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(10/08/14 11:32pm)
The Umbrella Revolution is a grassroots movement of Hong Kong people in protest of increasing control by the Chinese government. It began as a class boycott organized by the Student Federation of Hong Kong and was meant to last as long as the chief executive would assent to demands to talks about Hong Kong’s democratic reform, which was meant to take place in 2017. Their demands stem from the National People’s Congress’ denial of universal suffrage, despite earlier promises.
Hong Kong people never took a huge interest in politics, despite the availability of free speech. Moreover, as Hong Kong history occupies a miniscule part within the compulsory subject of Chinese history in public schools (from grade 7-9), people are less equipped to relate to and evaluate Hong Kong’s political position in the context of everything else. The problem, in fact, has always been incipient. In the past few years, there has been increasing antagonism towards ‘mainlanders’ who immigrate to Hong Kong because of its better welfare. Because many mothers come to give birth here, local pregnant mothers could not find space in our maternity wards. Out of a fear of ‘poisonous milk powder’ produced in mainland, mainlanders also empty the stocks of milk power in Hong Kong. The antagonism peaked in the past year. ‘House News’, an independent media outlet, was shut down due to political reasons, the editor of a local newspaper was assassinated, and the broadcasting license of a new TV channel was refused, despite the poorly regarded local TV channels in Hong Kong. Linking these events to interference from mainland China, our people came to a sudden realization how detrimental mainland can be to our basic freedoms.
As the Umbrella Revolution unfolded, I was amazed by how successful the strikes were and how fast momentum built; I got anxious, indignant and angry when I saw videos of the police exploding tear gas bombs on the streets; I was on the verge of tears when I heard news of students being sexually assaulted as well as beaten up. There are of course those who are against the movement, such as my family. Endorsing pro-China stances, they are convinced that such a protest, which endangers social stability, would affect their livelihood. Indeed, students have been attacked by triads, and the police have came down upon the students with tear gas. Moreover, they have also occupied major roads. Apart from arguments from livelihood, memories of the 1967 riots incited by the communists against British colonial rule, as well as the cultural revolution, have also triggered their objections.
It doesn’t seem likely that China will concede to the protester’s demands in the near future, despite the scale of the movement. For one, Hong Kong’s main purpose is economic. Because it has the rule of law, as well as low taxes, it offers attractive conditions for foreign firms to invest. Should there be democratic elections, people are likely to demand better social welfare, which is likely to entail an increase in taxes, a condition undesirable to foreign investment.
Yet, it is unlikely that grievances will die down in the near future. The fact that China is not prepared to compromise for greater reform will intensify grievances among Hongkongers, especially since their political awareness is heightened through the Umbrella Revolution. Moreover, since they are not going to step down in terms of economic control, people’s livelihood is likely to suffer, which would sustain the social tension caused by the Umbrella revolution. In fact, a deepened economic inequality is one of the main reasons Hongkongers suffered a much poorer livelihood than it did during the colonial era, after it has been incorporated, after the handover, into China’s economic sphere.
The Umbrella Revolution may not directly bring change to the system, nor may civil disobedience, as originally proposed as one of the ways to achieve democracy, work. And yet, I find glory in the campaign. It showed the best attributes of Hongkongers. Our qualities as the Pearl of the Orient shined through. We were peaceful, we were orderly, we were polite, we were responsible, we were passionate. In a way, it reflected our ‘spirit of the Lion Rock’ - that we would stand up for ourselves and work our asses off to get what we want. So people, keep your eyes out. This is only the beginning.
(09/10/14 8:11pm)
As my German school friends and I hurtled up the steps of McCardell Bicentennial Hall, pressing all the elevator buttons to get there fast, I felt like I was clambering through a window back into childhood, when I lined up for hours on end to gaze at spectacles in circuses.
Sliding up the staircase of the Observa- tory curled in the shape of DNA — or just curly fries — I was sucked through a time tunnel. I remember whispering to my friend (in German), ‘This feels just like the chamber where HAL lives, in 2001: A Space Odyssey!’
As you peer through the aperture, you don’t know whether you are looking through a telescope or a microscope. Saturn was so small — as if it were a cartoon on a fuzzy CRT television with a pet-moon on its hip. I felt like I was watching a scene from Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon, except, this time it is Saturn — a slight thumbprint in the sky, just barely there. At the same time, you realize you are staring into the deep abyss of space. It is strange to be in contact with something so absurdly distant. I couldn’t help but sympathize with Saturn — so isolated and far away! It must tally the rotations of its moons (how many lightyears more?!) and hurry to align itself to other planets for their timely rendezvous.
It must both love and hate the sun for holding the solar system together and yet binding it to this irrevocable and eternal rotation. At least it has its moons, its rings and the sun’s illumination, unceasing through the seasons to accompany its endless toil.
After going up to the viewing tower, we went down to the open-air podium where smaller telescopes were set. As one of my Chinese friends amd I waited in the queues, we spoke in a mixture of Cantonese, English and German. I was driven into confusion — the perfect subject-verb order was broken into the structureless combination of Chinese words, in which meaning are strained into small frames of pictures, which are then verbalized into curt, stark syllables. Sometimes I feel like Cantonese is the exact opposite of German. While Cantonese is spoken with nine tones, expressing its meaning sensually as if in music, German words arrive logically at their meaning with word particles. For example, with ‘fern’, meaning distance, and ‘weh’ meaning pain, the word ‘fernweh’ is formed meaning wanderlust (which is also an example of this logic).
We also saw the surface of the moon up close. It is a pregnant curve — a chalk-pale cheek pockmarked with craters. Mars was a jittering tungsten filament. You aren’t sure if the image was an afterimage printed in the back of your eyeballs after you stare at a lightbulb for too long.
My best friend Annie from Hong Kong goes to a school in a city. She envies me for having the advantage of height, as our school is perched on a hill. Moments when you can stare into the far distance are indeed luxurious, but we have too much of that in Middlebury. I find it impossible to ponder these bodies in the sky. Sometimes the walk from Proctor to the Library is too long and stark, and I yearn to resign my thoughts to the noise and chaos of ill- managed city planning.
(04/30/14 4:46pm)
As a kid, my favorite food and drink were spaghetti bolognese and Coca-Cola. Yet, after indulging myself in the richness of cakes, Cheese pizzas and meatball spaghettis for five months the dining halls, I’m starting to crave my mother’s meatbone soup.
To me, the taste of Chinese food tends to be three-dimensional: we are better at preserving flavor. For one, Chinese food enhances its taste with a strong aroma. One obvious difference you would find between American and Chinese stir fry is that the Chinese use woks (giant and slightly conical frying vessels) which give it a strong aroma. With the help of the chahn, high fire and dynamic stirring by the cook (to demonstrate the dynamisms of the motion - the verb chahn is sometimes combined with the use of Cantonese swear words), a strong savory aroma of the stir fry can be conjured. There is a method to our choice of ingredients as well. To soak up the juices of the stir fry we add turnips or mushrooms, which preserve the taste of each ingredient within the dish.
I think the reason that Chinese broths (we have very few chowders and heavy soups) are so multi-layered in flavor is because we boil our ingredients for such a long time, that their essences dissolve into the soup. This method of cooking is named the “old fire soup.” Although we use similar ingredients as some other cuisines, such as carrots, pork, vegetables and strong herbs such as cilantro and ginger, the flavor of the soup is much more full-bodied and savory.
While typical European food that I have tasted in America, such as meat dishes, pastas, and cream soups tend to be heavier, the Chinese developed lighter food with sharper flavors and scents. While America has the more versatile ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and salt, we augment our tastes with strong smelling shrimp pastes, fish sauce, a variety of chili oils, scallions, ginger and pungent fermented tofu. We also use more unusual ingredients, including a huge variety of mountain herbs and mushrooms, snakes, “the thousand year old egg,” durians (a large fruit with a strong odor and thorn-covered husk), fried larvae, scorpions and masked palm civet (an animal similar to a raccoon which lives in South-East Asia).
Like how canned food was invented for war or sausages for preservation through winter, cuisine is shaped by our environment and historical events. One explanation I have for Chinese use of such marginal ingredients and strong flavoring is that it is our way to adapt to hunger. How else could we have discovered how tasty fermented tofu is? The taste of strong condiments overwhelms hunger, and chili, traditionally used in the spicy cuisine of the Northwestern parts of China, is thought to help one warm up from the cold.
While Chinese food is flavorful, I associate European food here with a sense of comfort and orderliness. I love how rich and satisfying Mac and Cheese is, how bread is measured and orderly, divided into neat slices. I am fascinated by the sense of order associated with baking: how all ingredients are meticulously measured by specific utensils and measuring units and executed step by step carefully. The fact that you can indulge in the richness of spaghetti bolognese or a chocolate cake but not drown in the deluge of overwhelming scents can also be nice. Sometimes, these scents can be intrusive and distracting, should it come from someone else. I wonder whether this has to with the greater respect to privacy in the Western world, where every individual is divided with a separate serving on their dish in formal meals.
As I’ve grown older, I have learned to the savor the cold bitter melon and green tea of Chinese cuisine. There is a saying in China: “the days will be long if you are half-full or half-hungry.” Because of the fullness of flavor and having less smell and scent, Western food sometimes feel generic and too perfect. I long to taste food that is simple and spare. I guess my change of taste shows that I am starting to appreciate the subtler joys in life.
(04/16/14 5:22pm)
If girls were noodles, then Hong Kong girls would be rice vermicelli and the girls from Middlebury spaghetti. Why? Rice vermicelli is puny and delicate. It takes on the flavor and color of the sauces it is cooked with. In contrast, spaghetti always slaps angrily at your face when you slurp too hard. Neither does it alter in taste or color, no matter how and what you cook it with.
Although I used to be a member of a swim team and a long distance runner, I have barely moved a muscle beyond the motions of walking since I came to Middlebury. Back at home, when I was training in the pool, I remember one girl complaining about the kicking laps she has to do — ‘kicking too much will make my legs thicker, because I will have too much muscle!’ It was interesting that she said that, because I thought the same way too. Somehow, our notions of femininity are not so much defined by our curves, but by how delicate we look.
What is being delicate? The delicate girl is the pale-looking girl in Oxfords and quaint Korean/Japanese fashion. The delicate girl is chaste, maybe quiet — someone that you would gladly give help to if asked. She would also be skinny — not the rawboned and gritty kind of skinny, like Rooney Mara in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” — but the softer kind of skinny, where fat accumulates out of laziness, the way cream stagnates into a wintry sheen in a cup of coffee.
Although delicacy is not exactly the picture of health, I think I identified with this aesthetic, much more so than I did with the typical picture of American women in my mind. In my mind, a beautiful American woman is a woman with a prominent facial structure wearing bold red lipstick, regal with several pieces of bright colored jewelry. The crooks and curves of her body are well articulated by formal attire. But she also has another facet — the side with her hair pinned up as she changes a tire off a truck, or jogs through the streets on a winter morning, the lean muscles of her body flexing in the wind. Compared to Hong Kong women, American women in my mind are fearless achievers, with determination, grit and grind.
As an Asian woman, I can appreciate the latter aesthetic. Although these comments may be patronized by feminists, I feel much more feminine when assuming the visual aesthetics of a delicate woman, allowed to be weak and helped in this character role. Somehow this image of delicateness strikes a much more natural balance between male and female roles in society. And yet, as an individual, I would like to assume the American aesthetic — the bold, assertive woman. Although it assumes a sense of unnatural masculinity, I can assume a position of power in this role. In the body of an American woman, I would have the courage and energy to pursue what I want.
Although I have not run or swum for a long while, I remember feeling powerful after my two-hour training sessions at the pool. Sports are the celebration of the power of our own bodies. Preoccupied with our social roles, I think Hong Kong women tend to forget that. Although our curves can never parallel those of Caucasian women, I think we are beautiful in own way, just as rice vermicelli or spaghetti can taste as good as long as they are cooked in ways that match their texture.
(03/06/14 2:08pm)
The recent assassination attempt on a former editor of a major newspaper has caused international outrage. This event does not exist in isolation. Over the past year, four editors and founders of local media have been assaulted in Hong Kong. The application for a new television station has been debated and almost refused in a television monopoly by one network. To boycott news sources, Chinese companies withdrew their advertisements from newspapers to put them out of business.
Despite government manipulation, it is uplifting to see how minibus and taxi drivers too have pasted up plaques on their cars in protest of threats against press freedom. I cannot explain how moved I was when I saw so many people on the streets pleading for a united cause. To me it was a sign that people are showing solidarity and that even if the government can do nothing about injustices, they still get heard and debated.
On the other hand, the effect of having something so violent happen in my own community is curious. A few days after the assassination attempt was the terrorist attack in Kunming, where 33 people were violently stabbed to death. Although I have no friends and family there, the assassination attempt enlarged my capacity to sympathize with victims. Even though the event was filtered through news, the horror felt real to me.
I can’t help but think — would Hong Kong descend into a lawless turmoil like China? Recent events have made me feel like Hong Kong is sliding from being a first world country to a third world country. But is it even possible? While we are economically developed to an extent, we demand first world rights such as democracy and the freedom of press and speech. Has our political structure always been third world? The clumsiness of our political system seems to be hidden behind the glass veneers of our high-rises. Not only is our political system going backward, our education is also sliding backward and highly focused on technical education without sufficient training in critical thinking and the humanities. Even if we had free media before, most people would not have had the education to be able to think critically about the events beyond a superficial level.
A local political scientist Shen suggests that we will meet the fate of Venice as we cease to become a financial hub, we will become a tourist attraction while future generations seek to develop in nations of greater global significance. While it may not be strategically important anymore, some cultural academics have explored the possibility that Hong Kong could hold the capacity to be a cultural capital. Just as America has New York and Los Angeles, China has Hong Kong and Shanghai. Personally, I think Hong Kong’s political disillusionment could lead to a greater demand for cultural expressions.
Li Ka Shing, the number one business Tycoon in Asia, questions why we should rebel when we are economically well off. But Shanghai is going to take over, and Hong Kong won’t be able to maintain its status as a top financial hub anyway. Plus, does money make our society a happy one? The role of being a financial hub has been forced upon us by our previous colonizers. As our unique cultural identity coalesces, we cannot find ourselves when we enslave ourselves to money. While people worry about Hong Kong’s economic future, I think a pause will not be too detrimental to our prospects.
I’ve lived in Hong Kong for 19 years and only now do I realize that it is so interesting. In my life there, I have never encountered a cultural moment as critical to society as today’s. I have no idea what is going to happen a few years from now — trying to predict the whims of the Chinese government is like trying to predict the weather. While I am apprehensive and worried, I am also curious about what will happen tomorrow.
(02/19/14 6:13pm)
A developed city should also have a developed culture. Hong Kong does not have one. In In Search of Hong Kong Culture, Lee Oufan, a renowned Chinese academic, described how academics from mainland China marveled upon visiting the Central Library, Hong Kong’s biggest library. And yet all the books were only for show.
To support a diversified culture, we need to embrace plurality.
Hong Kong’s culture is monolithic: intolerant of alternative choices and differences. Our TV is oligopolized by two TV channels. Mainstream journalism is dominated by tabloid and sensational journalism. Culture thrives in a society that allows different perspectives to collide. Yet, as the recent influx of mainland immigrants has strengthened our notion of local identity has strengthened, causing our society to be more polemic.
If a culture doesn’t allow for plurality, then how is it different from the politicized culture of Mao’s time? If there were no opinions exchanged in a rational manner, how can we be provoked into thinking or be comfortable in expressing our opinions?
According to the commentator Leung Man To, because of the emphasis of financial returns, the culture of Hong Kong has been polemicized: on one end, there are the experimental and avante garde arts, which thrive because of those who insist on these ventures. On the other end, mainstream soaps and movies monopolize media, which can be predictable and crudely made. Despite alternative medias blossoming due to government crackdowns in mainstream media, they are not financially well-endowed enough to glean a large audience. Not only does the lack of choice render our thinking unsophisticated, it is also stifling to dissidents.
In pursuit of a more pluralistic culture, Man To suggests that we should place ourselves in a larger and more worldly context — such as becoming a part of mainland China — in order to develop diversity of perspectives.
In my opinion, a liberal education would be an effective solution as it teaches us how to be reasonable and take on nuanced perspectives, despite the prevalence of sensationalism.
I believe my humanities education would provide me with the ability to look at the world rationally and critically and add to the plurality of my culture. And yet, ironically, I don’t feel that our liberal education allows me to see the plurality of culture at Middlebury.
There are many passionate individuals, yet I don’t feel like there is much room for us to contest our opinions and perspectives outside of the classroom, despite our relative diversity. Although there are many talks, debates and opinion blogs, opinions are rarely openly exchanged in an informal manner.
It is important because we live separate lives outside of classrooms and formal debates. If these conversations are not carried into real life, they become trivial, unreal and meaningless. Maybe it’s awkward to talk about sensitive topics in person. There should be more communal spaces devoted to the sole purpose of providing room for comfortable conversation. While the indoors can feel quite forbidding, the outdoors would be a good location, if we did not need to humor the whims of nature.
The Middlebury stereotype is that there is no stereotypical Middkid. Is that because we are too diverse, or is it because of our geographical location? Or that we are too involved in our own activities to look for a sense of communal identity that would make us identify with this place? I guess we are like Hong Kong in a sense. To put it in economics jargon — we have a lot of human capital, but not enough entrepreneurship. Will we always be separate individuals, not a diverse but collective whole?
(01/22/14 4:23pm)
The reasons I did it - measure the blood pressure of about 400 patients in 3 8-hour workdays - was because of this.
“When are we going to see Aung San Suu Kyi?’
I asked Christine, the daughter of Doctor Aung, the leader of the trip, ‘Have you ever seen Aung San Suu Kyi before?'
‘Yeah,’
‘Really?! When?’
‘Last Week.’
‘What?!’
I guess one doesn’t stumble across these very often, sometimes not even in a lifetime.
Christine tells me that Aung San Suu Kyi is smart and straightforward, and has family dinners with her family in our group. She also calls her by ‘aunty Suu’. ‘Did she really play Canon in D during the Nobel Prizegiving Ceremony in the movie?’ This was one of the more pertinent questions that plagued a doctor in our group. Unfortunately, Aung San Suu Kyi was unable to grace us with her presence at family lunch that marked the end of our trip because of a leg injury. I was a bit disappointed, but had nevertheless the chance to speak with her deputy. I wanted to talk to her about the civil disobedience movement gathering steam in Hong Kong today in pursuit of a more popular electoral reform. With her political experience, her answers would’ve been very valuable to the people in Hong Kong as well as provide illuminating foresight.
The occasion was unbelievably informal. Like any other ceremonious occasion at a temple, everyone of us were required to take off our shoes. A mishmash of political elite and professionals scattered about the place barefoot, eating on plastic tables and leisurely making conversation. Some mingled outside the temple under the shade in lounge chairs. Second-generations occupied their own table and corner, shamelessly taking selfies. There was no apparent central power or spotlight.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s deputy was unassumingly dressed like any other woman walking along the street on a Sunday Morning. After greeting everyone around the room, she finally extricated herself from an old friend to quench my curiosity.
‘Love and compassion is very important. We shouldn’t appeal so much to materialism as to a sense of community...look at this occasion here today! We are more like a family than a corporation. I think it’s more important to embrace a set of community values than to abandon it in lieu of the burgeoning of high rises.’
I suspected her answer was an excuse for the lack of good infrastructure and ‘great buildings’ in Yangon at first. Without money where would be the beautiful high rises of Central? Had we not been a center for trade, the British wouldn’t have set up shop on Hong Kong Island, and I may not be here today as a citizen of Hong Kong. Deny it as you may, architecture would not exist as a subject if not for the accumulation of capital, often at the expense of income inequality.
Perhaps the way forward is to relinquish our grip on our place as a free market stronghold and exchange it for our self-determination. How can the people themselves exercise sovereignty when the market is devoted to maximizing profits coming from mainland investment? There is not much difference between China’s current state of business control on us (neocolonialism) and British colonial occupation. As long as we operate under this system we are slaves to China’s whims.
We are dependent on China for our economy. Hong Kong gains its current international importance for its proximity to China. Hence, it is not an illegitimate fear that our economy would go into recession should our diplomatic relations worsen. And yet, if we maintain good relations and continue to accept the increasing influx of mainland travellers and immigrants, the locals will be squeezed out of the system at some point such that Hong Kong will be not so much Hong Kong but Chinese.
If we don’t release ourselves from the reins of economics, we will always be colonial slaves. Hong Kong is like a rich but greedy man unable to stop making even more money in the expense of its moral values. It is an anachronism to our degree of civility that we should fling ourselves so uncontrollably to profit maximization regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
Instead of a free market, perhaps it is time to raise the taxes and redistribute our wealth such that the people would have equal opportunities to realize their dreams and assert their own values. Perhaps abandoning good business relations with China would allow the government to listen to the people instead of taking orders from ‘Grandpa’ far away in the palace without a clear understanding and compassion to our needs. Perhaps such a way forward could lend itself to a day where government officials, businessmen, artists, academics, and doctors alike can sit together and have lunch in a close community like my day in Burma, just because they are united by a common vision of their community.
But this is not the end of the story. Just as Burma still has way to go in terms of development and democratization, Hong Kong is not economically independent. Instead of attracting investment with its free market and position of a portal to China, it should establish economic independence by gearing to a shift of developing its creative industries and services truly unique to Hong Kong. We can only truly assume a ‘Hong Kong identity’ this way and ultimately free ourselves from the reins of colonialism.
(01/15/14 4:35pm)
It is politically incorrect to call Myanmar ‘Burma’ because of its colonial connotations, but the new name ‘Myanmar’ is also politically incorrect, as it is the name of only one of its many ethnicities. While the United States supports the former name, as the country under its current name is ruled under a military dictatorship, we have certainly forgotten about the fact of self-determination the name ‘Myanmar’ implies.
Ironically, when I revealed to a friend of mine that I was going to Myanmar, he was very excited and told me to take pictures of its colonial architecture. Predictably, he turns out to be one of the many colonial fanatics in Hong Kong. I have to admit, given that I knew next to nothing about the country other than the fact that it’s where Aung San Suu Kyi came from and that it has reputation of being overwhelmingly pious (Buddhist), its colonial history naturally appealed to my interest.
Apparently, it is common practice for colonial architectures to assume the design features of a mixture of cultures. The former legislative council building of Hong Kong had its pitched roof assembled in double pan and roll Chinese tiles, which serves to prevent leakage during Hong Kong’s heavy rain seasons; the Governor’s House is built in a hybrid of Japanese neo-classical and colonial Renaissance style. Yangon has its own impressive repertoire of colonial architectures. Spread across a whole block, the red-bricked Yangon General hospital is one of the most impressive stretch of Victorian architecture I’ve seen outside of Britain. Built next to the Boyoke Market, the Holy Trinity Cathedral features elements of the Indo-Saracenic style, which was originally developed out of the colonizers’ appeal for Asian exotic aesthetics. One of the distinctive characteristics of colonial architecture in Burma was that all of the windows are very long and the ceilings very tall — perhaps to enhance ventilation and heat dissipation in this intensely tropical climate.
Since our trip was primarily medical in nature, we didn’t have time to visit these buildings in detail. However, we did visit one hospital specializing in neurological ailments, which was converted from a British built school. While its architecture inside was intact, the wooden structures and profuse courtyard was incompatible with standards of hygiene for yearly operations on over a thousand patients. Dimly lit and derelict, it existed in a different time-space continuum from our operation theaters. “These equipment can go to the museum,” one of the Burmese doctors who worked in Hong Kong joked. Indeed, the surgical equipment along with the building itself serves a far better purpose as a means of cultural preservation rather than the preservation of lives. I was surprised to encounter a flight of wooden, rickety stairs to the observation deck (which is also wooden) above the operating theater (presumably for medical students). Prone to corrosion and ineffective against the permeation of moisture, how is wood an appropriate material to ensure a germ-free environment for a sterile operation?
Apart from the few monuments I saw, it is a pity that many colonial architecture have fallen into disrepair, their facades becoming soiled and dilapidated with time. Known for its resistance to British colonial rule, it is perhaps because of politics that colonial architecture doesn’t seem to be of importance in Yangon’s heritage. Instead, the most immaculately preserved monuments were Buddhist. These include the famed Shwedagon pagodas, a thicket of gold-guilded conelike mounds occupying its own quiet spot amidst the thoughtless burgeon of evergreen canopies at the center of the city. The abundance of Japanese buses and cars also seems to be telling of Myanmar’s antagonism to colonial rule. Apparently Burma’s friendly relations with Japan began with the Japanese invasion of Burma in WWII. Feeling antagonistic against the British and feeling a greater affinity to Asians, many aligned with the Japanese.
Yangon, as a former British colony, is an interesting juxtaposition to Hong Kong. It is perhaps because of its deeply rooted sense of national identity that there was so much resistance to imperialism, while we generally welcomed British administration, as it catalyzed our rapid development and implemented efficient systems as opposed to communist rule. There were certainly more than a few governors who were welcomed and loved by our people. While Myanmar may have a more developed economy had the British wielded a greater influence in their country, it is undeniable that a country’s self-determination should be respected as a person is to be respected.
(12/05/13 12:17am)
Some time ago, two of my close friends in a long distance relationship broke up due to an ‘irreconcilable cultural difference,’ despite both of them being brought up in Hong Kong.
So where is Hong Kong positioned in the cultural spectrum really?
There are many groups of people in Hong Kong. There is the typical, local student. But there are also the minorities: there’s the ABCs (American Born Chinese) who refuse to speak Chinese and gabber loudly in public in English and for this reason are despised by many; the Pakistanis and Indians born and raised in Chung King Mansion who speak perfect Cantonese; the Chinese immigrants with their distinctive mannerisms and habits, both rich and poor.
I don’t think you can deny their Hong Kong identity — they live here. There are quintessenntial aspects of Hong Kong culture that have an undeniable exclusiveness built by common experiences — TVB shows, Korean dramas, a common education system, popular songs, movies and venues, the SARs outbreak and watching our food slaughtered before our eyes as a guarantee of freshness.
The main difference between an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ is that the insider has naturally acquired the tastes that are expected of a typical Hong Konger. An outsider, such as an academic, can have an equal understanding of tastes, but his motives stem from curiosity, instead of a natural affinity for heritage.
And yet how are tastes defined? Is there really someone who knows every single TV show down to the detail? If each fragment of pop culture constitutes Hong Kong’s identity, is it possible that we induct ourselves entirely to its body of values, or in other words, brainwash ourselves with it? Moreover, there can’t be one unified experience of a place, regardless of whether or not it is shared.
Despite there being an overarching ‘mainstream’ culture, it is impossible that we can identify with it completely and unreservedly. Everyone is entitled to their own viewpoints and experiences because in the end we are still individuals in a collective. While a dishwasher in a restaurant may not subscribe to the newly invented jargon from universities, his experience of the place is still authentic. It applies to the underclass and also to the expats and ABCs. Cantonese colloquialisms of Hong Kong should not inhibit someone’s claim to their identity.
And yet, Hong Kongers are very sensitive to anything perceived as foreign. Once I posted a link of a series of artistic photos of Hong Kong on facebook, which was then reposted by a friend who captioned it with ‘Hong Kong in a foreigner’s eyes’. Neither Chinese nor British, Hong Kong is unique in itself, resisting other labels of definition. And yet, with such a short history, how can its culture command a sense of belonging, as much as the long-established culture of China? I believe this is one of the reasons why it is not easy to feel a sense of belonging in Hong Kong.
Recalling a conversation I had with a friend in Middlebury, he told me that Hong Kong was “dying” because we are becoming more and more stagnant. Indeed, Hong Kong seems to pride on itself so much that it has lost sight of the fact that it is a small port on the coast of China. Leung Man-Tao, a famous Chinese commentator, envisioned that Hong Kong’s literature would one day identify itself as a part of the Chinese repertoire instead of its own. While Hong Kong has a growing independent arts culture very much influenced by Europe, is Hong Kong culture itself going nowhere?
Perhaps Hong Kong should take inspiration from the various Chinese provinces and American states. While retaining its own culture, it should also address larger issues on both national and global levels. Since Hong Kong’s identity could only be categorized by the ‘others’ checkbox, instead of allowing itself to be diluted by foreign influences, it should position and identify itself uniquely against other cultures.
(11/21/13 5:14am)
At home in Hong Kong, I used to be able to just stand up and go anywhere. Right now, any means of travel requires meticulous premeditation.
Sometimes I feel like I am stuck on an island, in every sense of the word (believe it or not, Middlebury is built on a slope so as to avoid a flood if there ever were one).
Next time when you say you are in the middle of nowhere, think twice and look again. While I was taking a study break outside Battell, I noticed that the rocks that make up the walls of the first-year dorm are ingrained with bark-like patterns. I’m no expert on plant biology but I believe they must have been fossilized plantlife. Look closer: blots spread in radial networks ingrained in walls, clinging on like some kind of viral disease. Berries break out from the walls like pimples on a teenager’s face.
Middlebury is actually ripe with insidious plantlife. Yesterday, while I was walking back to my dorm, I was frightened by the sight of a leaf that moved across the ground in the wind — I thought it was a frog.
You never really notice that trees are of a certain breed until your foot gets bruised from stepping on a chestnut, and the ground is strewn with the carnage of mashed fruit. The sight is decadent, especially since they are delectable.
Moreover, Middlebury’s trees are excessively fruitful, especially since, compared to gymnosperms, the reproduction of angiosperms is much more energetically expensive, given that it requires both male and female structures as well as the factor of chance — pollination by bees or whatever means. Favorable genes may also be lost in the process of recombination.
The reason that canopies burgeon to such thicknesses and trunks grow to such great heights must have something to do with the stability of our environment, and possibly the length of time in which it is stuck in this unchanging environment
This must have been the logic of our education. When we are here, time stops dead, the universe stops orbitting for us to mature intellectually.
Lung Ying-tai, a Taiwanese essayist, once said that Hong Kong lacks culture because there is no place for people to congregate and linger; everything must be rapidly progressing on a certain trajectory. The reason there is a differnt culture in Europe is that people stop — in cafés plazas — to ruminate about life, books and philosophy. Space is created in the absence of excessive stress.
The greatest works of art are borne out of social unrest and human suffering. Ernest Hemingway once said that an unhappy childhood is the best training for a writer. Censorship in Russia and China led to the production of many a great works of literature and film. Where would “1984” be without totalitarian regimes?
We cannot create poignant meaning out of nothing; and yet among everything that flew out of Pandora’s box everything but one — ‘hope’ — is the alternative to perching on the edge of the abyss.
(11/14/13 1:24am)
Every Saturday in Dana Auditorium at 3 and 8 p.m., the Hirschfield International Film Series screens foreign and independent movies to the Middlebury College community for free. And yet, little is known of its history. The Hirschfield Film Series was originally called the ‘College Street Film Series’, an idea conceived by the retired Fletcher Professor of the Arts Emeritus Ted Perry back in the days when the College first bought Twilight Hall, a retired middle school.
“I convinced the administration to build an auditorium there,” Perry said. “The original idea was to engage the community and build an awareness of good quality films that aren’t shown in the popular theater, which the position of Twilight Hall enabled.”
It was not until Perry served on the board of the American Film Institute with Alan Hirschfield — who was the head of both 20th Century Fox Film and TV and Columbia Studios — that Hirschfield got involved with the College.
“We both talked a lot on the board, and we sort of connected,” Perry said. “He had children here, and he liked Middlebury. One day he came to me and said that he would like to give the school some money, and asked if, as a friend, I had some ideas where the money should go. So in 1985, his endowment became the Hirschfield Speaker’s Fund. But a few years later, I realized we had too much money, so I asked him whether we can split it into two — one for the film screenings and one for speakers.”
The film series moved to Dana Auditorium upon its construction, and started to screen more recent films, which contributed to a higher attendance rate.
“There used to be panel discussions between the two screenings, and I missed that,” Perry said.
Back in the years when Perry first taught here, liberal arts colleges had the reputation of being impractical. Perhaps to offset that criticism, the College had only one professor tenured in the arts.
“We were pushing for the tenure for a professor in the dance department. As we were discussing, someone said, ‘Well, she could break her ankle!’” Perry said. “I mean, professors can just get Alzheimer’s or something.”
Today the selection process takes place when the film department and the language departments pool a list of about 40 movies according to preferences of the industry, as collected from recent reviews, awards and yearly top ten lists. The films are then narrowed down by the faculty based on availability and prices.
“We invited students to participate in the process, but no one came,” said Leger Grindon, the Walter Cerf Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Culture.
The purchase of the screening rights is also sponsored by the language departments, as the program aims to screen a film in every one of the languages taught at the College. The Holocaust Remembrance Film Fund also pays for a film every year. Sue Driscoll, the College’s Catalog and Acquisitions Associate, then purchases the screening rights from film companies, which are extremely costly. According to Drexel, the average cost for screening rights this year is about $450-550 per movie, while the prices generally range from $200-750. The most expensive rights this year is “No,” which cost $700.
Recently, the series screened “A Touch of Sin,” which was screened in lieu of “The Grandmaster,” Wong Kar Wai’s latest piece, which was cancelled because the College could not obtain its screening rights.
“A Touch of Sin” won the Best Screenplay in Cannes and has only been screened in film festivals, It has not even been screened in theatres, and yet the screening rights acquisition process was relatively straightforward. According to Driscoll, all she had to do was find and call the film company that had its distributing rights, which sold it to her for $250.
“Usually film companies won’t release theatrical screening rights because they might lose money,” Driscoll said. “And the movie has to be released in the United States so then someone owns the screening rights.”
One of the reasons why “The Grandmaster” was not shown is because its U.S. release date is in November. And yet, somehow she still acquired rights for “A Touch of Sin.”
“Like the prices, these things are not predictable,” Driscoll said. “The company for ‘A Touch of Sin’ sold it to us but [the company of] ‘The Grandmaster’ did not. Maybe it has something to do with the prestige of the director.”
As it has not been released yet, Davis Family Library cannot keep a disc copy of “A Touch of Sin.”
There is also a ritualistic veneration for the 35mm film, which is the format the film department always insists upon for Hirshfield screenings, despite their heavy weight and therefore higher shipping prices. The media services does a practice screen for the film once before the screening. If it does not work, a blu-ray disc is used instead.
The majority of the audience tend to be locals and other members of the community.
“People come because it’s free,” Perry said. “But I think the series has succeeded in that it has ‘stretched the envelope’ of locals. I wish more students and faculty would attend. I mean, not a lot of film majors come because they had probably watched it. Some political science faculty would come, but very few do.”
(11/13/13 9:43pm)
Instead of the typical pictures of physical distortion and emaciated children one would expect to encounter in any other talk about social issues, E. Benjamin Skinner began his lecture on modern-day slavery with light-hearted banter with the full audience in Dana Auditorium on Thursday, Nov. 7. Skinner was the keynote speaker of the student organization Stop Traffick’s fall Symposium, “Humans: Not for Sale.”
Award-winning author and journalist, recently named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Skinner gave a ‘narrow’ definition of slavery — the state in which one is forced to work with no pay and beyond subsistence. He then pointed out some of the false assumptions associated with this definition.
Modern slavery is more than a form of poverty — it is a mental construct. Skinner recounted several experiences investigating modern slavery, showing that the root of the problem lies in the dependence of slaves on their masters.
Ganu, an enslaved quarry worker whom Skinner interviewed, was at a loss when Skinner asked him why he didn’t escape. “Where would I go, and how would I eat?” Ganu asked Skinner. “Wherever I go, Ramesh (the mafia head that enslaved him) would find me.”
Ramesh is both “a taker of life and a giver of sustenance,” said Skinner.
And yet, Skinner offers hope for the enslaved. He was the hero of the liquidation of a New Zealand fishery that enslaved Eustrol — another man he met on his investigation journey. Right now, Eustrol works with a California DNA tracking firm finding illicit timber, while the CEO of the fishery is structurally unemployed.
Although gaining moral leverage against a corporation would invariably lead to a positive response, a solution is yet to be found for slavery in less networked exchanges, such as in the sex trade.
But Skinner continues to believe in the power of the media. As long as someone “shines a torch” on these atrocities, there is still hope.
But when a student asked him whether journalism is a good way to go about eradicating slavery, he jokingly answered, “No, don’t do investigative journalism unless you want your parents to take out six mortgages to support you.”
“We need engineers, doctors, architects,” Skinner added. “Whatever your calling is, our line of work needs your skills.”
While Skinner’s talk was certainly a powerful one, students feel there is very little they can actually do to ameliorate such a global and complex issue, or even relate to it.
Rafael Manyari ’15, a supporter of Stop Traffick, thinks that the symposium, being the “tip of the iceberg” of the problem, seemed to exert a limited effect on the Middlebury community.
“I haven’t really heard people talking about the talk since it happened,” he said.
Interim president of Stop Trafficking, Denise Chan ’16, agreed with Manyari’s assessment.
“As a Middlebury student I can’t actually go stop trafficking,” she said. “However, awareness is the first step to attacking the heart of the problem. It is important for people to be aware of this problem in order for them to really understand it and really care about it.”
While Middlebury students cannot actually rescue beleaguered women from their brothels, their “focused energy” and “commitment to raising awareness of these issues here on campus” has indeed “led to important events,” as Associate Professor of Education & Wonnacott Commons Head Jonathan Miller Lane concluded.
Indeed, according to Chan, the overwhelming attendance of the symposium was the “breakout moment” for their committee.
“I’m just so happy that it turned out so successfully,” she said.
However, while Professor Miller-Lane recognized the importance of awareness, he believes it insufficient.
“Outrage is necessary, but insufficient,” he said. “The levers of power mattered. Who has it and who does not? How is power exercised? Where are the pressure points that could be leveraged to change conditions for those who are most victimized?”
Adrian Leong ’16 — a social activist known for his work on Divestment — didn’t agree with Skinner’s means of leveraging of power in journalism.
“[Skinner] told us if we knew more about their supply chain [of trafficking] than they do, then they will listen to you,” he said. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t help them at all, because now they will start thinking about the supply chain! Isn’t that in itself deeply troubling and problematic?”
“I also didn’t quite like the bit where he was celebrating his case study example’s new life,” Leong added. “I think it is too early to claim victory. Sounded too much like hubris to me.”
Perhaps it’s not about the leverage of power, but about breaking out of the mentality of slavery. Manyari recognizes an irony in the situation.
“Even though many slaves are serving the firms from the western world, most solutions to human trafficking come from them too,” he said. “It’s the locals who actually enslave from the local area … so it is important to consider the perspective of the locals.”
Not only is it important to be aware, but it is also important to disseminate awareness to those affected by understanding their particular circumstances.
As Chan said, “Joining an organization that deals with particular aspects of human trafficking, such as rehabilitation of victims, is definitely a way of providing tangible help.”
(11/13/13 9:33pm)
“It was in ’67, ’68, when the U.S. was making great efforts to invade Vietnam that I realized that religion and politics — these abstractions — were what caused people to do these things. So I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to show people something concrete.” Vito Acconci, renowned artist and sculptor, stuttered as he spoke, and his witty sarcasm induced waves of surprised laughter from the auditorium.
“I want the audience to spend as much time thinking about the empty brackets as I did writing them,” Acconci said. The audience is then presented with another piece of art — a paragraph that is but a small fraction of the page, yet similarly elusive in meaning. One would expect the next piece, a page full of words, to provide more solid grounds for comprehension — and yet, it was an excerpt of an article. It turns out the time it took him to read it was the time it took him to traverse a block to another.
“I wanted to correlate reading with walking,” Acconci said.
Acconci’s installation, “Way Station I (Study Chamber),” on campus burned down 30 years ago after years of abuse by students, according to a College Museum of Art press release. According to Emmie Donadio, chief curator of the Museum of Art, Acconci’s reaction to learning about his sculpture’s incineration was that “he couldn’t believe that you can burn steel.”
Way Station I was Acconci’s first permanent commission and marks his transition from temporary installations to permanent architectural work. Made during his term as a Christian A. Johnson Visiting Artist in January 1983, the installation was a large metal shed that included painted images of flags of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, as well as mirrored glass. On the inside of the structure were panels spelled ‘GOD,’ ‘MAN,’ ‘DOG,’ which were playing cards on the reverse. Intentionally sited in proximity to the College Observatory and with a backdrop of the Adirondack Mountains, it was intended to provide students with a space of rest and contemplation. It’s location at a pathway travelled regularly by many students, now an area bounded by the Ross Commons, McCardell Bicentennial Hall and the Freeman International Center, symbolized a time of precarious dislocation for students.
“You could go into this place that it was in the middle of the year and you would think: maybe I want to transfer to Los Angeles. You know, maybe it’s too cold here. Should I go on for the second semester and transfer to Los Angeles?,” says Donadio. “He fantasized that it would be a place where people could stop and think. The work, according to Donadio, is also characteristic of his pieces in that it involved a play on words — where one is literally perched in the middle of two pathways. Which one is the ‘Road Not Taken?’”
Unfortunately, its plain metallic appearance and location incited contention and abuse from students and faculty alike. In May 1985, it was set ablaze by an unidentified group of vandals. The Committee for Arts in Public Places, set up in 1994, are now working on to restore the work on campus. However, Acconci is not enthusiastic about having the work restored, as he didn’t consider it a well-made work.
“We have been trying for 20 years for Vito Acconci to let us reconstruct it,” said Donadio. “We thought it was important because it was the catalyst for the whole Public Art Programme on Campus. Frankly, the reason why we are not creating a new work is budget. He would have much preferred to create a new work.”
If not for the stir of tweed jackets and black overcoats, the distinctive disheveled and overbearing mannerisms of members of the art community around him, his presence is unassuming, even when he tries to play it down.
“I don’t like to make ‘art.’ The word seems to carry a sense of praise,” he said. Acconci rejects performance art for the label ‘performance’ too, because of it seems too theatrical.
Like his art, his presence is paradoxical — slightly hunched, and carrying his words with a feeble, awkward stammer as he assaults the audience with piece after piece of subversion and surprise, whose reaction of confusion and awe was a motif of the seminar.
It is interesting to note that he did not start off as an installation artist, but a poet and a performance artist (yes, the very art form which he today dismisses as “theatrical”). “Emphatically transgressive,” as Donadio puts it, one of performances involved a video of him burning his own chest hair and pulling his breast in an attempt to grow a woman’s breast to portray desire; another involved an uneven floor that he built, under which he would constantly masturbate to the footsteps of incoming audience, with which he “built his sexual fantasy” and “led him to come.”
Later, believing that art was more than a passive medium, he sought interaction with his audience through installations and architecture. One can see a quantifiable amount of mischief in his work — among them was a plank-shaped bar table that extended through the window as a diving board; a huge slingshot carrying a bowling ball place against a TV, which was the window. He built alternative forms of living spaces — houses made out of stacked cars; the Bad Dream House (1984), a habitable space which consisted of two houses and a glass house stacked together in an inverted manner.
His change in form is also indicative of the thematic change from a “psychological self to sociological self.” One of his works includes a house in which the entrance is hinged upon the cooperation of bikers, as the bikes operate to keep the structure open — a demonstration of interdependence in human communities. Marcos Barozo Filho ’17 liked his blueprints of the New World Trade Center because it challenges economic elitism, “forcing executives to live with regular folks.”
One of his less subtle works was his studio, which involved a glass wall filled with soil to resemble a geological cross section of the ground that curved through the S-shaped structure of the building.
“My work almost always involves a play on words. I don’t think I will ever get out of the habit,” he tells us as he explains an installation of a cafe set-up for blind people, which is transparent. “I was asking myself what color should it be, but then I thought, how can blind people see?” The fact that the seating is one large interconnected stool meant that the blind will experience constant interference, as one has to move in for another to come in, which parallels their experience in real life.
When his talk went fifteen minutes over an hour, he shuffled nervously, “Should I go on?” After an awkward silence: “Yes, go on!” Donadio shouted from the front row. A few people shuffled out, but the room was still as packed as it was in the beginning.
“In real space, you are often lost and don’t know where to begin. But I like this sense of confusion because it provokes you to think,” he said.
(11/06/13 8:11pm)
As I walked uphill after a movie screening in Dana Auditorium, I caught a glimpse of the smokestack, unimpeded by trees, starkly alone; a museum exhibit in the distance. From its narrow neck it churned out a billowing cloud of smoke, which was torn sideways by the wind and grew organically like a furtive amoeba, lonely in the silent evening.
I found something about that image strangely poignant. The last time I saw a smokestack was on a winter afternoon in Tsinghua Universiy, Beijing, two years ago. I think it was the monumental madness of having something so huge tower over me that struck me, a sense of insignificance and awe that I felt at the time. And yet smokestacks, since Mao’s
Great Leap Forward, have ceased to be at the center of human activity.
In the ISO packet that I received for my host family reception, I laughed when I saw 1984 on a reccomended list of books, claiming to represent China. The Cultural Revolution was considered a time of oppression and paranoia. Yet was it really such a bad time?
Putting aside surveillance and deprivation of personal freedom, the spirit of the age was what my father (he was among the ones who were condemned) felt nostalgic for. People felt like they were working for a cause. The absence of economic forces created a space where people were free to think. An abundance of literature at that time depicted the sentiments of innocence and idealism. Jiangwen’s In the Heat of the Sun portrays the bucolic lives of teenagers who lived during the period. Love stories, like Under the Hawthorn Tree, Shanghai Dreams and Naked Earth, portray relationships unadulterated by considerations of wealth and social position.
And now, China is flourishing economically. Yet, ironically, all sorts of problems have arisen in China — migrant workers suffer from economic inequality, corruption is rife and greed incites crime. In the past, people worked for a greater cause, but now the urge to profit or, sometimes, the urge to simply survive, drives the economy.
In modern China, the proliferation of materialism hasn’t actually brought any meaning into life, apart from an increasing existential dilemma. Some people long for the days of Mao’s era. The chaos brought on by the unbridled free market forces has led to a revival of leftist politics in China. The past seems better than the present.
What I dislike most about our present economic structure is that it generalizes everyone into the same, animalistic being that thrives on attaining unlimited wants, erasing cultural boundaries. But why can’t we battle the proliferation of materialism? Because we live by it. It is the capital with which we build our lives. By battling it we are trying to oppose a part of human nature. It is the way we have to live our lives, whether we want to or not.
The smokestack evokes not only a sense of nostalgia for the past and the simplicity it embodies, but also a feeling of the loneliness that one experiences in this vacuum of meaning. Our lives are ultimately divided by the inherent inequality of economic standing. While the Communist Era would be too radical a recourse, society should adopt a new set of beliefs less focused on quantifiable economic gains. While that might be restrictive to our freedom, it would force us to rethink the positions in which we stand.
And yet the question arises: is this retreat a regression? It seems that we are enchained by freedom, seeking to impose constrictions on ourselves that force us to be free. America experiences an ideological cycle — liberals and conservatives take turns in government. It’s ironic that all of this seems like a game, and yet it’s difficult to live if we don’t play it.
(10/30/13 10:39pm)
Middlebury College, as a part of the Hirschfield Film Series, screened Jia Zhangke’s first award winning film A Touch Of Sin, which was nominated for the Palm d’Or and won the best screenplay. it is perhaps an honor, and an irony, that our screening on Saturday, Oct. 26 preceded its premiere in China.
(10/17/13 1:05am)
Movies seem to tell us that any form of connectedness seems possible when “all you need is love.” But somehow this kind of idealism doesn’t seem to exist in reality, like love at first sight.
Differences in culture create rifts between people. It’s harder to approach someone of another cultural context because he uses a completely different syntax of communication than that of your own culture, which confounds your reaction. I suppose this is why people of similar cultures tend to stick together – it takes less effort to communicate, when communication takes place not only on the literal level but also in the subtext. Common experiences and culture form the basis of understanding, where words do not simply “mean” but also carry intuitive meanings. The comfort lies in the similarity of perception as it is easier to empathize and be empathized with. There is a smaller risk of misunderstanding, which can often give rise to a sense of alienation and loneliness.
I guess in such a diverse community, we are always searching for a sense of synchronicity, as Dictionary.com defines it – the simultaneous occurrence of causally unrelated events and the belief that the simultaneity has meaning beyond mere coincidence.
There are different types of synchronicity. The poignant collision of metaphor and meaning gives rise to synchronicity. For instance, Ye Si parallels fusion cuisine to postcolonial culture. In Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Mansion, packaged food symbolizes a pessimistic view of romantic relationships, as every package has a due date.
There is a term for that in Daoist/Chinese culture that refers specifically to synchronicity between people – yuanfen. In this context, it is an energy that brings about unlikely but meaningful encounters. To be more specific, I guess it is the feeling that you get when you meet someone with whom you feel an inexplicable sense of connection. There is a saying, in China even, that it takes a hundred years for one to accumulate enough yuanfen for you to share the same boat with a person and a thousand years to share the same pillow with one. Differences therefore imbue encounters with much more significance.
I think there is a deep sense of synchronicity in Middlebury, as it brings together a weird combination of people of different interests and backgrounds. Middlebury is an even share of idealism and the commonplace – we have great academics and a somewhat intellectual atmosphere; but also students who become investment bankers, towering football players and partygoers. And unlike big universities, we cross paths everyday.
The sense of synchronicity is especially profound with international students at Middlebury. It is odd that we converge at Middlebury, as it is remote and unknown in the U.S. itself, not to mention internationally. From what I know, it is not prestige that attracts applications, but rather convenience (no essay required) and generous aid from UWCs (United World College). I think people come because they are chosen rather than because of a certain distinct reputation that draws them to the school; the randomness of this whole process generates interesting encounters.
The coalescence of different identities seems to cumulate a neutral and indefinable character, like our gray skies and buildings. There is a certain sense of opacity and absence of character that represses the urge to look for excitement, and yet it is the coldness that renders unexpected encounters even more out of the blue and coincidental. At Middlebury, we can see our drastic differences as factors that separate us, but also as a possibility for synchronicity – poetic coincidences – to take place.
(10/03/13 3:01am)
Although much of the attention on immigration reform in Congress centers on the policy toward illegal immigrants, Professor of Public Policy at the College of William and Mary Harriet Duleep brought to light a surprising fact about immigration.
“For almost half a century family unification has been the cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy,” said Duleep. “But now buried in the comprehensive immigration reform proposal that’s been put forth by the Senate is a recommendation that the relatives such as siblings and the children of immigrant citizens could not get in unless they obtain visas for specific job skills.”
In the D.K. Smith ’42 Economics Lecture on Sept. 24, Duleep gave a talk titled “The New Immigrants – Blessing or Bane?”
“Most of the attention in the newspaper is about illegal immigrants but I thought that I would speak about something you may not realize and it has received almost no attention and yet it is a major change,” she said.
Duleep began by saying that contrary to popular belief academic research does have an impact. According to her, the studies on the downsides to family reunification have had a major effect in shaping the immigration reform debate. Duleep is well aware of what federal policymaking can be like. In his introduction, David K. Smith Professor of Applied Economics Phanindra Wunnava praised Duleep’s contributions to the economics of immigration.
“In my view, Professor Harriet Orcutt Duleep is an authority on ‘immigration economic assimilation models.’ Her work is relevant to the ongoing debate concerning the direction U.S. immigration policy should take,” said Wunnava in an email.
Duleep has taken part in that debate personally.
“Given her expertise on immigration over the years she was invited to testify in front of the House of Representatives commission on immigration reform and the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Wunnava.
Duleep explained how there are two motives behind the drive to cut family reunification.
“One is that family admissions serve humanitarian goals only,” said Duleep. She then quoted the late Senator Edward Kennedy who said it would be inhumane to cut out sibling preferences.
“But he didn’t mention that there would be economic fallout from doing so,” Duleep said.
The second belief, said Duleep is that immigrants who gain entry to the U.S. because of kinship ties are not helpful to the economy.
“It falls from that that to be economically competitive the U.S. needs to bring down family-based admissions and increase employment-based admissions,” said Duleep.
She said there may also be some underlying mistrust of lax immigration laws at work. The two groups entering the U.S. in the greatest numbers recently are Asian and Latin American immigrants, with European countries sending fewer migrants, and that the U.S. has historically viewed new immigrant groups with suspicion.
“Would there be the same concerns about the economic productivity of recent immigrants if most came from Europe and Canada? I think that’s a legitimate question although you’ll see from the earnings profiles that although immigrants may still face discrimination … there is enough openness in the economy that this can be overcome,” said Duleep.
The crux of Duleep’s argument was that how we measure immigrant earnings affects whether we think today’s immigrants are a blessing or a bane for the U.S. economy. She also said people who already thought we need to cut down on family admissions were handed a tool in these types of studies that may assume too much.
Duleep explained a variety of reasons why family-based immigrants are not a drag on the economy. First and foremost, employment-based immigrants have siblings too.
“A family friendly policy may be one reason the U.S. has been able to attract the best and brightest,” said Duleep. “Eliminating the siblings preference may make the U.S. a less attractive destination for employment-based immigrants.”
She went on to say kinship based immigrants also contribute economically by a willingness to learn new skills. In some instances, a greater percentage of immigrant groups go to school than U.S. natives. Additionally, in order to add to the economy, one has to stay in the country.
“Immigrants with family ties are more likely to stay in the U.S. and a prerequisite for investing in U.S.-specific human capital is permanence,” said Duleep. “If you’re not going to stay here, there’s no incentive to learning skills that may be applicable to the U.S.”
Duleep also said those who were asked when they decided to stay in the U.S. had high earnings growth beginning that very same year.
“The intent to stay permanently in the U.S. affects behavior and the likelihood of learning new skills,” she said.
Even a quality like entrepreneurship has ties to whether immigrants have relatives here.
“When you look at research examining the likelihood that an immigrant starts a business, the most important variable that far surpasses any other variable like education or age is whether an immigrant has siblings in the U.S. It’s a very strong result,” said Duleep.
An overarching point to the lecture was a word of warning about assumptions in academia.
“When you read economic studies as they are reported in the newspaper, be wary of assumptions. The assumptions are perhaps what you should pay most attention to and think about if there is a way one can approach this issue without making assumptions,” said Duleep.
Ian Thomas ’13.5 was in attendance and said in an email that the U.S. sought to continue family-based immigration.
“Prof. Duleep accurately highlighted the importance of permanence in our ever-changing world. Citizens and immigrants are much more likely to invest time in acquiring country specific skills if they believe they will settle in that country,” he said.
(10/02/13 11:37pm)
Tired of mainstream and American movies? The annual Hirschfield International Film Series, hosted by the Department of Film and Media Culture, screens independent and foreign films at Dana Auditorium on Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. This year’s selections include the usual measure of Cannes winners – Haneke’s Amour and Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin (screened in lieu of Wong Kar Wai’s Grandmaster, unfortunately), which were awarded the Palm D’Or and Best Screenplay respectively in the previous year.
This week’s screening is the Taviani brothers’ Caesar Must Die. After a six-year hiatus, the winners of the 1977 Palm d’Or for Padre padrone reemerge with an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which is enacted by prison inmates in an all-male cast.
The brothers’ interpretation of Julius Caesar is unorthodox, treating the play as a mirror of the convicts' past lives rather than as a revered text. And yet despite the refreshing take, the directors failed to breathe a new emotional dimension to the production.
Compiled with scenes of rehearsal that take place in the prison, the line between reality and theatre is constantly treaded. The characters often digress into their conflict-ridden private lives as their lines collided with their traumatic memories, but these moments are predictable and hardly poignant, given their violent pasts. The fatal flaw of the play is the failure to expose the private lives of the convicts, which deprived the play of dramatic tension that could’ve existed in a subplot between the actors. Because of this, the audience is also prevented from emotional resonance. Nonetheless, their readiness and eagerness to take on their roles is intriguing as it betrays a sense of hope contradictory to their futile state of incarceration, as highlighted by the sterile gray scale shooting.
The most meritable aspects of the play are perhaps the artistic choices. Interestingly, the lack of a context – the stark and jarringly vacant prison cells and corridors facilitated by the monochromatic rendition – lends the film a subtext that meanders flexibly between sepulchral and a poetic asceticism. This quality is demonstrated perfectly in the scene where Brutus and Cassius witness Caesar refuse his crown. Shot in a cell that overlooks the playground, the director takes advantage of the din outside as a synecdoche for the commotion stirred by Caesar. Imposed against a high wall, they seem literally diminished by the accidental coalescence between of reality and fiction. The light at the window seems to embody the transience of the encounter.
Despite the interesting dichotomy between acting and its backdrop of reality, the film failed to move me. Perhaps the lack of characterization was an intention for the movie to be seen as a documentary rather than a film, as instead of resonant truths we are informed about the conditions of the prisoners. At least 76 minutes isn’t too much time spent on discovering a trite conclusion.
(09/18/13 10:49pm)
It was not until I came to America that I began shaking hands with other people. I have navigated a diverse species of hands since I came here - the massive bear paws of big football players which engulf mine like the sea to newly-hatched sea turtles. There are small willowy fingers, cold and clammy hands, hands that feel like cold concrete, and hands that feel like shrouds of dry leaves. Yet, what intrigues me most were the handshakes where the other person jolts you into another paradigm of communication with his iron grip, leaving you half floating on the verbal surface of meaning, wondering what he meant by that alarming squeeze.
I think it is the paradox between menace and warmth that intrigues me. Handshakes embody the formal (and trite) exchanges of “how do you dos” and names, and yet the action itself is bodily – not only are you introduced to the person, but also introduced to his living skin and his body, which conveys another message. Does the degree of strength with which you grip another’s hand indicate an invitation to a challenge? Or rather, reassurance? In the past, I’ve used a handshake to stealthily tip the cook during my trekking expedition in India. What is the message a handshake is trying to tell? How do the nuances of the gestures alter its meaning?
I think there is an inherent frigidity to the gesture because of the formality. Perhaps connections one can easily make with just a jolt of the wrist dilute the significance of a relationship. Or maybe the arcane semantics of the ritual just make me feel too uneasy for me to decipher its meaning, although it is very interesting at the same time.
At Middlebury Uncensored, Associate Professor of English Jonathan Miller-Lane mentioned America’s “hyperbole culture” in communication. He meant that people here tend to respond in an exaggerated fashion – “Awesome!” “Really?!” “Oh my God!” To some extent, I think shaking hands is a part of this overstatement. This friendly gesture of welcome overstates your pleasure at being introduced to another person and is misleading because it misrepresents your opinion of that person at the moment of introduction (that must be why politicians always shake hands on television). I feel the same way about people here – people are so nice to each other, I always feel like it is disingenuous in a way. Aren’t humans supposed to be inherently selfish, and how can they exhibit such unlimited altruism to such a wide range of diverse life forms? This tolerance touches upon godliness, which is frightening because it defies the definition of being human.
Sometimes, I feel more at home in the city because you can freely express your intolerance, whereas here niceness is social etiquette you are supposed to follow. I think I prefer knowing a person honestly through knowing their real feelings - no matter how obnoxious they might be - instead of a person limited by social etiquette. It is a bit like looking at a candid photograph versus a posed portrait, the latter of which is the handshake, so beautiful and inviting it makes you ponder whether you are falling back upon a lie.