Spring Break!

We'll be resuming ASA meetings and readings after the break- although there was talk of doing Adorno, Benjamin, Gramsci, and Negri during the vacation. Any thoughts?

March 18 meeting- Self-Orientalism in Music

We will be reading Tony Mitchell's chapter "Self-Orientalism, Reverse Orientalism and Pan-Asian Pop Cultural Flows in Dick Lee's Transit Lounge" from Rogue Flows: Trans-Asian Cultural Traffic, ed. Koichi Iwabuchi, Stephan Muecke, Mandy Thomas (Hong Kong University Press, 2004) (Goldsmith Library: 306.4095 ROG)

Suggestions:
Listening to samples of Dick Lee, a Singaporean Chinese pop singer/composer
website
1. Dick Lee, Asia Major



2. Dick Lee, Flower Drum Song



3.Dick Lee, FantAsia



And, producer Dave Liang's The Shanghai Restoration Project, traditional Chinese instruments meet hip-hop and electronica
website
myspace
1. The Shanghai Restoration Project, Miss Shanghai



Taiwanese-American singer/actor, Alexander Wang Lee Hom, who calls his music 'chink-ed out', and is heavily influenced by traditional Chinese music.
website

UCLA Asia Pacific Arts article on Wang (here)

1. Lee Wang Hom, Beside the Plum Blossom

Notes & Minutes from March 11

-We watched Lily Mariye's short film, Shangri-la Café, about a Japanese-American family running a Chinese restaurant in 1950s Las Vegas.

Plot synopsis from Mariye's website:
Las Vegas, Nevada, 1959, is a tumultuous time for everyone. Blacks are not allowed to eat in "White Only" restaurants. It's easier for Japanese-Americans to pretend to be Chinese-Americans in order to escape post-WWII racism. Emiko and Tad Takashi own the restaurant where the Reverend Charles Osteen would like to have his family dine with the white customers. The ultimate choice Emiko must make, and the effect it has on their daughter, Annie, will change their lives forever.

(I've got a copy of the film, let me know if you want to borrow it!)

-discussion on Iwabuchi's "Lost in TransNation: Tokyo and the urban imaginary in the era of globalization" (link) and Sophia Coppola's film, Lost in Translation
-topics that came up:
-loneliness in Asian society, and alienation
-roots- why do we feel the need to search for our roots? pilgrimage, tourist industry
-cultural hybridity since ancient times, as a natural process; hybridity of culture vs. hybridity of blood
-to do: filling out Student Union form for ASA to register as a student society
-new reading for future meeting, David Palumbo-Liu "Assumed Identities" from New Literary History, 2000, 31: 765:780 (link)

Next Meeting: March 4

We'll be holding our next meeting from 3-5pm (after the Stiegler seminar). John won't be able to join us. Instead of readings, we'll be watching two films (if we can squeeze them in): "Perhaps Love" and "Lost in Translation" or "Memoirs of a Geisha". The readings next week will be a quick review of the Stephen Teo & Chris Berry texts (which reference "Perhaps Love"), as well as Koichi Iwabuchi's "Lost in TransNation: Tokyo and the urban imaginary in the era of globalization."