Alceryn

babies, aunties and teachers

2011-04-30T12:37:00.006-07:00

When it comes to age-old axioms and neat binaries, feminists have been well trained to question and at times to subvert. For some reason, these sensibilities all go out the window when it comes to babies and weddings. When I turned thirty, people around me suddenly became broken records, chanting the same lines over and over again: "When are you guys getting married?" "When are you having kids?" "You know your biological clock will kick in, right?" "You'd make such a great mom." "The biggest lie is a woman saying she doesn't want to get married." And perhaps the most bizarre of them all from my mom: "If you don't give birth, you're more likely to get a disease in your reproductive system."

My (bio-male) partner and I have decided not to get married or to have any children. No, I don't hate children and no, I'm not married to my work instead of my partner. I don't believe in biological clocks--why does this word still exist?--although I can believe in the urge to nurture young people and, perhaps more importantly, believe in the social need to embrace culturally sanctioned familial customs. As earnest, powerful and gratifying these needs may be, they are the product or our socialization that women's role is to nurture and that "blood is thicker than water." But then this doesn't mean that I look down upon women who decide to bear children as unfeminist or dupes of the system. Parenting and nurturing young people are some of the most important, rewarding and difficult life experiences and roles, which tend to rate high on the cultural scale (as beautiful, natural and holy) but low on the social and economic scale (limited mat/pat leaves and women's desire to nurse is still penalized through inadequate mat leaves). In a recent conversation over breakfast, a friend who has an 18-month-old daughter mentioned how she could find no feminist work on motherhood that reflects the way she sees her own parenthood. It's either: women who have children are not feminist because they have given into the myth of motherhood, or women who have children are fulfilling their mystical feminine power to give life and must continue to do so by embracing midwifery and breastfeeding while refusing epidurals, formulas and toys made of toxic plastics. Both are highly limited and devastating to women and the broader visions of feminisms. The two perspectives place women in impossible positions of either renouncing their desire to give birth and to nurture children (which is to reinforce the cultural perception that these desires are feminine and therefore inferior) or driven completely bonkers trying to go the alternative route, which is much more expensive and time-consuming. Let's face it: the whole natural eco-baby craze is only accessible for middle- and upper-class (generally white) women, straight or queer, who can afford these products and the time to take longer mat leaves to breastfeed.

The question isn't whether being a feminist means not having babies or having babies, but the social, cultural, economic and political barriers that constrain either choices and to pressure women into making impossible choices for which they are ultimately found guilty for not being good (feminist) mothers or good (feminist) women. On the political and economic side, there are inadequate maternal and paternal leaves; lack of affordable day care and/or subsidies; ongoing struggle for women to find gender equality at the workplace in terms of income and benefits; erosion of government funding for women's shelters; lack of regulation when it comes to toxins in baby products; etc. etc. On the social and cultural side, there are the continual insistence that the bond between mother and child is natural and must be achieved at all costs; that women have biological clocks that make them hysterical (pun intended) if they don't conceive; that you must give birth to your children, not adopt them; that a family is one man, one woman and children; and--what is most important for me--that being a parent is the only most important way for you to nurture a young person. To me, these are points for feminist interventions when it comes to parenthood: to address broader structural issues concerning women's access to wealth and safety from abuse and to subvert heternormaitve beliefs about motherhood and family. It's not about battling between one another over which is the more genuine emotional investment: your love for your newborn or the feminist movement. The two can coincide, without sacrificing one for the other.

I want to value parenthood without resorting to notions of the magical and natural bond between mother and child or biological clocks. Nature--or appeals to nature--is one of those axioms I want to avoid because it has and continues to keep women in the shackles of their bodies, bodies that have become shackled by heteronormative notions of femininity, motherhood and wifehood. I want to appreciate parenthood without having to resort to nature and I believe that it is possible. I can give birth to children and love them without nature. I can adopt children and love them without nature. Heck, I can not like children without nature. I want nature out of the equation so that I can choose not to have children of my own and still be perceived as a nurturing person who doesn't hate babies... or should have babies but is too selfish to do so. I want to be done away with the All-giving Mother versus Selfish Spinster binary as the only way of making sense of women's role when it comes to nurturing someone. I have for a while claimed that I will be the Cool Auntie instead to my sister's children and the children of my friends. But I'm also seeing limitations in that category: it's still based on the family unit or pseudo-parental relationship to god-children of sorts. I do immensely enjoy playing with my friend's daughter and watching her grow and I look forward to more of these relationships to come... but I feel that I need to broaden my perception further...

I've done a lot of teaching in the past year and a half, partly for income and partly for building a teaching porfolio for job applications. I've begun to enjoy teaching immensely and after many conversations with my advisor and friends who also teach in the university, I began to develop my pedagogy that I now put in conversation with feminist debates over mother/parenthood. Being an educator means to be a nurturer and the kinds of nurturing work that I've done in my semesters are not unlike nurturing as a parent: I need to be perceptive of students' needs, strengths and development and I can't automatically assume that they trust me because I'm their teacher. I must win this trust by reaching out to them, understanding their challenges, and hopefully inspiring them. And in return, students can be inspiring, surprising and all in all delightful. They can also be resistant, perplexing and enraging. Hey, aren't your kids like that, too, if you have any? I believe that I am a better teacher for thinking of teaching as parenting (with appropriate distance, of course) and that my understanding of parenting is enriched by thinking of it as teaching. And by linking the two, I want to elevate teaching in the academy (where research and publishing are still valued over teaching) and society (where teachers of all levels are still an undervalued profession)... and broaden the understanding of what it means to nurture someone beyond the confines of the nuclear family or a mystical mother-child relationship.

topic :: race, ethnicity and hybridity

2010-09-18T12:49:00.006-07:00

A few years ago, I partook in an anthology collective for a book entitled Han Kut: Critical Art and Writing by Korean Canadian Women (2007). I wrote a poem about the makings of a Korean Canadian woman, referring to myself. Until recently, what troubled me the most about identifying as "Korean Canadian woman" was the Korean part. I speak and write Korean, was born in South Korea and grew up in a Korean Canadian community in Toronto. But I didn't ascribe to what I saw as the dominant "Korean values", which I came to learn were specific to church-centred diasporic communities with little institutional and historical clout in mainstream Canadian society, rather than some homogenous and universal notion of Koreanness per se. I had already confronted the question of "woman" through critical race feminist and transgender theories. What bothers me now about that triple identification is the middle part that seemed so matter of fact and inconsequential: Canadian.

I know I (and many of us in the anthology collective) put the word in there as a way to acknowledge our diasporic location and our belonging in this nation-state as a legitimate citizen rather than perpetually seen as an immigrant, regardless of the fact that we were born here or lived here for most of our lives. But I'm now also troubled by actively identifying myself with a nation-state, which is a product of modernity and is tied to imperial and capitalist expansions that began in 19th century Europe. Nation-states are inherently violent: they demarcated and continue to reinforce the border between those who belong and those who do not through laws of citizenship and military enforcement at geographical borders. In the Canadian nation-state, this process involved the largely successful attempts at eradicating Aboriginal peoples (through "wars" or massacres and cultural oppression), barring immigrants of colour through policies and economically suppressing French Canadians, to name a few instances. And so for me to insert the term "Canadian" in my list of identifiers, I am invoking this history in rather problematic ways. What does it mean for me to declare myself positively tied to this nation-state (which is also no worse than most nation-states)?

But then can't I ask the same question about the term "Korean" in my hybrid identity? Why am I not troubled by my declaration for ties to this particular nation-state? I think the reason is because I see the term "Korean" as more of a marker of race than citizenship in a nation-state. I know that I am seen as a racialized person by others (including those who are also racialized, not just by non-racialized folks), which deeply informs how I navigate the social world. This awareness on my part and treatment by others (for both good and bad) have come together over the years that I've lived in this country so that it has become part of my identity. I know that when I meet a group of people for the first time, white or racialized, they will wonder whether or not I'm a recent immigrant, where I'm from or where my family is from and whether or not I speak English. I've been asked "Where are you from?" or when they are a bit more polite "Where is your family from?" If I have not yet spoken and revealed my fluency in English and if the speaker is a white Anglo person (who identifies as Canadian with no other ethnic markers and doesn't get asked where his/her family is from) I would be talked to slowly and with clear enunciation of words. It's the polite form of racism, the well-meaning and benign practice of "let's make sure that this immigrant feels welcome and comfortable", regardless of whether or not the person is indeed an immigrant and if she is not, putting her in the (perpetual) category of immigrant and therefore not really Canadian.

Hence, the term "Korean" in my triple identifier points to my repeated experiences of being suspected of not really ever being Canadian because I must be originally from somewhere else. (Of course, this ignores the fact that all of us are originally from somewhere else, except Aboriginal peoples.) These experiences are at odds with the times when I encounter other types of white Anglo folks who ask why people of colour insist on putting their original ethnicities before their Canadian ethnicity, in a casual accusation of betrayal of a nation that welcomed them. So as a person of colour, I am caught between two impossible demands: I will never be seen as fully and unproblematically Canadian so I must remember my Koreanness always... but then I'm pressured to put my Canadianness before my Koreanness and even drop the latter if I can. What??

And so when I insert "Canadian" between "Korean" and "woman", I can't help but wonder... Do I really need it there? Do I really need to yell out to the cool bullies to include me in their cool games, saying that I really belong there rather than in the corner where the outcasts stand around watching in envy? Do I really want to become one of them and become a bully who terrorizes or (worse) pities the kids on the sidelines? Or do I want to create a different game altogether where belonging and not belonging are not so dangerous, so loaded with violence, both physical and symbolic? Where the players define value and contribution of one another in different terms, rather than who is from where, whose family is rich, who brings strange food to school, whose clothes are strange?

Identity is complex and ever changing. We want to believe that there is an innate, pure, unobstructed self that we can declare, assert and love. But we are social beings, entrenched in values that surround us and demand attention and response from us. I declare myself differently in different contexts and feel incomplete in each one. But each of the fragments are part of myself and at times they contradict one another (hence, I have an intense fear of my social worlds colliding). What is probably the least problematic (though it has its own complications) is to identify as a feminist. It's tough to use that word these days without being bombarded with inane questions or accusations of man-hating or derogatory smiles about girl power. But it's the word that I feel the most sure about in its meaning for myself. And it is also the part of my identity that actively tries to make sense of the complexities of all the other fragments with their complicated histories and problematic relationship with one another.

tv :: Mad Men - Pete Campbell

2010-09-10T13:16:00.007-07:00

* SPOILER ALERT *

I've been watching a lot of Mad Men, mostly catching up to the current season. I'm at the end of Season 2 now. One of my favourite episodes of Season 2 surprisingly features the character I like the least: Pete Campbell.

In the second episode of the season, "Flight 1", Campbell's personal and professional lives collide when his father dies in a crash of an American Airline's plane. American Airlines is one of the much-sought-after airline contracts in the advertising industry, and Sterling & Cooper perk up at the rumour that AmAir is looking for new PR approaches in light of the catastrophe, i.e. looking for a new ad agency.

While his colleagues and bosses scramble to find ways to woo AmAir, Pete struggles with the death of his father, with whom he has always had a complicated relationship. In the prior episode we see that his father is highly judgmental of Pete, including his career choice, suggesting that advertising isn't real work for a man. We find out that Pete is from a family of old money and grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, but that the cost of the spoon has been high: unattainable expectations of success which are narrowly defined by his father, living up to the family name and living with daily criticisms. So when his father dies in the plane crash, Pete doesn't to know how to feel. How do you grieve for a parent who made you feel insignificant and toward whom you have so much unresolved anger?

Pete turns to Don, his nemesis of all people, for support. Or perhaps Don is the most likely figure because in their seething conflict over the status of alpha male, in a strange way Pete has more intimacy with Don (the kind that comes out of open animosity) than with his "friends" at the office who know so little about him and who have never seen him with his guard down. Pete knows that in many ways Don sees right through his cocky rich-boy sense of entitlement, right to his vulnerabilities and childish desire for approval. In an awkward interaction in Don's office, Pete tells Don that his father was in the plane crash that everyone is talking about nonchalantly at the office, to which Don replies that he should go home.

But Pete's wife's reaction to the death is too normal, too conventional. At the family gathering, she sings praises about her father-in-law as a good man when she knows nothing about him and knows nothing of the complicated relationship between father and son. Pete's mother is only concerned with the practical matters of the funeral and maintaining composure, the lot of middle-class matriarchs. It is evident in later episodes that she is complicit in the family denial that her husband is difficult and unloving toward herself and her children. Pete's brother, who should be his greatest ally, surprisingly drifts to the sidelines. The brothers are only able to talk about practical matters of dealing with their father's will, family assets and the financial fate of their mother. In none of these family interactions do any of them talk about their complicated emotions about the father's death.

Throughout the episode, Pete talks about crying. "I haven't cried yet. I expect it to happen at some point." He says these words in a stiff narrative manner, as though he is reading the words from a pamphlet about grieving because that is what is supposed to happen: he is supposed to be sad and cry. Yet, we know that there's a part of him that is relieved that this father is now gone, along with his harsh criticisms and oppressive disappointments. His grief is much more complex than the emotion of sadness can allow.

In a final gesture of reaching out, Pete goes to see Don a second time, which turns out to be bad timing and Don orders him out of his office. Left with no guidance or support, even from his nemesis, Pete deals with his grief in the only way that he knows how: as an opportunity to enhance his career. He uses the death of his father as a way to impress an executive of American Airlines, suggesting that to sign with Sterling & Cooper would mean that American Airline would have the support of a victim of the crash, which would be beneficial for the airline to rebuild its public image.

This is a shrewd move on Pete's part, which is in keeping with his character, but it is also an act of desperation. The white-Anglo upper-middle class ethos of his family has meant that you don't talk about emotions or family conflicts at the dinner table. You sweep everything under the rug and maintain the facade of politeness and domestic bliss. As a man, Pete is expected to devote his time and focus on providing for his family and building his career, not to trouble himself with petty emotions which is the realm of women. And so when he is confronted with the death of his father, he has no skills, know-how or support system to work through the enormous complexities of his grief. No one wants to talk about it frankly and no one really knows how, including Pete himself. Pete is devastated by the capitalist, liberal and patriarchal ideals of the autonomous self-sufficient rational masculine subject who does not denigrate himself with what are seen as feminine vulnerabilities or emotions. Left with no resources or recourse, he turns to work, the socially sanctioned way to enact masculinity, in order to deal with his grief. The result appears perverse but one that makes the most logical and emotional sense, however limited it may be, to Pete himself.

space :: dream crafting area

2010-09-10T01:10:00.005-07:00

I'm not a neat person at all... but I have a great appreciation for order, especially when it comes to workspaces. I sometimes look online for craft and home office design ideas or flip through home organization magazines and drool at the photos of pristine work areas. You can see more photos of the workspace here in the full article. There's a great story about how the person found the dark wood cabinets for $250 at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

topic :: honesty

2010-08-28T14:41:00.011-07:00

In her interview with Simon Cowell, Oprah Winfrey said to the controversial American Idol judge, "Well, at least no one can say that you're not authentic."

Popular media has become increasingly fascinated by what's often called "brutal honesty". Simon Cowell "won" the heart of America with his brand of brutal honesty. Oprah Winfrey continued in the interview that he said things that people were thinking but were too afraid or thought it too impolite to say. Indeed, Simon Cowell made his brutal honesty into a recognizable brand. And now we see a whole slew of sitcoms, television comedy and movies that sport this brand. We are obsessed with honesty, particularly if it's brutal... and perhaps only if it is as brutal as it can be. It definitely makes controversial television and if it's talked about then it's automatically good because it means people are watching.

Perhaps brutal honesty titillates and consoles in a perverse way the bruises that we all have hidden away from the times we were punished for lying as children. I remember lying resulted in the worst punishment in my memory. I don't even remember what the lie was, or whether I had actually lied, but the verdict was that I had lied and the punishment was what stuck with me to my adult years. Despite the harsh measures my parents used to stamp lying out of me, I still lie. In an episode of Mad Men in season 2, Betty asks Don to punish their young son for lying and yet the entire show is about adults who lie to their spouses, their colleagues, the general public and themselves. So perhaps making honesty brutal is our way of playing out the childhood fantasies of lying, which is still generally taboo, and of acting out against the punishments we faced as children for not telling the truth. It's like, you want honesty? I'll show you honesty!!

At the same time, we are also a culture obsessed with lies and liars. Politics, national security and the criminal justice system are saturated with accusations and penalties that have to do with all kinds of lies. We seem to be absolutely sure on what differentiates lies from truth. Forget white lies and grey ambiguous zones. The television show Lie To Me is premised on an unpopular and more than slightly suspect scientific theory that it is possible to measure and standardize our bodily reactions to telling lies. So there you have it. We can scientifically and accurately distinguish between lies and truth. But that's not it either. As the show demonstrates it's not about whether or not someone tells a lie but their motivation and the context. We lie to protect ourselves, the people we love and the causes we believe in. The stuff of dramatic storytelling.

I watched The Invention of Lying (2009) the other day and for a film that is about the dangers of truth-telling as much as telling lies, it is strangely ambiguous about what it means by truth and lies, and I don't mean the good kind of ambiguous. The film opens with a snapshot of a world where people can't tell lies, which seems to automatically mean that they are brutally honest. Opposite of lying = brutal honesty? Another hole in the narrative, aside from the strange roundabout jabs at Christianity as a white lie, is the character of Anna who is somehow able to lie to herself about what she wants. If you can't tell lies, then how can you lie to yourself? In a strange and incoherent way, the film makes a case against honesty, which always seems to be brutal.

So we're obsessed with catching lies and liars, getting away with lies for ourselves and witnessing brutal honesty that is entertaining and yet terrifying. Underlying all of these preoccupations is the tendency to mistake harsh bluntness, hurtful jabs at people's vulnerabilities and ignorance of structural constraints for honesty and truthfulness. Honesty, without the brutality, and truthfulness are messy, complicated and cannot be contained in 30-minute television segments. There is usually no celebratory revelation at the 27 minute mark. It's a long draw-out series with lots of repetition and lulls with very little catharsis. Authenticity of this kind won't make good material on Oprah.

topic :: Feminist/Queer femininity

2010-08-25T14:09:00.008-07:00

I saw a documentary film at Out On Screen Queer Film Festival in Vancouver in 2007 called "Female to Femme." The filmmaker interviews femme-identified queer women and they talk about femme-backlash in queer women's communities and feminist circles and what it means for them to reclaim femininity as a queer woman and as a feminist. I really appreciated this film because I was starting a point in my life where I wanted to claim femininity again in my own terms... and I didn't quite know what that would mean. But I was also rather disturbed by the huge emphasis on THINGS in the film. Things that are forbidden, like high-heeled shoes, lipstick and dresses. But there was no engagement with the fact that dominant cultural notions of femininity links female subjectivity with the consuming subject, that women buy things that are frivolous because they are women. So how can we reclaim femininity that is linked to such forbidden things in ways that are also critical of gendered notion of consumption and of global capitalism? What is a feminist/queer femininity?

I enjoy primping myself up to suit my mood. I enjoy theatricality even in everyday life and this requires things. It took me a long time, not until my late twenties, to acknowledge this side of myself. I had been thoroughly invested in masculinist denial of the body, of all things material and temporal, as the superior mode of existence. It was not until I became a queer feminist that I began to take the body seriously, including its materiality, sensuality, sexuality and theatricality. I think as queer feminists, we need to take a similar approach to things as we do to bodies. Bodies are complex amalgamation of materiality, history, desires, meaning, trauma, politics, etc. Things also evoke desires, they are material, they are located in relations of exchange and production which are tied to capitalism, they have personal and cultural meaning, they can hurt or be the result of violence (exploitative labour often of women of colour), they can be forbidden or normative or somewhere in between depending on context. If, in our quest to reclaim forbidden objects tied to femininity, we forget these complexities of things, then how can our project be feminist, queer or anti-racist?

It's not that then reclaiming isn't possible, either. We can reclaim as we subvert, or vice versa. In moments like these, I always think of artists who take normative objects linked to normative desires and queer them. Fiona Kinsella (below) would be one. Canadian artist and activist Allyson Mitchell is another. They take everyday objects and make them into something astonishing, or take conventionally beautiful objects and make them perverse, thus redefining beauty. Mitchell especially takes the approach of crafts, which are considered "low art", if art at all, and its "lowness" is also tied to its link to women's work, domestic space and being outside of financial economy and economic value. To claim this as art subverts the relations of power that relegates crafts as "merely crafts" and thereby acknowledges the importance of domestic work, domestic objects, discarded objects and things and work that lie outside of economic exchange. Hence, like the body, objects can provide queer feminists with immense potential for reclaiming and subversion, which can be integrated into new definitions of femininity.

exhibit :: Cake

2010-08-21T11:16:00.006-07:00

Apparently turning 30 also comes with a landslide of weddings to attend. My landslide came this summer: six in total, which includes actual ceremonies and post-wedding reception parties/BBQs. Regardless of how much I may love the person who is getting married, I find weddings extremely difficult. They are the height of heterenormativity and gender/family performativity. I haven't been to a gay wedding yet (only a city hall ceremony) but I'd imagine a similar display of family performances and a slight variation on gender normativity, but normative nontheless. Luckily, many of my bride friends forwent the excruciating bouquet tosses and garter fishing... but after three, I absolutely had enough and had to decline the invitations to the rest.

One of the three wedding receptions took place in the Hamilton Art Gallery and by strange chance there was an exhibit right next to the reception hall that critically engages with weddings through displays of cake-inspired sculptures. "Cake" by Fiona Kinsella takes the iconic symbol of weddings and marriage and subverts its supposed purity and beauty by integrating elements of the grotesque and macabre, such as hairs of animals and people, teeth and bones of animals and misshapen dolls.

The result is a delicious feminist critique of the institution of marriage. Feminists have long battled this gender normative and repressive practice and institution that limits women's roles to the domestic sphere, devalues domestic work, mandates child-birthing and rearing, imposes the dominance of the nuclear family based ona monogamous heterosexual union and obstructs a more diverse understanding of family by reinforcing the myth that kinship ties are the natural (and therefore the only imaginable) premise of the family unit. Kinsella juxtaposes the elements that represent the myth of marriage-as-beautiful (creamy white fondant, floral motifs) with subverted imagery of marriage-as-natural by including elements that are natural (hairs, bones, teeth) but that are also associated with death and the grotesque. The vintage cutlery and doll parts evoke the historical past and suggest a link between the perpetuation of the institution of marriage with current fascinations with antiques and vintage objects. Like a fad that comes and goes, marriage isn't eternal nor absolute but deeply historical.

The curator describes the exhibit as negotiating "the phenomena of beauty and the grotesque", thereby positioning "the art object as an agent with a marked capacity of arousing innate reactions." Indeed, several people walked into the exhibit while I was there, at first pleasantly surprised to find cakes in an art gallery but only to find something out of place when they looked closer. Their reactions were mixtures of disgust and confusion. Perhaps they will say that they didn't understand the art as a way to mask their discomfort with the social critique. For me, the cakes aroused a feeling of delight and satisfaction during a difficult season of wedding landslides. The cakes push the idea of beauty to its limit and flirt with perversions that are understated, quiet and lingering. The cakes are, indeed, beautiful.

A few of Kinsella's paintings present at the exhibit were also evocative. With lumps of white oil paint she creates turbulent patterns on canvas, mimicking the materiality of cake icing but not the tranquility of the smooth surface of a traditional cake. The gashes and sharp edges created by dried oil paint suggests critiques of the cultural myth that marriage creates domestic bliss and offers stability and serenity to the married couple.

2010-08-20T01:33:00.002-07:00

A photoshop experiment from a while back during the US presidential primaries. I can't remember if I made this before or after seeing the skit by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

film :: Nothing But the Truth (2008)

2010-08-19T16:21:00.001-07:00

Reposted from August 18, 2010

In 2005 an American journalist named Judith Miller was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to reveal her source before a federal grand jury. The issue was “national security” leak in the CIA versus the First Amendment, which includes the freedom of the press. This story became the backdrop of the fictional film Nothing But the Truth by Rod Lurie.

A political reporter Rachel Armstrong (played by Kate Beckinsale) publishes a ground-breaking story in a national newspaper that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, Erica Van Doren (played by Vera Farmiga) who happens to be the mother of one of Armstrong’s son’s classmates. Armstrong is taken into custody by the FBI and is jailed for refusing to reveal her source for the story. She spends nearly a year in jail while she waits for her case to be moved to the federal supreme court, during which time her marriage breaks down and her relationship with her son becomes strained. The Supreme Court judges rule (5:4) that interests of “national security” trumps that of the First Amendment. At the end of the film, she loses the custody of her son and is imprisoned for two years after bargaining with the special Federal prosecutor (played by Matt Dillon).

The film is a frightening look at how the current climate of fear about national security jeopardizes free speech and government accountability. In a moving and poignant speech in the Supreme Court, Armstrong’s attorney (played by Alan Alda) pleas that without a guarantee of anonymity for sources who reveal secrets to journalists, the First Amendment will be rendered meaningless and obsolete and those in power, regardless of politics, will face little accountability. Interestingly—and frighteningly—cases of journalists who are jailed or imprisoned for refusing to reveal their sources are more common than we realize or hope. (http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?id=16896)

The film takes an extra and necessary step in engaging in feminist analysis through the two women characters in the film: Armstrong and Van Doren. During her days in jail, Armstrong agrees to an interview with a Barbara Walters-type reporter for a human interest story as a way to maintain the public’s attention on her case. During the interview, the reporter tries to represent Armstrong as a bad mother whose insistence on protecting the privacy of her source is equated with abandoning her own son. In a conversation with her attorney, who advises her to reveal her source and salvage her personal life, Armstrong exclaims: “When a man leaves his family to uphold his cause, they name a holiday after him. When a man leaves his family to go to war, they erect a monument for him. When a woman does the same thing, she is a monster. If we give in now, what are we saying? Trust journalists so long as they’re not mothers because they’ll eventually crack?”

Meanwhile, Armstrong’s foil, Van Doren, faces relentless investigation the CIA who suspects her of being Armstrong’s source. The CIA’s suspicion takes the form of attempts at depicting her as incompetent, weak and emotional due to her gender, which Van Doren names and faces head on. Van Doren’s feminist stance is complex. As a female CIA agent, she is tough as nails and asserts, “I don’t hate girls. I reserve the heinous bitch in me for men.” Yet, in her anger, she calls Armstrong an “unpatriotic cunt” for not giving her information about the source. Still yet, she has admirations for Armstrong’s tenacity in maintaining with her principles: “I looked her in the eye. She’s a water-walker.” Both Beckinsale and Farmiga are fantastic in the film but Farmiga literally shines. She is a formidable actress and her performance in this film far exceeds that in Up In the Air for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Sadly, the two feminist characters are broken in the end, but not without complexities. It’s suggested that the CIA will have to contend with embarrassing results of a high-profile investigation. But the defeated feminists are also realistic portrayal of how women and women as whistle blowers are treated by the law and popular culture. A bittersweet end, indeed.

travel :: Greece, May 2010

2010-08-19T16:15:00.002-07:00

Reposted from May 28, 2010.

Travelling in Greece this year was full of contradictions and complexities. When I was there in 1997, I was in high school and it was all just fun and games. It was very strange being a tourist in Greece this year while it was overcome with economic crisis. Even stranger was the fact that I didn’t see any protests or saw any evidence of a “crisis” per se. I did feel the general unease in people I spoke to, even on the islands remote from the capital. I also saw how the class relations in Athens were racially skewed. I saw Black people (whom I assumed to be working migrants from Africa) selling goods on the streets, particularly near the parliament where the protests took place. I wonder what kinds of rights they have and who protest on their behalf.
As a tourist in the hotels, shops and restaurants, I encountered extremely friendly people who were kind to us, despite the fact that we didn’t speak a word of Greek. But I also saw that they needed to be friendly. I spoke to one bartender who told me that things were very bad in Greece… but then quickly gathered himself and asked me generic questions about how I am enjoying my stay and where I have been so far. To be in the tourism business means to sell happiness, even during hard times. As a tourist on the receiving end of that business, full knowing where the country is at economically, politically and socially, I didn’t know how to carry myself. I had a role in that context: a tourist who brought in money and gave meaning to the livelihood of the people who were part of the industry. To ask questions about how difficult things are felt like violating that role somehow, to ask about the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.
But I didn’t need to, really. What would that conversation have done, anyhow? Just make me feel better for having reached out to the “locals” and wouldn’t have changed the way things are. I can only give myself the satisfaction of having contributed to the Greek economy as a tourist… but it’s only momentary and precarious. As it should be.

criticam :: Faux green

2010-08-19T16:14:00.002-07:00

I saw this ad in my local Future Shop and I had to photograph it. The more I look at it, the more disturbed I get. This is what happens when the green movement gets co-opted. Corporations should get taxed whenever they use the word “green” when advertising their products and promoting their brands. Not to mention have their reputation smeared when they use offensive images such as the Avatar. How is this movie now representative of protecting the environment? So the only way the green movement can be conceived in the corporate world is if it’s linked up with imperialist and colonialist notions of “primitive” other? For fuck sake!

dance :: Black Grace

2010-08-19T16:12:00.004-07:00

Reposted from April 18, 2010

It’s a rare treat for me to see contemporary dance live. But I specifically asked to see this performance on my birthday. It was beyond what I could have ever imagined.

Black Grace is a dance company from New Zealand, founded by Neil Ieremia who is also its artistic director. Composed of six men and three women at the March 2010 performances in Vancouver, Black Grace fuses traditional Pacific dances with contemporary dance. More about them here.

The first half of the evening consisted of Ieremia’s earlier pieces (Minoi) that most visibly combine traditional Maori and Pacific Islander dances with contemporary movements. This included a breathtaking synchrony of six pairs of male hands slapping various parts of the body (Samoan slap dance), acrobatic movements across the stage and a children’s song about a worm (minoi). It was particularly exciting for the drummer in me because, essentially, the dancers were beating their bodies and the floor as though they were drums. Another piece that stood out for me in the first half was Deep Far about patterns and change, which Ieremia choreographed when he was inspired by erratic weather one year in New Zealand. Two men and two women danced in synchrony as well as in canon, in movements that were at once feather-light and powerful. It was poetry, mathematics and semiotics as dance.

The second half of the performance consisted of two major and interrelated pieces under the title Gathering Clouds, which is Ieremia’s response to racist comments by an economist, Greg Clydesdale, that immigrants are perpetual under-achievers. The first half represents the experiences of the first generation that immigrated to New Zealand from other islands. The movements depict trials of migration, clinging to memories and traditions, overcoming difficulties, hoping for a bright future. The second half represents the experiences of Ieremia’s generation, the children of the immigrants. This piece draws on elements of the previous piece but deconstructs them and reinterprets them, evoking a sense of continuity yet change. The movements are more fluid, more playful, more daring than the first piece… but there is also a sense of conflict (with the previous generation? with racial discrimination?), exemplified by one sequence between two men whose movements resemble sparring.

I often joke about doing an interpretive dance of some subject or another, but this was the first time where I gained insights into history, cultural change and social conflicts by watching a dance performance. It also helped that Ieremia introduced each piece with an anecdote or his conceptual process to help anchor the meaning of the dance. He is also a very charismatic speaker, which also enhanced the experience. While I enjoy evocative, abstract and ethereal art, I also appreciate being able to contextualize it in history, politics and personal narrative.

2010-08-19T16:09:00.002-07:00

My essay, “Adventures in Ocean-Crossing, Margin-Skating and Feminist-Engagement with Doctor Who”, appears in this anthology by women fans of the television series. For more info, click here.

film :: How To Train Your Dragon (2010, Dreamworks)

2010-08-19T16:04:00.009-07:00

Reposted from April 15, 2010.

*Spoiler Alert*

This animated film is the “coming of age” story of Hiccup, a young Viking teen whose body shape and gentle demeanour are uncharacteristic of his cultural norms. As the son of the village leader, Stoick, Hiccup has a lot to live up to but fails at every turn. He is not big enough, not athletic enough, not aggressive enough… not Viking enough. He stands in contrast to his peers, all of whom aspire to this ideal Viking subject. Hiccup’s foil, but also his love interest, is Astrid, a tomboy and the star Viking in his age group. The film depicts a Viking culture which is recognizably masculine but is also egalitarian: Hiccup is repeatedly scorned for not being Viking enough, not that he is not man enough, and group shots of the villagers show men and women equally as warriors who defend their home. Astrid’s status as the “jock” also attests to this egalitarian society. However, the gender code is that of masculinity, and Hiccup’s status as outsider is coded as feminine.

When Hiccup accidentally captures and befriends an injured dragon, whom he names Toothless, his gentleness, nurturance and “geekiness” (all coded as femininity in the film) become very useful. Against a cultural backdrop in which dragons and Vikings are at constant war with one another (dragons as “looters” of Viking villages), Hiccup’s femininized qualities allow him to overcome the age-old antagonism. It all starts with his inability to slay the dragon he had captured, an act that would have secured his father’s love and social status. Instead of enacting the masculine/Viking social norm, he lets the dragon live. The dragon is unable to fly away, however, because he lost a part of his tail during the violent capture. Feeling responsible, Hiccup feeds him and plays with him, acts that allow him access to intimate secrets of dragons. He then uses this knowledge to tame dragons to submission, without hurting them, in “dragon slaying school”, much to the surprise of his teacher and peers, including Astrid who becomes suspicious of his sudden rise to fame. Hiccup seals the bond between himself and Toothless by manufacturing a device (drawing on his “geekiness” that made him an outsider) that would replace the missing half of the dragon’s tail but that also requires Hiccup to ride him.

Everything seems to be going well for Hiccup. He finds a best friend in Toothless, wins his father’s love (culminating in a hilarious awkward father-son moment where very little is actually said) and gains social status among his peers and the entire village. All the while, he is “passing” as an ideal Viking, his non-Viking self cleverly disguised through his knowledge of dragons. The only person who knows is Astrid, who accidentally stumbles on his secret, but is won over after an exhilarating ride on Toothless. But the happy secret world of Hiccup and Toothless is exposed when Hiccup wins the top prize in dragon training: the honour of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village. When he is unable to go for the kill, all hell breaks loose and his secret friendship with Toothless is revealed, along with his non-Viking (coded feminine) self. His father disowns him and the villagers abandon him, except Astrid who stands by him. After a series of events (I won’t spoil those), Hiccup becomes a hero as his true non-Viking-like self and wins back his father’s affections. He also alters the Viking culture to embrace dragons as friends and pets rather than hunt them as enemies.

While it is a standard coming of age story, Dragon does some very interesting things. For one, there are no real villains in the story. For a fantasy narrative with dragons and Vikings, this is very unusual. The one figure who stands as a threat to both dragons and Vikings (from the untold part of the plot) is more of a force of nature rather than a character. The story is driven more by parental expectations and peer pressure.

The character of Astrid is more than just the romantic interest or the jock. Hiccup has to convince her to embrace dragons, which is tough to do because she is so thoroughly invested in the Viking belief that dragons are for slaying. For Hiccup to win Astrid’s heart is equivalent to him winning acceptance from his Viking culture, which is thoroughly masculinist. In an interesting scene right after Hiccup’s secret is exposed, Astrid confronts him as to what his next move is and then approves his decision to act. In conventional film narrative, this is a dynamic that is usually reserved for heroines and their male love interests: she is hesitant until he approves. But here, the roles are reversed. Hence, Astrid straddles three masculine genders: the Viking masculine, the filmic masculine (love interest of the heroine) and the “butch” half of her relationship with Hiccup.

The film depicts dragons in an interesting way. They are not just pets or menacing beasts but have conflicts and tragedies of their own (in the untold part of the plot) that represents them as social beings rather than one-dimensional animals, as non-humans are usually represented in film.

Lastly, the film ends with Hiccup losing a part of his leg in battle. Rarely do we see the hero get maimed—-killed, maybe, but not disabled. The disability is not used to enhance Hiccup’s hero status, either. His prosthetic leg is engineered to fit his harness so that he can still steer Toothless’ tail during flight. Through Hiccup’s disability, the dragon and the rider become true equals. While before Toothless depended on Hiccup to fly, they are now dependent on one another for full mobility. This further accentuates the film’s theme that dragons are more than just pets.

In some ways, the title is deceiving because the story is not about a boy who trains a dragon, but a (Viking) culture that comes of age to a more progressive view of greatness and of dragons.

art :: Mizzonk

2009-10-09T18:07:00.003-07:00

I was at the One Of A Kind show in Vancouver today and came across the works of Mizzonk, a collaboration by Wan-Yi Lin and Roger Chen. I was mesmerized by their Inspiration Series, which consists of various shapes cut into paper and shaped on "hinges." I purchased a medium-sized version of "Where are you?" but "The rolling square" and "Rhythm of the 20 degree turn" are also fantastic pieces. Each piece uses a single sheet of paper and simple geometric shapes, but the work is astonishingly delicate and intricate, demonstrating a playful yet intimate grasp of form, light and lines. I fell in love with "Where are you" because of the playfulness of the opened and closed "doors" and how the whole piece changes when the direction and intensity of the light changes.

I had a nice chat with Wan-Yi and she told me that they used to live in Brooklyn doing modelling work for architecture firms before they moved out to Maple Ridge to produce their own works of art and furniture. Roger is an architect and Wan-Yi is a visual artist, two elements that come beautifully together in their Inspiration Series. Their work and life also embrace sustainability without making a big fuss about it. I only found out about their green business ethic by watching a video interview about them:

game :: Return to Ravenhearst

2009-10-02T12:15:00.008-07:00

I love puzzles and strategy games. I also love a great storyline. I found both recently in Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst. The time is late 1800s and you're held prisoner by a spirit in the Ravenhearst manor. You must solve the mystery of the manor in order to free yourself and others held captive there. Along the way, you encounter various types of puzzles: patterns, jig-saws and hidden objects. The puzzles try various types of skills and the story is captivating. I completely fell in love with this game! Ghosts, spooky dolls, hidden passage ways... it's a perfect way to spend a chilly fall day... or night, if you're really daring!

(You can also find it in PC version... and I believe also in Nintendo DS.)

crafts :: Blim Craft Fair September 2009

2009-09-21T10:57:00.004-07:00

My very first craft fair was at Blim on Sunday Sept. 20th. It was a lot of work preparing a table, a different kind of work than setting up an Etsy shop online. A few friends came by to visit, which was a great treat! I shared the table with my friend Margarita of Good Girl, Bead Girl, who makes stunning beaded jewellery with clay beads. She makes each bead by hand! Incredible. I wish I had the time to look around at other tables. There were homemade cupcakes (yum!), vintage finds, feather earrings (ahk! I'm still pining for those!), hand-sewn clutches by Shnury...

Keep an eye out for the next Blim in October (date TBA) if you're in Vancouver. Blim normally takes place on Main Street. This month, it was in Cambrian Hall Welsh Heritage Centre at Main & 17th.

crafts :: Inspired by vintage

2009-09-19T18:13:00.004-07:00

Acrylic beads and cabochons.
Powder greens, pinks and creams.
Aged brass and silver.
Bicycling with a bouquet of daisies.
Finding the key to a secret garden.

crafts :: Spring Fling

2009-06-04T19:47:00.004-07:00

This spring, I am thrilled by new colour combinations...

~ Mediterranean blue and pomegranate red ~

Blue and red jade necklace strung by brass wire

~ Gold and stained-glass green ~

Brass filigree and textured glass drop earrings

~ Watery blue and misty purple ~

Round aventurine and purple Czech glass bracelet

crafts :: Blue-green Cubic Quartz

2009-04-07T11:59:00.007-07:00

I found these exquisite blue-green cubic quartz two months ago. After weeks of admiring them in their plastic bag, I finally bit the bullet and made a necklace and earrings out of them. For the first time I decided to make pieces using sterling silver. The S-clasp is handmade by yours truly and the ear-wires are by angrybunny.

The drape necklace features nine quartz cubes dangling from a delicate sterling silver chain. I made this one for myself to wear at a friend's wedding in two weeks. The simple drop earrings feature oxidized sterling silver findings. I think oxidized silver goes really well with the finish on the cubic quartz. It's not exactly AB but a subtler silvery sheen that makes the quartz look like a piece of the ocean. These will find their way into my shop after I return from my trip to Korea in May and reopen my shop.

I also used my partner's new Sony Digital SLR camera to photograph the pieces. Its macro setting is not as good as my crappy HP digital camera but the quality is actually better.

crafts :: my everyday wear

2009-01-19T14:24:00.003-08:00

I haven't named this little guy yet... but I found him at Portobello, a monthly arts/crafts fair in Vancouver. Two Japanese women were making these felted cuties as toys and ornaments. I just had to have one! Also one for my sister. He is my lil' muse.

... but back to what I wear everyday. I seem to automatically grab for these freshwater pearl bracelet and Czech glass bead bracelet these days. I found the class beads at a fantastic bead shop in Ottawa where my best friend used to work during her high school days. I loved the design so much that I'm duplicating it in my shop as well. The peach and blue pearl necklace is what I wear on a more formal occasion, such as teaching and going out. It goes pretty much with everything and definitely look great with the bracelets. They are the same pearls I use in my Venus bracelet and necklace.

I really like how the two bracelets look together! I'm all about doubling up bracelets now, especially mixing different textures and materials on the same wrist.

crafts :: Christmas gifts 2008

2009-01-16T13:08:00.007-08:00

I was swamped with grad school work between Sept and Dec of 2008 but I still managed to re-open my shop and to hand-make some Christmas gifts! Here's a glimpse of my stocking stuffers:

my partner's niece and god-daughter in Germany, whom I had the pleasure to meet last year, loves everything pink. this necklace design became the basis of my Galadriel Necklace. I quite like this design and will eventually add more to my shop.

my very first (real) knitted item! it's a simple skinny scarf and I used a combination of knit and purl stitches. amber, green and teal are my best friend's favourite colours. she loved it!

My other best friend wears very little jewellery but when she does, she chooses them with care. Plus, she is allergic to most metals. Very tricky! These pearls are the colours of my Valley Necklace... and soon to appear in my shop, Valley Earrings. I absolutely love this colour combination: earthy yet rich and elegant. My friend loved it! I did find, however, that a small lobster clasp is not the most ideal on a bracelet... My solution will be the topic of the next post.

I think the person who has benefitted the most from my new beading hobby is my mom. She loves wearing accessories, especially dangly earrings, to mix and match with her outfits. Golden yellows, sophisticated greys and sleek blacks are her staple colours. She appreciated the improvement in my skills in these earrings! I found these multi-faceted smokey quartz beads and smokey Swarovski crystals in a shop on Rue Saint-Denis in Montreal run by a woman who is a fantastic beader.

new blog, new start

2008-08-06T00:38:00.003-07:00

i was delighted to find that "alceryn" wasn't taken in either Gmail or Blogspot! i'm not quite sure what this place will hold. my last blog was a mish-mesh of nonsense and convoluted analogies. but that was a few years ago now and i'm in a very different place...

if my last blog was a house of mirrors, reflecting all my multiple personalities, then this one, hopefully, will hold a bit more coherence. hopefully.

the new beader/Etsyer that i am and still the graduate student working on a fantasy novel as my life-long project on the side... i think this new reflection is going to be very interesting.