David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly Wins a Tony Award

Similar to the Oscars, Grammys, and Emmys who acknowledge talents in the entertainment business, the Antoinette Perry Award (aka Tony Award) gives out awards to only a select few based on how well performances are performed in the live American theatre. Made of out brass, these awards have the appearance of medallions with images of the comedy and tragedy masks on one side and a picture of Antoinette Perry herself on the other. I sure would like to get one for myself!

The feeling of being recognized for such a successful and thought-provoking work with the presentation of a prestige award such as Tony Award can bring happiness and joy. This is what David Henry Hwang must have felt when he was given a Tony Award for Best Play for his work, M. Butterfly in 1989.

The play is inspired by Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly as well as real-life events concerning a political scandal between a French diplomat, Bernanard Boorsacot and a male opera singer, Shi Pei Pu. Renaming the characters, Rene Gallimard and Song Liling, Hwang loosely reconstructs this love affair in his play. The plot begins with Gallimard serving the French embassy located in China. He is quick to fall in love with Song when he sees her performing Madama Butterly on stage. It wasn’t until twenty years later did their affair was revealed and Gallimard was accused of treason of leaking confidential French information to the Chinese and was sent to prison. Although the plot is already brewing with excitement and drama, that is not the most shocking part. The real identity of Song is not a woman, but a man! It is crazy to think that Gallimard did not know of his lover’s gender after years of being together! But after realizing that his “perfect women” is nothing more than an illusion, he becomes depress and later commits suicide.

Throughout the play, Hwang continuously incorporate false stereotypes that the Westerners have made up for the Chinese. Ingrained in his mind that Asian women are meek and submissive, Gallimard is quick to embody a male opera singer into his “ideal woman.” At one point of the play, Song questions why a woman’s role is traditionally played by men in China. In response, the answer is given that a “man knows how a woman is suppose to act.” With Song purposely acting submissive towards Gallimard brings up the unwanted stereotypes that the West has held up against the East. When Song’s finally comes out as a man dressed up as a woman, Hwang emphasizes the deconstruction of Asian stereotypes. With the knowledge that their affair was a lie, Gallimard is left with nothing and is destroyed by his own values of love and life.

Overall, this play represents the misconceptions that the West has on the East and attempts to break out of those stereotypes to form new ones that are more accurate.

Miss Saigon Protest

On August 7, 1990, the American Equity Association (AEA) declared that a British actor, Jonathan Pryce, could not play the role of an Eurasian pimp in the play Miss Saigon. One must wonder what series of events lead to this outrageous racial act! The cause of this action can be sum up with one word: PROTEST! A couple of Asian AEA members did not believe that Pryce deserved the role and thought that an Asian actor would be more suited to act that particular character. With the labeling of the play as a “yellow-face minstrel show,” they planned a protest and successfully prevented Pryce from being casted for the part. On the other hand, the producer of the play, Cameron Mackintosh, was greatly dismayed about the whole incident and considered this treatment unfair due to his careful casting of other characters to be played by Asian actors and actresses. Not only did it bring unwanted racial discrimination onto the stage and destroyed the original vision of the play, it also exposed the selfish efforts of minorities wanting to take advances.

Miss Saigon’s plot follows a similar story of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, where it involves a heart-wrenching relationship between an Asian woman and an American man. The two main characters in the story surrounds the life of a Vietnamese bar girl and an American man from the United States Army.

Believing that only Pryce can rightfully play that role, Mackintosh was able to battle this mistreatment by choosing to stop the Broadway production despite the high early admission sales that tallied over twenty-five million in cash.

However the actions of not being able to cast the wanted actors and the cancellation of the play brought displeasure to not only Asian AEA members and Mackintosh, but to modern theatre fans. The issue was later resolved in October 7, 1990 after much discussion with a big help from the public media. Majority of the public sided with Mackintosh and persuade AEA to reconsidered their previous decision on the topic with emails and calls that called for action.

In the end, the Broadway production was up and running again after the ban was lifted, which allowed Pryce to take his original spot in Miss Saigon.This shows that discrimination is not only towards minorities, but to everyone else. It basically just takes communication and a compromise to reach an agreement that will respect and please both parties.

Sources:

http://us_asians.tripod.com/timeline-overall4.html

http://www.enotes.com/miss-saigon-salem/miss-saigon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Saigon

Headquarters of the Asia Society

Located at the intersection between Park Avenue and East 70^th Street in New York stands a building that makes any passerby glance twice at its unique structure. Known as the headquarters of the Asia Society, this institutional building was completed in 1981 with eight floors filled with offices and conferences as well as provided a large spacious room to showcase an Asian collection. A gift from John D. Rochefeller the 3^rd, the origins of the collection ranges from India to Japan to Korea. Outside, the building was constructed in a way to represent both Western and Asian architectural influences to express the harmony of both cultures together as one. The architect, Edward Larrabee Barnes, was able to bring an Asian feel to the building by adding a reddish tint color to the granite as well as inputting semicircular windows on both the front and side of the building. Although unique due to its color and window structure, the Society’s headquarters shared similarities to other buildings near by through the architectural design of rectangle shapes and connecting the terraced garden along the neighborhood to illustrate the blending of Western elements with the East. Besides the unique construction of Asia Society’s Manhattan headquarters, there are many other centers that are stationed across the United States. The Asia Society even expands its influences to Asian countries such as India and Korea. However, their architectural style cannot compare to the Society’s headquarters that is able to blend two cultures in an architectural building.

The origin of Asia Society was first organized as a non-profit organization by John D. Rockefeller the 3^rd in 1956. Seeing the need to educate Westerners about Asia, he began to sponsor programs and spread knowledge “about Asian politics, business, education, arts, and culture through education.” Due to Rockefeller’s action of founding the Asia Society and the Society’s headquarters role in overseeing all centers around the world, many Non-Asian individuals are able to gain knowledge about Asia and can distinguish the different cultures instead of grouping all Asians into one group. They are also able to distinguish between false stereotypes as well as break their own underdeveloped image of a typical Asian person and create a new and more corrected image. Overall, the main message that the Asia Society strives to uphold is creating a sense of understanding and building strong bonds between the United States and Asian countries.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Society

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9806E4D61139F932A25757C0A967948260&pagewanted=2

http://asiasociety.org/

Totoro in Your Neighborhood

Ghibli Studio was founded in June 1985, the studio is headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and the Producer Toshio Suzuki. Before forming Ghibli Studio, Miyazaki and Takahata were in Japanese television animation industry and Suzuki was an editor at Tokuma Shoten’s Animage manga magazine. The studio was formed after the successful film on 1984, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Ghibli Studio is well known for its high quality animation and vigorous imagination. For example, in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Ghibli Studio depicts of the world after the disastrous war called “Seven Days of Fire” which has annihilated human civilization. From a review of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the author praised of this anime as “it is highly detailed and unusually cinematic for animation that was released in the mid ‘80s. The characters are detailed and unique, already showing the wonderful expressions and reactions that would later characterize the studio’s work. The backdrops are awesome as well, creating a world that’s easy to get lost in” (Pearce). In fact, Miyazaki now confesses that Ghibli Studio was never meant to be a long term plan for him. However, as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind became so popular, Miyazaki and his colleagues decided to continue producing anime. As matter of fact, Ghibli Studio continued its fame with another successful anime, Laputa: Castle in the sky.

One of reviewer who had watched Laputa: Castle in the sky wrote, “I believe that Laputa: Castle in ths Sky is, in fact, the greatest animated film ever made…The design work on “Laputa”, nearly twenty years later, is still revolutionary. Flying machines of all sorts abound, the mechanics utterly impossible but so meticulously designed that you instantly accept them without hesitation.”

Furthermore, Ghibli’s achievement in US was also sensational. Its new anime called Spirited Away brought to US and presented via US’s box offices. I believe it’s very rare to see a foreign cartoon to be on theaters in US, and yet, Ghibli Studio’s Spirited Away made a significant debut of its work to American audience. In addition, this film received the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the first (and so far only) non-English speaking animation to win.

I personally think the reason why Ghibli Studio could be so successful is not only because it had high quality pictures, music, but with Hayazaki’s own unique ability to create such a wonderful imaginary world. Miyazaki’s imagination does not only stay within Japanese culture, but it goes global, which gives audience nostalgia and fantasy at the same time. That is why Ghibli Studio became famous not only in Japan, but in US and worldwide.

Japanese American Exhibit – Smithsonian National Museum in Washington D.C.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History has their own mission in collecting inspiring and broadening the people’s understanding of the United State’s nation and the many peoples in this nation. The museum holds more than 3 million artifacts/national treasures, and everything that originates the United States of America. The National Museum of American History opened to the public in January 1964 but it was first introduced as the Museum of History and Technology. In addition, there is a Smithsonian Institution that is an educational and research institute, and also an associated museum complex.

The Smithsonian Institution was founded by the British scientist James Smithson and he left a will that the Smithsonian estate will go to the United States government and create an “Establishment for the increase and diffusion of Knowledge among men.”

In 1987, a while after the post-World War II, Smithsonian National Museum of American History decided to add an Exhibit of Japanese Americans during the battlefront. Because they were put in intern camps during World War II, this was acknowledging to the Japanese American citizens that it was their mistake. In addition, as it is the Smithsonian mission to let the nation understand the American history, it was important to add the battalions and infantries the Japanese Americans were involved in during the War. Especially the 100^th battalion and the 442^nd Infantry was the Japanese American motivation to prove that they were American and that they were part of the Star Spangled Banner.

In the present, there is an online site of the Japanese American Exhibit, and it says that: “This site explores a period of U.S. history when racial prejudice and fear upset the delicate balance between the rights of a citizen versus the power of the state.” And it goes on explaining the experiences of the Japanese Americans who were placed in detention camps, and there are case studies of the experiences and in the decision-making and citizen action under the U.S. Constitution. The Exhibit mainly consists of interactive galleries that has images and music that relates to the Japanese American detention camps and also their culture and experiences in the United States. In addition, there are important and popular texts pertaining the detention camps and first-person accounts that is called “Story Experience.”

This is important to the Japanese Americans and this exhibit also benefits and impacts other minority groups because this shows that discrimination is against the Constitution, and it shows freedom and equality to all ethnic groups.

Deadliest Tragedy in Seattle

The Wah Mee massacre was a multiple homicide on February 18, 1983, in which Kwan Fai “Willie” Mak, Wai-Chiu “Tony” Ng, and Benjamin Ng gunned down 14 people in the Wah Mee club on Maynard Alley S. just south of S. King Street in Seattle’s Chinatown.

Wah Mee was an illegal gambling club operated in a basement space in a building. Many people including wealthy restaurant owners and fellow Chinese residents often were customers in this club. This club was designed with multiple successive doors which had been used in similar Chinatown gambling clubs in the past. Mak and accomplices were able to gain access to this club easily because they were well known to this club and trusted by the people at the club. They intended to leave no witness during their robbery since club people know them well and eventually, they killed 14 people while executing their plan. However, the one person, Wai Y. Chin, a Cantonese who worked at the Wah Mee Club as a dealer making $10 per hour, managed to survive in this gruesome incident and was able to testify. In fact, Mak had been planning the robbery for weeks, and he enlisted Benjamin Ng, and later Tony Ng.

Mak and two accomplices were the immigrants from Hong Kon, each in their twenties. During a search of the apartment rented by Benjamin Ng’s girlfriend, detectives discovered a significant amount of money, two handguns, ammunition, and a rifle. The police also learned that Benjamin Ng owed thousands of dollars in gambling debt to the club where he worked. On June 15, 1984, Tony Ng was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, but he managed to hide out in Canada until October 4, 1984 when he was arrested by Canadian Mounted Police. Mak, portrayed as the mastermind, was sentenced to death, but then later it has been postponed. Eventually, the judge decided to put him under life imprisonment. Wai Y. Chin, the sole survivor of the Wah Mee Club massacre and the man responsible for the apprehension and convictions of the suspects, died of natural causes on Monday, May 3, 1993.

Unlike many other “positive” Asian American figures whom had great influence on America, this incident shocked all Americans and deformed the image of Asian Americans. This incident not only revealed dreadful Asian American violence in US, but also brought up the serious illegal gambling problem in Chinatown.