WINDS OF SEPTEMBER (2008) by Tom Shu-yu Lin, (How a Film Just Missed Being Spectacular)

Say It Ain’t So, Tom. Say It Ain’t So.

WINDS OF SEPTEMBER (2008), Tom Shu-yu Lin’s feature debut, is not a film that’s shy about its earnestness as it well shouldn’t. After all, it's a movie about young people and that’s what being young is. The film, which is in Mandarin and is playing now in Hong Kong, tells an episodic coming-of-age story set in 1996 in a provincial town in Taiwan, and follows a tight-knit pack of seven high school boys in the months leading up to graduation.

The film is best in its early moments as it relishes in its episodic storytelling and leisurely shows the boys engrossed in their youthful adventures. They go to professional baseball games and cheer on their heroes, one of whom is the slugger Liao Min-hsung. They break into a swimming pool at night and go skinny-dipping. They ride around in motorcycles. They horse around and crack jokes. They cut school. They smoke, curse, and drink beer. They get chewed out by the school disciplinarian. Through it all, the camaraderie and joy of youth comes across loud and clear. This may not provide dramatic thrust in the conventional sense, but the energy and charm in these scenes more than make up for this.



Meanwhile, the film gradually focuses on two boys in the group: Yen (Rhydian Vaughan), the handsome playboy, and his best friend Tang (Chang Cheh), a shy boy with a more serious outlook than the others. It’s a familiar dynamic seen often in high school stories—I don't know why, but the film kept reminding me of John Knowles’ A SEPARATE PEACE.

After Yen’s womanizing causes problems for the boys as well as Yen’s girlfriend, Yen and Tang grow apart. Each starts to suspect the other has betrayed him. Overall, the performances of these young actors are convincing. And the script skillfully shows how minor things can be the catalyst for big emotions during adolescence.

But the final third of the film loses steam, precisely because of a contrived narrative device, which then becomes the vehicle on which the story is towed rather clumsily to the finish line.


What is this contrived narrative device?


*WARNING. SPOILER HERE.*

It's clear that the point of the movie is to show the disillusionment of young men and the repercussion of that disillusionment on a so-called band of brothers. But must that disillusionment stem from a totally contrived motorcycle accident and a boy falling into a coma? Can't adolescents grow disillusioned simply from seeing the grown-up world at large?

The motorcycle accident scene rings false on so many levels that I won't even try to list them here. Put simply, the scene is when this movie morphs from a promising film into a Korean soap opera of the worst kind--the kind in which main characters spontaneously combust and suffer from amnesia, cancer, and blindness all at the same time, and then learn that they are actually related to their lovers. It's phony and contrived tragedy that startles momentarily but ultimately precludes the outpouring of any real empathy with the characters.

Since this misplaced and wholly unnecessary inciting narrative device is false, every narrative beat depicting its consequences also rings false and the performance of the actors falters drastically in the scenes that follow. I’m not saying that all bad acting is due to a flaw in the script, just that most is. Whatever the case, it’s a shame the film takes this direction, since it clearly didn’t need to.

Meanwhile, interspersed throughout the film are news clips of another betrayal, a baseball scandal, in which professional players, including Liao, are revealed to have thrown games for money. It’s abundantly clear the film means for the baseball scandal to echo and heighten the "loss-of-innocence,"--I hate using this term but couldn't think of an adequate substitute--that the young characters experience. But this only works in theory. Indeed, it's truly amazing how one wrong turn in the story can destroy a movie and make it so difficult for audiences to empathize with the characters on screen.

In the end, despite all the outbursts of intense emotion from the ensemble cast over what true friendship means, the film fails to pack an emotional punch. It’s really too bad because with a few small modifications in the script, this film could have been something spectacular.

THE WAY WE ARE (2008), a HK movie that's unlike any other

THE WAY WE ARE (2008) by Ann Hui

Ann Hui is one of those directors whose reputation has been cemented decades ago. She's written about with respect in nearly every serious book about Hong Kong cinema. Her most famous films are SONGS OF EXILE, JULY'S RHAPSODY, STORY OF WOO VIET, and BOAT PEOPLE...

I have yet to see these films, but after seeing THE WAY WE ARE, will quickly remedy this. THE WAY WE ARE caught me completely by surprise. I was startled that such a small film with absolutely no commercial value was made and released in Hong Kong.



The Chinese title of this movie is "Tin Shui Wai Days and Nights," and it's a fitting one. The film is set in Tin Shui Wai, a.k.a. The City of Sadness, and follows a hard-working mother and her teenaged son over a few months.

She works at the supermarket. He hangs out with friends but doesn't get into trouble. He's waiting to find out the result of his Form 6 test. They visit their relatives, who are wealthier than them. The boy's grandmother gets sick and is hospitalized. The mother says she is too busy to visit the grandmother at the hospital.

In effect, the movie trudges along on the strength of a handful of false leads. Is there some dark family secret behind the mother's not visiting the grandmother at the hospital? Will the boy get into Form 6? Will the mother eventually lose it and unleash the pent-up anger and resentment from the sacrifices she's had to make all her life? Will the boy be led astray by his friends and commit some horrific crime?

But none of these things take place.

**WARNING. FILM CONTAINS NO FODDER FOR SPOILERS.**

Instead, the major event in the movie is that the mother and son befriend a neighbor, an elderly woman who is alone in the world, and form their own family unit.

This film has won critical acclaim and has been praised for its integrity of vision, subtlety, and refusal to depict a troubled slum in a negative or sensationalistic manner as other films have done.

Indeed, whether the slum is in Hong Kong's New Territories or in inner-city Baltimore, films that are set in the ghetto usually follow one of two main trajectories:

1) nihilistic hell-on-earth story in which crime, violence, and drugs prevail and all hope goes out the window.

2) quiet dignity of individuals despite the odds socially-conscious story - these films are usually about community activists or young people who find a way out of the ghetto and often contain brief snippets of 1) nihilistic hell-on-earth to contrast and heighten their protagonist's dignity.


THE WAY WE ARE definitely falls into the second category.

But what's noteworthy is that unlike other movies of this type that are made elsewhere, THE WAY WE ARE categorically refuses to point the finger of blame for the plight of its protagonists at any social or government institutions, individuals, or even deities.

The two protagonists are not angry at anything. They don't fault any of the usual suspects, namely the school system, the government, the housing estate, gangs, drugs, the media, their relatives, friends, one another...

It seems as if the two main characters have no problems whatsoever. And the only complaint the mother ever voices is that the newspaper stand guy was mean and didn't give her the free pack of tissues that the convenience store guy gives. I don't know what to make of this lack of finger-pointing. I simply found it to be unique.

Also as an outsider, I found great interest in the film's numerous depictions of the minutiae of daily life, and the film worked for me also on the level of anthropology. But above all, the film struck a chord in me by being so very different from other Hong Kong movies.

On top of all that, seeing the elderly third character in the film deal with her loneliness made me pick up the phone and give my parents a call.

If that's not a testament to the power of cinema, I don't know what is.

First Interview in Cantonese

Here is my first live interview in Hong Kong carried out in my broken Cantonese. I know my tones are bad, and I'm butchering the Cantonese.

But it will get better.

After all, I'm not giving up and the Wa is a beautiful language.

Enjoy!

The subject is Mrs. Siu who runs the drycleaners at Wah Fu Estate.

Chased Out of Wah Fu

I try hard not to succumb to the dark side and simply use this blog to vent the usual frustrations that stem from a displaced existence in Hong Kong. I understand HK is its own place with its own culture and to fault it for not being something else is about as useful as faulting a dog for not being a cat.

That said, I still need to gripe a bit. About what?

I bring my camcorder to the wet market today, thinking innocently that maybe I can tape some footage or maybe even interview some people in my limited Cantonese.

But, when I get there, the moment I take out my camera and fiddle around with the buttons, two shopkeepers descend on me, demanding to know who I am and what I am doing and what I have taped. I have not yet pointed the camera at a single soul or taped anything. (I always ask people for their okay before pointing the camera at them, unless it's just random street footage of crowds.)

I tell them that I've taped nothing, and then in my stilted Cantonese, provide an explanation for myself--I'm a Korean person studying Cantonese. I want to take some shots to show my friends Hong Kong life and culture.

This doesn't fly. Finally, the question-and-answer turns into a mini argument, with me repeating I have taken no video and even offering to let them examine the camera and the tape so that they can see for themselves.

Eventually, the scene peters out. The two shopkeepers mosey away and I'm left standing there like some lunatic foreigner, which I guess I am.

Then, another shopkeeper, a calmer one who's witnessed the blow-up, calls me over to lecture me (though in a calm and gentle manner) in Cantonese about the dangers of taking videos at wet markets. She says the others are afraid that I might be someone sent by the newspapers or the government. (And what if I was? What's there to hide? After all, the wet market at Wah Fu looks like every other one in Hong Kong. What am I not seeing?) She then tells me the other shopkeers might even call the police so I better be careful.

I know there are people everywhere who are wary of strangers taking photos or videos of them, and I can't do that good a job of explaining myself in Cantonese to assuage people's suspicions. But what would prompt anyone to go through the trouble of calling the police because someone was taking pictures?

Sure, in NY, after 9-11, the city banned photo-taking in the subway system and people taking photos of trains, bridges and such were nabbed and questioned. But, taking videos of vegetable stalls?

I understand the above incident is an isolated one and most likely can best be explained as being the result of chance that put two nosey and meddlesome people in my path.

Be that as it may, I asked a Chinese student, with whom I do language exchange, about local people seeming to be distrustful of outsiders. He thinks this is because there are many conmen and crooks in Hong Kong and because Chinese people are taught by the family not to trust outsiders. He said that since he was a kid, his grandmother has told him over and over that only the family can be trusted. He then said that this was also because of her experience of having lived through the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong.

That sort of makes sense, and sort of doesn't. After all, does that mean that Chinese people trusted outsiders and non-family members before the Japanese Occupation? And then only grew distrusting because of the Japanese?

What am I not getting here?

Hong Kong Covered Walkways (another film haiku about Hong Kong)

Maybe it's the air pollution. Maybe it's the unforgiving summer heat. Maybe it's the lack of land. Maybe it's just a ploy to ferry people from one mall to the next. Maybe it's all these things or none of these thing...

For whatever reason, Hong Kong has many covered walkways and other footpaths that connect one building to the next.

I'm ambivalent about such walkways. On the one hand, it's nice to be able to walk about. On the other, these walkways are a bit artificial and far removed from actual city life. Walking on them is just not the same as walking through a real neighborhood.

Whatever the case, as an experiment, I set out to see just how far I could get using Hong Kong covered walkways without touching real ground. The walk, which I did on a Monday afternoon just before peak lunch hour, took just under 20 minutes at a rather brisk pace and took me from Western Market in Sheung Wan to the Battery Path in Central.

I think the total distance was about 1.5 miles, but I'm sure that had I gone into the main part of IFC mall, I could have walked around for hours, or maybe even days...

Who needs the Lantau Trail?


A word of caution. The camera shakes a lot, so those of you with sensitive constitutions, please remember your Dramamine.

The accompanying music is The Cure. The idea for the video came from So Jene.

Enjoy!



Here is my itinerary:

START: Western Market...
through Shun Tak Center
then on covered Walkway to...
IFC Mall...
Central Walkway past Exchange Square
then into Chater House
and Alexandra House
and Prince Building
and Standard and Chartered Building
Finally, come out on to Battery Path. FINISH

THE CHASER (2008) a.k.a. Why Godard Was Wrong

See THE CHASER (2008) by Na Hong-jin.

It's December and I'm catching up on my movie watching for the year.

My vote for most entertaining and gripping serial killer thriller of the year goes to THE CHASER (2008), a box-office hit from South Korea that was written and directed by Na Hong-jin.

This film, which runs two hours and played briefly in Hong Kong a few months back, is about the chase to stop a serial killer by the least likely protagonist, a former detective who was kicked out of the force for taking bribes and is now a despicable pimp. This pimp is moved to act after some of his call girls go missing. At first he thinks some lowlife out there is abducting his girls and selling them to another human trafficker. Gradually, it dawns on him that a serial killer is killing them. Meanwhile, in the background, the police are also conducting an investigation to try to catch this killer.

Of course, this description doesn't do the film justice. THE CHASER is the best kind of thriller. In addition to social commentary about various aspects of modern life, it is masterfully-crafted and executed.

What do I mean by this? As is usually the case with the best storytelling, the film places the viewer in the exact place and viewpoint of the protagonist, whose single-minded pursuit of the villain is hampered by the bungling of the very police who banished him from their midst. The film puts the viewer through all the emotions that the protagonist goes through. If you watch this film and do not find it emotionally draining, then it's time to go get a check-up because something is kaputt.

This film has its share of violence and blood, but it is not your conventional whodunnit. The killer, one of the most chilling serial killers in film histroy, is revealed very early on (in the first 20 minutes) to the audience, and soon afterwards, to the police. What follows is what grips the audience. Simply put, THE CHASER is a film that sinks its teeth into the viewer from the start and doesn't let go. It's packed with tension. Were it a book, it'd be the best page-turner. Its depiction of the serial killer is truly chilling.



If you see one movie from those that are mentioned on this blog, then see THE CHASER.

Depicting the journey of a fallen man who comes to grips with pure evil, it is an intelligent film for adults but also wholly accessible and entertaining.


WHY SO MANY KOREAN FILMS?
Am I am not aware of American and European films?

Quite the opposite. I am enamored with films from the French New Wave and the gritty in-your-face films of Pasolini, the subversive films of Fassbinder, and other European filmmakers of the 60s and 70s. Some of my favorite films are American films from the 1970s.

But that's all ancient history.

The fact is, at this point in time, South Korea is where the most interesting and gripping movies are being made. Sure like any other country, they also produce a whole lot of utter junk. But the gems are gems.

In contrast, most movies coming out of the U.S. are, in effect, special effects cartoons made for children and most movies from Europe tend to be dull little things that lack creativity. Someone, I think it might have been Catherine Deneuve, decried the sad state of French films by saying that too many French films went like this: "Jacque sleeps with Marie. Marie sleeps with Paul. Paul sleeps with Genevieve. Then, they all go to a restaurant."

It's sad but true, but it's been almost 10 years since I saw a French film that was truly exciting. England fares better. CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) is proof of this. And don't even get me started on what's happened to the once amazing Hong Kong film industry that's now but a frivolous imitation of itself.

Of course, this is all just an opinion and one that is based on huge generalities. But this view is not an isolated one. Film lovers and festival programmers throughout Europe know Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo, among others, as well as the amazing output of films coming from South Korea.

As for why South Korea is enjoying this sudden prestige as movie capital of the world, who knows?

In an appearance on the DICK CAVETT SHOW, Godard--in the 1990s at the East Village Kim's Video, where videos were displayed on shelves under names of directors, the hipster clerks there did away with "Godard" and filed his films under "God"--suggested that of all the arts, films were unique in that they were, in effect, made by the public.

According to this reasoning, it is the public who actually guides and shapes what films get produced by supplying their input through the box office. In other words, if many people go watch a piece of junk, this encourages the continued production of junk, and vice-versa.

I don't quite agree with Godard's view on this in that I don't think there is something special about Korean moviegoers. I think it's more likely that it's just luck. A dozen or so very talented people just happened to be born in Korea at around the same time. That's all.

Whatever the case, what makes Korea's emergence as a filmmaking mecca that much more impressive is just how quickly the South Korean film industry has risen up from the ashes. In 1996, I visited a South Korean filmmaker I knew from NYU who had gotten his chance to make his feature film debut for the leading film production company in Korea at the time.

I was shocked to find just how small and amateurish Korean film production at that time was. The scale was so small and the quality of films made was so poor. Indeed, things were so not impressive and so not promising that when the film director offered me an assistant director post for his production, I said no. I just didn't think South Korean films were going anywhere. (Shows how much I know.)

Today, just a little over a decade later, filmmakers in South Korea are making the most interesting and entertaining films in the world.

If you haven't seen THE CHASER. See it. Go and get the DVD somehow. It will be the most entertaining film you see this year.

Review of SWEET RAIN (2008) a.k.a. Is a Movie Star's Goofy Smile Enough to Sustain a Picture?

SWEET RAIN (2008) is a Japanese film directed by Masaya Kakei that was released about a month ago in Hong Kong. It is is about a grim reaper whose job it is to spend a few days leading human subjects to their death. In the course of the movie, he meets three such subjects and the people around them.

Edmund Lee's review in TIME OUT HK is much too generous to this little nothing of a film that plays more like 3 episodes of a dull TV series taped together and passed off as a feature film. In fact, the scenes of Chiba (the protagonist, a Grim Reaper who appears in human form, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) inadvertently touching mortals with his ungloved hands and seeing them freeze and die temporarily is straight from the short-lived American TV series PUSHING DAISIES.

There is very little story here. And granted Kaneshiro is easy on the eyes, charming, and a movie star, one has to be a super fan of his to find this film enjoyable. Basically, the movie follows his character around as he meets a half dozen people. There's no story purpose and no conflict. Hence, no forward momentum.

Kaneshiro just mugs for the camera and tries to carry the film on what's left of his boyish charm. That may work to a certain extent, but given how overexposed the guy is--(I think China's Film Board recently passed a law that requires that Kaneshiro must appear in every so-called Chinese epic filmed on Chinese soil)--it's a flimsy excuse to justify a feature film.

The TIME OUT HK review also conveniently leaves out the presence of the main character's sidekick, a black lab, with whom Kaneshiro converses telepathically (dog gets subtitles) to provide a lot of exposition. The three separate stories are connected by the thinnest contrivance, but are spaced out over the course of a quarter century.

Basically, this film seems to have been made solely because Kaneshiro agreed to be in it. It is one of the dullest movies that is currently screening in Hong Kong. Why this film was made or distributed is a mystery to me.

By the way, the literal Japanese title is ACCURACY OF DEATH. Neither that nor SWEET RAIN is apt. A far more fitting title is WATCH TAKESHI KANESHIRO SPORT DIFFERENT HAIRSTYLES AS HE SMILES GOOFILY FOR THE Nth TIME.

ROUGH CUT (2008), an excellent movie that needs to come to Hong Kong

I don't mean for this blog to become a tribute site dedicated to the contemporary Korean film director Kim Ki-duk, but this guy truly is a force of nature and the closest thing to a pure cinematic genius I've encountered in my life both among contemporary filmmakers and even among those past greats I've studied through the canon of world cinema. Indeed, I'll state for the record that even a mediocre Kim Ki-duk film is far more engaging and interesting than most other films that are being made on this planet right now.

Why the profuse praise?

I've just seen ROUGH CUT (literal Korean title is "A Movie Is a Movie"), a film released in South Korea in September of this year to resounding box-office success and which will have a very modest release on DVD in the U.S. this month. The film was scripted by Kim Ki-duk and directed by Jang Hoon, who had been an assistant director to Kim.

That Kim Ki-duk has the energy, time, and drive to write scripts in addition to making at least one feature film per year (he has written and directed all 16 of his films) is amazing enough. That he can script such an intense, compelling, and most notably, mainstream narrative film given his already well-known uniquely perverse sensibilities and tastes really blows me away.

This screenplay probably is the most mainstream of all Kim Ki-duk screenplays, and Director Jang Hoon has done a bang-up job of turning it into a substantive thought-provoking gangster picture that's also very entertaining.

The story is about a difficult young movie star who has a short fuse and a propensity to cause problems and scandals. Out of hubris that he really is as tough as the cool characters he plays in movies and due to some personal quandaries, he hires a real gangster to star opposite him in a gangster film. This set up sounds comical, but the film treats it with all seriousness and follows the premise all the way to its conclusion.

One of the film's two leads is the Korean actor (So Ji-sup). He plays the thug and gives a haunting performance. He was in the Korean weepy TV miniseries I'M SORRY I LOVE YOU (2004) and is returning to acting after doing his mandatory military service.

Aesthetically, the film is Director Jang's own and a completely different animal from a film directed by Kim Ki-duk. It features very realistic gloriously-choreographed fight sequences with fast cuts and breathtaking cinematography that's rare in your typical Kim Ki-duk film, which may feature seedy settings and delve at the underbelly of society but rarely shows violence that's entertaining. On the contrary, Kim Ki-duk's violence is brutal and grotesque.

ROUGH CUT, like most mainstream films, makes violence entertaining and cool. The stylized fight sequences are similar to ones in FIGHT CLUB and OLD BOY. So if that's not your thing, this film may not suit you.

But this stylistic difference aside, the story, its themes (one of which is about the very nature of filmmaking itself and which was explored in Kim's earlier experimental film REAL FICTION (2000)), and some moments of super-heightened intensity are clearly in the script and pure Kim Ki-duk flourishes.

For the uninitiated, this film may be a good introduction to a certain kind of gangster genre action film that has been nearly perfected in the past decade by South Korean filmmakers.

That said, given the propensity of Hollywood to buy up foreign box-office hits (these days most often from Asia) and re-make them, often shot for shot, with white American movie stars (eg. THE GRUDGE, THE DEPARTED, THE LAKE HOUSE), it is easy to picture this film being re-made and released a few years from now starring Leonardo DiCaprio and (I can't think of anyone who could play the role of the thug convincingly).

For that to happen though, the ending (rather dark) would have to be tweaked a bit. After all, it is much more acceptable for mainstream films in Korea to have pessimistic, or bittersweet endings than it is in the U.S. I'm not sure what this says, if anything, about the national characters of Koreans and Americans in general, if such a generality can even be made. I just hope that the remake isn't botched or inane as is too often the case.

I have nothing against remakes as long as the remake is inspired and is somehow a different animal (eg. SEVEN SAMURAI becoming THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN). But, an uninspired remake that is done solely to save the audience the "inconvenience" of having to read subtitles or look at foreign faces on screen (eg. INFERNAL AFFAIRS becoming THE DEPARTED) seems utterly stupid, senseless and unwarranted. Such a practice is also ultimately negative because Hollywood's release of a remake and the accompanying marketing campaign require the intentional burying of the original and prevents the original from ever being released theatrically in the U.S. and in much of the rest of the world.

I know that gauging whether a remake of a foreign film is inspired or warranted seems highly subjective. In fact, it is the most subjective. Still, it is my opinion that in order for such a remake to be warranted, the remake should, at the very least, be better than the original.

Many will disagree, but I feel this was the case with THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, but definitely not so with THE DEPARTED.

Whatever the case, given the sad state of movies and film distribution in general, especially in Hong Kong, this film should hit theaters here in about January.... 2010.

Indeed, one of the saddest things about Hong Kong is that so many films never come here. Sure one can scrounge about and find the DVD, which is what I did and which can be very convenient, but that's never the same as seeing the film on a big screen.

Camel Traders in Causeway Bay a.k.a. Is Haggling Rude?

Maybe it's hubris. Maybe it's a male thing. But I find that many men tend to see themselves as being much more handy, athletic, and ____________________ than they actually are. At least, this is true in my case when it comes to haggling or bargaining over prices.

I can't say I'm a good haggler. I usually manage to pay less than the asking price, but nearly always also end up with the nagging sensation that I didn't quite get the super deal that I thought I did. Still, having to haggle or bargain doesn't fill me with discomfort or anxiety as I've discovered it does some people.

Most recently, I haggled when we bought a computer at the Causeway Bay Fortress, where I went into haggling mode right away and put the salesman to work before discussing prices. (**The psychology of haggling requires that the buyer get the seller to invest a lot of time and effort to make the sale. This way, there is more incentive and reason for the seller to lower the price rather than have all that time and effort lead to nothing. eg. "I showed this #@%**# every feature on this damn computer. This better lead to a sale.")

Maybe it's a cultural thing. In the U.S., people are supposed to haggle for big-ticket items such as cars, but usually not for other things and especially not in chain or mall stores. Consequently, haggling isn't something most Americans get to practice that often. (**How does bargaining work in other countries? Anyone? Anyone?)**

Still, it often startles me how uncomfortable some people are with haggling. Some even say that having to make a low offer after being presented with an asking price (even at blatant tourist traps) makes them feel like they're being rude somehow.

I can see the reasoning behind such a view, but I just can't imagine always paying the asking price. Moreover, I don't think haggling is rude at all. It's just two parties talking things over to come to an agreement. After all, most haggling leads to a sale. In fact, I wouldn't bother to haggle over something that I wasn't seriously interested in buying. Haggling is work, after all.

Anyway, since having more opportunities to haggle is another perk of HK life, I hope that our stay here will help me become a better bargainer. After all, it is a life skill that comes in quite handy.

And as the old saying goes, if you can't be handsome, you better be handy.

Ladyboys of Wah Fu

WARNING: The above photo of yours truly officially becoming the 214,416th person to make an ass of himself at the Peak Mall has nothing to do with the rest of this post. Read on at your own discretion. By the way, I'm not the one in the yellow leotard.


I go about once a day to the wet market at Wah Fu Estate to buy fresh produce and sometimes fish. This is one of the two choices I have to buy groceries within walking distance. The other is to walk in the opposite direction to the International at Cyberport, which is a good supermarket but not very good for produce or fish. Getting to the wet market takes just about 15 minutes at a brisk pace.

In the year so that we've been in the HK, I've been to this wet market quite a bit. It's a very small market meant really for the residents of Wah Fu Estate, so there just aren't that many stalls. The stallkeepers recognize me and we exchange basic pleasantries in Cantonese. I try to use as much Cantonese as I can when I'm there. For instance, I ask in broken Cantonese for free scallions when I buy other produce, should the seller forget to give me this very common bonus.

"Gamyaht dimgaai mouh chong ah?"--Today why no scallions?

Anyway, one of the interesting things about going to this wet market initially was that at certain times of the day, a troupe of 10 or so transvestite performers from Thailand would descend en masse to do their grocery shopping and delight the stallkeepers and other shoppers. They were shopping, but always had their make-up and hair done and were in character. One couldn't help but enjoy the show.

I did a little research. It turns out there is a movie theater in Wah Fu Estate that is no longer in business, at least not for movies. Instead, some enterprising impresario has rounded up these Thai ladyboys to perform elaborate lip-synch performances of Mandarin and Cantonese pop songs. Busloads of Mandarin tourists come on the sly to catch these "unlicensed" performances.

I was curious and went to the theater about a month ago to see how one could go about catching a show. The place was closed, but there was some Chinese writing on the wall. I have no idea what it said, and didn't get to see the show.

It's been a while since I've seen these flamboyant ladyboys sashaying through the wet market. I wonder if their show has ended. I can't help but wonder if the lagging economy or some annoying but all-too-common HK bureaucratic legal issue is somehow responsible for their sudden disappearance from Wah Fu.

The Big Three That Once Was a.k.a. Dreaming of Cadillacs

I've written about cars in previous posts, but it seems timely to write more about my experience with American cars now that the Big Three American car companies, Ford, Chrysler, and GM, are on the brink of collapse and begging for the U.S. government to keep them afloat.

My wife and I, like most Americans, have been driving since we were 17 or so. Getting one's license and driving is truly a rite of passage in the U.S.

(Digression: What counterparts do HK teenagers have to look forward to as they creep towards adulthood? What such rite of passage do they get? Most don't even get to go away to university and many live at home until well into their 20s and 30s...Poor kids. I hope they get to at least smoke or drink a bit.)

Since I was a kid, I was a believer of American cars. I don't know what made me this way. But if I have to pinpoint something, it probably was a belief that was handed down from my parents, who have always bought and still only buy American cars. When I was a kid, the best and most impressive car that anyone we knew drove was a Cadillac. Back then, especially among my parents' friends and their circle of Korean immigrants, a Cadillac was a crucial component of the American Dream.

My parents never really got that Cadillac, but the view that American cars were top-notch was instilled in me firmly.

Anyway, after university, in our first years of grown-up life, So Jene and I schlepped around in a used Plymouth Laser that was handed down to her. It was a small hatchback with its share of dings and dents. Still, it suited us fine for a while until the transmission gave out at just around 70,000 miles and we were forced to ditch the car.

After that, we bought a new Saturn and drove that around for six years and a little more than 100,000 miles. During that time, so many things went wrong with it that shouldn't have that it undid my programming and preference for American cars.

What's more, every mechanic I took it to, said the same thing: "American cars are junk. They're the only cars we work on nowadays."

Even the Saturn mechanic shared this sentiment.

Sure these guys could have been exaggerating. And sure my experience could have been an anomaly, and sure there are lots of other possibilities and explanations... (After all, they could all have been on the Toyota payroll!!!)

But, the experience soured me on American cars.

So, when it came time to buy the next car, I bought a cheap little almost-20-year-old Toyota Corolla for $700 cash. It was a drastic move. But at that time, I was the only one using the car, and I figured all I needed was basic transportation.

This little Toyota, which didn't look like much--but then, neither had the Saturn-- ran better than the Saturn, which had the absolute worst turning radius, and was overall, a better car.

Ditto for the used 20-year-old Volvo and the 25-year-old Mercedes that followed. These used cars, which cost very little, were built and designed so much better than the GM Saturn. And they were far far more durable.

In fact, the Mercedes, which was the last car we had in the U.S. before we moved to Hong Kong, had 280,000 miles and was still running strong.

If an American car lasts 100,000 miles, you've had a good run.

Having said all that, I'm not saying whether the Big Three should be bailed out or not. That's a different question.

All I'm saying is cars made by these companies have proven themselves to be junk, and these companies have burned American consumers for a long long time now.

So, if a bailout is granted, it'll be for the now distant memory of the once grand American automobile industy, and absolutely not for any love that anyone has for the cheap inferior cars that these companies have been dumping on consumers for far too long.

I end this rather serious and depressing post with a completely unrelated random photo of yours truly outside the main Sumo center in Tokyo. Enjoy!

"Cantonese Has Many Slangs" and other myths about learning the Wa

I've been studying Cantonese off and on for about six months now and can piece together basic sentences with my vocabulary of about 2000 or so words. I'm at a very basic level.

Here are some of my observations about learning Cantonese in HK.

Whenever local HK Chinese find out I'm learning Cantonese, they usually seem to have this notion that I'm basically wasting my time because what I'm trying to do is, to them, ultimately futile. Here are the ususal explanations I get about why it's so difficult, virtually impossible, for foreigners to learn Cantonese:


1) "Cantonese has many slangs."
It astounds me how, for some reason, Cantonese speakers seem to think their language has a monopoly on slang. Sure Cantonese has tons of colorful, creative and playful slang expressions, but then again, what language doesn't?

I'm using proper English right now, but were I in a different situation with different company, I'd switch to using more street expressions, you dig?

More importantly, I'm not trying to learn all the latest cool slang expressions. That may come much later. For now, I'm practicing basic communication. One can learn English without learning every bit of slang out there. Ditto for Cantonese, right?

I mentioned the above to So Jene, and she said that maybe the HK locals aren't talking about slang expressions, but that they might be referring to Cantonese having a formal version and an informal version. Interpreted thusly, HK locals might be saying that the Cantonese that is usually taught in books and to foreigners is a formal textbook version which is different from the actual Cantonese that is used. I sort of doubt that this is what people mean when they say "Cantonese has many slangs" because Cantonese does have many slang expressions. But who knows?


2) "Cantonese has no grammar."
I'm not sure just how this bit of misinformation got its foothold. But in my study of the language, it's clear that Cantonese has a very logical and straightforward grammar. Sure there are some exceptions to certain grammatical rules, but the syntax that holds words together to form sentences is there, clear as day.

Yet, over and over, people say Cantonese has no grammar. The only sense I can make of this claim is that they may be talking about verb conjugation? Cantonese verbs change very little to show tense, and often do not change at all if context provides enough clues about tense. But this feature seems to me to make the language easier, not more difficult. Basically, this seems clear-cut. Cantones does indeed have grammar.


3) "Learn Mandarin. Cantonese is not useful."
This argument slides into the political realm. But the claim that Cantonese is not useful is one that can be gauged only by the individual. To some Cantonese is useful. To others it's not.

Indeed, if I were learning the language to work with Mandarin-speakers down the road, Mandarin would be more useful. But, this is not the case. I am learning Cantonese because living in HK is a good opportunity to learn another language, and the language most local HK people speak is Cantonese (despite how much English there is). At the present, Mandarin has no use for me. The language I need is Cantonese.


3b) "Learn Mandarin. Cantonese is dying out."
This is a corollary of #3. Usually I get this from Mandarin speaking Chinese or Cantonese-speakers who're down on HK. It's their view that heretic Cantonese-speakers will eventually realize the error of their ways and revert back to the national language, or that Cantonese-speakers will be driven by economic incentives or too apathetic to resist the encroachment of Mandarin.

That may happen, but I also know that spoken languages, especially ones that provide a sense of personal and political identity, are damn hard to put down, especially through government policy. People are stubborn.

For instance, Japan tried to wipe out Korean and impose the Japanese language as the official language during its 30 years+ occupation of Korea. Learning Japanese carried with it economic benefits and social mobility. Using Korean was penalized and formal education was carried out in Japanese. Despite this, the Korean language survived and thrived. Cantonese will be around a lot longer than many people think no matter how omnipotent the Chinese government seems to be.


**Basically, these are the top four reactions I get from HK Chinese about learning Cantonese, and my responses. That said, I'm not saying that learning Cantonese is easy. It's not, especially for English speakers. Cantonese is indeed not easy to learn, but I've found that the bulk of that difficulty stems from the following:

a) lack of good study material - (there are tons for Mandarin, very few for Cantonese.)

b) prevalence of English in HK. - Too easy to revert back to English and too easy to not use or practice Cantonese unless you make an effort to use Cantonese.

c) general busy culture of HK - Most people are too busy to stop and take the time to speak with you. People usually are too busy, busy, busy. There's definitely very little slacker culture here. That's just how it is.


NOW FOR THE FLIP SIDE

I turn now to those on the other side of the language divide.

Many non-HK people who cannot speak Cantonese but have lived in HK for a long time usually tend to have many reasons for why they haven't learned the language. Some have no interest. Some don't want to take classes. This is all fine and dandy as I don't think language acquisition is a duty or a requirement. Just so that we're clear. I don't fault anyone for not learning anything. God knows there are so many things out there I haven't learned.

But there are some who inevitably point the finger of blame at the local culture and people for their own failing to learn Cantonese. Their argument usually goes like this:

"It's not my fault that I haven't learned Cantonese despite living here x years. The local people all speak English to me. If I had lived in France for the same x years, I'd be fluent in French by now."

The fallacy of the above claim lies in the fact that language acquisition doesn't happen through osmosis but requires active effort, no matter what the environment. Of course, children may seem to pick up languages effortlessly, but they too make active effort through schoolwork and lots of repeated informal conversation practice.

The truth is, one can live in any foreign locale and never learn the language no matter how long that person lives there whether or not the native people engage him or her in the native tongue. Such cooperation may make the learning easier, but learning a new language requires time and effort. It's ridiculous to think a person would somehow acquire a language without making the effort.

The fact is, if a person doesn't need to or has very little interest in learning a new language, he or she simply won't.

This is true of Cantonese, French, Russian... The biggest factors in learning a language seem to be personal motivation and time investment.

There are plenty of people who come to HK from other places and manage to learn Cantonese despite all the obstacles and lack of encouragement. There are plenty more who do not. And that's fine.

But let's just be honest about the why.

Anyway, that's my two bits for the day.


On a less academic note and since I've already mentioned Japanese occupation in this post, So Jene and I spent Saturday afternoon in Lamma and stumbled on the tunnels that the Japanese military had dug during WWII. What fun!!!

I'll post a photo of the Japanese caves later.

Also, I shot around for the first time in a long time Sunday afternoon at Southorn Playground in Wanchai after my Cantonese class. It felt good to be on a basketball court, dribbling and shooting. My ankle felt good and strong. It didn't swell up much at all afterwards though it still looks pretty damn disgusting.

I need to start getting back in shape to play ball again on a more regular basis.