Is "Game of Thrones" racist and sexist?

With the huge (and largely Piratebay-assisted) following that the HBO series Game of Thrones has gathered, has come increasing critique across the interwebz about its problems of representation. Namely, that it is racist, misogynist, and I've heard homophobic thrown out there as well. How justified are these criticisms?

The first distinction that has to be made is between the TV show, Game of Thrones, and the book series by George RR Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, on which it is based. 5 books have been released, there are allegedly 2 more left to come, and the TV series has ended its 3rd season somewhere in the middle of the third book. I should state that I'm an avid fan of both show and book, so perhaps I take a biased view of these things, but so be it.

It's perhaps a cop-out for book fans like myself to respond to any criticism of the series by smugly stating, "You need to read the book, then you would understand". But it's simply a reality that show-only viewers have a more superficial understanding of what's going on in the GoT world than book readers, and it's common to read critiques from people whose interpretations are at odds with what is actually suggested by GRRM's writing. Many of those criticising the show are doing so from a somewhat limited perspective. They don't have access to characters' internal points of view as written by Martin, and they don't have access to the two and a half books worth of details that the show has not covered yet. Which is an important factor given that scenes and story lines can be interpreted in different ways.

But at the same time, the show needs to stand on its own merits as an artistic creation, not as merely a supplement to the books. So it is entirely valid to critique how certain issues are portrayed on the show without ever reading any of the books; when talking about certain kinds of people are represented, how it comes across is as important as how it might be intended to come across.


GENDER


Many of the feminist criticisms of the story return to the theme that by portraying a fantasy world that is so rife with sexual violence and other forms of misogyny, ASOIAF and/or GoT is therefore misogynist itself. As one article puts it,

I also recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism. But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create. So why imagine a misogynistic one?

or from this article,

Well, yes, 14th century Europe wasn’t a lot of fun if you were a woman, but nor did it have, for example, dragons, or magical shape-changing witchy-woo assassins. Westeros does, because Westeros is a fantasy world. If the creator of a fantasy series can dream up an army of self-resurrecting zombie immortals he can damn well dream up equal marriage rights, and if he chooses not to do so then that choice is meaningful

The world Martin evokes in his books is a brutal one, in which the poor, weak and powerless are constantly vulnerable to the predations of those whose power comes from noble birth, or physical strength, or strength of numbers. It is these dynamics which drive the whole narrative. So in such a milieu, would "equal marriage rights" and 21st century progressive liberal values really be a good fit?

It is quite shocking to see Khal Drogo force himself on a sobbing teenage Daenerys after their wedding; many would find it just as shocking that they later fall in love. How could any woman ever fall in love with a man who rapes her? Yet, we are applying 21st century values here; in a great many cultures, women were considered chattel and had little power to make choices about how they exercised their sexuality. Still today in many parts of the world, women and children are married off against their will, and thus the concept of sexual consent as we know it goes out the window. Yet despite that, many such couples probably do come to love each other, even if it could be considered a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Of course, if what happened to Daenerys happened today in our society it would be an outrage and a crime, yet for much of human history it was just business as usual. (I should mention that in the books, their first sexual encounter is a bit more consensual, although it still wouldn't really pass muster in a contemporary court of law.)

The threat of rape frequently hangs over the heads of many of the other female characters too, while even those women in positions of relative power are merely treated as pawns, to be married off against their will to cement alliances. Sounds rough. But it's also one of the more accurate depictions of the the lot of women in medieval life that you will ever read in the fantasy genre. In any society engaged in war or civil war of the old-school sort (see the Balkan conflict, or civil struggles in Sudan, Liberia or Congo), women are raped in great numbers. Likewise with any society without strong rules of law. Women walking around dressed however they like and remaining mostly unmolested is something that is just not possible in most parts of the world. And even in the most advanced and ordered nations in the world, women still curtail some aspects of their behaviour because of the threat of sexual violence. So while some claim that GoT seems to celebrate sexual violence, I would argue that it's just being realistic about what goes on in lawless and war-torn places.

Yes, it's different to most other series and movies that you will see, which is why I think a lot of people find it so shocking. But that's because most other dramas and fantasies take place either in modern states, or stick to the more well-known cliches of medieval fantasy - noble knights of valour and so on.  The Lord of the Rings had a dichotomy between good humans, elves and dwarves, and evil orcs and goblins, but Martin's world has only humans (mostly). Yes, there are dragons and magic in his world, but compared to most medieval fantasies, those elements are very much in the background, at least at the start of the story. It's far closer to its HBO siblings The Sopranos or The Wire than it is to Merlin; it's a story about people and how they are shaped by power, violence, loyalty and self-interest. While some characters are clearly "good" and some clearly "evil", many don't adhere cleanly to either category. To quote Jorah Mormont in A Storm of Swords (book 3), “There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” Protagonists inflicting violence upon each other is a staple of the genre, but few fantasy works offer an exploration of the violence inherent in human nature the way Martin does.

Feminists have been trying to tell us for years, quite rightly, about how oppressive and ever-present the spectre of male power and violence is towards women. I actually think Martin should be commended for reflecting this in his books, despite some feminists seeing the books or show as misogynist. To his credit, he creates numerous compelling female characters, some of whom struggle within the roles they are born into (Cersei, Catelyn, Sansa, Daenerys), and some who break out of the bonds society places on them (Brienne, Arya, Daenerys again). Around half the major (POV) characters are female, which is noteworthy in a genre that tends to be male-dominated. And as these are women and girls in a world beset by war and turmoil,   it would be unrealistic to avoid mentioning the threat of sexual violence.

Portraying a misogynist world entails depicting misogyny, but that does not equate to an endorsement of that perspective. And I fully get that for some people, that's just not going to make for pleasant viewing or reading, and thus I can't blame anyone if they decide it's not for them. As a male, perhaps my assessment of the existence of sexism is only worth so much; but I am yet to be convinced that anything in Martin's writing indicates or promotes an unhealthy view of women.

The show, however, is a different beast. The amount of nudity and sex on display is in my view excessive. I've had this argument with some other book-readers who say it is in keeping with the sort of world Martin has created, but I think they've pushed it too far. Martin's books are certainly not lacking for sexual content and bawdy language, but the writers of the TV show have seriously amped it up, perhaps in order to attract the lucrative "horny male" demographic. Which is why the SNL sketch poking fun at the nudity in the show is particularly hilarious.


I don't have a problem with sex and nudity when it's in context. But when the writers invent entirely new scenes (the ridiculous scene with Gendry and Melisandre sticks out for me), or modify scenes from the book, seemingly just to find an excuse to fit some exposed breasts into the shot, it's like they are channelling the teen sex comedies of the 80s.

Given the rich source material the show's creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have to work with, I think their penchant for portraying naked women is one of the drawbacks of what is otherwise a very good series; it's not like they need to use boobs and bums as a way to distract from a non-existent plot. As mentioned before, I don't have a problem with the show's portrayal of rape as a common phenomenon; but when this intersects with frequent rather pointless nudity, I can see why some people think it is eroticising sexual violence. The story lays bare the ugliness of patriarchy, but the visuals scream "Look! Check out the naked ladies!"
Trying to have it both ways doesn't work.


RACE

The GoT world centres on the continent of Westeros, which is based on western and northern Europe, particularly Britain. But the story arc of Daenerys Targaryen, a princess exiled in the Eastern continent of Essos, raises some issues about how the show represents non-white people. Essos is something like the Eurasian landmass; the Free Cities of its western coast seem reminiscent of Greece, while the  Southern coast (Qarth and Slaver's Bay) is similar to the Middle East in many ways. The Dothraki, whose warlord Drogo is gifted Daenerys as a wife, are clearly based on Central Asian pastoral peoples - the Huns, Turks and Mongols.

 Dany's story arc has a smell of four ugly racial tropes that are very common in popular culture.

1. Coloured people always viewed through white eyes: The story or storyline that is set in a non-white culture, yet it has to be told through the eyes of a white person, since the audience presumably can't relate to something that is only about non-whites. Examples are Cry Freedom (about the white friend of South African activist Steve Biko) or The Last King of Scotland (about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, yet the lead character is a fictional white doctor).

2. Barbarians and proud warrior races: The non-whites are defined as "barbaric" or "primitive", rather than regular people with a range of normal motivations and feelings (this is in too many movies to count), and often belong to a "warrior race" which prizes strength and fighting prowess as the only way to earn honour and respect. See the Klingons in Star Trek (who tend to be played by black actors) and the title aliens of the Predator movies. Even within that series there are humans from warrior races too; Predator and Predators respectively have a Native American guy and a Japanese guy who stop fleeing and stay back to take on the aliens in single combat with a bladed weapon. (Of course they die, but at least they were "honourable".)

3. Mighty whitey: Taking the white-centric story even further... the white person finds themselves amongst a strange exotic culture, yet learns their ways and eventually manages to become respected by them, often becoming their leader or most awesome warrior. Examples include The Last of the Mohicans, The Phantom, Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and Tarzan.

4. White man's burden, or white saviour: In which white people, out of the goodness of their hearts, save non-white people from the terrible situation which they couldn't have got out of themselves. Examples are The Help, The Blindside, Gran Torino, Dangerous Minds, and the sitcom Different Strokes.




While you could argue that all tropes are at play here, I think it's also a little more complicated than that. To address those point by point:

1. Coloured people always viewed through white eyes: Danaerys is Westerosi, but has grown up around the Free Cities, and then her journey takes her further east into cultures she has never experienced before. All the cultures are presented as strange and exotic, and we never really get any insights on the inner life of these people, despite spending a lot of time around them. The focus is all about the white princess. They are permanently "Othered".
Except that the series is not really about them. Like it or not, the story is primarily about Westeros, and the people of Essos are very much a peripheral feature. This makes it different to Cry Freedom or The Last King of Scotland, which are films about black people, but told from a white viewpoint for no apparent reason.
The way Martin structures his narrative - each chapter presented from the point of view of one of the main characters - means that any other culture will seem strange, exotic and perhaps barbaric. The show to an extent has to reflect that. Daenerys is a young woman sold off against her will into a culture she knows nothing about that is very different from her own. To portray the Dothraki, Qartheen or the Ghiscari as being "just like regular folks" would not make sense in this context. In contrast to the Westerosi who speak the Common Tongue (aka English), most people on the show from Essos speak imaginary languages (Valyrian, Dothraki, Ghiscari), which again clearly defines them as different not only from the Westorosi characters, but from us, the viewers. But this is unavoidable, really, unless you want everyone in the show to speak made-up languages, which is just not feasible.

2. Barbarians and proud warrior races: The Dothraki are horse nomads who seem primarily occupied with fighting each other and plundering the settlements on the edges of their plain. They are referred to everyone else as barbarians and savages, and many of their customs celebrate violence and seem primitive by most standards. They like having sex beneath the open sky, only like doing it doggy-style, are quite frank about raping as one of the spoils of war, and consider it good entertainment when deadly brawls erupt at weddings.


Let's not forget: the people who are the obvious inspiration for the Dothraki (Huns, Turks, Mongols) made their mark on history through conquest. These are warrior cultures. Of course they weren't entirely that; throughout most of history, Central Asian nomads probably spent their time with rather un-warlike pursuits such as taking their livestock to graze, and making fermented horse milk beverages.  But these weren't what led to them conquering everything from China to Baghdad and Hungary. The nomads were brilliant at the art of war, and also employed tactics that were considered utterly foreign and frequently dishonourable by the "civilized" nations they fought against, and were renowned for their cruelty and terror. And unlike Europe of the time, the nomads lacked the stratification between warrior, peasant and artisan classes; most able-bodied men became soldiers in times of conflict, and thus the warrior ethos was more prevalent throughout their culture. It's also come to light recently that 1 in 200 men in the world have some genetic link to Genghis Khan and his family; let's assume this is more likely to have come through rape than Genghis being some kind of Casanova.

Martin does exaggerate these "savage" elements, to be sure, and the show does so even more - the line "There is no word for thank you in Dothraki" takes this too far as far as I'm concerned. But should a  fictional people based on some of the most feared and ruthless armies in history be treated as more well-rounded? I'm not sure, considering that they do not actually play a large role in the story. If not for their fierce war-making ways, they would have no place in the story at all since Daenerys' brother would have no need to offer her to them in exchange for an army. And at the end of the day GoT is not really about the Dothraki. If you want GoT to be about non-white people, of course you will be disappointed, but it doesn't claim to be that. Instead, go watch something like Sergei Bodrov's (admittedly impressive) 2007 movie Mongol, which portrays Genghis Khan as a great fighter, leader and romantic with no nasty side whatsoever. Martin writes from his own area of expertise - medieval Western Europe - and those outside that milieu are have only fringe roles to play. I think wanting to see a bigger and better-explored non-white presence in this story is a bit like wanting to see equal marriage rights and gender equality; that's just not what this world is meant to be about. It's like criticising The Sopranos because it didn't have any main characters who were Chinese. If you want to read that story, then maybe you need to go and write that story yourself.

Their portrayal as "savages" also depends on who they are being compared to. As mentioned previously, Westerosi society is portrayed as incredibly oppressive and cruel. To be sure, it professes nobler values, much as the West does today. Rape is regarded as a heinous crime... yet unguarded women are never safe. Slavery is considered an abomination... yet most of the nobility treat peasants like property anyway. The character of Sansa Stark seems to represent the readers' belief in the traditional fairytale fantasy notions of chivalry, charming princes and noble knights, until she is dealt a hefty dose of reality. Westeros has its own white "barbarians" too... the Iron Islanders, loosely based on the Vikings, do take slaves, and define their existence through their love of rape and pillage. They are actually worse than the Dothraki, since cities in Essos can mostly avoid Dothraki attacks by paying them in gold and slaves; the Ironborn's whole culture revolves around killing. And let's  not forget that in the same episode which introduces the Dothraki, we see Dany groped by her brother, and Jaimie Lannister push a child out of a window after being caught in the act of boning his sister. If the most shocking thing you get from that episode is how "primitive" the brown people look, maybe you are paying attention to the wrong things.

Also regarding the Dothraki; I've read some criticism that rather than being portrayed as a homogeneous population, they seem to be played by "miscellaneous brown people", which might encourage the view that all non-whites are basically the same? For example, while the book-Dothraki are described as having copper-coloured skin and almond-shaped eyes, Jason Momoa who plays Khal Drogo is Hawaiian, while the rest of the Dothraki look mostly like they are from the Middle East, while there are even a few people who are clearly of African origin in there as well.

What struck me initially as a lazy misstep is actually quite plausible on reflection. The Dothraki population absorbs a lot of slaves acquired from cities on the fringes of their domain, and many of those cities themselves acquire slaves from other regions. Even the Central Asian populations on whom the Dothraki are based were far from homogeneous. Given that the nomad way of life spanned such a huge swathe of the Eurasian continent, and was by definition likely to spread into new territories, the empires that arose incorporated a mix of East Asian, European and Southwest Asian phenotypes. A look at the people in modern Afghanistan or Xinjiang reveals this diversity. So while I don't know if it was by design or laziness, the casting of Dothraki as "miscellaneous brown people" is not as odd as it might initially seem. In any case, Jason Momoa as Drogo looks exactly as a Dothraki should, to my mind.

3. Mighty whitey: In some ways, Daenerys does fit this trope; as she travels through the foreign cultures of Essos, she acquires an army of non-white followers who revere her as the Mother of Dragons. But unlike Avatar or Dances with Wolves, she never really becomes accepted into any of the cultures she interacts with. She becomes khaleesi of the Dothraki, yet is abandoned and threatened with death after her husband dies. Indeed, everyone who doesn't become one of her followers seems out to kill her for the destruction she wreaks everywhere. Those who do follow her are mostly outcasts and freed slaves who don't have a lot of better options.

4. White man's burden, or white saviour: The final scene of season 3 did come off as clumsy - the lily-white Daenerys being hoisted above an adoring crowd of swarthy freed slaves. Real white saviour stuff; saving all those brown people from the other brown people, it was the sort of thing Americans who advocated invading Iraq and Afghanistan would be proud of. To me it was a major misstep, but again it brings us to a difference between show and book.

The books make clear that the slaves in Yunkai are drawn from all over the world, and are white, black and brown skinned (inspired by the slave trade of ancient Rome and the Middle East, which took slaves from anywhere they could). It doesn't look that way in the show. Logistically, one can understand why; most scenes in Essos are filmed in Morocco, thus the extras would be expected to have a fairly North African look. But even then, they seemed darker than I'd expect from Morocco, and it can't have been too hard for the directors to round up some white folks from the crew to diversify the crowd if they'd wanted to. At to that the drab brown clothing of the slaves, contrasting with Dany's pale skin and hair and blue outfit, it just doesn't look good.

Which makes me wonder if it was deliberate move by the producers, because for them to see that scene and not see what's wrong with it either means they are oddly deluded or they want it to be that way. Anyone who has been following the show knows that George RR Martin likes to subvert the traditional cliches of fantasy fiction, often setting up premises only to knock them down. The first season sets up a typical righteous hero, Eddard Stark, as the main character, until he is beheaded; a huge shock to the audience who presumed he would escape. Logically, we expect his son Robb to seek vengeance, which seems inevitable... until he meets a shocking end at the Red Wedding. So is it another case of the show's writers setting up a cliched premise (the white saviour) that we've all seen before, only to knock it down? *Mild spoiler alert*  For those who haven't read the books, things don't all go to planned after Dany liberates the slaves of Slaver's Bay. In fact, the Iraq and Afghanistan analogies are not far off. In many ways, it's an argument against well-meaning foreigners meddling in a country's affairs.

Another key point for me is that the "white man's burden" trope also relies on the white saviour being "good". No doubt Daenerys is one of the most popular characters, and she is seen by many followers as having the qualities of a just ruler that have been so lacking in Westeros. But is she a morally "good" character? Certainly, she tries to stop the Dothraki warriors from raping women, and becomes embroiled in the politics of Slaver's Bay due to her compassion for the masses of slaves. But at the same time, the trail of death and destruction she leaves behind is comparable to the legacy of Tywin Lannister (who is definitely not a "good" guy). Mirri Maz Duur understands the potential cost of Dany's ascendancy, and takes steps to prevent it; Dany burns her alive, proof that she can treat those who cross her with a ruthlessness that would do Tywin proud. And all this in order to satisfy her massive sense of entitlement (she constantly reminds everyone how she is blood of the dragon, and demands they respect her), in regaining the throne her father lost because he was an insane murderous tyrant. She no longer has any right to the throne (she's never even been to Westeros), if you consider that the Targaryens once took power by force and eventually had it taken from them by force. I think readers and viewers are smart enough to see that despite Daenerys' beauty and awesome girl-power appeal, she's someone who is motivated primarily by self-interest.

But whatever the intention, the show certainly peddles an image which is at very least racially uncomfortable, and not truly in keeping with what is suggested in the books. Reading them, I didn't get the feeling that there was some stark ethnic difference between Daenerys and the people she encounters in Essos. But fiction is like an ink-blot test in many ways; how we read it often says something about our own perspectives.

The deeply cynical view of human nature espoused by Game of Thrones is a hard one for a lot of people to handle, especially those who are used to more traditional fantasy. Humankind's capacity for cruelty in the quest to attain power is the central theme of the story, even if it may play out in different ways in different cultures or have varying degrees of openness. The raider-cultures (Ironborn and Dothraki) are fairly open about their penchant for sexual violence and slave-taking, while the urban/agricultural societies claim a higher set of values yet do not keep to them. To me, it's reminiscent of how we define the difference between our "Western" values and everyone else's. Our values are, at least in theory, more progressive and modern than we believe most of the world's to be, in the same way that the Islamic world, for example, sees its values as morally superior to the decadent West. But is either belief system any more than a thin veneer that masks all people's capacity for both nobility and brutality?



More like this...

Racial analyses of "Avatar"

"300" and racism

Why we love some Asian cuisines and not others (@ Peril Magazine)

My latest blog post for Peril (Asian-Australian Arts & Culture Magazine) is about why some ethnic cuisines become so much more popular than others.

Yet it is also testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of certain ethnic groups who spread themselves around the globe and discovered they could carve out a successful niche in the restaurant business. Worldwide, few groups have done this as successfully as the Chinese, Italians, Indians and Lebanese. So it’s hard to talk about the success of the food itself without looking at the culture that produces it. The most successful culinary exports come from cultures that not only celebrate their own food (Italians being the best example of this), but also have a strong drive towards small business ownership. 

 Check it here.

How to drive in China

My friend Joey Zhou is a Chinese-Australian who has spent the last few months living back in the motherland. He figures he's been there long enough to compile a top 20 tips on how to drive a car in China:

1. Speed limit? What speed limit? 
2. Indicators are NOT a standard feature on cars. 
3. There is no such thing as a one way street. 
4. Talking on the mobile phone while driving is compulsory. 
5. Traffic lights are only suggestions. 
6. Electricity is expensive, so street lights are only turned on in some areas. 
7. If you are driving 60kmph on the freeway, yep, go ahead and hog the overtaking lane. 
8. Roundabouts are for drivers with real balls! 
9. If you want to turn left, please do it from the right-most lane. 
10. Use of high beam is mandatory - even during the day! 
11. A part of your car should ALWAYS be outside of the parking space, so no one parks next to you. 
12. The footpath is just another lane on the street, so please don't slow down. 
13. While reversing, please keep your eyes to the front only. 
14. Leave a gap in the traffic jam is a big No-No! 
15. A driveway is just another awesome parking spot! 
16. Truck drivers won't notice your car unless its under their wheels.
17. Bicycles and motorbikes should always travel in opposite directions, so you don't them from behind. 
18. Pedestrians are there to test your car's brake system and horn. 
19. Hold your child on your lap in the front seat, to be used as a secondary airbag. 
20. Swearing and cursing while driving is therapeutic. Don't hold it all in, you're gonna explode one day! So just let it out...

China's overall poor standard of driving and high rate of fatalities is well-known. It's easy to quip that it's just an "Asian drivers" problem writ large, it has a lot more to do with history. Simply put, cars are a relatively recent addition to Chinese life, as before its economic boom only the very wealthiest people were able to drive one. Then within the space of a few years, the car arrived and the roads were filled with new drivers.

Most people in Western countries with long histories of car ownership have developed not just a system of rules governing driving, but an unofficial culture of driving. While most of us have probably had at least a few paid lessons behind the wheel, so much of what we learn about driving comes from our parents, both consciously (advice) and unconsciously (observing). Most Chinese drivers however do not have that opportunity to learn from their parents, who might also be learning for the first time. Instead they learn from instructors who themselves may have little idea of what makes a good driver. And that's not even mentioning that learner drivers don't even have to have any experience driving on an actual road to be given their license - they need only drive round a practice course. It's the sort of thing that might take a generation or two to properly improve.

"Phi and Me Too"

Caught Phi and Me Too at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival last night, which triumphed over the sauna-like conditions (due to some heating malfunction at the venue, Hairy Little Sista) to easily win over the sweaty audience with a tour-de-force of ethnic humour.

The brainchild of Fiona Chau (playing geeky teenage boy Phi Nguyen) and Diana Nguyen (as his very tiger-ish mother Kim), the 1 hour comedic play centres around the theme of growing up Vietnamese in Australia, and a Vietnamese mother's particularly gruelling brand of matriarchal love. The pair are assisted by Steve McPhail playing a variety of characters; I'm told he was originally their high school drama teacher.

All three give good performances (seeing McPhail play a Vietnamese auntie is hilariously surreal), but the star turn undeniably comes from Diana Nguyen - her expressive face, stage energy and over-the-top Vietnamese accent make the larger-than-life Kim an unforgettable character, yet one that all the Asians in the audience found instantly recognisable.



Personally I love this kind of fobby humour, although I understand it's not for everyone. But anyone with even a mild familiarity with Asian parents - or even "ethnic" parents for that matter - will get a kick out of this. For those who have never experienced tiger parenting, it's still a very enjoyable peek into that world. There were occasionally jokes that my Vietnamese friends found hilarious that went completely over my head, but for the most part, it was easily relateable.

Phi and Me Too is on until Sunday the 8th of April.

http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2012/season/shows/phi-and-me-too/

More (cross-cultural) thoughts on "The Raid"

Just a couple of things I wanted to add to my previous review of Indonesian martial arts flick The Raid.


* Read the subtitles of this film, and it's not shy on swear words. There are plenty of f-words, and at least one c-word. But if you happen to speak Indonesian as well, you'll notice that there's no such thing actually spoken - I didn't make out any Indonesian words that were actually that dirty. Indonesian has swear words, of course, but you don't often see them in movies. A lot of the flavour of Bahasa Indonesia is in the tone and expressiveness of those whose speak it, rather than the words themselves, and so the English translation tries to capture those emotions in words, rather than letting the tone do the work.

So when a character says "Step back!" sternly to his subordinate, the subtitle reads "Step the fuck back!" and so on.

The rudest Indonesian words I noticed were bangsat (bastard), which was translated as the c-bomb by the subtitlers, and anjing (dog), which seemed to take on several different meanings, including "fuck you!"



* By contrast to a lot of the reviews going around which are hailing this as one of the greatest action movies of recent years, respected US critic Roger Ebert panned it and gave it one star in this review.
Now, opinions are opinions; I have a lot of respect for Ebert and can't complain if something is not to his taste. What did interest me though were a few lines in the review that puzzled me and seem to show a US-centric perspective on the world. That's interesting to me because so much of how we evaluate things is due to our upbringing, culture and vantage point. He says:

"What country are we in? The movie never tells us. (It was filmed in Indonesia.) Establishing Rama as a Muslim seems pointless, except as a cheap fakeout in character development."

What country are we in? It's interesting that a reviewer would write such a thing, because consider this: do most American movies need to state that they take place in the USA? Sometimes they might state the city, but certainly not always. So why must a movie that is made in Indonesia, and in which the characters are clearly Indonesian and speak Indonesian, point out that it is taking place in Indonesia?

The Muslim thing is also odd. Given that 90% of Indonesians are Muslim, and it's widely known as the world's most populous Islamic-majority country, why wouldn't it show that the main character is a Muslim? Given that the opening sequence shows Rama, up before dawn, preparing himself for the gruelling day ahead, what is odd about seeing him praying? If anything, it just shows him as a spiritual man of good character, who as any religious person would, seeks divine strength for the risky business that awaits him.

That praying scene can be read in another way, though. While it shows the main protagonist as a devout Muslim, it is a minor detail overall. Yet in the current global climate, is writer-director making a statement by having Western audiences cheer for a Muslim hero? I'm reminded of the brilliant series The Wire, in which perhaps its most beloved character is Omar, a fearless stick-up guy who just happens to be gay. His sexuality is just a minor background detail, as you could argue Rama's religion is in The Raid, as if to remind us that people are so much more than whatever category they belong to.

"Why My Mother Wants Me Dead"

Interesting story in The Daily Beast this week by writer Sabatina James about the sort of family environment and mentality that gives rise to honour killings.

To my parents, my rebellion was a source of deep shame. They felt embarrassed among their Pakistani peers in Austria. They became more determined than ever to marry me off and restore the family “honor.”
When I was 16, my family visited Pakistan. I remember walking outside in an outfit I felt was perfectly modest—loose pants and a blouse. Others saw it differently. A crowd of men formed, hooting and catcalling. That day my mother beat me again, in front of a roomful of relatives.
And then she beat herself. I knew there were Pakistanis who flagellated themselves when they suffered, but I never expected to see my own mother doing it. I watched as she struck herself repeatedly in the chest with a rod, saying, “I have given birth to a whore!”

Full article here.

One of the things that constantly fascinates me is how many women often play a part in their own oppression, and the oppression of their fellow women. The behaviour of the mother in this case is extreme but not that surprising.

So is this the fault of Islam? Yes and no. South Asian cultures tend to be incredibly patriarchal anyway, regardless of their religion. The reasoning may differ to this case, but the scale of violence against women in India, across the religious spectrum, is beyond belief. And it's notable that honour killings are virtually unheard of in Muslim Southeast Asia, a region where the treatment of women is comparatively more benign. But unlike most other religions, Islam has very specific outlines governing women's behaviour. Nowhere does Islam ever condone honour killings, but in cultures predisposed to that sort of thing, the Islamic ideal of female purity gives men plenty of ammunition.


(Via Brown Pundits)

The idea that whites invented everything

A reader emailed me to ask this question:

[A fellow student] said that whites have made the most accomplishments in the world, a statement which makes me angry because he continues to insist that other races or cultures are unpleasant or inferior. What can I say to him to argue that this is not true? 

The assumption that person is making is a fairly common one. White Westerners have been at the forefront of so much technological and socio-cultural achievements in the modern world, so it follows that there must be something superior about white people. Right?

The question of whether one racial group is more or less intelligent than another is not one I'm going to get into here. While it is a relevant question to this discussion, I don't think it's necessary.

There are two other points that I find more pertinent:

(1) What is now, has not always been.

To look at the 20th Century in isolation, one might conclude that there is something superior about white people; the most powerful countries (the USSR, the USA, Germany, England, etc) were all basically white. Even looking at the preceding few centuries, before the rise of the US as the world's pre-eminent superpower, Europe dominated the world stage in terms of inventions and accomplishments.

But if look back in time a little further, the theme of European superiority is revealed for what it is: a phase. If we studied the world prior to the 15th century (the start of the colonial era) and wondered which country would eventually achieve the most linguistic and cultural dominance over the world, England would be one of the last nations you would pick. That small island off the coast of Europe had, in the scheme of things, very little going for it.

Instead, you would look at China, the Mongol Empire, and the Arabs, and think it was only a matter of time before one of them enveloped the whole world.

 For most of known human history, Northern Europe did very little of note. Countries like Iran, Ethiopia, Iraq, Cambodia, India and Peru are hardly regarded as examples of modernity today, yet they boasted relatively advanced civilizations at a time when Northern Europeans were worshiping trees and getting invaded by their more advanced and aggressive neighbours.

But civilizations rise and fall. Angkor in what is now Cambodia, and Axum in present-day Ethiopia, are just two nation-states that for whatever reason didn't last, while others nearby flourished. The earliest cities were in the Middle East, yet several thousand years later, that region has lagged behind others in its advancements. Then through the discovery of oil, several Middle Eastern nations find themselves amongst the world's wealthiest again. China was the world's largest and most advanced nation for longer than any other, far ahead of even Rome at its height. China then began to stagnate from the 15th Century onward while Europeans aggressively sought out new expansions, yet the 21st Century sees China rising again and soon to displace the US as the world's main mover-and-shaker.

Saying that "whites have made most of the accomplishments in the world" reflects a very limited short-term understanding of world history. It's like spending 5 minutes looking at the darkened sky at night, and then concluding that the sky has always been dark.

(2) The importance of opportunity

But even given my previous point, it still begs the question: why do some cultures and ethnic groups seem to be responsible for more inventions and advancements? Why do the people of North America, Europe and East Asia tend to wealthier and more advanced societies?

The best book that answers this question is Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. But assuming that you're not going run straight out and read that book now, I'll break it down briefly for you.

During the colonial era, European societies had electricity, the wheel, paper, gunpowder, and many other cultural advancements. Many of the world's tribal cultures - the Australian Aborigines, for example - had nothing approaching these things. So it is frequently assumed that there is something inherently backward about either Aboriginal culture, or Aboriginal people themselves.

Now without wishing to belittle the great things that have been accomplished by Europeans, there is one clear reason why they were able to do lots of things that indigenous Australians weren't: opportunity. To independently invent something truly significant - let's say, the sailing ship - you need to have certain things available to you already. For example, you need to have knowledge of more primitive forms of boat,such as the rowboat. You also need to be around large bodies of water. It should come as no surprise that people living in deserts did not independently invent sailboats. It's not because they weren't smart enough.

The Australian Aborigines never knew the art of agriculture. This would seem like a fairly basic step in human cultural development, so why did they never learn it before the Europeans arrived?

Well, the Europeans didn't invent agriculture either. They knew how to farm because thousands of years ago, someone in the Middle East invented it, and this knowledge gradually worked its way into Europe where it was adopted. Australia, by contrast, was isolated from developments happening elsewhere, and was not possessed with suitable flora and fauna anyway.

Europe succeeded largely because it had a relatively temperate climate, and had access to the innovations developed in other parts of the world.

Another important point to remember is this: European countries became so powerful in the colonial era because they decided to invade other countries. They were obviously not alone in this activity. But contrast that with China. China was the most advanced and most powerful nation in the world for thousands of years, yet at the time when European powers were looking for new territories to exploit, China decided it was content with what it already had. Had China really wanted to conquer the world, it probably could have.

Power and dominance throughout human history has not come merely through being smart. People and nations became powerful because they had not just the means, but the desire to kill, conquer and enslave those who stood in their way. Was this noble, a sign of greater civilization? It depends on your perspective. It is notable that when Japan became a colonial power from the late 19th century onwards, they were guilty of activities that we now quite rightly regard as barbaric. Yet they were really just doing what the Europeans had been doing for centuries.

Eating styles (@ Peril Magazine)

New post up over at Peril, the Asian-Australian online arts and culture mag. This one is about the various ways we stuff things into our gobs.

FINGERSPROS: Get “up close and personal” with your food, which helps negotiate tricky things like bones and gristle. Save on washing up. Gain cred points with SWPL types by showing you reject the stifling traditional bourgeois Western notions of table etiquette in favour of more “authentic” developing world ways.
CONS: Is possibly a health risk if you don’t wash your hands. Difficult to eat things that are too hot or cold, and is almost impossible to eat soupy dishes unless you have something carby to sop it up with. Also tends to result in your hand smelling like curry (or whatever) for the rest of the day. Tricky if you suddenly have to do something different during the meal, such as answer your phone. Also, people outside your culture may one day ask you why you don’t use your left hand for eating, which means you have to come up with a tactful way of saying that you use it to clean your ass.

Full post here.

The lure of black music (@ Peril Magazine)

My latest post for the Asian-Australian online arts & culture mag Peril is up and it's about how much culture and ethnicity may influence into liking certain kinds of music, including my own personal journey in musical taste. Check it here.

If you are a wannabe anthropologist like me you can start to speculate about these sorts of things. Why, for instance, do Pacific Islanders have such a love of reggae and soul music? I’d guess that a large factor is that those genres are deeply rooted in the church’s traditions of harmony singing, which is a huge part of Islander culture. In addition, there is clearly something in the meaning and feel of music from black America that resonates with the culture and experiences of the people of the Pacific. Likewise, it’s not hard to see why so many young Sudanese-Australians are so strongly drawn to hip-hop, which shows black people taking pride in themselves. Some things are a bit harder to work out… for instance, what is it with the whole of East Asia and cheesy ballads? That one is still a mystery.

What are the actual benefits of ethnic diversity?

A commenter asked an interesting question on a recent post. I started to write a reply in comment form, but as it started to get lengthy I figured it would be better as a post of its own.

Eurasian sez:

It’s frequently been said that despite the way many Australians laud the benefits of multiculturalism, this embrace of other cultures often doesn’t go any further than our eating habits.

Bay Area Guy sez:

I'd say the same thing applies in the United States. This has been pointed out both by white nationalists and liberals such as Christian Lander (author of the hilarious, and in my opinion very insightful "Stuff White People Like")
When white yuppie/SWPL types say they like "diversity", it usually boils down to one thing: Good "ethnic" food. That, and other things such as music.
In all of my life, I have NEVER heard anyone successfully argue in favor of the notion that racial diversity is a strength (maybe you'll be the first =D).
When they do, it usually revolves around specific items such as food and music. They'll enjoy the food and music, but would prefer to avoid large numbers of the people of that race.
(I don't like using the term "culture" too much, because at least in my experience, PC types use it as a code word for race)

Note: Bay Area Guy is apparently some kind of White Nationalist (I'm familiar with his comments on another blog), but he comes across as open-minded enough for reasonable and respectful discussions, so I guess he's welcome here.

I'll say a few things.

I don't think diversity is all smiles and sunshine. It has both bad and good aspects to it. The problem is, how does one quantify the benefits or drawbacks? To say that a society is improved by diversity is entirely subjective, and I don't think there is any definitive formula that can prove that cultural diversity is awesome. The justifications for diversity can sound perfectly reasonable to many, while to some it may sound just like feel-good hippy nonsense that doesn't have any actual tangible benefits.

I'll also add that I'm not a blind adherent of multiculturalism. I love living in an ethnically diverse society, but for such a society to function it has to be developed and managed correctly. There needs to be the right balance between the expression of diversity on one hand, and integration into the established cultural norms on the other, and I don't think we always get that right. I don't even know if it is possible to get that balance right. So there will always be examples of what is wrong with diversity, if you wish to find them. But I would question whether such an example is due to diversity itself, or the way diversity is managed.


Food and music are mentioned as the usual reasons thrown out for diversity being positive. Let me dwell on music for a moment, with the United States as an example. How that country came to acquire its particular kind of racial diversity -through slavery and oppression - is hardly something to be proud of. Yet the intermingling of European and African cultures has changed global culture immeasurably. Virtually none of the popular music we listen to today would be possible without a mixed-race America, and that includes most genres of music that we tend to think of as "white", such as metal. White folks wouldn't have done it on their own, and neither would Africans.

Is music a triviality? Perhaps, perhaps not. More broadly, it is an aspect of culture, and culture is what tends to change once the ethnic makeup of a country starts to shift. And it's important to note that when we speak of the benefits of diversity, we are speaking primarily in cultural terms rather than economic ones. This is why answering a question like "what are the actual benefits of racial diversity?" is not necessarily easy.

Ethnic diversity also adds new dimensions to other cultural expressions such as sport. While there is a lot of consternation these days about basketball and its increasingly "ghetto" image, it's worth reflecting that the sport could never have become the world-conquering juggernaut that it did in the 80s and 90s without African-Americans. That's a huge worldwide sporting and merchandising industry based around the athletic and aesthetic qualities that guys like Jordan, Magic and Shaq brought to the game. You couldn't build such an industry on the more subtle qualities of a Larry Bird.
Living in a monoculture isn't so bad, but it is nonetheless limiting in the sorts of experiences and ideas that can be generated. And in that sense, ethnic diversity encourages broadmindedness. Sure, there will always be ignorant and close-minded people around, but my hunch is that negotiating a multicultural society actually forces one's mind to think outside the square. There's a reason why country people and small-town people, bless 'em, are stereotyped as being more fixed in their way of thinking and stuck in the past; they are more likely to live in a bubble which mostly includes only people who are like them.

Why do I personally like living in a diverse society? For me, it like travelling without actually having to spend the money to travel. Due to the constraints of time and money, I don't think I'll ever go to Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or El Salvador; yet I've had the fortune to meet many people from those countries. When I do go overseas, I'm not one to lie around on beaches all day; I'm in markets, eating at roadside stalls and trying to get a feel for what the people are all about. I'm someone with a curious mind, and I like to understand the vastness of the human experience, and what the similarities and differences can teach me about myself and those around me.
So I don't know if that answers Bay Area Guy's question at all. But I actually think that a diverse society has made me into a better and more well-rounded human being, if that's worth anything.

Our perceptions of cultural diversity are often based on our own ideals and prejudices. Some of us see a rose-tinted view of a diverse society, in which everyone lives happily ever after and no one has any medieval attitudes which cause angst and disharmony. At the other extreme, some people only see the negative. Neither are right, I think. Yet even the people who condemn diversity are probably unconsciously living a life that would not be possible without it.

Asian Food and Australia's Changing Palate (@ Peril Magazine)

Here's another post I have up at Peril (Asian-Australian arts and culture mag): Asian Food and Australia's Changing Palate. The title pretty much says it all.

It’s frequently been said that despite the way many Australians laud the benefits of multiculturalism, this embrace of other cultures often doesn’t go any further than our eating habits. While someone may love the way a diverse society gives them a ready supply of felafels, fried rice and pho, they don’t necessarily interface at any deeper level with the cultures those foods came from. And while I agree that this is largely true, it is nonetheless a good start. Surely the broadening of the Australian palate has had some kind of positive effect on the broadening of our national psyche. I’m not sure how you would measure such a thing, but surely the bogan douchebags who yell out “curry muncher” at passing Indians would be less likely to do so if they could only spend more time munching curry themselves. It’s harder to keep seeing Afghanistan simply as a barbarous wasteland once you’ve discovered the frankly amazing things Afghanis can do with rice and kebabs. So perhaps the dudes slaving away in their shops making shawarma, som tum and futomaki are the ones who are really at the vanguard of combating racism in this country.

Check the full post here.

How I learned to stop worrying and love karaoke (@ Peril Magazine)

If you haven't read it already, I have another post up at Peril (an online Asian-Australian arts and culture magazine). It's about my journey toward becoming a karaoke enthusiast.

And a weird world it was, where my preconceived notions about what music males were meant to like were to be severely challenged. One time I was invited by a Chinese friend, who also brought along a posse of guys who I knew from the basketball court; they were Vietnamese dudes from Springvale, they had fringes that hung dangerously low over their eyes, and I was nervous around them because I figured they must have been in some kind of gang. But as soon as they arrived at karaoke and started selecting only songs by Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, I realised they clearly weren’t as scary as I had first thought.

Full post here.

Your normal is weird (@ Peril Magazine)

I've got another post up at Peril, the Asian-Australian online magazine. It's about culture and mis-communication.

Take for example, the distinctive “head wobble” common in South Asia. It signifies that one is listening and agreeing with the person speaking to them; yet viewed through a Western lens, it may be interpreted as a sign of indecision or wishy-washiness. There does exist a stereotype in the West about South Asians being less than trustworthy, and I wonder if this most desi of gestures contributes to that. Or for another example, eye contact. It’s frequently lauded as essential for effective communication, and some sort of guarantee of truth-telling. (“Look me in the eye and say that.”) Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, looking someone directly in the eye can range from mildly inappropriate to downright confrontational, depending on the situation. Many Asian cultures, placing a high emphasis on hierarchy and proper deference to ones elders and social betters, frown on eye contact in many contexts.
So what does this mean for someone who’s absorbed this Asian value trying to make their way in the world, or at least in an Australia that holds very Western or Anglo norms of body language? How does one gain the trust of your boss, or impress a potential mate, or convince the police that you didn’t commit that crime, when your head keeps wobbling around or you don’t look them in the eye?

Check out the full post here.

"White flight" from selective schools

A "WHITE flight" from elite selective high schools is entrenching ethnic segregation in Australia's education system, according to a social researcher. In a study of student language backgrounds in schools, Dr Christina Ho, of the University of Technology Sydney, found a clear pattern of cultural polarisation, with few Anglo-Australians in high-achieving selective entry government schools. Students from migrant families — mostly from Chinese, Indian and other Asian backgrounds — dominate the enrolments of the schools.
In Melbourne, 93 per cent of students at Mac.Robertson Girls High School and 88 per cent of pupils at Melbourne High School and Nossal High School are from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE), a category that also includes those from non-Asian backgrounds. In Sydney, nine out of the top 10 highest performing selective schools have similar high percentages of LBOTE pupils, mainly from Asian backgrounds.
People who speak an Asian language at home make up 8 per cent of Australia's population, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Dr Ho said it was understandable why so many migrant families, put off by high fees in private secondary schools, flocked to public selective schools because of their outstanding academic results.
"Anglo-Australians' shunning of public selective schools is less explicable, particularly among those families with talented children who might achieve the required standard on the selective schools [entry] test," said Dr Ho, whose findings are published in the journal Australian Review of Public Affairs.
"The 'white flight' from these schools must partly reflect an unwillingness to send children to schools dominated by migrant-background children, which simply further entrenches this domination.
"If current trends continue, we risk creating highly unbalanced school communities that, rather than reflecting the full diversity of Australian society, instead constitute unhealthy and unnatural bubbles of segregation and isolation."
Dr Ho's study examined enrolment data given by all schools and education authorities to the My School website. The LBOTE data measures cultural diversity and, unlike birthplace, identifies second and subsequent migrant generations not born overseas but who are members of a cultural minority.
The principal of Melbourne High School, Jeremy Ludowyke, rejected suggestions that the school was not culturally diverse. "We don't see a white flight expressed in the pattern of applications to the school," Mr Ludowyke said.
About 60 per cent of his pupils have a parent born overseas.
"Melbourne High and Mac.Rob have played a pivotal role in providing opportunities for newly arrived migrant communities. They're part of the success story of multiculturalism in Melbourne," he said. [Source]

This is not the first "white flight" article that the Fairfax media has run in recent years; this one in 2008 reported that white students in Sydney were flocking to the independent school system to avoid certain public schools with large Muslim populations, while rural students were doing the same thing from schools with high proportions of Aboriginal students.

The Asianization of Melbourne's selective state schools has been going on for a while - my largely Asian social circle is rife with selective school graduates. I have to say I'm a bit sceptical about whether this "white flight" is a real phenomenon. Are the parents of white students actively rejecting these schools because of their predominantly Asian population, or are they simply being out-competed by Asian students for entry places?

Another article in the same paper this week points to the culture of private tutoring amongst many Asian pupils as a potential cause, which implies that if this "white flight" is really taking place, it is perhaps less about the Asians themselves than about the stress-inducing methods increasingly deemed necessary to remain competitive in an Asian-dominated environment.

So is this a cause for concern, or not?

Yes and no. (Regular readers will know that's my standard answer for most things.)

I've written previously about the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" attitude towards immigrants in this country; minorities are either condemned for not performing and fitting in well enough, or feared for performing too well. It's hard to escape that feeling when reading articles such as these.

Australians tend to have a somewhat laid-back approach to life; it's a part of our national character which has contibuted to this country being a highly sought-after place to live. Undoubtedly some see the Asian approach to education as incompatible with this aspect of Australian life. Yet in a competitive global marketplace, perhaps we have a lot to learn from Asians, and it is hard to argue that cultures that place an extremely high value on education would not be a positive influence.

The question is, how far do we take that? An overwhelming focus on education at the exclusion of sporting and other leisure pursuits can have very negative side effects; in the US, suicide and depression rates amongst young Asian-American women are alarmingly high, for example.



Something else to think about: does the selective school system merely favour the hardworking, the gifted, or both? A lot of evidence shows that many naturally gifted students are wasting away in our public schools, either hiding their intelligence to avoid being ostracised and bullied, or dropping out because they quickly grow bored with the limited curriculum. For these students, the selective system would seem to be a godsend. Yet does an increasingly Asian Australia mean that diligence becomes far more important than natural ability when it comes to academic success?

And if so, is there anything wrong with that? Obviously we are not talking about a dichotomy of gifted versus hardworking students; most of our highest achievers have both qualities in spades, and a student gaining entry to a selective school would undoubtedly need to be of at least average intelligence anyway. But "Asian parenting" (a problematic stereotype, but let's accept it for now) means that Asian students who may not have great natural intelligence can still outperform many who are. As customers, employers and consumers, we expect hard work and commitment from our workforce, and probably value them more than brainiacs who lack work ethic. Is it only right that we reward hard work, rather than those vague concepts of giftedness and intelligence?

Again, the concern is that as a society we are criminally under-utilising some of our sharpest minds, those students who have great intellectual capacity but don't easily fit into a highly regimented culture that relies mostly on extreme diligence as a path to achievement.

The most obvious solution is to have more selective schools, and it's one that the Victorian government has belatedly begun to address.

But multiculturalism is a two-way street, and I think we may eventually see things working out for the best. I like to think that just as the influence of Asian students will be beneficial for the broader Australian schooling culture, Asian students will become more Australianized as well. As Amy Chua laments in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the second and third generations of migrants tend not to have the same fierce aspirational mentality. Let's hope that means a perfect study-life-balance that allows students to reach high levels without becoming stressed-out robots in the process.


Of geeks and gangsters: the "model minority"
Asian kids, Jewish education
On hardass Asian parents
Summation of Wesley Yang's "Paper Tigers"

Asians are "rape-ish"

One of the myriad things I do with my life is answering questions on Yahoo Answers, mostly questions about my areas of professional expertise (sexual assault, domestic violence, etc). Given that the interwebs are so rife with erroneous, ignorant and objectionable opinions, it's important to put some informed opinion out there, under a pseudonym of course.

Anyway, I couldn't resist answering this question today and sharing it with you. It tells you a lot about how stereotypes are created. Note the opening "I'm not racist, but..." -type line which is obligatory just before saying something racist.

And my response:

Shock and disbelief as Andrew Bolt is revealed to be racist

Australia's most popular news columnist, Andrew Bolt, found himself on the wrong end of a Federal Court decision this week. Justice Mordy Bromberg found the right-wing polemicist and his publisher the Herald-Sun guilty of a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. The paper will be forced to print an apology. The court found that 2 articles Bolt penned about certain fair-skinned members of the Aboriginal community were racially offensive, humiliating and "destructive of racial tolerance".

You can read the articles for yourself (White fellas in the black, and It's so hip to be black) although for legal reasons they may not stay up on the web for too long.

Predictably, the Right in Australia have collectively tut-tutted about the threat to free speech, with the Coalition signalling it will try to amend the Act if it gets in to power. By contrast the Left in Australia, who have long viewed Bolt as some kind of racist climate-change-denying Antichrist, seem happy to see the guy cop a legal beating.

For me, there are a few aspects to consider. Will this truly be a landmark ruling ushering in a new Orwellian approach to censorship in this country, as some are saying? Time will tell. While I believe there is certainly a place for legislation dealing with racial discrimination and vilification, I'm skeptical about its use in anything that's not a clear and fairly extreme case. I don't like most of what Bolt has to say, but in the main I think he should have a right to say it, just as other people should have the right to call Bolt a bit of a douche in reaction. Rather than trying to shut Bolt up, I'd prefer the Left lift its game, since Bolt's primary drawcard is his ability to point out stupidity on the Left. (Let's be honest, both sides of the spectrum have stupidity in spades if you look for it.) But it's important to keep in mind the particular details of this case. Bolt got facts wrong, quite basic facts, about the people who subsequently brought the case against him. While Bolt denies accusing fair-skinned Aborigines of identifying as black for cynical motives, the tone of these articles and others (this has been a long-running theme on the Bolt blog) certainly casts these people in a negative light for having the nerve to call themselves indigenous.

I've never been a fan of Andrew Bolt and have had my share of things to say about him on this blog, particular his love of highlighting "ethnic crime". I do feel a tiny bit sorry for him on this occasion, however, because I happen to agree with one of his points.

I have no issue with people claiming Aboriginal identity even though they might be predominantly European in ancestry and have a corresponding appearance; I'm in no position to judge how Aboriginal their upbringing was. I also have no issue with affirmative action policies for Aboriginal Australians; given our shameful history, there needs to be at least some measures in place to give them a leg up. However, it is where these two concepts meet where a problem can occur. Positive discrimination for Aborigines occurs in order to counter the racism and disadvantaged upbringings that they so frequently experience... yet does someone who is 3/4 white and is raised in a predominantly white environment actually experience these challenges to a substantive degree?

So while I don't think it is fair to question whether a "white" Aborigine is actually an Aborigine, it does seem fair to question whether they are entitled to all the financial benefits and opportunities that come with being Aboriginal when they almost certainly do not suffer the same level of disadvantage that a "black" Aborigine does. Particularly in cases where "black" Aborigines, a great many of whom are truly needy, are actually missing out on opportunities to Aborigines who are effectively white in appearance.

So Bolt actually had a point in there somewhere. It's a shame then that it had to be made by someone whose writings have shown repeated antipathy to the Aboriginal cause, and indeed to any culture that is not North-Western European in origin. It didn't take a court decision to prove that Bolt is a racist, or at very least "racially insensitive" or "racially inflammatory"; that was pretty well known already. But a wise man can admit that once in a while, one's ideological opponents can sort of get it right on some things. And if Bolt's overall tone was not so contemptuous of non-white people, maybe people on the other side of the spectrum might actually be able to listen to him without working themselves into a rage.

When White People Cook Asian Food (@ Peril Magazine)

"...But in practice, when white chefs try to do Asian food, there is often something missing. The balance of flavours is slightly out; it’s a bit like someone’s idea of what Asian food is, rather than actually being Asian food. The punchier aspects of Asian cuisine – garlic, chilli, fish sauce, shrimp paste, lime and so on – are muted, while the sugary elements are often too strong."

One of the reasons I haven't been posting quite as much on my blog recently is that I'm doing some guest blogging at Peril, which is an Asian-Australian online magazine. My first post - When White People Cook Asian Food - is up now; you can go check it out here.

From around the interwebs... Asian parenting, education and achievement

Three interesting articles I've chanced across this week...


How to raise a global kid

Taking Tiger Mom tactics to radical new heights, these parents are packing up the family for a total Far East Immersion.


Happy Rogers, age 8, stands among her classmates in the schoolyard at dismissal time, immune, it seems, to the cacophonous din. Her parents and baby sister are waiting outside, but still she lingers, engrossed in conversation. A poised and precocious blonde, Hilton Augusta Parker Rogers, nicknamed Happy, would be at home in the schoolyard of any affluent American suburb or big-city private school. But here, at the elite, bilingual Nanyang Primary School in Singapore, Happy is in the minority, her Dakota Fanning hair shimmering in a sea of darker heads. This is what her parents have traveled halfway around the world for. While her American peers are feasting on the idiocies fed to them by junk TV and summer movies, Happy is navigating her friendships and doing her homework entirely in Mandarin.

Asians Underrepresented in Senior Ranks, Study Says

Despite relatively high salaries and an outsized share of Ivy League degrees, Asian-Americans are underrepresented in executive suites, according to a study released Monday.

 One-quarter of Asian respondents said they face workplace discrimination, while only 4% of Caucasians believe Asians are treated unfairly on the job. According to the report, Asian-American workers are also more likely than other minority workers to work less or consider quitting because of bias."In Asia, there's a saying that the loudest duck gets shot; in America it's: the squeaky wheel gets the grease," said Ms. Hyun. "These things are totally different and at odds with each other."

Ironically, the relative success of Asian workers may be exacerbating the problem. To date, few companies have had career development programs for Asian employees, because they are seen as a "model minority," according to the report.


Ripa Rashid, a coauthor of the report, said that the survey reveals something that she hears often from workers and managers: Asian-American employees are culturally uncomfortable with the type of swagger and self-promotion that often spells success in U.S. firms.


The study also showed that Asian employees may be less comfortable sharing their personal lives with coworkers and less likely to enlist more senior coworkers as mentors or sponsors.


"They just put their heads down and work and believe that's all it takes to get to the top," Ms. Rashid said.

 
Tiger Mothers or Elephant Mothers? by Peter Singer

Tiger mothering might seem to be a useful counterbalance to such permissiveness, but both extremes leave something out. Chua’s focus is unrelentingly on solitary activities in the home, with no encouragement of group activities, or of concern for others, either in school or in the wider community. Thus, she appears to view school plays as a waste of time that could be better spent studying or practicing music.

But to take part in a school play is to contribute to a community good. If talented children stay away, the quality of the production will suffer, to the detriment of the others who take part (and of the audience that will watch it). And all children whose parents bar them from such activities miss the opportunity to develop social skills that are just as important and rewarding – and just as demanding to master – as those that monopolize Chua’s attention.


We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves. This approach to child-rearing is not unrelated to happiness: there is abundant evidence that those who are generous and kind are more content with their lives than those who are not. But it is also an important goal in its own right.

See also:

Summation of Wesley Yang's "Paper Tigers"

Asian kids, Jewish education

On hardass Asian parents

So I finally read "Tiger Mother"

Translating Australian comedy to the US

Wilfred has proved a surprise hit in the States, premiering to an audience of 3.8 million viewers last week. The show, about the friendship between suicidal loser Ryan (Elijah Wood) and a dog named Wilfred (played by Jason Gann in a dog suit) garnered the highest premiere rating ever for a program on the FX network.
It's surprising for a number of reasons; there is a dark streak to Wilfred that would seem to sit uncomfortably with American audiences' tastes in humour, while the show's whole premise is too left-field for many viewers to quite grasp. And even in its original format in Australia (where it ran for two seasons in 2007 and 2010, winning three AFI Awards in the process) it was hardly what you could call a smash hit. I think I'm the only person I know who watched it regularly, and most people barely seem to have heard of it.

So is the US version actually any good?



Well, yes, although I still think the Australian version is better. Despite it's deliberate edginess, in many ways the US version pans out like a typical odd-couple bromance; Wilfred may be coarse and seedy, but he "completes" Ryan and pushes him out of his comfort zone to be a better person (although its not quite as cheesy as that sounds). The original Australian Wilfred had a far more sinister character; aside from his undying loyalty to his owner Sarah, he was manipulative, cruel and entirely self-centred. The American producers obviously found this too dark and have tried to make it a bit more like the film I Love You, Man, with Wilfred as the Owen Wilson character.


That said, it's nice to see some better production values (the Australian version was as unglamorous as you can get), and nice to see that the concept originally birthed by Gann and Adam Zwar has found the appreciative audience it deserves. Keeping Gann as the titular character makes a huge difference; it is one of those cases where the lead actor is the show. As an example, while Steve Carrell does a creditable job in the US version of The Office, he is barely a patch on the toure de force that is Ricky Gervais in the original.

The relative success of Wilfred sits in marked contrast to the last Australian comedy that was adapted for US screens.

Kath and Kim was a huge hit in Australia. Not what would be termed sophisticated humour, but what it did, it did well. The US version was utter garbage and was thankfully put out of its misery after 1 season. Aside from it being completely unfunny, the problem was that the producers seemed to completely miss the point of what made it work.


The key theme of Kath and Kim - the contrast between one's real and imagined class - is emphasised by the Australian series' low production values, and a cast whose lack of physical attractiveness is played up by "bogan" accents, and deliberately bad hair and fashion. Yet the US version has a good-looking cast and a glossy set, and the social class aspect is downplayed. The original Kim character is dumpy and style-deficient yet is convinced of her own hotness (emphasised by co-creator Gina Riley being considerably older than the character). But Selma Blair as the American Kim actually is hot.

Kath & Kim Episode 10 - News by JumpinJollyHolly

It's hard to imagine a translation of Kath and Kim to the US ever being truly successful, but it's harder still to imagine how they could ever get it quite this bad.

Peaceful Indonesians

Reader Fred Rice pointed me to this clip seen at Japan Probe the other week.

"A Japanese TV show found an international survey that ranked countries where people were least likely to become angry. Indonesia was ranked #1. To test this claim, they sent comedian Udo Suzuki to Bali, where he acted like a jerk and tried to provoke the anger of Indonesian people.
Just to test his anger-inducing abilities, he first tried sneaking up behind a white woman and popping a balloon next to her head. Sure enough, she got visibly angry and left the area.
He then targeted Indonesians. First, he did a couple surprise balloon pops. Next, he randomly poured water on somebody. He cut in line at a grocery store. Then he put super spicy hot sauce into an ice desert.
One guy seemed very uncomfortable after eating the hot sauce, but nobody became visibly pissed off. Nobody yelled at him. Nobody stormed away in anger. Suzuki’s antics provoked no rage.
According to post-prank interviews, Indonesian parents teach their children not to get angry over small matters and not to fight with other people. A lot of Indonesian people don’t think it would be worth getting worked up over a little prank."

try to make them angry by cicacocadou3

Now obviously that show is pretty staged and proves little or nothing. And obviously I'm biased being part-Indonesian myself, but as far as I'm concerned, the study is pretty accurate. It may be a huge and culturally diverse country, but as a general rule, Indonesians are a very easy-going people. Of all the countries I've been to around Asia, only the Thai people seem to match Indonesians in the polite and friendly stakes.

Or alternatively, you could take a completely different view.

This is of course the same country which has suffered several internal terrorist attacks in the last decade. It's the same country in which up to 1 million people were murdered in anti-communist pogroms during the civil unrest of 1965-66, with the killing often carried out by civilians. It's the same country guilty of bloody repressions in West Papua, Aceh and its former province East Timor. It's the same country that in the last 15 years has witnessed sectarian conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Sulawesi and Ambon, mass beheadings of Madurese transmigrants by Dayak tribesmen in Kalimantan, and mass gang-rapes of ethnic Chinese women and looting of Chinese shops in the 1998 unrest. Indonesia is frequently lauded for practising a moderate, secular and tolerant form of Islam; yet Muslim militancy has been on the rise in various forms with groups like the Islamic Defenders Front, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the terrorist Jemaah Islamiyah. It is notable that one of the few words to have entered the English language from Indonesian/Malay is amok, meaning to suddenly snap and start attacking people indiscriminantly. It's a very Indonesian phenomenon.

In other words, it looks like an extremely violent and aggressive place. So which is the real Indonesia?