I know many of you who read this blog don't know very much about Singapore except that its a pretty little island whose authorities caned Michael Fay. Well, there are other people in the country who need their asses whipped, to say the least. Singapore is home of the Lee Family dynasty -- Lee Kuan Yew and his family RUN the whole country -- his son is the prime minister, his other son runs the telephone company, his daughter-in-law runs the state investment company (Temasek Holdings that recently bought out the Thai telecom company from ex-PM Thaksin...) I mean, the cronyism of these big shot authoritarians!! I am currently reading up on the history of the Malayan Communist Party, among other leftist leading parties of the region, in hope to learn more about what we've never been taught in Singapore schools -- that NO, SIR STAMFORD RAFFLES WAS A COLONIST! NOT A SAVIOR!!
Thats another reason why I take so much inspiration from the Korean democratic movement, which saw another upsurge this past summer. They overthrew dictatorships that were ruled on the pretext that they would herald in good economic stability for a third world country. They saw through the lies and the pretenses that US-supported strong-ruled authoritarian states would NOT bring prosperity to everyone. If anything, it creates a stable middle-class for a few, and a strong underclass -- casualized/temp/foreign labor which is constantly being put down, marginalized and oppressed.
Excuse me for the rant, but this is the youtube that my friends from Singapore sent me which contains a quote from Lee Kuan Yew. One could read it as an extension of an awful social program, elitist and eugenics in style. It is not stated in racial terms in his speech (he wouldnt dare) but the implications are racial because most non-graduates are working class Chinese, Indians and Malays. I am a Southeast Asian Chinese and we need a different vision of relating to other races beyond this stinking elitist BS -- another damned model minority myth needs some smashing!!
Here goes:
Showing posts with label Southeast Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southeast Asia. Show all posts
10/26/2008
8/20/2008
China Heat in Singapore!
I am back in Singapore visiting family and the 中国热 aka China craze, is like a whirlwind taking me by shock!
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. There's the Olympics going on in Beijing, and everyone is gushing about how it heralds in a New China, one that is palatable and friendly to the West, even as it maintains its own character and history.
There's the movie, Mad About English, that was recently released. For all its faults -- a middle-class,
urban, Beijing set-up as an allegory of a widespread Chinese sensibility -- it is nonetheless difficult to imagine that the optimism that is expressed in the film is an isolated event. It is hard to imagine the squatters in Beijing, or the factory, domestic or restaurant workers, having the sense that their own upward mobility lies in learning English. However, there is also a sense that the rising tide raises all -- especially in the way the city carries itself.
It is this same optimism that I feel when I am in Singapore. I heard from the grapevine that increasingly, non-Chinese kids, like Malay and Indian kids are growing up today are learning to speak Mandarin as their second language. It used to be that we had to learn our own ethnic languages. Now, more non-Chinese are joining into the Chinese fad.
The dichotomy of cultural assimilation vs cultural nationalism, defined by people of colors' affinity to "Western" cultures and languages, is really insufficient in explaining what is being portrayed in the movie, "Mad About English." In the movie, you see old and young alike, rushing to learn English, but as a nationalist phenomena. Like Lee Yang, the "crazy English teacher，who conducts his classes like a pastor would in a mega church, says, learning English is not a way to worship the West, it is to learn the method of the West and use it for China. The way he inspires his young students pulls on very Confucian messages that are tied at the hip to upward mobility -- learning English, succeeding, earning money are all a means to express filial piety to your family. This message, I think, is what differentiates it from the modernist thrust of the May 4th Movement a century ago. Unlike the May 4th, which also expounded a similar message of using the tools of the West to exert Chinese nationalism, Lee Yang's fiery brand of nationalism doesn't inspire to strip China down to an image of the West. If anything, it has strands of essentialism, believing that Chinese culture and tradition will not lose its essence from time to come, and will absorb English into its fold. In other words, it is approaching English from a position of cultural and economic strength, not the weakness of a semi-colonized, divided China. English, in this context, becomes an Asian, if not Chinese, language, to reflect the strengthening and resurgence of Chinese nationalist identity.
Of course, this sense of optimism is one side of the story. As crowds rejoice around the Olympics, kindling a sense of Chinese revivalism, its easy to forget that it was built on the destruction of many Beijing homes. Homes of everyday working people are demolishes to ignite a sense of wonder for the Western tourist. It is plain and simple like this. There is nothing glorious or new about it; it is another facade of neo-colonialism and class oppression.
How does this translate to in Singapore? It is all a delicate game here. A rising sense of China fervor, alongside a sense of a crumbling US empire, and a sense of competing Islamic politics in nearby Indonesia and Malaysia; these tensions are constantly in play with one another. For countries in Southeast Asia, which are so interconnected to one another, and dependent on how the bigwigs play, the proximity of these world happenings are uncannily different from how it feels in the big US of A. But this would be another post. For now, here's the youtube of Mad About English!
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. There's the Olympics going on in Beijing, and everyone is gushing about how it heralds in a New China, one that is palatable and friendly to the West, even as it maintains its own character and history.
There's the movie, Mad About English, that was recently released. For all its faults -- a middle-class,
urban, Beijing set-up as an allegory of a widespread Chinese sensibility -- it is nonetheless difficult to imagine that the optimism that is expressed in the film is an isolated event. It is hard to imagine the squatters in Beijing, or the factory, domestic or restaurant workers, having the sense that their own upward mobility lies in learning English. However, there is also a sense that the rising tide raises all -- especially in the way the city carries itself.
It is this same optimism that I feel when I am in Singapore. I heard from the grapevine that increasingly, non-Chinese kids, like Malay and Indian kids are growing up today are learning to speak Mandarin as their second language. It used to be that we had to learn our own ethnic languages. Now, more non-Chinese are joining into the Chinese fad.
The dichotomy of cultural assimilation vs cultural nationalism, defined by people of colors' affinity to "Western" cultures and languages, is really insufficient in explaining what is being portrayed in the movie, "Mad About English." In the movie, you see old and young alike, rushing to learn English, but as a nationalist phenomena. Like Lee Yang, the "crazy English teacher，who conducts his classes like a pastor would in a mega church, says, learning English is not a way to worship the West, it is to learn the method of the West and use it for China. The way he inspires his young students pulls on very Confucian messages that are tied at the hip to upward mobility -- learning English, succeeding, earning money are all a means to express filial piety to your family. This message, I think, is what differentiates it from the modernist thrust of the May 4th Movement a century ago. Unlike the May 4th, which also expounded a similar message of using the tools of the West to exert Chinese nationalism, Lee Yang's fiery brand of nationalism doesn't inspire to strip China down to an image of the West. If anything, it has strands of essentialism, believing that Chinese culture and tradition will not lose its essence from time to come, and will absorb English into its fold. In other words, it is approaching English from a position of cultural and economic strength, not the weakness of a semi-colonized, divided China. English, in this context, becomes an Asian, if not Chinese, language, to reflect the strengthening and resurgence of Chinese nationalist identity.
Of course, this sense of optimism is one side of the story. As crowds rejoice around the Olympics, kindling a sense of Chinese revivalism, its easy to forget that it was built on the destruction of many Beijing homes. Homes of everyday working people are demolishes to ignite a sense of wonder for the Western tourist. It is plain and simple like this. There is nothing glorious or new about it; it is another facade of neo-colonialism and class oppression.
How does this translate to in Singapore? It is all a delicate game here. A rising sense of China fervor, alongside a sense of a crumbling US empire, and a sense of competing Islamic politics in nearby Indonesia and Malaysia; these tensions are constantly in play with one another. For countries in Southeast Asia, which are so interconnected to one another, and dependent on how the bigwigs play, the proximity of these world happenings are uncannily different from how it feels in the big US of A. But this would be another post. For now, here's the youtube of Mad About English!
10/15/2007
Burma and Buddhists of the World Unite
New blog, new city and our first entry! Its been a long week with many closing shifts at X cafe where I work-- which really just means a lot of banal (and anal) cleaning, washing, stocking and boring tedious stuff like that. One good thing is that I don't have to deal w the customers when I am out back manhandling the dishes. Its exhausting to have to smile and be all polite when all I can think about in my mind is: Get Out!! Its closing time!!!
On a happier note, I've been spending some time this week researching for an article on what's happening in Burma these days and its brought me into contact w some interesting Asian folks in Seattle. What's going on in Burma now is pretty horrendous. The military junta which has been in power for the last 40 plus years have been cracking down on the mass protests with brute military force: guns, beatings, torture and allegedly, even cremation of people who are still alive!! These are desperate measures to repress the mass protests, which seem to be partly spontaneous but also tied to an underground revolutionary organization consisting of the leaders of the "1988 generation," where a similar crackdown and massacre occurred to suppress popular uprisings. The monks in Burma who had joined in solidarity with the lay protesters have also gotten the beat-down. An absolute no-no for a Buddhist country like Burma, where even the most vile and powerful of leaders have to pay respects and provide alms for the monastic order as a way of establishing some form of legitimacy. Its inspiring to see monks stand in solidarity with political movements and brings to mind the Buddhist resistance movement in Vietnam in the 70s, where monks like Thich Naht Hanh broke with the more conservative and state-aligned national Buddhist church, and organized mass protests on the streets against the US invasion. He even wrote a manual for young Buddhist activists, teaching them how to meditate and maintain love and compassion, while protesting uncompromisingly against injustice. Really, fighting against oppression, doing what needs to be done at the present moment IS a practice of Zen mindfulness and "no-thinking" mind of being present always. Unfortunately, this tradition has been lost in the warm and fuzziness of the predominantly white and liberal American Buddhism who are happy only to see Buddhism as only an individual practice, always peaceful and non-threatening to the social order.
This image of protesters in Thailand, also another Buddhist country, made my day:
M made a really important insight a few days ago when I was raving about the potential for an international Buddhist solidarity movement. He pointed out the different ways in which Islam and Buddhism are perceived in terms of non-violence. To quote his email, he says "When there are popular street demonstrations in Palestine or Xinjiang they are not perceived as nonviolent but as a precursor or counterpart to armed struggle or "terrorism" , whereas resistance in Tibet and Burma is portrayed as nonviolent even when it actually is connected to revolutionary organizations and armed struggle." Whatever happened to the interfaith solidarity movement of the 70s? Thich Naht Hanh, the Vietnamese monk whom I refer to above, was an anti-Zionist who spoke out against the Zionist rabbi establishment when he was invited to Jerusalem for interfaith dialogs in the late 60s. He spoke openly of the hypocrisy of Zionist rabbis supporting the Vietnamese resistance movement while condoning the repression of Palestinians. I am not a Buddhist philosopher or historian, but there is something fishy going on in the way Buddhism is taken up in the US, in popular imagination, if it is merely portrayed as a non-violent alternative to the "violence of Islam." Yes, yet another way that Asians are portrayed as a "model minority" serving to support white supremacist beating down of other people of color!
My visit to the Burmese monastery down at Kent, WA was really interesting. Thanks to Tin, a Burmese student whom I met at University of Washington, when I went to show support for a Free Burma rally some students were organizing, I was able to communicate with the folks I met there. There were several young ethnic Karen children, an ethnic minority that has been suppressed by the predominantly ethnic Burmese military government. They had just arrived in town with their parents who had been living in the Mela refugee camp, located along the Thai-Burmese border, for eighteen years! It seems like as part of their "initiation" into a new life, the young kids were becoming monks for a short period of time, a practice that is quite common in Theravada Buddhism practiced in continental Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Burma. These young monks were so cute, climbing trees and making a ruckus when I bet they were supposed to be meditating!
The wide consensus of the US as the harbinger of benevolence and democracy has been dominant in the whole "Burma question." Bush, and Clinton before, have been supporting economic sanctions in Burma since 1997 and Bush has recently been pushing the UN for more internationally recognized economic sanctions and condemnation of the junta, especially w China, Russia and the EU. Not that these are bad things in and of themselves cos these capitalists don't have a conscience anyway, but then the fact that it's the same US that is in Iraq fomenting civil war, is trying to push for human rights in Burma is kinda a ridiculous notion. I will bet that the nationalist cynics back in Southeast Asia and China will be pointing out that the US intervention is a way of "one-upping" China, or more broadly, the rise of Asia, by posing itself as a more "human rights," "benevolent," "ethical" alternative to the Chinese economic giant that deals with dirty ol Burmese military junta. Pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, the US has made everyone believe that it doesn't reap any money off of the Burmese people's suffering. But really, Chevron (where Condi Rice once sat as a Board member) and Halliburton (Cheney's baby) have been shaking hands with the same evil Burmese military bigshots for a long time. The 1997 economic sanctions that Clinton passed only applied to new US companies which intend to enter Burma, not the ones that already there. I'm sure all sorts of conspiracy-theories can be spun from this, but I'll just leave it as the US's media gimmick for now.
peacing out for the night,
jomo
On a happier note, I've been spending some time this week researching for an article on what's happening in Burma these days and its brought me into contact w some interesting Asian folks in Seattle. What's going on in Burma now is pretty horrendous. The military junta which has been in power for the last 40 plus years have been cracking down on the mass protests with brute military force: guns, beatings, torture and allegedly, even cremation of people who are still alive!! These are desperate measures to repress the mass protests, which seem to be partly spontaneous but also tied to an underground revolutionary organization consisting of the leaders of the "1988 generation," where a similar crackdown and massacre occurred to suppress popular uprisings. The monks in Burma who had joined in solidarity with the lay protesters have also gotten the beat-down. An absolute no-no for a Buddhist country like Burma, where even the most vile and powerful of leaders have to pay respects and provide alms for the monastic order as a way of establishing some form of legitimacy. Its inspiring to see monks stand in solidarity with political movements and brings to mind the Buddhist resistance movement in Vietnam in the 70s, where monks like Thich Naht Hanh broke with the more conservative and state-aligned national Buddhist church, and organized mass protests on the streets against the US invasion. He even wrote a manual for young Buddhist activists, teaching them how to meditate and maintain love and compassion, while protesting uncompromisingly against injustice. Really, fighting against oppression, doing what needs to be done at the present moment IS a practice of Zen mindfulness and "no-thinking" mind of being present always. Unfortunately, this tradition has been lost in the warm and fuzziness of the predominantly white and liberal American Buddhism who are happy only to see Buddhism as only an individual practice, always peaceful and non-threatening to the social order.
This image of protesters in Thailand, also another Buddhist country, made my day:
M made a really important insight a few days ago when I was raving about the potential for an international Buddhist solidarity movement. He pointed out the different ways in which Islam and Buddhism are perceived in terms of non-violence. To quote his email, he says "When there are popular street demonstrations in Palestine or Xinjiang they are not perceived as nonviolent but as a precursor or counterpart to armed struggle or "terrorism" , whereas resistance in Tibet and Burma is portrayed as nonviolent even when it actually is connected to revolutionary organizations and armed struggle." Whatever happened to the interfaith solidarity movement of the 70s? Thich Naht Hanh, the Vietnamese monk whom I refer to above, was an anti-Zionist who spoke out against the Zionist rabbi establishment when he was invited to Jerusalem for interfaith dialogs in the late 60s. He spoke openly of the hypocrisy of Zionist rabbis supporting the Vietnamese resistance movement while condoning the repression of Palestinians. I am not a Buddhist philosopher or historian, but there is something fishy going on in the way Buddhism is taken up in the US, in popular imagination, if it is merely portrayed as a non-violent alternative to the "violence of Islam." Yes, yet another way that Asians are portrayed as a "model minority" serving to support white supremacist beating down of other people of color!
My visit to the Burmese monastery down at Kent, WA was really interesting. Thanks to Tin, a Burmese student whom I met at University of Washington, when I went to show support for a Free Burma rally some students were organizing, I was able to communicate with the folks I met there. There were several young ethnic Karen children, an ethnic minority that has been suppressed by the predominantly ethnic Burmese military government. They had just arrived in town with their parents who had been living in the Mela refugee camp, located along the Thai-Burmese border, for eighteen years! It seems like as part of their "initiation" into a new life, the young kids were becoming monks for a short period of time, a practice that is quite common in Theravada Buddhism practiced in continental Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Burma. These young monks were so cute, climbing trees and making a ruckus when I bet they were supposed to be meditating!
The wide consensus of the US as the harbinger of benevolence and democracy has been dominant in the whole "Burma question." Bush, and Clinton before, have been supporting economic sanctions in Burma since 1997 and Bush has recently been pushing the UN for more internationally recognized economic sanctions and condemnation of the junta, especially w China, Russia and the EU. Not that these are bad things in and of themselves cos these capitalists don't have a conscience anyway, but then the fact that it's the same US that is in Iraq fomenting civil war, is trying to push for human rights in Burma is kinda a ridiculous notion. I will bet that the nationalist cynics back in Southeast Asia and China will be pointing out that the US intervention is a way of "one-upping" China, or more broadly, the rise of Asia, by posing itself as a more "human rights," "benevolent," "ethical" alternative to the Chinese economic giant that deals with dirty ol Burmese military junta. Pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, the US has made everyone believe that it doesn't reap any money off of the Burmese people's suffering. But really, Chevron (where Condi Rice once sat as a Board member) and Halliburton (Cheney's baby) have been shaking hands with the same evil Burmese military bigshots for a long time. The 1997 economic sanctions that Clinton passed only applied to new US companies which intend to enter Burma, not the ones that already there. I'm sure all sorts of conspiracy-theories can be spun from this, but I'll just leave it as the US's media gimmick for now.
peacing out for the night,
jomo
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