The place where Broadway and musicals are located.
The place where I will begin the next chapter of my nomadic life.
The place where I turn into an eccentric academic out of sync with normality.
NEW YORK.
Welcome.
The place where Broadway and musicals are located.
The place where I will begin the next chapter of my nomadic life.
The place where I turn into an eccentric academic out of sync with normality.
New York.
An aspiring hikikomori/ gomiyashiki owner who will get 3 dogs, 1 cat and a herb
garden when she is in her 40s.
Currently a second year Phd student in East Asian Studies, NYU; a self-proclaimed OTAKU; a
clumsy but avid snowboarder; and absent oneechama of Variel.
8 Sept 2010: West Side Story, WICKED
19 Sept 2010: Chicago
8 Oct 2010: Promises Promises
29 Oct 2010: Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake
14 Nov 2010: American Idiot
18 Jan 2011: Billy Elliot
8 Feb 2011: La Cage Aux Folles
6 Mar 2011: Paul Taylor Dance Group
5 Apr 2011: Catch Me If You Can (Broadway preview)
2 Dec 2011: La Boheme
9 Jan 2012: Rent
22 Mar 2012: Phantom of the Opera
23 May 2012: Avenue Q
26 Sep 2012: Newsies
2 Oct 2012: Turandot
4 Oct 2012: Once
15 Oct 2012: Sleep No More
28 Nov 2012: Lion King
7 Feb 2013: Book of Mormons
14 Mar 2013: Jersey Boys
25 Mar 2013: Sleep No More
21 May 2013: Kinky Boots
26 Sep 2013: Big Fish
Monday, October 29, 2007
8:09 PM
More than your SKIN
Been some time since I blogged. My apologies. Right now, I have an important presentation coming up this Fri and my research kept swimming around my brain, simply refusing to put itself into microsoft Word. Amazingly, I feel very happy after dinner somehow... Praise God!!!
For those who didn't know, my research is on race and ethnicity in Japan, mainly the Ainu in Hokkaido. Honestly, being a comfy majority in Spore, it has never crossed my mind to question race or ethnicity until the fateful lessons I had in my NUS 3rd year. That is when I begin to question my life and all that I had learnt... my dislike for the Chinese language, my friend's taken for granted view that we are NOT English native speakers, how I have totally no Malay, Indian friends. Of course, this is my experience. I do not profess to speak for all Singaporeans. Why do I hate learning Chinese? Why did I go to Europe twice? Singlish is a wonderful language but does that mean that we are not worthy as English speakers? Even the effort to view these as questions is so difficult.
Ignorance of the minorities around me and my self-abasement of my languages not withstanding, at least I can say I am a Singaporean without too much a hesitation. Which brings me to the minorities in Japan. Ainu and Okinawa people can hold Japanese passport while I know of a guy born in Japan, speaks only Japanese but can only hold a China passport. Who can be considered a Japanese or not a Japanese, who can be considered a Chinese and not a Chinese? There are just too much labels limiting who we are and simultaneously deleting who we are not supposed to be.
I think my poor friends in Okinawa sometimes think I am quite siao (crazy) because I kept refuting their claims to represent their countries. That is because my skin is not all that my country is and my country is not all my skin. Is it possible to resists the labels I put on myself and others put on me? Is it possible to put on a new label unique to myself? This is the same question I place on the Ainu people here and this is one of the more interesting answers that I managed to find during a 3 day workshop early this month.
The video below is of a group of young people, called the Ainu Rebels, trying to crave out a new meaning for the word 'Ainu'. There is one scene where a girl is drawing a tattoo like mark around her mouth, which strongly reminded me of an offending thing one of my professors said. I must remember to tell you about it next time. Anyway, if anyone of you happens to pass by Tokyo, check out this page to see if they have any performances:http://www.ainupride.com/ainurebels/en/index.html
