Yellow Peril by Tze Ming Mok

Given that Keith Ng is on my fantasy-holiday while I am stuck here, and that one Chinese Public Address anarchist tearing through the streets of Hong Kong during the WTO is both Yellow and Perilous enough for everybody, I've put myself on forced vacation - from being Asian.

What might this consist of? The following examples seem to mostly consist of failing to be Asian enough:

- Not managing to wax lyrical about how the Australian race-riots might swing the Chinese International Student market back in our favour (what's scarier, mob rule or Winston Peters? Um...) because really it just freaks the bejeesus out of me and I'd rather ignore it all and treat myself to the haiku to Lindsay Lohan on gofugyourself instead, or maybe check out what's hot with the hobos on overheardinnewyork.

- Letting the ultimate set of critical eviscerations of Memoirs of a Geisha pile up in a corner of the internet. Village Voice. Poplicks. This picture via angryasianman:

- Not getting to 277 K Road before the Marvel Anthology Amazing Fantasy #15 featuring the Greg Pak mini-feature Mastermind Excello (teenage Korean-American Genius on the run from a nefarious government agency) totally sold out. And failing to write a post about it in relation to this Herald story about small cute Chinese chess geniuses written by a small cute Chinese journalist, and squeezing in some comment on how Jubilee from the X-Men never counted as an Asian superhero because her powers were so lame and had nothing to do with precocious intellect, work-ethic, or even martial arts.

- Brushing up on my string theory. But not by reading. By watching television on the internet, aimed at 10-year olds.

- Belatedly drawing people's attention to this campaign to demonstrate that Asians aren't any worse drivers than anyone else, and also pointing out that the Herald could have mentioned in its statistics that while Asians are 6.6% of the population, that they are also 10% of the population under 25 - therefore, given that people under 25 dominate car accidents, Asians are probably even more under-represented in car accidents than it appears.

- Not even having anything to say about this repellent incident, even though Raybon Kan is from Masterton and there could have been something potentially amusing about that.

- Watching a strengthening flow of submissions to a literary journal I have to edit next year pile up in a corner of my lounge, while sitting in the sweltering heat in a sarong, drinking pottle after pottle of Yakult until I have a Yakult-pottle-pyramid. You may consider this to be Asian behaviour, because of the sarong and the Yakult-drinking. But no, it's non-Asian, because of the display of poor work ethic.

- Getting reminded by Gordon Campbell to buy my Sleater-Kinney ticket, while in turn, abjectly failing to help him find a Chinese astrologist.

- Finding out that political pundits are less accurate in predicting actual outcomes than "dart-throwing monkeys", thereby losing my burning faith in the grand intellectual reputation of the blogosphere.

- Encouraging hip muso bloggers to take a holiday from hip muso blogging by sending them this tip-sheet on how to make a hip end of year top-ten albums list.

- Being sent at least two awesome non-Asian related links from two awesome non-Asian people to spend lots of non-Asian time at. Here is one of the greatest post-facto justifications you will ever find for having majored in English Lit: Holy Tango of Literature, a satirical collection of poetry and play-excerpts by famous writers, had they used anagrams of their names as subject matter for their writing. And here is something else that must be seen rather than explained.

- Reading Arts & Letters Daily for fun and relaxation. Because that's what I do.

- Getting sent another racist email and not even caring. Gmail Menu - More actions - Apply label: 'nazis' - Archive. *Yawn!*

This is great. I hope Keith stays in Hong Kong and becomes a democracy-activist boy-genius Chinese superhero and blogs for months while on the run from the nefarious government agencies - his mother has already sewn him a riot-ready journalist utility-belt/pouch/bag ensemble. Because I've got to get a whole lot of other stuff done this summer. Yep, 'bloggage will be light' as everyone is saying right now, but at least there's a bunch of links for you here, to ward off the Singapore of the mind that may drift in with the Singaporean climate in the new tradition of our globally warmed Auckland summer. Happy Holidays. Oh, am I allowed to say that?

After defecting from the Communist Party, my grandfather worked the Golden Triangle with a fleet of trucks as an opium smuggler. When the family got to Singapore from Burma, the PAP tried to hire him as a political strategist - Nguyen Tuong Van's not so fucking lucky.

My gong-gong's not the only big-time drug-dealer the Singapore Government has had dealings with. As Opposition leader Chee Soon-Juan points out:

Singapore is reported to be the biggest business partner of Burma with US$1.5 billion worth of investments. Former US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gelbard stated that “since 1998 over half of [the investments from] Singapore have been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han.''

There are reports that Lo Hsing Han now operates a deepwater port in Rangoon and a highway from the center of Burma's poppy–growing region to the China border, facilities well-suited for exporting drugs.

[...]

Let me ask the questions that I have been asking since 1997: Will the Government open its books so that we can verify if our GIC funds are still invested in projects linked with Lo Hsing Han? What steps has the Government taken to pressure the Burmese regime to crackdown on drug kingpins like Lo? Why does our Government continue to trade with the Burmese junta when it has been shown that the military has close ties with narco-producers like Lo?

In addition, Singapore has been fingered in the laundering of Burma’s drug money. Bruce Hawke, an expert on narco-trafficking in Burma, wrote: “The entry [of drug money] to the legitimate global banking system is not Burma but Singapore.” Is this true?

I have been raising these questions since 1997 but each time the local media assiduously blacks them out.

[...]

Criticising our government for killing small-time drug peddlers while doing business with drug lords is necessary. Whether it is a Singaporean or an Australian who is going to dangle at the end of the rope is immaterial. A life is a life and if we are going to take it, let us be absolutely clear of the excruciating hypocrisy that currently exists.

Singapore: Sometimes you make me laugh fondly, sometimes you make me sick.

As December 2nd approaches, you can sense the news media waking to the realisation that this kid is going to die. It's too late to right the 'balance' by putting him on the top of the page rather than the bottom, or publishing a picture of him instead of Michelle Leslie crying about the media being mean to her.

So the pretty white women have gotten off - a cynical yet unavoidable observation, and maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe it's wrong of me to feel more anger and grief for Nguyen Van Tuong than for Schapelle Corby (whose case I basically ignored), or Michelle Leslie (it worked out for her anyway) or Julia Bohl (the Germans seemed to lay enough on the line in that case). Someone has to. He's a son of the Vietnamese diaspora, born in a Thai refugee camp, and it's yet another of my old-countries which has taken him back in - to kill him. What was it that Lee Kuan Yew said about us immigrants to the west, that time he came to Auckland in the 1980s? That we were the ones who weren't good enough to stay - good riddance to bad rubbish. My parents never forgot it.

Maybe if we'd stayed, we could have changed this.

Here is Singaporean literary star Alfian Saat's short-story 'The Hole', written for the vigil against the death penalty, held earlier this year for Nguyen's best friend in Changi, Shanmugam Murugesu. Shanmugam, a Singaporean, was executed for a kilo of marijuana in May. The government banned the vigil organisers from using his photograph on any publicity material or websites.

[Update: additional comment on norightturn, including details for the Singporean Embassy in Wellington]

[Updated] Did he or didn't he? I didn't catch any of the footage, but there are mixed reports from the people who heard or watched the parliamentary recordings. What I did catch yesterday afternoon, was a Ministerial Advisor in full damage-control mode, asking me to acknowledge the denial from the Minister of any racist intent, of his love of multiculturalism and Chinese people in general, and presumably that he is not a cunt. Plausible enough that it was a slip of the tongue and a Herald beat-up - wasn't that what we all hoped? I'm rather too busy these days to go around picking imaginary fights, as one reader suggested.

Might I ask though, if there was no Pansy-mocking going on at that point (by Cunliffe or otherwise), what on earth was Michael Cullen doing drawing attention to people being amused by Pansy Wong's 'trouble with words'?

Shame on me for reading the Herald. I suppose I should have known better. I should have relied on Ministerial press releases instead. Except... there wasn't one. The 'I am not a cunt' press release the Advisor emailed me at 4:30 pm yesterday doesn't seem to be on Scoop. It only seems to have been released at 1pm yesterday (that's pretty slow for an Immigration Minister falsely accused of racism) and not to any of the three 'ethnic'/'Asian' networks that I'm constantly bombarded by. I had to put it on AEN myself. The Advisor seemed particularly unhappy that Cunliffe had put in so much time and work with the Chinese in New Lynn, and "yet one beat-up story is run and people are prepared to believe the worst". I suppose that's because Chinese people (though we're very smart, good-looking, and have great accents) aren't generally capable of just 'sensing' what all other Chinese people are thinking.

Let me try it out though: hhhnnngghhh...."Labour government... in coalition with... Winston Peters... give us a reason... to trust you."

If this has truly been a nonsensical affair, than it's more of a shame that the parliamentary questions that Pansy Wong was actually asking (link below) have been thus obscured.

*
yesterday's post, around 10:30 am

A class act, our new Minister of Immigration. Some in the English-language communities already refer to him as 'Silent T'; perhaps his new Mandarin name shall be David 傻屄liffe.

Caught mocking Pansy Wong's accent during Parliamentary Question Time, by asking her to 'wead' a particular document, Immigration Minister David Cunliffe "later said his remark was accidental and did not know he had said it."

Um... is this the manslaughter defense? No premeditation here, just accidentally tripped over a foreigner. Perhaps this is a job for Ms/Mr Accident Compensation Corporation.

[Update: The Question Time transcript of this affair, via Idiot/Savant of course, who actually reads these things.]

Shall we avoid a long string of Chinese obscenities on this occasion? Yes, we shall. Predictably, this makes me fucking furious, and I don't even like Pansy Wong. I know Wong has developed a damn thick skin, because this is hardly the worst she's seen of it in the House. Michael Cullen's comment to Tau Henare who took such umbrage in Wong's defense, that National MPs were also smirking at her questions, is rather beside the point. But it's true. Wong gets shit from her own Party.

But this kind of bullshit from the Minister of Immigration of a government that is meant to care about people like me and my parents, is an insult with serious legs. Most 'Asian' communities shouldn't have any particular concern about the comments of our Minister of Foreign Affairs - we're not foreigners (we live here). But the Minister of Immigration is our Minister. And an accidental remark is all too often the measure of a man. 'Silent T' had better start sucking up to us fast, or face worse than the Silent Treatment - long strings of community-supported obscenities on Yellow Peril that he doesn't know how to 'wead'.

Okay, that's the best threat I can come up with right now. Um... how about email bombardment?

Accent is becoming the final frontier when it comes to triggering racism - more on this later, probably. But for now, one of the most pathetic things about mocking people's accents is that the people who do it in that 'Parliamentary' way, are generally monolingual, aren't used to hearing other accents, and even have difficulty understanding fluent first-language English speakers if those people are not speaking 'kiwi'. In other words, accent-mockers are likely to be hicks without a clue, who will hardly be able to communicate with anybody if they ever travel outside New Zealand. Meanwhile, Pansy Wong speaks four languages. Stick that up your chouhai, Cunliffe. Same goes to the rest of the publicly indignant but secretly snickering patronising gits in parliament.

Here's a positive angle though, on the confusing fates of the NZ First diaspora. Winston luring more Asian students to New Zealand, Tuariki Delamere allegedly corruptly importing more Asian sub-millionaires, Tau Henare defending Asians from political racism (even if simultaneously still covertly laughing at them)... I think it's safe to say that the Invasion has truly proved victorious over its original 1996 nemesis. It's just our 'friends' we have to worry about now.

"Yolk is being the yellow surrounded by white. Yolk is also the 'centre of life' of an egg," writes Lincoln Tan in the inaugural issue of Auckland's newest 'Asian youth' publication. Presumably, the whiteness surrounding this yellow centre is the crappy tasteless stuff no-one's interested in.*

Yep, the irrepressible Lincoln Tan, editor of New Zealand's first bilingual Chinese tabloid rag cum voice-of-the-people paper iBall, has returned to his Asian roots. That is, to Auckland. The mega-Asian central-city foodcourt free-pulp reading market was calling to him from afar. From the deep southern reaches of Christchurch, Lincoln could hear the Auckland international students crying out for a more authentic kind of colourful ad-filled crap to drip their sundubu onto.

Here it is kids: Yolk. Not to be confused with ...Yolk. Nor with Hardboiled. No sirree, this shit is fresh. Fresh and for the freshies.

A Korean girl graces the cover of our local no-gloss namesake of the classic Asian-American mag, but with the paper entirely staffed by Chinese people from S'pore, Malaysia, Mainland China and Taiwan, and with half the text in fanti,** I don't think this is really an 'Asian' paper. But it is a Chinese paper. Shame, the first issue's covergirl won't be able to read her own profile.

Don't worry Gayoung, neither can I. Online tests prove that I am almost half-literate in jianti,*** but have a fanti reading age of however old I was when mum stopped with the flashcards. Three I think.

So here's my NZ-born Chinese translation of the heart and soul of Yolk editor Vivienne Ni's first editorial: "A lot of friends asked me why you'd want to something something translate Chinese something funny something something. My answer is that Yolk represents something something new something something."

Sure does.

I'm already liking Yolk a lot more than that similar English-language youth market colourful advertising rag I see in the foodcourts (what's it called? Max? Mono? Maxo?). At least some of Yolk is vaguely relevant to me, and with its bilingual content and accessible writing style, it's good practise for people in need of brushing up their Chinese - or English - reading skills. In that sense, Yolk could provide a new window for semi-literate huaqiaos into the world of their new-generation contemporaries, and vice-versa. That is actually... something. Something worth something.

Here's something else to cheer the semi-Chinese-illiterates. This glossary box: 'Don't speak English, Speak Kiwi' explains a few choice turns of phrase - such as that here, 'Mainlander' means a hick from the South Island rather than a hick from Mainland China. You get a little nervous round-about the 4th entry down. Now let's get this straight. Lincoln is from Singapore, therefore his English is perfect. But he's also from Singapore, where lesbians are either illegal or officially nonexistent, I don't remember which. He also lived in Christchurch for three years. So maybe in Christchurch 'Dyke' really does mean 'toilet', and uppity women get called 'toilets' as an insult. I dunno.

The gossip page bearing the questionable glossary is a highlight: Jay Chou balding rumours sparked by excessive wig use! Faye Wong slammed in China for having a second baby! Shu Qi on pashing Tony Leung!

Another chunky crumb of Yolk worth savouring is the short feature where an uncredited writer goes out and asks some Chinese kids in noodlebars what they want out of Auckland. Answer: 24 hour noodlebars. Hell yeah! Taller Park, I'm looking at you. It's so embarrassing when Keith Ng comes to town, and expects to find noodles at 4 am because this is Auckland, not ethnically desolate Wellington. He's all like: "Where my noodles bitch? You find me some fuckin' noodles and a lemon coke 'afore I put the Hong Kong Gambling Authority on yo' ass!" The word 'GenerAsian' is also used seriously in this article. Hoo-boy. I was like, kind of kidding.

You can guess what a magazine full of uncredited stories, and featuring a caricature of Winston Peters drawn by the managing editor means. It means 'our editorial team of two-and-a-half wrote all the stories.' It also means Lincoln has forgotten that this is a city of super-slick Asian graphic artists (who could probably draw him some cool killer Winston Peterdroids inside of a minute). My dear fellow yellows-on-the-inside, if you've been doing your own reviews of Yolk in the foodhalls, you probably couldn't go far wrong by emailing them with your own glossaries and story ideas, and all the rants and opinions you've always wanted to send to Yellow Peril but were too afraid of my sneering judgement to do so. Yolk probably hasn't developed any sneering judgement yet. My bet is that they would welcome more writers with something to say. And you could Win Atrium on Elliot Shopping Vouchers. This rag is ours - own it. It's free after all. Email yolk(AT)iballmedia(DOT)co(DOT)nz.

There's another element of Yolk to get involved in. Here's my crappy translation of the Yolk Covergirl's curriculum vitae.

Name: Gayoung
Gum-colour?: Pink
Birthdate: 1982.12.31
Nationality: Korea
Height: 157 cm
Weight: 46 kg (this can't be right, surely)
Star Sign?: uh... Capricorn?
Blood type (I'm pretty sure it's blood type, though at first glance I took this answer to be either bra size, or lowest Grade ever in an internal assessment): B
Zodiacal year: dog
School: Auckland University
Home something change something: parents and something something little brother
Something good: walking around the streets
Favourite food: Sukiyaki
Favourite flower: some dumb flower
Favourite colour: pink?
Favourite... um... exercise?: Walking around the streets
Favourite something something: Peace something something something something (everyone loves peace)
Favourite singer: Christina Aguilera
Favourite film: Far from Heaven
Favourite... um... plum?: Some kind of plum?
Favourite kind of clothing: cute with a hint of sexy
Favourite place: Mission Bay

So far so barfy. Dear Yellow Peril readers - only YOU can stop babydoll princess-cut cute-with-hint-of-sexy, long-haired Mission-Bay-loving Yolk Girls. Our people need to know that Christina Aguilera is now an approved form of military torture. Pleeeeeassse, there has got to be a Yolk Girl out there whose idea of a good time is a little more than 'walking around the streets'. If you're in Auckland, are between 18-30, "have a fresh exciting look and a great personality", fill in the Yolk Form and send a face and full-length shot to Yolk Magazine, iBall Media Works Ltd, PO Box 46018, Herne Bay, Auckland. The Chinese version specifies that you have to be over 160 cm tall. I guess the girls who read English are likely to be taller already, because of all the English-language protein we get.

Footnotes
* Derek Cheng made this joke, while wearing a Yolk t-shirt, reading Yolk, and popping the yolk of the egg atop a bibimbap masquerading as a chicken donburi at Mercury Plaza.
**Fanti: traditional Chinese script, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the old diaspora
***Jianti: simplified Chinese script, used in Mainland China and Singapore

The distinction between fanti and jianti is a purely written one, and does not relate to oral dialect. For example, there is no relation between the fanti/jianti split and the Mandarin/Cantonese dialect split. You cannot 'write in Mandarin' or 'write in Cantonese' except in the sense of idiom specific to each dialect. Never ask if something is 'written in Mandarin or Cantonese', especially if you are a NZ-born Chinese journalist working for a major daily, attending an Asian media networking lunch. Not that this has ever happened to anyone I know.

Winston Peters? You are a whipped man. Make sure you round up plenty of hot Asian guys to bring back from your Loving the Asian Invasion Tour and when you return, me and Manying Ip will greet you singing 你现在是我们的婊子 (translation: 'you are now our bitch'), a classic Beijing Opera accompaniment to the traditional Chinese Victory Dance.

Early days yet, but I'm still still laughing my ass off and looking forward to reports of our Minister of Foreign Affairs Outside Government 'doing a lot of [laundry] in the Beijing [dog] restaurants.'

*

It's now Thursday and I'm reporting on a conference that happened on Sunday. Keith may have something to add on the implications of that for 'Chinese timekeeping'.

The Treaty of Waitangi and Asian Communities Symposium was not just positive and cuddly about the Treaty, but also intelligent, critical, and lacking the kind of bitterness and reductiveness that Treaty discussions often can't escape within the Maori/Pakeha discourse. There have been some comments that the kind of discussion Keith and I have been having on and off Public Address is one that should have been in the mainstream media. I don't know if that's possible - unless geeky Asians suddenly take over the mainstream media and act like logical argument over a hot lemon Coke at Taller Park is the only thing people ever care about when it comes to colonialism and race. Beyond our blogs, beyond an 'Asian' symposium, it would actually be incredibly difficult to talk about how X issue (which affects all New Zealanders) specifically affects 'Asians', without Pakeha itching to jump in with their opinions and dominating the space. It's not that those opinions are unwelcome - I just wouldn't mind a few minutes to sort it out between ourselves first, like in the foyer or something.

At the end of the Symposium, Maori researcher Belinda Borell said something that vindicated a hopeful assertion I've made before to a Chinese audience: that from what she'd heard that day, we 'Asians' sure understood racism a lot better than plenty of Pakeha audiences. It's a good start.

A few highlights:

- Manying Ip's research on the parallel stereotypes of both 'Asians' and Maori of each other as 'privileged', and likely to side with whitey against 'us'. In other words, played off against each other. There was a Maori call to cut out the middle man. A good call, and a strangely familiar one.

- Sally Liu's research on the Chinese language media concluding that on Maori issues, their effort consists of a pathetic cut and paste of Mainstream Media articles, but problematically translated, even more underrepresented in frequency, with hardly any Maori voice, and basically no independent journalism. And that this is screwing us all.

- Changzoo Song proving himself funnier than either myself or Keith.

- the combined South-Asian and Southeast-Asian contingents reminding everyone else that British colonial domination, and postcolonial negotiation of identity, is actually rather familiar to us.

- Ruth de Souza's closing line of her presentation, just the delivery of it - quietly, thoughtfully, a little wearily: "I want to be part of something." Made me want to have a little tangi. I think I was just tired.

- The saintly, contained look on Sir Paul Reeves' face when the word 'hori' came up on my powerpoint presentation. (see Part 1)

- The hope that someone in the mainstream media was noticing that there is a critical-mass of brainy, politically-engaged Asians out there, and realising that they can go to people other than me for 'Asian comment.'

The presentations are available from Manying Ip, and I have attached Kumanan Rasanathan's to this post - click the 'audio' button for a PDF.

There was some lively discussion on AEN in the aftermath. This particular part was my favourite:

*Alistair Kwun*Sent:* Monday, 14 November 2005 8:52 a.m.

Dear AEN,
For those who weren't able to make it to yesterday's (Sunday) symposium on *Human Rights, Treaty of Waitangi and *Asian Communities*, you can read all about it at: <A HREF="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=00061101-0DDE-1377-93
6483027AF1010E" target="_blank">(link to Herald article)

[...]

Kind regards

Alistair Kwun

On 11/14/05, Kumanan Rasanathan wrote:

Yes Alistair and all, as you can read in the Herald, we had a really exhaustive six hour symposium on immigrant Treaty tests. Amazingly, we didn't get to discuss whether this would open up a new market for tutoring.

Kumanan

Yep, the Herald took a pretty lame lead angle, although the second part of the article wasn't bad. It was only reportage from the first half hour of the conference though. Poor Errol Kiong - he never stays for a full ethnic community conference. He's probably ethnic-conferenced out. I've heard that Alistair, Tessie and I successfully managed to stop the Herald from creating an 'ethnic beat' with our seminar there earlier in the year, but I think Errol's still getting locked into the ghetto. I saw this happening early on, and thought - hey, bad for his career... but good for us! Maybe in the long run ...not so good? Stupidly, ironically, both Errol and Keith Ng missed the standout presentation of the Symposium, because they were catching up with each other to talk about ...what? Ghettoisation of ethnic journalists by giving them all the ethnic conference stories?

The presentation in question was by one of my favourite Yellow Peril readers Kumanan Rasanathan, PhEG (Pointy-headed Ethnicity Geek), who managed to make it to some of Keith's key constitutional conclusions (which I don't have much argument with) without those weird stop-off points about the invalidity of metonymic legitimacy of 'the Crown' and its historical compacts. Running with Universal Human Rights also helped streamline the argument. Good old Universal Human Rights. I'd encourage you to read the full paper, which has jokes in it and everything. To the ear in fact, Kumanan has a very similar cadence to Russell Brown. Here he is on that old bugbear, Biculturalism vs Multiculturalism.

I have to admit that I always used to find biculturalism problematic, because it seemed to extend the lack of space in the Treaty for people like me across the whole of New Zealand society – it seemed to imply, that we, and our cultures, didn’t exist here. Many people in our communities prefer the concept of multiculturalism. But having lived in Australia and the United Kingdom, I’ve revised my opinion.

[...]

In Australia, multiculturalism delivers far less than it promises. I attended a so-called “diversity in health” conference recently in Melbourne. The Australians call people like me CALD, which stands for “culturally and linguistically diverse”. In terms of translation services for health care for minority groups, and as with many other things, in resourcing, they are in many ways far ahead of New Zealand. But beyond the rhetoric of how many languages are spoken or the wheeling out of diverse costumes and musics for the opening of functions, in Australia multiculturalism operates as a veneer for the systematic monoculturalism of healthcare there and the continued invisibility of the majority culture.
So our communities in New Zealand, in seeking multiculturalism, should be careful what they wish for.