I was just telling a close friend who had recently lost his dad that my father comes to me in my dreams at least once every two weeks. It’s been 14 years.

Most of the time, it’s some situation as in a vacation, an outing, some crisis, an action sequence, or a scene of high drama. It’s never the cliché hooded ghost from the past floating to me, repeating in a heavily reverberated echo voice “Luke! Luke! I am your father….now take out the trash!”

I just had a visit this morning. This tableaux involved my father wondering whether he should continue night school at the local community college. He had been commuting to classes at a college many miles away, but due to his advancing cancer, he had switched to one nearer.  (It was conveniently located across the street from the local liquor store he frequented. The one he called “The Church.” I secretly had my suspicions, it was true.) I don’t know why he was worried about education in light of a terminal illness, but it’s so typical of the person who once said “I wish I had another year to live, just to explore the internet.”

He announced that he was in so much pain, he is thinking of ending his course. He was almost in tears. I knew this was a dream because complaining about pain and being in tears were two things I have never seen my father do in real life. Still, it felt real when I was in the dream. He thought out loud the possibility of participating in a newfangled religion that enabled people to access god online. Sure there were colleges online, but now, as if in the ongoing feud between faith vs science that is the pretzel logic behind intelligent design, there is God online. Here was the funniest part: The new technology that enabled people to reach god through an internet connection was called Web Redemption. (A feature on tv show Tosh-0 that enabled real life people to redo their youtubed flubs from the past).

I put up my hand and said “no.” And immediately – as in a dream cliché – the townspeople gathered around me and murmured in Ibsenian unrest. Voices that demanded an explanation began to build to a cacophony: “Why not!”

Amidst the protest, I tried to be heard. I finally shouted, “PEOPLE! If this ‘web redemption’ is so effective, can I ask you this: Think of the greatest minds who have lived and those who are alive today. Why didn’t any one of them sign on for web redemption?”

(pause)

(murmurs growing)

A woman from the mob screeched” “Everyone quiet, I think someone came up with a name of a great mind who did sign up for web redemption.”

(people grew quiet. more silence. no name.)

I turned and looked at my dad. You could now hear a pin drop. It was a Bergman moment of stillness.

I woke up, and chuckled a little over the twist of the phrase web redemption.

If there is an afterlife, the end of my life will be a much anticipated reunion with my dad, whom I was very close to. Soberly however, I think it’s more likely going to be the other outcome.

My dad believed that death was merely decomposition into dirt. Raised as a Catholic, who converted to Presbyterian later on, he explained death to me in the following way “once you’re dead, you’re done. If you look at the evolution of the universe, the age of the planets, the billions of years it took the earth to come to being, then wiped out, then return; now you compare it to the evolution of mankind and the millions of years it took us to get to this point is just child’s play by comparison. Now you think about 90 years – a human lifespan *at best* is nothing more than a gasp. Who are we to be arrogant and be so full of self-importance. People die every minute and it has no meaning in the the context of the cosmos. Our entire life is nothing more than a gasp in the timeline of *THE* big picture.”

True to form, his instructions to the local funeral home was to cremate and toss the remains “wherever convenient, in the trash if necessary.”

He passed away from cancer at 64.

His profession: School Teacher.

Cesar Romero beat me to saying “The camera never lies. It lies everyday.”

At the photo studio, I’ve been watching and photographing some of whom would be considered  “beautiful” girls, who came in to have their portraits taken. The magic of photography is its ability to trap time and stun that unstoppable force in the essence of living. However, this very ability also tricks our perception into an anthropomorphic state, allowing us the luxury of liberally reading our prejudices, preferences, and a collective consciousness culled from years of myth-making into an open source face.

Like that physics problem where a ball gets thrown inside a dark room and a flash is fired, we see the ball in that split illuminated second, but nobody knows which direction it came from or where it is going.

If you looked at these beautiful girls in the moment the studio strobes flashed – in that silent instant made immortal – you would think you were looking at the very image of beatific vision: light skin, blonde angelic locks framing a youthful face of purity with blue translucent azure eyes shining in a dreamy pause between a poet’s longing stanzas adulating the grace of love, compassion, and profound humanity.

But that’s just the moment the flash went off.

Now if you were there to take in the moments leading up to that photographic frame, and the time afterward, you would hear and see a selfish, vicious, self-absorbed, inconsiderate and mean monster, yelling at her mother to go away so she could channel her inner Steven Meisel and get in her Vogue zone. The smile was turned on and off for the camera, as mechanically and with as much grace as a pneumatic jackhammer destroying a concrete sidewalk. Let us be very clear here: the only reason she tolerated the studio attendants, dressers, lighting technicians, and posers was because their only concern was to make her look good. This was “me time” for her, and we were all there to present her in the best light by making our time her time.

Storytelling in Western civilization may have devoted a little too much equity to the eyes. “Eyes are the window to one’s soul,” “I get lost in your eyes,” portrait photographers seem heavily invested on the eyes as well. One wonders if singers should be writing more songs about the throat.

You can tell something from one’s eyes, but certainly nowhere near the extent of being able to look into his or her soul. I recently had a conversation with a photographer about Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl, regarded by many as perhaps THE greatest portrait photograph ever taken. McCurry is tremendously talented with a stunning portfolio, and this is a beautifully shot photograph, but every time I look at the picture, one part of me thinks about the initial maniacal response to this photo around the world. The moment people saw those eyes, they dug deep into their pockets to donate (she didn’t see a cent…and is still living in poverty). Another part of me wonders how much of the text “read” into the subject is really just what we chose to believe. Phrases like “the unbreakable will of the human spirit,”"the defiance of the life force against a harsh environment,”"the profound ethereal depth of the soul” abound. Sentiments easily dispatched from those living comfortably within the safety of a developed civilization with all mod cons.

So the photographer and I decided to do an experiment and alter the eyes in McCurry’s portrait. What do you get without the distraction of those marvelous eyes? What do you see when you take in the entire picture? It was what I thought all along: a portrait of a frightened overwhelmed girl. It’s a photojournalistic document taken with great detachment in the National Geographic style.

Photo portraiture is a curious category for me. In the tradition of 17th century painter Diego Velazquez – who inserted himself into family “society” group paintings – a portrait is as much about the photographer as it is about the subject. You could say that about the “greatest” portrait ever made – the Mona Lisa – since it has been speculated that Mona Lisa is, in fact, Leonardo Da Vinci painting himself as a hidden self-portrait (he did the same thing – allegedly – with the Shroud of Turin).

For me, a truly spectacular portrait is an expertly executed visual and emotional record of both the photographer and the sitter. When asked about my favorite photo portrait, there is none other than Edouard Boubat’s Lella of Bretagne. Boubat was also a photojournalist. This photograph was taken in 1947. It was a portrait of a woman Boubat admired (she was a war time nurse), was deeply in love with, and attracted to (they married after the war) You see all the components presented here: awe, sexual attraction, veneration elevated to neoclassical heroism,and starry-eyed dreaminess. (curiously, her eyes are not very prominent, though Boubat also has photos of her with downcast, even shut eyes.)

I think we are too easily misled by what we think eyes say about a person. I believe we are defined by our actions, and though there are many things a photograph can do, it can’t present a sequence in time. We are left with our own narrative to construct the moments that lead up to that photograph, and the time afterward. A person photographed brandishing a knife near someone could be attacking that person…..or removing it for safety purposes. Not waving, but drowning.

I give a pass to photographers though. We, of all people, are willing co-conspirators to the lies constructed through omission by the camera. If photographers ever get swindled by someone who happened to be born with “deep, profound, soulful” eyes and end up living miserably with a heartless, compassionless witch, the cliché is inevitable: Live by the sword, die by the sword.

My word is always good. A recent event made me think about my commitment to my word. A friend had the bad luck of someone backing – accidentally – into her car. The culprit got out immediately and pleaded with her not to notify his boss, for fear of giving his superiors a reason to fire him…in order to clear the bottom line in these tough times. She said she would agree upon a monetary compensation (both for keeping her mouth shut and refraining from reporting him, and the damages incurred.) The moment she got her money in hand, she said “if there are any additional expenses, I will have my lawyer contact you.”

Then we solicited a number of plumbers to come work on our house plumbing. Many promised to give an estimate and show up for paid work. Not one came through. This was before Hurricane Irene.

One’s  word is often no longer good. It disturbed me even to hear it. I have always believed that a developed civilization rested on a handshake and a verbal agreement, but that is an incredibly incongruous and misled conclusion. These days, our “developed civilization” is plagued by attorneys and frivolous class-action lawsuits that is all about the money, not the principle…while claiming otherwise. In the meantime, indigenous tribes within the canopies of jungles can still nod on an agreement, and more often than not, do right by their word.

It’s something that makes me toss and turn in my sleep. I have always had a deep feeling that each of us exists in our generation to improve upon the generation that came before us. There is no reason to continue status quo. I saw a program about how the painter Jacques-Louis David believed in the idea of greatness, something that appears to be anachronistic in these days of irony and skepticism. I think we have forgotten that we can be great, or strive to be great. We can still be heroes. That song has barely faded and remains the same.

I recently did volunteer work for kids at my mom’s church, a vacation bible school. It was two weeks of set painting, preparing food, decorating, playing with kids, photography, photoshop, powerpoint presentations, sweeping, mopping, cleaning, etc. I just got a call from a church member a few days before.  I’ve never met her before, and I only attend church on Christmas Eve. I said “I’ll be there.” That’s it. After a month, the happy reports from her Reverend and fellow congregation are still coming in about what I did. (Overinflated, in my opinion) But my mom was astonished. I was astonished that she was astonished. She always assumed I was the biggest slacker in town. Though not religious, I understood the tough times small churches are going through. I wanted to do my best for kids who may not have the luxury of going on a vacation. I adored each and every one of them, and I enjoyed giving the local church – who helps our community through tough times – a hand. It definitely wasn’t greatness by any measure, but it was an attempt. And even if you fail at being great, I think you still manage to come off fairly good.

There is a fear in me that countries who have been reared on the practical aspects of  communists-aching-for-recent-capitalist-flash Darwinists’ “survival of the fittest” will overly influence nations that once believed in a simple handshake and a verbal agreement. I worry that pretty soon, everyone will be thinking “what is in it for me?” That’s not civilization to me. That’s just raw survival.

Eventually we may have to tear ourselves away from all the electronics, whirring appliances, flashing devices, and modern conveniences and trod deep into the jungle where people in loin clothes squat over an open fire….to learn the lesson of civilization.

When Kanye West’s Auto-Tune malfunctions in the studio, he resorts to the next best thing: wearing Cher’s Uninhibited.

I was at that rat’s maze some of you know as Ikea. Normally I go there to play “gay couples vs. mail order brides,” tallying up which group has a higher head count before my visit is up. I actually like Ikea’s stuff. Snobs may poo-poo it as disposable furniture, but that is precisely the charm of it. Who wants to live with the same furniture forever unless is it’s an authentic Shaker dresser? Ikea gives you the living space of the season, and it’s affordable enough to toss if you wake up one morning on the wrong side of bed and hit your head on that armoire.

Modern high fashion, another concept that changes with every season, by contrast, is pure smoke and mirrors. That’s why I roll eyeballs and muffle a laugh when I hear some girls go ga-ga over brand labels and furiously name-drop designers as if being “associated” with those names is a validation ticket to the coveted lifestyle among the arrivistes. It’s no different than Asian women purchasing luxury items as simulacrum for a Western identity.

In 1999, Tommy Hilfiger was rumored to have “publicly admitted to Oprah that he wished African-Americans, Hispanics, Jewish people and Asians would not buy his clothes because ‘they are made for upper class white people.’” What breathtaking brilliance on a marketing level! He probably disseminated that rumor himself. I betcha minorities the next day were secretly ordering every Hilfiger item online, while publicly denouncing the designer as a racist. I have said this before: The most effective way to invoke the greatest passion in people to cross a threshold is to put a gate up. They could have walked by that unprotected opening every day for the thousandth time without thinking to enter, but the moment a gate goes up, entering becomes a sign of prestige.

I tried valiantly to remember a tv documentary I saw almost twenty years ago. It was an incisive and critical look at the fashion industry. This was just at the nascent stages of supermodel worship, so most of the program concentrated on the nuts-and-bolts of fashion marketing. My memory failing me, I dragged out my trusty old Sony Betamax, plugged it in, and who would have known! That very videocassette is still in the player. It is Gina and Jeremy Newson’s The Look (1992) produced by Janet Street-Porter for BBC-2. It’s a fantastic, eye-opening program. I was surprised you can’t even find it mentioned online. When I typed in “fashion industry”+”documentary”+critical, all that turned up were more supermodel infatuation films. I guess the fashion powers-that-be have done everything they could to erase this documentary from the face of the earth….or at the very least, among the Macy’s set.

Among some of the gems discussed in the program is the notion of seating at a fashion show. Celebrities and magazine editors jockey for the most prestigious front row seats, but they are also the worst seats in the house. All the photographers stand in front of you and you see nothing. But it’s important to be seen in those seats. What’s more, if you’re a magazine fashion writer and you say one bad word about a collection, you won’t be invited back the next show. So in order to give us fashion advice, these editors who crave the most prominent seats have to brown-nose the designers just so they’ll be invited back another season. But in order to get that invite, they can’t say a critical word about the collection.

And we’re taking fashion advice from these tastemakers? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?

The concept of diffusion is the most fascinating item for me. A collection showcases a dress for $30,000 on a runway. 6 people (mostly nouveau riche ladies of middle eastern oil tycoons alongside wives of junk bond dealers) can afford it. The label gets brought down a notch to a $3000-$5000 dress and now hundreds of people who want to purchase the simulacra of taste and breeding hand their credit cards over. The designer adds a consumer line to their collection (Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, DKNY, Lauren, Brooks Brothers 346) and the washed masses rush in to drop $200 -$400 for a simple sweater. Most of the time, the designer themselves don’t even have ANYTHING to do with making the clothes at this level. They merely sell the licensing rights to their name, and some no name clothier from Thailand slaps the purchased logo onto their handiwork and mark it up by 500%. (This aren’t the knockoffs, it’s the *cough* real thing that then gets shipped to U.S. Stores as the genuine brand item.) You wait and you wait for that sale at Macy’s (which comes around approximately every 12 hours). And finally for those who simply need to feel rich and look like Linda Evangelista (oh alright, Gisele Bundchen for you Ugg Boots wearing embryonic fashionistas), they drop what’s left of their week’s pay on a bottle of Eau de Parfum. (Chanel No.5: Total cost of ingredients $3, packaging: $6, Administration $8. Advertising $8. Final price: $62..00 in 1992)

Where do I fit in in this absurdist pyramid? I’d have to say I’ll be at the Goodwill / Oxfam with my trusty measuring tape. And oh can I pick them! My togs are so fetch, when I sashay pass old biddies in Philly, they rise from their wheelchairs in pilled-cardigans grumbling “oh no she didn’t!”

To that I say, “if you think I look antiquated now, wait till you see what I have in store for next season! Grandmama, Please!”

Talking about the making of Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog once explained his decision to haul an actual full-sized boat over a mountaintop.

“I wanted the audience in a position they could trust their eyes. I want to take cinema audiences back to the earliest days, like when the Lumiere brothers screened their film of a train pulling into a station. Reports say that the audience fled in panic because they believed the train would run them over…. This is the issue of truthfulness in today’s cinema. It is not about realism or naturalism….Nowadays, even six-year-olds know when something is a special effect.”

Herzog on Herzog, p 177

I think about that quote often.

In this day and age of CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) and Photoshop disasters, the line between reality and imagination is one clone stamp away. When a fake can be as real as the authentic item, what does authenticity now mean? It certainly doesn’t help that a counterfeit nation is quickly overtaking the West, dictating the rules of conduct by shattering any considerations towards intellectual property.

The trend is that we, the audience, have become increasingly skeptical. I know when I see a spectacular YouTube clip online, the first thing I do is to scan the comments for the keyword “FAKE.” If that produces nothing, the next stop is Snopes.com. It’s not that I don’t want to be swept off my feet and dazzled, I just don’t want to get prematurely enthusiastic, soar to the heights of inspiration, only to have the wind die in mid-flight. I proceed with caution, like most people in the digital age.

For me, the MegaWoosh Video was the turning point where I went from doubtful to permanent skepticism. It turned out to be a viral marketing campaign for Microsoft Germany.

By the time Girl Dies Exhibit B-5 rolled around, I was pretty jaded. A few Facebook click reveals the “dead” girl to be actor Cindy Vela.

So it should come as no surprise, that when the photo of dead Osama Bin Laden / Usama Bin Laden was circulated on the internet, most of us who were well-versed in the viral culture of digital hoaxes shrugged with a “Meh, whatever.” It’s debatable at this point whether there is any true value in releasing the actual picture, especially when the “digitally-jaded” amongst us have been conditioned to question everything we see. I do think the fear of inciting violence, as an excuse for withholding the publishing of the photograph, is proof that terrorism is effective. I’d rather we’ve said “because we are a civilized nation, and we don’t do that sort of thing.” As much as I want to believe it, I know it’s not true. There’s already pictures of the three dead men shot in Bin Laden’s compound making its rounds around the mainstream media outlets.

How to retouch a photo of a dead terrorist: Bin Laden fake dead photo. General Public: 0 Photoshop CS5: 1 (click on picture for Guardian story)

It’s funny that Herzog said he wanted to restore our trust in our eyes, because later on in Fitzcarraldo, there is a scene where speculations abound as to whether the “ship” was a model or the real thing. (Look at the size of the water droplets). Herzog was there, he was on the real boat. There is no doubt about that, but this was also 1978-1982: the pre-digital age. Given Herzog’s insistence on photographing at “the golden hour,” (near sunset) combined with the reckless rapids and the director’s shoot-from-the-hip filmmaking style, it’s not improbable that the camera was set at the wrong exposure during the frantic moment a 360 ton ship was barreling down the white waters of the Amazon. The actual boat did come down the river, as documented in Burden of Dreams. I just believe the footage wasn’t useable, and a replica had to be made for the three second shot.

It’s different today. We are constantly Googling and Factchecking what we see and hear. Oftentimes, regarding items that were manipulated, retouched, computer generated, auto-tuned, cut-and-paste, and digitally spliced. We expend an inordinate amount of time to double-check our reality. And that says only one thing: the machines are winning.

"I am deeply hurt by the grievous situation in the affected areas. The number of deceased and missing increases by the day. We cannot know how many victims there will be. My hope is that as many people possible are found safe. I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times." He also urged survivors not to "abandon hope." -Emperor Akihito of Japan addressing the people of Japan

Okay, first thing’s first. If you would like to donate, many websites are setting up portals and links to donate. There has been some controversy as to how much of the money will reach it’s intended recipients. Grouchy authors who swim upstream against the current outpouring of sympathy and individuals with a Haitian guilt complex will cast doubt as to your choice of charity. It is true that donations get earmarked and not-for-profit organizations sometimes ends up being quite profitable. But I do know this. I have been doing quite a bit of reading up, and the two most consistent charities that are out there are the Red Cross Society (which donates 91 cents of every dollar it receives) and Save the Children. The New York Times has reported that the Japanese Red Cross initially said it doesn’t want any help…but goes on to mention they accepted and were grateful for the 10 million they received. This is what this entry is about. The Japanese Way – or Kata.

There are no words to describe the sadness I’ve felt since Friday, watching the developments of all those poor people, children, workers, volunteers, nuclear plant workers, and soldiers dealing with the catastrophe in Japan. In addition, for all the individuals (locals and international aid workers and military personnel) combing through the detritus of the flood, our thoughts are with you and we thank you. It must be heartbreaking to go through all the wreckage. I have donated, tried to share links, and advised family members to hold on to their Japanese stocks and Web Index Funds (EWJ). If you can’t be sure where your donations will go, you can be sure that Japan needs their economy to be up and on their feet again.

Having said that, in the past five days, any student or observer of Japanese culture was offered a once-in-a-lifetime window into the many unique qualities that make up the Japanese Way. These are the very traits that make Japanese people distinct from say, the Chinese, Koreans, or Pacific Islanders.

First, there is the calm, polite "face" of order; no one looted; no loud, high-maintenance demands for preferential treatment were made; there was a sense that everyone, as fellow citizens, was in it together. Maintaining harmony (or Wa ) is an important bond that keeps society together in times of crisis. Retreating into ceremony is another.

In one of the youtube clips, as the river flowed over the embankment and carried empty cars and boats away, a man among stunned watchers was overheard to say “it’s getting cold.” A few of his colleagues chuckled. Needless to say, international viewers were horrified at the reaction. It sounded to me like a Zen koan straight out of Haikuin’s book: Comment on what is practical, because you can’t comment on what is beyond your reach.

I was frankly surprised that news channels like CNN and Fox spent time interviewing American-Japanese celebrities (Yoko Ono, George Takei) when they could be bringing in cultural anthropologists or folks like Boye Lafayette De Mente to comment on the Fukushima Daiichi situation. As Davis Barranger was quoted as saying in De Mente’s book Kata: "Many common Japanese words convey superficial meanings that mask reality. You must let communication with the Japanese run its course until something concrete emerges and then deal with it. Americans…summarily deal with new situations, instinctively want to shift quickly through the chaff and go straight to the wheat….usually that does not work in Japan, even when the Japanese want something as soon as possible. Generally you must let the chaff shift at its own pace." Phrases such as “ambiguity,” “vagueness,” “lack of transparency,” and “reluctance to commit to an answer” were revisited time and again in American news reporting on the Japanese official reports.

It doesn’t help that asking for assistance will be regarded as some sort of compromise on abstract ideas like pride and honor, shame at not having done a job the correct way… all very Japanese ideas. Of course, this is all conjecture. I honestly believe the prime minister and the Japanese officials want what’s best for the Japanese population. Tepco, I’m not so sure. The fury Prime Minister Kan was overheard to privately unleash on Tepco heads is a sign that he himself had been kept in the dark about the gravity of the situation.

The geometry of the reactors itself is a Japanese aesthetic. The cubical space provides the maximum use of space (think Fiji Water bottles that needed to be imported from overseas). When The reactors, like the World Trade Center (designed by Minoru Yamasaki ) used up every cubic meter of foot space. Unfortunately, that also meant they had to store the spent fuel rods in a pool right up against the reactor chamber, which accounted for the fire on No.4 on Tuesday.

I, my family and friends continue to cross our fingers, say a little prayer and hope the best for everyone in Japan in these trying times.

There’s a slew of books coming out about Asian mothers. It’s nothing new. Asian-Americans have been banking on airing their family’s dirty laundry for years. I noticed this genre first coming into prominence with Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club. Asians stereotype their hospitable nature ("don’t rock the boat") by accommodating the host of the country in which they are attempting to integrate. What better way to put people at ease by talking about all things Asian? My concern is that as long as Asians continue to develop their narratives and experiences as Asians, audiences will continue to see them as Asians first, and individuals second. Everyone loves a Jhumpa Lahiri yarn about the hard life in India…even though she was born in London and moved to Rhode Island.

For example, you would rather hear how my family cooked bones to create a new dish to save from buying some fresh meat (I made that up), rather than my fascination with Andre Breton’s surrealistic poetry and how his images were resonant in the works of Luis Bunuel. It would make better copy to hear about how my training in martial arts (I have none) helped me overcome bullying as a child. It would put you at ease for me to make Ancient Chinese secret jokes as oppose to talking about the astute observation by Peter Wang (A Great Wall, Chan is Missing) that no Asian man can truly rise to the position of upper level management in corporate America.

So to put everyone at ease, Asian-Americans keep the boat steady and make fun of themselves the way outsiders would like to make fun of them, but are held back by our current PC climate. Margaret Cho used to do this exclusively, and to this day, I cross my fingers and pray whenever I see the next Asian stand-up comic. I hold my breath and hope they won’t cave in to the will of the masses. It must explain the purple pallor to my face. SFGate’s Jeff Yang writes "Black folks tell "yo momma" jokes; Asian folks tell "my momma" jokes." What Asians are telling non-Asians in this country is: "It’s OK to laugh at us. We are giving you the green light.  In fact, we’ll cater to you so much we will adopt your accent to make fun of my parents’ accent."

The cliché is, "nobody respects you when you don’t respect yourself." I say "nobody respects your people when you don’t respect your own people." Whenever I hear an Asian person pander to non-Asians by adopting the stereotypes given to their race or making fun of their parents, they are, in essence, aligning themselves with the outsider, reassuring, "Look! I have successfully integrated! I’m with you. I’m not with them (their unassimilated parents)."

This uneasy duality and the accesses it gave to the predominant culture was the very reason Dave Chappelle went on a sabbatical to Africa.

The book that is kicking up the most free publicity is Amy Chua’s "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." Since Chua was born and grew up in the midwest (Indiana, Illinois) it’s no surprise she’d adopt the view of the outsider looking in at her own ethnic parents. There are others.  Lac Su’s I Love Yous Are for White People: A Memoir and Teresa and Serena Wu’s My Mom is a Fob: Earnest Advice in Broken English from Your Asian-American Mom ("FOB" by the way, is abbreviation for "Fresh Off the Boat" a term used by assimilated Asians to look down upon the unassimilated).  

I think Chua’s book is practical in the sense they will help other first generation Asian kids identify, categorize, and cope with their parents’ brand of child-rearing. At the same time I believe you can’t really criticize an Asian parent for being Asian. They are merely using the tools they themselves were brought up with. They are doing what they were taught by their parents to be effective. Even though my parents were easy-going, even by American standards, I could easily write a book on some of the questionable methods my mother used to raise me. (I think any person from any culture could list some "issues") That’s not going to happen here. As much as it annoys me sometimes, I know she was only doing what she believed was best. (or what in her generation was considered to be the best)  I often wished I was raised differently, but that’s a conjecture whose rewards can never be fathomed.  I’d probably say the same thing if I was indeed raised differently. 

Don’t judge a person’s technique by the predominant standard that you are currently surrounded by.  Give consideration to their abilities by how much they have achieved using the tools available to them.

Tags: Amy Chua, Teresa Wu, Serena Wu, Battle Hym of the Tiger Mother, I love yous are for white people, my mom is a fob, Asian Americans, parenting, parenthood, Jeff Yang, Margaret Cho, bananas, Fobs, Lac Su

I honestly think the phrase “politically-correct” has done more to destroy frank discussions and the spirit of intellectual inquiry than anything else. The moment someone says what’s really on their mind, knee-jerk accusations and insincere apologies abound, forcing people who may genuinely have an interesting angle on a topic to trip over themselves in backtracking that foot out of their mouths.

Are we that naive that we will accept their apologies as being heartfelt? No. I’d rather hear what’s really on their minds. I can always say “I disagree, but I’ve learned something from this conversation.”

I have to add that someone walking up to you in public and making their opinion known to you is not the same thing as you accidentally coming across a blog entry, an online article, or an online comment made. No one has any control of where you surf on the internet. If you accidentally stumbled upon a Samoan supremacist group, don’t blame the members for vowing to the certainty of the Taro kicking the Russet potato’s backside (wow, now that was a PC sentence right there if I’ve ever seen one! See how much fun we’re not having?)

Whenever I come across someone who wants people like me dead (too numerous to list here), I don’t wag my finger and scream invectives with righteous indignation. The only word that vibrates with excitement and anticipation within me is “why?” It’s almost a forensic curiosity in getting to the bottom of what made that conclusion tick.

My point is, just because someone has their prejudices ingrained, it doesn’t mean we should shush them with a whack on the knuckles and walk away. If someone feels creeped out by my black eyes, it doesn’t mean their puff pastry recipe stinks. What happens if they know something I don’t? I have bad teeth: does that mean you shouldn’t listen to my Photoshop advice? Not if you want to land that so-so date with that E-harmony woman who has five kids from six previous marriages who demands you have at least two houses.

Should we be so arrogant as to think that we’re always right in everything, and everyone else is always wrong when they don’t agree with us? No. Only people who use Babylock to serge think like that. (See how boring that last PC statement was?)

I’m always an interested listener, especially when I come across someone who doesn’t agree with me. When co-workers use to come to my office to talk (back when I had a full time job…when Jimmy Polk was our president), if I learned they were from a party that opposed my views, I would refrain from attacking and genuinely listen. It’s always enlightening to hear people who don’t parrot my views. People who agree with me bore me. Maybe I can learn something new. At worst, I confirm that he or she is a jerk.

At best, I learn I was wrong, and quickly move to reassess my own prejudices or ignorance.

Faulty Landscape (1946) DuChamp bust his punky DIY moves when he shows everyone can be an artist: use your own semen

Interweaving the reading of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class and watching a documentary on Marcel DuChamp has left me in a fertile state of imagination. I’ve always been a fan of DuChamp. I almost got arrested at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for spinning a replica of his Bicycle Wheel/Roue de bicyslette. I explained to the rent-a-cops that DuChamp stated he wanted viewers to spin and interact with his work. The original one, let alone a replica. They were not convinced.

Regardless of what his detractors may say, DuChamp’s works were often instructive in demonstrating how the barrier between ART as something to be put on display behind roped-off museum walls alongside mounted information cards announcing the responsible artist (like brand names on handbags) and the venerating viewer (with intellectually curled index finger on chin) should be destroyed. Interestingly enough, DuChamp heralded (and lampooned) the concept of mass-produced vessels of taste as early as the 1900s, setting the grounds for Warhol and Jeff Koons’s factory-assembled art. He purchased a urinal and entered it into an art show. When that “readymade” was destroyed, he commissioned replicas to be made. The art world ate it up, and The Fountain is considered today as a milestone in modern art. Maybe people didn’t get the message.

What does this say about our so-called “taste?” Is it all about supply-and-demand? And more importantly, who is doing the supplying? If you display a replica of a bottle rack in your home, one that was personally commissioned by DuChamp or Warhol, as opposed to the original bottle rack from Woolworth’s (the one the replica is created after), does that show that you have taste and a sense of style to die for? Couldn’t I just as well walk into a trailer home and see that same bottle rack and coo “wow Bertha, I didn’t know you have such an eye for high brow art!”

DuChamp’s”portable museums,” also metaphorized art as personal taste. After all, here was a handmade item consisting of unique artworks, painstakingly made straight from the artist’s hands, that fits into a small valise. It’s priceless, and yet, you can’t put it out in your fancy living room to display your trophy of taste and acquisition to the world. Isn’t it enough that you own something special and unique; who cares if no one ever finds out about your possession? What does THAT say about needing to have that possession in the first place? This query challenges the entire notion of consuming art as a form of status.

I often question how many of the things we do and need are really for ourselves, and not a signifier to outsiders. Art, when it is blindly consumed, is certainly no different than a luxury car or designer shoes.