03/19/2018
My Hereditary Cultural Erosion Experience III could not be published because it was not categorizable by my publisher. I personally think they were too chickensh*t to publish it, so here it is:
These are my reflections on what I left out of the impact of my 80s and beyond American Asian culture as a Korean American and Global citizen:
Firstly, I left out some majorly important Asian influences as a kid.
Godzilla (Japanese: ゴジラ: Gojira) (/ɡɒdˈzɪlə/; [ɡoꜜdʑiɾa]) originating from a series of tokusatsu films of the same name from Japan. The character first appeared in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla and become a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in media including 29 films produced by Toho, three Hollywood films, and numerous video games, novels, comic books, television shows (from Wikipedia). Godzilla was created by Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishirō Honda, and Eiji Tsubaraya. Godzilla was my most favorite monster and his enemies became my pets’ names. The Giant monsters genre became known as Kaiju in Japanese. The 1934 American King Kong became inspiration for the genre.
Ultraman (ウルトラマン Urutoraman) is a Japanese tokusatsu science fiction television series created by Eiji Tsuburaya. Ultraman is a follow-up to Ultra Q, though not technically a sequel or spin-off. The show was produced by Tsuburaya Productions and was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from July 17, 1966 to April 9, 1967, with a total of 39 episodes (40, counting the pre-premiere special that aired on July 10, 1966). Was created by Eiji Tsuburaya and written by Tetsuo Kinjō, Masahiro Yamada, Mamoru Sasaki , and Shinichi Sekizawa (from Wikipedia). I used to watch Ultraman religiously after school as a kid. Though most kids’ series were mostly created from marketing toys these days, Ultraman prefaced this phenomenon.
Voltron: Defender of the Universe is an American animated television series that features a team of astronauts who pilot a giant Super Robot known as "Voltron". Initially produced as a joint venture between World Events Productions and Toei Animation, the original television series aired in syndication from September 10, 1984 to November 18, 1985. The first season of Voltron, featuring the "Lion Force Voltron", was adapted from the Japanese anime television series Beast King GoLion. The second season, featuring the "Vehicle Team Voltron", was adapted from the unrelated anime series Armored Fleet Dairugger XV. It was written by Jameson Brewer (from Wikipedia).
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action superhero children's television series that premiered on August 28, 1993, on the Fox Kids weekday afternoon block (later weekend morning block). It is the first entry of the Power Rangers franchise, and became a 1990s pop culture phenomenon alongside a large line of action figures and other merchandise. The show adapted stock footage from the Japanese TV series Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, which was the 16th installment of Toei's Super Sentai franchise. The second and third seasons of the show drew elements and stock footage from Gosei Sentai Dairanger and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, respectively (from Wikipedia). Created by Haim Saban.
Because cartoons, monsters, robots, and martial artist superheroes all seemed like they were Asian to me, I guess it’s become easy to look at humans the same, that there’s Asian in all of us, until I can’t. I would cry and throw tantrums if my Japanese friend wasn’t there at preschool, I went to a predominantly Chinese school and was the minority within the minority through college since...I seemed to attend school with mostly Caucasians with a few other minorities representing, but the number of specifically Korean students was always very small...I had more exposure to international students, especially Japanese and Chinese kids in high school. Though there have been bad feelings towards the Japanese by both Chinese and Koreans, I had great times with many Japanese kids and we did not have grudges or ingrained malice towards one other. Children learn hate. They are not born with it.
I found out about Marion E. Wong (January 2, 1895 - February 4, 1969), a Chinese American company director, costume designer, director, actress, producer, music performer and screenwriter after I had written the first two articles. Marion Evelyn Wong was born on January 2, 1895 in San Francisco but was raised in Oakland, California. In 1916, at the age of 21, she established the Mandarin Film Company. Her trip to China in 1911 to unsuccessfully get a husband also served as inspiration for The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West, Marion's first film in the Mandarin Film Company. The film was regarded as the first Chinese-American feature film. The film was also written, produced, and directed by Wong, who also designed the costumes and sceneries. Marion also cast herself as one of the characters in the film. The Curse of Quon Gwon was the first and only film made by an all-Chinese cast and an all-Chinese company. An article in the July 17, 1917 issue of The Moving Picture World said that the film “deals with the curse of a Chinese god that follows his people because of the influence of western civilation.” It is also about Chinese assimilation into American society. Even with all of her efforts, The Curse of Quon Gwon only had two screenings after its completion. A rough cut of the film was viewed in 1916 at the Kinema Theater and a formal premier of the film was shown in 1917 but the film did not receive commercial distribution. Seen as a financial failure, Wong asked her family to never speak of the film again. Her uncle Lim at this time also declared bankruptcy, for he did not see any possibility of return of his investment. Wong’s company did not produce any other films after the flop of The Curse of Quon Gwon (from Wikipedia). She may have quit the film business because of who she was, but I think if she lived today, her fate would be much different.
I decided to also mention:
Joan Chen, who played Josie Packard in Twin Peaks during the show’s original run (and, incidentally, was the very first face to appear in the series’ very first episode, way back in 1990). She was born April 26, 1961. She is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In China she performed in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor. Chen was born in Shanghai, to a family of pharmacologists. My Grandma was a pharmacologist too. At age 20, Chen moved to the United States, where she studied filmmaking at California State University, Northridge (from Wikipedia).
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 American crime action film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, the mysterious "Ghost Dog", a hitman in the employ of the Mafia, who follows the ancient code of the samurai as outlined in the book of Yamamoto Tsunetomo's recorded sayings, Hagakure. Critics have noted similarities between the movie and Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 film Le Samouraï (from Wikipedia). I mention this movie only because it is a samurai movie, a traditionally Japanese lifestyle. It is interesting to me the overlapping of Black American and Asian Japanese. It works. The interesting thing is now Bruno Mars who is half Filipino, and Part Jewish and Puerto Rican is getting flack for culturally appropriating “Black Music.” He is American. The multi-Cultural influences of this country, and also global music overlap with different cultures and those who have longer stays with integration into the US, especially In*******al kids, have a hard time with Identity because Identity is not a polarized thing...Race is not defined by color. There is more to music history, too, and I don’t think one’s influences can be made into intellectual property of a certain culture in a multi-cultural immigrant melting pot society! But if the Black delegation doesn’t want Bruno Mars, I’m sure the Asians will gladly accept him.
Bulletproof Monk is a 2003 American action comedy film directed by Paul Hunter in his directorial debut, and starring Chow Yun-fat. The film is loosely based on the comic book by Michael Avon Oeming. The film was shot in Toronto and Hamilton, Canada, and other locations that resemble New York City (from Wikipedia). Though it is not a remarkable movie to me...it is the most repeated Asian journey, a Monk’s, and it is an American interpretation.
Daniel Dae Hyun Kim (born August 4, 1968) is a Korean American actor, voice actor, producer and director. He is known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in Lost with Yunjin Kim (Korean: 김윤진, Kim Yunjin) who played the role of Sun-Hwa Kwon and was born November 7, 1973.
Gray’s Anatomy’s Sandra Oh (2005-present), ER’s Ming-Na (1995, 2000-04) and House’s Charlyne Yi (2011-2012) played doctors on their respective shows. Yi was part of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and also had a screenwriting debut, the feature film Paper Heart, won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2009...Ken Jeong is a real-life doctor and actor. Jeong was encouraged by his wife to quit his job as a physician full time and pursue acting full-time; Jeong states that "I had just finished filming Knocked Up, and it was lifechanging. But I didn't have the courage to go for it until she persuaded me. Medicine is a hard-won skill, and acting can be a fickle profession, so I tried to be realistic. Now, I'm a spoiled actor. I get weekends off and hiatus weeks — time I never got as a doctor” (from Wikipedia). I wanted to be an ophthalmologist working with lasers until about my sophomore year in high school. I know the stereotype about Asian parents wanting their kids to be Doctors is so true.
Bleach: Memories of Nobody is the first animated film adaptation of the anime and manga series Bleach by Tite Kubo. Directed by Noriyuki Abe and written by Masashi Sogo, the film was first released in Japanese theaters on December 16, 2006. The film aired on September 5, 2009 on Adult Swim. Animax Asia became the first to air the movie in Asia, as they confirmed the premiere to be on May 2 (from Wikipedia). I just wanted to mention this anime movie because it is incredibly moving and is a live Japanese film this year.
Modern Family is an American television mockumentary family sitcom that premiered on ABC on September 23, 2009, which follows the lives of Jay Pritchett and his family, all of whom live in suburban Los Angeles. Pritchett's family includes his second wife, their son and his stepson, as well as his two adult children and their spouses and children. Aubrey Frances Anderson-Emmons (born June 6, 2007) is an American child actress, known for her role as Lily Tucker-Pritchett. She is the daughter of Korean American Amy Anderson and Kent Emmons, who are separated. Her mother is a stand-up comedian and actress and her father is a media entrepreneur (from Wikipedia). Lily is a Vietnamese adoptee to Jay Pritchett’s son and husband, a gay couple. This role shows the representation for Asian adoptees and what is part of American culture.
I want to mention Benson Lee again (born November 3, 1969), the Korean-American filmmaker who I have a lot in common with, because not only do we share a love for Hiphop, but I also went to Korean-American camp when I was 13 like his experience in his 2015 Seoul Searching. It was a concentration of Korean-Americans from all over the country going to historical landmarks, I shook the hand of the President of Samsung Electronics and of a milk company, etc...we were all as different from one another as could be, let alone Koreans...there were Southern accents, there was pidge from the Hawaiian Korean Americans, there was Ebonics, there were Valley girls and a couple Metalheads....The first time I heard Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” was in South Korea during camp and I was shy and younger than most of the kids. A lot of the kids didn’t really want to devote time to learning about Koreans. They wanted to be different. They wanted to be Americans and just hang out at Itaewon to shop. We shared only genes, most not the same lifestyles...So this has me wondering what it is to be Korean American? The “if humans were martial artist superheroes, cartoons, robots, and monsters scenario” didn’t work anymore for me...
The 2018 Winter Olympics officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games (Korean: 제23회 동계 올림픽, translit. Jeisipsamhoe Donggye Ollimpik) was held in PyeongChang, South Korea. This was the first time that South Korea had hosted the Winter Olympics and the second Olympics held in the country overall, after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. The 88 Seoul Olympics was a turbulent time. There were many demonstrations against the totalitarian and corrupt South Korean government. I found this article about the human rights atrocities which occur in a lot of countries before an Olympics due to the hosting country’s limelight in the world stage:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-1988-seoul-olympics-were-a-horror-show-of-human-rights-abuses-will-rio-be-the-same/
The Pyeongchang Olympics were a spectacle for viewers who watched the North Korean cheering squad and who observed Kim Jung Un’s sister attending, Kim Yo-Jong and Vice President Mike Pence not interacting and standing next to one another. It was a sore point for some countries but especially the United States that North Korea was invited by South Korea to participate in the games.
It is an older Korean’s dream that there will be Reunification in their lifetime. The youth are used to the separation. I once wrote a speech for a San Francisco Presbytarian church speech contest about Reunification when I was 15...I lost to “How to make a Christian salad”...add some faith, pour in your heart, etc...An older listener to the speeches said my subject matter was too deep. I felt like Koreans in America didn’t care because they were lucky to be in America and America was their saviors. Well, I felt so removed from being saved. How could God not make me feel closer to my Identity?Being Eastern and Western at the same time can be at odds with with who you are inside. The faith that religion instills doesn’t answer your questions about your Identity. That, like spirituality, is only achieved through self-processing.
I’ve been to South Korea four times and even walked the DMZ tunnels to a dusty window box you could step up on to see through to North Korea. My last visit was when I was 20. My Mom said it was a “missionary trip” and then I didn’t want to go, but it was a free trip to South Korea and Chicago. I actually spent three days in Chicago learning about the Minjung movement which worked in four activist movements: the farmers, the teachers, the students and the urban dwellers before flying to Seoul with about ten other Korean American young adults. It was an intense trip and I spent time with a diverse population of Koreans who were brought together by the political activism. At that time, they represented about ten percent of the population.
I spent about a week in the farmlands living the life of a farmer and passed out from heat exhaustion working in the humidity of the to***co fields one of those days. Because of crazy US trade stipulations such as the US Super 108, farmland was getting abandoned at a rate of a million acres every year and the women had mostly all fled to the cities where they would either become prostitutes or factory workers. The first farmers’ su***de hotline was created by South Korea. One story I remember in particular was that the farmers were protesting and had been defeated by the chemical water cannons. So they had been given US cattle to placate them. So the next time they protested, the farmers put the cattle in front and behind them so the riot police would not use their water cannons and they were successful.
We also spent one night going from brothel to brothel to brothel in the city to observe the lives of prostitutes. I still flinch whenever I hear Don McLean’s “American Pie” because it was on the jukebox when we were watching the prostitutes with American GIs at one place. It’s an uncomfortable song for me now. Take half the population and that was women. Take half that population and that’s how rampant prostitution was. I also found about about the true story of the Kwangju massacre where 5,000 women and children were murdered at US orders (I had stayed there as a Korean-American Ambassador at 12 not knowing the truth until I was twenty).
I remember this older man had thrown hot coffee on a young female college student who was smoking and he was justified to most in society because of the disrespect in front of a man who was an elder in the news at the time. I spent a lot of time with the activist students and we even learned to play traditional Korean instruments. Our group also followed the story of a family that was being surveilled by the secret police and government. The family consisted of a father, a mother and a daughter. The son was dead. He had been killed dragging his friend who had been beaten, away, at a demonstration by riot police with lead pipes. The son had lied about the demonstration saying he would be studying at the library, but when his family found out about his activities leading up to his death, they exclaimed that they did not want their son to have died in vain. That he was justified in protesting because of what happened to him. They were constantly followed. The family had gone to court and when the ruling was that the riot police were innocent, the father threw down a microphone and yelled, “Is this justice?” and then he was incarcerated for indefinitely for being in contempt...after the trial, the mother and daughter got beaten up by the riot police. They had knocked out all the mother’s teeth. We stayed with them at an emotional candlelight vigil with others who had lost loved ones against the totalitarian government.
We had one night before our group was headed back to the US. My buddy who was from Chicago and I decided to go out and have some fun to take the edge off of the tense time we’d had with the Minjung. We went on the strip by the Firehouse and we saw a row of barkers advertising their clubs...We decided to go to one that was 30,00 won to get in and get a pitcher of beer and snacks with the show. When we got inside, the barker said 40,000 and when my friend tried to protest, five guys showed up and the barker slammed my friend against the wall. So he paid. We were a bit shaken and scared to leave right away. There was a show going on on the stage. It was a ridiculously large woman going down on a guy from the audience which was supposed to be funny...We walked by a group of Korean soldiers and one grabbed my ass and I hurriedly walked faster...We got to our table and the show had changed to about eight men stripping down to their underwear and when they got to the underwear, they all pulled out red peppers. It was supposed to be funny because ‘gochu’ in Korean means both p***s and red pepper. All we wanted was to leave. We tried to just finish some beer and snacks, but it was a seedy ending to our trip and another revelation about what was really going on in South Korea. My Mom was pi**ed that I was with the Minjung instead of “missionaries” even though I was glad, but I was depressed for about six months after returning to the US.
Things have changed quite a bit in the over twenty five years since...every nationality will always have those lacking in character and that is a lesson. I want to emphasize that Korean Hiphop keeps me feeling like that there are those who are like-minded and that it contributes to my sense of Identity...
https://youtu.be/9XHKxhJdmKo
https://www.si.com/eats/2018/02/15/pyeongchang-winter-olympics-korean-food-tour
Lastly, I’d like to talk about cooking shows as they have a major popular culture influence because we all have to eat food, it’s something all humans relate to, and it is fascinating to watch chefs. It brings you closer to knowing a culture.
Yan Can Cook is a Chinese cuisine cooking show starring Martin Yan that featured recipes for stir frying and other traditional Chinese meals. Martin had a catchphrase, "If Yan can cook, so can you!", with which he used to sign off each show. He used a second catchphrase, "Something fishy here!" whenever he cooked seafood. One of his other trademarks was to chop food frantically with a sharp cleaver while grinning to camera, which used to elicit a round of rapturous applause from the largely American audience (from Wikipedia). Originally released in 1982.
Iron Chef (料理の鉄人 Ryōri no Tetsujin, literally "Ironmen of Cooking") is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, is a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended on September 24, 1999, although occasional specials were produced until 2002. The series aired 309 episodes. Repeats are regularly aired on the Cooking Channel in the United States (from Wikipedia). It inspired many Iron Chef spinoffs in the US. Takeshi Kaga (鹿賀 丈史 Kaga Takeshi), real name Shigekatsu Katsuta (勝田 薫且 Katsuta Shigekatsu, born October 12, 1950), is a well-known stage and movie actor in Japan who is probably best known internationally for his portrayal of Chairman Kaga in the Japanese television show Iron Chef produced by Fuji TV (from Wikipedia). Lots of amazing battles and amazing Iron Chefs like Morimoto and Sakai...
Padma Lakshmi (pronounced [ˈpəd̪maː ˈləkʃmiː]; born Padma Parvati Lakshmi Vaidynathan; September 1, 1970) is an American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer of Indian descent. Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won her the "Best First Book" award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. In 2010, Top Chef won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program (from Wikipedia). Hung Huynh is a Vietnamese-American chef, best known as the winner of the third season.
Christine Huyentran Hà (Vietnamese: "Hà Huyền Trân"; born May 9, 1979) is an American chef, writer, and TV host. She is the first blind contestant of MasterChef. She lost her sight in 2007 and still became the winner of its third season in 2012 (from Wikipedia). She is proof that anyone can cook, that even a disability cannot keep them away from winning a competition if they have the love for food.
Other rockstar-like Asian chefs that are on cooking shows include Jet Tila, David Chang, Judy Joo, etc...
https://youtu.be/FnJ6o7HEAKc
https://youtu.be/60MsabQ6kWQ
Though Asian Representation in media is a daunting subject, it is best to know that there are differences in cultures mainly created by Manmade Borders and Constructs, but we share the desires to be educated, entertained, and fed. In being Korean American, it has been a bit of a confusing situation to be American distinct from North Korea as well as South Korea too, and they are both an almost fifteen hour plane flight away though they couldn’t be farther apart even though they are next to each other. Not many other nationalities have had to deal with a division in their country and to live separately from it. The hereditary cultural erosion experience of my generation in America and later is complicated because so many cultures of Americans overlap sharing manmade spaces and resources, but Koreans have it in our blood to be Confucian about our worldviews because society is a bunch of inter-connections in Confucian teachings, and the parts become the whole. We have to know what it is to be Asian with all the diversity, but as Koreans, we are eroded just by all the mixing and our Koreanness becoming diluted. This is what the American Dream didn’t talk about. I have seen so much negativity over foreign languages being spoken from Americans who claim English is the only American Language. It is an anthropological phenomenon that occurs when languages become lost due to a conquering nation’s strictures and as the conquering nation’s governance and trade mix together. When kids do not understand the language of their hereditary family, it is like not being Korean at all or is there more to being Korean underneath our skin? Is this assimilation or the erosion of our hereditary culture or both? We are at a crossroads of globalization. I foresee greater arguments between cultural appropriation and multi-culturalism’s shared historical situations. American ownership over what traits and manmade constructs like racial categorizations belong to who will always be a matter of individual perspective though, and collectively, Americans have to embrace the diversity because that is what gives us culture in the first place.
https://youtu.be/5xgwCMdXloM
