—less like a mainland and more like an island.

Lay Down These Words Before Your Mind Like Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:25:00 +0000

It's 3 am in the middle of the Pacific and I realize that I miss my blog.

I miss reading over it and reading not what it says, but what it says without realizing what it's saying, the way a review of your year's Facebook posts tell a story about yourself you didn't realize you were telling. So this story is for my future self.

Some realizations after reading old posts.
1. I still love Angle of Repose like I read it last week. I love it in a very present way. And I thought to myself when I saw the dates on my posts about the novel went back to 2010: I have been in love with this book for a very long time. The realization heartened me. Maybe I'm not so terrible at commitment after all.

2. I had a community I didn't realize. I often felt like I was shouting into a void, but looking back, I see that there were people reading this; I was having a conversation. I miss that.

3. Our sense of privacy has changed so much in the past few years. Blogging is dead. Privacy is dead. Yadda yadda. I stopped blogging because it had started to make me feel vulnerable and too exposed. It still makes my heart seize a little in fear, but in an era of topless selfies, what's a little oversharing? ;)

The Taiwan book is done. This blog was, sometimes, often, a journal of my research and process. Now I'm about to embark on a new project and it might be fun to record the journey.

It's been awhile. How've you been?

A Real Bay Area Couple

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 06:49:00 +0000

(In Monterey Market, perusing the milk case)

Him: Sweets, do you want sweetened or unsweetened almond milk?

Her: Get whatever you want, Honey; I have my soy milk.

A Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:04:00 +0000

Came across this poem by Gary Snyder. I'm reading Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety right now; the theme of longtime friendships overlap in these two pieces. "All those years and their moments"--my heart seized. In a good way.

(and, completely randomly, I learned via wiki that Huey Lewis, of "and the News," fame was the stepson of Lew Welch, and adopted the "Lewis" as a tribute.)

For Lew Welch in a Snowfall

Snowfall in March:

I sit in the white glow reading a thesis

About you. Your poems, your life

The author’s my student,

He even quotes me

Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland

Twenty since you disappeared

All those years and their moments—

Crackling bacon, slamming car doors,

Poems tried out on friends,

Will be one more archive,

One more shaky test

But life continues in the kitchen

Where we still laugh and cook,

Watching snow.

The Difference Between Us

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:15:00 +0000

They say opposites attract....

Today, strolling near Kapiolani Park with my beau, I saw a pigeon dancing and fluffing and cooing around its dead comrade.

"Aw," I said. "Look--that pigeon is mourning!"

"Maybe it's just hungry," said my beau.

Steal Like An Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:18:00 +0000

I'm not sure where I ran into Austin Kleon's whimsical and inspirational work, but I've found it a great source of "kick-in-the-pants." His book Steal Like An Artist is a cute mix of illustrated ideas on creativity; for example, his chart on "good" theft and "bad" theft ("plagiarize," "imitate," etc.)
You can check him out here.

Matsu Speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:28:00 +0000

image from skyscrapercity.com

This was the original first chapter of the now-defunct (or waiting in top drawer) novel that was to be narrated by the goddess Matsu.

The Origins of a Goddess (975 C.E.)

My father was a fisherman. One day, while he and my brother were out at sea, a storm came up. The roaring waves, foaming and spitting beneath the torrent of rain pouring from the black sky, flung his little fishing boat to and fro. He lashed a rope to the prow, wrapped it twice around his fists, and urged my brother to hold on. The blackness of the sky seeped down to the erupting black sea and they did not know north from south or west from east. The horizon had disappeared.

Meanwhile, I was at home seated beside the hearth, weaving, feeling wool slipping between my fingertips and the weight of the shuttle fleeing from my grasp. Outside, rain pounded against the shutters and against the roof like the clatter of a thousand tiles. Suddenly, blackness bled over my eyes, blinding me, and I found myself on the sea, a giant dragon-fish flying through the water, bursting over white caps and plunging back into the warm angry water, until I came to the shattered planks of the little junk, and my brother and father twisted in rope and grappling for air.

I opened my mouth and bit down gently on my brother. He coughed; water dribbled from his mouth. He opened his fist and let go of the rope which was twisted only to splintered wood and not boat now. I rushed through the water, carrying him back to shore. I could still feel the radiance of the hearth against my side despite the water washing past my scales. One final swell pushed us to land and I dropped my brother on the damp sand.

I returned to the water for my father. He widened his eyes as I approached, as I freed him from his pathetic hold on the useless rope and the partially submerged board and gripped him in my giant maw. The wind wailed, waves broke across us, and it was all I could do to keep from swallowing him to keep him safe in my belly.

A crack of light had broken through the black clouds over the hills and the diffused sun made a jagged illuminated path down to the beach. This faint, struggling blur of sunshine became my north star, and I had nearly reached land when I heard my mother calling my name.

The clouds scattered, the mountain, the jag of light all faded and I blinked awake before the loom.

“Ma?” Loss, deep in my chest and stomach, overcame me as I opened my mouth.

I had dropped him. Like a long-ago memory, behind curtains and curtains, far off, I saw him fall beneath the waves, flailing arms as he gulped water. I began to cry.

“Father is dead.”

My mother’s face drained. “It’s just a dream,” she said.

“Father is dead.” I looked through the curtains of gauze, “Brother is rising to his feet. He is walking up the beach. He is walking to the road. Open the door, he is coming.”

My mother kept her eyes on me as she opened the door.

In the rain, my brother stood, drenched.

I was born silent. My mother wished for a son, but I came slipping soundlessly into the world instead. My muteness was the first sign of my immortality. Later, the trance in which I saved my brother and lost my father. The final sign, to seal me for evermore, was the day that I said my good byes, at the age of twenty-eight, and walked up the mountain where, from the sea, I’d seen the light lancing the earth, and disappeared into the clouds. My wordless arrival and departure sealed my legend.

Fishermen adopted me as their patron saint. Men carved my face into wood and stone and carted me on palanquins down village roads, arraying me in firework and incense smoke. My best likeness was set into a temple on a small yam-shaped island and worshipped for so many centuries that my face blackened from the smoke.

They call me Matsu. A cult was started in my name. Across nations, people prayed to me and created legends about me.

I understand what it means to exist unburdened by time or borders. The utterance of my name is a beckoning. I am called here, there, past, future, present, everywhere.

Taiwan by Any Other Name....

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:26:00 +0000

Two summers ago, in the throes of a Salman Rushdie obsession, I began working on an epic novel about Taiwan based on the idea of spirits and narrated by the Goddess Matsu, a fly on the corpse of Chiang Kai-Shek, and a camphor tree, among others. I wrote about 300 pages before deciding it was too narratively insane. I love the book, but I don't think it would survive outside my own little Taiwan-obsessed mind. Right now, I'm seeing if I can turn parts into short stories or novellas, so I thought I'd excerpt this tiny chapter here....

A Brief History of Names, According to the Goddess Matsu (4,000,000 BC to Present)

A sleeping island, shaped like a yam, or perhaps a leaf of tobacco, with a black spine of dark mountains and a knobby string of twinkling lights cascading down the center sits amid deep black water. On this night when, despite the lambent orange haze sent up by millions of lights in millions of homes, the island sleeps, I am awake. My head hurts.

I have introduced myself as Matsu, but I am known by so many others: Matsu-po, Tian Hou, Tian Fei—the Daoguang Emperor even christened me the Holy Mother in Heaven. And like me, this island has been known by a ledger full of names.

A planet amid deep black space. Still cooling from whatever blast or collision or universal hand that has created it. This planet is not just a lump of dumb rock; it is alive; it moves, shakes, slides. Two plates collide. Not knowing point zero, we cannot count forward, and so we count time backward from today. Four million years ago, two plates collide and an island erupts.

Millions of years pass in which grass grows and dies and grows, water flows, freezes, melts, animals born, mate, birth, die. But the island, some argue, does not really exist until people arrive, scatter across the plains, settle in the mountains, call the island by a dozen names, each according to a tribe.

But, some argue, the island does not really exist until it is made useful when the Chinese, in junks, cross the strait and build an outpost away from the iron fist of the Emperor and call the place Taiwan and sometimes Greater Loochoo.

But, some argue, the island does not really exist until the name is recorded in the salty, damp logs of Portuguese ships by men who glimpse it through spyglasses and, dazed by the garlands of soft fog around the lush jade peaks, murmur Ihla Formosa, Beautiful Island.

And then come the Dutch, hoping to expand the Dutch East Indies north and then, between Dutch and Chinese, there are two islands: Formosa and Taiwan, setting a precedent: forevermore, the island will never be a fixed place of a single appellation.

In the 17^th century, as the Manchu Tartars take over China, one of the palaces they besiege houses a Japanese woman who kills herself rather than surrender. Her grieving son—like the future Taiwan: of both Chinese and Japanese blood—vows revenge against the Manchu Tartars. He, like the island to which he eventually retreats hoping to regroup his forces to retake the mainland from the Tartars, goes by many names: Cheng Gong, Tei-seiko, Koxinga!

The pirate-warrior Koxinga, with 25,000 soldiers, claims the island as his kingdom and demands the Red Hairs leave. Fort Provintia surrenders while Fort Zelandia resists and Koxinga begins his blockade, intending on drawing thirsty, starving Dutch from the fort. Meanwhile, those unlucky enough to be caught outside the fort, in the villages they have inhabited for years and years, are beheaded or crucified, nailed through wrist, ankle and torso on crosses in the pirate-warrior’s response to these Christian colonialists. The Dutch eventually yield and Koxinga reigns for twenty years.

For almost two hundred years, the island is known as Taiwan to one half of the world and Formosa to the other (“other” in a Saidian sense: foreigners, who know it on one hand as a barbaric island with treacherous shores where ships are wrecked and survivors beheaded or enslaved; and on the other as a critical link in a trading chain—the Americans, who nurse colonial hopes until the Civil War draws their attentions away, and the British and French who make liberal use of Formosa’s treaty ports); a game chip to be traded at the whim of countries, as it was between China to Japan in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

The most recent century is always the one measured in a more modest concept of time, the human life, where generations seem to be parsed out in days, like the lives of flies, and so we see island names dealt out briskly in the 20^th century. After the Japanese left their colony in the defeat of World War II, the island was again, for a brief, uncertain moment, Formosa, and then the Kuomintang, losing the Chinese Civil War and reasoning that the Communists had no navy, fled to the island and wah! it became the new home of the Republic of China. Yet it wasn’t enough for the West, locked into its own Cold War, to distinguish between the ROC and the PRC—China’d been one monolithic place for five-thousand continuous years, as the myth went, so how could it suddenly be two?—and ROC and PRC were clarified into Free China and Red China and any red-blooded American knew immediately which China to love, even though the closest thing to a panda the island could boast was the Formosan Rock Monkey.

But humans are fickle and as the century went on, the West, who was now deciding such things, came to love Red China as much as Red China loved the red bottles of cola sent in by their new slavering admirers with renminbi twinkling in their eyes, and Red China received the privilege of being just China and, as we noted, there could be only one China, which left our slumbering little tobacco-leaf island a nameless orphan, nose pressed to the bakery shop window.

At which point, the people of the island began to look backward, further than their own meager personal memories could manage, to an island called Formosa, and sometimes Taiwan.

But though orphans may remake and rename themselves, the truth of their birth usually lies on a yellowing slip of paper in some drawer that sticks at the corners and it is always at the denouement that the maid runs into the room waving this piece of paper. So too with the island, a volcanic little Cinderella country, which could come to the few world events to which it was invited bearing only a name decided by others worn on its lapel: Chinese Taipei.

I don’t have to tell you how the name—not even a country but an adjective describing a city!—burned upon the breast, but the name was borne with a clenched smile, a muttering of appreciation while the stomach roiled.

And this is where we find ourselves, as the sun rises over the island and glints off the high rise windows, off the dewy leaves, off the hot streets of Taiwan.

Helpmeet

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 04:57:00 +0000

I'm a little (just a *little*--carrying around Angle of Repose like it's a bible counts as "a little," right?) obsessed with Wallace Stegner right now. I just found this quote from an interview, in which he talks about his wife, Mary (who just passed away this May):

She has had no role in my life except to keep me sane, fed, housed, amused, and protected from unwanted telephone calls. Also to restrain me fairly frequently from making a horse's ass of myself in public, to force me to attend to books and ideas from which she knows I will learn something; also to mend my wounds when I am misused by the world, to implant ideas in my head and stir the soil around them, to keep me from falling into a comfortable torpor, to agitate my sleeping hours with problems that I would not otherwise attend to; also to remind me constantly (not by precept but by example) how fortunate I have been to live for fifty-three years with a woman that bright, alert, charming, and supportive.

I suppose this is why he is able to write so movingly and convincingly about marriage.

Wild as the Wind?

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:29:00 +0000

Orlando was unaccountable disappointed. She had thought of literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and behold, literature was an elderly gentleman in a gray suit talking about duchesses.

--Virginia Woolf

"People Like That Are The Only People Here"

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:20:00 +0000

I thought I'd read this before, but I hadn't.

"This" being Lorrie Moore's story "People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk."

It's a beautiful story about a baby with cancer, narrated by the mother in typical funny and moving Lorrie Moore style.

But it is also about story-telling:

"How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler's mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place a speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye's instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That's where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth's eager devastation."

In other news, the coldest summer on record has suddenly become, surely, the hottest on record. According to this narrator.

Focus!

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:31:00 +0000

"Didn't anything good happen in Seattle?" my friend asked.

Yes, it was great! I told him.

He said he couldn't tell by my post. But then again, he said, no one ever wants to read happy stories.

Or as Tolstoy said at the beginning of a certain major epic:

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Which leads me to my next and somewhat similar topic.

Recently I caught a segment on some news show about the tenth anniversary of Dora the Explorer. They talked about the process for creating the show. Each episode is put in front of a preschool focus group something like ten times. As a woman enacts the script for the kids with paper dolls, another sits to the side, marking down the kids' reactions. Any lulls, and that moment of the show is revised out until the entire episode is one smooth running, well-oiled machine.

And certainly a success. But one of the questions I've been struggling with the past few years is the novel as a genre of art. Why the novel and not a short story or a film? What does the particular form of the novel offer? What can we do with novels that aren't available in other forms?

I think I found my answer.

The novel is one of the last entertainment forms that doesn't rely on a focus group (for the most part!). I suppose one could argue a writing workshop is a kind of focus group, but otherwise, novels arise out of the writer's own love and passion more than her desire to please an audience. Of course, that sometimes is also one of the problems with the novel. But it's also lovely too to have this one little circle of artistic expression free from the groupthought of a particular collection of people chosen for the way they fall along the axiom of "average" (for whatever qualities the testers are looking for).

Viva la novela!

Free Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Has it been ten days since I posted? Where did the time go?

Oh yes, I began the paperback tour for Water Ghosts.

In Seattle, where I just spent two-and-a-half great days, I had an "author escort" the first day. She picked me up at the airport and drove me to my first reading, a couple hours away, then made sure I was safely ensconced in my hotel. In those four hours in the car, we had a lot of time to chat (um, four hours, in fact). One of the topics that came up was the lack of advice available for authors going on the road. Many are just launched on the road with no prep, no idea what to expect, no talking points, or tips on what to say/not say in interviews, etc. So I'm going to fill in with a few of the things I learned.

1. If you live in the Bay Area, make sure you know which airport you are flying from.

This point is laughable to anyone who doesn't live in the East Bay, but a real issue for those of us who do! OAK and SFO are about 30 minutes apart, and it's equally likely with each trip that you are flying out of one or the other. A friend told me he's even taken public transportation to the wrong one. I don't know anyone who uses just one of the airports exclusively. With two choices, you usually go for the cheaper option. Anyway, I arrived an hour early for my flight, only to discover in checking the time and airline, I'd glossed over the airport. I jumped back in the car, raced to SF, got through security like it was nobody's business, and ran barefoot to the gate. The plane was still there, but the gate was closed and they weren't going to open it for anyone.

Needless to say, I missed the flight. This set off a chain of unpleasant events and likely connected events, including the loss of my jacket and falling in a pothole, etc. Which leads me to Tip # 2:

2. Make sure you know which airport you are flying from! (yes, that ending preposition is bothering me too, but let's stick to the pertinent details)

3. Invest in a good deodorant.

This too might be a Bay Area thing--allegiance to some aluminum-free, all-natural sort of deodorant that actually makes you smell like you've rolled around on the floor of a men's locker room. If you are going to be running through airports trying to catch flights, then nervously rushing into bookstores to give readings, at least be sure you don't smell like your dad's old stained undershirt. Like they say: You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

4. Um, bring a pen to signings.

I brought pens. I brought like five pens. But I couldn't find a single one of them in my purse, so, you know, put them in an accessible place!

5. Smile.

Smile, smile, smile. This is awesome. It's your baby, hitting the world!

6. Make sure your landlord pays the utilities bill before you go.

Or heck, even while you are gone. Just make sure they are paid, so that when you get back from your amazing adventure, there isn't a note from the Municipal Utilities District saying your water is going to be turned off for non-payment.

Because that's really a downer.

Part 2: Escape from Taichung

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:22:00 +0000

The plan was in place, but loose. I’d ride down to Kaohsiung with my cousins, we’d spend the day there, then I’d check into a hotel and fly to Jinmen the next day, alone. But I’d told my grandmother that my cousins were going with me. Not because I thrilled in lying to her, but because she was not allowing me out of the house un-chaperoned. Yes, I am in my mid-30s, and had lived in Taiwan for 4 years, but certain reasons on her part overrode all these.

One, a prominent gangster had recently been killed in Taichung and the police were bracing for retribution.

Two, I speak Mandarin as a second language, which obviously meant I couldn’t understand a thing and needed the assistance of the 24-year-old Indonesian woman who lives with my grandparents and speaks even less Mandarin than I do.

Three, the world is dangerous place!

In any case, what she did not know would not hurt her (and what she did know would cause no small amount of stress and shouting), so I set off with the complicity of my cousins.

The adventure started before I even got to the airport. Since all of us were unfamiliar with Kaohsiung, my cousins took me to the nearest moderately-priced hotel we could find behind the airport.

For about $40 US, we found a “Motel,” which are quite unique in Taiwan. You pull in past a drive-thru check-in window, then drive to your room, which has a private garage. After parking and lowering the garage door, you enter your room via private stairs located inside the garage. The door to the room is also private, so it’s possible to enter the motel without being seen by anyone. I don’t have to be explicit about the function of such a place.

The room was outrageously ornate: pattern upon pattern: wallpaper, bedspread, moldings on the ceiling. Blackout curtains on tinted windows and soundproof walls. Plus, the clincher--a window peering into the bathroom that was etched with a wild-haired woman hugging a tiger. The whole place scared me.

I slept with the TV on.

The next day, I got on stand-by for a flight to Jinmen. We flew low, the ocean always in sight. As we approached the island, low white clouds covered it in the exact shape of its shorelines, which was quite a magical image. I tried to take a picture and was reprimanded by the flight attendant.

I arrived around 3:30 pm. I wanted to take advantage of every minute so I flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial before it closed at 5. The driver said she’d never had a fare who’d asked her to do that—especially directly from the airport. I suppose it’d be akin to a young Taiwanese woman landing at an airport and asking a driver to immediately take her to the Ronald Reagan Library.

Jiang Jing Guo was the son of Chiang Kai Shek by his first wife. JJG also took over the leadership of Taiwan after his father died. Most importantly, he helped move Taiwan towards democracy when he finally ended martial law in 1987.

And what fascinating artifacts are to be found at the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial? A noodle bowl he ate out of at a certain hotel on a specific date. The contents of his dopp kit: his toothbrush and cup, comb, razor, aftershave, and the aptly named hair crème called “Top Brass.” And, of course, a friendly wax figure sitting at his desk.

A particular fascination of mine has been the transformation of event into “history” and tourism.

I first began thinking about it when I began studying Taiwan’s 228 Incident. A horrible massacre was memorialized with not only a museum, but concerts, t-shirts and hats—items that seemed to neutralize the power of the event.

Then in Vietnam, where the tourist industry seems to be based primarily on the war. At the Cuchi Tunnels, not only can one squeeze her way through the tiny tunnels built and inhabited during the war, but one can also buy sandals made of tire tread that the soldiers wore, or the checkered scarf that was part of the uniform.

In Jinmen, in just the past five years, this has happened too.

Like I mentioned in my last Jinmen post, Jinmen was the front line of defense for the Chinese Nationalists (who ruled/s Taiwan) against the Chinese Communists. Everyone on the island was conscripted into the defense effort. The island was also, in a way, a military base.

Now, there is still a strong military presence, but the rest of the island are truly civilians again. “Mr. Bird” announces tourist routes that have been organized through the bus system. An $8 ticket is good for 24 hours and there are four loops—with tour guides—that hit all the battle museums and defense tunnels one can dream of.

One can also buy cookies shaped like bullets that come in little tins shaped like soldiers, or don a hard hat and walk along a civil defense tunnel. Or go into a museum room that recreates a multi-sensory bomb experience—the tour group is crowded into the middle of a moving platform that shakes as a black-and-white bomb explosion footage flashes on the wall and thunders from the speakers. Even mainland tourists take the ferry from Xiamen and come over to check things out. And perhaps they could take another ferry over to the battle museum on Little Jinmen (just a short 15 minute boat ride away!) and look back at Xiamen through the binoculars that are set up there trained on the mainland coast—where the mainland officials have helpfully erected a large red sign for the Taiwanese:

“One Country, Two Systems, One China.”

Stay tuned for Part 3: Little Jinmen

The Time Paradox

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Yesterday, I tossed off the rest of my To-Do list and read The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychology professor who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment, and John Boyd, a Stanford PhD who currently works at Google.

Their argument is that there are 6 major attitudes about time, and these attitudes influence every aspect of life, including the success of nations. The attitudes are past-positive, past-negative, present-hedonistic, present-fatalistic, future time, and transcendental-future.

The argument is pretty convincing. For example, a future-oriented nation, that is willing to forgo present-hedonism for future rewards, will be more successful, but it also creates an environment where its citizens can also adopt a future-oriented perspective, thus perpetuating success. A good example, obviously, is America. And our recent economic setbacks, they imply, are due to people thinking in terms of present-hedonism--like the Enron guys, or the people setting up sub-prime mortgages. And if you live in a place where the future is very cloudy, it's natural you'll adopt a present-fatalistic pov, which makes it difficult to plan for the future. A country needs stability to create stability. They bring in fascinating examples about the Middle East (and imply some solutions).

They also used the time-perspective to explain certain patterns of behavior and psychological issues (schizophrenia is partially the inability to distinguish between past, present and future). High anxiety is associated with a high future orientation, and the old cure was a lobotomy: to smash the prefrontal cortex of the brain with something resembling an ice-pick because the prefrontal cortex is the brain structure responsible for future perspective. Of course, the result was absolute apathy.

The best path, they argue, is to have a time balance. Ideally, one is past-positive (pleasant memories of the past keep you rooted to family and tradition), present-hedonistic (keeps you mindful and in the moment), and future (enough sense of the future to avoid negative behaviors in the present and to plan). If you want to find out where you fall, you can take their test here.

I scored lowest on present-hedonistic--a surprise considering how often I procrastinate! But my score did help justify my tossing of the to-do list to read. I was higher than ideal in the future-pov, and a way above ideal for past-negative and present-fatalism (but I'm so cheerful!).

Part 1: Jinmen, Kinmen, Quemoy

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000

"If Kinmen falls, if the Pescadores fall, if Taiwan falls to the Communists, the United States will have to guard the rest of Asia, for hope will be gone from all hearts there....Kinmen is the symbol of right against might, of resistance against armed aggression."

--Taiwan As I Saw It, Juliette Mather, 1966

Oh, how far we've come.

In the 196o presidential debates between Nixon and Kennedy, Quemoy--the Portuguese name for Jinmen, an island off the coast of China that belongs to Taiwan--was a major issue. Nixon said he thought Kennedy would be too soft in defending Quemoy, the Republic of China's first line of defense against the Chinese. (I'm including the pertinent part of the October 13, 1960 debate transcript below).

I first heard of Jinmen as nothing more than the home of the famous Kaoliang Wine factory. Kaoliang wine is made of sorghum and is slightly weaker than lighter fluid. I should probably pay homage to the many days lost to Kaoliang wine hangovers. Empires could be built with those lost days....

Jinmen is almost literally a stone's throw from China. As such, all civilians on the island were conscripted into the Civil Defense Corps up until fairly recently. The island was too, of course, an important base for the ROC military. With everyone at all times involved in the defense of Free China, the entire lifestyle on the island was part of the defense effort. In addition to the tunnels and bomb shelters built beneath innocuous buildings (the Jincheng Bus Station also doubles as museum and entrance to one of these tunnels), all inhabitants had to adhere to a 9 pm lights out curfew, all homes had blackout curtains and special light shades to prevent any stray lights, and anything that floated was prohibited on the island. This included balls.

For many years, too, the island was subjected to the "dan da, er bu da" agreement between the PRC and the ROC, in which they would shell each other with propaganda bombs on alternating days. Propaganda from Taiwan celebrated, in color pictures, the festive life on the island, illustrated too with pictures of Asia's most famous pop star (and daughter of Taiwan), Teresa Teng. They also send canned food and other gifts. The Chinese Communists celebrated life after the People's Revolution, as well reminded the millions of mainland "refugees" on Taiwan of the families they'd left behind in 1949.

Mixed in among the military and the constant feeling of being under siege were beautiful Fujianese style houses with saddleback and swallowtail rooflines, gorgeous brick- and tile-work.

All these things: the strange history, its tense geographical position, and its beautiful architecture have recently turned Jinmen into a tourist spot for Taiwanese and Chinese--a topic I'll cover in Part 2.

MR. VON FREMD: Mr. Vice President, a two-part question concerning the offshore islands in the Formosa Straits. If you were president and the Chinese Communists tomorrow began an invasion of Quemoy and Matsu, would you launch the uh - United States into a war by sending the Seventh Fleet and other military forces to resist this aggression; and secondly, if the uh - regular conventional forces failed to halt such uh - such an invasion, would you authorize the use of nuclear weapons?

MR. NIXON: .... I will say this: in the event that such an attack occurred and in the event the attack was a prelude to an attack on Formosa - which would be the indication today because the Chinese Communists say over and over again that their objective is not the offshore islands, that they consider them only steppingstones to taking Formosa - in the event that their attack then were a prelude to an attack on Formosa, there isn't any question but that the United States would then again, as in the case of Berlin, honor our treaty obligations and stand by our ally of Formosa. But to indicate in advance how we would respond, to indicate the nature of this response would be incorrect; it would certainly be inappropriate; it would not be in the best interests of the United States. I will only say this, however, in addition: to do what Senator Kennedy has suggested - to suggest that we will surrender these islands or force our Chinese Nationalist allies to surrender them in advance - is not something that would lead to peace; it is something that would lead, in my opinion, to war. This is the history of dealing with dictators. This is something that Senator Kennedy and all Americans must know. We tried this with Hitler. It didn't work. He wanted first uh - we know, Austria, and then he went on to the Sudetenland and then Danzig, and each time it was thought this is all that he wanted. Now what do the Chinese Communists want? They don't want just Quemoy and Matsu; they don't want just Formosa; they want the world. And the question is if you surrender or indicate in advance that you're not going to defend any part of the free world, and you figure that's going to satisfy them, it doesn't satisfy them. It only whets their appetite; and then the question comes, when do you stop them? I've often heard President Eisenhower in discussing this question, make the statement that if we once start the process of indicating that this point or that point is not the place to stop those who threaten the peace and freedom of the world, where do we stop them? And I say that those of us who stand against surrender of territory - this or any others - in the face of blackmail, in the s- face of force by the Communists are standing for the course that will lead to peace.

MR. SHADEL: Senator Kennedy, do you wish to comment?

MR. KENNEDY: Yes. The whole th- the United States now has a treaty - which I voted for in the United States Senate in 1955 - to defend Formosa and the Pescadores Island. The islands which Mr. Nixon is discussing are five or four miles, respectively, off the coast of China. Now when Senator Green, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to the President, he received back on the second of October, 1958 - "neither you nor any other American need feel the U.S. will be involved in military hostilities merely in the defense of Quemoy and Matsu." Now, that is the issue. I believe we must meet our commitment to uh - Formosa. I support it and the Pescadores Island. That is the present American position. The treaty does not include these two islands. Mr. Nixon suggests uh - that the United States should go to war if these two islands are attacked. I suggest that if Formosa is attacked or the Pescadores, or if there's any military action in any area which indicates an attack on Formosa and the Pescadores, then of course the United States is at war to defend its treaty. Now, I must say what Mr. Nixon wants to do is commit us - as I understand him, so that we can be clear if there's a disagreement - he wants us to be committed to the defense of these islands merely as the defense of these islands as free territory, not as part of the defense of Formosa. Admiral Yarnell, the commander of the Asiatic fleet, has said that these islands are not worth the bones of a single American. The President of the United States has indicated they are not within the treaty area. They were not within the treaty area when the treaty was passed in fifty-five. We have attempted to persuade Chiang Kai-shek as late as January of 1959 to reduce the number of troops he has on them. This is a serious issue, and I think we ought to understand completely if we disagree, and if so, where.

What the Heck Is a "Water Ghost"?

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:50:00 +0000

My first encounter with the Hungry Ghosts Festival was in 1993. I was in Taiwan and had been invited to dinner at my aunt's mother-in-law's house. We sat before the table set with boiled chicken and vinegar cucumber and other delectable Taiwanese dishes and then someone mentioned these were "ghost leftovers."

"What does that mean?" The food suddenly seemed to have a suspicious cast, like it had been doused in ash (so much for being an open-minded budding anthropologist).

My mom explained that the ghosts had had time to nibble on it and now we'd eat it. I think she delighted in the look of horror on my face.

I was sixteen and old enough to know this was all symbolic, but I couldn't shake the creepy feeling that ghosts actually *had* nibbled on it, and now there might be ghost saliva on my food, or I could maybe get ghost cold sores from the Supao can.

This year, Ghost Month starts August 10. On that day, the gates to the underworld open and ghosts are free to roam among the living. The living must be careful because unhappy ghosts will try to claim their lives. Especially dangerous are the Hungry Ghosts (Lisa See's book, Peony in Love, I was surprised to find out, features a hungry ghost), who have been forgotten by their descendants. No one honors them, or puts out offerings, which is why they are hungry and looking for revenge. Which is why one had better put out a table of food and burn some incense and dead-money as protection!

Among the most dangerous of ghosts are water ghosts. They've died especially unlucky deaths and are primed for being Hungry Ghosts. During Ghost Month, it's best to stay away from bodies of water and to not swim at all, because Water Ghosts will be waiting for an unfortunate person whose life they can take.

Today, my novel WATER GHOSTS comes out in paperback. So far, these particular Water Ghosts have been good to me--but I'll be burning money for them on August 10 nonetheless.

Sister pSychology

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Ok, against my better judgment, I'm going to try out this sister advice post again. This time, I and A. drew together all the sisters to confer on a question we got last week. We had a facebook conversation about it, which is below. Remember, send us your questions--on any topic--and we'll see what the oracle of the sisters has to say.
>

Question from Greta:

I have a sister too, and I think she's annoying. Sometimes. She's very demanding and constantly makes me go out of my way to get her stuff ALL THE TIME! Being the soft-hearted me, I always do it, though I don't want to most of the time. And it seems as if she only makes me, not my other siblings, do things because I'm probably the only one that does it.
So how do you deal with annoying sisters? And how do you get yourself to say no sometimes?

A:
Greta, you are so nice! Will you be my sister? By the way, can you stop by Costco and pick up some Tabasco for me? I’m all out. One of the most common phrases heard in my house is, “No, do it yourself.” I’m not kidding. “Shawna/Tina/Emily, will you help me with dishes/vacuuming/take out the trash?” “NO ANNIE, DO IT YOURSELF!” Sometimes there will be insult added in there, something like, “Don’t be so damn lazy!!”

Greta, here are some phrases you should learn and start using the next time your sister asks for something that cause you inconvenience: “No, do it yourself!” “Don’t be so damn lazy!” “I’m not your slave!” It’s not mean, it’s just enough for your bossy sister to know she’s not the boss of you. She will still love you.

Tina July 21 at 2:12pm Reply

I, too am the "nice" sister, always wanting to say "yes" and hardly ever saying "no" (wouldn't you 3 agree???) Anyways, I guess if I was faced with a "I dont really want to do this" scenerio I would make up an excuse but the people pleaser in me would be guilt ridden! So I guess Im not the best sister to answer the question; do it if you can and if you cant tell her you're sick (just kidding).

Annie July 21 at 2:56pm Reply

@ Tina, I don't know if you can consider yourself the nice sister when:
1. You refused to let me store your placenta in your fridge.
2. You didn't let me keep your son's foreskin.
3. You've never dog sat for me.

Feeling guilty?? :o) I'm kidding and yes, you are a lot nicer than Shawna and Emily.

Shawna July 21 at 4:05pm

That's really funny since I think it's generally agreed *I'm* the nice one. After all, I slept on the couch for a WHOLE year so that each of you could have your own bedroom! Any future back problems I develop will be a symbol of my devotion to my sisters.

I *never* say no. I just don't answer my phone.

In any case, it's not a contest. I think we are all pretty nice. But you certainly have no problem telling me off if you feel taken advantage of. I guess that's because you know I'll still love you.

That makes me pretty nice, no?

Shawna July 21 at 4:06pm

PS I've never said, "Don't be so damn lazy."!!

Tina July 21 at 4:37pm Reply

Omg everyone is soooo funny, I am by far the nicest one:p
Annie, I was going to let you have my childs placents, that's gotta count for something and brian was the one in the room for the circumcision, I was picking up my daughter. And hey u got a umbilical cord! And bring penny anytime! Lol!! By far the nicest:) (I'm laughing as I write this)

Emily July 21 at 4:47pm Reply

I won't claim to be the "nice" sister. I think that's a particularly futile effort given that we're all rather snarky and... well, we're sisters. But look, I'm nice enough to come answering when Annie comes a-callin'.

I've dog-sat, cooked dinner, and traveled long ways for each and every one of my sisters. None of them deserve the title as a "nice" sister as I remember a tortured childhood, living terrified under the trauma and abuse of wedgies, indian burns, rug burns, chin hickeys, burps, farts, embarrassment, and of course being constantly told, "your breath is 'bummpin."

Thanks Shawna, Tina, and Annie--thanks for all those great memories. It is often hard to say "no" to you guys but I only have to remember back to how loving and wonderful you all were to remember that you only want the very best for me. Often, the best for me means a "no" for you. Love you guys!

Annie July 21 at 4:51pm Reply

OMG! I remember the chin hickeys! Tina, I am stripping you of the nice sister title, you were terrible!

Annie July 21 at 4:52pm Reply

And Emily, you are almost as bad as Shawna when it comes to answering your phone. Don't pretend like you answer my calls.

Tina July 21 at 10:15pm Reply

I laughed so hard reading this! I forgot about chin hickeys! Lol sorry !

Annie:

To get back to your question Greta, it’s easy to say ‘No’ to your sister. Just say it and be polite but firm. Learning to say no will likely help the relationship as you will no longer feel annoyed and used by her, and she might start doing things for herself or asking other siblings for favors.

Learn to say no, or have her call one of us and we’ll say no for you.

The Quarter Acre Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

To be frank, grad school was a mixed bag for me. I was thrown into a quirky cohort prone to too much cross-pollination (ahem) and snarkiness (oh wait--is that *every* grad school experience?). However, one great thing came out of grad school--my friendship with Spring Warren.

I don't really remember how the friendship started, but by the time I was in Taiwan a year after graduation, we were corresponding regularly. We seemed to be going through the exact same struggles with writing and publishing, and then we both won the same writing award and had our books (her novel is called Turpentine. Check it out here.) published within a month of each other. Now, ten years later, we are in daily contact. I think our friendship is akin to two mothers who experienced pregnancy and child-rearing together and are forever bonded.

However, while I'm still tapping away at my second book, Spring's is due out this winter. She turned her suburban yard into a full-on farm, which she then subsisted on for over a year (I was a happy beneficiary of many yummy vegetables too). And now she's written a book of essays, illustrated by her son (a fantastically talented artist--check out his facebook fanpage here) about her adventures with the "Quarter Acre Farm."

She keeps a daily blog about the trials and tribulations on the farm. On Thursdays, she asks a guest blogger to talk about three things they know about gardening. If you want to see what a brown-thumb (um, me) has to say, check it out here:

http://www.thequarteracrefarm.com/

(above picture is from Spring's blog)

Oh! My Lady!

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

No narrative of a Taiwan trip is complete without mentioning KOREAN SOAP OPERAS!

My grandparents and I devoted a couple hours every evening to the trials and tribulations of Yoon Gae Hwa and Sung Min Woo as he, the moody, handsome star dealt with the new custody of a previously unknown daughter, and she, a poor single mom, cared for the daughter and the star in her capacity as nanny/manager. She was plucky and bubbly and girl-next-door; he was brooding and temperamental: love could be the only result, especially after a late-night kiss in the kitchen that sent her into awkward anxiety (he's her boss!) and him into aloof grumpiness.

Unfortunately, I left just as things were heating up. But we all know how it ends....

Then there was the historical drama about the woman in love with the king but who was just a common court painter. I couldn't quite follow all the ins-and-outs of why they couldn't be together, except for the week when the obvious reason was the fact she was being held in a shed with other kidnapped women. I also never caught the name, which is surprising considering at 8 o'clock, my grandparents completely ignored me and anything else and turned up the volume to a deafening level to ensure not one word would be missed. Unfortunately, googling plot highlights (Korean soap opera, historical, kidnapping, brothel, court painter) elicits too many possibilities.

I'm a little pained that I'll never know what happens, though I suppose the arc of these dramas dictates she either dies a horrible death or lives happily ever after with the king.

How Bad Media Can Kill You

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:59:00 +0000

On Sunday night, right in the heart of downtown Oakland, Jinghong Kang was shot and killed for $17. He was in the Bay Area for an interview at Google the next day.

Some people might shrug and say, "Another day, another killing in Oakland." After all, the death caps off a particularly brutal weekend where a man in body armor engaged in a shoot-off with cops on 580, and a sniper fired on police from a West Oakland building.

But this particular murder upsets me because it appears to be another death in a trend of violence targeted towards Asian Americans in the Bay Area.

It's the Long Duk Dong Effect.

Earlier this year, in an intro talk at he Taiwanese American Lunar New Year event in Fremont, I tried to link Chimamanda Adichie's concept of "the danger of the single story" (as talked about in her brilliant TED talk) and the perception of Asian Americans. The basic gist is the limiting effects of stereotypes for both those who use them as a shorthand for understanding individuals and for the ones being stereotyped.

We have all heard ad infinitum about how the objectification of women in films and TV has been linked to the status and treatment of women in the real world, or how lack of positive images of people of color leads to feelings of disempowerment and invisibility among people of color--or, as in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the desire to live up to some sort of racialized ideal.

Those media images not only affect how we see ourselves but also, obviously, how we see others. In Taiwan, I often heard comments about how "dangerous" or "scary" African Americans are. I'd get mad, but I also understood that the entire idea, absent of any actual interaction with African Americans, came from the deluge of Hollywood movies.

So it makes sense that Asian Americans are seen as an "easy target." We know from movies that unless he looks like Bruce Lee, that As-Am guy you see is likely to be a glasses-wearing, engineering-studying, weak-muscled geek. Right? Who better to mug? And while I understand that it's hard to pinpoint one's motives for committing a crime, I also can't believe that the stereotype of a weak Asian male isn't part of the matrix.

And while I thought that stupid stereotype had gone out with the 80s, it seems we just can't shake it.

It's enough to want to get rid of it because we know stereotypes are dumb, but this is actually a matter of life and death.

And the "model minority" stereotype isn't much better. As sociologist Frank Wu explains:

"It would be bad enough if the model minority myth were true. Everyone else would resent Asian Americans for what Asian Americans possess. It is worse that the model minority myth is false. Everyone else resents Asian Americans for what they believe Asian Americans possess.”

As an article, published in the 1960s, in the US News and World Report claimed, "At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese Americans are moving ahead on their own, with no help from anyone else." It's been 50 years, and times have changed, but the rhetoric hasn't.

The Model Minority stereotype may be good for the self-esteem of Asian Americans, but by portraying us as essentially sell-outs to the American Dream, the stereotype is doing more harm than good.

Essentially, we have to step up and realize we are all in the same boat and the same community. Asian American groups should step forward and support the community efforts of Latino, African American, etc groups, and vice versa.

Because that's kind of the idea of "community."

Addendum:

Tellingly, the first comment for the story of the Oakland killing on NBCWashington's site reads: "One fewer nerd."

links:

"Model Minority" blog, with links to recent articles about hate crimes against Asian Americans.

UC Irvine- Kathy Rim's article "Model, Victim or Problem Minority? Examining the Socially Constructed Identities of Asian Origin Ethnic Groups in California's Media"

The story of Tian Sheng Yu, murdered in Oakland in April

The story of Jinghong Kang, murdered on Sunday.

Crime map of Oakland.

Paperback Writer, Writer, Writer....

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

The paperback release is just two weeks away now and I officially have hot-off-the-press copies in hand. Penguin did a great redesign of an already fabulous cover. This time, too, there's a book club guide, which has fabulous discussion questions.

I've also fixed the mistakes in the Acknowledgments (ahem....discovering those was awk--ward!).

Justin Bieber, Tom Arnold, and Woody Allen Walk into a Bar....

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

In fourth or fifth grade, I discovered Little Women. I stayed up all night reading it--it was the first time I'd stayed up to see dawn, and the first time I'd cried over a book (no spoilers!).

I wanted to be Jo, the hot-headed, no-nonsense writer, but I also wanted to be Beth, who was sweet and loved by everyone, or Meg, who was sensible. I didn't care so much for Amy (she burns Jo's novel during a tantrum!).

I also loved the chaos and liveliness of all the sisters together. I'd always wished for a bigger family....

Then, in the mid-90s, two of my cousins came to live with us, bringing the total of girls in the house to four. It was karma for my dad, who grew up in a house of five boys and one girl (poor aunt!).

In any case, we started living out own Little Women drama, and those cousins I can't think of as anything but sisters.

And one of the benefits of sisters is that they have a lot of advice to give. Solicited and unsolicited. And they don't mince words, a quality I have recently learned to appreciate.

In honor of the timeless tradition of unsolicited, un-minced advice of sisters, I'm handing Friday over to my sisters. So if you are in need of sisterly advice, send me a question, or post it in the comments and one of my sisters--or all--will tell you how it is. Or at least how it should be, as evidenced below....

Q: I love Justin Bieber. Any advice on how to meet one's idol??

A.'s Advice:

I think I’m qualified to provide advice on this because I have met my ULTIMATE idol. [ahem, see above. that's *not* a wax figure. -syr] All it took was some guts, good running legs to chase after him, a firm grip, and a lot of money (dinner and show at the Carlyle cost me $600+, ouch!) Here’s my advice on meeting Justin Bieber, or any other celebrities or idols:

1. Do your research - Are they playing a show somewhere? Hanging out at certain coffee shops, malls? (This is more likely if you live in a major city like NY or LA) Try to be where they will be, it’ll increase your chance exponentially.

2. Be brave – Don’t ever think, “I’m not going to approach him or say anything because I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” DON’T THINK THAT! Because really, no one cares! Worst case scenario, you are standing in front of Justin Bieber and you turn into a bumbling idiot. You think Justin Bieber has never seen a bumbling idiot before? I’m sure he sees them every time he steps out of his home, takes a drink of water, breathes…. etc. Justin Bieber meets you (the bumbling idiot) says hello, signs an autograph and whatnot, and he goes on with his life, immediately forgetting about you. Don’t worry about leaving a bad impression, he won’t even remember. The experience is more about you than him, it’s about YOU.

Don’t ever think, “I’m not going to approach him because I don’t want him to think I’m weird.” No one cares! I was at UCLA with my husband Clifford walking our dog when we saw Tom Arnold with a small camera crew. Clifford (HUGE Roseanne fan) said, “Oh my gosh, it’s Tom Arnold!” and continued walking. I stopped him and asked him why he doesn’t go up and say hello, because he obviously wants to. Clifford replied that he was worried that he’d be the ‘weird guy’ bugging Tom Arnold. I told him NO ONE CARES! He ended up walking over and Tom Arnold ended up doing most of the talking, in addition to saying that I (Annie) am too HOT for Clifford, he also pulled up his shirt and showed Clifford a scar on his chest from when he was stabbed by an ex-wife. And now we have a cool Tom Arnold story to share with our friends and family. Just think all that we would have missed out on had Clifford been overly concerned with not being the ‘weird guy’.

3. Be persistent and don’t give up – Another quick story to illustrate this point. My favorite band in the world is Travis. Last year, Clifford and I attended a show they had in LA. They announced they were going to meet fans and sign some autographs after the show but by the time we got out there, the line was insanely long. So knowing that they were playing at the same venue the next night, I bought two tickets for the next night’s show and knowing that they would make the same announcement at the end of the show, Clifford skipped the end of the show and immediately went outside and to wait in the autograph line for me (random tip: don’t marry a guy who wouldn’t make sacrifices to help you meet your idols, it really betters your chances). So that night I got to meet my favorite band, and because I planned ahead and carried a bottle of wine with me to gift them, they thought I was the BEST FAN EVER and spent a little extra time chatting with me. Another tip, everyone likes presents, and that includes your idols. Give them a gift and they will give you a little extra attention.

If all else fails, visit http://lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.tumblr.com/.Seriously, some of these girls really do look like Justin Bieber!

Got a question?

Post it in comments or email me !

Another Homage to a Taiwanese Classic

noreply@blogger.com (Shawna Yang Ryan) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Salt'N'Pepa said, "From seven to seven, he's got me open like 7-Eleven."

This could be unofficial anthem of Taiwan, if only because Taiwan ranks fourth in the world for the number of 7-Elevens crowding its streets. Nearly 5,000 7-Elevens dot the streets and alleys of Taiwan, offering everything from bubbling hot pot goodies, to steaming hot dogs to cold cases full of every variation of tea imaginable. You can also buy underwear, cosmetics, candy. You can pay your bills, fax documents, withdraw money, plus about a dozen other things I don't even know how to use.

They are so ubiquitous, that you can stand in the doorway of one 7-Eleven and look down the street at another. I thought I'd found the closest 7-Eleven to my grandparents' house, and was indignant when they insisted La Di, their home-help, chaperone me there, only to discover there was an even closer 7-Eleven--half a block, rather than one block away. Huh.

Basically, you could live solely on a Taiwanese 7-Eleven. In fact, as a new arrival in Taiwan, I was told that if I forgot to stock up on anything in preparation for a typhoon, I could always find food at 7-Eleven.

Because 7-Eleven *never* closes.

When my sister and I visited for the first time in 1993, after not having been since 1981, it was the 7-Eleven hot dog we talked about for months afterward.

Amid all these 7-Elevens, there are yet more convenience stores! OK, Family Mart, the old Mom-and-Pop place. But for its iconic status, 7-Eleven is the King of Convenience Stores and I tip my blogging hat to it.

謝光臨！

Wow...I've found a homage more glowing than my own. And he covers all the other services I didn't even know about! Link.