Stupeur Et Tremblements

To say the movie is a comedy is not entirely correct. It is a bitter comedy that is based on a true story, written in a novel format by Amélie Nothomb. A Belgian woman, Amélie, was born in Japan and left at the age of 5. In her 20s, she decided to go back to the place of her birth, whose aesthetics has appealed to her all her life. Her goal is to work for a Japanese company. But here is where the troubles begin. Even though she speaks 100 percent fluent Japanese, she is not aware of the unspoken rules in the Japanese corporate culture--which put the collective well-being, hierarchy and "face" before the individual feelings and need for recognition.

Starting with the typical task for female employees of the lowest rank in a Japanese company--pouring tea and coffee, Amélie unfortunately made many blunders in the beginning, and gradually she has sunk to the lowest position of having to wash the toilet and being humiliated day after day by her masochistic female boss (plus the chain of bosses above). The many screams and violent behavior at the Japanese workplace are shocking, but probably true to some extend. Upon her return to Belgium, Amélie published a book of her experience and it became a big success. When her female boss, who once considered her a retarded Westerner, finds out about this, she is dumbfounded!

The movie is worth seeing for a good understanding of the subtle cultural nuances in the Japanese workplace. It shows racial discrimination and ignorance in its most brutal form. I am most curious about what Japanese people think of this movie (or the book).

Chinese Tatoos and the Chinese Language

Even though the Chinese culture is spreading quickly throughout the world through movies, the Internet and certain cultural derivative products such as tatoos of Chinese characters, there still seems to be a muddled understanding of certain basic concepts. It drives me nuts sometimes.

Yesterday I was at the movie theater and I noticed the popcorn seller's Chinese tatoo on the back of his forearm. I asked him to show it to me. It says "这是为家庭". "This is for family" is what it means, but grammatically the phrase is awkwardly written. (Luckily for him, it is not one of those nonsensical tatoos that says something like "ugly bloodsucking ghost" and the like!) Anyway, the guy said, no, it meant something else, and he said it was written in Mandarin Chinese.

I challenged him, saying that Mandarin is the spoken language, but the written language shown in his tatoo is called "simplied characters." He argued that the words are a dialect! Obviously he has mixed up the differences between the spoken Chinese and the written one--a common confusion among foreigners. Even though I tried to explain to him, he wouldn't accept the validity of my explanation. Instead, he bragged that the friend who has written this tatoo has lived in China for thirty-some years and in Sweden for only five years. Well, I was born in China and grew up in a Chinese-speaking environment myself, if only he knew. But it was useless to argue anymore at this point. The people waiting in the line were getting impatient.

Is it really that difficult to understand the differences between the spoken and written Chinese? Well, in that case, let me put it straight once and for all (LOL!):

The spoken language:
Official language in mainland China: Mandarin, or, Putonghua 普通话.
There are more than 100 spoken Chinese dialects, and as far as I know, there is no official count.
Mandarin is also commonly spoken in Taiwan and Singapore, while Cantonese is the common dialect in Hong Kong.

The written language:
There are two types of written characters in Chinese--traditional and simplified.
The traditional characters are used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, while the simplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore.
There is an increasing mix of the usage between Hong Kong and mainland China due to commercial and cultural exchanges in recent years.

I hope my explanation is clear. For your interest, here is a page about the history of tatoos in China and some very interesting links about the risks of getting Chinese tatoos without knowing the meaning of the words, including this one.

The Human Stain

At first glance, the movie seems to be about a love affair between an old man Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) and a woman half his age, Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman). But the plot, based on Phillip Roth's book of the same name, is far more complex. Race, political correctness, sexual abuse, and the phenomenon of "racial passing" are the main themes of this story. It is a movie that deals with significant social issues of America as well as the universal theme of our search for self-identity and how we are all haunted by the stains we have left in our personal histories. The very subtle emotions of the characters really come alive thanks to the good choice of cast and the sensitive direction by Robert Bentson. A movie worth watching for its depth.

The Day After Tomorrow

With much reluctance and suspicion that this would just be a worthless end-of-the-world type movie (remembering Deep Impact), I decided to watch this movie anyhow. It turned out to be better than I thought. The super visual effects are awesome: multiple tornado's ravaging Los Angeles, blizzards in New Delhi, rock-sized hails storming Tokyo, tsunami devouring Manhattan, which later on became entirely buried under ice as a modern ice age came suddenly within a matter of hours.

As unbelievable as these happenings may seem, the exaggeration really hits home the message of how global warming could destroy our world. Dennis Quaid plays a foremost climatologist predicting the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean Current which would lead to the onset of a new ice age. What strikes me as a nice little satire is the part where a global climate conference takes place and the guy playing the Vice President of the United States actually resembles Dick Chaney! I take it as a parody of what actually happened during previous global climate conferences and the World Summit in Johannesburg in 2002. Bush and his gang blatantly defied international pressure and refused to cooperate with the majority of industrialized nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. So for me this scene in the movie justly reflects the reality. What is chilling (sorry about the pun) is that the effects of a messed up climate pattern can already be felt today. At least I can feel it in this part of the world. What about you?

The movie has a rather simplistic plot (worth probably 2.5 stars), which is less convincing and well thought-out than the visual effects themselves. But with the view of such awesome effects, the plot can comfortably step aside and the movie is still able to maintain a sense of credibility. At least it really sent a chill down my spine. And I hope that this movie can be a wake-up call for those (policy makers in particular) who don't take global warming seriously.

My Life without a TV

I don't watch any television. In fact, I don't even own a TV. "What? You don't have a TV?" is the reaction I usually get from others. "Do you live in the 18th century?" "I think you are living in a black hole without contact with the outside world." are some of the harsher remarks I have received. Well, I am used to being judged as an abnormal person just because I don't watch TV. Sure, I have missed out on a lot of exciting conversations about TV programs. But do I care?

Perhaps in Sweden, a highly homogenous society, I am considered more of an anomoly. In New York, at least, I knew many people who consciously chose not to own a TV set. For me, living without a TV is a conscious choice. It has been since 1999. The peace and quiet I have gotten is priceless. Of course, there are many good programs on TV. But weighing the negative influence of TV commercials and of the mindless flipping habit, I decided that I could do without this talking aparatus. Instead, I seek contact with the outside world through the Internet, where I can participate in an active way. And if I want to watch a good movie, there is always the corner video store at my service.

Over the years, I don't know how much money I have saved by not subscribing to network television. And in Sweden, I get to even save on the mandatory "TV avgift" -- a ridiculous TV fee (156 SEK/month) collected to support the public television networks and radio, which are, surprisingly, not commercial-free. And have I really missed anything that I shouldn't have?

8 Femmes

What attracted me first to rent this movie was the star-studded cast, which includes some of the most known French actresses like Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart and Isabelle Huppert. But the genre of the movie took me by total surprise. Yes, I knew it was supposed to be a murder mystery. But nothing prepared me for the scenes in the movie that resemble a musical. It was a delight to see these super stars go into rather naïve sequences of dances and songs (sung in their own voices). There were even bigger surprises--scenes of blatant and latent lesbianism that are meant to shock the audience (bear in mind that the movie is set in the late 1950s!). The story succeeded in holding the suspense to the last moment, and the cause to the death of the man in the house is far from what the story would lead you to guess. If the movie's genre is a bit hard to pinpoint, it's because it is experimental. I've read a French review trashing the movie, saying that everything from the movie set to the women's costumes seems fakely beautiful and the eight women are puppets of the director François Ozon. But I would rather view the movie as a play performed on theater. The exaggerations of movements can then be better understood.

A Long Way From Home

A new painting co-painted by me and my husband.
Acrylic on Canvas
73cm x 60cm

Recent paintings:


For more of our paintings, please click here.

Urban Development - the Conservative Force in Stockholm

In Sweden, there is a governmental body called "Skönhetsrådet," which roughly translates to "Beauty Advisory Board." This board's function is to give advice whenever a big urban development is proposed. But "advice" is too neutral a word to describe what the board does. It criticizes almost all the new construction plans that would make Stockholm's skyline look different. In other words, no skyscrapers allowed.

Apparently, the board is making an effort to preserve the conservative aesthetic values of the city's neoclassical architectural style prevalent in the 1920s, as well as the functionalist style from the late 30s to the 40s. The purpose is for all new architecture to blend in with the existing ones so that the city has a coherent look. A lofty goal, but one that doesn't really welcome changes in architecture that reflects modern living.

I have always wondered why taller buildings don't exist and aren't being built in Stockholm, even though there is a tremendous housing shortage. I also wonder why there are such vast stretches of forests in between suburbs that are not used for building homes for people, while many are squeezed into tiny spaces (like me and my husband) or move around frequently because they cannot find a permanent home. (See my earlier entry for more details of the housing problem.)

Of course, the preservation of the environment and of aesthetics are commendable efforts. But are the quality of living and human life itself worth less? Why can't there be a better balance?

A letter to a local daily newspaper from a member of the "Architects' Friends" makes a scathing remark on the Beauty Advisory Board's backward looking mentality. It says, "Shall we make Stockholm into an open air museum or do we want to have a dynamic city that believes in the future, diversity and its people?"

Well, sometimes I cannot help but think of myself as an object in a museum. Our building, built in 1939 with cheap materials, is a so-called cultural landmark, a representative of the famed functionalism school ("funkis"). Absolutely no changes to the façade is allowed (well, except for the paint, of course). One winter I and my husband proposed to the landlord to change the windows into three-paned windows because our existing two-paned ones are letting cold air in during the window and it's often unbearably cold indoors, especially when the temperature drops to -20C outside. But we found out later that this was not allowed since the change of windows would affect the look of the building. If we are not objects of a living museum, what else are we?

Preserving beauty and culture is important. But at the same time, a balance should be striked so that the basic needs of people as well as their higher aspirations for modernization and bold expressions are respected.

Post-election Thoughts

Two years ago, when life was getting unbearable here in Sweden, when money went out and both I and my husband were jobless, I bounced off an idea to my husband - to move back to the States. But we both decided to wait it out, at least until the 2004 election was over, as we both wouldn't want to move back to a country run by Bush.

As the election neared, I received an absentee ballot in the mail, which allowed me to vote in a U.S. election for the first time in my life. I decided to vote Bush out of office, and I believed there were many who had the same wish. In fact, almost all voices I had heard from friends back in the States and on the Internet were against Bush.

So how did the moron get re-elected? The answer is: half of the States - the so-called "red" or Republican States, were blind. Blind with "faith." Blind to the outside world and to the terrible effects of Bush's foreign policy, and his disregard for the environment and people in the rest of the world. Bush's so-called Christian faith and talks of morality succeeded in sweeping the votes of the heartland. He succeeded in inspiring the conservatives to vote so they could oppose social issues like gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research.

In analyzing the Democratic Party's defeat, Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, said Democrats need to do a better job of connecting values with the issues they stand for. "Is it moral that seniors in this country can't afford the medicine they need to survive; is it moral that a family, a parent works two or three jobs and still can't make ends meet to care for their family in this country; is it moral that we have children that are starving in the greatest country in the world?" Stabenow said. Obviously, those who voted for Bush had forgotten to give these moral issues a deeper thought. But the Democrats failed to articulate them so as to appeal to the American heartland.

As a matter of fact, I was not particularly inspired by Kerry's leadership skills and visions. So I voted for Ralph Nader. At the time of voting, I didn't understand that this would mean a "lost vote" since Nader had such a small chance of winning that anyone voting for him would not mean much in terms of pushing Bush out of his cozy White House chair. A friend told me that this effectively means that I voted for Bush.

However, I am still proud to find out that Nader garnered 2 percent of votes in New York State (my state), representing the state with the largest percentage of votes for him compared with other states. Perhaps that percentage is negligible in the bigger scheme of things, but I would like to think of its symbolic value.

Running as an independent, Nader has remarkable tenacity in face of the two big opponents in this and the previous presidential elections. Instead of focusing on campaign funding and rhetorics, Nader is a man who walks the talk. He has been a responsible "public citizen," a consumer advocate and a muckracker of corporate crime since he was a young man. It is a shame that the election system in America lends itself to appearance rather than substance. Someone like Nader has not been given a fair chance.

I have never understood how the "winner-take-all" system can be truly democratic. Why has the multiparty system never taken root in America? Given the fact that the nation is almost split halfways between Republican and Democratic supporters, wouldn't it be great to have a coalition government instead of a majority-minority situation in the Congress? Of course, Nader should be invited to join the government as well :-) I hope one day the so-called democractic system of America will evolve in such a way that it truly represents the whole population.

As for my plans to move back to the States, well, I'm afraid it has to be put on shelf indefinitely.