meaning in the moving design

I've been following Court 13 for a while, they're a group of young directors out of New Orleans with some really awesome ideas and mad talent. I'm sort of a sucker for their brand of humour. I programmed a few of their films back when I did the midnight series for WSFF. One was a twisted re-telling of the Moby Dick story called EGG and one was a story about the tinman and his heartless doppleganger called DEATH TO THE TINMAN (which I can't link to but it's on their website). I consider both to be amongst the weirdest and most creative stuff I've ever programmed. They've got a new short out called GLORY AT SEA!- a castaway epic set in the aftermath of Katrina. It's about a group of ruffians who build a makeshift boat to scour for their loved ones at the bottom of the sea. You can see the trailer on their own site here.

Benh also made a film with his students called I GET WET, which I think is super cute and deserves a look if only to inspire you to round up all the kids you know and make a movie. Them boys done do good work.

I went down to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall last night. My friend had tipped me off to a giant pre-election KMT rally, and I was keen to see the madness for myself. Rumour was that the country was fed up with the ruling Democratic People's Party (DPP) and that the KMT's Ma Ying Jeou would get the goods on election day.

Up to this point, I had gotten the impression from talking to younger Taiwanese friends that the Taiwanese were generally apathetic about politics. Boy, was I off. The rally was a massive flurry of bodies, bullhorns, flags and baseball caps. It was like the city had been posessed by World Series frenzy. Vendors even lined the streets selling Ma Ying Jeou bobbly heads and little horse statues (his last name means "horse"). Because the KMT is the oldest political party in Taiwan, and because many of the older generations have KMT roots and came to Taiwan after being exiled from Communist China, the rally kind of looked like all the geriatric wards of every hospital in the city had been invited out to a charity ball game. The most fervant hoots and hollers, the most decked out pendant wearers, the most passionate flag wavers all came from those in the crowd over the age of 60. The speeches were accompanied by an awesomely uplifting soundtrack a la Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story, or maybe the battle scene from Lord of the Rings. I didn't even understand what they were saying, and I thought I was gonna cry...

The rally was on the street just outside the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Inside the hall, there was a Taiwan for Tibet sit-in, and a peace concert. It's a pretty obvious political statement just to be there. As the leader of the Kuomingtan (KMT), Chiang Kai Shek represents reunification with China- that's the party's official mandate in Taiwan, although they've softened it over the years. On the eve of the election, as the KMT rally began to dissipate, many rallyers curiously wandered into the hall to observe the sit-in and concert. The sight of this contrast- of political dissidence and acquiesance, of two sides to the China problem- was really interesting for me.

The Taiwanese view Tibet as the worst-case scenario for Taiwan, which is why the DPP's talk about independence and a Taiwan seat in the UN is setting off alarm bells all over the country. They see how this bid for independence has failed Tibet, they see how the DPP is widening the gap between China and Taiwan and they see their hopes for economic stability disappearing into the void. They're anxious to scurry back on the mainland bandwagon, and Ma Ying Jeou seems to have just the right amount of grease in his smile to be the perfect brown-noser. In truth, no one here is interested in a China lovefest either, so in this sense, the Taiwanese are apolitical. All they want is to be left alone. Maintain the status quo. Don't rock the boat, and most importantly, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

But in a way, Tibet has tried this route- all it is really asking for is to be left alone too. Throughout it's history, Tibet has tried and failed in all its demands, it's asked for less and less and China has taken more and more, it has absolutely no leverage. It is the child that is being continually punished for being bold ONCE. Taiwan is the child hoping to disappear from scrutiny. In a way, it is using Tibet as a counterpoint in order to win favours from China. That's what has people up in arms here- they've seen how the "bad kid" has been punished, and they want to show China that they're going to behave.

Someone once commented that the Dalai Lama was the only force keeping Tibet peaceful, like a thin fence trying to hold back a flood. In fact, Tibet's early history is full of violent rebellion- some successful, but most were utter failures. I used to think I was resolutely against the idea of armed revolution... but when I think about all the horribly unjust conflicts in the world, I really can't say anymore. Non-violence has frankly gotten Tibet nowhere. Full-fledged violence obviously wouldn't work either, as China's army could probably defeat Tibet with a sneeze. I don't like the fact that people are getting hurt, but I do support the noise Tibetans are making. I just hope it's not for nothing. If China does do something extreme, I really hope those corrupt Olympics people have the courage to pull the plug on the Beijing Games. I really hope that the governments of the world have the courage to tell China to fuck off, despite the cost to their piggy banks. We are treating China like the little one-child-policy boys they have bred in abundance, and it is responding like one- arrogant, spoiled little brats who've realized that they can have whatever they want, and they don't have to be nice about it. We DO NOT want to keep feeding the spolied fat little buggers... and we don't want the spoiled fat brats to beat on those cute little Tibetans, do we??

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, China has 900 missiles aimed at Taiwan. Under the DPP, a quiet arms race was building, and a lot of nervous taunting, the way boys do when they don't want to fight but need to look tough. Now, with the KMT (it's official, they've won the election), Taiwan is hoping to use the civilized businessman approach to negotiate with the mainland. As in "please help us survive economically, but please don't mess with us politically". Ma Ying Jeou is all slick like that. ["money money?" he says. "money money" she says. then they shake hands and climb back into their briefcases]. The Taiwanese blame the DPP for sinking the economy, saying things were a lot better 8 years ago when the ol' KMT was in power, but that seems a tad unfair to me. Eight years ago, the world was a different place. The US economy was still competitive, China had just begun to undercut the world in manufacturing, and India was on the slow rise in the IT industry. Taiwan hopes that the more diplomatic KMT can smooth out relations with the mainland, and win back some economic favour. Fear and conservatism won this election for the KMT. Well... that and Ma Ying Jeou's cute smile and dashing good looks. This was such a slick Kennedy vs. sweaty Nixon victory. The DPP guy looks a bit too yokel, and his ad campaigns played like slanderous conspiracy theory spots- he's one of them... Thank god I couldn't vote. [question to self- are politics everywhere a joke??] We Asians are weird folk.

[Pictured- Ma Ying Jeo bobble clown in some sort of Taiwanese Napoleon getup. chortle.]

I need to caution myself on being overly reflective, so I'm writing two posts at the same time. Here's to looking in and looking out (now, if only someone could teach me how to close my eyes...)

I did a little loop-de-loop around the country to get a feel for things, and after much drama and indecisiveness and what have you, I've landed back in Taipei. I'm getting a feel for the city, and gonsarnnit, I think I like it. First of all, it's HUGE. But better than that, it's accessible. The metro system, MRT, connects the cultural hub of the city centre to the natural surroundings on the fringe. Mountains, rivers, bike paths, hot springs, everything is accessible via the MRT.
There are a ridiculous number of night markets in the city too, many with their own distinct feel. The student areas, Shida and Gongguan, have a very cool student vibe- cheap food, chic clothing shops, good restaurants. The Danshui market has a coastal suburban vibe to it. My favourite one so far is the Lungshan Temple market, in the oldest part of Taipei. It has a totally magical ambience to it... very old school Asian and very alive. I went into the temple once, really late at night, and I was amazed at how crowded it was, packed with people giving alms, reading scriptures and kowtowing to the giant golden buddhas under candlelight.

Reading in Chinese continues to improve, but you might say it's all for show, since very little of what I'm able to read is useful. Chinese is such a difficult language- seriously and somewhat needlessly complicated (hmmm, that sounds familiar). Ok, here's a taste:


Take the word gung. If read by itself, it means grandpa, or old man. But the meaning of the character is contextual, based on all the other characters around it. So, it could also mean public, as in park (gung yuen) or washroom (gung chi). Or.. it could refer to the metric system, like kilometre- gung le.


On top of that, most chinese characters are also homonyms, so the other gungs refers to whole other sets of contextual meanings, like gung fu (that guy) which refers to work, or gung hei fat choi (another gung) which is a greeting for good fortune.

Now, let's try a game. First person to give me the associative six degrees for the words park, kilometre, grandpa, kung fu, fortunate greeting and Kevin Bacon gets a big fat gold star...

So basically, where I used to be the closet illiterate mute-deaf who pointed and smiled a lot, I have now graduated to someone who can mouth the words but can't comprehend the meaning. Do we have a name for those people? Anyways, it's all very amusing, and I should have time to start Chinese lessons fuh real in the next month or two. Good times.

I know there's a movie about this out there. I've never seen the Truman Show, or Switch or Click or whatever, but we all know the one...
My life's a show. There's a wee little tot sitting in the back room getting her jollies out of punching the buttons on an old school cable box, randomly manhandling levers and tuning dials, drool strings hanging from her mouth that will no doubt short circuit something soon... And my life snaps into epileptic episodic fits in the meantime. Every week- new job, new story, new potential, new headspace. I'm just playing the part... Except get this- it's me, I'M the kid. I'm the one punching buttons and drooling on the dials, just to say "well, what happens when I do this?". I'm doing this to myself and I don't know how to stop. Half of me is enveloped in curiosity about the "what if" potential of every action. The other half of me feels like a posessed Raggedy Anne doll. Gee, sometimes my tendency for adventure seems suspiciously masochistic...

At the same time, I really don't feel like any of the choices I've made in the last 2 months can be described as conscious. I'd probably say it was more like flailing, like in the absence of certainty, I just reached out and pressed a button. There's an expression in Chinese that's been in my head lately... sum zhi tou ming. Your heart knows, your stomach understands. In English, we would simply say trust your gut. Well... my gut is a lying, thieving hyper-hypo. It's a strange thing to feel like a helpless observer in your own life, to not have this gut feeling everyone talks about to rely on. It seems weird not be to able to look at a situation in my own life and be able to subjectively say "this is right for me". I guess I've been playing observer too long. Damn, I've lost my inner eye again...