March 20, 2005

Race matters

It's been a year and a half since Lost in Translation appeared on screens. I rented the DVD last year to see what all the hype was about. The film didn't appeal very much to me though I understood why several of my friends liked it - the humor, the strange, urban beauty, the familiarity of alienation and struggling to live in a foreign city. I didn't dislike it but I didn't like it a whole lot either.

This morning, I was reading about the new Harry Potter film, The Goblet of Fire, particularly the debate about Katie Leung, the young Scottish actress of Chinese heritage who will play Cho Chang. People claim that Cho Chang is Korean and should be played by a Korean actress, not a Chinese one, even if she's from the U.K. The debate then shifted to whether "Cho Chang" is a Chinese or Korean name; and finally to a who-can-tell-the-difference-between-Chinese-and-Koreans. Someone provided a link to a test - do Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people look alike or can one tell them apart?

I took the test and I failed miserably - 7 out of 18. Shame on this Chinese girl, I suppose. In any case, I looked round the site and found an interesting take - two reviews - of the movie Lost in Translation. One review found the film racist and unfair to Japanese people. The other writer wrote his review in light of this article and suggested that Sofia Coppola shouldn't be expected to depict the Japanese people and culture fairly. I found both sets of arguments very compelling.

When I get rankled by displays of ignorance or indifference, I usually check myself and wonder, is it me? Am I being too sensitive? Then again, the infuriating people I encounter don't check themselves; they don't care if they're being insensitive, so why should I bother if I'm judging them unfairly? They've judged and labelled me, as it is. Eh, I'm so indecisive. But I have met customs officers at airports and university officials who think Singapore's in China. These are the two places I'd have expected folks to know better - after all, their work deals with travelers and international students.

Posted by Monoceros at March 20, 2005 6:33 PM
Comments

hmm... i suppose each culture has a different perspective of the other. whether it be unfair stereotypes or pure prejudices... or being purely amused...

a new phd student from San Francisco sharing the office, who invited me to his Thanks-giving dinner last year, thought Singapore's in China too... maybe that's what they learn in school... i corrected him politely and he's probably chronically embarrassed. i get this all the time... that i even 'accept' their ignorance as norm. that's terrible too, on my part.

oh i did badly in the "alllooksame" test too... it's quite 'un-controlled'... ie. if they were to use only facial features with the same hair-style... one might be better at discriminating between all of them... but i am not sure (at least that's what the facial perception researchers do... there're some fun tests on the bbc science page i think).

racial issues are tricky to tackle because they usually go so deep into the core... we are all biased in some ways...

Posted by: tiggie at March 23, 2005 5:14 AM

Ha ha, I tried the test and got an "average" rating. I scored 9/18. But I think there are actually no real distinguishing features, I was choosing based on gut feeling. People always tell me I look Korean anyway, oh well.

Posted by: fatgirl at March 23, 2005 11:47 AM

I'm sure the schools don't teach them that Singapore's in China. At any rate, what bothers me is the indifference to ignorance. Question: What's the difference between ignorance and indifference? Answer: I don't know and I don't care. It's disappointing when people realize they don't know something but don't care to learn more about it.

As for the test, I think it's difficult to tell everyone apart. In some cases, it's obvious. I've been mistaken for being Thai, just as Fatgirl is mistaken for a Korean!

Posted by: monoceros at March 23, 2005 12:06 PM

i've been mistaken for Japanese a fair number of times. And often, it's by the Japanese themselves!

Posted by: dsd at March 23, 2005 7:29 PM

i got 10/18. That's an "OK" rating.

Posted by: dsd at March 24, 2005 10:52 AM

Between the few of us - we have a Thai, Japanese, Korean, and...what has Tigs been mistaken for? =)

10/18...not bad, DSD! Compared to the rest of us.

Posted by: monoceros at March 24, 2005 10:53 AM

haha... i do remember one incident when i was mistaken for a Malay. that was when i was in primary school -- i was so tanned... chocolatey brown... from swimming training and the girl was so funny -- she couldn't believe i spoke mandarin... but then again, some Malays do speak some Mandarin.

these days i think most people think of me as asian until they hear my strange accent... and then they don't know where to place me -- and neither do i. oh well.

Posted by: tiggie at March 24, 2005 6:42 PM

I caught the show recently on DVD as well. It sucked - the premise was nothing more than sexual tension. I have absolutely no idea why Bill Murray looked so ungraciously offended when he didn't an Oscar for it. He actually felt he deserved the award?

However, you take a TV show like "Silk Stalkings" for example. The sexual tension between the male/female team members are played to the hilt, but at least they are much better looking, and the show makes no pretence of being more than it really is. Plus of course the male lead is much better looking than Bill.

Posted by: ben at April 2, 2005 4:06 AM

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ben! I'm not so fussy about looks as much as I am about how fairly and accurately people are depicted, especially when whole communities of people are involved.

Posted by: monoceros at April 3, 2005 11:49 AM