I forgot to say something... i think that that film was one of the most eye opening films for me. It makes you realize that these people are no different from the average person they just choose to use their body in a different way and if everyone used their body in the same way the earth would be a very boring place. ok i think that that wraps it up
Cheers,
Hope everyone has a good next semester and good luck on finals

So i dont know how many blogs we are suppose to have done but i noticed that i never commented on paris is burning. I thought that the movie was really interesting, though i dont think that if i saw it in a movie store i would ever pick it up and rent it for myself but after seeing im can say im glad i have watched it. What is even more interesting is in my public health class last week a transgender came in a spoke to the class, the topic of the class was sexuality. He talked about his life as a women and his current life as a man. Though it is a little different then what we say in the film i still thought it was interesting to have a first hand account. He didnt talk about the balls or anything but he talked abou this struggles with telling his family, and friends and his stuggles that he still faces today.

Some make-ups

Maus II should have been on the curriculum to accompany Maus I. Reading only Maus I is like eating plain white bread only. Maus II the Wonderbread, the jelly, the peanut butter, the banana. There was so much more depth in the second one.

I find it weird how Vladek is racist against African American people. Like come on. You’d think that losing your family and almost dying would open his eyes or something. Perhaps it’s because of his glass eye that hinders his sight and perception. What does that mean? No idea. Well, I found an article online where Art Spiegelman reveals his inner racist. It’s quite interesting. He used to have a lot of close African American friends until he was put into the mental institution. He couldn’t control his bladder and had to keep bothering the guard, who happened to be African American, throughout the night. After a while, the guard got mad so he wouldn’t let Art out of his little cell thing. So he had to resort to uhm.. going to the bathroom in the crack at the door. He was “degraded” and called him the n-word. Then the guard came and punched him in the stomach for calling him that. After Art was released, he has friends who are African American, but he never had close relationships with them. He was affected by that event. My story telling skills are awesome. But anyways, it made me reflect upon the whole racism, prejudice thing. I wished we lived in a utopian world. Why do we have to judge people based on their looks? Why can’t we judge them based on their characters? Humans are too complex to understand. Stop Global Warming!

-Tran

Blog #2:

It could be interesting to study fairy tales in this class. See how they have changed over the course of the years. Say for instance, Sleeping Beauty. Before her tale got Disneyfied, she was actually raped by the prince. He abandoned her afterwards. In her coma, she delivered baby twins, and the magical woodland fairies came to help her. The only reason she woke up was because one of her babies was sucking on her finger, and the splinter that caused her to sleep came out. Then the evil queen wanted to eat the babies, and made Sleeping Beauty strip before cooking her. While she was demoralizing herself in front of the whole kingdom, the prince came and killed his mom for her evil deeds. Then they all realized that the babies were still alive and happily ever after. Compare that to Disney. The significance of the original Sleeping Beauty pertained to the time period in which it was written to have society learn a lesson. Pinocchio was murdered in the streets. Little Red Riding Hood shanked the wolf.

-Tran

Blog # 3:

“Love is an action.” – Bell Hooks.

I say, “Love is the movement. So move.” Actually, I didn’t come up with that. I wish I had the creativity to come up with neat little quotes. Let’s recap.

“Living as a grown up baby is difficult.”

“You killed me when you made me.”

“Happy, happy ever after.”

So speaking of writing on bathroom stalls, people have too much times on their hands. My first encounter with bathroom blogs (or should I say, bathroom clogs)was about a typical female topic: weight. Like gosh, love who you are. So the conversation went something like this:

“I’m so fat. My boyfriend doesn’t love me. I’m so ugly and unhappy.”

While there were some negative comments which I think are too vulgar to post in a blog, here is one that is appropriate for a blog.

“Well duh your boyfriend isn’t happy. Who would want to keep seeing the blob every day?”

On the other hand, there were also some inspirational ones.

“Don’t worry, just exercise and not eat.”

“When things aren’t going good, just remember Christina Aguilera’s words: You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can’t bring you down.”

-Tran

Blog # 4:

So…since I’m in my blogging frenzy, let’s talk about the short story that we were supposed to read in the beginning of the semester: “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.” It’s really interesting. I don’t know why Talissa didn’t make us read it in the beginning. At first, I thought it was going to be a cute little story about love, a great way to start off the semester. It’s like Heart of Darkness, Frankenstein, and the Holocaust all rolled into one. I didn’t recognize “Song Tra Bong.” I actually thought it was a song, but when I realized it was about the Vietnam War, I was able to see it “through my Vietnamese eyes.” I realized it was the name of a river in Vietnam. I don’t to give the story away. So READ IT. For fun. =]

-Tran

Blog # 5:

So I’m all blogged out. Now I will say my thank yous. Thank you to everyone in this class for making this class enjoyable. Thank you Talissa for being the first instructor at Berkeley who has given me hope that I will survive here. Shaunt, every time I see a little orange thing, I will try to put the peels back together. Tony, if I ever see you, I’ll give you a smiley sticker. Patrick, thank you for being my buddy haha. Jeannie, your photographs are beautiful. I never mastered black-and-white photography. I like to sepia tone everything to hide the lint marks. Lashika, hahah “just deal with it.” Kunal, live life, and continue being awesome. Tiffany, good luck on ESPM finals. Good luck to everyone on their finals. Yay almost done with first semester. Adios ya’ll!!

My Third Attempting at Posting/Blogspot hates me today.

Fortunately, I didn't have to sit through another set of Blade Runner movie clips or a historical perspective on it, as I was expecting. But I admit I was a little disappointed since, maybe, if I had a deeper understanding of what the hell Ridley Scott was trying to achieve in his film, I would have a greater appreciation for it. Then again, I'd probably fall asleep through my professor's lecture. Two o'clock in the afternoon has been proven to be high time for my power naps, despite the professor's thoroughly strange take on history. Sitting in a darkened lecture hall would make things much, much worse. In any case, a happy coincidence happened. Instead of analysis on Blade Runner, we learned about the emergence of sexual deviation: homosexuality, transgenderism, and the like. As I checked the syllabus online (https://webfiles.berkeley.edu/~mgalvan/Schedule.html), the talk was entitled "The Queer Frontier." It made me think of our class and all the images from Paris Is Burning, which then made me homesick for our class in Wheeler. It also goes to show how everything's connected. As I may have mentioned before, my history class started with Blade Runner, as our English class did (I consider Philip K. Dick's book the start of our class since I have nearly erased all memory of Frankenstein). It's funny how two classes can parallel each other so much, beginning and ending on the same subjects.

After watching Paris Is Burning, I was rather shocked by how tragic it was. I was discussing the film with a friend and she brought up the topic of Thai ladyboys, Japanese new halfs as well as how often transgenders and transsexuals show up in Asian media, that I realized why I was so shocked by Paris is Burning. I recall listening to the Korean transgender pop star, Harisu, when I was younger. A few friends of mine also watched a Taiwanese TV drama back in high school featuring Harisu as the female supporting role competing for the leading man’s love against the leading female. My friends didn’t even realize that she was transsexual given that most of transsexuals featured in Asian media tend to look completely female. Personally, from the one episode I saw while I was at her house, I also think it might have been since Harisu was more physically attractive and effeminate than the female lead. Apparently, after Googling her just now, Harisu has also married recently to a male rap star. Though I’d heard the term, ladyboy, used previously, I didn’t know too much about Thai ladyboys and so I looked it up online. Though I knew they were accepted in mainstream culture, I didn’t expect them to be as visible as they are. There are apparently several popular models, singers and movie stars that are ladyboys. Newspapers print female and ladyboy beauty contest winners side-by-side and they’ve become an international tourist attraction amongst heterosexual men. Many also marry heterosexual men and have normal lives. It makes me wonder if it’s since they just physically look like pretty women that makes them more accepted or if it has more to do with culture and how the culture perceives masculinity. Yet even if it were cultural, it wouldn’t make sense for them to be so popular internationally to the point of being a tourist attraction. I’m just baffled by it all.

I’m missing 2 posts I believe and so am blogging now. In regards to the theme of the course, I actually watched a Japanese science fiction film rendition of Pinocchio a while back. It was entitled Hinokio, and though the film itself wasn’t that impressive, I thought the concept was rather neat. For starters, it emulates the original Pinocchio story in regards to how the main character progressively learns to become human (though in this scenario, perhaps relearning would be more accurate). Rather than having a magically animated wooden marionette, the main character is an elementary school student named Satoru, whom in a recent accident, has become wheel-chair ridden as well as lost his mother in a recent accident. Due to the recent trauma, he has secluded himself from the world and thus his father designs a remote controlled robot for Satoru so that the robot can go to school in his place. I find it interesting since Satoru essentially learns to interact with others and live normally again through the humanoid robot. Thus, though he still exists in his original human form within his room, it’s no longer really his physical form given that he’s for the most part projecting his thoughts and actions through the robot and receiving senses such as pain from the robot in turn. Yet, would you then classify him as a human or android given that his physical form through which he lives is essentially that of a robot? It got me questioning whether he’d be more or less human had he been fully paralyzed rather than just temporarily partially paralyzed and thus had no control over his human body whatsoever. However, similar to the original Pinocchio, it wasn’t really his physical form that ultimately defined him as being a real boy and so I thought how he’s already regained his life through the robot prior to actually living again as a human was a nice touch.

-Kathy

fin

I decided that just in case I missed a blog entry that I might as well do another one since I want to take a productive break from studying and this is the perfect opportunity. Theres a new movie out, "The Golden Compass," and I've wanted to watch it since i first heard it was turned into a movie. I really enjoyed the books, actually that's an understatement, I adored the books they were so though-out and amazing. It's all about religion, so obviously some people are upset. their main beef, God is apparently murdered in the series, this is not what happens at all. In the book what is defeated is not God, and no where in there is God ever seen nor does anyone know he exist. Instead what is defeated is the corrupt immoral institution that creates their own ideas and labels them as God's. Now it seems that religion is the bad guy in the book, but thats not true either. The idea is not to defeat religion or God but defeat the "bad" God, the one that kills and that creates misery.

all this is taking me way too deep into the pool that is the infinite.

Hybrid Books

Ok, since I might need one or two more blog posts, I figure here's a chance to give some feedback.
One, in terms of books to recommend, Wicked would be pretty good. But really, what I'd like to see is some 'Choose Your Own Adventure' type books. What better way to deal with hybrid themes than to have hybrid stories. 'Now wait a second Shaunt,' you'll say, 'Aren't choose your own adventure books childish and not worthy of literary critique?' To this I can simply answer NO! Weren't science fiction books once held to that same regard? Aren't comic books just now coming to age within the literary world? If I were a writer today (and I probably shouldn't write this because it's such a sweet idea, but at least I'll know if anyone of you guys snaked me and demand royalties) I would write a serious choose your own adventure book. The non-linear openendedness of the book would really draw the reader into the story and make them feel more connected to the actions of the characters and have a deeper respect of the consequences. And, I don't think that it would be hard to market either. Following the example of Spiegelman, I would simply write a couple in some Avant-Gard publications, only for people to soon feel nostalgia for their 4th grade class when they read dungeons and dragons 'secret of the fire mountain.' Bam, instant success.

The Wicked soundtrack is apparently not bringing inspiration. Instead, all I can think of is how I can’t believe the semester is already over. I guess I’ll reflect on some of my favorite random memories/thoughts/lessons from this past semester: An egg shell skeleton can be art. Frankenstein likes to whine a lot. Austin Grossman is AWESOME. Does the goat really represent everything? Really? Lashika’s cheeriness makes me happy. Kudos to Tony for always being so willing to share his thoughts (and everyone else too! sorry I’m so quiet… I do enjoy listening though :] ) Outdoor lectures are nice as long as it’s a warm day. Every decision can be made with a vote. And lastly, don’t listen to rumors, which is why I should turn my paper in right about now. Thanks for a wonderful semester, Talissa!

If I were to choose a book with hybrid characters to add to the course syllabus, I think Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, would be a fun read. While it is a modern book written to entertain, it does make some great social, political, and ethical commentary on the issue of good versus evil. The main hybrid character would be Elphaba, better known later as the Wicked Witch of the West. Born green with some other eccentric features (sharp teeth? Yikes!), the novel follows her journey to find her place in the political order of Oz. The Animal vs. animal controversy that drives the political struggle in the book is also reminiscent of our Frankenstein and Equiano characters. Animals (with a capital A) are intelligible creatures capable of speech, but have the form of normal animals. One view argues that Animals have more in common with humans than animals because they are possess higher thinking. The tyrant Wizard of Oz, however, is creating social standards discriminating against Animals. As the recurring theme during this course, the novel brings up the issue of how society determined the definition of what is human and how education, indicating higher learning, plays a role in integrating. Plus, the musical is awesome, though of course a lot less dark and political. But who doesn’t like a good tune? I think I’ll listen to the soundtrack as I contemplate my last post…

While doing my business today in the Dwinelle’s downstairs women’s restroom, I was pleasantly surprised to decipher from the graffitied walls the following quote, “Love is an action- bell hooks.” I’m not sure from what context it originated, but on its own and from my literal interpretation, I think I can agree with Hooks this time around. Love isn’t just a feeling or a thought. In order for you to love someone else or even yourself, it’s necessary to show it. In her life, I guess she shows her love by fighting on behalf of the people she cares about through her writing. Lesson of the day: you CAN learn stuff from the mostly emo/crude/random gibberish written on bathroom stalls. Who knew.

On the same, but different (ha), note, I went home this past weekend and told my mom about “Paris is Burning”. This led to a discussion about an Oprah episode. I swear Oprah does everything. Whatever you’re talking about, somehow Oprah has covered it. Kind of like the Simpsons…but less stupid, right? Is it just me or is there a Simpsons joke for just about every situation? Okay, end of tangent. SO, Oprah apparently did an episode about an Asian couple: married a few years, live in the suburbs, two kids. Then one day, the husband tells his wife that he feels like he should have been born a woman and wants a sex change. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), the wife decided stay with her partner. I was amused by my mom’s comment, “He was a good looking guy too! It’s such a pity.” Although she said this half jokingly, it still made me wonder how race plays a role in different stereotypes about transvestites. The documentary was about African Americans and Latinos, but what if there had also been Asian characters. Would there have been a different response? My mom would definitely say so. Hmm… I don’t quite know what to make of this, and I know this will probably be one of the last posts, but any thoughts?

To make my complete circle, the wife definitely displays Bell Hooks insight. =)

When asked about the blogs a few weeks ago, Talissa told us to basically “make it happen”. Sooo… a few weeks later, I’m making it happen...with 4 consecutive blogs. =)

I found “Paris is Burning” to be very interesting and, sorry Bell Hooks, quite entertaining. I think I would have been one of those movie-goers that she seems to despise so much, the ones that left the theater exclaiming how insightful and enlightening the documentary is. While I don’t want to come off as closed-minded or sheltered, I never knew such a community existed. Since I have no oppositions to homosexuals/heterosexuals cross-dressing, the documentary served as an amusing introduction to a previously unknown world. There’s no doubt that a white patriarchal prejudice still exists in today’s society, so I cannot argue that Bell Hook’s feminist and racial concerns are completely unfounded. Nonetheless, I don’t believe Hook’s concerns approach the major issues transvestites confront on a daily basis. Her battle is minor in the larger scheme of things. I doubt Venus Xtravaganza was murdered because she was conforming to an illusion of a weak white female dominated by male society. The real battle transvestites have to face is finding acceptance into a disapproving society so that they can live safe, normal lives outside of poverty. Once that has been accomplished then maybe Hook’s concerns won’t seem as trivial. As for now, I think she’s focusing on the wrong issues.