Yellow Peril by Tze Ming Mok

Hiroshima Day on the weekend, 8-8-88 massacre anniversary today, 70 million dead Chinese people bugging me to finish writing that Jung Chang feature... Obvious outlet: learn how to tell warmongers and dictators to f*ck their mother's stinky c*nts in FOUR Chinese dialects!

I happened upon this invaluable resource just yesterday, while overloaded with historical tragedy. Much of the Mandarin I was already familiar with - but good lord, is Mandarin swearing totally pussy compared with those gutter-dialects of the Southeast or what. Comparing the vocabulary, it reminds me of the time I studied kung fu but could only shout my 'counting-to-ten' drills in Mandarin for the first few weeks, projecting the fearsome impression that I was inviting my opponent to a tea-garden to listen to some light opera, rather than threatening to pummel their face in. Now I know that the implications of saying 'you have a pretty green hat' to an adult man in Mandarin are utterly deadly.

Meanwhile, those Cantos and Hokks trade pretty hats and cursing families unto the 18th generation for good old infinite variation on: 1) things that can be fucked and 2) grades of unpleasant pussy. Now I can enter Hong Kong with my head held high.

Downtown commemorations: Matt Donaldson's anti-nuclear billboard design is up near 97 Cook St; Burmese refugees are remembering the Rangoon massacre of students and others by the military, opposite Britomart between 5pm and 7pm today. Here's my review of Mao: The Unknown Story that was in the Dom the other month if you feel like compounding the misery.

Are Public Address readers bored yet of election talk and national identity discourse? I mean... national identity?? SNORE! Back to what you really come here for: Hot Asian chicks flashing their crotches and talking about their sex lives... for, like, democracy and stuff. Totally.

The Reporters Sans Frontières Asian Freedom Blog awards have been publicised on this site before. This trash-talking INXS-idol-humping blog has, itself, been bizarrely designated an Asian Freedom Blog on the site of an actual Asian Freedom Blogger. But more fittingly, Yellow Peril today commemorates Amnesty International Freedom Week by opening nominations for the Yellow Peril Asian Freedom Slag awards.

Human Rights Watch has disseminated its I Blog for Human Rights logos throughout politically-conscious cyberspace. I encourage you to acquire the full set of accompanying I'm a Slag for Human Rights logos, and to take the new Yellow Peril Which Asian Freedom Slag are you? test.

These are my four nominees, all Chinese or from the Chinese diaspora - please write in with your own sub-regionally-focused or ethnically-clustered nominations.

The Yellow Peril Asian Freedom Slagroll:

Sarong Party Girl (Singapore)
Here in New Zealand, her blog would have been just another postfeminist diary of a fairly smart and very slutty teenager. With the occasional 'arty' soft-focus titty-shot. Ho-hum. What happened? She's Singaporean. The cleancut online citizens of the Lion City freaked out. They were concerned for her parents, very concerned. They gave themselves RSI and exceeded her bandwidth, by exercising that rigorous, upright concern. They also called her ugly, denigrated her breast-size, and hate-mailed her for criticising the sexual prowess of Asian men. Basically, it was a failure of intelligent discourse, despite her very classic liberal call to arms which failed to strike a chord:

"If you're just going to call me a slut, just don't bother. I rather be a slut then an idiot with a tight wedgie up my ass. You're just spamming up the comment feature. I'll try this bloody thing for a few days and see if people actually bother to say anything worthwhile. If they don't, then it really kinda defeats the purpose. You are completely welcomed to disagree with me, but you better have a good reason to do so, and you should do it nicely. Otherwise, go shit on your own blog and leave the people who actually have something worthwhile to say, alone.

Actually, I think it would be really interesting if people generally have intelligent, logical arguments and voiced them here, because now a whole lot of people are reading. And it will be nice to know that we aren't as conservative as the powers that be think we are. And maybe we're ready for a change."

Lainie (Malaysia)
Just across the Straits is Lainie, the dirty-minded lesbian IT-geek-next-door, whose fascination with male porn, adventures in sex-toy purchasing, and fondlings of her girlfriend, are casually chatted into the mainstream in a country where 'sodomy' is still a criminal offense.

"Happy birthday to CJ In honour of the day he was born, I present thee a few paragraphs about some gay porn I watched recently, because born rhymes with porn.

Nah, actually I just happen to be watching porn."

Furong Jiejie / 芙容姐姐 (Mainland China)
Furong Jiejie's closest living conceptual relatives are <A HREF="Everyone loved the Asian Freedom Blog awards - now nominations are open for the Asian Freedom Slag Awards!
" target="_blank">the Notorious MSG, who brag about their irresistability in an almost identical manner. Haters have called her deluded, ugly and fat. Actually, she's perfectly normal-looking, with a booty and rack that most little Chinese girls would be envious of, let's face it. The virulence of her detractors is astounding. They cannot seem to accept that a normal woman could have such a high opinion of herself, and be this happy with her appearance. Even Malaysian celebrity-blogger Kenny Sia has displayed an astounding lack of appreciation. I thought he had a better sense of humour than that - but I guess no-one disses Xiaxue and gets away with it these days. Did Furong Jiejie spring forth as a fully-fledged ironic-intellectual performance artist from the Republic that irony forgot, or she is une slague savante? Either way, it's pure genius. With a hundred million - yes, a hundred million readers in China, Furong Jiejie is starting to unnerve the far less popular Communist Party of China, who are pressuring her blogserver to marginalise her site. From her Chinese-language site (roughly translated):

Reporter: What is the ultimate reason for your success?
Furong Jiejie: I think I'm different from other people. I have the courage to display my talents. People only have one lifetime - why not reveal your gifts for everyone to see?

And from her Engrish site:

"In your life you cannot find one as lovely as me.
Men have fainted at the sight of me.
I cannot stop to pick them up or I would be late.
Bye-Bye!"

Let a hundred million Furongs bloom.

Bai Ling (Western Diaspora)
Bai Ling is all but indescribable. You may as well just follow the link. She doesn't have a blog, but has her own section of Gofugyourself, THE badly-dressed-celebrity site. She is also the only Asian Freedom Slag in this Slagroll who has actually participated in a genuine democracy movement. And been paid for naked pictures, not just given them away online. So... um. Great?

"My name means 'white spirit,' meaning 'free spirit,' " said Ling, who, wearing a short denim skirt and a stringy silk blouse, was about as free- spirited as you could get while not getting an NC-17 rating.

"In America, I feel I can dance more freely. In China, just the contrary. I feel like I have to be aware of everything."

May as well shortcut some arguments since I really should be writing up my Jung Chang interview (who could have been a Freedom Slag if she'd managed to work more nookie into Wild Swans):

What the hell does being a slag have to do with human rights?
Well, which freedom is more closely related to the civil and political freedoms of speech, thought, conscience, association, and political opinion: Freedom of sexual expression, or the freedom to shop? I think the former. In that regard, Sarong Party Girl is more of a Freedom Blogger than Mr Brown or Xiaxue.

Why is Xiaxue not a Freedom Slag, when she's just as arrogant about her looks as Furong Jiejie, and also rather funny?
She's just not enough of a slag. If she gets sued for libel by a government agency, for example, for bitching about the dress-sense of civil servants, then she'll be a Freedom Slag. Mr Brown dips his toes into the freedom pool every so often, in between shopping, but doesn't get reprimanded, and is also not enough of a slag.

Don't these Freedom Slags perpetuate the three-headed stereotype of Asian women as either whores, Dragon-lady bitch-queens, victims, or a combination thereof?
Probably. Although they also add new stereotypes: exhibitionists, ungraceful heffalumps, freaky kooks, confident mediocrities, and prolific writers.

Aren't Freedom Slags just depressing for women?
What would be considered daring acts of liberated female sexual expression in conservative societies, do seem little more than mundane sexploitation to the residents of the decadent, liberal-democratic West. Oftentimes, it's mundane sexploitation there as well. The true test of a Freedom Slag is the context within which they operate. If they are being admonished by an all-powerful state and vilified by a repressive conservative society for Slag-like activities that are harmful to no-one, then they're a Freedom Slag. If they are just being laughed at, they're are probably merely a garden-variety Slag. When there's potential for disruption in a repressive society, grab it.

Here's to Freedom Week.

Fork-tongued terrorism has hit New Zealand. A malignant, brylcreemed force is scaring the living daylights out of Kaitaia retirees. Though they're not sure whether a real Muslim has ever been seen in Kaitaia, they sure are terrified of them now.

The alternative headline for this front-page Herald story, I'm reliably informed, was 'Peters is a Dick'.

We were on the receiving end of similar bullshit in 1996, but this, this is out of the ballpark.

[T]he moderate and militant, fit hand and glove. Underneath it all the agenda is to promote fundamentalist Islam - indeed these groups are like the mythical Hydra, a serpent underbelly with multiple heads, capable of striking at any time and in any direction.

His speech was actually entitled The End of Tolerance. "Saves you from having to think of a title yourself," said Keith.

There are a lot of things to say: the claim that mainstream Islam has a secret, inseparable agenda to promote fundamentalism is a lie that would be absurd were it not so vicious; and the imagery of the many-headed Hydra is much like the grotesque 19th century imagery of the Octopus used to represent the Yellow Peril (the original one) - inhuman, malignant images that imagined something coordinated, aggressive, massive and threatening, out of a reality of diverse, small groups trying to fit in to society. Fit in, infiltrate, whatever.

But as previously mentioned, Winston Peters gives me brain haemorrhages, which interferes with rapid, logical response. So I'll let terrifying two-faced Tayyaba Khan take over from here. Tayyaba spoke at the warm fuzzy hydra-headed Christian-swindling interfaith rally last Sunday (where, actually, I was terrified by one thing - the wispy-haired Christian guitar-playing singer whose repeated sets and needly voice seemed to actually summon the rain. Where's a muezzin when you need one?)

Tayyaba has just written an open letter to the Herald, and to Peters:

Today Winston Peters outrightly attacked the Muslim community and furthermore disrespected the religion of Islam without any understanding of either. [...]

I think Winston Peters' lack of knowledge on issues is the reason behind his political failure. Maybe he needs to wake up and realise we - the Muslim community - also sympathised with [those killed] during 9/11, in Bali, in Spain and in London. Such acts are inexcusable, and such motives pure evil. However Winston have you, obviously identifying yourself with the European "balanced" experience, sympathised with the millions dying in countries like Iraq, Iran, Palestine, or Afghanistan? Or are those dying in the Middle East not deserving of your sympathy?

Freedom of speech is an integral and core tenet of any successful society. Hence you have been able to express your views of us. For those who come from countries that don't promote freedom of speech I sure hope my letter comes as a surprise. For those who do not listen to others points of view, compromise, or are open to challenges I hope my letter and my challenge to you today Winston stirs up the views of your political party and its agendas.

Since we are a community of 'two-faced' individuals whose moderate faces are visible but the fundamental hidden, I urge you and your party to work on understanding issues for Muslim migrants. They say you can't eat the cone until you taste the ice-cream, Winston surely there is no exception to this rule for you. We have opened our doors, through initiatives such as the National Islam Awareness Week [8-14 August] , we have been the first in line to condemn the evil acts taking place around the world, and we have publicly addressed that we will not accept any form of terrorism in Aotearoa. So I ask you Winston how much more compromise do you need, where have we failed to listen to your points of views, and how are we not taking up your challenges of integrating into the general society?

Your comments are based on poor facts and very poor representation. I can understand it must have been a long time since you have been in the university scene, but surely you know that promoting terror within a university or any such institute cannot go un-noticed. Maybe you need to update yourself more with what the Muslim community does do, to know how integrated we are in the general society. This could furthermore help you understand that our loyalty lies to a country us Muslim migrants now call home. That the spirit of "NZ First" exists in us too!

Lastly dear Winston you stated, "Immigration....We are not opposed to it. But we are working for an immigration policy that preserves New Zealand as a free and tolerant country." Sounds like Bush's confused comments when he doesn't know why he is doing what he is doing. I hope you take up my challenge Winston.

Tayyaba Khan
Promotions and Communications Advisor for AUT Muslim Students Association
Founder and Executive Member of Auckland Muslim Girls Association

Hip-hop doesn't need to be validated by mainstream recognition or high-culture accolades. But... in your face rhythmless right-wing tax-cutters! Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa just won a Montana: IN - YOUR - FACE!

I don't mean to imply that all right-wingers have no rhythm... But in that particular link above (I googled 'hip-hop tour'), David Farrar has certainly displayed impeccable timing. Oh, and is that barely-veiled racism I see? No? 'Kay, just checking.

Well that's it. Just got a bit excited there, after getting the text-message from Gareth. He should be getting ripped at the Montana after-party (I hear the Montanas are quite a big gig) right about now. I hope that if he's mobbed backstage by language-poet groupies with Access Alliterative Area passes trying to keep it real and be down with the brown, that he won't settle for anyone less than Vincent O'Sullivan.

Oh well, while you're here - a very quick hip-hop tour:

Junichi Semitsu reviews Rize for all of y'all who couldn't fit into the Civic on Saturday.

(And bonus, irresistable Poplick: Bad news for Chinese, Asians in general, and monks. Good news for dwarves.)

Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop wins an American Book Award (although it doesn't need to, 'cos it's hip-hop).

(And bonus Jeff Chang/Film Festival crossover: Why I didn't see Crash, or Can White Hollywood get race right?. Try saying that five times fast - your and Hollywood's chances aren't good.)

The fingers of Mainland China's cyberpolice state are reaching into Hong Kong, with an HK activist discovering Mainland hackers have been monitoring his emails for over a year. I'm freaking out, given the inflammatory content of my correspondence with Glutter, Hongkie democracy activist extraordinaire.

I feel ill thinking about what would happen next time I'm in China, if the Chinese government has been monitoring our emails - emails which would have demonstrated to them how we have both so truly earned our places on banned Singaporean film-maker Martyn See's Asian Freedom Blogroll.

Given that they'll be on the Public Security Bureau files anyway, here are the most incriminating excerpts.

from: tzemingdynasty@[xxxxxxx]
subject: INXS Idol
I just saw the advertisement on New Zealand's state broadcaster! And instantly thought: what must Glutter be thinking? The show hasn't started here yet... I'm in dread and wonder at the same time. I think Jarvis Cocker would be great. But he already has a band. [...]

from: gluttergirl@[xxxxxxx]
subject: re: INXS Idol
Jarvis Cocker??? Nah. he's too intellectual for Inxs. I mean come on. The band needs sex appeal. I mean down and dirty sex appeal, not the difficult standing in the corner loner sarcasm appeal. Eddie Vedder is sexy. Jarvis Cocker is sexy if you spend time with him talking....
[...]

from: tzemingdynasty@[xxxxxxx]
subject: re: re: INXS Idol
[...] I think rocking with INXS would be the perfect vehicle for Jarvis to let loose his inner beast. There is a sexy rock-god in there, just waiting to be unleashed, I just know it - it's the way with all the overintellectual ironic indie-popsters... He'd be great on the show, going through rock-transformations, shedding layers of self-consciousness and irony, being coached in that self-discovery 'America's-next-top-model' way, until he bursts fully formed from a PVC shell to set the world's loins on fire...

from: gluttergirl@[xxxxxxx]
subject: re: re: re: INXS Idol
[...] You seen Better Luck Tomorrow? It's a good film, I know some of the people in it, so it's very dear to me.[...]

from: tzemingdynasty@[xxxxxxx]
subject: re: re: re: re: INXS Idol
[...] OH MY GOD, WHO DO YOU KNOW FROM BETTER LUCK TOMORROW, I AM OBSESSED WITH SUNG KANG HE IS SO FUCKING HOT

We are so totally screwed.

While we're exposing shameful secrets, I am now loosely associated with a website that uses the word 'pundit' as a suffix. It's a dirty, dirty feeling. Representing occasionally for the diaspora, here's my first post from the other week: ironic pretend 'asian invasion' loses ground to 'actual' pretend asian invasion.

Coming soon: the Asian Freedom Slagroll

bonus additional serious bits
I had twenty times the friends in Egypt as I do in London ...and the same number of friends in Darfur, Afghanistan and Liberia as I do in London. It sometimes feels like in New Zealand, I worry about people in those places on my own.

Most New Zealanders won't care, in their guts and in their media (given that media is now as influential an internal organ as the spleen) as much about the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, or Iraqi civilian casualties, or the impending Niger famine (let them eat yellowcake?), or the Gaza withdrawal, as they did about the London bombings. Even if they don't know anyone in London. There's something very wrong about this. And there's little I can do to change it. You can't nag people into empathy, god knows I've tried. Perhaps the tactic of almost completely avoiding the topic until the end is just as effective.