I've been meaning to post this disturbing story for some time.
NORTH POTOMAC, MD -- Less than two weeks into her army training, 22-year-old May Yuen apparently hung herself in the bathroom of her barracks and died. Her family says that they feel that the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s apparent suicide are suspicious and want a full investigation.The U.S. Army is investigating the apparent suicide and will be giving the family a report after the investigation is completed, Maryland Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Bruce F. Tuxill, told the World Journal on March 14.
Yuen was born in New York to parents who were immigrants from Hong Kong. The family moved to the Washington D.C. area when Yuen was a young child. Yuen studied nursing at a community college.
Yuen’s father, Wei-Fong Yuen, said that he had initially opposed his daughter’s decision to enlist in the Army in 2006. But she insisted because she said it would help her pay for tuition and complete her degree. She also wanted to gain practical experience in her field, he said. On Feb. 15, she was assigned to training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
On Feb. 22, Yuen’s family said that she called to say that she had experienced difficulty breathing during a training exercise and reported her health concerns to a commanding officer. According to the family, the officer told Yuen that soldiers live in the army and die in the army.
Yuen suffered from asthma as a child but did not experience any asthma symptoms as an adult, according to Yuen’s aunt. She did not carry any asthma medication with her to Fort Leonard Wood, her aunt says.
On Feb. 27, a representative from the military went to the Yuen family home to notify them of their daughter’s death. Yuen’s father said that the representative said that Yuen was found in the bathroom around 9 p.m. on Feb. 26, apparently having hung herself with a belt. She was given emergency care but was pronounced dead shortly after 10 p.m. The family has not yet received any documentation or a report from the Army regarding their daughter’s case.
This just re-inforces other news stories we have heard over the last few years about the high number of suicides among Asian American females in varying age groups. This article says: "Asian American women between 15 and 24 had the highest number of suicides among all U.S. women in that age group in 2003, with about 3.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in 2005. And Asian American females had the second highest rate of suicide in every other age group."
Yet, the thought of an Asian American woman in the military setting with ZERO support really makes me cringe. Ever since reading Sara Corbett's amazing piece in the NY Times magazine about women in the military I'm even more perplexed about how to process the whole thing. Really disturbing stuff.
As a woman the military does seem like a powerful place to work and move ahead -- especially when you need money for school, etc. My mother served as a Lt. Colonel is the U.S. Air Force -- as a doctor -- and had a very positive experience as a woman of color, but her job was very civilian. Does any one know other Asian American women in the military?
Posted by neela at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)
I've been meaning to post this disturbing story for some time.
NORTH POTOMAC, MD -- Less than two weeks into her army training, 22-year-old May Yuen apparently hung herself in the bathroom of her barracks and died. Her family says that they feel that the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s apparent suicide are suspicious and want a full investigation.The U.S. Army is investigating the apparent suicide and will be giving the family a report after the investigation is completed, Maryland Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Bruce F. Tuxill, told the World Journal on March 14.
Yuen was born in New York to parents who were immigrants from Hong Kong. The family moved to the Washington D.C. area when Yuen was a young child. Yuen studied nursing at a community college.
Yuen’s father, Wei-Fong Yuen, said that he had initially opposed his daughter’s decision to enlist in the Army in 2006. But she insisted because she said it would help her pay for tuition and complete her degree. She also wanted to gain practical experience in her field, he said. On Feb. 15, she was assigned to training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
On Feb. 22, Yuen’s family said that she called to say that she had experienced difficulty breathing during a training exercise and reported her health concerns to a commanding officer. According to the family, the officer told Yuen that soldiers live in the army and die in the army.
Yuen suffered from asthma as a child but did not experience any asthma symptoms as an adult, according to Yuen’s aunt. She did not carry any asthma medication with her to Fort Leonard Wood, her aunt says.
On Feb. 27, a representative from the military went to the Yuen family home to notify them of their daughter’s death. Yuen’s father said that the representative said that Yuen was found in the bathroom around 9 p.m. on Feb. 26, apparently having hung herself with a belt. She was given emergency care but was pronounced dead shortly after 10 p.m. The family has not yet received any documentation or a report from the Army regarding their daughter’s case.
This just re-inforces other news stories we have heard over the last few years about the high number of suicides among Asian American females in varying age groups. This article says: "Asian American women between 15 and 24 had the highest number of suicides among all U.S. women in that age group in 2003, with about 3.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in 2005. And Asian American females had the second highest rate of suicide in every other age group."
Yet, the thought of an Asian American woman in the military setting with ZERO support really makes me cringe. Ever since reading Sara Corbett's amazing piece in the NY Times magazine about women in the military I'm even more perplexed about how to process the whole thing. Really disturbing stuff.
As a woman the military does seem like a powerful place to work and move ahead -- especially when you need money for school, etc. My mother served as a Lt. Colonel is the U.S. Air Force -- as a doctor -- and had a very positive experience as a woman of color, but her job was very civilian. Does any one know other Asian American women in the military?
Posted by neela at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)
I've been meaning to post this disturbing story for some time.
NORTH POTOMAC, MD -- Less than two weeks into her army training, 22-year-old May Yuen apparently hung herself in the bathroom of her barracks and died. Her family says that they feel that the circumstances surrounding their daughters apparent suicide are suspicious and want a full investigation.The U.S. Army is investigating the apparent suicide and will be giving the family a report after the investigation is completed, Maryland Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Bruce F. Tuxill, told the World Journal on March 14.
Yuen was born in New York to parents who were immigrants from Hong Kong. The family moved to the Washington D.C. area when Yuen was a young child. Yuen studied nursing at a community college.
Yuens father, Wei-Fong Yuen, said that he had initially opposed his daughters decision to enlist in the Army in 2006. But she insisted because she said it would help her pay for tuition and complete her degree. She also wanted to gain practical experience in her field, he said. On Feb. 15, she was assigned to training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
On Feb. 22, Yuens family said that she called to say that she had experienced difficulty breathing during a training exercise and reported her health concerns to a commanding officer. According to the family, the officer told Yuen that soldiers live in the army and die in the army.
Yuen suffered from asthma as a child but did not experience any asthma symptoms as an adult, according to Yuens aunt. She did not carry any asthma medication with her to Fort Leonard Wood, her aunt says.
On Feb. 27, a representative from the military went to the Yuen family home to notify them of their daughters death. Yuens father said that the representative said that Yuen was found in the bathroom around 9 p.m. on Feb. 26, apparently having hung herself with a belt. She was given emergency care but was pronounced dead shortly after 10 p.m. The family has not yet received any documentation or a report from the Army regarding their daughters case.
This just re-inforces other news stories we have heard over the last few years about the high number of suicides among Asian American females in varying age groups. This article says: "Asian American women between 15 and 24 had the highest number of suicides among all U.S. women in that age group in 2003, with about 3.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported in 2005. And Asian American females had the second highest rate of suicide in every other age group."
Yet, the thought of an Asian American woman in the military setting with ZERO support really makes me cringe. Ever since reading Sara Corbett's amazing piece in the NY Times magazine about women in the military I'm even more perplexed about how to process the whole thing. Really disturbing stuff.
As a woman the military does seem like a powerful place to work and move ahead -- especially when you need money for school, etc. My mother served as a Lt. Colonel is the U.S. Air Force -- as a doctor -- and had a very positive experience as a woman of color, but her job was very civilian. Does any one know other Asian American women in the military?
Posted by neela at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)
Would you take a class from this guy? Kal Penn in Epic Movie.
Actor Kal Penn, Kumar of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, is going to teach two classes at the University of Pennsylvania next year.
Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Modi, will teach Images of Asian Americans in the Media and Contemporary American Teen Films in the Asian American Studies and Cinema Studies departments at Penn.
I just saw (Kal) Penn in The Namesake, where he gave a wonderful serious turn as the main character, Gogol. You could see a little bit of Kumar in the performance and there was one pot-smoking scene, but Penn is definitely showing some dramatic acting chops.
Penn could also be seen recently in the awful, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie and he did a few episodes of 24 this season.
Posted by harry at 12:28 PM | Comments (4)
Would you take a class from this guy? Kal Penn in Epic Movie.
Actor Kal Penn, Kumar of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, is going to teach two classes at the University of Pennsylvania next year.
Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Modi, will teach Images of Asian Americans in the Media and Contemporary American Teen Films in the Asian American Studies and Cinema Studies departments at Penn.
I just saw (Kal) Penn in The Namesake, where he gave a wonderful serious turn as the main character, Gogol. You could see a little bit of Kumar in the performance and there was one pot-smoking scene, but Penn is definitely showing some dramatic acting chops.
Penn could also be seen recently in the awful, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie and he did a few episodes of 24 this season.
Posted by harry at 12:28 PM | Comments (4)
Would you take a class from this guy? Kal Penn in Epic Movie.
Actor Kal Penn, Kumar of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, is going to teach two classes at the University of Pennsylvania next year.
Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Modi, will teach Images of Asian Americans in the Media and Contemporary American Teen Films in the Asian American Studies and Cinema Studies departments at Penn.
I just saw (Kal) Penn in The Namesake, where he gave a wonderful serious turn as the main character, Gogol. You could see a little bit of Kumar in the performance and there was one pot-smoking scene, but Penn is definitely showing some dramatic acting chops.
Penn could also be seen recently in the awful, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie and he did a few episodes of 24 this season.
Posted by harry at 12:28 PM | Comments (4)
I have to give Center for Asian American Media and everybody involved in the 25th SFIAAFF kudos – I think it was an amazing week.
Each film, program and event I attended was thought-provoking, inspiring and downright fun. (Here’s to Han Vodka for the bottomless pineapple-infused vodka martini’s they unraveled my night with at the Closing Party.)
Yet, from the launch party, as I sat too close to a speaker at 111 Minna and excitedly perused the catalog, I have been troubled by something: the lack of (good) South Asian programming.
Of course, as a South Asian American who locates herself as much in Asian America as I do inside my own ethnically-specific community, this feeling of being marginalized is not a new one. I know that it is a challenge to balance the communities in a pan-ethnic concept like Asian America. Chinese and Japanese Americans have a longer history here, a very different history, which allows them to have infiltrated media in a much different way. Take Authur Dong’s feature-length documentary Hollywood Chinese, for instance. It would be impossible to make such a film about South Asian Americans because we have just begun to make an impact in this realm.
But still the festival seemed lacking to me. The South Asian features were limited to the Bollywood remake of Umrao Jaan staring the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai, Paul Mayeda Berges’ The Mistress of Spices (also starring Rai) and A Dream in Doubt, a documentary about the brother of Balbir Singh Sodhi – the first hate-crime murder victim after 9.11.
Okay, I know that a major Bollywood movie is always screened at the Castro in order for the over-the-top, melodramatic, Technicolor experience to be enjoyed in full Art Deco glory but I just don’t know if it is the best use of the festival’s time and space. I think this remake of the 1981 Umrao Jaan starring the unbeatable Rekha, which is about the woes of a lovely courtesan who falls in love with a nobleman -- kindof like Pretty Woman if Richard Gere’s father had told him he would disown him if he took Julia Roberts’ home –- is terrible. It loses all the heartbreak, elegance and substance of the original and leaves only the period costumes and Rai’s two tearful expressions – tearful joy and tearful anguish. Plus, it was a huge Bollywood hit that has already run at Bay Area Bollywood theaters like the Naz 8 and is widely available at video stores. Why not go for a slightly more obscure yet interesting Bollywood-esque movie like Dor? Featuring Amrao Jaan seemed like slightly lazy programming to me.
And Mistress of Spices. Sigh. I have a personal relationship to this film because my aunt is the author of the novel it was based on and I went to the set in Oakland where the filmmakers were shooting all the Bay Area location shots, where I got to meet Rai and Dylan McDermott (random). I loved this novel when it came out. I thought it was a really interesting mix of magical realism and immigrant stories. And I know director Paul Mayeda Berges used to run the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. And it is a South Asian American feature. I actually saw in on Singapore Airlines on my way back from a trip to India in January. Anyway, I’m not going to say too much: but I think this film was unsuccessful. I think it is very difficult to bring magic to the screen in a way that doesn’t make one roll their eyes, and it just didn’t work for me.
I’m sure Tami Yeager’s A Dream in Doubt was a powerful documentary. But I wasn’t that interested in seeing it, perhaps because I had recently seen Sharat Raju and Valarie Kuar’s Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath, which is also about the Singh Sodhi family, and also about the plight of Sikh Americans after 9.11.
So there it is, the largest International Asian American film festival of it’s kind and no South Asian feature that I *really* wanted to watch. I was bummed. I started thinking a lot about the state of South Asian film and the problem of not having a number of dedicated South Asian programmers at a festival like SFIAAFF.
We all know that there is a huge film industry in India. Bollywood churns out over 1000 films a year, but most of them suck ass. They are known to copy Western films, feature terrible acting and be filled with song-and-dance. (Check out a really interesting discussion over at Sepia Mutiny around Bollywood films and the Oscars from back in January.) But a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies suck ass, too. Just like in American film, if you step a little bit outside the mainstream, you’ll find some of the most incredible movies being made today.
Following in the footsteps of auteur Satyajit Ray, movies coming out of West Bengal – or Kolkata – are truly incredible. These are quieter movies about urban life and radical politics. I’ve heard there are similar small but mind-blowing movies coming out of Kerala, another of India’s communist states. Why are these films not being screened at SFIAAF? Bengali filmmaker Buddhadev Dasgupta often has films in the San Francisco International Film Festival, why not in the Asian?
Granted, I know nothing about the process for acquiring films but I think that these films would be more thought-provoking and interesting than mainstream South Asian films and showing them would provide more of a service because you can’t get them at the local Indian video store as easily. I urge the programmers of SFIAAFF to try and get a little deeper into South Asian film in order to bring us a richer program.
As for South Asian American film, I’m not sure what’s going on. After the initial wave of South Asian American filmmakers who made a series of identity-crisis films (American Desi, American Chai, ABCD), I am still waiting for the next strong wave. Last year’s Punching at the Sun was a powerful and moving film that captured a different part of our community and I loved it. I was expecting to come back a year later and go to the next level, but was left empty. The empty feeling was especially painful when the festival was full of other (if not great) interesting Asian American films from directors like Justin Lin to Eric Byler and even lesser-known directors -- like Korean American So Yong Kim, who made In Between Days, which was one of the best teen angst films I have ever seen in my life.
But I know there are South Asian filmmakers out there because where they were making their mark at this festival was in the shorts programs. The Third I Shorts program – which always seems to be one of the first things sold out, which shows the South Asian community’s interest – was great. I was really impressed by Vineet Dewan’s Clear Cut, Simple, which deals with the War in Iraq and was exactly the kind of diversity in story that I have been searching for in South Asian film. And to prove my point about Bengali film, my other favorite short was The Naming Ceremony by Konkona Sen, who is the daughter of Aparna Sen Sharma – one of the most celebrated filmmakers coming out of India today. This film, about a family of pickpockets, was really interesting. I know that Ivan Jaigirdar of Third I does a lot of great programming for SFIAAFF and for the Third I festival, but I think it can’t just be one person who is doing all the work.
But even outside of the Third I shorts, there were filmmakers making interesting work like San Francisco filmmaker M.R. Dhar’s Muzak, which opens with an Indian mom scolding her son for failing out of Georgetown and running up hundreds of dollars for phone sex on her credit card, while he only wants to be a techno DJ. This quirky film is exactly what I’ve been searching for: stories about real South Asian Americans dealing with life, failure, family and more.
Anyway, I am hoping that in the following years both the SFIAAFF’s programmers and South Asian American filmmakers get their acts together. Because I’m one hungry audience member who wants more of my people on the big screen.
Anyway, the Third I Shorts Program is playing again Sunday March 25th in San Jose. Go check it out and tell me what you thought about the South Asian representation in the festival.
Posted by neela at 1:54 PM | Comments (8)
I have to give Center for Asian American Media and everybody involved in the 25th SFIAAFF kudos – I think it was an amazing week.
Each film, program and event I attended was thought-provoking, inspiring and downright fun. (Here’s to Han Vodka for the bottomless pineapple-infused vodka martini’s they unraveled my night with at the Closing Party.)
Yet, from the launch party, as I sat too close to a speaker at 111 Minna and excitedly perused the catalog, I have been troubled by something: the lack of (good) South Asian programming.
Of course, as a South Asian American who locates herself as much in Asian America as I do inside my own ethnically-specific community, this feeling of being marginalized is not a new one. I know that it is a challenge to balance the communities in a pan-ethnic concept like Asian America. Chinese and Japanese Americans have a longer history here, a very different history, which allows them to have infiltrated media in a much different way. Take Authur Dong’s feature-length documentary Hollywood Chinese, for instance. It would be impossible to make such a film about South Asian Americans because we have just begun to make an impact in this realm.
But still the festival seemed lacking to me. The South Asian features were limited to the Bollywood remake of Umrao Jaan staring the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai, Paul Mayeda Berges’ The Mistress of Spices (also starring Rai) and A Dream in Doubt, a documentary about the brother of Balbir Singh Sodhi – the first hate-crime murder victim after 9.11.
Okay, I know that a major Bollywood movie is always screened at the Castro in order for the over-the-top, melodramatic, Technicolor experience to be enjoyed in full Art Deco glory but I just don’t know if it is the best use of the festival’s time and space. I think this remake of the 1981 Umrao Jaan starring the unbeatable Rekha, which is about the woes of a lovely courtesan who falls in love with a nobleman -- kindof like Pretty Woman if Richard Gere’s father had told him he would disown him if he took Julia Roberts’ home –- is terrible. It loses all the heartbreak, elegance and substance of the original and leaves only the period costumes and Rai’s two tearful expressions – tearful joy and tearful anguish. Plus, it was a huge Bollywood hit that has already run at Bay Area Bollywood theaters like the Naz 8 and is widely available at video stores. Why not go for a slightly more obscure yet interesting Bollywood-esque movie like Dor? Featuring Amrao Jaan seemed like slightly lazy programming to me.
And Mistress of Spices. Sigh. I have a personal relationship to this film because my aunt is the author of the novel it was based on and I went to the set in Oakland where the filmmakers were shooting all the Bay Area location shots, where I got to meet Rai and Dylan McDermott (random). I loved this novel when it came out. I thought it was a really interesting mix of magical realism and immigrant stories. And I know director Paul Mayeda Berges used to run the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. And it is a South Asian American feature. I actually saw in on Singapore Airlines on my way back from a trip to India in January. Anyway, I’m not going to say too much: but I think this film was unsuccessful. I think it is very difficult to bring magic to the screen in a way that doesn’t make one roll their eyes, and it just didn’t work for me.
I’m sure Tami Yeager’s A Dream in Doubt was a powerful documentary. But I wasn’t that interested in seeing it, perhaps because I had recently seen Sharat Raju and Valarie Kuar’s Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath, which is also about the Singh Sodhi family, and also about the plight of Sikh Americans after 9.11.
So there it is, the largest International Asian American film festival of it’s kind and no South Asian feature that I *really* wanted to watch. I was bummed. I started thinking a lot about the state of South Asian film and the problem of not having a number of dedicated South Asian programmers at a festival like SFIAAFF.
We all know that there is a huge film industry in India. Bollywood churns out over 1000 films a year, but most of them suck ass. They are known to copy Western films, feature terrible acting and be filled with song-and-dance. (Check out a really interesting discussion over at Sepia Mutiny around Bollywood films and the Oscars from back in January.) But a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies suck ass, too. Just like in American film, if you step a little bit outside the mainstream, you’ll find some of the most incredible movies being made today.
Following in the footsteps of auteur Satyajit Ray, movies coming out of West Bengal – or Kolkata – are truly incredible. These are quieter movies about urban life and radical politics. I’ve heard there are similar small but mind-blowing movies coming out of Kerala, another of India’s communist states. Why are these films not being screened at SFIAAF? Bengali filmmaker Buddhadev Dasgupta often has films in the San Francisco International Film Festival, why not in the Asian?
Granted, I know nothing about the process for acquiring films but I think that these films would be more thought-provoking and interesting than mainstream South Asian films and showing them would provide more of a service because you can’t get them at the local Indian video store as easily. I urge the programmers of SFIAAFF to try and get a little deeper into South Asian film in order to bring us a richer program.
As for South Asian American film, I’m not sure what’s going on. After the initial wave of South Asian American filmmakers who made a series of identity-crisis films (American Desi, American Chai, ABCD), I am still waiting for the next strong wave. Last year’s Punching at the Sun was a powerful and moving film that captured a different part of our community and I loved it. I was expecting to come back a year later and go to the next level, but was left empty. The empty feeling was especially painful when the festival was full of other (if not great) interesting Asian American films from directors like Justin Lin to Eric Byler and even lesser-known directors -- like Korean American So Yong Kim, who made In Between Days, which was one of the best teen angst films I have ever seen in my life.
But I know there are South Asian filmmakers out there because where they were making their mark at this festival was in the shorts programs. The Third I Shorts program – which always seems to be one of the first things sold out, which shows the South Asian community’s interest – was great. I was really impressed by Vineet Dewan’s Clear Cut, Simple, which deals with the War in Iraq and was exactly the kind of diversity in story that I have been searching for in South Asian film. And to prove my point about Bengali film, my other favorite short was The Naming Ceremony by Konkona Sen, who is the daughter of Aparna Sen Sharma – one of the most celebrated filmmakers coming out of India today. This film, about a family of pickpockets, was really interesting. I know that Ivan Jaigirdar of Third I does a lot of great programming for SFIAAFF and for the Third I festival, but I think it can’t just be one person who is doing all the work.
But even outside of the Third I shorts, there were filmmakers making interesting work like San Francisco filmmaker M.R. Dhar’s Muzak, which opens with an Indian mom scolding her son for failing out of Georgetown and running up hundreds of dollars for phone sex on her credit card, while he only wants to be a techno DJ. This quirky film is exactly what I’ve been searching for: stories about real South Asian Americans dealing with life, failure, family and more.
Anyway, I am hoping that in the following years both the SFIAAFF’s programmers and South Asian American filmmakers get their acts together. Because I’m one hungry audience member who wants more of my people on the big screen.
Anyway, the Third I Shorts Program is playing again Sunday March 25th in San Jose. Go check it out and tell me what you thought about the South Asian representation in the festival.
Posted by neela at 1:54 PM | Comments (8)
I have to give Center for Asian American Media and everybody involved in the 25th SFIAAFF kudos I think it was an amazing week.
Each film, program and event I attended was thought-provoking, inspiring and downright fun. (Heres to Han Vodka for the bottomless pineapple-infused vodka martinis they unraveled my night with at the Closing Party.)
Yet, from the launch party, as I sat too close to a speaker at 111 Minna and excitedly perused the catalog, I have been troubled by something: the lack of (good) South Asian programming.
Of course, as a South Asian American who locates herself as much in Asian America as I do inside my own ethnically-specific community, this feeling of being marginalized is not a new one. I know that it is a challenge to balance the communities in a pan-ethnic concept like Asian America. Chinese and Japanese Americans have a longer history here, a very different history, which allows them to have infiltrated media in a much different way. Take Authur Dongs feature-length documentary Hollywood Chinese, for instance. It would be impossible to make such a film about South Asian Americans because we have just begun to make an impact in this realm.
But still the festival seemed lacking to me. The South Asian features were limited to the Bollywood remake of Umrao Jaan staring the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai, Paul Mayeda Berges The Mistress of Spices (also starring Rai) and A Dream in Doubt, a documentary about the brother of Balbir Singh Sodhi the first hate-crime murder victim after 9.11.
Okay, I know that a major Bollywood movie is always screened at the Castro in order for the over-the-top, melodramatic, Technicolor experience to be enjoyed in full Art Deco glory but I just dont know if it is the best use of the festivals time and space. I think this remake of the 1981 Umrao Jaan starring the unbeatable Rekha, which is about the woes of a lovely courtesan who falls in love with a nobleman -- kindof like Pretty Woman if Richard Geres father had told him he would disown him if he took Julia Roberts home - is terrible. It loses all the heartbreak, elegance and substance of the original and leaves only the period costumes and Rais two tearful expressions tearful joy and tearful anguish. Plus, it was a huge Bollywood hit that has already run at Bay Area Bollywood theaters like the Naz 8 and is widely available at video stores. Why not go for a slightly more obscure yet interesting Bollywood-esque movie like Dor? Featuring Amrao Jaan seemed like slightly lazy programming to me.
And Mistress of Spices. Sigh. I have a personal relationship to this film because my aunt is the author of the novel it was based on and I went to the set in Oakland where the filmmakers were shooting all the Bay Area location shots, where I got to meet Rai and Dylan McDermott (random). I loved this novel when it came out. I thought it was a really interesting mix of magical realism and immigrant stories. And I know director Paul Mayeda Berges used to run the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. And it is a South Asian American feature. I actually saw in on Singapore Airlines on my way back from a trip to India in January. Anyway, Im not going to say too much: but I think this film was unsuccessful. I think it is very difficult to bring magic to the screen in a way that doesnt make one roll their eyes, and it just didnt work for me.
Im sure Tami Yeagers A Dream in Doubt was a powerful documentary. But I wasnt that interested in seeing it, perhaps because I had recently seen Sharat Raju and Valarie Kuars Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath, which is also about the Singh Sodhi family, and also about the plight of Sikh Americans after 9.11.
So there it is, the largest International Asian American film festival of its kind and no South Asian feature that I *really* wanted to watch. I was bummed. I started thinking a lot about the state of South Asian film and the problem of not having a number of dedicated South Asian programmers at a festival like SFIAAFF.
We all know that there is a huge film industry in India. Bollywood churns out over 1000 films a year, but most of them suck ass. They are known to copy Western films, feature terrible acting and be filled with song-and-dance. (Check out a really interesting discussion over at Sepia Mutiny around Bollywood films and the Oscars from back in January.) But a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies suck ass, too. Just like in American film, if you step a little bit outside the mainstream, youll find some of the most incredible movies being made today.
Following in the footsteps of auteur Satyajit Ray, movies coming out of West Bengal or Kolkata are truly incredible. These are quieter movies about urban life and radical politics. Ive heard there are similar small but mind-blowing movies coming out of Kerala, another of Indias communist states. Why are these films not being screened at SFIAAF? Bengali filmmaker Buddhadev Dasgupta often has films in the San Francisco International Film Festival, why not in the Asian?
Granted, I know nothing about the process for acquiring films but I think that these films would be more thought-provoking and interesting than mainstream South Asian films and showing them would provide more of a service because you cant get them at the local Indian video store as easily. I urge the programmers of SFIAAFF to try and get a little deeper into South Asian film in order to bring us a richer program.
As for South Asian American film, Im not sure whats going on. After the initial wave of South Asian American filmmakers who made a series of identity-crisis films (American Desi, American Chai, ABCD), I am still waiting for the next strong wave. Last years Punching at the Sun was a powerful and moving film that captured a different part of our community and I loved it. I was expecting to come back a year later and go to the next level, but was left empty. The empty feeling was especially painful when the festival was full of other (if not great) interesting Asian American films from directors like Justin Lin to Eric Byler and even lesser-known directors -- like Korean American So Yong Kim, who made In Between Days, which was one of the best teen angst films I have ever seen in my life.
But I know there are South Asian filmmakers out there because where they were making their mark at this festival was in the shorts programs. The Third I Shorts program which always seems to be one of the first things sold out, which shows the South Asian communitys interest was great. I was really impressed by Vineet Dewans Clear Cut, Simple, which deals with the War in Iraq and was exactly the kind of diversity in story that I have been searching for in South Asian film. And to prove my point about Bengali film, my other favorite short was The Naming Ceremony by Konkona Sen, who is the daughter of Aparna Sen Sharma one of the most celebrated filmmakers coming out of India today. This film, about a family of pickpockets, was really interesting. I know that Ivan Jaigirdar of Third I does a lot of great programming for SFIAAFF and for the Third I festival, but I think it cant just be one person who is doing all the work.
But even outside of the Third I shorts, there were filmmakers making interesting work like San Francisco filmmaker M.R. Dhars Muzak, which opens with an Indian mom scolding her son for failing out of Georgetown and running up hundreds of dollars for phone sex on her credit card, while he only wants to be a techno DJ. This quirky film is exactly what Ive been searching for: stories about real South Asian Americans dealing with life, failure, family and more.
Anyway, I am hoping that in the following years both the SFIAAFFs programmers and South Asian American filmmakers get their acts together. Because Im one hungry audience member who wants more of my people on the big screen.
Anyway, the Third I Shorts Program is playing again Sunday March 25th in San Jose. Go check it out and tell me what you thought about the South Asian representation in the festival.
Posted by neela at 1:54 PM | Comments (8)
So I have been thinking about what to write for this blog entry for a couple of days. As a Hyphen blogger/editor and usual attendee of the film festival, I decided to watch some screeners of films from this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and blog about them.
Footage from Oh, Saigon, dir. Doan Hoang.
Partly to review some films for our blog readers and also for myself, since this year's festival coincides with the birth of my baby. Knowing that I couldn't/wouldn't attend any of the actual events and films, I selfishly hoarded a bunch of media screeners. Yeah!
Among those films are Ghosts, Shanghai Kiss, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani (which I had time to blog about while I was still pregnant) and also Owl and the Sparrow.
(Yeah, I know, pretty ambitious considering now I barely have time to take a pee break between breastfeeding. Whatever you're thinking right now is fine. All I know is this says a couple of things about me and the film festival, or rather just about me: the film fest is important to me for a whole slew of reasons which I can't expound on right now - and that maybe I'm not too grounded in reality, but whatever).
I know blog entries are supposed to be a person's commentary and opinion and such, and I know also that film critics/reviews are generally pretty intelligent or at least well written, but bear with me 'cause I really don't feel like I have anything intelligent to say about the films.
Not to say that the films I screened aren't worth watching; quite the contrary! Well, with the exception of one of the films. Ghosts, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani and Owl are all quite good.
Without going into much detail, I'll leave it up to the film festival's own writers/reviewers and their descriptions. Actually, I find that most of their descriptions of the films are pretty accurate, since that's how I decided what films I wanted to screen anyway.
Shanghai Kiss (playing Friday in San Jose) - well, the acting is pretty good but the script is just a little unbelievable. Praise for making an Asian American feature-length narrative, but it does just fall short of my expectations. I have a feeling both shows are sold out 'cause the supposed premise is a love connection between two Asian/Americans - and it stars Kelly Hu.
Owl and the Sparrow is also a little hard to believe but the story is just so beautiful and the little girl actor so endearing, that it doesn't really matter. The characters: an awkward zookeeper, an awkward flight attendant, and a sharp little orphan girl - can't beat that!
Ghosts (playing today in SF) is not about Asian Americans but rather undocumented Chinese immigrants in England, but the experience is pretty "universal." It's not a documentary but it is based on a true story and is just an amazing film if you care at all about people. It sort of reminds me of Fast Food Nation, another good film that few people saw, that people thought was a documentary - both focus on the plight of undocumented workers.
Oh, Saigon (playing today in SF and Sunday in San Jose) is, like Cats (playing Saturday in San Jose), a lot about discovery through the process of filmmaking. It's pretty cool since the director, Doan Hoang, documents her family. It's hidden family secrets, crazy family dynamics and all that juicy stuff tied into politics and more. Good, real life lesson on conflict resolution, something I think anyone can relate to, but this is specifically about a Vietnamese family living in the midwest and their return to visit Vietnam and the rest of the family that didn't leave.
...
Visit the film festival's website for more information on when the films are playing, where and how to get tickets.
Posted by momo at 11:00 AM | Comments (1)
So I have been thinking about what to write for this blog entry for a couple of days. As a Hyphen blogger/editor and usual attendee of the film festival, I decided to watch some screeners of films from this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and blog about them.
Footage from Oh, Saigon, dir. Doan Hoang.
Partly to review some films for our blog readers and also for myself, since this year's festival coincides with the birth of my baby. Knowing that I couldn't/wouldn't attend any of the actual events and films, I selfishly hoarded a bunch of media screeners. Yeah!
Among those films are Ghosts, Shanghai Kiss, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani (which I had time to blog about while I was still pregnant) and also Owl and the Sparrow.
(Yeah, I know, pretty ambitious considering now I barely have time to take a pee break between breastfeeding. Whatever you're thinking right now is fine. All I know is this says a couple of things about me and the film festival, or rather just about me: the film fest is important to me for a whole slew of reasons which I can't expound on right now - and that maybe I'm not too grounded in reality, but whatever).
I know blog entries are supposed to be a person's commentary and opinion and such, and I know also that film critics/reviews are generally pretty intelligent or at least well written, but bear with me 'cause I really don't feel like I have anything intelligent to say about the films.
Not to say that the films I screened aren't worth watching; quite the contrary! Well, with the exception of one of the films. Ghosts, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani and Owl are all quite good.
Without going into much detail, I'll leave it up to the film festival's own writers/reviewers and their descriptions. Actually, I find that most of their descriptions of the films are pretty accurate, since that's how I decided what films I wanted to screen anyway.
Shanghai Kiss (playing Friday in San Jose) - well, the acting is pretty good but the script is just a little unbelievable. Praise for making an Asian American feature-length narrative, but it does just fall short of my expectations. I have a feeling both shows are sold out 'cause the supposed premise is a love connection between two Asian/Americans - and it stars Kelly Hu.
Owl and the Sparrow is also a little hard to believe but the story is just so beautiful and the little girl actor so endearing, that it doesn't really matter. The characters: an awkward zookeeper, an awkward flight attendant, and a sharp little orphan girl - can't beat that!
Ghosts (playing today in SF) is not about Asian Americans but rather undocumented Chinese immigrants in England, but the experience is pretty "universal." It's not a documentary but it is based on a true story and is just an amazing film if you care at all about people. It sort of reminds me of Fast Food Nation, another good film that few people saw, that people thought was a documentary - both focus on the plight of undocumented workers.
Oh, Saigon (playing today in SF and Sunday in San Jose) is, like Cats (playing Saturday in San Jose), a lot about discovery through the process of filmmaking. It's pretty cool since the director, Doan Hoang, documents her family. It's hidden family secrets, crazy family dynamics and all that juicy stuff tied into politics and more. Good, real life lesson on conflict resolution, something I think anyone can relate to, but this is specifically about a Vietnamese family living in the midwest and their return to visit Vietnam and the rest of the family that didn't leave.
...
Visit the film festival's website for more information on when the films are playing, where and how to get tickets.
Posted by momo at 11:00 AM | Comments (1)
So I have been thinking about what to write for this blog entry for a couple of days. As a Hyphen blogger/editor and usual attendee of the film festival, I decided to watch some screeners of films from this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and blog about them.
Footage from Oh, Saigon, dir. Doan Hoang.
Partly to review some films for our blog readers and also for myself, since this year's festival coincides with the birth of my baby. Knowing that I couldn't/wouldn't attend any of the actual events and films, I selfishly hoarded a bunch of media screeners. Yeah!
Among those films are Ghosts, Shanghai Kiss, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani (which I had time to blog about while I was still pregnant) and also Owl and the Sparrow.
(Yeah, I know, pretty ambitious considering now I barely have time to take a pee break between breastfeeding. Whatever you're thinking right now is fine. All I know is this says a couple of things about me and the film festival, or rather just about me: the film fest is important to me for a whole slew of reasons which I can't expound on right now - and that maybe I'm not too grounded in reality, but whatever).
I know blog entries are supposed to be a person's commentary and opinion and such, and I know also that film critics/reviews are generally pretty intelligent or at least well written, but bear with me 'cause I really don't feel like I have anything intelligent to say about the films.
Not to say that the films I screened aren't worth watching; quite the contrary! Well, with the exception of one of the films. Ghosts, Oh, Saigon, Cats of Mirikitani and Owl are all quite good.
Without going into much detail, I'll leave it up to the film festival's own writers/reviewers and their descriptions. Actually, I find that most of their descriptions of the films are pretty accurate, since that's how I decided what films I wanted to screen anyway.
Shanghai Kiss (playing Friday in San Jose) - well, the acting is pretty good but the script is just a little unbelievable. Praise for making an Asian American feature-length narrative, but it does just fall short of my expectations. I have a feeling both shows are sold out 'cause the supposed premise is a love connection between two Asian/Americans - and it stars Kelly Hu.
Owl and the Sparrow is also a little hard to believe but the story is just so beautiful and the little girl actor so endearing, that it doesn't really matter. The characters: an awkward zookeeper, an awkward flight attendant, and a sharp little orphan girl - can't beat that!
Ghosts (playing today in SF) is not about Asian Americans but rather undocumented Chinese immigrants in England, but the experience is pretty "universal." It's not a documentary but it is based on a true story and is just an amazing film if you care at all about people. It sort of reminds me of Fast Food Nation, another good film that few people saw, that people thought was a documentary - both focus on the plight of undocumented workers.
Oh, Saigon (playing today in SF and Sunday in San Jose) is, like Cats (playing Saturday in San Jose), a lot about discovery through the process of filmmaking. It's pretty cool since the director, Doan Hoang, documents her family. It's hidden family secrets, crazy family dynamics and all that juicy stuff tied into politics and more. Good, real life lesson on conflict resolution, something I think anyone can relate to, but this is specifically about a Vietnamese family living in the midwest and their return to visit Vietnam and the rest of the family that didn't leave.
...
Visit the film festival's website for more information on when the films are playing, where and how to get tickets.
Posted by momo at 11:00 AM | Comments (1)
This year's SFIAAFF features two creepshows set in the Philippines: Ang Pamana and Blackout. A fellow Hyphen staffer who had lived in the Philippines assured me one day via chat that, second to romances, horror films are plenty. "A LOT," he typed out.
"based on filipino superstitions," i had entered, regarding Ang Pamana.
"yeah it's crazy... a lot of people actually believe those superstitions
but coz of witchcraft and black magic sometimes it's hard not to believe
after living 3 months in the philippines
i just don't question it anymore
haha"
I later told a Filipino co-worker that I had seen Ang Pamana, which was directed by Romeo Candido. "Pamana?" he says. "What you get when someone dies?"
"Yeah, 'The Inheritance.' This brother [Johnny] and sister [Anna] living in Canada go to the Philippines when their grandma [Mama Lola] dies," I explain.
"And what, they go to the hacienda?" I guess 'going to the hacienda' is another common thing. Like horror movies.
So what do you get when you combine a return of some second-generation kids to the ancestral hacienda with a well-developed tradition of superstitions? A freaky-ass story, that's what!
A slow start had me antsy, but later on I found myself totally absorbed by the demented world it sets up. After the movie ended I experienced one of those moments when you're scared to look in the bathroom mirror because there might be a supernatural being hanging out behind you.
Directed by Ato Bautista, the Filipino film Blackout is a beast of a different nature. A cautionary tale about an alcoholic father, Gil (Robin Padilla), whose wife has left him and their small son Nino (John Michael Reyes) behind, the film's title emblematizes his persistent lapses in time and memory. Taking place almost exclusively within the confines of an apartment complex, Blackout brilliantly executes a sickly claustrophobia in the meanest of existences.
Nino, who is prescient beyond his years, keeps asking his father to stop drinking. Of course, Gil always promises that he will. One night, Gil revives from one of his blackouts to discover that he's run over his neighbor's little daughter. To cover up her death, he sticks her body in the septic tank of an empty apartment in the complex that he owns. He's unable to leave the matter behind, though, when Nino begins talking to her.
I wish that I hadn't accidentally read a spoiler, so I won't do you that disservice. Instead, I'll tell you that this film is devastating: the horror of Blackout has less to do with monsters so much as pathetic parents and the missteps of which they are capable.
SFIAAFF film detail for Blackout
Ang Pamana website
SFIAAFF film detail for Ang Pamana
+ Ang Pamana plays tonight at 9:45pm, AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
Posted by rebecca at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)
This year's SFIAAFF features two creepshows set in the Philippines: Ang Pamana and Blackout. A fellow Hyphen staffer who had lived in the Philippines assured me one day via chat that, second to romances, horror films are plenty. "A LOT," he typed out.
"based on filipino superstitions," i had entered, regarding Ang Pamana.
"yeah it's crazy... a lot of people actually believe those superstitions
but coz of witchcraft and black magic sometimes it's hard not to believe
after living 3 months in the philippines
i just don't question it anymore
haha"
I later told a Filipino co-worker that I had seen Ang Pamana, which was directed by Romeo Candido. "Pamana?" he says. "What you get when someone dies?"
"Yeah, 'The Inheritance.' This brother [Johnny] and sister [Anna] living in Canada go to the Philippines when their grandma [Mama Lola] dies," I explain.
"And what, they go to the hacienda?" I guess 'going to the hacienda' is another common thing. Like horror movies.
So what do you get when you combine a return of some second-generation kids to the ancestral hacienda with a well-developed tradition of superstitions? A freaky-ass story, that's what!
A slow start had me antsy, but later on I found myself totally absorbed by the demented world it sets up. After the movie ended I experienced one of those moments when you're scared to look in the bathroom mirror because there might be a supernatural being hanging out behind you.
Directed by Ato Bautista, the Filipino film Blackout is a beast of a different nature. A cautionary tale about an alcoholic father, Gil (Robin Padilla), whose wife has left him and their small son Nino (John Michael Reyes) behind, the film's title emblematizes his persistent lapses in time and memory. Taking place almost exclusively within the confines of an apartment complex, Blackout brilliantly executes a sickly claustrophobia in the meanest of existences.
Nino, who is prescient beyond his years, keeps asking his father to stop drinking. Of course, Gil always promises that he will. One night, Gil revives from one of his blackouts to discover that he's run over his neighbor's little daughter. To cover up her death, he sticks her body in the septic tank of an empty apartment in the complex that he owns. He's unable to leave the matter behind, though, when Nino begins talking to her.
I wish that I hadn't accidentally read a spoiler, so I won't do you that disservice. Instead, I'll tell you that this film is devastating: the horror of Blackout has less to do with monsters so much as pathetic parents and the missteps of which they are capable.
SFIAAFF film detail for Blackout
Ang Pamana website
SFIAAFF film detail for Ang Pamana
+ Ang Pamana plays tonight at 9:45pm, AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
Posted by rebecca at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)
This year's SFIAAFF features two creepshows set in the Philippines: Ang Pamana and Blackout. A fellow Hyphen staffer who had lived in the Philippines assured me one day via chat that, second to romances, horror films are plenty. "A LOT," he typed out.
"based on filipino superstitions," i had entered, regarding Ang Pamana.
"yeah it's crazy... a lot of people actually believe those superstitions
but coz of witchcraft and black magic sometimes it's hard not to believe
after living 3 months in the philippines
i just don't question it anymore
haha"
I later told a Filipino co-worker that I had seen Ang Pamana, which was directed by Romeo Candido. "Pamana?" he says. "What you get when someone dies?"
"Yeah, 'The Inheritance.' This brother [Johnny] and sister [Anna] living in Canada go to the Philippines when their grandma [Mama Lola] dies," I explain.
"And what, they go to the hacienda?" I guess 'going to the hacienda' is another common thing. Like horror movies.
So what do you get when you combine a return of some second-generation kids to the ancestral hacienda with a well-developed tradition of superstitions? A freaky-ass story, that's what!
A slow start had me antsy, but later on I found myself totally absorbed by the demented world it sets up. After the movie ended I experienced one of those moments when you're scared to look in the bathroom mirror because there might be a supernatural being hanging out behind you.
Directed by Ato Bautista, the Filipino film Blackout is a beast of a different nature. A cautionary tale about an alcoholic father, Gil (Robin Padilla), whose wife has left him and their small son Nino (John Michael Reyes) behind, the film's title emblematizes his persistent lapses in time and memory. Taking place almost exclusively within the confines of an apartment complex, Blackout brilliantly executes a sickly claustrophobia in the meanest of existences.
Nino, who is prescient beyond his years, keeps asking his father to stop drinking. Of course, Gil always promises that he will. One night, Gil revives from one of his blackouts to discover that he's run over his neighbor's little daughter. To cover up her death, he sticks her body in the septic tank of an empty apartment in the complex that he owns. He's unable to leave the matter behind, though, when Nino begins talking to her.
I wish that I hadn't accidentally read a spoiler, so I won't do you that disservice. Instead, I'll tell you that this film is devastating: the horror of Blackout has less to do with monsters so much as pathetic parents and the missteps of which they are capable.
SFIAAFF film detail for Blackout
Ang Pamana website
SFIAAFF film detail for Ang Pamana
+ Ang Pamana plays tonight at 9:45pm, AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
Posted by rebecca at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)
So, I’m not sure if anyone watched the reality show – or docu-soap – I’m From Rolling Stone on MTV, most people didn’t.
I saw every episode because one of my closest friends was on it and it was a reality show about being a journalist.
I guess MTV figured out quick that people would much rather watch The Real World kids get drunk and screw than seeing the daily inner workings of a major music magazine, because the show got moved to Sunday at 11 p.m. and sometimes wasn’t even on at all. Truth be told, as most of you who work in journalism know, the job usually involves a lot of sitting around in front of your computers and talking on the phone. I think having a reality show about Hyphen would be more interesting because we're starting up and not as corporate. What do you think? Should I pitch it to these guys? It will probably have to involve some sort of competition.
Anyway, the final episode was last night and Krishtine De Leon, a Filipina American from the Bay Area, won the job as a contributing editor.
Krish, as she is known, has been much maligned and sometimes talks back. She definitely became that cast member that you love to hate. But I have to say, knowing that a Filipina American woman who specializes in hip hop reporting is working at Rolling Stone, which my friend said was pretty much all white people, is pretty cool. (I mean, Russell should have won but he was a little too Hunter Thompson for them.)
Not only is Krish a serious journalist, but sometimes when I’m bored at work I listen to some of the songs from her band: The Rhapsodistas. “Married to the Hustle” is almost as catchy as Tila Tequila’s Fuck Ya Man, but not quite.
Posted by neela at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
So, I’m not sure if anyone watched the reality show – or docu-soap – I’m From Rolling Stone on MTV, most people didn’t.
I saw every episode because one of my closest friends was on it and it was a reality show about being a journalist.
I guess MTV figured out quick that people would much rather watch The Real World kids get drunk and screw than seeing the daily inner workings of a major music magazine, because the show got moved to Sunday at 11 p.m. and sometimes wasn’t even on at all. Truth be told, as most of you who work in journalism know, the job usually involves a lot of sitting around in front of your computers and talking on the phone. I think having a reality show about Hyphen would be more interesting because we're starting up and not as corporate. What do you think? Should I pitch it to these guys? It will probably have to involve some sort of competition.
Anyway, the final episode was last night and Krishtine De Leon, a Filipina American from the Bay Area, won the job as a contributing editor.
Krish, as she is known, has been much maligned and sometimes talks back. She definitely became that cast member that you love to hate. But I have to say, knowing that a Filipina American woman who specializes in hip hop reporting is working at Rolling Stone, which my friend said was pretty much all white people, is pretty cool. (I mean, Russell should have won but he was a little too Hunter Thompson for them.)
Not only is Krish a serious journalist, but sometimes when I’m bored at work I listen to some of the songs from her band: The Rhapsodistas. “Married to the Hustle” is almost as catchy as Tila Tequila’s Fuck Ya Man, but not quite.
Posted by neela at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
So, Im not sure if anyone watched the reality show or docu-soap Im From Rolling Stone on MTV, most people didnt.
I saw every episode because one of my closest friends was on it and it was a reality show about being a journalist.
I guess MTV figured out quick that people would much rather watch The Real World kids get drunk and screw than seeing the daily inner workings of a major music magazine, because the show got moved to Sunday at 11 p.m. and sometimes wasnt even on at all. Truth be told, as most of you who work in journalism know, the job usually involves a lot of sitting around in front of your computers and talking on the phone. I think having a reality show about Hyphen would be more interesting because we're starting up and not as corporate. What do you think? Should I pitch it to these guys? It will probably have to involve some sort of competition.
Anyway, the final episode was last night and Krishtine De Leon, a Filipina American from the Bay Area, won the job as a contributing editor.
Krish, as she is known, has been much maligned and sometimes talks back. She definitely became that cast member that you love to hate. But I have to say, knowing that a Filipina American woman who specializes in hip hop reporting is working at Rolling Stone, which my friend said was pretty much all white people, is pretty cool. (I mean, Russell should have won but he was a little too Hunter Thompson for them.)
Not only is Krish a serious journalist, but sometimes when Im bored at work I listen to some of the songs from her band: The Rhapsodistas. Married to the Hustle is almost as catchy as Tila Tequilas Fuck Ya Man, but not quite.
Posted by neela at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
Anoushka Shankar talks to Mr. Hyphen (photos courtesy of Pamela Springsteen and Capitol Records)
Anoushka Shankar, daughter of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, was barely 12 years old when she decided to dedicate her life to sitar. Shankar, now 25, grew up in London, India and San Diego. The eclectic and international collection of cities she calls home reflects vibrantly in her open approach to playing sitar, both classically and in contemporary formats. She says living in the United States, where lineage isn’t the ultimate parameter for success, gave her more permission to define her own path. That permission is an extension of her father’s own pioneering approach to bringing north Indian classical music to new audiences in the west. He was among the first classically trained musicians to be embraced by Western audiences, thanks primarily to his connection with George Harrison of The Beatles. Performing milestone concerts at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival, Ravi Shankar presented classical north Indian music in the landscape of a rapidly changing American pop culture. His extensive knowledge, virtuosity and his ability to eloquently educate Western audiences combined with an openness to experiment were critical to bringing new audiences to classical north Indian music. I had a chance to talk with Anoushka while she was touring through the western United States performing classical sitar and also promoting her new album Rise (available on Angel Records here).
I have always been inspired by the music of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me and Hyphen Magazine. Where did you grow up? What are your earliest musical memories?
I grew up initially in London, and so the music I remember growing up to at the beginning of my life was a mix of different styles of Indian music that I was hearing through my mother, which of course included my father, but she was involved in the arts scene which also included many different artists from the north and south of India that I used to see performing, that I grew up getting to know…there was also a lot of western classical music in our home, and as I grew up to maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I started becoming aware that I was living in London in the eighties…so there was a lot of pop music going on. Those are the major musical things, I would say, that I remember going on: very mainstream pop of the time, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, western classical and Indian classical music!
Tell me about your initial study with your father, what was it like in the beginning?
I didn’t start studying with him until I was about 8 years old. My parents only got married when I was 7. So it was only after that I started getting a lot more time with him. Before I would only see him maybe a day or a few days a year as he traveled through London. That is really when everything changed dramatically for me and I also became more directly exposed to his music, of course.
Anoushka studying with her father, Ravi Shankar
Was it a personal decision for you to study this music?
It was kind of a half decision that we all made, with me being as young as I was…my parents were keen for me to give it a shot, and I was open to it as well, but no one really wanted to say that it was something as serious as a possible career, or anything like that, and my parents were quite wise with that, that they approached it as a very fun thing that I could try, and made it very clear that I could always stop if I didn’t have the natural inclination for it, so I would say that the first couple of years were very easy. The lessons themselves may have had a certain level of seriousness or implication about them, because of the traditional and ancient style…but the approach was very easygoing, so I wasn’t necessarily too scared of what it all meant.
What kind of classical western music did you study when you were younger?
Piano.
I know that you moved to San Diego at a young age. What was that experience like, moving to the USA from England?
It happened when I was eleven. It was pretty dramatic. I grew up partly in India before that as well and I continued to retain a connection there. But, shifting at that age was very dramatic, because it is such a formative age. It had less of a connection to culture and more to do with just being young in a different place. The outgoing nature, for the most part, of young children here affected me greatly…I was pretty shy before I moved here. Moving here [to the USA] and being in junior high school really opened me a lot to finding my own voice. It was an amazing experience.
When did it become clear that you were going to pursue studying the music on a professional level?
By the time I was twelve, since I started performing at age 13, so the transition had definitely been made…but I was guarded about it. I definitely expressed that I loved it, and that I thought I wanted it to be a career, but I felt it was too frightening to commit at that age, and say “yes” this is what I want to be doing…so I was giving it more of my time, my attention and my energy, but I still don’t think I embraced it wholeheartedly for a few years after then.
Did you ever feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the approach to learning classical north Indian music? At such a young age, how did the knowledge of your father’s place in north Indian classical music and his own intensive study of sitar affect your decision to go more deeply into your study of the music?
It was partly the lineage you touched upon earlier, and also being at that level even at an early age. You are very well aware of what that means when you tell people that you are taking on that profession…the battle you have to go through for that, whether it is having to prove yourself constantly or that you deserve the opportunities you have had, or any of those things...but outside of that, even on a more intrinsic level, the commitment this music requires, the level of knowledge one requires. This music, it requires so much, because of its immensity, because of its anciency, if that is a word…there is just so much dedication that it requires, and that in itself is frightening, and I still go through tussles with that, because I love it as passionately as I do, but when you are tied to something so immense, so big, with so many rules, so many regulations, sometimes, it can be overwhelming. Definitely as a twelve year old, you are thinking, do I really want to set myself up to this?
Were there major differences from the way that your father was taught and how you were taught?
Absolutely, and in a lot of ways his was a very different world from what i was experiencing being taught this music. I may have had a level of seriousness and application, that my father wouldn’t have demanded less than, to learn music like this...but it is not the same situation of him having to leave everything and go to a village like Maihar and practice everyday 16 - 18 hours everyday for seven years...that old world hardly exists anymore. It is there in some senses, but as much as possible, he tried to retain the essence of that in a much more present day world.
Tell me about your connection to your father. How has he affected your music? How has he inspired you in your approach to music?
He inspires me immensely on a very moment to moment, constant basis. It can be his old records, and all of that, which have so much inspiration in all for musicians all over the world; It is also just binge with him, getting to play with him…just the way he is able to create. Just so instantly, he has an incredible improvasitory skill, and almost instant compositional layout. Even when he is improvising, it sounds like a complete piece....he has so much imbibed ability to arrange and create a story out of what he is weaving. Just watching him play is the biggest inspiration for me.
Are you finding that new audiences that are flocking to classical Indian music?
In terms of classical music, I’m not sure, but for the most part it is very encouraging to see this many people having an interest in learning and being a part of this music. For the most part, for the people who are really building careers, fortunately or unfortunately, that I know of are predominantly children of people who are famous and established. I assume that as we get a few years older, many other people will end up making more of a name for themselves as well. I look forward to seeing what that has in store as well.
How does it feel to be approached by audience lovers and fans, that want to connect you, from a lineage standpoint, to your father?
I find it rather baffling, even though I get it to a certain degree....I mean I don’t know if it is having a history of royalty in our culture, but people really love lineage. It is not even the basic concept, which people often point out, which is that maybe I get a lot of media attention from the beginning far more than someone who is starting without that light on...which is obvious. But just the people themselves, they almost would want to see the child of someone who they love being the continuation of that, of taking over that mantle, and they almost expect that when someone is good, when someone has talent, they give that to their child...kind of like seeing them reign over, preside over, their children’s talent. That is very ingrained in people I meet, at least when we are involved in the musical world...but not just in my case, but every case.
How have you dealt with this pressure and this process?
To some extent, there is a process that anybody in a similar situation goes through of being watched and having to fight it…but if it is not going to help fighting it, then for the most part you just stop fighting...in my case, I just saw very early on, that there was going to be that side of it, which you just touched on, that expectation...and occasionally, suffocating adoration, that people might have for where I am coming from, and their need to see me be a part of that...but that is immediately contrasted by the equal amount of people who are always going to have something to say, about the fact that I play at all, the fact that I have had any chance any success that I might ever have in life, and connect that to my father.
You cant win with that…you cant really judge your own merit, or live your life by opinions you don’t necessarily have control over…and so I basically, to the best of my ability, ignore it…I decided at a young age that if I was going to take this on, that I had to be very very sure, that this was going to be my journey, this is music that I love, that this is music that I love, and I derive pleasure from it on a very basic level.
What is the scene like now, compared to the days and times of when your father first made inroads with the contemporary artists of his day?
It is a very mixed scene now, like you touched on. If you look back at where my father started off, he was very ahead of his time, the cross over was unprecedented. He received a huge amount of flak and criticism because people were affected by what he was doing. It is almost the norm now, rather than the exception, to see musicians doing cross over work, or collaborations across genres, or having this tagline of being something ‘new’ or any of that type of thing. Especially in the last decade I have seen that just skyrocket, not just in our music, but just in art and the promotion of art in general, so that is really being bred, I would say. So, in my situation there might be…definitely moments from the classical Indian music world where they find it a little harder to accept, because it can be a worry when you see someone leaving that [classical world] because maybe they are not going to retain what they started with. But for the most part, it is a very supportive environment for creation and experimentation.
What do you feel is the importance of bringing tradition forward?
It ends up being very intellectual when you try to describe tradition in those terms, and very high brow when you talk about tradition and bringing it forward…but really when it comes down to it, it is just creating and enjoying beautiful melodies. In my case, that automatically comes with something because I am coming from something, so even when I am just sitting down to play, and it might be with a musician from a different style, that my brain format almost has been so trained by Indian classical music, that I will bring up that stuff…it is not just going to be a melody, it is going to be based on a raga. And so I have that to offer…that is a part of who I am. So now that I have been reaching out and growing as a composer outside of just being an instrumentalist, that side of me has.been very interestingly combining with all the other sides of me…because of the fact that I grew up in the states, I have never been brought up in a very traditional way. I have always been very much on the forefront of the things that are going on with kids of my generation…so, I wouldn’t say it is a conscious, or very intellectual process of trying to combine elemnts, it is just a natural way of being whole, and having my art reflect my personality.
What was it like living in and growing up in the USA and being Asian in America?
Well, I don’t know if this is a controversial thing to say or not, but for me what worked was the fact that I moved to an area without a huge amount of people from the same part of the world as me. Being in London, Indians have such a prominent profile, that you get boxed from the second someone sees you as a being part of something, and in many parts of the states, if I had moved anywhere else, the particular part of San Diego that I moved to, Encinitas, had very, very few Indians. So when people looked at me, and for the most part, kids, they looked at me as something completely fresh…they have to ask me who I was, what I represented. What that ended up doing for me, was that it enabled to grow within a personality, not necessarily being associated with any concepts of what that meant, so the individualism that was able to bloom because of that was priceless for me.
What are the major differences in terms of response to your music from audiences in cities in India versus around the world?
There are differences within the classical Indian music world. I definitely say that very often there are less differences that one expects, because of the level knowledge about our music that you will find in cosmopolitan cities around the world. So, that can be comparable to other major cities in India, but there are certain strongholds, where there is a real focus on culture and our music in India, and when you play those festivals, or at certain prestigious festivals and conferences, there is an audience there that is full of aficionados, or other artists and that is very different that you won’t com across almost anywhere…for almost everybody it is a very frightening experience, in India, because people really come to watch what you have to give. On one side it is very beautiful, because you get the people who really appreciate the nuances, who really have studied, who really know everything; on the other side, I find it funny, because they get so into it, they forget to sit back and have a good time, I feel sometimes…it is funny, you really have to prove yourself every time you go back there [to India]. This is for everybody, not just me, or me being who I am.
You mentioned this idea of having to prove yourself when performing in India. Can you talk a little about that? Can you talk about the expectations that you feel are placed on you by your audiences?
Such a difficult question. It has a lot to do with lineage, when we touch upon the fact that a person like me had opportunities thrown at them which other people have to work a lot harder for, the one thing about a person who has to work a lot harder for it, is that it is theirs forever once they get it. No one is going to take away from someone that they achieved something. At this point in my life, anything that I may end up achieving, can always be possible because of something else…simply because I was talented or worked hard. Whatever thing you get, whatever thing that you do, you are not necessarily validated. Even though you may be talented, you kind of always have to grab that again, you have to show that you deserved it, play well, and show people that you have that, and then on a cultural level being one of the ones from America, that’s another point that can make it difficult, because the classical musicians see you as an outsider to an extent. Not speaking the language fluently, or having an American accent. For me, the way I dress, the way I am, and being female, I get a lot prominence for that in India, being very different from the bulk of the classical Indian music world. So, when it comes to stripping it down and playing the music, you kind of really have to show that the shell for me may be very different, and I have refused to bend to that and then have a certain image because it is appropriate, but the substance is still there regardless.
What has it been like to be a woman in the classical Indian music world?
I would honestly say that that was more due to circumstance than any kind of pressure or rule that has ever existed. Throughout centuries, we have had certain women who are very well respected [in north Indian classical music], and are a big part of the story of our musical history, but if you just look at it culturally, for the most part, who could end up being a touring musician as a female? You are going to be a wife and a mother, and even maybe if a son and a daughter would have learned from a master, the son would really be the one who could get out and be an artist. So, as the world changes in every way, it is changing our music as well.
Do you receive a lot of response from women who are inspired by what you do?
Yes, I do, whether it is through the website…or in the media, and hearing the music in India and here, there are a lot of young Indian women that I end up getting contacted by who want to learn sitar, or who want to be a part of the music. We have always had a history of singers, you know, being female…but I am seeing a lot of instrumentalists come up, and not even just because of me, at all, but I do get a lot, and it is very inspiring, very beautiful.
What do you say to an individual that is seeking to learn this music?
What I tell them is that the teacher is essential. You have to have a good teacher. It is not like certain other styles where you can to an extent pick up, or follow, or teach yourself, because a lot of the beauty depends on your nuances to playing. We can have certain lessons written down for posterity, but this not a written down music. You have to be able to imbibe it from a teacher, a Guru.
What is that relationship like, the relationship between student and teacher, shishya and Guru?
It is intense. You are very dependent upon your teacher. It is a very abstract relationship, as it is, because you are connecting through an artform. At least in my life, it is a very unique relationship that I have to my father, and it is the reason that we are as close as we are. It does demand a lot, a lot of memorization, a lot of time and energy. The payoff though is so instantaneous, when you do love a musical style, but it wasn’t really about that…but for me, really, that relationship that it created between us, was so magical.
How has that relationship developed over the years? Has it been challenging to separate the relationships of student/teacher and daughter/father?
I’m a lot more inclined over the years giving interviews and stuff, to sort of talk about the disassociations between the two relationships. But as I have grown older, I have seen it merge together a lot more…as a teenager, perhaps he had to create certain boundaries when he had less time …It more about behaviour that the boundaries had changed. But as we have progressed, especially as I have worked with him in performing and in all of his ventures, whether it is composition or performances he orchestrates or anything like that, we are all sort of collaborators now. He is still my Guru, but when we are playing together, and we do share lessons when we are on tour, we have a genuine musical relationship just as two people playing music, and that’s really merged everything for us. Because we also have fun together, simply inspire one another, and love what we get to do together…I really would say now, it is more of an entire relationship.
I just saw Water, and thought the music was beautiful. It reminded me of your father’s scoring for Satyajit Rai’s films. What has the process of playing for film been like for you? What was it like working on the soundtrack for the film?
I haven’t actually had much experience with that. I have done music for one short film, called “Ancient Marks” and that was the first time for me, thinking of music in a more visual way. And, when Deepa Mehta and Mychael Danna, the composer of the score for this film, called me to do this music, it was actually very sweet, because for Michael, he was, and funny that you mention Satyajit Rai, he was actually shadowing my father’s score for the Apu trilogy, and kind of being inspired by the way my father used thematic simplicity, having certain repetitive melodies that come back in, and themes for certain people, which was very foreign in Inidan cinema back then, and Michael was really using that as a point of inspiration for the music in Water, and so he really wanted me to be the one playing sitar for this film. Yeah, I was very happy to be a part of it.
What was your role in the scoring process, working with Mychael Danna?
On Water, I was more of a session musician. He had composed the main themes, and I may have improvised a little on them, but it was very much about what he wanted. I do find that very interesting, the differences even between two people if you are working on each other’s albums, if someone is coming into my space how it fits into my vision, and if you are going into their album, you have to be able to see what it is that they want. It is an interesting process.
I really found the music to be simple and beautiful, evoking emotionally the film’s characters. I wanted to thank you again for taking time out for this interview. I actually met you and your father in Tampa in 2005…
Oh yeah? That is sweet. Thank you.
I was a treat to hear you play. I have always been inspired by the work of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me.
Anoushka's newest album rise features original compositions and a wide array of traditional and contemporary interpretations of classical north Indian music.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)
Anoushka Shankar talks to Mr. Hyphen (photos courtesy of Pamela Springsteen and Capitol Records)
Anoushka Shankar, daughter of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, was barely 12 years old when she decided to dedicate her life to sitar. Shankar, now 25, grew up in London, India and San Diego. The eclectic and international collection of cities she calls home reflects vibrantly in her open approach to playing sitar, both classically and in contemporary formats. She says living in the United States, where lineage isn’t the ultimate parameter for success, gave her more permission to define her own path. That permission is an extension of her father’s own pioneering approach to bringing north Indian classical music to new audiences in the west. He was among the first classically trained musicians to be embraced by Western audiences, thanks primarily to his connection with George Harrison of The Beatles. Performing milestone concerts at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival, Ravi Shankar presented classical north Indian music in the landscape of a rapidly changing American pop culture. His extensive knowledge, virtuosity and his ability to eloquently educate Western audiences combined with an openness to experiment were critical to bringing new audiences to classical north Indian music. I had a chance to talk with Anoushka while she was touring through the western United States performing classical sitar and also promoting her new album Rise (available on Angel Records here).
I have always been inspired by the music of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me and Hyphen Magazine. Where did you grow up? What are your earliest musical memories?
I grew up initially in London, and so the music I remember growing up to at the beginning of my life was a mix of different styles of Indian music that I was hearing through my mother, which of course included my father, but she was involved in the arts scene which also included many different artists from the north and south of India that I used to see performing, that I grew up getting to know…there was also a lot of western classical music in our home, and as I grew up to maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I started becoming aware that I was living in London in the eighties…so there was a lot of pop music going on. Those are the major musical things, I would say, that I remember going on: very mainstream pop of the time, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, western classical and Indian classical music!
Tell me about your initial study with your father, what was it like in the beginning?
I didn’t start studying with him until I was about 8 years old. My parents only got married when I was 7. So it was only after that I started getting a lot more time with him. Before I would only see him maybe a day or a few days a year as he traveled through London. That is really when everything changed dramatically for me and I also became more directly exposed to his music, of course.
Anoushka studying with her father, Ravi Shankar
Was it a personal decision for you to study this music?
It was kind of a half decision that we all made, with me being as young as I was…my parents were keen for me to give it a shot, and I was open to it as well, but no one really wanted to say that it was something as serious as a possible career, or anything like that, and my parents were quite wise with that, that they approached it as a very fun thing that I could try, and made it very clear that I could always stop if I didn’t have the natural inclination for it, so I would say that the first couple of years were very easy. The lessons themselves may have had a certain level of seriousness or implication about them, because of the traditional and ancient style…but the approach was very easygoing, so I wasn’t necessarily too scared of what it all meant.
What kind of classical western music did you study when you were younger?
Piano.
I know that you moved to San Diego at a young age. What was that experience like, moving to the USA from England?
It happened when I was eleven. It was pretty dramatic. I grew up partly in India before that as well and I continued to retain a connection there. But, shifting at that age was very dramatic, because it is such a formative age. It had less of a connection to culture and more to do with just being young in a different place. The outgoing nature, for the most part, of young children here affected me greatly…I was pretty shy before I moved here. Moving here [to the USA] and being in junior high school really opened me a lot to finding my own voice. It was an amazing experience.
When did it become clear that you were going to pursue studying the music on a professional level?
By the time I was twelve, since I started performing at age 13, so the transition had definitely been made…but I was guarded about it. I definitely expressed that I loved it, and that I thought I wanted it to be a career, but I felt it was too frightening to commit at that age, and say “yes” this is what I want to be doing…so I was giving it more of my time, my attention and my energy, but I still don’t think I embraced it wholeheartedly for a few years after then.
Did you ever feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the approach to learning classical north Indian music? At such a young age, how did the knowledge of your father’s place in north Indian classical music and his own intensive study of sitar affect your decision to go more deeply into your study of the music?
It was partly the lineage you touched upon earlier, and also being at that level even at an early age. You are very well aware of what that means when you tell people that you are taking on that profession…the battle you have to go through for that, whether it is having to prove yourself constantly or that you deserve the opportunities you have had, or any of those things...but outside of that, even on a more intrinsic level, the commitment this music requires, the level of knowledge one requires. This music, it requires so much, because of its immensity, because of its anciency, if that is a word…there is just so much dedication that it requires, and that in itself is frightening, and I still go through tussles with that, because I love it as passionately as I do, but when you are tied to something so immense, so big, with so many rules, so many regulations, sometimes, it can be overwhelming. Definitely as a twelve year old, you are thinking, do I really want to set myself up to this?
Were there major differences from the way that your father was taught and how you were taught?
Absolutely, and in a lot of ways his was a very different world from what i was experiencing being taught this music. I may have had a level of seriousness and application, that my father wouldn’t have demanded less than, to learn music like this...but it is not the same situation of him having to leave everything and go to a village like Maihar and practice everyday 16 - 18 hours everyday for seven years...that old world hardly exists anymore. It is there in some senses, but as much as possible, he tried to retain the essence of that in a much more present day world.
Tell me about your connection to your father. How has he affected your music? How has he inspired you in your approach to music?
He inspires me immensely on a very moment to moment, constant basis. It can be his old records, and all of that, which have so much inspiration in all for musicians all over the world; It is also just binge with him, getting to play with him…just the way he is able to create. Just so instantly, he has an incredible improvasitory skill, and almost instant compositional layout. Even when he is improvising, it sounds like a complete piece....he has so much imbibed ability to arrange and create a story out of what he is weaving. Just watching him play is the biggest inspiration for me.
Are you finding that new audiences that are flocking to classical Indian music?
In terms of classical music, I’m not sure, but for the most part it is very encouraging to see this many people having an interest in learning and being a part of this music. For the most part, for the people who are really building careers, fortunately or unfortunately, that I know of are predominantly children of people who are famous and established. I assume that as we get a few years older, many other people will end up making more of a name for themselves as well. I look forward to seeing what that has in store as well.
How does it feel to be approached by audience lovers and fans, that want to connect you, from a lineage standpoint, to your father?
I find it rather baffling, even though I get it to a certain degree....I mean I don’t know if it is having a history of royalty in our culture, but people really love lineage. It is not even the basic concept, which people often point out, which is that maybe I get a lot of media attention from the beginning far more than someone who is starting without that light on...which is obvious. But just the people themselves, they almost would want to see the child of someone who they love being the continuation of that, of taking over that mantle, and they almost expect that when someone is good, when someone has talent, they give that to their child...kind of like seeing them reign over, preside over, their children’s talent. That is very ingrained in people I meet, at least when we are involved in the musical world...but not just in my case, but every case.
How have you dealt with this pressure and this process?
To some extent, there is a process that anybody in a similar situation goes through of being watched and having to fight it…but if it is not going to help fighting it, then for the most part you just stop fighting...in my case, I just saw very early on, that there was going to be that side of it, which you just touched on, that expectation...and occasionally, suffocating adoration, that people might have for where I am coming from, and their need to see me be a part of that...but that is immediately contrasted by the equal amount of people who are always going to have something to say, about the fact that I play at all, the fact that I have had any chance any success that I might ever have in life, and connect that to my father.
You cant win with that…you cant really judge your own merit, or live your life by opinions you don’t necessarily have control over…and so I basically, to the best of my ability, ignore it…I decided at a young age that if I was going to take this on, that I had to be very very sure, that this was going to be my journey, this is music that I love, that this is music that I love, and I derive pleasure from it on a very basic level.
What is the scene like now, compared to the days and times of when your father first made inroads with the contemporary artists of his day?
It is a very mixed scene now, like you touched on. If you look back at where my father started off, he was very ahead of his time, the cross over was unprecedented. He received a huge amount of flak and criticism because people were affected by what he was doing. It is almost the norm now, rather than the exception, to see musicians doing cross over work, or collaborations across genres, or having this tagline of being something ‘new’ or any of that type of thing. Especially in the last decade I have seen that just skyrocket, not just in our music, but just in art and the promotion of art in general, so that is really being bred, I would say. So, in my situation there might be…definitely moments from the classical Indian music world where they find it a little harder to accept, because it can be a worry when you see someone leaving that [classical world] because maybe they are not going to retain what they started with. But for the most part, it is a very supportive environment for creation and experimentation.
What do you feel is the importance of bringing tradition forward?
It ends up being very intellectual when you try to describe tradition in those terms, and very high brow when you talk about tradition and bringing it forward…but really when it comes down to it, it is just creating and enjoying beautiful melodies. In my case, that automatically comes with something because I am coming from something, so even when I am just sitting down to play, and it might be with a musician from a different style, that my brain format almost has been so trained by Indian classical music, that I will bring up that stuff…it is not just going to be a melody, it is going to be based on a raga. And so I have that to offer…that is a part of who I am. So now that I have been reaching out and growing as a composer outside of just being an instrumentalist, that side of me has.been very interestingly combining with all the other sides of me…because of the fact that I grew up in the states, I have never been brought up in a very traditional way. I have always been very much on the forefront of the things that are going on with kids of my generation…so, I wouldn’t say it is a conscious, or very intellectual process of trying to combine elemnts, it is just a natural way of being whole, and having my art reflect my personality.
What was it like living in and growing up in the USA and being Asian in America?
Well, I don’t know if this is a controversial thing to say or not, but for me what worked was the fact that I moved to an area without a huge amount of people from the same part of the world as me. Being in London, Indians have such a prominent profile, that you get boxed from the second someone sees you as a being part of something, and in many parts of the states, if I had moved anywhere else, the particular part of San Diego that I moved to, Encinitas, had very, very few Indians. So when people looked at me, and for the most part, kids, they looked at me as something completely fresh…they have to ask me who I was, what I represented. What that ended up doing for me, was that it enabled to grow within a personality, not necessarily being associated with any concepts of what that meant, so the individualism that was able to bloom because of that was priceless for me.
What are the major differences in terms of response to your music from audiences in cities in India versus around the world?
There are differences within the classical Indian music world. I definitely say that very often there are less differences that one expects, because of the level knowledge about our music that you will find in cosmopolitan cities around the world. So, that can be comparable to other major cities in India, but there are certain strongholds, where there is a real focus on culture and our music in India, and when you play those festivals, or at certain prestigious festivals and conferences, there is an audience there that is full of aficionados, or other artists and that is very different that you won’t com across almost anywhere…for almost everybody it is a very frightening experience, in India, because people really come to watch what you have to give. On one side it is very beautiful, because you get the people who really appreciate the nuances, who really have studied, who really know everything; on the other side, I find it funny, because they get so into it, they forget to sit back and have a good time, I feel sometimes…it is funny, you really have to prove yourself every time you go back there [to India]. This is for everybody, not just me, or me being who I am.
You mentioned this idea of having to prove yourself when performing in India. Can you talk a little about that? Can you talk about the expectations that you feel are placed on you by your audiences?
Such a difficult question. It has a lot to do with lineage, when we touch upon the fact that a person like me had opportunities thrown at them which other people have to work a lot harder for, the one thing about a person who has to work a lot harder for it, is that it is theirs forever once they get it. No one is going to take away from someone that they achieved something. At this point in my life, anything that I may end up achieving, can always be possible because of something else…simply because I was talented or worked hard. Whatever thing you get, whatever thing that you do, you are not necessarily validated. Even though you may be talented, you kind of always have to grab that again, you have to show that you deserved it, play well, and show people that you have that, and then on a cultural level being one of the ones from America, that’s another point that can make it difficult, because the classical musicians see you as an outsider to an extent. Not speaking the language fluently, or having an American accent. For me, the way I dress, the way I am, and being female, I get a lot prominence for that in India, being very different from the bulk of the classical Indian music world. So, when it comes to stripping it down and playing the music, you kind of really have to show that the shell for me may be very different, and I have refused to bend to that and then have a certain image because it is appropriate, but the substance is still there regardless.
What has it been like to be a woman in the classical Indian music world?
I would honestly say that that was more due to circumstance than any kind of pressure or rule that has ever existed. Throughout centuries, we have had certain women who are very well respected [in north Indian classical music], and are a big part of the story of our musical history, but if you just look at it culturally, for the most part, who could end up being a touring musician as a female? You are going to be a wife and a mother, and even maybe if a son and a daughter would have learned from a master, the son would really be the one who could get out and be an artist. So, as the world changes in every way, it is changing our music as well.
Do you receive a lot of response from women who are inspired by what you do?
Yes, I do, whether it is through the website…or in the media, and hearing the music in India and here, there are a lot of young Indian women that I end up getting contacted by who want to learn sitar, or who want to be a part of the music. We have always had a history of singers, you know, being female…but I am seeing a lot of instrumentalists come up, and not even just because of me, at all, but I do get a lot, and it is very inspiring, very beautiful.
What do you say to an individual that is seeking to learn this music?
What I tell them is that the teacher is essential. You have to have a good teacher. It is not like certain other styles where you can to an extent pick up, or follow, or teach yourself, because a lot of the beauty depends on your nuances to playing. We can have certain lessons written down for posterity, but this not a written down music. You have to be able to imbibe it from a teacher, a Guru.
What is that relationship like, the relationship between student and teacher, shishya and Guru?
It is intense. You are very dependent upon your teacher. It is a very abstract relationship, as it is, because you are connecting through an artform. At least in my life, it is a very unique relationship that I have to my father, and it is the reason that we are as close as we are. It does demand a lot, a lot of memorization, a lot of time and energy. The payoff though is so instantaneous, when you do love a musical style, but it wasn’t really about that…but for me, really, that relationship that it created between us, was so magical.
How has that relationship developed over the years? Has it been challenging to separate the relationships of student/teacher and daughter/father?
I’m a lot more inclined over the years giving interviews and stuff, to sort of talk about the disassociations between the two relationships. But as I have grown older, I have seen it merge together a lot more…as a teenager, perhaps he had to create certain boundaries when he had less time …It more about behaviour that the boundaries had changed. But as we have progressed, especially as I have worked with him in performing and in all of his ventures, whether it is composition or performances he orchestrates or anything like that, we are all sort of collaborators now. He is still my Guru, but when we are playing together, and we do share lessons when we are on tour, we have a genuine musical relationship just as two people playing music, and that’s really merged everything for us. Because we also have fun together, simply inspire one another, and love what we get to do together…I really would say now, it is more of an entire relationship.
I just saw Water, and thought the music was beautiful. It reminded me of your father’s scoring for Satyajit Rai’s films. What has the process of playing for film been like for you? What was it like working on the soundtrack for the film?
I haven’t actually had much experience with that. I have done music for one short film, called “Ancient Marks” and that was the first time for me, thinking of music in a more visual way. And, when Deepa Mehta and Mychael Danna, the composer of the score for this film, called me to do this music, it was actually very sweet, because for Michael, he was, and funny that you mention Satyajit Rai, he was actually shadowing my father’s score for the Apu trilogy, and kind of being inspired by the way my father used thematic simplicity, having certain repetitive melodies that come back in, and themes for certain people, which was very foreign in Inidan cinema back then, and Michael was really using that as a point of inspiration for the music in Water, and so he really wanted me to be the one playing sitar for this film. Yeah, I was very happy to be a part of it.
What was your role in the scoring process, working with Mychael Danna?
On Water, I was more of a session musician. He had composed the main themes, and I may have improvised a little on them, but it was very much about what he wanted. I do find that very interesting, the differences even between two people if you are working on each other’s albums, if someone is coming into my space how it fits into my vision, and if you are going into their album, you have to be able to see what it is that they want. It is an interesting process.
I really found the music to be simple and beautiful, evoking emotionally the film’s characters. I wanted to thank you again for taking time out for this interview. I actually met you and your father in Tampa in 2005…
Oh yeah? That is sweet. Thank you.
I was a treat to hear you play. I have always been inspired by the work of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me.
Anoushka's newest album rise features original compositions and a wide array of traditional and contemporary interpretations of classical north Indian music.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)
Anoushka Shankar talks to Mr. Hyphen (photos courtesy of Pamela Springsteen and Capitol Records)
Anoushka Shankar, daughter of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, was barely 12 years old when she decided to dedicate her life to sitar. Shankar, now 25, grew up in London, India and San Diego. The eclectic and international collection of cities she calls home reflects vibrantly in her open approach to playing sitar, both classically and in contemporary formats. She says living in the United States, where lineage isnt the ultimate parameter for success, gave her more permission to define her own path. That permission is an extension of her fathers own pioneering approach to bringing north Indian classical music to new audiences in the west. He was among the first classically trained musicians to be embraced by Western audiences, thanks primarily to his connection with George Harrison of The Beatles. Performing milestone concerts at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival, Ravi Shankar presented classical north Indian music in the landscape of a rapidly changing American pop culture. His extensive knowledge, virtuosity and his ability to eloquently educate Western audiences combined with an openness to experiment were critical to bringing new audiences to classical north Indian music. I had a chance to talk with Anoushka while she was touring through the western United States performing classical sitar and also promoting her new album Rise (available on Angel Records here).
I have always been inspired by the music of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me and Hyphen Magazine. Where did you grow up? What are your earliest musical memories?
I grew up initially in London, and so the music I remember growing up to at the beginning of my life was a mix of different styles of Indian music that I was hearing through my mother, which of course included my father, but she was involved in the arts scene which also included many different artists from the north and south of India that I used to see performing, that I grew up getting to knowthere was also a lot of western classical music in our home, and as I grew up to maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I started becoming aware that I was living in London in the eightiesso there was a lot of pop music going on. Those are the major musical things, I would say, that I remember going on: very mainstream pop of the time, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, western classical and Indian classical music!
Tell me about your initial study with your father, what was it like in the beginning?
I didnt start studying with him until I was about 8 years old. My parents only got married when I was 7. So it was only after that I started getting a lot more time with him. Before I would only see him maybe a day or a few days a year as he traveled through London. That is really when everything changed dramatically for me and I also became more directly exposed to his music, of course.
Anoushka studying with her father, Ravi Shankar
Was it a personal decision for you to study this music?
It was kind of a half decision that we all made, with me being as young as I wasmy parents were keen for me to give it a shot, and I was open to it as well, but no one really wanted to say that it was something as serious as a possible career, or anything like that, and my parents were quite wise with that, that they approached it as a very fun thing that I could try, and made it very clear that I could always stop if I didnt have the natural inclination for it, so I would say that the first couple of years were very easy. The lessons themselves may have had a certain level of seriousness or implication about them, because of the traditional and ancient stylebut the approach was very easygoing, so I wasnt necessarily too scared of what it all meant.
What kind of classical western music did you study when you were younger?
Piano.
I know that you moved to San Diego at a young age. What was that experience like, moving to the USA from England?
It happened when I was eleven. It was pretty dramatic. I grew up partly in India before that as well and I continued to retain a connection there. But, shifting at that age was very dramatic, because it is such a formative age. It had less of a connection to culture and more to do with just being young in a different place. The outgoing nature, for the most part, of young children here affected me greatlyI was pretty shy before I moved here. Moving here [to the USA] and being in junior high school really opened me a lot to finding my own voice. It was an amazing experience.
When did it become clear that you were going to pursue studying the music on a professional level?
By the time I was twelve, since I started performing at age 13, so the transition had definitely been madebut I was guarded about it. I definitely expressed that I loved it, and that I thought I wanted it to be a career, but I felt it was too frightening to commit at that age, and say yes this is what I want to be doingso I was giving it more of my time, my attention and my energy, but I still dont think I embraced it wholeheartedly for a few years after then.
Did you ever feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the approach to learning classical north Indian music? At such a young age, how did the knowledge of your fathers place in north Indian classical music and his own intensive study of sitar affect your decision to go more deeply into your study of the music?
It was partly the lineage you touched upon earlier, and also being at that level even at an early age. You are very well aware of what that means when you tell people that you are taking on that professionthe battle you have to go through for that, whether it is having to prove yourself constantly or that you deserve the opportunities you have had, or any of those things...but outside of that, even on a more intrinsic level, the commitment this music requires, the level of knowledge one requires. This music, it requires so much, because of its immensity, because of its anciency, if that is a wordthere is just so much dedication that it requires, and that in itself is frightening, and I still go through tussles with that, because I love it as passionately as I do, but when you are tied to something so immense, so big, with so many rules, so many regulations, sometimes, it can be overwhelming. Definitely as a twelve year old, you are thinking, do I really want to set myself up to this?
Were there major differences from the way that your father was taught and how you were taught?
Absolutely, and in a lot of ways his was a very different world from what i was experiencing being taught this music. I may have had a level of seriousness and application, that my father wouldnt have demanded less than, to learn music like this...but it is not the same situation of him having to leave everything and go to a village like Maihar and practice everyday 16 - 18 hours everyday for seven years...that old world hardly exists anymore. It is there in some senses, but as much as possible, he tried to retain the essence of that in a much more present day world.
Tell me about your connection to your father. How has he affected your music? How has he inspired you in your approach to music?
He inspires me immensely on a very moment to moment, constant basis. It can be his old records, and all of that, which have so much inspiration in all for musicians all over the world; It is also just binge with him, getting to play with himjust the way he is able to create. Just so instantly, he has an incredible improvasitory skill, and almost instant compositional layout. Even when he is improvising, it sounds like a complete piece....he has so much imbibed ability to arrange and create a story out of what he is weaving. Just watching him play is the biggest inspiration for me.
Are you finding that new audiences that are flocking to classical Indian music?
In terms of classical music, Im not sure, but for the most part it is very encouraging to see this many people having an interest in learning and being a part of this music. For the most part, for the people who are really building careers, fortunately or unfortunately, that I know of are predominantly children of people who are famous and established. I assume that as we get a few years older, many other people will end up making more of a name for themselves as well. I look forward to seeing what that has in store as well.
How does it feel to be approached by audience lovers and fans, that want to connect you, from a lineage standpoint, to your father?
I find it rather baffling, even though I get it to a certain degree....I mean I dont know if it is having a history of royalty in our culture, but people really love lineage. It is not even the basic concept, which people often point out, which is that maybe I get a lot of media attention from the beginning far more than someone who is starting without that light on...which is obvious. But just the people themselves, they almost would want to see the child of someone who they love being the continuation of that, of taking over that mantle, and they almost expect that when someone is good, when someone has talent, they give that to their child...kind of like seeing them reign over, preside over, their childrens talent. That is very ingrained in people I meet, at least when we are involved in the musical world...but not just in my case, but every case.
How have you dealt with this pressure and this process?
To some extent, there is a process that anybody in a similar situation goes through of being watched and having to fight itbut if it is not going to help fighting it, then for the most part you just stop fighting...in my case, I just saw very early on, that there was going to be that side of it, which you just touched on, that expectation...and occasionally, suffocating adoration, that people might have for where I am coming from, and their need to see me be a part of that...but that is immediately contrasted by the equal amount of people who are always going to have something to say, about the fact that I play at all, the fact that I have had any chance any success that I might ever have in life, and connect that to my father.
You cant win with thatyou cant really judge your own merit, or live your life by opinions you dont necessarily have control overand so I basically, to the best of my ability, ignore itI decided at a young age that if I was going to take this on, that I had to be very very sure, that this was going to be my journey, this is music that I love, that this is music that I love, and I derive pleasure from it on a very basic level.
What is the scene like now, compared to the days and times of when your father first made inroads with the contemporary artists of his day?
It is a very mixed scene now, like you touched on. If you look back at where my father started off, he was very ahead of his time, the cross over was unprecedented. He received a huge amount of flak and criticism because people were affected by what he was doing. It is almost the norm now, rather than the exception, to see musicians doing cross over work, or collaborations across genres, or having this tagline of being something new or any of that type of thing. Especially in the last decade I have seen that just skyrocket, not just in our music, but just in art and the promotion of art in general, so that is really being bred, I would say. So, in my situation there might bedefinitely moments from the classical Indian music world where they find it a little harder to accept, because it can be a worry when you see someone leaving that [classical world] because maybe they are not going to retain what they started with. But for the most part, it is a very supportive environment for creation and experimentation.
What do you feel is the importance of bringing tradition forward?
It ends up being very intellectual when you try to describe tradition in those terms, and very high brow when you talk about tradition and bringing it forwardbut really when it comes down to it, it is just creating and enjoying beautiful melodies. In my case, that automatically comes with something because I am coming from something, so even when I am just sitting down to play, and it might be with a musician from a different style, that my brain format almost has been so trained by Indian classical music, that I will bring up that stuffit is not just going to be a melody, it is going to be based on a raga. And so I have that to offerthat is a part of who I am. So now that I have been reaching out and growing as a composer outside of just being an instrumentalist, that side of me has.been very interestingly combining with all the other sides of mebecause of the fact that I grew up in the states, I have never been brought up in a very traditional way. I have always been very much on the forefront of the things that are going on with kids of my generationso, I wouldnt say it is a conscious, or very intellectual process of trying to combine elemnts, it is just a natural way of being whole, and having my art reflect my personality.
What was it like living in and growing up in the USA and being Asian in America?
Well, I dont know if this is a controversial thing to say or not, but for me what worked was the fact that I moved to an area without a huge amount of people from the same part of the world as me. Being in London, Indians have such a prominent profile, that you get boxed from the second someone sees you as a being part of something, and in many parts of the states, if I had moved anywhere else, the particular part of San Diego that I moved to, Encinitas, had very, very few Indians. So when people looked at me, and for the most part, kids, they looked at me as something completely freshthey have to ask me who I was, what I represented. What that ended up doing for me, was that it enabled to grow within a personality, not necessarily being associated with any concepts of what that meant, so the individualism that was able to bloom because of that was priceless for me.
What are the major differences in terms of response to your music from audiences in cities in India versus around the world?
There are differences within the classical Indian music world. I definitely say that very often there are less differences that one expects, because of the level knowledge about our music that you will find in cosmopolitan cities around the world. So, that can be comparable to other major cities in India, but there are certain strongholds, where there is a real focus on culture and our music in India, and when you play those festivals, or at certain prestigious festivals and conferences, there is an audience there that is full of aficionados, or other artists and that is very different that you wont com across almost anywherefor almost everybody it is a very frightening experience, in India, because people really come to watch what you have to give. On one side it is very beautiful, because you get the people who really appreciate the nuances, who really have studied, who really know everything; on the other side, I find it funny, because they get so into it, they forget to sit back and have a good time, I feel sometimesit is funny, you really have to prove yourself every time you go back there [to India]. This is for everybody, not just me, or me being who I am.
You mentioned this idea of having to prove yourself when performing in India. Can you talk a little about that? Can you talk about the expectations that you feel are placed on you by your audiences?
Such a difficult question. It has a lot to do with lineage, when we touch upon the fact that a person like me had opportunities thrown at them which other people have to work a lot harder for, the one thing about a person who has to work a lot harder for it, is that it is theirs forever once they get it. No one is going to take away from someone that they achieved something. At this point in my life, anything that I may end up achieving, can always be possible because of something elsesimply because I was talented or worked hard. Whatever thing you get, whatever thing that you do, you are not necessarily validated. Even though you may be talented, you kind of always have to grab that again, you have to show that you deserved it, play well, and show people that you have that, and then on a cultural level being one of the ones from America, thats another point that can make it difficult, because the classical musicians see you as an outsider to an extent. Not speaking the language fluently, or having an American accent. For me, the way I dress, the way I am, and being female, I get a lot prominence for that in India, being very different from the bulk of the classical Indian music world. So, when it comes to stripping it down and playing the music, you kind of really have to show that the shell for me may be very different, and I have refused to bend to that and then have a certain image because it is appropriate, but the substance is still there regardless.
What has it been like to be a woman in the classical Indian music world?
I would honestly say that that was more due to circumstance than any kind of pressure or rule that has ever existed. Throughout centuries, we have had certain women who are very well respected [in north Indian classical music], and are a big part of the story of our musical history, but if you just look at it culturally, for the most part, who could end up being a touring musician as a female? You are going to be a wife and a mother, and even maybe if a son and a daughter would have learned from a master, the son would really be the one who could get out and be an artist. So, as the world changes in every way, it is changing our music as well.
Do you receive a lot of response from women who are inspired by what you do?
Yes, I do, whether it is through the websiteor in the media, and hearing the music in India and here, there are a lot of young Indian women that I end up getting contacted by who want to learn sitar, or who want to be a part of the music. We have always had a history of singers, you know, being femalebut I am seeing a lot of instrumentalists come up, and not even just because of me, at all, but I do get a lot, and it is very inspiring, very beautiful.
What do you say to an individual that is seeking to learn this music?
What I tell them is that the teacher is essential. You have to have a good teacher. It is not like certain other styles where you can to an extent pick up, or follow, or teach yourself, because a lot of the beauty depends on your nuances to playing. We can have certain lessons written down for posterity, but this not a written down music. You have to be able to imbibe it from a teacher, a Guru.
What is that relationship like, the relationship between student and teacher, shishya and Guru?
It is intense. You are very dependent upon your teacher. It is a very abstract relationship, as it is, because you are connecting through an artform. At least in my life, it is a very unique relationship that I have to my father, and it is the reason that we are as close as we are. It does demand a lot, a lot of memorization, a lot of time and energy. The payoff though is so instantaneous, when you do love a musical style, but it wasnt really about thatbut for me, really, that relationship that it created between us, was so magical.
How has that relationship developed over the years? Has it been challenging to separate the relationships of student/teacher and daughter/father?
Im a lot more inclined over the years giving interviews and stuff, to sort of talk about the disassociations between the two relationships. But as I have grown older, I have seen it merge together a lot moreas a teenager, perhaps he had to create certain boundaries when he had less time It more about behaviour that the boundaries had changed. But as we have progressed, especially as I have worked with him in performing and in all of his ventures, whether it is composition or performances he orchestrates or anything like that, we are all sort of collaborators now. He is still my Guru, but when we are playing together, and we do share lessons when we are on tour, we have a genuine musical relationship just as two people playing music, and thats really merged everything for us. Because we also have fun together, simply inspire one another, and love what we get to do togetherI really would say now, it is more of an entire relationship.
I just saw Water, and thought the music was beautiful. It reminded me of your fathers scoring for Satyajit Rais films. What has the process of playing for film been like for you? What was it like working on the soundtrack for the film?
I havent actually had much experience with that. I have done music for one short film, called Ancient Marks and that was the first time for me, thinking of music in a more visual way. And, when Deepa Mehta and Mychael Danna, the composer of the score for this film, called me to do this music, it was actually very sweet, because for Michael, he was, and funny that you mention Satyajit Rai, he was actually shadowing my fathers score for the Apu trilogy, and kind of being inspired by the way my father used thematic simplicity, having certain repetitive melodies that come back in, and themes for certain people, which was very foreign in Inidan cinema back then, and Michael was really using that as a point of inspiration for the music in Water, and so he really wanted me to be the one playing sitar for this film. Yeah, I was very happy to be a part of it.
What was your role in the scoring process, working with Mychael Danna?
On Water, I was more of a session musician. He had composed the main themes, and I may have improvised a little on them, but it was very much about what he wanted. I do find that very interesting, the differences even between two people if you are working on each others albums, if someone is coming into my space how it fits into my vision, and if you are going into their album, you have to be able to see what it is that they want. It is an interesting process.
I really found the music to be simple and beautiful, evoking emotionally the films characters. I wanted to thank you again for taking time out for this interview. I actually met you and your father in Tampa in 2005
Oh yeah? That is sweet. Thank you.
I was a treat to hear you play. I have always been inspired by the work of you and your family, thanks again for speaking with me.
Anoushka's newest album rise features original compositions and a wide array of traditional and contemporary interpretations of classical north Indian music.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 10:34 AM | Comments (1)
I’ve always loved the shorts programs at the SFIAAFF. I think it is where they showcase the most exciting work being done by Asian American filmmakers. These are the films that make me think and inspire my own art.
I recently got a chance to sit down with Kirthi Nath, a member of the shorts screening committee and a wonderful filmmaker in her own right, over Mango smoothies and find out a little bit more about the process. Along with her work at SFIAAFF, Kirthi has also programmed and screened films for festivals like Ladyfest Bay Area, Madcat International Women’s Film Festival, Intersection for the Arts and the San Francisco International Film Festival.
For the SFIAAFF, Kirthi was part of a 10-member screening committee that met weekly (and sometimes even twice a week) from August to December of last year in order to pick the movies that make up the seven shorts programs. She said she was really impressed by the kinds of innovative films that the community is making.
“What I think was really interesting this year was that there was no separate Queer shorts or Experimental shorts program,” Kirthi said. “I think curating is like editing. It’s a real art and once you put a specific film next to another film you can really look at the idea of storytelling, especially when you put narrative films next to experimental films. Sometimes people are afraid of the “e” word and will avoid an experimental program, but in this way you can really make these programs rich experiences. With the Queer films as well, by weaving them into the other programs, this way we’re kind of saying: “Look, this is a larger part of Asian America.”
This year, the shorts programs do have mighty interesting titles and themes and Kirthi shed some light on these and some picks.
“In How to be Good, what all the films have in common is that they are about family and intense relationships,” Kirthi said. “Yet come at these themes in a really poetic and beautiful way.” She highlighted Austin-based filmmaker PJ Raval’s film “Lead Role: Father,” which has an interest meta-narrative take on an estranged father-son relationship. (BTW, PJ, who you might have seen as a media instructor on the The Real World: Austin, is working on a really interesting film called Best Kept Secret about a small-town in Colorado known as the “sex change capitol of the world.”)
Kirthi was also really excited about Monday night’s The World, Complicated, which she will be introducing.
“It may not be the feel-good program of the festival, but it is the: ‘It may just change your life’ program,” she said. “We all know that it’s a complicated world out there, but these films are looking at those moments in life when we are humbled by the world around us.”
She said this program in particular has a great mix of narrative and non-narrative film which look at everything from friendship to racism and culture.
“I really appreciated the film Yasin for it’s home-movie footage style but also because it was looking at important issues like post-9.11 deportations and what happens when that breaks apart the family. Then The Last Chip and Windowbreaker have these strong narrative drives, which contrast beautifully with pieces like Dreamtrace and The Last Vacation, which take on this real aesthtic quality to explore the theme. Then there’s Going Home, which is a documentary that has this great narrative twist and uses it to explore the hardships of family. Going Home might be a documentary, but it really shows innovative storytelling,” Kirthi said.
Anyway, go check out “The World, Uncomplicated” and come back and talk about what you thought here.
Posted by neela at 11:17 PM
I’ve always loved the shorts programs at the SFIAAFF. I think it is where they showcase the most exciting work being done by Asian American filmmakers. These are the films that make me think and inspire my own art.
I recently got a chance to sit down with Kirthi Nath, a member of the shorts screening committee and a wonderful filmmaker in her own right, over Mango smoothies and find out a little bit more about the process. Along with her work at SFIAAFF, Kirthi has also programmed and screened films for festivals like Ladyfest Bay Area, Madcat International Women’s Film Festival, Intersection for the Arts and the San Francisco International Film Festival.
For the SFIAAFF, Kirthi was part of a 10-member screening committee that met weekly (and sometimes even twice a week) from August to December of last year in order to pick the movies that make up the seven shorts programs. She said she was really impressed by the kinds of innovative films that the community is making.
“What I think was really interesting this year was that there was no separate Queer shorts or Experimental shorts program,” Kirthi said. “I think curating is like editing. It’s a real art and once you put a specific film next to another film you can really look at the idea of storytelling, especially when you put narrative films next to experimental films. Sometimes people are afraid of the “e” word and will avoid an experimental program, but in this way you can really make these programs rich experiences. With the Queer films as well, by weaving them into the other programs, this way we’re kind of saying: “Look, this is a larger part of Asian America.”
This year, the shorts programs do have mighty interesting titles and themes and Kirthi shed some light on these and some picks.
“In How to be Good, what all the films have in common is that they are about family and intense relationships,” Kirthi said. “Yet come at these themes in a really poetic and beautiful way.” She highlighted Austin-based filmmaker PJ Raval’s film “Lead Role: Father,” which has an interest meta-narrative take on an estranged father-son relationship. (BTW, PJ, who you might have seen as a media instructor on the The Real World: Austin, is working on a really interesting film called Best Kept Secret about a small-town in Colorado known as the “sex change capitol of the world.”)
Kirthi was also really excited about Monday night’s The World, Complicated, which she will be introducing.
“It may not be the feel-good program of the festival, but it is the: ‘It may just change your life’ program,” she said. “We all know that it’s a complicated world out there, but these films are looking at those moments in life when we are humbled by the world around us.”
She said this program in particular has a great mix of narrative and non-narrative film which look at everything from friendship to racism and culture.
“I really appreciated the film Yasin for it’s home-movie footage style but also because it was looking at important issues like post-9.11 deportations and what happens when that breaks apart the family. Then The Last Chip and Windowbreaker have these strong narrative drives, which contrast beautifully with pieces like Dreamtrace and The Last Vacation, which take on this real aesthtic quality to explore the theme. Then there’s Going Home, which is a documentary that has this great narrative twist and uses it to explore the hardships of family. Going Home might be a documentary, but it really shows innovative storytelling,” Kirthi said.
Anyway, go check out “The World, Uncomplicated” and come back and talk about what you thought here.
Posted by neela at 11:17 PM
Ive always loved the shorts programs at the SFIAAFF. I think it is where they showcase the most exciting work being done by Asian American filmmakers. These are the films that make me think and inspire my own art.
I recently got a chance to sit down with Kirthi Nath, a member of the shorts screening committee and a wonderful filmmaker in her own right, over Mango smoothies and find out a little bit more about the process. Along with her work at SFIAAFF, Kirthi has also programmed and screened films for festivals like Ladyfest Bay Area, Madcat International Womens Film Festival, Intersection for the Arts and the San Francisco International Film Festival.
For the SFIAAFF, Kirthi was part of a 10-member screening committee that met weekly (and sometimes even twice a week) from August to December of last year in order to pick the movies that make up the seven shorts programs. She said she was really impressed by the kinds of innovative films that the community is making.
What I think was really interesting this year was that there was no separate Queer shorts or Experimental shorts program, Kirthi said. I think curating is like editing. Its a real art and once you put a specific film next to another film you can really look at the idea of storytelling, especially when you put narrative films next to experimental films. Sometimes people are afraid of the e word and will avoid an experimental program, but in this way you can really make these programs rich experiences. With the Queer films as well, by weaving them into the other programs, this way were kind of saying: Look, this is a larger part of Asian America.
This year, the shorts programs do have mighty interesting titles and themes and Kirthi shed some light on these and some picks.
In How to be Good, what all the films have in common is that they are about family and intense relationships, Kirthi said. Yet come at these themes in a really poetic and beautiful way. She highlighted Austin-based filmmaker PJ Ravals film Lead Role: Father, which has an interest meta-narrative take on an estranged father-son relationship. (BTW, PJ, who you might have seen as a media instructor on the The Real World: Austin, is working on a really interesting film called Best Kept Secret about a small-town in Colorado known as the sex change capitol of the world.)
Kirthi was also really excited about Monday nights The World, Complicated, which she will be introducing.
It may not be the feel-good program of the festival, but it is the: It may just change your life program, she said. We all know that its a complicated world out there, but these films are looking at those moments in life when we are humbled by the world around us.
She said this program in particular has a great mix of narrative and non-narrative film which look at everything from friendship to racism and culture.
I really appreciated the film Yasin for its home-movie footage style but also because it was looking at important issues like post-9.11 deportations and what happens when that breaks apart the family. Then The Last Chip and Windowbreaker have these strong narrative drives, which contrast beautifully with pieces like Dreamtrace and The Last Vacation, which take on this real aesthtic quality to explore the theme. Then theres Going Home, which is a documentary that has this great narrative twist and uses it to explore the hardships of family. Going Home might be a documentary, but it really shows innovative storytelling, Kirthi said.
Anyway, go check out The World, Uncomplicated and come back and talk about what you thought here.
Posted by neela at 11:17 PM
Released in 1961, Flower Drum Song was a revolutionary movie for its time and would be unheard of if it were attempted today--a big-studio musical with a largely Asian American cast.
The screening of Flower Drum Song at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival last night featured added subtitles for all the songs so the crowd could sing-along. The audience skewed a bit older than the average film festival crowd, and no doubt many were reliving memories of when the movie was released. The songs and performances are amazing as is seeing so many Asian Americans on the screen in a movie made in the early 1960s.
I had never seen Flower Drum Song until last night, and while some of the dialogue and plot points may seem hokey in 2007, the issues it dealt with--generational conflict, assimilation and even illegal immigration--still resonate today.
It's easy to see why James Shigeta, Nancy Kwan and Miyoshi Umeki are so fondly revered for their performances as the lead characters. And it was a hoot seeing Jack Soo, who I'd never seen in anything other than Barney Miller.
Flower Drum Song is based on a novel by C.Y. Lee and was a Broadway play with music by the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein before it was a movie. It would probably take as much star power to get a similar movie green lit by a major studio today, and so far that hasn't happened. (But do watch out for the indie Colma: The Musical.)
At the Q&A after the screening of The Trouble With Romance, actor Roger Fan said the studios are slowly becoming more accepting of Asian Americans non-stereotypical roles, but for now we'll have to rely on indie filmmakers, the SFIAA and other festivals until Hollywood catches up.
Posted by harry at 9:24 AM | Comments (0)
Released in 1961, Flower Drum Song was a revolutionary movie for its time and would be unheard of if it were attempted today--a big-studio musical with a largely Asian American cast.
The screening of Flower Drum Song at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival last night featured added subtitles for all the songs so the crowd could sing-along. The audience skewed a bit older than the average film festival crowd, and no doubt many were reliving memories of when the movie was released. The songs and performances are amazing as is seeing so many Asian Americans on the screen in a movie made in the early 1960s.
I had never seen Flower Drum Song until last night, and while some of the dialogue and plot points may seem hokey in 2007, the issues it dealt with--generational conflict, assimilation and even illegal immigration--still resonate today.
It's easy to see why James Shigeta, Nancy Kwan and Miyoshi Umeki are so fondly revered for their performances as the lead characters. And it was a hoot seeing Jack Soo, who I'd never seen in anything other than Barney Miller.
Flower Drum Song is based on a novel by C.Y. Lee and was a Broadway play with music by the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein before it was a movie. It would probably take as much star power to get a similar movie green lit by a major studio today, and so far that hasn't happened. (But do watch out for the indie Colma: The Musical.)
At the Q&A after the screening of The Trouble With Romance, actor Roger Fan said the studios are slowly becoming more accepting of Asian Americans non-stereotypical roles, but for now we'll have to rely on indie filmmakers, the SFIAA and other festivals until Hollywood catches up.
Posted by harry at 9:24 AM | Comments (0)
Released in 1961, Flower Drum Song was a revolutionary movie for its time and would be unheard of if it were attempted today--a big-studio musical with a largely Asian American cast.
The screening of Flower Drum Song at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival last night featured added subtitles for all the songs so the crowd could sing-along. The audience skewed a bit older than the average film festival crowd, and no doubt many were reliving memories of when the movie was released. The songs and performances are amazing as is seeing so many Asian Americans on the screen in a movie made in the early 1960s.
I had never seen Flower Drum Song until last night, and while some of the dialogue and plot points may seem hokey in 2007, the issues it dealt with--generational conflict, assimilation and even illegal immigration--still resonate today.
It's easy to see why James Shigeta, Nancy Kwan and Miyoshi Umeki are so fondly revered for their performances as the lead characters. And it was a hoot seeing Jack Soo, who I'd never seen in anything other than Barney Miller.
Flower Drum Song is based on a novel by C.Y. Lee and was a Broadway play with music by the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein before it was a movie. It would probably take as much star power to get a similar movie green lit by a major studio today, and so far that hasn't happened. (But do watch out for the indie Colma: The Musical.)
At the Q&A after the screening of The Trouble With Romance, actor Roger Fan said the studios are slowly becoming more accepting of Asian Americans non-stereotypical roles, but for now we'll have to rely on indie filmmakers, the SFIAA and other festivals until Hollywood catches up.
Posted by harry at 9:24 AM | Comments (0)
MC Hammer shows his love for Asian America and Hyphen magazine at the opening gala for the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Hammer played talent agent Roy Thunders in Justin Lin's Finishing the Game which opened the festival. Photo by Bernice Yee
I’ll have to say, there’s nothing like a giant theater full of Asian Americans and a party with free Lychee Martinis to make you feel good about your community.
Opening night of the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival was star-studded, with everyone from Cook Islands Survivor winner Yul Kwon acting as MC for the night and the venerable MC Hammer mingling with the masses.
Justin Lin’s Finishing the Game seemed to be a real crowd-pleaser, getting a good amount of laughs from the audience in all the right places. The movie, about the search for the studio search for a Bruce Lee replacement after he dies during the making of Game of Death in 1973, looked amazing. Lin managed to get the retro look and sound down wonderfully, erring on the side of the ridiculous. It was fun to see the likes of Sung Kang, Roger Fan and even relatively unknown South Asian actor Mousa Kraish flex their comedic skills. (MC Hammer plays a Hollywood agent representing only the best of the “colored” people.) Afterwards, Lin admitted that this film was a theraputic release about some of the bullshit he has had to deal with in Hollywood and that it was an opportunity to make a film starring all his friends. That lent a real feel-good sense to the movie.
Definitely in the vein of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, the movie I kept comparing it to was Mario Van Peebles 2003 film Baadasssss, or How to Get the Man’s Foot Out of Your Ass, about the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song – his father’s revolutionary early Blacksploitation film in 1971. Whereas Peebles’ film – in which he played his father – was more meta-fictional and dramatic than Lin’s, since Sweet Sweetback was actually an independent movie (one of the first) because the studio dropped it for it’s outrageous and revolutionary nature, it was also a period piece, with a multicultural cast that dealt very much with race in Hollywood. I learned a lot in Peebles' film about the film industry and the role of people of color in it. Even though Lin and his entourage talked about how the film was both light and “deep” in the Q&A after the film, most people I talked to had a hard time finding the “deep.”
Otherwise, the great thing about the festival is that you do get to engage with the filmmakers and actors and each other after seeing the film, as opposed as when I watch my Netflix movies in my bedroom in the middle of the night. My favorite parts from the Q&A were when Kraish says that he was most excited about the Finishing the Game – where he plays a doctor turned actor-wannabe – because it was a job and especially one where he didn’t have to play someone with “a bomb strapped to my chest.” Otherwise, I felt like MC Hammer’s presence on stage surrounded by Asian Americans and his comments about the importance of a multicultural cast – he spoke about how we all face racism as minorities and need to come together – was a perfect ending to the Kenneth Eng/AsianWeek debacle. That’s it. Let Hammer have the last word, because really – you can’t touch this.
Posted by neela at 11:54 AM | Comments (5)
MC Hammer shows his love for Asian America and Hyphen magazine at the opening gala for the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Hammer played talent agent Roy Thunders in Justin Lin's Finishing the Game which opened the festival. Photo by Bernice Yee
I’ll have to say, there’s nothing like a giant theater full of Asian Americans and a party with free Lychee Martinis to make you feel good about your community.
Opening night of the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival was star-studded, with everyone from Cook Islands Survivor winner Yul Kwon acting as MC for the night and the venerable MC Hammer mingling with the masses.
Justin Lin’s Finishing the Game seemed to be a real crowd-pleaser, getting a good amount of laughs from the audience in all the right places. The movie, about the search for the studio search for a Bruce Lee replacement after he dies during the making of Game of Death in 1973, looked amazing. Lin managed to get the retro look and sound down wonderfully, erring on the side of the ridiculous. It was fun to see the likes of Sung Kang, Roger Fan and even relatively unknown South Asian actor Mousa Kraish flex their comedic skills. (MC Hammer plays a Hollywood agent representing only the best of the “colored” people.) Afterwards, Lin admitted that this film was a theraputic release about some of the bullshit he has had to deal with in Hollywood and that it was an opportunity to make a film starring all his friends. That lent a real feel-good sense to the movie.
Definitely in the vein of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, the movie I kept comparing it to was Mario Van Peebles 2003 film Baadasssss, or How to Get the Man’s Foot Out of Your Ass, about the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song – his father’s revolutionary early Blacksploitation film in 1971. Whereas Peebles’ film – in which he played his father – was more meta-fictional and dramatic than Lin’s, since Sweet Sweetback was actually an independent movie (one of the first) because the studio dropped it for it’s outrageous and revolutionary nature, it was also a period piece, with a multicultural cast that dealt very much with race in Hollywood. I learned a lot in Peebles' film about the film industry and the role of people of color in it. Even though Lin and his entourage talked about how the film was both light and “deep” in the Q&A after the film, most people I talked to had a hard time finding the “deep.”
Otherwise, the great thing about the festival is that you do get to engage with the filmmakers and actors and each other after seeing the film, as opposed as when I watch my Netflix movies in my bedroom in the middle of the night. My favorite parts from the Q&A were when Kraish says that he was most excited about the Finishing the Game – where he plays a doctor turned actor-wannabe – because it was a job and especially one where he didn’t have to play someone with “a bomb strapped to my chest.” Otherwise, I felt like MC Hammer’s presence on stage surrounded by Asian Americans and his comments about the importance of a multicultural cast – he spoke about how we all face racism as minorities and need to come together – was a perfect ending to the Kenneth Eng/AsianWeek debacle. That’s it. Let Hammer have the last word, because really – you can’t touch this.
Posted by neela at 11:54 AM | Comments (5)
MC Hammer shows his love for Asian America and Hyphen magazine at the opening gala for the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Hammer played talent agent Roy Thunders in Justin Lin's Finishing the Game which opened the festival. Photo by Bernice Yee
Ill have to say, theres nothing like a giant theater full of Asian Americans and a party with free Lychee Martinis to make you feel good about your community.
Opening night of the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival was star-studded, with everyone from Cook Islands Survivor winner Yul Kwon acting as MC for the night and the venerable MC Hammer mingling with the masses.
Justin Lins Finishing the Game seemed to be a real crowd-pleaser, getting a good amount of laughs from the audience in all the right places. The movie, about the search for the studio search for a Bruce Lee replacement after he dies during the making of Game of Death in 1973, looked amazing. Lin managed to get the retro look and sound down wonderfully, erring on the side of the ridiculous. It was fun to see the likes of Sung Kang, Roger Fan and even relatively unknown South Asian actor Mousa Kraish flex their comedic skills. (MC Hammer plays a Hollywood agent representing only the best of the colored people.) Afterwards, Lin admitted that this film was a theraputic release about some of the bullshit he has had to deal with in Hollywood and that it was an opportunity to make a film starring all his friends. That lent a real feel-good sense to the movie.
Definitely in the vein of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, the movie I kept comparing it to was Mario Van Peebles 2003 film Baadasssss, or How to Get the Mans Foot Out of Your Ass, about the making of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song his fathers revolutionary early Blacksploitation film in 1971. Whereas Peebles film in which he played his father was more meta-fictional and dramatic than Lins, since Sweet Sweetback was actually an independent movie (one of the first) because the studio dropped it for its outrageous and revolutionary nature, it was also a period piece, with a multicultural cast that dealt very much with race in Hollywood. I learned a lot in Peebles' film about the film industry and the role of people of color in it. Even though Lin and his entourage talked about how the film was both light and deep in the Q&A after the film, most people I talked to had a hard time finding the deep.
Otherwise, the great thing about the festival is that you do get to engage with the filmmakers and actors and each other after seeing the film, as opposed as when I watch my Netflix movies in my bedroom in the middle of the night. My favorite parts from the Q&A were when Kraish says that he was most excited about the Finishing the Game where he plays a doctor turned actor-wannabe because it was a job and especially one where he didnt have to play someone with a bomb strapped to my chest. Otherwise, I felt like MC Hammers presence on stage surrounded by Asian Americans and his comments about the importance of a multicultural cast he spoke about how we all face racism as minorities and need to come together was a perfect ending to the Kenneth Eng/AsianWeek debacle. Thats it. Let Hammer have the last word, because really you cant touch this.
Posted by neela at 11:54 AM | Comments (5)
I'm super excited to go to Saturday's panel discussion, Down and Dirty Pictures. It'll be at the Opera Plaza and starts at 1pm.
SFIAAFF is calling the featured directing trio Gregg Araki, Roddy Bogawa and Jon Moritsugu the 'original "bad boys" of Asian American cinema.' How can you resist that? I certainly couldn't.
They're to talk about their bodies of work, the role of the 'truly independent' filmmaker, and, of course, its future prospects. (What panel would be complete without a little prophesying?)
For other panel discussions, see the SFIAAFF website
Another Hyphen staffer will be going to the Ellen Kuras Master Class, which is on Sunday at 3pm, also at the Opera Plaza.
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras' laureled career has included work with Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Rebecca Miller and Spike Lee (Summer of Sam and Bamboozled), and on films such as I Shot Andy Warhol and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. She'll talk about her cinematographic and decision-making processes, and colloborating with directors.
Posted by rebecca at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
I'm super excited to go to Saturday's panel discussion, Down and Dirty Pictures. It'll be at the Opera Plaza and starts at 1pm.
SFIAAFF is calling the featured directing trio Gregg Araki, Roddy Bogawa and Jon Moritsugu the 'original "bad boys" of Asian American cinema.' How can you resist that? I certainly couldn't.
They're to talk about their bodies of work, the role of the 'truly independent' filmmaker, and, of course, its future prospects. (What panel would be complete without a little prophesying?)
For other panel discussions, see the SFIAAFF website
Another Hyphen staffer will be going to the Ellen Kuras Master Class, which is on Sunday at 3pm, also at the Opera Plaza.
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras' laureled career has included work with Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Rebecca Miller and Spike Lee (Summer of Sam and Bamboozled), and on films such as I Shot Andy Warhol and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. She'll talk about her cinematographic and decision-making processes, and colloborating with directors.
Posted by rebecca at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
I'm super excited to go to Saturday's panel discussion, Down and Dirty Pictures. It'll be at the Opera Plaza and starts at 1pm.
SFIAAFF is calling the featured directing trio Gregg Araki, Roddy Bogawa and Jon Moritsugu the 'original "bad boys" of Asian American cinema.' How can you resist that? I certainly couldn't.
They're to talk about their bodies of work, the role of the 'truly independent' filmmaker, and, of course, its future prospects. (What panel would be complete without a little prophesying?)
For other panel discussions, see the SFIAAFF website
Another Hyphen staffer will be going to the Ellen Kuras Master Class, which is on Sunday at 3pm, also at the Opera Plaza.
Cinematographer Ellen Kuras' laureled career has included work with Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Rebecca Miller and Spike Lee (Summer of Sam and Bamboozled), and on films such as I Shot Andy Warhol and Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. She'll talk about her cinematographic and decision-making processes, and colloborating with directors.
Posted by rebecca at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
Interesting art review in this week's edition of the Houston Press (a weekly paper where I used to work): One Way Or Another: Asian American Art Now. The critic talks about a visual art show of works by Asian American artists put together by the Asia Society in 1996 and compares it to a current show (same title as the article) in the same gallery. The difference? The show from 11 years ago concentrated on themes of identity and the immigrant experience. Today, the themes don't really have anything to do with identity.
So that begs the question: do we really need to have art shows organized by ethnicity or race anymore? Do we need to have film festivals and music shows and magazines for that matter?
I'm guilty of doing all of the above. I've been curating short films by Asian American filmmakers for 7 years. One year I also put together a visual art show. I didn't look for works dealing with any particular subject, but what emerged in my search were quite a few artists exploring ideas about the body and body image.
And every year when I screen entries to the film festival that I work on, I ask myself what exactly does “Asian American film” mean? Must it present Asian American characters? If the filmmaker is Asian American, is that enough to qualify the film as Asian American as well? Is it a particular kind of story that gives a film this label? Do we even want this label? I mean, no artist wants to be known merely as a great [enter ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever identifier you may have here] artist. It's kind of insulting. You just want to be known as a great artist. Period.
In the end, I go with a loose definition of "Asian American art" and try to put together programs where the works share a theme or play off of one another. Identity and culture are undoubtedly important. But who among us goes around thinking about her identity all day long? So, some of the works may explore identity. But many more of them revolve other things: like love, or loss, or family, or the toll of the human condition, or um, spectacular gun battles. You don't even have to be Asian American to make Asian American art in my book. Last year I showed a film made by a Latino filmmaker in my Asian American film festival.
So I'm glad to see that this new show in Houston deals with themes other than identity. I think it's an example of growth. Dealing with your identity is good of course. You should do it (I recommend it). But at some point it's dealt with and you want to move on to other things. That's partly what Hyphen is about. It's about the things that people do, not the thoughts they have on being. Still, I think we do need these kinds of ethnic and racially-based art shows, at least sometimes. I don't think we're living in a post-identity society. I don't know if we'll ever.
Posted by Melissa at 4:45 PM | Comments (0)
Interesting art review in this week's edition of the Houston Press (a weekly paper where I used to work): One Way Or Another: Asian American Art Now. The critic talks about a visual art show of works by Asian American artists put together by the Asia Society in 1996 and compares it to a current show (same title as the article) in the same gallery. The difference? The show from 11 years ago concentrated on themes of identity and the immigrant experience. Today, the themes don't really have anything to do with identity.
So that begs the question: do we really need to have art shows organized by ethnicity or race anymore? Do we need to have film festivals and music shows and magazines for that matter?
I'm guilty of doing all of the above. I've been curating short films by Asian American filmmakers for 7 years. One year I also put together a visual art show. I didn't look for works dealing with any particular subject, but what emerged in my search were quite a few artists exploring ideas about the body and body image.
And every year when I screen entries to the film festival that I work on, I ask myself what exactly does “Asian American film” mean? Must it present Asian American characters? If the filmmaker is Asian American, is that enough to qualify the film as Asian American as well? Is it a particular kind of story that gives a film this label? Do we even want this label? I mean, no artist wants to be known merely as a great [enter ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever identifier you may have here] artist. It's kind of insulting. You just want to be known as a great artist. Period.
In the end, I go with a loose definition of "Asian American art" and try to put together programs where the works share a theme or play off of one another. Identity and culture are undoubtedly important. But who among us goes around thinking about her identity all day long? So, some of the works may explore identity. But many more of them revolve other things: like love, or loss, or family, or the toll of the human condition, or um, spectacular gun battles. You don't even have to be Asian American to make Asian American art in my book. Last year I showed a film made by a Latino filmmaker in my Asian American film festival.
So I'm glad to see that this new show in Houston deals with themes other than identity. I think it's an example of growth. Dealing with your identity is good of course. You should do it (I recommend it). But at some point it's dealt with and you want to move on to other things. That's partly what Hyphen is about. It's about the things that people do, not the thoughts they have on being. Still, I think we do need these kinds of ethnic and racially-based art shows, at least sometimes. I don't think we're living in a post-identity society. I don't know if we'll ever.
Posted by Melissa at 4:45 PM | Comments (0)
Interesting art review in this week's edition of the Houston Press (a weekly paper where I used to work): One Way Or Another: Asian American Art Now. The critic talks about a visual art show of works by Asian American artists put together by the Asia Society in 1996 and compares it to a current show (same title as the article) in the same gallery. The difference? The show from 11 years ago concentrated on themes of identity and the immigrant experience. Today, the themes don't really have anything to do with identity.
So that begs the question: do we really need to have art shows organized by ethnicity or race anymore? Do we need to have film festivals and music shows and magazines for that matter?
I'm guilty of doing all of the above. I've been curating short films by Asian American filmmakers for 7 years. One year I also put together a visual art show. I didn't look for works dealing with any particular subject, but what emerged in my search were quite a few artists exploring ideas about the body and body image.
And every year when I screen entries to the film festival that I work on, I ask myself what exactly does Asian American film mean? Must it present Asian American characters? If the filmmaker is Asian American, is that enough to qualify the film as Asian American as well? Is it a particular kind of story that gives a film this label? Do we even want this label? I mean, no artist wants to be known merely as a great [enter ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever identifier you may have here] artist. It's kind of insulting. You just want to be known as a great artist. Period.
In the end, I go with a loose definition of "Asian American art" and try to put together programs where the works share a theme or play off of one another. Identity and culture are undoubtedly important. But who among us goes around thinking about her identity all day long? So, some of the works may explore identity. But many more of them revolve other things: like love, or loss, or family, or the toll of the human condition, or um, spectacular gun battles. You don't even have to be Asian American to make Asian American art in my book. Last year I showed a film made by a Latino filmmaker in my Asian American film festival.
So I'm glad to see that this new show in Houston deals with themes other than identity. I think it's an example of growth. Dealing with your identity is good of course. You should do it (I recommend it). But at some point it's dealt with and you want to move on to other things. That's partly what Hyphen is about. It's about the things that people do, not the thoughts they have on being. Still, I think we do need these kinds of ethnic and racially-based art shows, at least sometimes. I don't think we're living in a post-identity society. I don't know if we'll ever.
Posted by Melissa at 4:45 PM | Comments (0)
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats...
Buy a ticket to see this one!
Year of the Fish is a sweet, sweet contemporary fairy tale adaptation set smack dab in New York City's Chinatown.
I'll update this post with a full detailing of my thoughts soon.
+ Friday, March 16th, 9:15p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 7p.m., Opera Plaza, San Francisco
+ Sunday, March 25th, 9:30p.m., Camera 12, San Jose
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats...
Buy a ticket to see this one!
Year of the Fish is a sweet, sweet contemporary fairy tale adaptation set smack dab in New York City's Chinatown.
I'll update this post with a full detailing of my thoughts soon.
+ Friday, March 16th, 9:15p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 7p.m., Opera Plaza, San Francisco
+ Sunday, March 25th, 9:30p.m., Camera 12, San Jose
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)
I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats...
Buy a ticket to see this one!
Year of the Fish is a sweet, sweet contemporary fairy tale adaptation set smack dab in New York City's Chinatown.
I'll update this post with a full detailing of my thoughts soon.
+ Friday, March 16th, 9:15p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 7p.m., Opera Plaza, San Francisco
+ Sunday, March 25th, 9:30p.m., Camera 12, San Jose
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (0)
Indonesia, where the increasingly conservative Islamist government recently passed a broadly interpreted anti-pornography bill banning acts like kissing or baring the legs or shoulders in public, is curiously experiencing a resurgence in polygamy, a practice which had gone underground during President Suharto's long tenure. Some polygamists have taken additional wives in secret, made official by clerics instead of in court, without the knowledge of their first wife. For critics, polygamists are using religion to justify out-and-out sluttery.
Love for Share's director Nia Dinata balances sensitivity and a soap operatic funny bone in wending her way through the issue with the tales of three women, Salma, Siti and Ming as they attempt to maintain their sense of self amongst so many other people. Salma (Jajang C. Noer), a Muslim gynecologist, discovers quite by accident that her politico husband has a second wife and child... and a third... and a fourth. It's all to prevent adultery, he claims. But don't be upset, he says, "otherwise you're the one that's sinning." Siti (Shanty), a villager, moves to Jakarta with her uncle, having been promised help in going to beauty school. Uncle's house, it turns out, is a Rabelaisian farce, with two wives that take turns going "on duty," popping out pups in perpetuity. Siti dutifully assists the two wives through their pregnancies and childbirths, until it becomes her turn. Flirty and insouciant Ming (Dominique A. Diyose) is a Chinese Indonesian waitress whose fawning boss can't bear the thought of other men's attentions on her. Convincing Ming to marry him while the wife's away, it all goes well until her return.
At two hours, the film is a bit on the full side, although the development of the distinct stories is hardly painful. An excellent film score swings from a Javanese gamelan and string quartet blend all the way to retro pop in this versatile film, which manages to level serious cultural critique and still be amusing.
The film will be shown at the following San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival dates:
+ Saturday March 17th 12:15 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday March 21th 6:45 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Saturday March 24th 6 p.m., Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
Film's website
SFIAAFF film detail
Posted by rebecca at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)
Indonesia, where the increasingly conservative Islamist government recently passed a broadly interpreted anti-pornography bill banning acts like kissing or baring the legs or shoulders in public, is curiously experiencing a resurgence in polygamy, a practice which had gone underground during President Suharto's long tenure. Some polygamists have taken additional wives in secret, made official by clerics instead of in court, without the knowledge of their first wife. For critics, polygamists are using religion to justify out-and-out sluttery.
Love for Share's director Nia Dinata balances sensitivity and a soap operatic funny bone in wending her way through the issue with the tales of three women, Salma, Siti and Ming as they attempt to maintain their sense of self amongst so many other people. Salma (Jajang C. Noer), a Muslim gynecologist, discovers quite by accident that her politico husband has a second wife and child... and a third... and a fourth. It's all to prevent adultery, he claims. But don't be upset, he says, "otherwise you're the one that's sinning." Siti (Shanty), a villager, moves to Jakarta with her uncle, having been promised help in going to beauty school. Uncle's house, it turns out, is a Rabelaisian farce, with two wives that take turns going "on duty," popping out pups in perpetuity. Siti dutifully assists the two wives through their pregnancies and childbirths, until it becomes her turn. Flirty and insouciant Ming (Dominique A. Diyose) is a Chinese Indonesian waitress whose fawning boss can't bear the thought of other men's attentions on her. Convincing Ming to marry him while the wife's away, it all goes well until her return.
At two hours, the film is a bit on the full side, although the development of the distinct stories is hardly painful. An excellent film score swings from a Javanese gamelan and string quartet blend all the way to retro pop in this versatile film, which manages to level serious cultural critique and still be amusing.
The film will be shown at the following San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival dates:
+ Saturday March 17th 12:15 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday March 21th 6:45 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Saturday March 24th 6 p.m., Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
Film's website
SFIAAFF film detail
Posted by rebecca at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)
Indonesia, where the increasingly conservative Islamist government recently passed a broadly interpreted anti-pornography bill banning acts like kissing or baring the legs or shoulders in public, is curiously experiencing a resurgence in polygamy, a practice which had gone underground during President Suharto's long tenure. Some polygamists have taken additional wives in secret, made official by clerics instead of in court, without the knowledge of their first wife. For critics, polygamists are using religion to justify out-and-out sluttery.
Love for Share's director Nia Dinata balances sensitivity and a soap operatic funny bone in wending her way through the issue with the tales of three women, Salma, Siti and Ming as they attempt to maintain their sense of self amongst so many other people. Salma (Jajang C. Noer), a Muslim gynecologist, discovers quite by accident that her politico husband has a second wife and child... and a third... and a fourth. It's all to prevent adultery, he claims. But don't be upset, he says, "otherwise you're the one that's sinning." Siti (Shanty), a villager, moves to Jakarta with her uncle, having been promised help in going to beauty school. Uncle's house, it turns out, is a Rabelaisian farce, with two wives that take turns going "on duty," popping out pups in perpetuity. Siti dutifully assists the two wives through their pregnancies and childbirths, until it becomes her turn. Flirty and insouciant Ming (Dominique A. Diyose) is a Chinese Indonesian waitress whose fawning boss can't bear the thought of other men's attentions on her. Convincing Ming to marry him while the wife's away, it all goes well until her return.
At two hours, the film is a bit on the full side, although the development of the distinct stories is hardly painful. An excellent film score swings from a Javanese gamelan and string quartet blend all the way to retro pop in this versatile film, which manages to level serious cultural critique and still be amusing.
The film will be shown at the following San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival dates:
+ Saturday March 17th 12:15 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday March 21th 6:45 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Saturday March 24th 6 p.m., Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
Film's website
SFIAAFF film detail
Posted by rebecca at 4:15 PM | Comments (0)
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging and the politics around this form of journalism a lot lately, for several reasons.
One reason is that I’m trying to launch a youth blogging program at the youth media development program where I work. I am working with several young people to really understand blogging as a tool for developing young writers and for learning how to analyze the world around us. So, I have been reading books, papers and articles about blogging. Along with regularly posting at this blog, I kept my own personal blog for nearly two years, and read several blogs on a daily basis. I read blogs because enjoy the diversity of news I am directed to, the multitude of voices and, yes, the sometimes snarky commentary.
But as I discovered recently, the unaccountability of blogging can be dangerous.
Last week, I wrote a post about an ethnic media forum that was held in response to the AsianWeek “Why I Hate Black People” column. In this post, I identified that one of the organizers was David Lee or the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I met Lee when I was working AsianWeek and he was an important source when it came to issues of Asian American voting trends and city politics. Let me be honest here, I began working at AsianWeek at a time when the Fang family’s name was often in the newspaper, mostly accompanied by stories about political insiderism and corruption. I believed that AsianWeek was an important media outlet for the Asian American community but I didn’t quite trust the publishers, and therefore was wary of people in the community that they seemed to trust. So, I made an assumption about David Lee – mostly that he was close to the Fangs and had an interest in defending them. Yes, insert that annoying saying about “When you assume you make an ….”
After I wrote about the forum and Lee, some of my comments were reposted elsewhere and emailed around the community. Lee contacted me shortly afterwards to tell me that I had it wrong. He wrote:
I never once suggested that … anyone defend AsianWeek or Kenneth Eng. I have said repeatedly that Kenneth Eng was wrong and AsianWeek was wrong to publish his hate-filled column. That is why I called for the ethnic media to take ownership of the problem and to address it publicly. When a member of the ethnic media crosses the line, its imperative that ethnic media as an association hold the violator accountable. I was at the NAM forum and I heard a lot of criticism of AsianWeek. Ethnic media leaders uniformly denounced Kenneth Eng. I don't see how any responsible journalist or member of the community could characterize the forum as a defense of AsianWeek or the Fangs.
Just to clarify, I didn’t see the forum as a defense of AsianWeek, but I was concerned that the forum would focus only on tensions between blacks and Asians and not why AsianWeek decided to publish this magazine. Like I said before, even though Ted Fang did not really tell us why the column was published, other people addressed the issue.
Anyway, after our email exchange, I spoke to Lee to try and understand more clearly the work of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) and actually learned some interesting things. For example, CAVEC was founded back in 1976 and is the oldest organization dedicated to voter registration and education in the Asian American community. Lee, who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown himself, took over in 1992.
“Our main work here is about empowering the Asian American community,” Lee told me. “It’s about getting them to vote.”
In 1996, Lee helped develop a system to do exit polls for Asian American voters. “Policy makers understand polls,” he said. “It was important to get that information out there. Because before that, there would be many instances where people would make up what the Asian community wanted. The polls were a viable way to show how the community was thinking and voting.”
Ever since Lee took over at CAVEC, he has been integral in trying to work with ethnic media in order to have them be an important tool for political education.
“Over 50 percent of ethnic media used to be dedicated to homeland news and we wanted to change that,” Lee said. “Especially since so many of their readers identify with American culture.”
One fascinating thing that Lee told me was how he helped organize another forum about Asian and Black relations back in 1997, when the Chronicle published a front-page illustration that showed “two Asian women holding up the decapitated head of a black man” in order to illustrate the tensions between the two communities. The forum was similar to the one around the AsianWeek column and Lee said it helped the two communities communicate about the issues.
“Since there have been long-standing tensions in the Bayview and Visitacion Valley, even before 97,” Lee said. “Anytime we have a large group moving into a place that has been mainly African American, there are problems.”
Lee said that in 1999 he was involved in organizing yet another forum addressing relations between blacks and Asians around the issue that Asians were feeling discriminated against in public housing.
“There was this sense that Asians were taking over public housing from the black community that had been there for a long time. Asians were complaining about racist attacks against them,” Lee said. “We tried to facilitate media discussions about this issue. We invited all kinds of different people who were residents to write columns. Columns by black residents were translated into Chinese and printed in the Sing Tao and columns by Asians were translated into English and printed in black newspapers.”
All in all, talking to Lee was enlightening. Hearing about how the tensions between blacks and Asians – especially here in San Francisco – is such a complicated issue, often fanned by the media, makes me even more upset at Eng’s simplistic tirade. I also think it is an issue that perhaps we can look at in a more complex way in Hyphen. In what other cities has there been such a problem in the public housing system? What kinds of programs and multicultural alliances have sprung out of these tensions? It seems like a situation rife with really interesting stories.
Otherwise, this whole thing made me think a lot about responsible blogging. My unfounded opinions about David Lee were unnecessary. It would have been a lot more interesting to just talk to him in the first place. As I move forward in expanding this blog and working with young people around media issues, I think I’ve learned a great lesson.
Posted by neela at 1:58 PM | Comments (3)
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging and the politics around this form of journalism a lot lately, for several reasons.
One reason is that I’m trying to launch a youth blogging program at the youth media development program where I work. I am working with several young people to really understand blogging as a tool for developing young writers and for learning how to analyze the world around us. So, I have been reading books, papers and articles about blogging. Along with regularly posting at this blog, I kept my own personal blog for nearly two years, and read several blogs on a daily basis. I read blogs because enjoy the diversity of news I am directed to, the multitude of voices and, yes, the sometimes snarky commentary.
But as I discovered recently, the unaccountability of blogging can be dangerous.
Last week, I wrote a post about an ethnic media forum that was held in response to the AsianWeek “Why I Hate Black People” column. In this post, I identified that one of the organizers was David Lee or the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I met Lee when I was working AsianWeek and he was an important source when it came to issues of Asian American voting trends and city politics. Let me be honest here, I began working at AsianWeek at a time when the Fang family’s name was often in the newspaper, mostly accompanied by stories about political insiderism and corruption. I believed that AsianWeek was an important media outlet for the Asian American community but I didn’t quite trust the publishers, and therefore was wary of people in the community that they seemed to trust. So, I made an assumption about David Lee – mostly that he was close to the Fangs and had an interest in defending them. Yes, insert that annoying saying about “When you assume you make an ….”
After I wrote about the forum and Lee, some of my comments were reposted elsewhere and emailed around the community. Lee contacted me shortly afterwards to tell me that I had it wrong. He wrote:
I never once suggested that … anyone defend AsianWeek or Kenneth Eng. I have said repeatedly that Kenneth Eng was wrong and AsianWeek was wrong to publish his hate-filled column. That is why I called for the ethnic media to take ownership of the problem and to address it publicly. When a member of the ethnic media crosses the line, its imperative that ethnic media as an association hold the violator accountable. I was at the NAM forum and I heard a lot of criticism of AsianWeek. Ethnic media leaders uniformly denounced Kenneth Eng. I don't see how any responsible journalist or member of the community could characterize the forum as a defense of AsianWeek or the Fangs.
Just to clarify, I didn’t see the forum as a defense of AsianWeek, but I was concerned that the forum would focus only on tensions between blacks and Asians and not why AsianWeek decided to publish this magazine. Like I said before, even though Ted Fang did not really tell us why the column was published, other people addressed the issue.
Anyway, after our email exchange, I spoke to Lee to try and understand more clearly the work of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) and actually learned some interesting things. For example, CAVEC was founded back in 1976 and is the oldest organization dedicated to voter registration and education in the Asian American community. Lee, who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown himself, took over in 1992.
“Our main work here is about empowering the Asian American community,” Lee told me. “It’s about getting them to vote.”
In 1996, Lee helped develop a system to do exit polls for Asian American voters. “Policy makers understand polls,” he said. “It was important to get that information out there. Because before that, there would be many instances where people would make up what the Asian community wanted. The polls were a viable way to show how the community was thinking and voting.”
Ever since Lee took over at CAVEC, he has been integral in trying to work with ethnic media in order to have them be an important tool for political education.
“Over 50 percent of ethnic media used to be dedicated to homeland news and we wanted to change that,” Lee said. “Especially since so many of their readers identify with American culture.”
One fascinating thing that Lee told me was how he helped organize another forum about Asian and Black relations back in 1997, when the Chronicle published a front-page illustration that showed “two Asian women holding up the decapitated head of a black man” in order to illustrate the tensions between the two communities. The forum was similar to the one around the AsianWeek column and Lee said it helped the two communities communicate about the issues.
“Since there have been long-standing tensions in the Bayview and Visitacion Valley, even before 97,” Lee said. “Anytime we have a large group moving into a place that has been mainly African American, there are problems.”
Lee said that in 1999 he was involved in organizing yet another forum addressing relations between blacks and Asians around the issue that Asians were feeling discriminated against in public housing.
“There was this sense that Asians were taking over public housing from the black community that had been there for a long time. Asians were complaining about racist attacks against them,” Lee said. “We tried to facilitate media discussions about this issue. We invited all kinds of different people who were residents to write columns. Columns by black residents were translated into Chinese and printed in the Sing Tao and columns by Asians were translated into English and printed in black newspapers.”
All in all, talking to Lee was enlightening. Hearing about how the tensions between blacks and Asians – especially here in San Francisco – is such a complicated issue, often fanned by the media, makes me even more upset at Eng’s simplistic tirade. I also think it is an issue that perhaps we can look at in a more complex way in Hyphen. In what other cities has there been such a problem in the public housing system? What kinds of programs and multicultural alliances have sprung out of these tensions? It seems like a situation rife with really interesting stories.
Otherwise, this whole thing made me think a lot about responsible blogging. My unfounded opinions about David Lee were unnecessary. It would have been a lot more interesting to just talk to him in the first place. As I move forward in expanding this blog and working with young people around media issues, I think I’ve learned a great lesson.
Posted by neela at 1:58 PM | Comments (3)
So, Ive been thinking a lot about blogging and the politics around this form of journalism a lot lately, for several reasons.
One reason is that Im trying to launch a youth blogging program at the youth media development program where I work. I am working with several young people to really understand blogging as a tool for developing young writers and for learning how to analyze the world around us. So, I have been reading books, papers and articles about blogging. Along with regularly posting at this blog, I kept my own personal blog for nearly two years, and read several blogs on a daily basis. I read blogs because enjoy the diversity of news I am directed to, the multitude of voices and, yes, the sometimes snarky commentary.
But as I discovered recently, the unaccountability of blogging can be dangerous.
Last week, I wrote a post about an ethnic media forum that was held in response to the AsianWeek Why I Hate Black People column. In this post, I identified that one of the organizers was David Lee or the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Franciscos Chinatown. I met Lee when I was working AsianWeek and he was an important source when it came to issues of Asian American voting trends and city politics. Let me be honest here, I began working at AsianWeek at a time when the Fang familys name was often in the newspaper, mostly accompanied by stories about political insiderism and corruption. I believed that AsianWeek was an important media outlet for the Asian American community but I didnt quite trust the publishers, and therefore was wary of people in the community that they seemed to trust. So, I made an assumption about David Lee mostly that he was close to the Fangs and had an interest in defending them. Yes, insert that annoying saying about When you assume you make an .
After I wrote about the forum and Lee, some of my comments were reposted elsewhere and emailed around the community. Lee contacted me shortly afterwards to tell me that I had it wrong. He wrote:
I never once suggested that anyone defend AsianWeek or Kenneth Eng. I have said repeatedly that Kenneth Eng was wrong and AsianWeek was wrong to publish his hate-filled column. That is why I called for the ethnic media to take ownership of the problem and to address it publicly. When a member of the ethnic media crosses the line, its imperative that ethnic media as an association hold the violator accountable. I was at the NAM forum and I heard a lot of criticism of AsianWeek. Ethnic media leaders uniformly denounced Kenneth Eng. I don't see how any responsible journalist or member of the community could characterize the forum as a defense of AsianWeek or the Fangs.
Just to clarify, I didnt see the forum as a defense of AsianWeek, but I was concerned that the forum would focus only on tensions between blacks and Asians and not why AsianWeek decided to publish this magazine. Like I said before, even though Ted Fang did not really tell us why the column was published, other people addressed the issue.
Anyway, after our email exchange, I spoke to Lee to try and understand more clearly the work of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) and actually learned some interesting things. For example, CAVEC was founded back in 1976 and is the oldest organization dedicated to voter registration and education in the Asian American community. Lee, who grew up in San Franciscos Chinatown himself, took over in 1992.
Our main work here is about empowering the Asian American community, Lee told me. Its about getting them to vote.
In 1996, Lee helped develop a system to do exit polls for Asian American voters. Policy makers understand polls, he said. It was important to get that information out there. Because before that, there would be many instances where people would make up what the Asian community wanted. The polls were a viable way to show how the community was thinking and voting.
Ever since Lee took over at CAVEC, he has been integral in trying to work with ethnic media in order to have them be an important tool for political education.
Over 50 percent of ethnic media used to be dedicated to homeland news and we wanted to change that, Lee said. Especially since so many of their readers identify with American culture.
One fascinating thing that Lee told me was how he helped organize another forum about Asian and Black relations back in 1997, when the Chronicle published a front-page illustration that showed two Asian women holding up the decapitated head of a black man in order to illustrate the tensions between the two communities. The forum was similar to the one around the AsianWeek column and Lee said it helped the two communities communicate about the issues.
Since there have been long-standing tensions in the Bayview and Visitacion Valley, even before 97, Lee said. Anytime we have a large group moving into a place that has been mainly African American, there are problems.
Lee said that in 1999 he was involved in organizing yet another forum addressing relations between blacks and Asians around the issue that Asians were feeling discriminated against in public housing.
There was this sense that Asians were taking over public housing from the black community that had been there for a long time. Asians were complaining about racist attacks against them, Lee said. We tried to facilitate media discussions about this issue. We invited all kinds of different people who were residents to write columns. Columns by black residents were translated into Chinese and printed in the Sing Tao and columns by Asians were translated into English and printed in black newspapers.
All in all, talking to Lee was enlightening. Hearing about how the tensions between blacks and Asians especially here in San Francisco is such a complicated issue, often fanned by the media, makes me even more upset at Engs simplistic tirade. I also think it is an issue that perhaps we can look at in a more complex way in Hyphen. In what other cities has there been such a problem in the public housing system? What kinds of programs and multicultural alliances have sprung out of these tensions? It seems like a situation rife with really interesting stories.
Otherwise, this whole thing made me think a lot about responsible blogging. My unfounded opinions about David Lee were unnecessary. It would have been a lot more interesting to just talk to him in the first place. As I move forward in expanding this blog and working with young people around media issues, I think Ive learned a great lesson.
Posted by neela at 1:58 PM | Comments (3)
Well, the SF International Asian American Film Fest kicks off its 25th year tomorrow. (To learn more about the festival’s history, read Jeff Yang’s column about the fest here.) Which means I pretty much disappear for the next week, sitting in theaters.
I’m dismayed to find that some of the things I wanted to see are already sold out. So, learn a lesson from me and buy your tickets in advance. Beats waiting in the rush line.
The opening night film is Justin Lin’s Finishing the Game, a rollicking comedy spoof about the egregiously exploitative search for Bruce Lee’s stand-in after his death. Nice to see Justin return to the festival after making some big commercial movies. The opening night gala after the screening will take place at Asian Art Museum as usual.
There are lots of familiar names this year. I think that’s a good sign. It means Asian American filmmakers continue to push through to get their films made. Hopefully some of them will be able to cross over into more general releases after the film festival circuit.
And that’s just in the narrative category. I haven’t even gotten to documentaries and short films yet.
Anyway, a lot to look forward to. What are you planning to see and why?
Posted by Melissa at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
Well, the SF International Asian American Film Fest kicks off its 25th year tomorrow. (To learn more about the festival’s history, read Jeff Yang’s column about the fest here.) Which means I pretty much disappear for the next week, sitting in theaters.
I’m dismayed to find that some of the things I wanted to see are already sold out. So, learn a lesson from me and buy your tickets in advance. Beats waiting in the rush line.
The opening night film is Justin Lin’s Finishing the Game, a rollicking comedy spoof about the egregiously exploitative search for Bruce Lee’s stand-in after his death. Nice to see Justin return to the festival after making some big commercial movies. The opening night gala after the screening will take place at Asian Art Museum as usual.
There are lots of familiar names this year. I think that’s a good sign. It means Asian American filmmakers continue to push through to get their films made. Hopefully some of them will be able to cross over into more general releases after the film festival circuit.
And that’s just in the narrative category. I haven’t even gotten to documentaries and short films yet.
Anyway, a lot to look forward to. What are you planning to see and why?
Posted by Melissa at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
Well, the SF International Asian American Film Fest kicks off its 25th year tomorrow. (To learn more about the festivals history, read Jeff Yangs column about the fest here.) Which means I pretty much disappear for the next week, sitting in theaters.
Im dismayed to find that some of the things I wanted to see are already sold out. So, learn a lesson from me and buy your tickets in advance. Beats waiting in the rush line.
The opening night film is Justin Lins Finishing the Game, a rollicking comedy spoof about the egregiously exploitative search for Bruce Lees stand-in after his death. Nice to see Justin return to the festival after making some big commercial movies. The opening night gala after the screening will take place at Asian Art Museum as usual.
There are lots of familiar names this year. I think thats a good sign. It means Asian American filmmakers continue to push through to get their films made. Hopefully some of them will be able to cross over into more general releases after the film festival circuit.
And thats just in the narrative category. I havent even gotten to documentaries and short films yet.
Anyway, a lot to look forward to. What are you planning to see and why?
Posted by Melissa at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Helen Zia writes a powerful piece about the casualties of war.
"As the anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes."
Click here to read more.
Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and Hyphen advisory board member.
Posted by momo at 9:42 PM | Comments (0)
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Helen Zia writes a powerful piece about the casualties of war.
"As the anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes."
Click here to read more.
Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and Hyphen advisory board member.
Posted by momo at 9:42 PM | Comments (0)
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, Helen Zia writes a powerful piece about the casualties of war.
"As the anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes."
Click here to read more.
Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and Hyphen advisory board member.
Posted by momo at 9:42 PM | Comments (0)
Sprawlingly ambitious, Joy Dietrich's feature film directorial debut Tie a Yellow Ribbon touches upon just about every young Asian American women's identity issue there is, the sum of it being that it pretty much sucks to be one.
Korean adoptee Jenny Mason (Kim Jiang) is a devil-may-care badass with intimacy issues. Kicked out of her white family's house due to a quasi-incestuous relationship with her adoptive brother, she continues on what seems like an eternal quest to reconcile her itinerant soul in the white, white world. Roommate Bea Shimizu's (Jane Kim) psyche is cleaved by the need to be beautiful for men and brilliant for her parents, to a fatal end.
Despite a questionable chronology in Jenny's life, awkwardly played white male roles and at times over-crisp
DV moments, Tie a Yellow Ribbon is entirely worth seeing. Forthright and poetic in her approach, Dietrich tackles difficult issues with aplomb and has a promising career in film ahead of her.
The film will show at the Asian American International Film Festival on the following dates:
+ Sunday, March 18th, 7 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 9:30 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
See the Festival's website and the film's website for more details.
Posted by rebecca at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
Sprawlingly ambitious, Joy Dietrich's feature film directorial debut Tie a Yellow Ribbon touches upon just about every young Asian American women's identity issue there is, the sum of it being that it pretty much sucks to be one.
Korean adoptee Jenny Mason (Kim Jiang) is a devil-may-care badass with intimacy issues. Kicked out of her white family's house due to a quasi-incestuous relationship with her adoptive brother, she continues on what seems like an eternal quest to reconcile her itinerant soul in the white, white world. Roommate Bea Shimizu's (Jane Kim) psyche is cleaved by the need to be beautiful for men and brilliant for her parents, to a fatal end.
Despite a questionable chronology in Jenny's life, awkwardly played white male roles and at times over-crisp
DV moments, Tie a Yellow Ribbon is entirely worth seeing. Forthright and poetic in her approach, Dietrich tackles difficult issues with aplomb and has a promising career in film ahead of her.
The film will show at the Asian American International Film Festival on the following dates:
+ Sunday, March 18th, 7 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 9:30 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
See the Festival's website and the film's website for more details.
Posted by rebecca at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
Sprawlingly ambitious, Joy Dietrich's feature film directorial debut Tie a Yellow Ribbon touches upon just about every young Asian American women's identity issue there is, the sum of it being that it pretty much sucks to be one.
Korean adoptee Jenny Mason (Kim Jiang) is a devil-may-care badass with intimacy issues. Kicked out of her white family's house due to a quasi-incestuous relationship with her adoptive brother, she continues on what seems like an eternal quest to reconcile her itinerant soul in the white, white world. Roommate Bea Shimizu's (Jane Kim) psyche is cleaved by the need to be beautiful for men and brilliant for her parents, to a fatal end.
Despite a questionable chronology in Jenny's life, awkwardly played white male roles and at times over-crisp
DV moments, Tie a Yellow Ribbon is entirely worth seeing. Forthright and poetic in her approach, Dietrich tackles difficult issues with aplomb and has a promising career in film ahead of her.
The film will show at the Asian American International Film Festival on the following dates:
+ Sunday, March 18th, 7 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
+ Wednesday, March 21st, 9:30 p.m., AMC Van Ness, San Francisco
See the Festival's website and the film's website for more details.
Posted by rebecca at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
By William Wong
For nine years (1989-1998), I wrote a regular column for AsianWeek, the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper that bills itself as “The Voice of Asian America” but that now has egg foo yung on its face for its incredibly stupid decision to publish a racist rant (“Why I Hate Blacks”) by a young writer named Kenneth Che-Tew Eng, or as AsianWeek labels his (now former) column, “God of the Universe.”
I appreciated the forum AsianWeek provided me. It gave me an opportunity to explore numerous angles, tangents and pathways of the complex Asian American experience, including uber-sensitive yellow-black relationships.
I tried my best to do this exploration in the context of a changing America that has racial and ethnic ghosts it wishes would stay in an overflowing closet. I never ranted or raved or engaged in racist language or stereotypes (at least that’s what I thought). I felt my “voice” was mostly reasoned, respectful, honest, and thoughtful (again, my opinion).
I even included a number of my AsianWeek columns – revised and rewritten slightly – in my first book, Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, published in 2001 by Temple University Press.
In my resume and one-page biography, I include AsianWeek as a publication I have written for. Now I am not so sure I want to advertise this fact as part of my lengthy writing career.
The recent public flap over the Kenneth Eng column is more than just about a young Chinese American writer spewing hatred in the pages of AsianWeek. It’s also about AsianWeek itself, its ownership, how America’s dizzying array of racial and ethnic groups get along or don’t get along, and how their stories are told or not told, by whom and for whom.
Kenneth Che-Tew Eng
Who is Kenneth Che-Tew Eng? A Web search yields a few clues. He claims to be the youngest science fiction novelist in America. He’s 22 years old, apparently from New York City. He studied computer science at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and then attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. In addition to science fiction writing, he’s into comic books and has strong opinions about religion, race, and America.
Reading some of his articles gives other clues about him. One article, “Discrimination Against Asians at NYU,” which I found in my Internet search, tells of his contentious experience at the Tisch School of the Arts. Here are some selected quotes:
• “As an undergraduate student who is not afraid to express his opinion, I have faced extreme consequences for merely speaking my mind.”
• “…when I was at Stony Brook, I received at least 10 death threats from students who hated my opinions, and was once thrown out of a philosophy class for bringing up racial issues.”
• “…since I always speak my mind, I also made negative remarks about students’ films in class critiques in an attempt to help them improve their work.”
• “I was not going to surrender to the brainwashed majority.”
• “…when the conversation shifted to my controversial views, I told him (an NYU official) that I thought Hitler was not a coward and that African Americans were receiving unfair aid from the American government at the expense of Asian Americans.”
• “…every time I vocalized my sentiments, I was attacked, threatened and/or harassed by students and faculty.”
• “…I believe that she (an African American student) has the right to express her racist opinions just like I have a right to express mine…”
• “I certainly wasn’t going to take this lying down.”
• “Every session, I flooded the conversation with derogatory remarks about every ethnic group conceivable, spewed loads of anti-American remarks and blared out against the weak-mindedness of religious followers.”
• “To this day, I stand by all of my opinions no matter what the consequences.”
In AsianWeek columns previous to his explosive “Why I Hate Blacks” one, Eng further reveals himself as unafraid to confront and fight white teenagers in Queens, New York, who called him a gook. He uses racial and ethnic identities without apology even if those identities aren’t specifically relevant.
In a January 7, 2007, AsianWeek column, “Why I Hate Asians,” Eng, an “Asian Supremacist” (his own description), told “why I hate many of my own kind.” One reason is Asians sucking up to whites. Another is “how little pride” Asians have. A third is how “apathetic” Asians are “in terms of honor.”
Then there is the now infamous “Why I Hate Blacks” column that has created a storm on the Internet, a bit of one in the San Francisco news media, both mainstream and ethnic, and even among high-profile San Francisco politicians like Mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
I won’t quote from that column, but suffice it to say, it’s filled with blatantly racist drivel and the worst kind of generalizations and stereotypes of African Americans.
So what can one say about Kenneth Eng, based solely on some of his own writings (not his science-fiction novels, but come to think of it, aren't his other writings a kind of science fiction too)?
Is he trying to be satirical or ironic? I don’t detect any subtlety or writing skill of that sort.
I don’t mean to psychoanalyze him – I’m no trained head-shrink – but one wonders what kind of an upbringing he’s had, what kind of a childhood and adolescence he’s experienced?
We know New York City to be an enormous human cauldron with people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions packed together in five boroughs that each have histories of segregation, bigotry, and violence. But New York City is also a place to experience humankind, even with all of our warts and foibles, in humane and wondrous ways.
Kenneth Eng apparently hasn’t had the latter kind of experience. Someone who so freely expresses his “hate” can’t be someone who’s had much joy, fun, and caring and loving relationships.
One also wonders whether he simply wants to stand out from the crowd with outrageous opinions about race and religion. He’s certainly accomplished that.
Being outrageous and screaming at the top of one’s lungs are tactics that any number of people use to stand out in our media-saturated culture. But beyond the attention that brings, what else is compelling or uplifting about being a media shouter?
If he has ambitions to be taken seriously as a writer, I think he’s miscalculated. Maybe he doesn’t care since today’s technology – especially the so-called blogosphere -- allows anyone to say anything they want.
AsianWeek
AsianWeek has published in English in San Francisco since 1979. John Fang, an immigrant interested in journalism, started it. At the time, AsianWeek had competition from East-West News, supported by some prominent San Francisco Chinese. East-West had a more liberal/progressive reputation. AsianWeek’s identity was generally more moderate/centrist, or in some circles, opportunistic.
I first wrote for East-West, beginning in 1987. As a journalistic writer finding my own voice, I seized the chance to say what I felt about my own ethnic community in the context of a changing America, taking into account America’s racist history.
East-West went defunct in 1989, and the AsianWeek editor at that time invited me to write for AsianWeek. I agreed.
I may have met John Fang once. He was nice enough to write a brief personal letter, thanking me for writing for his newspaper and praising me for what I wrote. He passed away in 1992, and his widow, Florence, and two of his sons, James and Ted, took over different pieces of the Fang family empire in printing, publishing, real estate, restaurant, and, most notably, power politics.
Along the way, I met both James and Ted, but never felt close or connected to them. I don’t ever recall either one of them having anything to do directly with my column. They left that to whoever was actually editing AsianWeek during my nine years. (What I don’t know, of course, is whether either or both Fang brothers voiced their views about my column to their editors, out of my earshot.)
I can recall at least six different editors, perhaps more, that I answered to in the nine years I wrote for AsianWeek. The majority were white men, with one white woman. They were, for the most part, cordial, friendly, and professional.
I stopped writing for AsianWeek in 1998 because its editor at the time, an Asian American woman, was maddening to deal with.
When I wrote several columns about a plan by the U.S. Archivist to possibly close the San Bruno branch of the National Archives and Records Administration – a branch that houses thousands of original documents of Chinese immigrants who were processed through the Angel Island Immigration Station from 1910 to 1940 – this editor told me she thought I was writing too much on that subject.
Another time, she matter-of-factly told me AsianWeek was looking for younger voices to feature, implying in no uncertain terms she (or the Fang brothers?) thought I was way over-the-hill. (Hmm, did she make AsianWeek vulnerable to an age-discrimination suit?)
By this time, 1998, I had been freelancing for two years after I was unceremoniously fired by The Oakland Tribune and after I had no luck getting a regular writing job on any other San Francisco Bay Area newspaper.
I cite these facts not to elicit sympathy, but to point out that I was writing my AsianWeek column not for the money ($100 per column), but because I still had things to say related to the Asian American experience and, while The Tribune, a mainstream newspaper, gave me chances to discuss the Asian American experience, AsianWeek was a relatively better forum to reach a largely Asian American readership.
Thus, when this Asian American woman editor of AsianWeek was giving me grief, I decided to simply stop writing for AsianWeek. I didn’t need the headache and unnecessary stress, not for $100 per column.
In the subsequent years, I have noticed more younger voices in AsianWeek. Here’s the irony: Kenneth Eng is one of those young voices. Is that what the Fang brothers want?
Ted Fang and AsianWeek have since apologized for running Eng’s anti-black column. They’ve also said they would stop running Eng’s “God of the Universe” column.
That hardly seems enough accountability. After all, severing its relations with Eng isn’t exactly a big deal. Unless Eng had a different deal than I or other AsianWeek freelancers did, ending his column isn’t a huge financial hardship for Eng or any other writer. A hundred bucks, or even less, remember?
For those who think that this little action make things right now, well, guess again.
I know the current AsianWeek editor, Samson Wong, but not well. When I was writing for AsianWeek, Samson wrote a local political gossip column. (He still does.) We saw one another on rare occasions.
I do wonder what went through Samson’s mind when Kenneth Eng offered to write for AsianWeek, or did Samson (or one of the Fang brothers) seek Eng out?
Some at a public forum held last week in San Francisco called for Samson’s dismissal. Will the Fangs do that? As of this writing, that hasn’t happened, and we know the Fang brothers aren’t going to fire themselves.
Moreover, the public apologies and the fawning nature of Ted Fang’s statements don’t exactly ring sincere to my ears.
Of course, he and AsianWeek have to appear to fall on their own swords. (Where is James Fang in all of this hubbub?) After all, the Fangs are legendary in San Francisco for their power politics.
They are part of the sometimes impenetrable labyrinth of San Francisco Chinese politics. They and their mother, Florence, are well known to curry and seek political power. They seek to represent San Francisco Chinese to the white (and black) power establishment, as do other San Francisco Chinese individuals and families.
Indeed, the Fangs aren’t alone in San Francisco’s large Chinese community to maneuver for power and glory and riches and fame, not necessarily only to truly help the “community,” but also motivated by crass self-interest, ego-stroking, and an attachment to power and celebrity.
Once thought to be Republicans, the Fangs supported that famous Democrat, Willie Brown, when he ran for San Francisco Mayor and stayed with him during his mayoralty.
This isn’t the first time the Fangs have been in the middle of a public controversy. After they bought the San Francisco Examiner from the Hearst Corporation, Florence and Ted got into a legal battle against one another over their family financial empire.
Now one has to ask whether ending Eng’s column is really enough accountability on the part of AsianWeek and the Fangs. Even if the Fangs fire Samson Wong, the matter of appropriate accountability for running Kenneth Eng’s racist columns may not be fully answered.
After all, why did AsianWeek agree to run Eng’s “God of the Universe” columns to begin with, given their content and racially charged screeds?
Why did it take public outrage over the “Why I Hate Blacks” column to force Ted Fang and AsianWeek to apologize and make nice with San Francisco African American leaders?
The Yellow-Black Thing
Oh, this business of multiculturalism, intergroup relations, racial tension and/or harmony are such difficult topics for we Americans, or perhaps human beings as a whole, to deal with on a sane, reasonable, rational and equitable basis. They are inherently fraught with emotions, fears, prejudices, stereotypes, and unknowns.
Kenneth Eng’s writing indicates a certain kind of street-level tension along racial or ethnic lines. I hear about incidents of racial crimes or racial targeting by young black men in Oakland, my hometown, or San Francisco and other cities. There too are stories about Asian and Latino gangs, either fighting one another or committing crimes that affect people of different backgrounds.
When I was writing a column for The Oakland Tribune (1988 to 1996), I dealt with yellow-black relationships a number of times.
Once I witnessed an almost altercation at an Oakland Chinatown restaurant where two apparently besotted black men came in to eat. After they were ignored (by a racist Chinese wait staff?) for about five minutes, one of them got up to loudly protest the lack of attention. His companion knocked over the table condiments and they got up to leave. Suddenly, a group of young Chinese men appeared, ready to take on the two black men. Luckily, no violence ensued and nothing further happened in the restaurant.
Another time, during a public Chinese New Year celebration at an Oakland Chinatown gathering place, several young African American women walked through loudly and made taunting and mocking noises, causing a small commotion. They left without further incident.
A third time was in New York City itself, in the early 1990s, a time of widespread racial tension in America’s most populous and famous city, Kenneth Eng’s city. In 1990, I was in New York for an Asian American journalists’ convention and decided to see for myself a months-long boycott of two Korean-American grocery stores in Brooklyn by some African Americans. This boycott had drawn national publicity and well-intentioned efforts by civil-rights leaders of different ethnicities went for naught.
I hear – and I know – that some Chinese people, and other Asian people, think lowly of black people, perhaps even express a kind of racist hatred not too far from Kenneth Eng’s brand.
Bigotry and prejudice and fear and ignorance aren’t a one-way street, however. Chinese and other Asians are indeed the subject of some of this blatant and subtle racism too, yes from black and white people and from others as well.
So it’s not as though Eng is making bad stuff up out of whole cloth. But racial tensions, taunting, indeed hatred aren’t the sum total of the American and human experience.
There were more upbeat stories I wrote about in The Tribune, like a Japanese American and an African American teaming up to coach a mixed race teenage basketball team to a tournament victory usually dominated by all-black teams in Oakland.
In 1997, I was invited (along with several other yellow Americans) to join an NAACP “conversation on race.” It was the African American civil rights group’s attempt to explore racial relations in the post-civil rights era when the American racial equation was no longer just black and white.
And I personally know of everyday interactions between and among black and Chinese and other Asian people that are good, loving, caring, positive, and just plain humane. These decent and universal stories almost never make the mainstream news media or the blogosphere. Everyday good news or neutral news is too boring and not attention-grabbing enough, I guess.
Let me cite one final example, involving my sister Flo Oy Wong, an installation artist and visual storyteller. There’s a Sacramento art gallery called 40 Acres. It’s in an area being developed by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is trying to rebuild his mostly black, but now gentrifying Sacramento neighborhood.
Kim Curry-Evans, an African American woman, is director of the 40 Acres Gallery. A white woman, Jane Hill of the Sacramento Symphony, and Kim invited Flo to show her art work at 40 Acres, an African American space.
Flo’s show, “Whispers of the Past,” went up in February, which happens to be Black History Month, and it features the very touching story of her Chinese American husband, Ed, who grew up among poor black people in Augusta, Georgia, and how Ed and two black brothers became friends, despite the barriers that tried to separate them.
Think about that: a Chinese American artist with mostly Asian American themes shows her work in a gallery targeted to African Americans. Kim Curry-Evans has received ample praise for her broad multicultural vision, but some African Americans in Sacramento have also criticized her for showing a Chinese American artist during Black History Month.
As I said, this interracial, intergroup, multicultural stuff is fraught with both peril and pregnant positive possibilities.
Telling Stories
Despite my earlier comments, there is room in America for an AsianWeek and countless other ethnic publications, whether in English or other languages. That’s in large part because the English-language mainstream news media outlets (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) still don’t include sufficient numbers of quality, in-depth, well-reported stories that tell what’s really going on in America’s many ethnic and racial communities.
For the longest of times, the American news media were almost wholly serving a white readership and audience. Over the past quarter century or so, they began to get the fact that the United States is more than all-white, all Christian. Slowly, they’ve been hiring editors and writers and photographers and graphic artists who come from various racial and ethnic groups.
But even those efforts aren’t enough because the hires “of color” tend not to represent the entire strata of the multicultural populations that now make up a significant (but still “minority”) portion of the American population.
Which is why AsianWeek and countless other English- and other language publications, radio stations, and television shows exist – to connect more directly with this country’s many “minority” and non-English proficient readers and viewers.
It’s tempting to acribe noble motives to all of these news outlets on the margins of America because they better serve the black, brown, yellow, red and other non-white colors of America’s Technicolor palette of people.
There’s no way that I, or almost anybody else who isn’t into deep research on the content and quality of these outlets, to tell whether some or all are doing a good job, a fair job, of reporting the news and commenting on the news to their niche readers or audiences.
There is indeed a fine line that separates ethnic pride and ethnic arrogance. Bringing to light something that is compelling or interesting or noteworthy in one’s ethnic group may be considered a genuine service to some people. Or it could foster separatism and exclusiveness to others. Or it could do both.
I can’t think of a formula that will satisfy both the desire on the part of undercovered communities to “tell our stories” and the need on the part of many Americans not to hunker down in ethnic enclaves, impervious to the common good of this society, this world, of humanity itself.
Will the Fang family and AsianWeek really learn the important lessons from their recent errors of judgment? If not, then they should change the name of their publication to AsianWeak.
William Wong is author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001), Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004), and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island (Arcadia Publishing Co., April 2007).
Posted by momo at 11:40 AM | Comments (6)
By William Wong
For nine years (1989-1998), I wrote a regular column for AsianWeek, the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper that bills itself as “The Voice of Asian America” but that now has egg foo yung on its face for its incredibly stupid decision to publish a racist rant (“Why I Hate Blacks”) by a young writer named Kenneth Che-Tew Eng, or as AsianWeek labels his (now former) column, “God of the Universe.”
I appreciated the forum AsianWeek provided me. It gave me an opportunity to explore numerous angles, tangents and pathways of the complex Asian American experience, including uber-sensitive yellow-black relationships.
I tried my best to do this exploration in the context of a changing America that has racial and ethnic ghosts it wishes would stay in an overflowing closet. I never ranted or raved or engaged in racist language or stereotypes (at least that’s what I thought). I felt my “voice” was mostly reasoned, respectful, honest, and thoughtful (again, my opinion).
I even included a number of my AsianWeek columns – revised and rewritten slightly – in my first book, Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, published in 2001 by Temple University Press.
In my resume and one-page biography, I include AsianWeek as a publication I have written for. Now I am not so sure I want to advertise this fact as part of my lengthy writing career.
The recent public flap over the Kenneth Eng column is more than just about a young Chinese American writer spewing hatred in the pages of AsianWeek. It’s also about AsianWeek itself, its ownership, how America’s dizzying array of racial and ethnic groups get along or don’t get along, and how their stories are told or not told, by whom and for whom.
Kenneth Che-Tew Eng
Who is Kenneth Che-Tew Eng? A Web search yields a few clues. He claims to be the youngest science fiction novelist in America. He’s 22 years old, apparently from New York City. He studied computer science at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and then attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. In addition to science fiction writing, he’s into comic books and has strong opinions about religion, race, and America.
Reading some of his articles gives other clues about him. One article, “Discrimination Against Asians at NYU,” which I found in my Internet search, tells of his contentious experience at the Tisch School of the Arts. Here are some selected quotes:
• “As an undergraduate student who is not afraid to express his opinion, I have faced extreme consequences for merely speaking my mind.”
• “…when I was at Stony Brook, I received at least 10 death threats from students who hated my opinions, and was once thrown out of a philosophy class for bringing up racial issues.”
• “…since I always speak my mind, I also made negative remarks about students’ films in class critiques in an attempt to help them improve their work.”
• “I was not going to surrender to the brainwashed majority.”
• “…when the conversation shifted to my controversial views, I told him (an NYU official) that I thought Hitler was not a coward and that African Americans were receiving unfair aid from the American government at the expense of Asian Americans.”
• “…every time I vocalized my sentiments, I was attacked, threatened and/or harassed by students and faculty.”
• “…I believe that she (an African American student) has the right to express her racist opinions just like I have a right to express mine…”
• “I certainly wasn’t going to take this lying down.”
• “Every session, I flooded the conversation with derogatory remarks about every ethnic group conceivable, spewed loads of anti-American remarks and blared out against the weak-mindedness of religious followers.”
• “To this day, I stand by all of my opinions no matter what the consequences.”
In AsianWeek columns previous to his explosive “Why I Hate Blacks” one, Eng further reveals himself as unafraid to confront and fight white teenagers in Queens, New York, who called him a gook. He uses racial and ethnic identities without apology even if those identities aren’t specifically relevant.
In a January 7, 2007, AsianWeek column, “Why I Hate Asians,” Eng, an “Asian Supremacist” (his own description), told “why I hate many of my own kind.” One reason is Asians sucking up to whites. Another is “how little pride” Asians have. A third is how “apathetic” Asians are “in terms of honor.”
Then there is the now infamous “Why I Hate Blacks” column that has created a storm on the Internet, a bit of one in the San Francisco news media, both mainstream and ethnic, and even among high-profile San Francisco politicians like Mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
I won’t quote from that column, but suffice it to say, it’s filled with blatantly racist drivel and the worst kind of generalizations and stereotypes of African Americans.
So what can one say about Kenneth Eng, based solely on some of his own writings (not his science-fiction novels, but come to think of it, aren't his other writings a kind of science fiction too)?
Is he trying to be satirical or ironic? I don’t detect any subtlety or writing skill of that sort.
I don’t mean to psychoanalyze him – I’m no trained head-shrink – but one wonders what kind of an upbringing he’s had, what kind of a childhood and adolescence he’s experienced?
We know New York City to be an enormous human cauldron with people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions packed together in five boroughs that each have histories of segregation, bigotry, and violence. But New York City is also a place to experience humankind, even with all of our warts and foibles, in humane and wondrous ways.
Kenneth Eng apparently hasn’t had the latter kind of experience. Someone who so freely expresses his “hate” can’t be someone who’s had much joy, fun, and caring and loving relationships.
One also wonders whether he simply wants to stand out from the crowd with outrageous opinions about race and religion. He’s certainly accomplished that.
Being outrageous and screaming at the top of one’s lungs are tactics that any number of people use to stand out in our media-saturated culture. But beyond the attention that brings, what else is compelling or uplifting about being a media shouter?
If he has ambitions to be taken seriously as a writer, I think he’s miscalculated. Maybe he doesn’t care since today’s technology – especially the so-called blogosphere -- allows anyone to say anything they want.
AsianWeek
AsianWeek has published in English in San Francisco since 1979. John Fang, an immigrant interested in journalism, started it. At the time, AsianWeek had competition from East-West News, supported by some prominent San Francisco Chinese. East-West had a more liberal/progressive reputation. AsianWeek’s identity was generally more moderate/centrist, or in some circles, opportunistic.
I first wrote for East-West, beginning in 1987. As a journalistic writer finding my own voice, I seized the chance to say what I felt about my own ethnic community in the context of a changing America, taking into account America’s racist history.
East-West went defunct in 1989, and the AsianWeek editor at that time invited me to write for AsianWeek. I agreed.
I may have met John Fang once. He was nice enough to write a brief personal letter, thanking me for writing for his newspaper and praising me for what I wrote. He passed away in 1992, and his widow, Florence, and two of his sons, James and Ted, took over different pieces of the Fang family empire in printing, publishing, real estate, restaurant, and, most notably, power politics.
Along the way, I met both James and Ted, but never felt close or connected to them. I don’t ever recall either one of them having anything to do directly with my column. They left that to whoever was actually editing AsianWeek during my nine years. (What I don’t know, of course, is whether either or both Fang brothers voiced their views about my column to their editors, out of my earshot.)
I can recall at least six different editors, perhaps more, that I answered to in the nine years I wrote for AsianWeek. The majority were white men, with one white woman. They were, for the most part, cordial, friendly, and professional.
I stopped writing for AsianWeek in 1998 because its editor at the time, an Asian American woman, was maddening to deal with.
When I wrote several columns about a plan by the U.S. Archivist to possibly close the San Bruno branch of the National Archives and Records Administration – a branch that houses thousands of original documents of Chinese immigrants who were processed through the Angel Island Immigration Station from 1910 to 1940 – this editor told me she thought I was writing too much on that subject.
Another time, she matter-of-factly told me AsianWeek was looking for younger voices to feature, implying in no uncertain terms she (or the Fang brothers?) thought I was way over-the-hill. (Hmm, did she make AsianWeek vulnerable to an age-discrimination suit?)
By this time, 1998, I had been freelancing for two years after I was unceremoniously fired by The Oakland Tribune and after I had no luck getting a regular writing job on any other San Francisco Bay Area newspaper.
I cite these facts not to elicit sympathy, but to point out that I was writing my AsianWeek column not for the money ($100 per column), but because I still had things to say related to the Asian American experience and, while The Tribune, a mainstream newspaper, gave me chances to discuss the Asian American experience, AsianWeek was a relatively better forum to reach a largely Asian American readership.
Thus, when this Asian American woman editor of AsianWeek was giving me grief, I decided to simply stop writing for AsianWeek. I didn’t need the headache and unnecessary stress, not for $100 per column.
In the subsequent years, I have noticed more younger voices in AsianWeek. Here’s the irony: Kenneth Eng is one of those young voices. Is that what the Fang brothers want?
Ted Fang and AsianWeek have since apologized for running Eng’s anti-black column. They’ve also said they would stop running Eng’s “God of the Universe” column.
That hardly seems enough accountability. After all, severing its relations with Eng isn’t exactly a big deal. Unless Eng had a different deal than I or other AsianWeek freelancers did, ending his column isn’t a huge financial hardship for Eng or any other writer. A hundred bucks, or even less, remember?
For those who think that this little action make things right now, well, guess again.
I know the current AsianWeek editor, Samson Wong, but not well. When I was writing for AsianWeek, Samson wrote a local political gossip column. (He still does.) We saw one another on rare occasions.
I do wonder what went through Samson’s mind when Kenneth Eng offered to write for AsianWeek, or did Samson (or one of the Fang brothers) seek Eng out?
Some at a public forum held last week in San Francisco called for Samson’s dismissal. Will the Fangs do that? As of this writing, that hasn’t happened, and we know the Fang brothers aren’t going to fire themselves.
Moreover, the public apologies and the fawning nature of Ted Fang’s statements don’t exactly ring sincere to my ears.
Of course, he and AsianWeek have to appear to fall on their own swords. (Where is James Fang in all of this hubbub?) After all, the Fangs are legendary in San Francisco for their power politics.
They are part of the sometimes impenetrable labyrinth of San Francisco Chinese politics. They and their mother, Florence, are well known to curry and seek political power. They seek to represent San Francisco Chinese to the white (and black) power establishment, as do other San Francisco Chinese individuals and families.
Indeed, the Fangs aren’t alone in San Francisco’s large Chinese community to maneuver for power and glory and riches and fame, not necessarily only to truly help the “community,” but also motivated by crass self-interest, ego-stroking, and an attachment to power and celebrity.
Once thought to be Republicans, the Fangs supported that famous Democrat, Willie Brown, when he ran for San Francisco Mayor and stayed with him during his mayoralty.
This isn’t the first time the Fangs have been in the middle of a public controversy. After they bought the San Francisco Examiner from the Hearst Corporation, Florence and Ted got into a legal battle against one another over their family financial empire.
Now one has to ask whether ending Eng’s column is really enough accountability on the part of AsianWeek and the Fangs. Even if the Fangs fire Samson Wong, the matter of appropriate accountability for running Kenneth Eng’s racist columns may not be fully answered.
After all, why did AsianWeek agree to run Eng’s “God of the Universe” columns to begin with, given their content and racially charged screeds?
Why did it take public outrage over the “Why I Hate Blacks” column to force Ted Fang and AsianWeek to apologize and make nice with San Francisco African American leaders?
The Yellow-Black Thing
Oh, this business of multiculturalism, intergroup relations, racial tension and/or harmony are such difficult topics for we Americans, or perhaps human beings as a whole, to deal with on a sane, reasonable, rational and equitable basis. They are inherently fraught with emotions, fears, prejudices, stereotypes, and unknowns.
Kenneth Eng’s writing indicates a certain kind of street-level tension along racial or ethnic lines. I hear about incidents of racial crimes or racial targeting by young black men in Oakland, my hometown, or San Francisco and other cities. There too are stories about Asian and Latino gangs, either fighting one another or committing crimes that affect people of different backgrounds.
When I was writing a column for The Oakland Tribune (1988 to 1996), I dealt with yellow-black relationships a number of times.
Once I witnessed an almost altercation at an Oakland Chinatown restaurant where two apparently besotted black men came in to eat. After they were ignored (by a racist Chinese wait staff?) for about five minutes, one of them got up to loudly protest the lack of attention. His companion knocked over the table condiments and they got up to leave. Suddenly, a group of young Chinese men appeared, ready to take on the two black men. Luckily, no violence ensued and nothing further happened in the restaurant.
Another time, during a public Chinese New Year celebration at an Oakland Chinatown gathering place, several young African American women walked through loudly and made taunting and mocking noises, causing a small commotion. They left without further incident.
A third time was in New York City itself, in the early 1990s, a time of widespread racial tension in America’s most populous and famous city, Kenneth Eng’s city. In 1990, I was in New York for an Asian American journalists’ convention and decided to see for myself a months-long boycott of two Korean-American grocery stores in Brooklyn by some African Americans. This boycott had drawn national publicity and well-intentioned efforts by civil-rights leaders of different ethnicities went for naught.
I hear – and I know – that some Chinese people, and other Asian people, think lowly of black people, perhaps even express a kind of racist hatred not too far from Kenneth Eng’s brand.
Bigotry and prejudice and fear and ignorance aren’t a one-way street, however. Chinese and other Asians are indeed the subject of some of this blatant and subtle racism too, yes from black and white people and from others as well.
So it’s not as though Eng is making bad stuff up out of whole cloth. But racial tensions, taunting, indeed hatred aren’t the sum total of the American and human experience.
There were more upbeat stories I wrote about in The Tribune, like a Japanese American and an African American teaming up to coach a mixed race teenage basketball team to a tournament victory usually dominated by all-black teams in Oakland.
In 1997, I was invited (along with several other yellow Americans) to join an NAACP “conversation on race.” It was the African American civil rights group’s attempt to explore racial relations in the post-civil rights era when the American racial equation was no longer just black and white.
And I personally know of everyday interactions between and among black and Chinese and other Asian people that are good, loving, caring, positive, and just plain humane. These decent and universal stories almost never make the mainstream news media or the blogosphere. Everyday good news or neutral news is too boring and not attention-grabbing enough, I guess.
Let me cite one final example, involving my sister Flo Oy Wong, an installation artist and visual storyteller. There’s a Sacramento art gallery called 40 Acres. It’s in an area being developed by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is trying to rebuild his mostly black, but now gentrifying Sacramento neighborhood.
Kim Curry-Evans, an African American woman, is director of the 40 Acres Gallery. A white woman, Jane Hill of the Sacramento Symphony, and Kim invited Flo to show her art work at 40 Acres, an African American space.
Flo’s show, “Whispers of the Past,” went up in February, which happens to be Black History Month, and it features the very touching story of her Chinese American husband, Ed, who grew up among poor black people in Augusta, Georgia, and how Ed and two black brothers became friends, despite the barriers that tried to separate them.
Think about that: a Chinese American artist with mostly Asian American themes shows her work in a gallery targeted to African Americans. Kim Curry-Evans has received ample praise for her broad multicultural vision, but some African Americans in Sacramento have also criticized her for showing a Chinese American artist during Black History Month.
As I said, this interracial, intergroup, multicultural stuff is fraught with both peril and pregnant positive possibilities.
Telling Stories
Despite my earlier comments, there is room in America for an AsianWeek and countless other ethnic publications, whether in English or other languages. That’s in large part because the English-language mainstream news media outlets (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) still don’t include sufficient numbers of quality, in-depth, well-reported stories that tell what’s really going on in America’s many ethnic and racial communities.
For the longest of times, the American news media were almost wholly serving a white readership and audience. Over the past quarter century or so, they began to get the fact that the United States is more than all-white, all Christian. Slowly, they’ve been hiring editors and writers and photographers and graphic artists who come from various racial and ethnic groups.
But even those efforts aren’t enough because the hires “of color” tend not to represent the entire strata of the multicultural populations that now make up a significant (but still “minority”) portion of the American population.
Which is why AsianWeek and countless other English- and other language publications, radio stations, and television shows exist – to connect more directly with this country’s many “minority” and non-English proficient readers and viewers.
It’s tempting to acribe noble motives to all of these news outlets on the margins of America because they better serve the black, brown, yellow, red and other non-white colors of America’s Technicolor palette of people.
There’s no way that I, or almost anybody else who isn’t into deep research on the content and quality of these outlets, to tell whether some or all are doing a good job, a fair job, of reporting the news and commenting on the news to their niche readers or audiences.
There is indeed a fine line that separates ethnic pride and ethnic arrogance. Bringing to light something that is compelling or interesting or noteworthy in one’s ethnic group may be considered a genuine service to some people. Or it could foster separatism and exclusiveness to others. Or it could do both.
I can’t think of a formula that will satisfy both the desire on the part of undercovered communities to “tell our stories” and the need on the part of many Americans not to hunker down in ethnic enclaves, impervious to the common good of this society, this world, of humanity itself.
Will the Fang family and AsianWeek really learn the important lessons from their recent errors of judgment? If not, then they should change the name of their publication to AsianWeak.
William Wong is author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001), Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004), and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island (Arcadia Publishing Co., April 2007).
Posted by momo at 11:40 AM | Comments (6)
By William Wong
For nine years (1989-1998), I wrote a regular column for AsianWeek, the San Francisco-based weekly newspaper that bills itself as The Voice of Asian America but that now has egg foo yung on its face for its incredibly stupid decision to publish a racist rant (Why I Hate Blacks) by a young writer named Kenneth Che-Tew Eng, or as AsianWeek labels his (now former) column, God of the Universe.
I appreciated the forum AsianWeek provided me. It gave me an opportunity to explore numerous angles, tangents and pathways of the complex Asian American experience, including uber-sensitive yellow-black relationships.
I tried my best to do this exploration in the context of a changing America that has racial and ethnic ghosts it wishes would stay in an overflowing closet. I never ranted or raved or engaged in racist language or stereotypes (at least thats what I thought). I felt my voice was mostly reasoned, respectful, honest, and thoughtful (again, my opinion).
I even included a number of my AsianWeek columns revised and rewritten slightly in my first book, Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, published in 2001 by Temple University Press.
In my resume and one-page biography, I include AsianWeek as a publication I have written for. Now I am not so sure I want to advertise this fact as part of my lengthy writing career.
The recent public flap over the Kenneth Eng column is more than just about a young Chinese American writer spewing hatred in the pages of AsianWeek. Its also about AsianWeek itself, its ownership, how Americas dizzying array of racial and ethnic groups get along or dont get along, and how their stories are told or not told, by whom and for whom.
Kenneth Che-Tew Eng
Who is Kenneth Che-Tew Eng? A Web search yields a few clues. He claims to be the youngest science fiction novelist in America. Hes 22 years old, apparently from New York City. He studied computer science at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and then attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. In addition to science fiction writing, hes into comic books and has strong opinions about religion, race, and America.
Reading some of his articles gives other clues about him. One article, Discrimination Against Asians at NYU, which I found in my Internet search, tells of his contentious experience at the Tisch School of the Arts. Here are some selected quotes:
As an undergraduate student who is not afraid to express his opinion, I have faced extreme consequences for merely speaking my mind.
when I was at Stony Brook, I received at least 10 death threats from students who hated my opinions, and was once thrown out of a philosophy class for bringing up racial issues.
since I always speak my mind, I also made negative remarks about students films in class critiques in an attempt to help them improve their work.
I was not going to surrender to the brainwashed majority.
when the conversation shifted to my controversial views, I told him (an NYU official) that I thought Hitler was not a coward and that African Americans were receiving unfair aid from the American government at the expense of Asian Americans.
every time I vocalized my sentiments, I was attacked, threatened and/or harassed by students and faculty.
I believe that she (an African American student) has the right to express her racist opinions just like I have a right to express mine
I certainly wasnt going to take this lying down.
Every session, I flooded the conversation with derogatory remarks about every ethnic group conceivable, spewed loads of anti-American remarks and blared out against the weak-mindedness of religious followers.
To this day, I stand by all of my opinions no matter what the consequences.
In AsianWeek columns previous to his explosive Why I Hate Blacks one, Eng further reveals himself as unafraid to confront and fight white teenagers in Queens, New York, who called him a gook. He uses racial and ethnic identities without apology even if those identities arent specifically relevant.
In a January 7, 2007, AsianWeek column, Why I Hate Asians, Eng, an Asian Supremacist (his own description), told why I hate many of my own kind. One reason is Asians sucking up to whites. Another is how little pride Asians have. A third is how apathetic Asians are in terms of honor.
Then there is the now infamous Why I Hate Blacks column that has created a storm on the Internet, a bit of one in the San Francisco news media, both mainstream and ethnic, and even among high-profile San Francisco politicians like Mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
I wont quote from that column, but suffice it to say, its filled with blatantly racist drivel and the worst kind of generalizations and stereotypes of African Americans.
So what can one say about Kenneth Eng, based solely on some of his own writings (not his science-fiction novels, but come to think of it, aren't his other writings a kind of science fiction too)?
Is he trying to be satirical or ironic? I dont detect any subtlety or writing skill of that sort.
I dont mean to psychoanalyze him Im no trained head-shrink but one wonders what kind of an upbringing hes had, what kind of a childhood and adolescence hes experienced?
We know New York City to be an enormous human cauldron with people of all races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions packed together in five boroughs that each have histories of segregation, bigotry, and violence. But New York City is also a place to experience humankind, even with all of our warts and foibles, in humane and wondrous ways.
Kenneth Eng apparently hasnt had the latter kind of experience. Someone who so freely expresses his hate cant be someone whos had much joy, fun, and caring and loving relationships.
One also wonders whether he simply wants to stand out from the crowd with outrageous opinions about race and religion. Hes certainly accomplished that.
Being outrageous and screaming at the top of ones lungs are tactics that any number of people use to stand out in our media-saturated culture. But beyond the attention that brings, what else is compelling or uplifting about being a media shouter?
If he has ambitions to be taken seriously as a writer, I think hes miscalculated. Maybe he doesnt care since todays technology especially the so-called blogosphere -- allows anyone to say anything they want.
AsianWeek
AsianWeek has published in English in San Francisco since 1979. John Fang, an immigrant interested in journalism, started it. At the time, AsianWeek had competition from East-West News, supported by some prominent San Francisco Chinese. East-West had a more liberal/progressive reputation. AsianWeeks identity was generally more moderate/centrist, or in some circles, opportunistic.
I first wrote for East-West, beginning in 1987. As a journalistic writer finding my own voice, I seized the chance to say what I felt about my own ethnic community in the context of a changing America, taking into account Americas racist history.
East-West went defunct in 1989, and the AsianWeek editor at that time invited me to write for AsianWeek. I agreed.
I may have met John Fang once. He was nice enough to write a brief personal letter, thanking me for writing for his newspaper and praising me for what I wrote. He passed away in 1992, and his widow, Florence, and two of his sons, James and Ted, took over different pieces of the Fang family empire in printing, publishing, real estate, restaurant, and, most notably, power politics.
Along the way, I met both James and Ted, but never felt close or connected to them. I dont ever recall either one of them having anything to do directly with my column. They left that to whoever was actually editing AsianWeek during my nine years. (What I dont know, of course, is whether either or both Fang brothers voiced their views about my column to their editors, out of my earshot.)
I can recall at least six different editors, perhaps more, that I answered to in the nine years I wrote for AsianWeek. The majority were white men, with one white woman. They were, for the most part, cordial, friendly, and professional.
I stopped writing for AsianWeek in 1998 because its editor at the time, an Asian American woman, was maddening to deal with.
When I wrote several columns about a plan by the U.S. Archivist to possibly close the San Bruno branch of the National Archives and Records Administration a branch that houses thousands of original documents of Chinese immigrants who were processed through the Angel Island Immigration Station from 1910 to 1940 this editor told me she thought I was writing too much on that subject.
Another time, she matter-of-factly told me AsianWeek was looking for younger voices to feature, implying in no uncertain terms she (or the Fang brothers?) thought I was way over-the-hill. (Hmm, did she make AsianWeek vulnerable to an age-discrimination suit?)
By this time, 1998, I had been freelancing for two years after I was unceremoniously fired by The Oakland Tribune and after I had no luck getting a regular writing job on any other San Francisco Bay Area newspaper.
I cite these facts not to elicit sympathy, but to point out that I was writing my AsianWeek column not for the money ($100 per column), but because I still had things to say related to the Asian American experience and, while The Tribune, a mainstream newspaper, gave me chances to discuss the Asian American experience, AsianWeek was a relatively better forum to reach a largely Asian American readership.
Thus, when this Asian American woman editor of AsianWeek was giving me grief, I decided to simply stop writing for AsianWeek. I didnt need the headache and unnecessary stress, not for $100 per column.
In the subsequent years, I have noticed more younger voices in AsianWeek. Heres the irony: Kenneth Eng is one of those young voices. Is that what the Fang brothers want?
Ted Fang and AsianWeek have since apologized for running Engs anti-black column. Theyve also said they would stop running Engs God of the Universe column.
That hardly seems enough accountability. After all, severing its relations with Eng isnt exactly a big deal. Unless Eng had a different deal than I or other AsianWeek freelancers did, ending his column isnt a huge financial hardship for Eng or any other writer. A hundred bucks, or even less, remember?
For those who think that this little action make things right now, well, guess again.
I know the current AsianWeek editor, Samson Wong, but not well. When I was writing for AsianWeek, Samson wrote a local political gossip column. (He still does.) We saw one another on rare occasions.
I do wonder what went through Samsons mind when Kenneth Eng offered to write for AsianWeek, or did Samson (or one of the Fang brothers) seek Eng out?
Some at a public forum held last week in San Francisco called for Samsons dismissal. Will the Fangs do that? As of this writing, that hasnt happened, and we know the Fang brothers arent going to fire themselves.
Moreover, the public apologies and the fawning nature of Ted Fangs statements dont exactly ring sincere to my ears.
Of course, he and AsianWeek have to appear to fall on their own swords. (Where is James Fang in all of this hubbub?) After all, the Fangs are legendary in San Francisco for their power politics.
They are part of the sometimes impenetrable labyrinth of San Francisco Chinese politics. They and their mother, Florence, are well known to curry and seek political power. They seek to represent San Francisco Chinese to the white (and black) power establishment, as do other San Francisco Chinese individuals and families.
Indeed, the Fangs arent alone in San Franciscos large Chinese community to maneuver for power and glory and riches and fame, not necessarily only to truly help the community, but also motivated by crass self-interest, ego-stroking, and an attachment to power and celebrity.
Once thought to be Republicans, the Fangs supported that famous Democrat, Willie Brown, when he ran for San Francisco Mayor and stayed with him during his mayoralty.
This isnt the first time the Fangs have been in the middle of a public controversy. After they bought the San Francisco Examiner from the Hearst Corporation, Florence and Ted got into a legal battle against one another over their family financial empire.
Now one has to ask whether ending Engs column is really enough accountability on the part of AsianWeek and the Fangs. Even if the Fangs fire Samson Wong, the matter of appropriate accountability for running Kenneth Engs racist columns may not be fully answered.
After all, why did AsianWeek agree to run Engs God of the Universe columns to begin with, given their content and racially charged screeds?
Why did it take public outrage over the Why I Hate Blacks column to force Ted Fang and AsianWeek to apologize and make nice with San Francisco African American leaders?
The Yellow-Black Thing
Oh, this business of multiculturalism, intergroup relations, racial tension and/or harmony are such difficult topics for we Americans, or perhaps human beings as a whole, to deal with on a sane, reasonable, rational and equitable basis. They are inherently fraught with emotions, fears, prejudices, stereotypes, and unknowns.
Kenneth Engs writing indicates a certain kind of street-level tension along racial or ethnic lines. I hear about incidents of racial crimes or racial targeting by young black men in Oakland, my hometown, or San Francisco and other cities. There too are stories about Asian and Latino gangs, either fighting one another or committing crimes that affect people of different backgrounds.
When I was writing a column for The Oakland Tribune (1988 to 1996), I dealt with yellow-black relationships a number of times.
Once I witnessed an almost altercation at an Oakland Chinatown restaurant where two apparently besotted black men came in to eat. After they were ignored (by a racist Chinese wait staff?) for about five minutes, one of them got up to loudly protest the lack of attention. His companion knocked over the table condiments and they got up to leave. Suddenly, a group of young Chinese men appeared, ready to take on the two black men. Luckily, no violence ensued and nothing further happened in the restaurant.
Another time, during a public Chinese New Year celebration at an Oakland Chinatown gathering place, several young African American women walked through loudly and made taunting and mocking noises, causing a small commotion. They left without further incident.
A third time was in New York City itself, in the early 1990s, a time of widespread racial tension in Americas most populous and famous city, Kenneth Engs city. In 1990, I was in New York for an Asian American journalists convention and decided to see for myself a months-long boycott of two Korean-American grocery stores in Brooklyn by some African Americans. This boycott had drawn national publicity and well-intentioned efforts by civil-rights leaders of different ethnicities went for naught.
I hear and I know that some Chinese people, and other Asian people, think lowly of black people, perhaps even express a kind of racist hatred not too far from Kenneth Engs brand.
Bigotry and prejudice and fear and ignorance arent a one-way street, however. Chinese and other Asians are indeed the subject of some of this blatant and subtle racism too, yes from black and white people and from others as well.
So its not as though Eng is making bad stuff up out of whole cloth. But racial tensions, taunting, indeed hatred arent the sum total of the American and human experience.
There were more upbeat stories I wrote about in The Tribune, like a Japanese American and an African American teaming up to coach a mixed race teenage basketball team to a tournament victory usually dominated by all-black teams in Oakland.
In 1997, I was invited (along with several other yellow Americans) to join an NAACP conversation on race. It was the African American civil rights groups attempt to explore racial relations in the post-civil rights era when the American racial equation was no longer just black and white.
And I personally know of everyday interactions between and among black and Chinese and other Asian people that are good, loving, caring, positive, and just plain humane. These decent and universal stories almost never make the mainstream news media or the blogosphere. Everyday good news or neutral news is too boring and not attention-grabbing enough, I guess.
Let me cite one final example, involving my sister Flo Oy Wong, an installation artist and visual storyteller. Theres a Sacramento art gallery called 40 Acres. Its in an area being developed by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is trying to rebuild his mostly black, but now gentrifying Sacramento neighborhood.
Kim Curry-Evans, an African American woman, is director of the 40 Acres Gallery. A white woman, Jane Hill of the Sacramento Symphony, and Kim invited Flo to show her art work at 40 Acres, an African American space.
Flos show, Whispers of the Past, went up in February, which happens to be Black History Month, and it features the very touching story of her Chinese American husband, Ed, who grew up among poor black people in Augusta, Georgia, and how Ed and two black brothers became friends, despite the barriers that tried to separate them.
Think about that: a Chinese American artist with mostly Asian American themes shows her work in a gallery targeted to African Americans. Kim Curry-Evans has received ample praise for her broad multicultural vision, but some African Americans in Sacramento have also criticized her for showing a Chinese American artist during Black History Month.
As I said, this interracial, intergroup, multicultural stuff is fraught with both peril and pregnant positive possibilities.
Telling Stories
Despite my earlier comments, there is room in America for an AsianWeek and countless other ethnic publications, whether in English or other languages. Thats in large part because the English-language mainstream news media outlets (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) still dont include sufficient numbers of quality, in-depth, well-reported stories that tell whats really going on in Americas many ethnic and racial communities.
For the longest of times, the American news media were almost wholly serving a white readership and audience. Over the past quarter century or so, they began to get the fact that the United States is more than all-white, all Christian. Slowly, theyve been hiring editors and writers and photographers and graphic artists who come from various racial and ethnic groups.
But even those efforts arent enough because the hires of color tend not to represent the entire strata of the multicultural populations that now make up a significant (but still minority) portion of the American population.
Which is why AsianWeek and countless other English- and other language publications, radio stations, and television shows exist to connect more directly with this countrys many minority and non-English proficient readers and viewers.
Its tempting to acribe noble motives to all of these news outlets on the margins of America because they better serve the black, brown, yellow, red and other non-white colors of Americas Technicolor palette of people.
Theres no way that I, or almost anybody else who isnt into deep research on the content and quality of these outlets, to tell whether some or all are doing a good job, a fair job, of reporting the news and commenting on the news to their niche readers or audiences.
There is indeed a fine line that separates ethnic pride and ethnic arrogance. Bringing to light something that is compelling or interesting or noteworthy in ones ethnic group may be considered a genuine service to some people. Or it could foster separatism and exclusiveness to others. Or it could do both.
I cant think of a formula that will satisfy both the desire on the part of undercovered communities to tell our stories and the need on the part of many Americans not to hunker down in ethnic enclaves, impervious to the common good of this society, this world, of humanity itself.
Will the Fang family and AsianWeek really learn the important lessons from their recent errors of judgment? If not, then they should change the name of their publication to AsianWeak.
William Wong is author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001), Images of America: Oaklands Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004), and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island (Arcadia Publishing Co., April 2007).
Posted by momo at 11:40 AM | Comments (6)
Imogen Cunningham portrait of Ruth Asawa, "Ruth Holding a Form-Within-Form Sculpture" (1952)
After your Friday night's carousing, shake off your hangover and go see some quality art!
IN LOS ANGELES:
Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air opens tomorrow (Saturday) at the Japanese American National Museum.
I could not recommend this show more. So much so that I wrote about it here (along with the recent Art of Gaman exhibition).
On Sunday at 2pm, be sure to check out discussion between the curator, Daniell Cornell, and Ruth Asawa's daughter, Aiko Cuneo. Karen Higa, who wrote an essay included in the exhibition catalog, will moderate.
IN SAN FRANCISCO:
Detail from An-My Le's "Lesson", Small Wars series
Also this Saturday, the San Francisco State University Fine Arts Gallery will hold a series of events related to their current exhibition, Witness to War: Revisiting Vietnam in Contemporary Art. The exhibition, which closes March 15, includes the work of Thai Bui, Binh Danh, Harrell Fletcher, Joyce Kozloff, An-My Le, Dinh Q. Le, Daniel J. Martinez, Long Nguyen and Martha Rosler.
1:00pm - Artists panel discussion with artists Binh Danh, Thai Bui and Long Nguyen, moderated by art historian Boreth Ly.
2:30pm - Nguyen Dance Company - modern interpretation of a traditional Vietnamese dance.
3:30pm - West Coast premiere of filmmaker Bui Hoai Mai's documentary, The Rain on the River (2005)
Entry to the exhibition and events is free.
Of particular note in the exhibition are a few examples of An-My Le's photographic series Small Wars, which she took at Vietnam War reenactment sessions in Virginia, and Dinh Q. Le's psychedelic collages using a traditional mat weaving technique and iconic images from film and media. Binh Danh also shows a depature from his signature photosynthetic pieces with an exploration of the 1960s Swamp Thing action figures, which stemmed from a comic book series of the same name that dealt with war themes--Agent Orange in particular.
A questionable inclusion is Harrell Fletcher's video "The American War," essentially photos of the displays at The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. It strikes me as a grand ripping-off, and the Vietnamese perspective that it ostensibly presents to American audiences would best be conveyed differently.
Much of the show seems to be a discussion of media and is influence on our perception of the war, incorporating found objects and images. It made me sad to think that though a great many people were profoundly affected by the war not so long ago, younger generations are almost entirely reliant on the era's photojournalists and cinematic representations in order to begin to comprehend the war. Will we even be able to? I guess that's the case with any war, when you don't experience it firsthand.
Posted by rebecca at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)
Imogen Cunningham portrait of Ruth Asawa, "Ruth Holding a Form-Within-Form Sculpture" (1952)
After your Friday night's carousing, shake off your hangover and go see some quality art!
IN LOS ANGELES:
Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air opens tomorrow (Saturday) at the Japanese American National Museum.
I could not recommend this show more. So much so that I wrote about it here (along with the recent Art of Gaman exhibition).
On Sunday at 2pm, be sure to check out discussion between the curator, Daniell Cornell, and Ruth Asawa's daughter, Aiko Cuneo. Karen Higa, who wrote an essay included in the exhibition catalog, will moderate.
IN SAN FRANCISCO:
Detail from An-My Le's "Lesson", Small Wars series
Also this Saturday, the San Francisco State University Fine Arts Gallery will hold a series of events related to their current exhibition, Witness to War: Revisiting Vietnam in Contemporary Art. The exhibition, which closes March 15, includes the work of Thai Bui, Binh Danh, Harrell Fletcher, Joyce Kozloff, An-My Le, Dinh Q. Le, Daniel J. Martinez, Long Nguyen and Martha Rosler.
1:00pm - Artists panel discussion with artists Binh Danh, Thai Bui and Long Nguyen, moderated by art historian Boreth Ly.
2:30pm - Nguyen Dance Company - modern interpretation of a traditional Vietnamese dance.
3:30pm - West Coast premiere of filmmaker Bui Hoai Mai's documentary, The Rain on the River (2005)
Entry to the exhibition and events is free.
Of particular note in the exhibition are a few examples of An-My Le's photographic series Small Wars, which she took at Vietnam War reenactment sessions in Virginia, and Dinh Q. Le's psychedelic collages using a traditional mat weaving technique and iconic images from film and media. Binh Danh also shows a depature from his signature photosynthetic pieces with an exploration of the 1960s Swamp Thing action figures, which stemmed from a comic book series of the same name that dealt with war themes--Agent Orange in particular.
A questionable inclusion is Harrell Fletcher's video "The American War," essentially photos of the displays at The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. It strikes me as a grand ripping-off, and the Vietnamese perspective that it ostensibly presents to American audiences would best be conveyed differently.
Much of the show seems to be a discussion of media and is influence on our perception of the war, incorporating found objects and images. It made me sad to think that though a great many people were profoundly affected by the war not so long ago, younger generations are almost entirely reliant on the era's photojournalists and cinematic representations in order to begin to comprehend the war. Will we even be able to? I guess that's the case with any war, when you don't experience it firsthand.
Posted by rebecca at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)
Imogen Cunningham portrait of Ruth Asawa, "Ruth Holding a Form-Within-Form Sculpture" (1952)
After your Friday night's carousing, shake off your hangover and go see some quality art!
IN LOS ANGELES:
Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air opens tomorrow (Saturday) at the Japanese American National Museum.
I could not recommend this show more. So much so that I wrote about it here (along with the recent Art of Gaman exhibition).
On Sunday at 2pm, be sure to check out discussion between the curator, Daniell Cornell, and Ruth Asawa's daughter, Aiko Cuneo. Karen Higa, who wrote an essay included in the exhibition catalog, will moderate.
IN SAN FRANCISCO:
Detail from An-My Le's "Lesson", Small Wars series
Also this Saturday, the San Francisco State University Fine Arts Gallery will hold a series of events related to their current exhibition, Witness to War: Revisiting Vietnam in Contemporary Art. The exhibition, which closes March 15, includes the work of Thai Bui, Binh Danh, Harrell Fletcher, Joyce Kozloff, An-My Le, Dinh Q. Le, Daniel J. Martinez, Long Nguyen and Martha Rosler.
1:00pm - Artists panel discussion with artists Binh Danh, Thai Bui and Long Nguyen, moderated by art historian Boreth Ly.
2:30pm - Nguyen Dance Company - modern interpretation of a traditional Vietnamese dance.
3:30pm - West Coast premiere of filmmaker Bui Hoai Mai's documentary, The Rain on the River (2005)
Entry to the exhibition and events is free.
Of particular note in the exhibition are a few examples of An-My Le's photographic series Small Wars, which she took at Vietnam War reenactment sessions in Virginia, and Dinh Q. Le's psychedelic collages using a traditional mat weaving technique and iconic images from film and media. Binh Danh also shows a depature from his signature photosynthetic pieces with an exploration of the 1960s Swamp Thing action figures, which stemmed from a comic book series of the same name that dealt with war themes--Agent Orange in particular.
A questionable inclusion is Harrell Fletcher's video "The American War," essentially photos of the displays at The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. It strikes me as a grand ripping-off, and the Vietnamese perspective that it ostensibly presents to American audiences would best be conveyed differently.
Much of the show seems to be a discussion of media and is influence on our perception of the war, incorporating found objects and images. It made me sad to think that though a great many people were profoundly affected by the war not so long ago, younger generations are almost entirely reliant on the era's photojournalists and cinematic representations in order to begin to comprehend the war. Will we even be able to? I guess that's the case with any war, when you don't experience it firsthand.
Posted by rebecca at 6:02 PM | Comments (0)
Mr. Hyphen talks to one of the world's greatest Sarode players, Aashish Khan.
CalArts is an amazing place. It is one of the few arts schools in the country where so many different disciplines (dance, animation, music, visual arts, theater, and film) converge under one roof. In fact, it is the only school where such artistic diversity exists within one building. It is no surprise then that the school has attracted and nurtured so many master level artists from around the world to teach and inspire students here. Ravi Shankar was the first north Indian musician to teach here over 30 years ago. Even today, master world musicians Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla), Wenton Nyoman (Indonesian Gamelan), Alfred & Kobla Ladzekpo (African percussion), and Miroslav Tadic (Flamenco Guitar) teach in the school's World Music department.
Among those masters is Aashish Khan, who recently joined the school's faculty. There is a whimsical and fluid creative energy that radiates from his presence. That open creative energy is reflected in all the different instruments that his students are playing today in the North Indian Ensemble at CalArts. Harps, flutes, electric guitars, Erzhus, sitars, saxophones, djimbes, pandieros and laptops running MAX/MSP are all eager to come to life with Aashishji’s interpretations of ragas. Each week, musicians of all cultural backgrounds converge to apply musical concepts rooted in north Indian music to their own instruments. The result is something to behold. An orchestra of different instruments around the world vibrating the depth and beauty of north Indian melodies and rhythms. It is an openness that is a hallmark of his family’s musical lineage.
Aashishji is the eldest son of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, one of the greatest sarode musicians alive today. Ali Akbar Khan opened the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California in the sixties, enabling thousands of students to study north Indian music in pure way. Aashishji is among a handful of living north Indian instrumentalists who have studied with not only his illustrious father and his legendary aunt Annapurna Devi, but his grandfather, the great Baba Allaudin Khan (1862-1972) of Maihar, India.
Baba, a mystical musical genius, is credited by many as being a singular force in shaping what we now call north Indian classical music. He innovated instrument design on the sarode, sitar and many more. He studied western and eastern musical concepts, and is said to have been able to play over 100 musical instruments. Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Annapurna Devi, SD Burman, Pannalal Ghosh, and Timir Baran were among the many incredible disciples who studied with him to become the great musicians they are.
Aashishji studied with the great Master for over 25 years.
A world class Sarode player and composer, Aashishji’s musical accomplishments are astounding. He was just recently a finalist for a Grammy in the World Music Category for an album. He worked closely with George Harrison on “Wonder Wall.” He performed sarode on Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Award by the President of India, one of the Highest Awards for the Classical Music of India. Most recently, Aashishji even performed as part of an animation that I scored here at CalArts. Check out his exquisite playing on Joel Crawford's animated short.
Now, he is teaching full-time at the California Institute of the Arts. I sat with him to hear the incredible stories of his training with Baba and how that training has shaped who he is today…
Tell me about your training, as a young person…what was it like for you, learning to play Sarode in Maihar, India?
I was very young when I was given a baby sarode. Probably 5 or 6 years old. I was not even aware…This baby sarode was given to me by my grandfather, and he started teaching me…he would draw lines on the sarode plate so I could put my finger in the right spot. At first it wasn’t that many hours…but gradually it became 12 hours a day, 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and 4 hours in the evening. Plus, he would teach me whenever he would feel like…sometimes in the morning, sometimes in afternoon, during the night. I used to practice in his bedroom, plus there is a big sitting room, living room, so he could hear me and correct me. So I was always under his constant guidance, I was protected. I give the same treatment to my students, I catch them whenever they make mistakes. So I am very critical in the beginning. It might be frustrating for them and as well for me, but gradually they develop the right habits themselves. The initial stages are very critical for any student of this music, to prevent the development of wrong habits, because if you don’t correct them, they remain throughout the rest of their lives.
Baba Allaudin Khan in Delhi, after he accepted the Padma Vibhushan awarded to him by the President of India.
When you were studying as a young boy, with your grandfather, what would you practice? Would it be one simple thing to work on?
First it was only simple exercises. No raag, or raaginis…no compositions. Just exercises, to develop right and left hand. First it was alaankars and bols, and then there was a stage when he started to show me meend (bending)…because meend can only be practiced when the ear is fully developed. But before that, you have to only develop your right hand, left hand, so that you play correct notes, and all shuddha (natural) swaras (notes), no komal (sharp) swaras, nothing. That went for a few years. Then he started giving me gats, compositions, that were very much fixed. And that also was only in Raag Bilawal in the daytime. In the evening it was Yeman Kalyan. So that went on for a few years. He never changed the raags, never gave new materials. Unless I perfect the exercises to his satisfaction, he would never give me a new lesson. If couldn’t play the old lesson, how could I pick up a new one?
So once I perfected that, after some time, after I became more matured, then he started pouring things. My God, I was so overwhelmed by that, it was too much for me to digest. Because I was so young.
Baba in his bedroom and study in Maihar, India.
How old were you when it became really serious?
I was eleven, twelve. Sometime I used to hate it, because it was so rich, so complex, and so difficult…to be able to differentiate between three ragas…like Puriya, Sohini, and Marwa…same thing with Hamir, Kamod, and Chayanat…they were very much related, they are borderline ragas. Those types of ragas were very difficult for me to absorb, to memorize, and to be able to digest. So, that is how my taalim went, on and on for years.
Then at twelve or thirteen, I played with him in New Delhi on All India Radio, a national radio program, in a live broadcast. Tabla was played by late Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, the Guru and Father of Kishan Maharaj. That was a great experience for me.
Aashish Khan & Sultan Khan
Was it difficult, scary for you?
It was the first time I played publicly. There was a very selected audience in front of us. It was an air conditioned small hall, auditorium. Live broadcast. Of course, before that I played in Maihar, when visitors would come. And they would like to listen to my grandfather. So he used to always make me play with him…but this was something else. In Kolkata, we had three generations playing together: my grandfather, my father, and myself. At the Tansen music conference, at Indira Cinema Hall. That was overpacked, literally people were standing, there was no room for sitting. It was a small movie theater, in those days it was considered the largest hall. Largest capacity. And people sitting on the street, and all the traffic was jammed, it was early morning, and the tram bus could not pass through those people, because they were sitting. They used to put large speakers outside, and people used to put newspaper, cover themselves with blankets, it used to be winter, month of December, and programs used to last until 9, 10 in the morning. All the traffic was jammed, nobody can pass the masses of people, because they would cause riots. Also, the tram drivers, the bus drivers, they were also music lovers, they would also join the crowd, and they would enjoy the music too. It was a different era, it was a different audience. Everybody would understand the music, you could not fool them.
Nowadays, you can fool the audience. It is so gimmicky, anything you do funny or with a gimmick, they will like that more than the music. That is the most sad thing I see in the audiences of today, except in some places. Of course, we have a very trained audience in the western world, some good audiences in some places in India, but really, very few people understand when you are really playing good music: are you really keeping the purity of the raga, the taal?
Nowadays, many musicians are running after establishing their name. If a certain musician becomes a star, the audience thinks he is the only one, there is no one else. That used to never happen in our time. Every musician was treated equally, they were respected, and they had the same demand as anyone else except for a few that were number 1, then number 2 and number 3, but mostly all were number 1…there was high competition, there was no gimmick, just pure music. No glamorous costumes, no eye blinding costumes, big decorations on stage, nothing, just simple stages and simple presentations of gorgeous music. We did not even have good sound.
Now we have such hi fi stereophonic surround sound, but the music is not that good…we used to only have old fashioned old speakers, like the old gramophone speakers, where you could barely hear bass notes coming out of it. Nowadays, all that gimmicky sound that musicians produce from their instruments and tabla, instead of playing the right bols, right compositions, real music... they are into all this flashy sound effects, not the real music, the real tabla.
Zakir Hussain & Aashish Khan
And those days, my God, I saw I saw and was lucky to play with all the top masters, starting from Shamta Prasadji, Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, Ustad Ahmedjan Thirakwa, Shamta Prasad, Anokelalji, Kanai Dutt, Hirendra Kumar Ganguly, Mahapurush Misra, Chaturlal, Swapan Chaudhuri, Janan Prakash Ghosh…all the legends…I was fortunate that I could play with them. Today, with tabla we have such a good sound, but when they played, poor guys, they never even used to say or know if people can hear them or not. Only the audience used to sometimes ask, “Can you please turn up the tabla a little more?” Politely.
Now, it becomes like a riot, and the tabla has to dominate. The musicians, we have become secondary. There was a time when tabla was not respected. My grandfather is the one who brought them the same platform, gave them equal opportunity, to play, to do sawaal jawab (question and answer), keep playing in different taals, and then my father and Pandit Ravi Shankar, they took tabla to an even higher level. They brought in young tabla players, who were not even known, so they began getting opportunities all over the world.
Now the tabla has the highest level in the music scene. Istrumentalists are getting less and less attention, the vocalists are getting less and less. Even the young vocalists, they think they are something, but the vocalists I have heard, like Siddheshwari Devi, Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Lakshmi Shankar, Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Om Karnath Thakur, Bahare Buwa, Begum Akhtar, Rasoolangbhai, Girja Devi…Girja Devi and Lakshmi Shankar are the only ones alive from that time and generation. But now, the vocal as well as instrumentalists, it is so light. If I have to listen to any instrumentalists, I listen to my father, my grandfather, and if I have to listen to vocal, I listen to Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Om Karnath Tahakur, Parveen Sultana, and Ajoy Chakraborty. As my grandfather used to say, “First you should be able cry from your own music, then only can you make others cry.” If he could say something like that, then where are today’s musicians? Nowhere, we are not even born.
The music scene, from that era to this era, it has become very poor. Nowadays, we have all these recording facilities. I wish we had all these facilities in those days, then we could have recorded good music, real music. Nowadays, we have great equipment, and very little good music. It was like a mythological time, it was only 50 or 60 years ago. It wasn’t that long ago.
Tell me more about Baba Allaudin Khan, what was he like when you were a boy. Was he strict, simple?
He was an extremely simple man. He had no demands, no luxury. Just simple food, his food habits were very simple. His passion was only music, because he learned it in such a hard way. So when my father was born, he was overwhelmed by that. He wanted to give everything to him. It was like wanting to give property, but you cannot do that in music, because you have to learn it, to get the property. He was very strict with my father…and then when I was born, it was even more overwhelming for him. He said, “Not only do I have son, now I have a grandson!” He wanted to pour all his knowledge into me, and into his disciples. He would teach something one time, you should be able to understand. Second time, fine…third time, he will start getting irritated. Fourth time, he would kick you on your head or hit you with whatever is in his hand. He would lose patience. He has to keep repeating the same line, and he wants to go to the next line. Now I understand after becoming a teacher, and I feel the same thing, and now I can understand what he used to go through.
Baba Allaudin Khan
He was very strict as a person, as a teacher. As a person, so I used to be very scared of him. I never used to go in front of him. I never had a relationship with him, like a grandfather to a grandson. I was always hiding from him, whenever possible, except when I had to learn from him, I had to face him. During lunchtime or breakfast time, is the only time I would have to be in front of him. The rest of the time I was used to be in my room practicing, or doing my homework…I had a private tutor, I was never sent to a school. There was no school where I lived. When they started having school, my grandfather wouldn’t send me, because I might get spoiled being with other kids and my practice might suffer.
So your relationship, was really that of Guru and student. It wasn’t, “Let’s go have ice cream and have some fun!”
No way, forget it. Though he would love to bring me sweets. On occasion he would bring clothes, and always see that I am had enough of everything. I was always overfed. We had a cow at home, and we got fresh milk. I was definitely overfed! I put on so much weight. People used to say, “My God, his grandfather and grandmother are turning him into a pig.” They used to make that kind of comment.
How did he aquire such immense musical knowledge? Was he a genius beyond words? Were you just unable to understand how he could have this much knowledge?
When he ran away from home, he went to many different gurus. The gurus would say, “I have run out of my knowledge to give you, go find somebody else” Like that, he collected all of his knowledge from many great teachers including Nulu Ghopal, from whom he learned Dhrupad style of singing. Finally, he found his real Guru, Mohammad Wazir Khan. Wazir Khan never accepted him right away. He made him wait for 5 years, just to test his patience. He only used to serve him, he would wash his hands, he would give him water, and things like that. After 5 years, he said, “You have passed your test, now I am going to tie a Ganda [sacred thread] in a thread ceremony, and now I am going to start teaching you.” My grandfather said that was some ceremony. With big plates, silver and gold coins, food, this and that…something that you can only see in a movie. It was that kind of occasion. Calling important people, and feeding them.
Stamp of Baba Allaudin Khan issued in India
Was he one of the only disciples of Wazir Khan?
No, Amjad Ali Khan’s father, Hafez Ali Khan became his disciple. I don’t know exactly when. They were learning at the same time.
So they were around each other?
Yes, they were Gurubhais. Hafez Ali Khansahib, he used to respect him like his own big brother. There are pictures of them in a crowd of some occasion for established musicians, and you can see only these two together outside of the crowd.
They respected one another?
Very much. For 40 years, my grandfather learned from his Guru, Wazir Khan. When he finished his learning, Wazir Khan said, “Now it is time for you to go out, now you can start siksha, diksha, pariksha. You can start teaching, performing and start administering tests to determine how good other students are. You can expand your knowledge. So, my grandfather left his Guru, and came to Kolkata. He was sitting between all these big musicians. In those days, big musicians used to dress like Maharajas. Big turbans, golden Jharidhars, gold medals all over their chests…he was sitting in between all of these Ustads [showmen], with a simple cotton dhoti and kurta, and he used to wear a simple cap always. So this person, a minister of Maihar, came to find a guru for his Maharaja. He was also a Bengali. So he was surprised to see this ordinary looking person sitting amongst these maharaja looking Ustads. He got more curious, more interested in him than in the others. Then my grandfather played music.
When he played, he got very impressed and he went to him, and asked if he would like to come to Maihar. My grandfather was looking for work, a job, so he went with him, and there in the hall, a huge hall of the Maharaja, he could see only brass instruments.
In those days, the British were in supreme power. So, what musical instruments were available were brass instruments. Trombones, trumpets, kettle drums, you name it. He didn’t see any Indian instruments. Where are Indian instruments, sitar, sarode, tabla, dholak, pakawaj…the maharaja said, what are those? He didn’t even know what they were.
That same evening, the Maihar Maharaja organized a performance featuring my grandfather, and when he started playing sarode, the maharaja immediately went and grabbed his feet and said you are going to be my Guru, and said, “I am not going to let you go from here, I am going to give you a house and salary.” My grandfather was looking for a job. He wanted to take care of my grandmother and my father who was already born.
Your father, Ali Akbar Khansahib was already born…
Yes, he was hardly 3 or 4. My aunt was not born, Annapurna Devi. She was born in Maihar probably. Anyway, then after getting the job, he went to East Bengal, he settled down in Maihar.
So, this man, the Maharaja of Maihar, became his disciple but also his patron?
He respected Baba like anything. That man gave him a place to live. After than, my grandfather became famous. So many maharajas offered him more money, more place to live, including Rabindranath Tagore who offered my grandfather to come live in Shantiniketan. But he refused everybody, because of his loyalty to the Maharaja. That man took care of him all the way. My grandfather taught him vocal classical music for many many, years, towards the end the Maharaja even wanted to study Surbahar. But he was too old then.
The Maharaja just loved the music, he didn’t want to perform?
Yes. There was once a major plague epidemic. A lot of kids became orphans. So the Maihar Maharaja [king] told my grandfather, “Please take care of these kids, they are orphans, and their parents have died.” So he took care of them. My grandmother became their mother, they became musicians, and then they became known as the Maihar Band. "Band" was a popular word in those days, because of the British. It was a symphony of different instruments, a concept that never really existed in Indian music before the British arrived..
Did any of the orphans go on to become musicians?
Yes. They only knew what they were taught. There was no notation, because everything was memorized. They were serious. They dedicated their lives to music. They didn’t know anything else. They were paid by the state government. Now it is in a disasterous condition, because the Madhya Pradesh government has taken over. After independence, all the Maharajas lost their kingdoms. That [the demise of the courts] is where the disasters started in our country, because at least they were art lovers and they respected the music, and the musicians didn’t have to worry. All the good things in our classical music, they helped to create.
Today’s ministers, MPs, they are destroying the culture, music, everything. It is in a wretched condition…the Maihar Band, if you see it today, you will be in tears. What my grandfather created, where it has ended up today, it is tragic.
What is the music like today in India?
The music financiers don’t care about the quality of music, they only care about how to fill their pockets with money. They don’t care for the public, the don’t care for the country’s heritage, and they don’t want to educate the youth of India about its classical traditions. Especially in Kolkata, Bengal. Kolkata used to be the richest place for music, poetry, art, culture, cinema, theater…everything. All the great poets, writers, came from Bengal. Nowadays, among the young kids, it is a fad to have a rock band. They will just pick up a guitar, pick up a drum, they will strart singing, writing lyrics without any formal training. And they are getting paid much more than classical musicians, who have been training for their entire lives.
So, things are turning into gimmicks. A lot of classical musicians have gone into that. By creating a band, or having some kind of 50 musicians of drummers, adding dancing, whatever will attract people. That is how they are promoting Indian music, in a very deformed way. Even there are top musicians, who are doing the same thing in America, instead of promoting classical music, they are promoting something else. They want to be in limelight, they want to be called the heroes, or pop stars…I don’t call them classical musicians, because they are not promoting the classical modality. Though they have the position, which luckily they have it, they should really promote and create good listeners, taste for real classical music, which our Gurus and great masters have given their life to learn. Today, some of the top musicians, young/old, any age, are destroying it.
Baba Allaudin Khan with his disciples, Maestro Ali Akbar Khan (right) & Pandit Ravi Shankar
What do you think is going to happen with the young generation? Tell me what is happening with fusion music, and you create some great beautiful music with Shanti, the legendary first fusion concept in the west…what is happening now?
What is happening today, with the young generation, is that they are trying to blend these two music forms, but they are not having extensive knowledge of either their music or the western music. You have to have proper knowledge of these forms, and how to blend, and where they meet. Indian music is very strong in melody and rhythm, whereas western music is strong in harmony and also rhythms. So you have to know where we can meet very nicely, without destroying one another. Keeping equal respect for one another is critical.
Aashish Khan and Pranesh Khan (tabla)
You are in an interesting position, now that you are teaching at CalArts. What is is like teaching and learning in America?
I am trying my best to give the pure form of our music. For the first time I am teaching at CalArts. I find very bright and intelligent students. This four five months I have taught them, some students didn’t have knowledge of the difference between Sa and high Sa. My teaching methods, and their hard work, I think it is working very well. Now they are ready for the next term. At least I find in the western world, the listeners are well educated. They know their own music. You cannot fool them. In the west I enjoy playing, because I find great audience…my father and Pandit Ravi Shankar, they have educated them with such good music, and I don’t know how long that will last with all the gimmicky music going on.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 3:59 PM | Comments (2)
Mr. Hyphen talks to one of the world's greatest Sarode players, Aashish Khan.
CalArts is an amazing place. It is one of the few arts schools in the country where so many different disciplines (dance, animation, music, visual arts, theater, and film) converge under one roof. In fact, it is the only school where such artistic diversity exists within one building. It is no surprise then that the school has attracted and nurtured so many master level artists from around the world to teach and inspire students here. Ravi Shankar was the first north Indian musician to teach here over 30 years ago. Even today, master world musicians Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla), Wenton Nyoman (Indonesian Gamelan), Alfred & Kobla Ladzekpo (African percussion), and Miroslav Tadic (Flamenco Guitar) teach in the school's World Music department.
Among those masters is Aashish Khan, who recently joined the school's faculty. There is a whimsical and fluid creative energy that radiates from his presence. That open creative energy is reflected in all the different instruments that his students are playing today in the North Indian Ensemble at CalArts. Harps, flutes, electric guitars, Erzhus, sitars, saxophones, djimbes, pandieros and laptops running MAX/MSP are all eager to come to life with Aashishji’s interpretations of ragas. Each week, musicians of all cultural backgrounds converge to apply musical concepts rooted in north Indian music to their own instruments. The result is something to behold. An orchestra of different instruments around the world vibrating the depth and beauty of north Indian melodies and rhythms. It is an openness that is a hallmark of his family’s musical lineage.
Aashishji is the eldest son of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, one of the greatest sarode musicians alive today. Ali Akbar Khan opened the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California in the sixties, enabling thousands of students to study north Indian music in pure way. Aashishji is among a handful of living north Indian instrumentalists who have studied with not only his illustrious father and his legendary aunt Annapurna Devi, but his grandfather, the great Baba Allaudin Khan (1862-1972) of Maihar, India.
Baba, a mystical musical genius, is credited by many as being a singular force in shaping what we now call north Indian classical music. He innovated instrument design on the sarode, sitar and many more. He studied western and eastern musical concepts, and is said to have been able to play over 100 musical instruments. Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Annapurna Devi, SD Burman, Pannalal Ghosh, and Timir Baran were among the many incredible disciples who studied with him to become the great musicians they are.
Aashishji studied with the great Master for over 25 years.
A world class Sarode player and composer, Aashishji’s musical accomplishments are astounding. He was just recently a finalist for a Grammy in the World Music Category for an album. He worked closely with George Harrison on “Wonder Wall.” He performed sarode on Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Award by the President of India, one of the Highest Awards for the Classical Music of India. Most recently, Aashishji even performed as part of an animation that I scored here at CalArts. Check out his exquisite playing on Joel Crawford's animated short.
Now, he is teaching full-time at the California Institute of the Arts. I sat with him to hear the incredible stories of his training with Baba and how that training has shaped who he is today…
Tell me about your training, as a young person…what was it like for you, learning to play Sarode in Maihar, India?
I was very young when I was given a baby sarode. Probably 5 or 6 years old. I was not even aware…This baby sarode was given to me by my grandfather, and he started teaching me…he would draw lines on the sarode plate so I could put my finger in the right spot. At first it wasn’t that many hours…but gradually it became 12 hours a day, 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and 4 hours in the evening. Plus, he would teach me whenever he would feel like…sometimes in the morning, sometimes in afternoon, during the night. I used to practice in his bedroom, plus there is a big sitting room, living room, so he could hear me and correct me. So I was always under his constant guidance, I was protected. I give the same treatment to my students, I catch them whenever they make mistakes. So I am very critical in the beginning. It might be frustrating for them and as well for me, but gradually they develop the right habits themselves. The initial stages are very critical for any student of this music, to prevent the development of wrong habits, because if you don’t correct them, they remain throughout the rest of their lives.
Baba Allaudin Khan in Delhi, after he accepted the Padma Vibhushan awarded to him by the President of India.
When you were studying as a young boy, with your grandfather, what would you practice? Would it be one simple thing to work on?
First it was only simple exercises. No raag, or raaginis…no compositions. Just exercises, to develop right and left hand. First it was alaankars and bols, and then there was a stage when he started to show me meend (bending)…because meend can only be practiced when the ear is fully developed. But before that, you have to only develop your right hand, left hand, so that you play correct notes, and all shuddha (natural) swaras (notes), no komal (sharp) swaras, nothing. That went for a few years. Then he started giving me gats, compositions, that were very much fixed. And that also was only in Raag Bilawal in the daytime. In the evening it was Yeman Kalyan. So that went on for a few years. He never changed the raags, never gave new materials. Unless I perfect the exercises to his satisfaction, he would never give me a new lesson. If couldn’t play the old lesson, how could I pick up a new one?
So once I perfected that, after some time, after I became more matured, then he started pouring things. My God, I was so overwhelmed by that, it was too much for me to digest. Because I was so young.
Baba in his bedroom and study in Maihar, India.
How old were you when it became really serious?
I was eleven, twelve. Sometime I used to hate it, because it was so rich, so complex, and so difficult…to be able to differentiate between three ragas…like Puriya, Sohini, and Marwa…same thing with Hamir, Kamod, and Chayanat…they were very much related, they are borderline ragas. Those types of ragas were very difficult for me to absorb, to memorize, and to be able to digest. So, that is how my taalim went, on and on for years.
Then at twelve or thirteen, I played with him in New Delhi on All India Radio, a national radio program, in a live broadcast. Tabla was played by late Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, the Guru and Father of Kishan Maharaj. That was a great experience for me.
Aashish Khan & Sultan Khan
Was it difficult, scary for you?
It was the first time I played publicly. There was a very selected audience in front of us. It was an air conditioned small hall, auditorium. Live broadcast. Of course, before that I played in Maihar, when visitors would come. And they would like to listen to my grandfather. So he used to always make me play with him…but this was something else. In Kolkata, we had three generations playing together: my grandfather, my father, and myself. At the Tansen music conference, at Indira Cinema Hall. That was overpacked, literally people were standing, there was no room for sitting. It was a small movie theater, in those days it was considered the largest hall. Largest capacity. And people sitting on the street, and all the traffic was jammed, it was early morning, and the tram bus could not pass through those people, because they were sitting. They used to put large speakers outside, and people used to put newspaper, cover themselves with blankets, it used to be winter, month of December, and programs used to last until 9, 10 in the morning. All the traffic was jammed, nobody can pass the masses of people, because they would cause riots. Also, the tram drivers, the bus drivers, they were also music lovers, they would also join the crowd, and they would enjoy the music too. It was a different era, it was a different audience. Everybody would understand the music, you could not fool them.
Nowadays, you can fool the audience. It is so gimmicky, anything you do funny or with a gimmick, they will like that more than the music. That is the most sad thing I see in the audiences of today, except in some places. Of course, we have a very trained audience in the western world, some good audiences in some places in India, but really, very few people understand when you are really playing good music: are you really keeping the purity of the raga, the taal?
Nowadays, many musicians are running after establishing their name. If a certain musician becomes a star, the audience thinks he is the only one, there is no one else. That used to never happen in our time. Every musician was treated equally, they were respected, and they had the same demand as anyone else except for a few that were number 1, then number 2 and number 3, but mostly all were number 1…there was high competition, there was no gimmick, just pure music. No glamorous costumes, no eye blinding costumes, big decorations on stage, nothing, just simple stages and simple presentations of gorgeous music. We did not even have good sound.
Now we have such hi fi stereophonic surround sound, but the music is not that good…we used to only have old fashioned old speakers, like the old gramophone speakers, where you could barely hear bass notes coming out of it. Nowadays, all that gimmicky sound that musicians produce from their instruments and tabla, instead of playing the right bols, right compositions, real music... they are into all this flashy sound effects, not the real music, the real tabla.
Zakir Hussain & Aashish Khan
And those days, my God, I saw I saw and was lucky to play with all the top masters, starting from Shamta Prasadji, Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, Ustad Ahmedjan Thirakwa, Shamta Prasad, Anokelalji, Kanai Dutt, Hirendra Kumar Ganguly, Mahapurush Misra, Chaturlal, Swapan Chaudhuri, Janan Prakash Ghosh…all the legends…I was fortunate that I could play with them. Today, with tabla we have such a good sound, but when they played, poor guys, they never even used to say or know if people can hear them or not. Only the audience used to sometimes ask, “Can you please turn up the tabla a little more?” Politely.
Now, it becomes like a riot, and the tabla has to dominate. The musicians, we have become secondary. There was a time when tabla was not respected. My grandfather is the one who brought them the same platform, gave them equal opportunity, to play, to do sawaal jawab (question and answer), keep playing in different taals, and then my father and Pandit Ravi Shankar, they took tabla to an even higher level. They brought in young tabla players, who were not even known, so they began getting opportunities all over the world.
Now the tabla has the highest level in the music scene. Istrumentalists are getting less and less attention, the vocalists are getting less and less. Even the young vocalists, they think they are something, but the vocalists I have heard, like Siddheshwari Devi, Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Lakshmi Shankar, Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Om Karnath Thakur, Bahare Buwa, Begum Akhtar, Rasoolangbhai, Girja Devi…Girja Devi and Lakshmi Shankar are the only ones alive from that time and generation. But now, the vocal as well as instrumentalists, it is so light. If I have to listen to any instrumentalists, I listen to my father, my grandfather, and if I have to listen to vocal, I listen to Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Om Karnath Tahakur, Parveen Sultana, and Ajoy Chakraborty. As my grandfather used to say, “First you should be able cry from your own music, then only can you make others cry.” If he could say something like that, then where are today’s musicians? Nowhere, we are not even born.
The music scene, from that era to this era, it has become very poor. Nowadays, we have all these recording facilities. I wish we had all these facilities in those days, then we could have recorded good music, real music. Nowadays, we have great equipment, and very little good music. It was like a mythological time, it was only 50 or 60 years ago. It wasn’t that long ago.
Tell me more about Baba Allaudin Khan, what was he like when you were a boy. Was he strict, simple?
He was an extremely simple man. He had no demands, no luxury. Just simple food, his food habits were very simple. His passion was only music, because he learned it in such a hard way. So when my father was born, he was overwhelmed by that. He wanted to give everything to him. It was like wanting to give property, but you cannot do that in music, because you have to learn it, to get the property. He was very strict with my father…and then when I was born, it was even more overwhelming for him. He said, “Not only do I have son, now I have a grandson!” He wanted to pour all his knowledge into me, and into his disciples. He would teach something one time, you should be able to understand. Second time, fine…third time, he will start getting irritated. Fourth time, he would kick you on your head or hit you with whatever is in his hand. He would lose patience. He has to keep repeating the same line, and he wants to go to the next line. Now I understand after becoming a teacher, and I feel the same thing, and now I can understand what he used to go through.
Baba Allaudin Khan
He was very strict as a person, as a teacher. As a person, so I used to be very scared of him. I never used to go in front of him. I never had a relationship with him, like a grandfather to a grandson. I was always hiding from him, whenever possible, except when I had to learn from him, I had to face him. During lunchtime or breakfast time, is the only time I would have to be in front of him. The rest of the time I was used to be in my room practicing, or doing my homework…I had a private tutor, I was never sent to a school. There was no school where I lived. When they started having school, my grandfather wouldn’t send me, because I might get spoiled being with other kids and my practice might suffer.
So your relationship, was really that of Guru and student. It wasn’t, “Let’s go have ice cream and have some fun!”
No way, forget it. Though he would love to bring me sweets. On occasion he would bring clothes, and always see that I am had enough of everything. I was always overfed. We had a cow at home, and we got fresh milk. I was definitely overfed! I put on so much weight. People used to say, “My God, his grandfather and grandmother are turning him into a pig.” They used to make that kind of comment.
How did he aquire such immense musical knowledge? Was he a genius beyond words? Were you just unable to understand how he could have this much knowledge?
When he ran away from home, he went to many different gurus. The gurus would say, “I have run out of my knowledge to give you, go find somebody else” Like that, he collected all of his knowledge from many great teachers including Nulu Ghopal, from whom he learned Dhrupad style of singing. Finally, he found his real Guru, Mohammad Wazir Khan. Wazir Khan never accepted him right away. He made him wait for 5 years, just to test his patience. He only used to serve him, he would wash his hands, he would give him water, and things like that. After 5 years, he said, “You have passed your test, now I am going to tie a Ganda [sacred thread] in a thread ceremony, and now I am going to start teaching you.” My grandfather said that was some ceremony. With big plates, silver and gold coins, food, this and that…something that you can only see in a movie. It was that kind of occasion. Calling important people, and feeding them.
Stamp of Baba Allaudin Khan issued in India
Was he one of the only disciples of Wazir Khan?
No, Amjad Ali Khan’s father, Hafez Ali Khan became his disciple. I don’t know exactly when. They were learning at the same time.
So they were around each other?
Yes, they were Gurubhais. Hafez Ali Khansahib, he used to respect him like his own big brother. There are pictures of them in a crowd of some occasion for established musicians, and you can see only these two together outside of the crowd.
They respected one another?
Very much. For 40 years, my grandfather learned from his Guru, Wazir Khan. When he finished his learning, Wazir Khan said, “Now it is time for you to go out, now you can start siksha, diksha, pariksha. You can start teaching, performing and start administering tests to determine how good other students are. You can expand your knowledge. So, my grandfather left his Guru, and came to Kolkata. He was sitting between all these big musicians. In those days, big musicians used to dress like Maharajas. Big turbans, golden Jharidhars, gold medals all over their chests…he was sitting in between all of these Ustads [showmen], with a simple cotton dhoti and kurta, and he used to wear a simple cap always. So this person, a minister of Maihar, came to find a guru for his Maharaja. He was also a Bengali. So he was surprised to see this ordinary looking person sitting amongst these maharaja looking Ustads. He got more curious, more interested in him than in the others. Then my grandfather played music.
When he played, he got very impressed and he went to him, and asked if he would like to come to Maihar. My grandfather was looking for work, a job, so he went with him, and there in the hall, a huge hall of the Maharaja, he could see only brass instruments.
In those days, the British were in supreme power. So, what musical instruments were available were brass instruments. Trombones, trumpets, kettle drums, you name it. He didn’t see any Indian instruments. Where are Indian instruments, sitar, sarode, tabla, dholak, pakawaj…the maharaja said, what are those? He didn’t even know what they were.
That same evening, the Maihar Maharaja organized a performance featuring my grandfather, and when he started playing sarode, the maharaja immediately went and grabbed his feet and said you are going to be my Guru, and said, “I am not going to let you go from here, I am going to give you a house and salary.” My grandfather was looking for a job. He wanted to take care of my grandmother and my father who was already born.
Your father, Ali Akbar Khansahib was already born…
Yes, he was hardly 3 or 4. My aunt was not born, Annapurna Devi. She was born in Maihar probably. Anyway, then after getting the job, he went to East Bengal, he settled down in Maihar.
So, this man, the Maharaja of Maihar, became his disciple but also his patron?
He respected Baba like anything. That man gave him a place to live. After than, my grandfather became famous. So many maharajas offered him more money, more place to live, including Rabindranath Tagore who offered my grandfather to come live in Shantiniketan. But he refused everybody, because of his loyalty to the Maharaja. That man took care of him all the way. My grandfather taught him vocal classical music for many many, years, towards the end the Maharaja even wanted to study Surbahar. But he was too old then.
The Maharaja just loved the music, he didn’t want to perform?
Yes. There was once a major plague epidemic. A lot of kids became orphans. So the Maihar Maharaja [king] told my grandfather, “Please take care of these kids, they are orphans, and their parents have died.” So he took care of them. My grandmother became their mother, they became musicians, and then they became known as the Maihar Band. "Band" was a popular word in those days, because of the British. It was a symphony of different instruments, a concept that never really existed in Indian music before the British arrived..
Did any of the orphans go on to become musicians?
Yes. They only knew what they were taught. There was no notation, because everything was memorized. They were serious. They dedicated their lives to music. They didn’t know anything else. They were paid by the state government. Now it is in a disasterous condition, because the Madhya Pradesh government has taken over. After independence, all the Maharajas lost their kingdoms. That [the demise of the courts] is where the disasters started in our country, because at least they were art lovers and they respected the music, and the musicians didn’t have to worry. All the good things in our classical music, they helped to create.
Today’s ministers, MPs, they are destroying the culture, music, everything. It is in a wretched condition…the Maihar Band, if you see it today, you will be in tears. What my grandfather created, where it has ended up today, it is tragic.
What is the music like today in India?
The music financiers don’t care about the quality of music, they only care about how to fill their pockets with money. They don’t care for the public, the don’t care for the country’s heritage, and they don’t want to educate the youth of India about its classical traditions. Especially in Kolkata, Bengal. Kolkata used to be the richest place for music, poetry, art, culture, cinema, theater…everything. All the great poets, writers, came from Bengal. Nowadays, among the young kids, it is a fad to have a rock band. They will just pick up a guitar, pick up a drum, they will strart singing, writing lyrics without any formal training. And they are getting paid much more than classical musicians, who have been training for their entire lives.
So, things are turning into gimmicks. A lot of classical musicians have gone into that. By creating a band, or having some kind of 50 musicians of drummers, adding dancing, whatever will attract people. That is how they are promoting Indian music, in a very deformed way. Even there are top musicians, who are doing the same thing in America, instead of promoting classical music, they are promoting something else. They want to be in limelight, they want to be called the heroes, or pop stars…I don’t call them classical musicians, because they are not promoting the classical modality. Though they have the position, which luckily they have it, they should really promote and create good listeners, taste for real classical music, which our Gurus and great masters have given their life to learn. Today, some of the top musicians, young/old, any age, are destroying it.
Baba Allaudin Khan with his disciples, Maestro Ali Akbar Khan (right) & Pandit Ravi Shankar
What do you think is going to happen with the young generation? Tell me what is happening with fusion music, and you create some great beautiful music with Shanti, the legendary first fusion concept in the west…what is happening now?
What is happening today, with the young generation, is that they are trying to blend these two music forms, but they are not having extensive knowledge of either their music or the western music. You have to have proper knowledge of these forms, and how to blend, and where they meet. Indian music is very strong in melody and rhythm, whereas western music is strong in harmony and also rhythms. So you have to know where we can meet very nicely, without destroying one another. Keeping equal respect for one another is critical.
Aashish Khan and Pranesh Khan (tabla)
You are in an interesting position, now that you are teaching at CalArts. What is is like teaching and learning in America?
I am trying my best to give the pure form of our music. For the first time I am teaching at CalArts. I find very bright and intelligent students. This four five months I have taught them, some students didn’t have knowledge of the difference between Sa and high Sa. My teaching methods, and their hard work, I think it is working very well. Now they are ready for the next term. At least I find in the western world, the listeners are well educated. They know their own music. You cannot fool them. In the west I enjoy playing, because I find great audience…my father and Pandit Ravi Shankar, they have educated them with such good music, and I don’t know how long that will last with all the gimmicky music going on.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 3:59 PM | Comments (2)
Mr. Hyphen talks to one of the world's greatest Sarode players, Aashish Khan.
CalArts is an amazing place. It is one of the few arts schools in the country where so many different disciplines (dance, animation, music, visual arts, theater, and film) converge under one roof. In fact, it is the only school where such artistic diversity exists within one building. It is no surprise then that the school has attracted and nurtured so many master level artists from around the world to teach and inspire students here. Ravi Shankar was the first north Indian musician to teach here over 30 years ago. Even today, master world musicians Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla), Wenton Nyoman (Indonesian Gamelan), Alfred & Kobla Ladzekpo (African percussion), and Miroslav Tadic (Flamenco Guitar) teach in the school's World Music department.
Among those masters is Aashish Khan, who recently joined the school's faculty. There is a whimsical and fluid creative energy that radiates from his presence. That open creative energy is reflected in all the different instruments that his students are playing today in the North Indian Ensemble at CalArts. Harps, flutes, electric guitars, Erzhus, sitars, saxophones, djimbes, pandieros and laptops running MAX/MSP are all eager to come to life with Aashishjis interpretations of ragas. Each week, musicians of all cultural backgrounds converge to apply musical concepts rooted in north Indian music to their own instruments. The result is something to behold. An orchestra of different instruments around the world vibrating the depth and beauty of north Indian melodies and rhythms. It is an openness that is a hallmark of his familys musical lineage.
Aashishji is the eldest son of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, one of the greatest sarode musicians alive today. Ali Akbar Khan opened the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California in the sixties, enabling thousands of students to study north Indian music in pure way. Aashishji is among a handful of living north Indian instrumentalists who have studied with not only his illustrious father and his legendary aunt Annapurna Devi, but his grandfather, the great Baba Allaudin Khan (1862-1972) of Maihar, India.
Baba, a mystical musical genius, is credited by many as being a singular force in shaping what we now call north Indian classical music. He innovated instrument design on the sarode, sitar and many more. He studied western and eastern musical concepts, and is said to have been able to play over 100 musical instruments. Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, Annapurna Devi, SD Burman, Pannalal Ghosh, and Timir Baran were among the many incredible disciples who studied with him to become the great musicians they are.
Aashishji studied with the great Master for over 25 years.
A world class Sarode player and composer, Aashishjis musical accomplishments are astounding. He was just recently a finalist for a Grammy in the World Music Category for an album. He worked closely with George Harrison on Wonder Wall. He performed sarode on Richard Attenboroughs Gandhi. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Award by the President of India, one of the Highest Awards for the Classical Music of India. Most recently, Aashishji even performed as part of an animation that I scored here at CalArts. Check out his exquisite playing on Joel Crawford's animated short.
Now, he is teaching full-time at the California Institute of the Arts. I sat with him to hear the incredible stories of his training with Baba and how that training has shaped who he is today
Tell me about your training, as a young personwhat was it like for you, learning to play Sarode in Maihar, India?
I was very young when I was given a baby sarode. Probably 5 or 6 years old. I was not even awareThis baby sarode was given to me by my grandfather, and he started teaching mehe would draw lines on the sarode plate so I could put my finger in the right spot. At first it wasnt that many hoursbut gradually it became 12 hours a day, 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and 4 hours in the evening. Plus, he would teach me whenever he would feel likesometimes in the morning, sometimes in afternoon, during the night. I used to practice in his bedroom, plus there is a big sitting room, living room, so he could hear me and correct me. So I was always under his constant guidance, I was protected. I give the same treatment to my students, I catch them whenever they make mistakes. So I am very critical in the beginning. It might be frustrating for them and as well for me, but gradually they develop the right habits themselves. The initial stages are very critical for any student of this music, to prevent the development of wrong habits, because if you dont correct them, they remain throughout the rest of their lives.
Baba Allaudin Khan in Delhi, after he accepted the Padma Vibhushan awarded to him by the President of India.
When you were studying as a young boy, with your grandfather, what would you practice? Would it be one simple thing to work on?
First it was only simple exercises. No raag, or raaginisno compositions. Just exercises, to develop right and left hand. First it was alaankars and bols, and then there was a stage when he started to show me meend (bending)because meend can only be practiced when the ear is fully developed. But before that, you have to only develop your right hand, left hand, so that you play correct notes, and all shuddha (natural) swaras (notes), no komal (sharp) swaras, nothing. That went for a few years. Then he started giving me gats, compositions, that were very much fixed. And that also was only in Raag Bilawal in the daytime. In the evening it was Yeman Kalyan. So that went on for a few years. He never changed the raags, never gave new materials. Unless I perfect the exercises to his satisfaction, he would never give me a new lesson. If couldnt play the old lesson, how could I pick up a new one?
So once I perfected that, after some time, after I became more matured, then he started pouring things. My God, I was so overwhelmed by that, it was too much for me to digest. Because I was so young.
Baba in his bedroom and study in Maihar, India.
How old were you when it became really serious?
I was eleven, twelve. Sometime I used to hate it, because it was so rich, so complex, and so difficultto be able to differentiate between three ragaslike Puriya, Sohini, and Marwasame thing with Hamir, Kamod, and Chayanatthey were very much related, they are borderline ragas. Those types of ragas were very difficult for me to absorb, to memorize, and to be able to digest. So, that is how my taalim went, on and on for years.
Then at twelve or thirteen, I played with him in New Delhi on All India Radio, a national radio program, in a live broadcast. Tabla was played by late Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, the Guru and Father of Kishan Maharaj. That was a great experience for me.
Aashish Khan & Sultan Khan
Was it difficult, scary for you?
It was the first time I played publicly. There was a very selected audience in front of us. It was an air conditioned small hall, auditorium. Live broadcast. Of course, before that I played in Maihar, when visitors would come. And they would like to listen to my grandfather. So he used to always make me play with himbut this was something else. In Kolkata, we had three generations playing together: my grandfather, my father, and myself. At the Tansen music conference, at Indira Cinema Hall. That was overpacked, literally people were standing, there was no room for sitting. It was a small movie theater, in those days it was considered the largest hall. Largest capacity. And people sitting on the street, and all the traffic was jammed, it was early morning, and the tram bus could not pass through those people, because they were sitting. They used to put large speakers outside, and people used to put newspaper, cover themselves with blankets, it used to be winter, month of December, and programs used to last until 9, 10 in the morning. All the traffic was jammed, nobody can pass the masses of people, because they would cause riots. Also, the tram drivers, the bus drivers, they were also music lovers, they would also join the crowd, and they would enjoy the music too. It was a different era, it was a different audience. Everybody would understand the music, you could not fool them.
Nowadays, you can fool the audience. It is so gimmicky, anything you do funny or with a gimmick, they will like that more than the music. That is the most sad thing I see in the audiences of today, except in some places. Of course, we have a very trained audience in the western world, some good audiences in some places in India, but really, very few people understand when you are really playing good music: are you really keeping the purity of the raga, the taal?
Nowadays, many musicians are running after establishing their name. If a certain musician becomes a star, the audience thinks he is the only one, there is no one else. That used to never happen in our time. Every musician was treated equally, they were respected, and they had the same demand as anyone else except for a few that were number 1, then number 2 and number 3, but mostly all were number 1there was high competition, there was no gimmick, just pure music. No glamorous costumes, no eye blinding costumes, big decorations on stage, nothing, just simple stages and simple presentations of gorgeous music. We did not even have good sound.
Now we have such hi fi stereophonic surround sound, but the music is not that goodwe used to only have old fashioned old speakers, like the old gramophone speakers, where you could barely hear bass notes coming out of it. Nowadays, all that gimmicky sound that musicians produce from their instruments and tabla, instead of playing the right bols, right compositions, real music... they are into all this flashy sound effects, not the real music, the real tabla.
Zakir Hussain & Aashish Khan
And those days, my God, I saw I saw and was lucky to play with all the top masters, starting from Shamta Prasadji, Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, Ustad Ahmedjan Thirakwa, Shamta Prasad, Anokelalji, Kanai Dutt, Hirendra Kumar Ganguly, Mahapurush Misra, Chaturlal, Swapan Chaudhuri, Janan Prakash Ghoshall the legendsI was fortunate that I could play with them. Today, with tabla we have such a good sound, but when they played, poor guys, they never even used to say or know if people can hear them or not. Only the audience used to sometimes ask, Can you please turn up the tabla a little more? Politely.
Now, it becomes like a riot, and the tabla has to dominate. The musicians, we have become secondary. There was a time when tabla was not respected. My grandfather is the one who brought them the same platform, gave them equal opportunity, to play, to do sawaal jawab (question and answer), keep playing in different taals, and then my father and Pandit Ravi Shankar, they took tabla to an even higher level. They brought in young tabla players, who were not even known, so they began getting opportunities all over the world.
Now the tabla has the highest level in the music scene. Istrumentalists are getting less and less attention, the vocalists are getting less and less. Even the young vocalists, they think they are something, but the vocalists I have heard, like Siddheshwari Devi, Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Lakshmi Shankar, Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Om Karnath Thakur, Bahare Buwa, Begum Akhtar, Rasoolangbhai, Girja DeviGirja Devi and Lakshmi Shankar are the only ones alive from that time and generation. But now, the vocal as well as instrumentalists, it is so light. If I have to listen to any instrumentalists, I listen to my father, my grandfather, and if I have to listen to vocal, I listen to Ustad Amir Khansahib, Pandit Om Karnath Tahakur, Parveen Sultana, and Ajoy Chakraborty. As my grandfather used to say, First you should be able cry from your own music, then only can you make others cry. If he could say something like that, then where are todays musicians? Nowhere, we are not even born.
The music scene, from that era to this era, it has become very poor. Nowadays, we have all these recording facilities. I wish we had all these facilities in those days, then we could have recorded good music, real music. Nowadays, we have great equipment, and very little good music. It was like a mythological time, it was only 50 or 60 years ago. It wasnt that long ago.
Tell me more about Baba Allaudin Khan, what was he like when you were a boy. Was he strict, simple?
He was an extremely simple man. He had no demands, no luxury. Just simple food, his food habits were very simple. His passion was only music, because he learned it in such a hard way. So when my father was born, he was overwhelmed by that. He wanted to give everything to him. It was like wanting to give property, but you cannot do that in music, because you have to learn it, to get the property. He was very strict with my fatherand then when I was born, it was even more overwhelming for him. He said, Not only do I have son, now I have a grandson! He wanted to pour all his knowledge into me, and into his disciples. He would teach something one time, you should be able to understand. Second time, finethird time, he will start getting irritated. Fourth time, he would kick you on your head or hit you with whatever is in his hand. He would lose patience. He has to keep repeating the same line, and he wants to go to the next line. Now I understand after becoming a teacher, and I feel the same thing, and now I can understand what he used to go through.
Baba Allaudin Khan
He was very strict as a person, as a teacher. As a person, so I used to be very scared of him. I never used to go in front of him. I never had a relationship with him, like a grandfather to a grandson. I was always hiding from him, whenever possible, except when I had to learn from him, I had to face him. During lunchtime or breakfast time, is the only time I would have to be in front of him. The rest of the time I was used to be in my room practicing, or doing my homeworkI had a private tutor, I was never sent to a school. There was no school where I lived. When they started having school, my grandfather wouldnt send me, because I might get spoiled being with other kids and my practice might suffer.
So your relationship, was really that of Guru and student. It wasnt, Lets go have ice cream and have some fun!
No way, forget it. Though he would love to bring me sweets. On occasion he would bring clothes, and always see that I am had enough of everything. I was always overfed. We had a cow at home, and we got fresh milk. I was definitely overfed! I put on so much weight. People used to say, My God, his grandfather and grandmother are turning him into a pig. They used to make that kind of comment.
How did he aquire such immense musical knowledge? Was he a genius beyond words? Were you just unable to understand how he could have this much knowledge?
When he ran away from home, he went to many different gurus. The gurus would say, I have run out of my knowledge to give you, go find somebody else Like that, he collected all of his knowledge from many great teachers including Nulu Ghopal, from whom he learned Dhrupad style of singing. Finally, he found his real Guru, Mohammad Wazir Khan. Wazir Khan never accepted him right away. He made him wait for 5 years, just to test his patience. He only used to serve him, he would wash his hands, he would give him water, and things like that. After 5 years, he said, You have passed your test, now I am going to tie a Ganda [sacred thread] in a thread ceremony, and now I am going to start teaching you. My grandfather said that was some ceremony. With big plates, silver and gold coins, food, this and thatsomething that you can only see in a movie. It was that kind of occasion. Calling important people, and feeding them.
Stamp of Baba Allaudin Khan issued in India
Was he one of the only disciples of Wazir Khan?
No, Amjad Ali Khans father, Hafez Ali Khan became his disciple. I dont know exactly when. They were learning at the same time.
So they were around each other?
Yes, they were Gurubhais. Hafez Ali Khansahib, he used to respect him like his own big brother. There are pictures of them in a crowd of some occasion for established musicians, and you can see only these two together outside of the crowd.
They respected one another?
Very much. For 40 years, my grandfather learned from his Guru, Wazir Khan. When he finished his learning, Wazir Khan said, Now it is time for you to go out, now you can start siksha, diksha, pariksha. You can start teaching, performing and start administering tests to determine how good other students are. You can expand your knowledge. So, my grandfather left his Guru, and came to Kolkata. He was sitting between all these big musicians. In those days, big musicians used to dress like Maharajas. Big turbans, golden Jharidhars, gold medals all over their chestshe was sitting in between all of these Ustads [showmen], with a simple cotton dhoti and kurta, and he used to wear a simple cap always. So this person, a minister of Maihar, came to find a guru for his Maharaja. He was also a Bengali. So he was surprised to see this ordinary looking person sitting amongst these maharaja looking Ustads. He got more curious, more interested in him than in the others. Then my grandfather played music.
When he played, he got very impressed and he went to him, and asked if he would like to come to Maihar. My grandfather was looking for work, a job, so he went with him, and there in the hall, a huge hall of the Maharaja, he could see only brass instruments.
In those days, the British were in supreme power. So, what musical instruments were available were brass instruments. Trombones, trumpets, kettle drums, you name it. He didnt see any Indian instruments. Where are Indian instruments, sitar, sarode, tabla, dholak, pakawajthe maharaja said, what are those? He didnt even know what they were.
That same evening, the Maihar Maharaja organized a performance featuring my grandfather, and when he started playing sarode, the maharaja immediately went and grabbed his feet and said you are going to be my Guru, and said, I am not going to let you go from here, I am going to give you a house and salary. My grandfather was looking for a job. He wanted to take care of my grandmother and my father who was already born.
Your father, Ali Akbar Khansahib was already born
Yes, he was hardly 3 or 4. My aunt was not born, Annapurna Devi. She was born in Maihar probably. Anyway, then after getting the job, he went to East Bengal, he settled down in Maihar.
So, this man, the Maharaja of Maihar, became his disciple but also his patron?
He respected Baba like anything. That man gave him a place to live. After than, my grandfather became famous. So many maharajas offered him more money, more place to live, including Rabindranath Tagore who offered my grandfather to come live in Shantiniketan. But he refused everybody, because of his loyalty to the Maharaja. That man took care of him all the way. My grandfather taught him vocal classical music for many many, years, towards the end the Maharaja even wanted to study Surbahar. But he was too old then.
The Maharaja just loved the music, he didnt want to perform?
Yes. There was once a major plague epidemic. A lot of kids became orphans. So the Maihar Maharaja [king] told my grandfather, Please take care of these kids, they are orphans, and their parents have died. So he took care of them. My grandmother became their mother, they became musicians, and then they became known as the Maihar Band. "Band" was a popular word in those days, because of the British. It was a symphony of different instruments, a concept that never really existed in Indian music before the British arrived..
Did any of the orphans go on to become musicians?
Yes. They only knew what they were taught. There was no notation, because everything was memorized. They were serious. They dedicated their lives to music. They didnt know anything else. They were paid by the state government. Now it is in a disasterous condition, because the Madhya Pradesh government has taken over. After independence, all the Maharajas lost their kingdoms. That [the demise of the courts] is where the disasters started in our country, because at least they were art lovers and they respected the music, and the musicians didnt have to worry. All the good things in our classical music, they helped to create.
Todays ministers, MPs, they are destroying the culture, music, everything. It is in a wretched conditionthe Maihar Band, if you see it today, you will be in tears. What my grandfather created, where it has ended up today, it is tragic.
What is the music like today in India?
The music financiers dont care about the quality of music, they only care about how to fill their pockets with money. They dont care for the public, the dont care for the countrys heritage, and they dont want to educate the youth of India about its classical traditions. Especially in Kolkata, Bengal. Kolkata used to be the richest place for music, poetry, art, culture, cinema, theatereverything. All the great poets, writers, came from Bengal. Nowadays, among the young kids, it is a fad to have a rock band. They will just pick up a guitar, pick up a drum, they will strart singing, writing lyrics without any formal training. And they are getting paid much more than classical musicians, who have been training for their entire lives.
So, things are turning into gimmicks. A lot of classical musicians have gone into that. By creating a band, or having some kind of 50 musicians of drummers, adding dancing, whatever will attract people. That is how they are promoting Indian music, in a very deformed way. Even there are t