While black actors have arrived in Hollywood, Asian actors have failed to make much of an impression and it’s kind of puzzling – unless you consider their relative lack of English-language skills.
After all, Asia is the largest continent with the biggest population and you would have thought it was a reasonable demographic, in addition to pleasing the Asian population of the US – currently 5 % and expected to rise to 10 % in 2050.
White guy Harrison Ford playing a Taiwan doctor in Extraordinary Measures is further grist to the mill.
The film’s script changed the name and nationality of the real-life person, Dr Chen Yuan-tsong (陳垣崇), into an American research scientist called Robert Stonehill.
Of course, Ford can attract more bums on seats than an Asian actor without much name recognition in the US – but was it really necessary to take so much liberty with the truth?
Surely, it was an opportunity to cast an Asian actor?
The problem seems to be Chinese actors with the necessary chops don’t have a sufficient grasp of English. After all, in an English-speaking film this might be considered a prerequisite.
A shortlist of Chinese actors who do speak good English includes: ABC Daniel Wu (吴彦祖), ABC Wang Lee-hom (王力宏), ABC David Tao (陶喆), Jackie Chan (成龙), and the Canadian-Chinese Edison Chen (陈冠希) and Nicholas Tse (谢霆锋).
I wonder if any of them were approached? Perhaps we should be told?
Blogs like Angry Asian Man, Racebending.com and Tasty, Tantalizing and Terrific Taiwan are, understandably, claiming another whitewash.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
South Korean pop group does MA-ZEL-TOV pop song on MTV Asia: who knew Koreans spoke Yiddish!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkJ9UK3JsQ
Who is ZEA? They are from Star Empire Entertainment in Korea, artistes such as VOS &Jewelry are from the same company too.
COMMENTER TELLS THIS BLOG:
i think mazeltov means like congradulations/good luck. in yiddish or something.
ZE:A - ZEACategory:Common Interest - ActivitiesDescription:This is the official ZE:A Group.
*Who are ZE:A?
Star Empire Entertainment .........a new 9 member boy band called ZE:A
They made debut in January, and many korean believe they will be one of the best Idols in Asia in 2010
*Members
Kim Tae Hun
Birthday:6.18.1989
Blood type:A
Height:177 cm
Weight:63 Kg
Hobby:Sports and beatboxing
Other:The mom of the group
Kim Dong Jun
Birthday:2.11.1992
Blood type:B
Height:175 cm
Weight:52 Kg
Hobby:Soccer
Other:Maknae
Kevin Kim
Birthday:2.23.1988
Blood type:A
Height:180 cm
Weight:60 Kg
Hobby:Internet Shopping,computer game
Other:Can speak,Japanese,Chinese,English,korean
Moon Jun young
Birthday:2.9.1989
Blood type:A
Height:180 cm
Weight:64 Kg
Hobby:Soccer & bowling
Other:Leader of the group
Park Hyung shik
Birthday11.16.1991
Blood type:AB
Height:183 cm
Weight:65 Kg
Hobby:Skiing & playing Games
Si Wan
Birthday:12.1.1988
Blood type:B
Height:175 cm
Weight:51 Kg
Hobby:Violin & Snow boarding
Ha Min Woo
Birthday:9.6.1990
Blood type:B
Height:178 cm
Weight:54 Kg
Hobby:Dancing &cooking
Hwang Kang Hee
Birthday:8.25.1988
Blood type:A
Height:179 cm
Weight:60 Kg
Hobby:Tennis,cooking,scuba diving
Jung Hee Chul
Birthday:12.9.1989
Blood type:B
Height:177 cm
Weight:58 Kg
Hobby:Soccer,trumpet, (read less)
Who is ZEA? They are from Star Empire Entertainment in Korea, artistes such as VOS &Jewelry are from the same company too.
COMMENTER TELLS THIS BLOG:
i think mazeltov means like congradulations/good luck. in yiddish or something.
ZE:A - ZEACategory:Common Interest - ActivitiesDescription:This is the official ZE:A Group.
*Who are ZE:A?
Star Empire Entertainment .........a new 9 member boy band called ZE:A
They made debut in January, and many korean believe they will be one of the best Idols in Asia in 2010
*Members
Kim Tae Hun
Birthday:6.18.1989
Blood type:A
Height:177 cm
Weight:63 Kg
Hobby:Sports and beatboxing
Other:The mom of the group
Kim Dong Jun
Birthday:2.11.1992
Blood type:B
Height:175 cm
Weight:52 Kg
Hobby:Soccer
Other:Maknae
Kevin Kim
Birthday:2.23.1988
Blood type:A
Height:180 cm
Weight:60 Kg
Hobby:Internet Shopping,computer game
Other:Can speak,Japanese,Chinese,English,korean
Moon Jun young
Birthday:2.9.1989
Blood type:A
Height:180 cm
Weight:64 Kg
Hobby:Soccer & bowling
Other:Leader of the group
Park Hyung shik
Birthday11.16.1991
Blood type:AB
Height:183 cm
Weight:65 Kg
Hobby:Skiing & playing Games
Si Wan
Birthday:12.1.1988
Blood type:B
Height:175 cm
Weight:51 Kg
Hobby:Violin & Snow boarding
Ha Min Woo
Birthday:9.6.1990
Blood type:B
Height:178 cm
Weight:54 Kg
Hobby:Dancing &cooking
Hwang Kang Hee
Birthday:8.25.1988
Blood type:A
Height:179 cm
Weight:60 Kg
Hobby:Tennis,cooking,scuba diving
Jung Hee Chul
Birthday:12.9.1989
Blood type:B
Height:177 cm
Weight:58 Kg
Hobby:Soccer,trumpet, (read less)
What's that Pho? -- French loan words used in Vietnam today, relics from the old colonial past
Page 16 print edition and online: (hat tip to Ben Zimmer and Victor Mair, MaryJo Pham, Abby Nguyen and Andrea Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Cam Tu and all the girls I've loved before....)
French loan words in Vietnam today memorialize colonial days in Indochina
IN REMEMBRANCE OF LOAN WORDS PAST
http://taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2010/05/29/2003474148
French loan words in Vietnam hark back to the colonial days
By Dan Bloom
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER / TAIPEI TIMES, Taiwan
Saturday, May 29, 2010, Page 16 [UPDATED WITH CORRECTIONS]
Pho is a French word? Who knew?
One of the most popular dishes from Vietnam to make it to restaurant tables around the world, from New York to London, is pho. There’s pho bo and pho ga and pho tai and more.
And while the jury’s still out, it is widely believed by linguists and word sleuths that the word pho is not a Vietnamese word, but in fact comes from the French term pot au feu (pronounced ‘‘poh oh fuh’’). The word was likely introduced to Vietnam by French colonialists more than 100 years ago, according to longtime Vietnam resident Didier Corlou, a top French chef in Hanoi. Corlou told a food seminar in Hanoi in 2003 that pho most likely was a transliteration of the French term for hot pot.
The list of French “loans words” still used in Vietnam today is gaining recognition as young Vietnamese become more curious about their nation’s past, 23-year-old Abby Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City told the Taipei Times in a recent e-mail exchange.
Before the Americans got involved in a long and protracted war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, the French had been heavily involved in the country for more than 300 years, she said. From 1853 to 1954, Vietnam was a French colony. As a result, Vietnam’s colonial past has left an indelible mark on the country’s language.
The Vietnamese word for cheese, for example, pho mat, comes from the French word fromage — say it out loud slowly — and cake is called ga to, from the French word gateau.
The word for butter — bo — comes from the French word buerre.
During a recent research expedition via keyboard and the Internet, this reporter came across more than two-dozen “loan words” from French still used in Vietnam today, in addition to pho mat and ga to and bo.
To understand all this, it helps to know a little French, but even if you never studied French in high school or college and you don’t know bonjour from bonsoir, “amusez-vous bien.” That means: “Enjoy!”
Liver pate is called pa te in Vietnam today. Pate chaud, according to Californian foodie Andrea Nguyen of the Viet World Kitchen blog, is called pa so, or pa te so.
There’s more, according to sources in Vietnam and overseas. Ba — father in Vietnamese — might come from the French word papa, some linguists believe, although not everyone agrees. [A few Vietnamese-speakers have told this blog that ba does not come from papa. More research is needed on that one.]
Va li comes from the French word for suitcase — valise.
Bia comes from the French word for beer, biere.
A doll is called a bup-be in Vietnam, from the French word poupee.
What to call the necktie on that senior civil servant giving a press conference on Hanoi television? It’s a ca vat — from the French word cravate.
Question: Does the Vietnam expression doc to come from the French word docteur? Which is not far from the English word doctor? No, several commenters tell this blog. The correct word for doctor in Vietnam is "bac si".
Phac to comes from facteur, the French word for mailman.
Phim means “movie” and comes from the French word film.
A ''pha'' is a headlight on a car or motorscooter, from the French word ''phare.''
Motorscooters and motorcycles are themselves are called moto — from the French term motocyclette.
If you make a mistake in France, it is called a faute. In Vietnam today, people often say phot for mistake.
Bit-tet is from the French term biftek — beefsteak, or just plain steak.
Coffee is called ca phe, from the French word cafe.
Wine is called vang (vin).
Soap is called xa bong (savon).
A circus is called xiec (from the French word cirque).
NOTE: Ben Zimmer, a noted US-based word maven who writes the weekly “On Language” column for the New York Times, pointed this reporter to the work of Milton Barber, whose 1963 paper, The Phonological Adaptation of French Loan Words in Vietnamese, was eye-opening, to say the least.
Vietnamese-American college student MaryJo Pham, a senior at Tufts University in Boston who was born in Massachusetts , said she has been informally collecting French loan words used in Vietnam over the years.
“Piscine is still in use for ‘swimming pool,’” she said in an e-mail.
“And cyclo, or ‘xich lo’ in Vietnamese, is what we call a bicycle-drawn rickshaw.”
“Yogurt — yaourt in French — is called da ua in Vietnamese. Ice cream is called ca rem from the French word creme.”
A clothes zipper is called a phec mo tua in Vietnamese, from the French word fermeture, Pham said. A woman’s bra is called su chien from the French word soutien-gorge, she added.
“You can see how some French loan words influenced the actual transliteration of words — for motorscooters, women’s bras, coffee, frozen yogurt, baguette sandwiches — things that were and are indispensable to daily life in Vietnam,” Pham said. “‘Bo for butter, from the French buerre, is still definitely in use in Vietnam. And phim for movies, film, cinema, yes.”
134,567 page views in last 24 hours, most from Vietnam and France!
AND:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lDNgJdNshEUJ:www.fenu.ru/%3Fa%3Dpage%26id%3D370+french+loan+words+vietnam&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk
ИИЯ741. French Loanwords in Vietnamese (2). This specific course explores the French influence upon Vietnamese grammar and vocabulary in the period of French colonization.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Harison Ford asked by Internet blogger's Taiwan-based campaign to explain the extraordinary casting choices in "Extraordinary Measures"
The DVD of "Extradorinary Measures," starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, was recently released in Taiwan, where one of the several real-life heroes of the true life story, Dr Chen Yuan-tsong, who is completly left out of the movie and played instead by Harrison Ford, lives and works. The movie is medical drama about a desperate father who finances a cure for the rare Pompe disease that is killing his children.
The movie is based on the true story chronicled in the book ''The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million and Bucked the Medical Establishment in a Quest to Save His Children'' wrtitten by Indian journalist by Geeta Anand now based in Mumbai. There is a real John Crowley who really did start a biomedical company to develop a cure for Pompe disease.
But the real guy who developed the cure was not a fictitious Hollywood-arc ''Dr. Robert Stonehill'', played by Ford in the January 2010 relased movie. The real guys were named Drs Canfield, Chen, Byrne and Landy, among others. And don't forget that female scientist at Duke University, too.
We learned this from Roger Ebert's movie review back in January:
"Dr. Robert Stonehill doesn't exist in real life. The Pompe cure was developed by Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen and his colleagues while he was at Duke University. He is now director of the Institute of Biomedical Science in Taiwan. Harrison Ford, as this film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself; a rewrite was necessary because he couldn't very well play Dr. Chen. The real Chen, a Taiwan University graduate, worked his way up at Duke from a residency to professor and chief of medical genetics at the Duke University Medical Center. He has been mentioned as a Nobel candidate."
Ebert also speculates that Dr. Chen and the others mentioned above might have been inspired a more interesting character than ''Dr. Stonehill''. But I suppose Harrison Ford, who also serves as the film's executive producer, isn't the first guy that comes to mind for the role of "Taiwanese Scientist." Thus, the rewrite. Ah, what could've been, said Angry Asian Man on his blog last year.
Despite the big name stars, the movie looks like a glorified made-for-Lifetime movie... where maybe it could've starred, um, Tzi Ma or somebody as Dr. Chen, Angry Asian Man added.
In Taiwan, The CNA news agency, reports on May 25 on the brewing brouhaha:
"Extraordinary Measures” tells the story of parents who formed a biotechnology company to develop a drug that could save the lives of their young children, who have the life-threatening rare Pompe disease. In the movie, based on the book “The Cure,” Harrison Ford plays research scientist Robert Stonehill, who was instrumental in finding the cure, and Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, the man who raised US$100 million to buck the medical establishment.
John Crowley really is the name of the person who started the biomedical company, but the real Dr. Stonehill who developed the cure is in fact Dr. Yuan-tsong Chen, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Chen was present Monday May 24, 2010 at a news conference held by the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders to mark the debut in Taiwan of the movie's DVD ...and .....he indicated he had mixed feelings watching the movie.
Chen said he began researching a cure for Pompe disease in 1991 after being saddened by the passing of many young lives from the affliction.
“Before I knew it, it had been 15 years,” he said.
“It also surprised me that Hollywood would have made a motion picture out of it, making it a second movie about rare diseases and patients, after Lorenzo's Oil,” he said.
Movie critic Roger Ebert suggested that Harrison Ford, as the film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself and ordered a rewrite because he could not play Chen very well.
Regardless of how Hollywood decided to recast Chen, his contribution to helping find the cure is well established.
He developed the treatment with colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center. His R&D was mostly done in the United States, but Chen conducted his clinical trials for the cure — later named Myozyme — in Taiwan, at National Taiwan University Hospital.
Myozyme, which took Chen and his team 15 years to research and develop, was introduced in Taiwan by U.S. pharmaceutical company Genzyme and included as a drug covered by Taiwan's national health insurance (NHI) program in 2005, the foundation said.
Myozyme was sold in Europe and the United States after it was approved by the U.S. FDA and the EU health authority in 2006. It has contributed to saving the lives of over 1,000 patients with Pompe disease, or acid maltase deficiency, worldwide each year, including 34 in Taiwan.
Young Pompe disease sufferers have symptoms similar to muscular dystrophy, the foundation said.
Without a cure, most children with Pompe disease would die before age 2. There is also a juvenile and adult form of the disease that can appear at almost any age, according to the foundation.
Currently, the Pompe disease patients in Taiwan are being given Myozyme and related medical care worth NT$7.9 million (US$245,577) per patient per year under the NHI program, greatly reducing their families' financial burden, the foundation said.
The foundation quoted tallies from the Cabinet-level Department of Health as indicating that there are nearly 6,000 families with rare disease patients in Taiwan, but over 70 percent of them do not have effective drugs or therapies that can help them, the foundation said.
.......Now, following the DVD release in Taiwan and the "mixed feelings" expressed by Dr Chen ...comes a public campaign by a lone American blogger in Taiwan to ask Ford to fess up to why he changed the movie and yellowwashed Dr Chen out of the entire picture, along with the other real-life scientists who were whitewashed out, too.
Danny Bloom, a 61 year old Internet campaigner for better Hollywood movies, writes this letter to the editor addressed to all the major newspapers in Taiwan today (late May 2010). He calls it an "open letter to Harrison Ford" and it goes like this:
Dear Harrison Ford,
As one of the great actors of the 20th century (and maybe the 21st
century as well), you are very much admired by film-goers in Taiwan
and all of Asia -- im fact, all over the world. However, in a movie
released earlier this year titled "Extraordinary Measures," based on
a book titled "The Cure," you inexplicably cast yourself as a medical practioner who comes up
with a cure for the rare Pompe disease. In the script and in the
movie, however, you changed the names and nationality of the real
people who
came up with the cure -- Dr Yuan-tsong Chen of Taiwan, among them -- into an eccentric yet lovable American research scientist named "Robert Stonehill."
By the way, Mr Ford. I saw the movie today on DVD and I loved it. The movie is great! It gets the word out about Pompe, so bravo!
However, Harrison Ford, you need to explain yourself. Sure, movies are movies,
and Hollywood is Hollywood. But to take the real-life medical work
of several scientists and a research team at Duke University and turn it into a medical thriller
that is not really "true" in terms of what really went down is what Hollywood is all about.
I am sure you had the best of intentions, and I am sure you are a nice
guy, and I am sure you respect Dr Chen ane the other players here for their real-life work that
made
your movie possible,
but do you have anything to say for yourself, now that you know that
some of the players have said they areambivalent about the movie you made of their lives? Dr Chen, among others,
recently
told the media in Taiwan that he had "mixed feelings" about seeing the
movie after its DVD release in Taiwan, although he did say he also loved the movie and felt it is an important and vital one and he is glad you made it.
I am sure the editors of this newspaper or blog will give you space on this
page to answer my letter to you -- in your own words.
Sincerely,
Danny Bloom
Taiwan
The movie is based on the true story chronicled in the book ''The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million and Bucked the Medical Establishment in a Quest to Save His Children'' wrtitten by Indian journalist by Geeta Anand now based in Mumbai. There is a real John Crowley who really did start a biomedical company to develop a cure for Pompe disease.
But the real guy who developed the cure was not a fictitious Hollywood-arc ''Dr. Robert Stonehill'', played by Ford in the January 2010 relased movie. The real guys were named Drs Canfield, Chen, Byrne and Landy, among others. And don't forget that female scientist at Duke University, too.
We learned this from Roger Ebert's movie review back in January:
"Dr. Robert Stonehill doesn't exist in real life. The Pompe cure was developed by Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen and his colleagues while he was at Duke University. He is now director of the Institute of Biomedical Science in Taiwan. Harrison Ford, as this film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself; a rewrite was necessary because he couldn't very well play Dr. Chen. The real Chen, a Taiwan University graduate, worked his way up at Duke from a residency to professor and chief of medical genetics at the Duke University Medical Center. He has been mentioned as a Nobel candidate."
Ebert also speculates that Dr. Chen and the others mentioned above might have been inspired a more interesting character than ''Dr. Stonehill''. But I suppose Harrison Ford, who also serves as the film's executive producer, isn't the first guy that comes to mind for the role of "Taiwanese Scientist." Thus, the rewrite. Ah, what could've been, said Angry Asian Man on his blog last year.
Despite the big name stars, the movie looks like a glorified made-for-Lifetime movie... where maybe it could've starred, um, Tzi Ma or somebody as Dr. Chen, Angry Asian Man added.
In Taiwan, The CNA news agency, reports on May 25 on the brewing brouhaha:
"Extraordinary Measures” tells the story of parents who formed a biotechnology company to develop a drug that could save the lives of their young children, who have the life-threatening rare Pompe disease. In the movie, based on the book “The Cure,” Harrison Ford plays research scientist Robert Stonehill, who was instrumental in finding the cure, and Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, the man who raised US$100 million to buck the medical establishment.
John Crowley really is the name of the person who started the biomedical company, but the real Dr. Stonehill who developed the cure is in fact Dr. Yuan-tsong Chen, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Chen was present Monday May 24, 2010 at a news conference held by the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders to mark the debut in Taiwan of the movie's DVD ...and .....he indicated he had mixed feelings watching the movie.
Chen said he began researching a cure for Pompe disease in 1991 after being saddened by the passing of many young lives from the affliction.
“Before I knew it, it had been 15 years,” he said.
“It also surprised me that Hollywood would have made a motion picture out of it, making it a second movie about rare diseases and patients, after Lorenzo's Oil,” he said.
Movie critic Roger Ebert suggested that Harrison Ford, as the film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself and ordered a rewrite because he could not play Chen very well.
Regardless of how Hollywood decided to recast Chen, his contribution to helping find the cure is well established.
He developed the treatment with colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center. His R&D was mostly done in the United States, but Chen conducted his clinical trials for the cure — later named Myozyme — in Taiwan, at National Taiwan University Hospital.
Myozyme, which took Chen and his team 15 years to research and develop, was introduced in Taiwan by U.S. pharmaceutical company Genzyme and included as a drug covered by Taiwan's national health insurance (NHI) program in 2005, the foundation said.
Myozyme was sold in Europe and the United States after it was approved by the U.S. FDA and the EU health authority in 2006. It has contributed to saving the lives of over 1,000 patients with Pompe disease, or acid maltase deficiency, worldwide each year, including 34 in Taiwan.
Young Pompe disease sufferers have symptoms similar to muscular dystrophy, the foundation said.
Without a cure, most children with Pompe disease would die before age 2. There is also a juvenile and adult form of the disease that can appear at almost any age, according to the foundation.
Currently, the Pompe disease patients in Taiwan are being given Myozyme and related medical care worth NT$7.9 million (US$245,577) per patient per year under the NHI program, greatly reducing their families' financial burden, the foundation said.
The foundation quoted tallies from the Cabinet-level Department of Health as indicating that there are nearly 6,000 families with rare disease patients in Taiwan, but over 70 percent of them do not have effective drugs or therapies that can help them, the foundation said.
.......Now, following the DVD release in Taiwan and the "mixed feelings" expressed by Dr Chen ...comes a public campaign by a lone American blogger in Taiwan to ask Ford to fess up to why he changed the movie and yellowwashed Dr Chen out of the entire picture, along with the other real-life scientists who were whitewashed out, too.
Danny Bloom, a 61 year old Internet campaigner for better Hollywood movies, writes this letter to the editor addressed to all the major newspapers in Taiwan today (late May 2010). He calls it an "open letter to Harrison Ford" and it goes like this:
Dear Harrison Ford,
As one of the great actors of the 20th century (and maybe the 21st
century as well), you are very much admired by film-goers in Taiwan
and all of Asia -- im fact, all over the world. However, in a movie
released earlier this year titled "Extraordinary Measures," based on
a book titled "The Cure," you inexplicably cast yourself as a medical practioner who comes up
with a cure for the rare Pompe disease. In the script and in the
movie, however, you changed the names and nationality of the real
people who
came up with the cure -- Dr Yuan-tsong Chen of Taiwan, among them -- into an eccentric yet lovable American research scientist named "Robert Stonehill."
By the way, Mr Ford. I saw the movie today on DVD and I loved it. The movie is great! It gets the word out about Pompe, so bravo!
However, Harrison Ford, you need to explain yourself. Sure, movies are movies,
and Hollywood is Hollywood. But to take the real-life medical work
of several scientists and a research team at Duke University and turn it into a medical thriller
that is not really "true" in terms of what really went down is what Hollywood is all about.
I am sure you had the best of intentions, and I am sure you are a nice
guy, and I am sure you respect Dr Chen ane the other players here for their real-life work that
made
your movie possible,
but do you have anything to say for yourself, now that you know that
some of the players have said they areambivalent about the movie you made of their lives? Dr Chen, among others,
recently
told the media in Taiwan that he had "mixed feelings" about seeing the
movie after its DVD release in Taiwan, although he did say he also loved the movie and felt it is an important and vital one and he is glad you made it.
I am sure the editors of this newspaper or blog will give you space on this
page to answer my letter to you -- in your own words.
Sincerely,
Danny Bloom
Taiwan
An Open Letter to Harrison Ford on his starring role in "Extraordinary Measures"
Academia Sinica researcher portrayed in motion picture
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The movie “Extraordinary Measures” tells the story of parents who formed a biotechnology company to develop a drug that could save the lives of their young children, who have the life-threatening rare Pompe disease. In the movie, based on the book “The Cure,” Harrison Ford plays research scientist Robert Stonehill, who was instrumental in finding the cure, and Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, the man who raised US$100 million to buck the medical establishment.
John Crowley really is the name of the person who started the biomedical company, but the real Dr. Stonehill who developed the cure is in fact Dr. Yuan-tsong Chen, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Chen was present Monday at a news conference held by the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders to mark the debut in Taiwan of the movie's DVD and indicated he had mixed feelings watching the movie.
Chen said he began researching a cure for Pompe disease in 1991 after being saddened by the passing of many young lives from the affliction.
“Before I knew it, it had been 15 years,” he said.
“It also surprised me that Hollywood would have made a motion picture out of it, making it a second movie about rare diseases and patients, after Lorenzo's Oil,” he said.
Movie critic Roger Ebert suggested that Harrison Ford, as the film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself and ordered a rewrite because he could not play Chen very well.
Regardless of how Hollywood decided to recast Chen, his contribution to helping find the cure is well established.
He developed the treatment with colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center. His R&D was mostly done in the United States, but Chen conducted his clinical trials for the cure — later named Myozyme — in Taiwan, at National Taiwan University Hospital.
Myozyme, which took Chen and his team 15 years to research and develop, was introduced in Taiwan by U.S. pharmaceutical company Genzyme and included as a drug covered by Taiwan's national health insurance (NHI) program in 2005, the foundation said.
Myozyme was sold in Europe and the United States after it was approved by the U.S. FDA and the EU health authority in 2006. It has contributed to saving the lives of over 1,000 patients with Pompe disease, or acid maltase deficiency, worldwide each year, including 34 in Taiwan.
Young Pompe disease sufferers have symptoms similar to muscular dystrophy, the foundation said.
Without a cure, most children with Pompe disease would die before age 2. There is also a juvenile and adult form of the disease that can appear at almost any age, according to the foundation.
Currently, the Pompe disease patients in Taiwan are being given Myozyme and related medical care worth NT$7.9 million (US$245,577) per patient per year under the NHI program, greatly reducing their families' financial burden, the foundation said.
The foundation quoted tallies from the Cabinet-level Department of Health as indicating that there are nearly 6,000 families with rare disease patients in Taiwan, but over 70 percent of them do not have effective drugs or therapies that can help them, the foundation said.
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The movie “Extraordinary Measures” tells the story of parents who formed a biotechnology company to develop a drug that could save the lives of their young children, who have the life-threatening rare Pompe disease. In the movie, based on the book “The Cure,” Harrison Ford plays research scientist Robert Stonehill, who was instrumental in finding the cure, and Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, the man who raised US$100 million to buck the medical establishment.
John Crowley really is the name of the person who started the biomedical company, but the real Dr. Stonehill who developed the cure is in fact Dr. Yuan-tsong Chen, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Chen was present Monday at a news conference held by the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders to mark the debut in Taiwan of the movie's DVD and indicated he had mixed feelings watching the movie.
Chen said he began researching a cure for Pompe disease in 1991 after being saddened by the passing of many young lives from the affliction.
“Before I knew it, it had been 15 years,” he said.
“It also surprised me that Hollywood would have made a motion picture out of it, making it a second movie about rare diseases and patients, after Lorenzo's Oil,” he said.
Movie critic Roger Ebert suggested that Harrison Ford, as the film's executive producer, perhaps saw Stonehill as a plum role for himself and ordered a rewrite because he could not play Chen very well.
Regardless of how Hollywood decided to recast Chen, his contribution to helping find the cure is well established.
He developed the treatment with colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center. His R&D was mostly done in the United States, but Chen conducted his clinical trials for the cure — later named Myozyme — in Taiwan, at National Taiwan University Hospital.
Myozyme, which took Chen and his team 15 years to research and develop, was introduced in Taiwan by U.S. pharmaceutical company Genzyme and included as a drug covered by Taiwan's national health insurance (NHI) program in 2005, the foundation said.
Myozyme was sold in Europe and the United States after it was approved by the U.S. FDA and the EU health authority in 2006. It has contributed to saving the lives of over 1,000 patients with Pompe disease, or acid maltase deficiency, worldwide each year, including 34 in Taiwan.
Young Pompe disease sufferers have symptoms similar to muscular dystrophy, the foundation said.
Without a cure, most children with Pompe disease would die before age 2. There is also a juvenile and adult form of the disease that can appear at almost any age, according to the foundation.
Currently, the Pompe disease patients in Taiwan are being given Myozyme and related medical care worth NT$7.9 million (US$245,577) per patient per year under the NHI program, greatly reducing their families' financial burden, the foundation said.
The foundation quoted tallies from the Cabinet-level Department of Health as indicating that there are nearly 6,000 families with rare disease patients in Taiwan, but over 70 percent of them do not have effective drugs or therapies that can help them, the foundation said.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thailand's Cannes Movie Winner Steeped in Spiritualism
Maggie Lee reporter for Reuters via the Hollywood Reporter:
CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) -
Like most of his feature films, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is set in Isan province, where he grew up. It playfully invokes both the lifestyle and animistic beliefs of the Northeast country folk, and the primitive magic of early Thai cinema, relating both of these to his musings on reincarnation.
Since commercial returns or widespread support have never been factored into Weerasethakul's career, its surprise win of the Palme d'Or Sunday will seal its favorable future in festivals and specialist releases.
Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) who is afflicted with acute kidney failure, returns to his country estate in Isan to spend his last days under the care of his devoted yet no-nonsense sister-in-law Jen (Jenjiro Pongpas), nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) and Jaai, a Burmese worker.
One evening, while the family is relaxing on their terrace, the apparition of Boonmee's dead wife Huay (Nattakarn Aphaiwonk) appears, followed by long-lost son Boonsong. Boonsong, who looks like a Yeti with red laser beam eyes, recounts how his interest in photography led him deep into the jungle in search of Monkey Ghosts, until he himself is transformed into one.
The matter-of-fact way in which the humans interact with dead or otherworldly beings make for some deadpan humor: upon seeing Thuy in halogenic form and Boonsong in a rubbery gorilla suit, Tong remarks, "I feel like the strange one here." There is also eerie poignancy in the way spiritual beings hover around Boonmee as they sense his impending transition to another world.
The film was inspired by a book by a Buddhist abbot recording accounts of people who remembered their past lives. Although Boonmee attributes his illness to the karma of his having killed too many "Commies" and rid his farm of bugs, Weerasethakul does not broach the subject in terms of causality or retribution, nor does he tie Boonmee's past lives to any tangible persona or timeline. The cave which becomes his resting place is also where his first life began. The crucial point he recalls is that at his genesis, he was "neither human nor animal, neither man nor woman."
This makes the structure free-floating and esoteric, incorporating myth (underwater sex between a facially-tainted princess and a catfish), politics (photographs of soldiers hinting at military-related human disappearances) and parallel worlds (Tong and Jen in different places at the same time).
This view of reincarnation as all beings coexisting in one non-linear universal consciousness is also central to Apitchatpong's conception of cinema as the medium with the power to replay past lives and connect the human world to animal or spiritual ones. That may be why he shot the last scenes involving parallel worlds in 16mm, as homage to the format of film in his childhood memory. His casting of actors or roles (like a monk, a Burmese worker) from previous films in also a kind of reincarnation of the director's cinematic past lives.
The director's film language has always been experimental, intuitive and personal to the point of mystical (or mystifying to a mainstream non-Thai audience). By comparison, "Uncle Boonmee" employs less difficult cinema vocabulary, staying away from any avant garde filming technique and allowing one to tune into its sleepy, meditative frequency. The natural locations (especially the cave glittering in the dark) exude cosmic energy, while sound extracted from wildlife plays as significant a role as an animate being.
CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) -
Like most of his feature films, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is set in Isan province, where he grew up. It playfully invokes both the lifestyle and animistic beliefs of the Northeast country folk, and the primitive magic of early Thai cinema, relating both of these to his musings on reincarnation.
Since commercial returns or widespread support have never been factored into Weerasethakul's career, its surprise win of the Palme d'Or Sunday will seal its favorable future in festivals and specialist releases.
Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) who is afflicted with acute kidney failure, returns to his country estate in Isan to spend his last days under the care of his devoted yet no-nonsense sister-in-law Jen (Jenjiro Pongpas), nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) and Jaai, a Burmese worker.
One evening, while the family is relaxing on their terrace, the apparition of Boonmee's dead wife Huay (Nattakarn Aphaiwonk) appears, followed by long-lost son Boonsong. Boonsong, who looks like a Yeti with red laser beam eyes, recounts how his interest in photography led him deep into the jungle in search of Monkey Ghosts, until he himself is transformed into one.
The matter-of-fact way in which the humans interact with dead or otherworldly beings make for some deadpan humor: upon seeing Thuy in halogenic form and Boonsong in a rubbery gorilla suit, Tong remarks, "I feel like the strange one here." There is also eerie poignancy in the way spiritual beings hover around Boonmee as they sense his impending transition to another world.
The film was inspired by a book by a Buddhist abbot recording accounts of people who remembered their past lives. Although Boonmee attributes his illness to the karma of his having killed too many "Commies" and rid his farm of bugs, Weerasethakul does not broach the subject in terms of causality or retribution, nor does he tie Boonmee's past lives to any tangible persona or timeline. The cave which becomes his resting place is also where his first life began. The crucial point he recalls is that at his genesis, he was "neither human nor animal, neither man nor woman."
This makes the structure free-floating and esoteric, incorporating myth (underwater sex between a facially-tainted princess and a catfish), politics (photographs of soldiers hinting at military-related human disappearances) and parallel worlds (Tong and Jen in different places at the same time).
This view of reincarnation as all beings coexisting in one non-linear universal consciousness is also central to Apitchatpong's conception of cinema as the medium with the power to replay past lives and connect the human world to animal or spiritual ones. That may be why he shot the last scenes involving parallel worlds in 16mm, as homage to the format of film in his childhood memory. His casting of actors or roles (like a monk, a Burmese worker) from previous films in also a kind of reincarnation of the director's cinematic past lives.
The director's film language has always been experimental, intuitive and personal to the point of mystical (or mystifying to a mainstream non-Thai audience). By comparison, "Uncle Boonmee" employs less difficult cinema vocabulary, staying away from any avant garde filming technique and allowing one to tune into its sleepy, meditative frequency. The natural locations (especially the cave glittering in the dark) exude cosmic energy, while sound extracted from wildlife plays as significant a role as an animate being.
Saving Towns by Filling Rooms in Italy. GISELA WILLIAMS fills us in.....
ONE spring afternoon in the early 1980s Giancarlo Dall’Ara, an Italian hotel marketing consultant, was wandering the streets of a tiny village near Maranzanis, in Friuli, a rural mountainous region in the northeast corner of Italy.
There was an eerie, dreamlike feeling to the remote town. Many of its two dozen or so houses had been destroyed by a devastating earthquake that shook the region in 1976. Although a few elderly residents had remained, many of the homes were boarded up and abandoned.
Mr. Dall’Ara was in Friuli on behalf of the region, barnstorming ways to bring the local villages back to life through tourism, but the area around Maranzanis was an unlikely spot for a hotel. Though he believed that the area and its wild landscape had some potential, he left somewhat discouraged by its poverty and general sense of emptiness. Yet a seed was planted.
This tiny town is just one of hundreds of historic villages in Italy in disrepair. Many of them have been abandoned by the younger generation moving to the cities to start careers or to live a more modern lifestyle. And while wealthy Italians and expatriates are willing to finance the renovation and revival of hamlets in Tuscany, many semi-abandoned towns are in less traveled regions like Friuli and Abruzzo.
Mr. Dall’Ara was convinced that there must be an organized and sustainable way to save some of these places through tourism. Over several years, the simple but ingenious concept of the albergo diffuso was born.
Albergo diffuso translates literally as “scattered hotel.” The principle is that rooms, decorated in a consistently authentic and local style, are scattered throughout different buildings within the town but overseen by one manager. A traditional breakfast might be served at a local cafe or in the kitchen of one of the local houses, or delivered to your room. Call it a B & B village.
Like a holiday apartment, an albergo diffuso allows travelers to imbed themselves in village life, but the bonus is that it offers the basic services of a hotel. There is a reception or central area to report to — sometimes a cafe, other times a shop — where a manager is available to help with questions, recommendations or bookings.
The week in 2008 that Barbara Saks, an Australian, stayed at Trullidea (39-080-432-3860; trullidea.it), a Puglian albergo diffuso made up of traditional white limestone dwellings with conical roofs, where rates start at 66 euros, or $82.50 at $1.25 to the euro, was a revelation. “The concept of the albergo diffuso is ideal for independent travelers like us where we can do our own thing but if we need advice we can ask at the office,” Ms. Saks wrote in an e-mail message. “We loved living next door to locals with their dogs and their washing lines. Scenes from life!”
And alberghi diffusi don’t just provide travelers a door into a traditional way of life, but are also healthy for the host villages. “Reconverting an existing room into a hotel room is far more sustainable than building a new hotel,” Hitesh Mehta, an eco-resort consultant and author of a forthcoming book, “Authentic Ecolodges,” wrote in an e-mail message.
Mr. Dall’Ara, now the president of the National Association of Alberghi Diffusi, added that the projects also act as a “driver of development” in their villages, because the managers are encouraged to source all the products used in the village from local producers. And “if a local marmalade producer doesn’t exist, the owner needs to organize one.”
There are now more than 40 official alberghi diffusi in Italy and over 100 more in the works, according to Mr. Dall’Ara. He added that the concept has started to pop up in other countries as well, a trend that he expects will continue. “It’s a very good idea for countries like Spain or Croatia that also have empty rooms in historic areas, that need engines for development without impact,” he said.
The historic city of Porec, in the Istrian region of Croatia, is currently working on creating an albergo diffuso And the 14th-century Alpine village of Mase (population 220) in Switzerland has opened a test house — a charming wooden chalet called Au Bois de Lune (41-27-281-20-22; mase.ch), with rates for two from about 500 euros a week. Regional organizers hope to add seven more rooms and houses in the town.
“We strongly believe that this is what the new traveler wants: contact with the local population and the authentic experience of living within this community,” said Eric Balet, the mayor of Mase. He added that keeping the village alive was important for the residents too. “We have to preserve those traces of the past so that the new generation understands where they come from.”
One of the alberghi diffusi that is up and running can be found in the poetically aged hilltop town of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, in the Italian region of Abruzzo. In 1999, when the Italian entrepreneur Daniele Kihlgren visited, only about 120 residents remained. Some of the houses — all made from stone — had collapsed, and others had no roofs, but Mr. Kihlgren realized that the fortified medieval hamlet could be a dramatic spot for an albergo diffuso.
Mr. Kihlgren wasn’t driven solely to protect the town’s buildings — the fastidious renovation took about five years and several million euros. He believed that creating an albergo diffuso, which he called Sextantio (39-0862-89-9112; sextantio.it; 220 euros for two), could help preserve local traditions.
“Some of the mountain villages in Abruzzo are so remote that some of the old ways are still preserved,” he said. “Television only came to some of these places in the ’60s. Until World War II many people here only spoke a local dialect.” That sense of isolation and tradition could be a draw for the project. “The people who remain here are the last generation to still use traditional cooking and building methods,” he continued. “They remember the old folk stories and songs.”
Nicholas Turner, a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, spent a night at Sextantio with his family in early August of last year. What he most appreciated about the project, he said, was that it “so effectively honors and makes use of all that the environment and history has to offer — renovating existing structures, serving local cuisine, using products of the region, and employing residents.”
On a cool spring morning a year after Sextantio opened, Emanuela Di Felice, the albergo’s housekeeper and cook, prepared coffee while her son, Giovanni Pacifico, spoke about growing up in Abruzzo. “Only 50 years ago when a child died of sickness, people here believed it to be caused by a witch,” he said. “That’s why there are so many arches in Santo Stefano. A mother would take their baby under the seven arches and dance around a fire as a way to protect their child.”
Mrs. Di Felice, a youthful grandmother, doesn’t speak more than a few words of English, but she makes superb venison ragù and her breakfasts are legendary: a spread of homemade bread, jams and local cakes laid out on hand-crocheted lace place mats on a well-worn wood table. And though rooms at Sextantio feature Philippe Starck-designed sinks and modern beds, there’s usually a fire going in the old stone hearth of the small breakfast room whose ceiling is black from centuries of cooking fires.
“Sometimes the stone is talking,” said Antonella Guido, the owner of Trullidea in Puglia. “Just imagine how many people have walked inside these rooms before you.”
There was an eerie, dreamlike feeling to the remote town. Many of its two dozen or so houses had been destroyed by a devastating earthquake that shook the region in 1976. Although a few elderly residents had remained, many of the homes were boarded up and abandoned.
Mr. Dall’Ara was in Friuli on behalf of the region, barnstorming ways to bring the local villages back to life through tourism, but the area around Maranzanis was an unlikely spot for a hotel. Though he believed that the area and its wild landscape had some potential, he left somewhat discouraged by its poverty and general sense of emptiness. Yet a seed was planted.
This tiny town is just one of hundreds of historic villages in Italy in disrepair. Many of them have been abandoned by the younger generation moving to the cities to start careers or to live a more modern lifestyle. And while wealthy Italians and expatriates are willing to finance the renovation and revival of hamlets in Tuscany, many semi-abandoned towns are in less traveled regions like Friuli and Abruzzo.
Mr. Dall’Ara was convinced that there must be an organized and sustainable way to save some of these places through tourism. Over several years, the simple but ingenious concept of the albergo diffuso was born.
Albergo diffuso translates literally as “scattered hotel.” The principle is that rooms, decorated in a consistently authentic and local style, are scattered throughout different buildings within the town but overseen by one manager. A traditional breakfast might be served at a local cafe or in the kitchen of one of the local houses, or delivered to your room. Call it a B & B village.
Like a holiday apartment, an albergo diffuso allows travelers to imbed themselves in village life, but the bonus is that it offers the basic services of a hotel. There is a reception or central area to report to — sometimes a cafe, other times a shop — where a manager is available to help with questions, recommendations or bookings.
The week in 2008 that Barbara Saks, an Australian, stayed at Trullidea (39-080-432-3860; trullidea.it), a Puglian albergo diffuso made up of traditional white limestone dwellings with conical roofs, where rates start at 66 euros, or $82.50 at $1.25 to the euro, was a revelation. “The concept of the albergo diffuso is ideal for independent travelers like us where we can do our own thing but if we need advice we can ask at the office,” Ms. Saks wrote in an e-mail message. “We loved living next door to locals with their dogs and their washing lines. Scenes from life!”
And alberghi diffusi don’t just provide travelers a door into a traditional way of life, but are also healthy for the host villages. “Reconverting an existing room into a hotel room is far more sustainable than building a new hotel,” Hitesh Mehta, an eco-resort consultant and author of a forthcoming book, “Authentic Ecolodges,” wrote in an e-mail message.
Mr. Dall’Ara, now the president of the National Association of Alberghi Diffusi, added that the projects also act as a “driver of development” in their villages, because the managers are encouraged to source all the products used in the village from local producers. And “if a local marmalade producer doesn’t exist, the owner needs to organize one.”
There are now more than 40 official alberghi diffusi in Italy and over 100 more in the works, according to Mr. Dall’Ara. He added that the concept has started to pop up in other countries as well, a trend that he expects will continue. “It’s a very good idea for countries like Spain or Croatia that also have empty rooms in historic areas, that need engines for development without impact,” he said.
The historic city of Porec, in the Istrian region of Croatia, is currently working on creating an albergo diffuso And the 14th-century Alpine village of Mase (population 220) in Switzerland has opened a test house — a charming wooden chalet called Au Bois de Lune (41-27-281-20-22; mase.ch), with rates for two from about 500 euros a week. Regional organizers hope to add seven more rooms and houses in the town.
“We strongly believe that this is what the new traveler wants: contact with the local population and the authentic experience of living within this community,” said Eric Balet, the mayor of Mase. He added that keeping the village alive was important for the residents too. “We have to preserve those traces of the past so that the new generation understands where they come from.”
One of the alberghi diffusi that is up and running can be found in the poetically aged hilltop town of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, in the Italian region of Abruzzo. In 1999, when the Italian entrepreneur Daniele Kihlgren visited, only about 120 residents remained. Some of the houses — all made from stone — had collapsed, and others had no roofs, but Mr. Kihlgren realized that the fortified medieval hamlet could be a dramatic spot for an albergo diffuso.
Mr. Kihlgren wasn’t driven solely to protect the town’s buildings — the fastidious renovation took about five years and several million euros. He believed that creating an albergo diffuso, which he called Sextantio (39-0862-89-9112; sextantio.it; 220 euros for two), could help preserve local traditions.
“Some of the mountain villages in Abruzzo are so remote that some of the old ways are still preserved,” he said. “Television only came to some of these places in the ’60s. Until World War II many people here only spoke a local dialect.” That sense of isolation and tradition could be a draw for the project. “The people who remain here are the last generation to still use traditional cooking and building methods,” he continued. “They remember the old folk stories and songs.”
Nicholas Turner, a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, spent a night at Sextantio with his family in early August of last year. What he most appreciated about the project, he said, was that it “so effectively honors and makes use of all that the environment and history has to offer — renovating existing structures, serving local cuisine, using products of the region, and employing residents.”
On a cool spring morning a year after Sextantio opened, Emanuela Di Felice, the albergo’s housekeeper and cook, prepared coffee while her son, Giovanni Pacifico, spoke about growing up in Abruzzo. “Only 50 years ago when a child died of sickness, people here believed it to be caused by a witch,” he said. “That’s why there are so many arches in Santo Stefano. A mother would take their baby under the seven arches and dance around a fire as a way to protect their child.”
Mrs. Di Felice, a youthful grandmother, doesn’t speak more than a few words of English, but she makes superb venison ragù and her breakfasts are legendary: a spread of homemade bread, jams and local cakes laid out on hand-crocheted lace place mats on a well-worn wood table. And though rooms at Sextantio feature Philippe Starck-designed sinks and modern beds, there’s usually a fire going in the old stone hearth of the small breakfast room whose ceiling is black from centuries of cooking fires.
“Sometimes the stone is talking,” said Antonella Guido, the owner of Trullidea in Puglia. “Just imagine how many people have walked inside these rooms before you.”
Naomi Lindt, travel writer extraordinaire, on Hmong men wearing berets in northern Vietnam (photo)
http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel/authors/naomi_lindt/
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Charity does not change the system
By Cheng Ya-wen
AND
Mayeesha Yu-hwei Tseng
鄭雅文，曾育慧
Over the last few weeks we have seen people in Taiwan, from the president down to the person on the street, fall over themselves praising Chen Shu-chu (陳樹菊) after Time magazine placed her on their 2010 Most Influential list under the “Heroes” category for philanthropy. Her picture has been splashed all over local newspapers. There’s no denying that the selfless contribution this unassuming woman has made to her family, neighborhood and the wider society is very moving.
The attention given her, however, brings up several points that might be worth considering for what they tell us about Taiwanese society.
The first question we might ask is how the winners of this award were actually chosen. How did the international media get wind of the philanthropy of this Taiwanese woman? This is not to say that she is undeserving of the accolade given to her. A simple Internet search will tell you that she was originally recommended to Forbes magazine, after which the editors decided to include her in their list of the 48 top philanthropists for Asia. Time then named her as one of the top 100 most influential people of the year.
Forbes is known for its annual rich list and its readership is composed primarily of people involved in finance. The magazine is most at home with moneymaking and obsesses over wealth, status, power and prestige. Given that, what it is about Chen they found so interesting? After all, the rich list is, surely, exclusively focused on money.
The rich and powerful just love to praise charitable actions, but balk at those who question the current distribution of wealth and challenge unfair social power structures, not to mention people who try to bring about social reforms.
For example, look at poverty-stricken Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus received international acclaim and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in economic and social development from below, but hardly anyone knows about public health activist Zafrullah Chowdhury, who has been involved in public health reforms in that same country.
Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank and has been instrumental in providing poor women with microcredit so they can improve their circumstances. As a banker, he is notable for his compassion and social responsibility, but he has never actually challenged the power structures that created the poverty in the first place. Also, by encouraging people to create personal wealth, he is subscribing to the Western mainstream capitalist paradigm, which goes some way to explaining why he has become the darling of international development policy.
By comparison, Chowdhury has worked hard to make inexpensive medicine universally available. He has done much to improve the national drug policy, but people with vested interests have constantly obstructed him to the point that an attempt was even made on his life. The international (that is, Western) media have also more or less turned a blind eye to his work.
In many societies, vested interests are quite happy to heap accolades on charity work done at the individual level, but have a habit of ignoring, or even blatantly obstructing, anyone who actively tries to change existing unfair and oppressive power structures.
We would like to applaud Chen for her work At the same time, however, it is important to keep a perspective on what is happening in our society.
We should be asking whether there are deeper issues such as the current allocation of education resources when schools cannot afford to build libraries; whether we need to take another look at our social welfare and education systems when some school children rely on charitable donations to pay for their tuition fees; and whether there is something wrong with our health insurance system when there are people out there who rely on handouts to keep up with their health insurance payments.
What we would like to see is a social system that promotes mutual cooperation, instead of relying on more philanthropists.
Cheng Ya-wen is an associate professor at the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. Mayeesha Yu-hwei Tseng is a doctoral student at the institute.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
This story has been viewed 123,592 times.
AND
Mayeesha Yu-hwei Tseng
鄭雅文，曾育慧
Over the last few weeks we have seen people in Taiwan, from the president down to the person on the street, fall over themselves praising Chen Shu-chu (陳樹菊) after Time magazine placed her on their 2010 Most Influential list under the “Heroes” category for philanthropy. Her picture has been splashed all over local newspapers. There’s no denying that the selfless contribution this unassuming woman has made to her family, neighborhood and the wider society is very moving.
The attention given her, however, brings up several points that might be worth considering for what they tell us about Taiwanese society.
The first question we might ask is how the winners of this award were actually chosen. How did the international media get wind of the philanthropy of this Taiwanese woman? This is not to say that she is undeserving of the accolade given to her. A simple Internet search will tell you that she was originally recommended to Forbes magazine, after which the editors decided to include her in their list of the 48 top philanthropists for Asia. Time then named her as one of the top 100 most influential people of the year.
Forbes is known for its annual rich list and its readership is composed primarily of people involved in finance. The magazine is most at home with moneymaking and obsesses over wealth, status, power and prestige. Given that, what it is about Chen they found so interesting? After all, the rich list is, surely, exclusively focused on money.
The rich and powerful just love to praise charitable actions, but balk at those who question the current distribution of wealth and challenge unfair social power structures, not to mention people who try to bring about social reforms.
For example, look at poverty-stricken Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus received international acclaim and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in economic and social development from below, but hardly anyone knows about public health activist Zafrullah Chowdhury, who has been involved in public health reforms in that same country.
Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank and has been instrumental in providing poor women with microcredit so they can improve their circumstances. As a banker, he is notable for his compassion and social responsibility, but he has never actually challenged the power structures that created the poverty in the first place. Also, by encouraging people to create personal wealth, he is subscribing to the Western mainstream capitalist paradigm, which goes some way to explaining why he has become the darling of international development policy.
By comparison, Chowdhury has worked hard to make inexpensive medicine universally available. He has done much to improve the national drug policy, but people with vested interests have constantly obstructed him to the point that an attempt was even made on his life. The international (that is, Western) media have also more or less turned a blind eye to his work.
In many societies, vested interests are quite happy to heap accolades on charity work done at the individual level, but have a habit of ignoring, or even blatantly obstructing, anyone who actively tries to change existing unfair and oppressive power structures.
We would like to applaud Chen for her work At the same time, however, it is important to keep a perspective on what is happening in our society.
We should be asking whether there are deeper issues such as the current allocation of education resources when schools cannot afford to build libraries; whether we need to take another look at our social welfare and education systems when some school children rely on charitable donations to pay for their tuition fees; and whether there is something wrong with our health insurance system when there are people out there who rely on handouts to keep up with their health insurance payments.
What we would like to see is a social system that promotes mutual cooperation, instead of relying on more philanthropists.
Cheng Ya-wen is an associate professor at the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. Mayeesha Yu-hwei Tseng is a doctoral student at the institute.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
This story has been viewed 123,592 times.
Vietnam, US still in conflict over Agent Orange -- a shame of USA for this bullshit!
BEN STOCKING - [bstocking@ap.org] -- An American reporter writing for the Associated Press out of CAM TUYEN, Vietnam, notes:
Her children are 21 and 16 years old, but they still cry through the night, tossing and turning in pain, sucking their thumbs for comfort.
Tran Thi Gai, who rarely gets any sleep herself, sings them a mournful lullaby. "Can you feel my love for you? Can you feel my sorrow for you? Please don't cry."
Mrs Tran's children - both with twisted limbs and confined to wheelchairs - were born in a village that was drenched with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. She believes their health problems were caused by dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in the herbicide, which U.S. troops used to strip communist forces of ground cover and food.
TRY TO ENVISION THIS! AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Nguyen Thi Tai looks out of a window from her bed in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Tai and her sister were both born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.
[AND THIS! AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Tran Thi Gai, 45, comforts her daughter Nguyen Thi Tai, 21, right, and Nguyen Thi Thuyet in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The two young women were born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
[AND THIS!
AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 4, 2009, Vietnamese siblings, from left, Tran van Hoang, Tran Van Lam, Tran Van Luan and Tran Thi Luy, sit on the front porch of their family home in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The siblings were born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
[AND THIS!
AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Tran Van Luan, right, watches a TV while his sister, Tran Thi Luy, sits on her bed inside their family home in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The siblings where born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials, say were caused by his parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
35 years after the end of the Vietnam War, its most contentious remaining legacy is Agent Orange. 82 percent of Vietnamese surveyed in a recent Associated Press-GfK Poll said the United States should be doing more to help people suffering from illnesses associated with the herbicide, including children born with birth defects.
After USA President George W. Bush pledged to work on the issue on a Hanoi visit in 2006, the U.S. Congress has approved $9 million mostly to address environmental cleanup of Agent Orange. But while the U.S. has provided assistance to Vietnamese with disabilities - regardless of their cause - it maintains that there is no clear link between Agent Orange and health problems.
Vietnamese officials say the U.S. needs to make a much bigger financial commitment - $6 million has been allocated so far - to adequately address the environmental and health problems unleashed by Agent Orange.
"Six million dollars is nothing compared to the consequences left behind by Agent Orange," said Le Ke Son, deputy general administrator of Vietnam's Environmental Administration. "How much does one Tomahawk missile cost?"
---
Tran Van Tram and Tran Thi Dan are desperate for help. Their four grown children crawl around the family home on all fours, rumps in the air. They have trouble standing up straight and can take no more than a few steps at a time with a walker.
Each of his children appeared healthy at birth, said Tram, 61. But after a year or so, they could not roll over. They never learned to talk.
Tram remembers watching U.S. planes dump Agent Orange several times daily over his village in Quang Tri Province, near the former demilitarized zone that once divided North Vietnam and South Vietnam. He used to fish in nearby lakes and streams every day.
Now he and his aging wife spend virtually all their time caring for the children.
They shower the children outdoors, an ordeal for all concerned. Hoang, 26, sat on the patio recently after his father hosed him down, and waited for his mother to pull his pants on. His spine is bent and he has a large lump on his back.
"I have no time for myself," said Dan, 59. "Even when I die, I will have no peace. I will always be worried about my children. Who will take care of them when we are gone?"
Dan says she can't believe it's a coincidence that many of her neighbors started having children with birth defects after the war ended.
"It's not just my family," she said. "Many families here are suffering the same problems. I'd like to see the United States government do more to help ease the pain of the war."
Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed roughly 11 million gallons of Agent Orange across large swaths of southern Vietnam. Dioxin stays in soil and the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.
Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses caused by it - including the children of people who were exposed during the war.
The U.S. government says the actual number of people affected is much lower and that Vietnamese are too quick to blame Agent Orange for birth defects that can be caused by malnutrition or other environmental factors.
"Scientists around the world have done a lot of research on dioxin and its possible health effects," said Michael Michalak, the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi. "There is disagreement as to what's real and what isn't, about what the possible connections are."
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oizDVAMj
That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
The U.S. Veterans Administration covers the medical treatment of American servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange and subsequently developed one of 17 illnesses associated with dioxin. Children of exposed servicemen who were born with spina bifida also receive a medical benefit.
"American and Vietnamese Agent Orange victims haven't been treated the same way, and it's not fair," said Tran Xuan Thu, secretary general of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, whose suit against the U.S. manufacturers of Agent Orange in 2005 was rejected by a U.S. court. "It's not in keeping with the humanitarian traditions of the United States. I hope the American people will raise their voices and ask their government and the chemical companies to take responsibility."
U.S. officials point out that an "association" has been established between Agent Orange and the illnesses on the list, but that the scientific evidence has not been high enough to establish a causal relationship.
"We don't know if there's any linkage or not, but we believe in trying to do our best to take care of our veterans," Michalak said. "If Vietnam wants to take care of its veterans, then we think that is a very worthy cause."
---
The U.S. spends just a small sliver of its budget in Vietnam on Agent Orange. Last year, it allocated more than $80 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, where the epidemic is relatively mild, but just $3 million for Agent Orange work.
A coalition of non-profit groups led by the Ford Foundation, which has been trying to draw attention to the herbicide's toxic legacy, spent more than the U.S. government.
Tests conducted by Hatfield Associates, a Canadian environmental firm, have shown that dioxin is within safe levels across most of Vietnam. But it is well beyond acceptable levels at a number of "hotspots" where U.S. soldiers used to mix, store and load Agent Orange onto planes.
According to one estimate, cleaning up the three biggest hotspots - at former airbases in Danang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa - could cost as much as $40 million.
Since 2006, at the request of the Vietnamese government, the United States has been focusing its Agent Orange work on Danang. Tests taken by Hatfield found extremely high levels of dioxin - up to 400 times accepted international limits - in soil samples taken near the site and in the blood of a few dozen people who lived near a contaminated lake on the old airbase, where they often went fishing.
Working with Vietnamese officials, the U.S. government has sealed off the site to prevent further leakage of dioxin. They are now seeking ways to decontaminate the site, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.
More than two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated so far has been devoted to cleaning up the Danang hotspot, with just $2 million set aside for health programs to serve disabled people in the area.
Since 1989, Michalak said, the United States has spent $46 million to help Vietnamese with disabilities, but it does not keep track of how many of the beneficiaries have illnesses associated with Agent Orange.
"We just think it's the humanitarian thing to do, it's the right thing, and it helps to improve relations between the two countries," Michalak said.
---
The current U.S.-Vietnam efforts to enhance cooperation on the issue stand in marked contrast to their disagreements seven years ago, when the two sides attempted to conduct a study of birth defects in children whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange.
The study fell apart amid bickering and finger-pointing. When the Vietnamese and American scientists failed to agree on how to design the $1 million project, the U.S. National Institute on Environmental and Health Sciences withdrew funding.
A leaked U.S. embassy memo written in 2003 captures the bitterness and suspicion that divided the two sides.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653_p2/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oiz2pNqB
That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
The U.S. Veterans Administration covers the medical treatment of American servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange and subsequently developed one of 17 illnesses associated with dioxin. Children of exposed servicemen who were born with spina bifida also receive a medical benefit.
"American and Vietnamese Agent Orange victims haven't been treated the same way, and it's not fair," said Tran Xuan Thu, secretary general of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, whose suit against the U.S. manufacturers of Agent Orange in 2005 was rejected by a U.S. court. "It's not in keeping with the humanitarian traditions of the United States. I hope the American people will raise their voices and ask their government and the chemical companies to take responsibility."
U.S. officials point out that an "association" has been established between Agent Orange and the illnesses on the list, but that the scientific evidence has not been high enough to establish a causal relationship.
"We don't know if there's any linkage or not, but we believe in trying to do our best to take care of our veterans," Michalak said. "If Vietnam wants to take care of its veterans, then we think that is a very worthy cause."
---
The U.S. spends just a small sliver of its budget in Vietnam on Agent Orange. Last year, it allocated more than $80 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, where the epidemic is relatively mild, but just $3 million for Agent Orange work.
A coalition of non-profit groups led by the Ford Foundation, which has been trying to draw attention to the herbicide's toxic legacy, spent more than the U.S. government.
Tests conducted by Hatfield Associates, a Canadian environmental firm, have shown that dioxin is within safe levels across most of Vietnam. But it is well beyond acceptable levels at a number of "hotspots" where U.S. soldiers used to mix, store and load Agent Orange onto planes.
According to one estimate, cleaning up the three biggest hotspots - at former airbases in Danang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa - could cost as much as $40 million.
Since 2006, at the request of the Vietnamese government, the United States has been focusing its Agent Orange work on Danang. Tests taken by Hatfield found extremely high levels of dioxin - up to 400 times accepted international limits - in soil samples taken near the site and in the blood of a few dozen people who lived near a contaminated lake on the old airbase, where they often went fishing.
Working with Vietnamese officials, the U.S. government has sealed off the site to prevent further leakage of dioxin. They are now seeking ways to decontaminate the site, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.
More than two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated so far has been devoted to cleaning up the Danang hotspot, with just $2 million set aside for health programs to serve disabled people in the area.
Since 1989, Michalak said, the United States has spent $46 million to help Vietnamese with disabilities, but it does not keep track of how many of the beneficiaries have illnesses associated with Agent Orange.
"We just think it's the humanitarian thing to do, it's the right thing, and it helps to improve relations between the two countries," Michalak said.
---
The current U.S.-Vietnam efforts to enhance cooperation on the issue stand in marked contrast to their disagreements seven years ago, when the two sides attempted to conduct a study of birth defects in children whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange.
The study fell apart amid bickering and finger-pointing. When the Vietnamese and American scientists failed to agree on how to design the $1 million project, the U.S. National Institute on Environmental and Health Sciences withdrew funding.
A leaked U.S. embassy memo written in 2003 captures the bitterness and suspicion that divided the two sides.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653_p2/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oiz2pNqB
Her children are 21 and 16 years old, but they still cry through the night, tossing and turning in pain, sucking their thumbs for comfort.
Tran Thi Gai, who rarely gets any sleep herself, sings them a mournful lullaby. "Can you feel my love for you? Can you feel my sorrow for you? Please don't cry."
Mrs Tran's children - both with twisted limbs and confined to wheelchairs - were born in a village that was drenched with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. She believes their health problems were caused by dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in the herbicide, which U.S. troops used to strip communist forces of ground cover and food.
TRY TO ENVISION THIS! AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Nguyen Thi Tai looks out of a window from her bed in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Tai and her sister were both born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.
[AND THIS! AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Tran Thi Gai, 45, comforts her daughter Nguyen Thi Tai, 21, right, and Nguyen Thi Thuyet in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The two young women were born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
[AND THIS!
AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 4, 2009, Vietnamese siblings, from left, Tran van Hoang, Tran Van Lam, Tran Van Luan and Tran Thi Luy, sit on the front porch of their family home in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The siblings were born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials say, were caused by their parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
[AND THIS!
AP Photo - In this photo taken on Oct. 5, 2009, Tran Van Luan, right, watches a TV while his sister, Tran Thi Luy, sits on her bed inside their family home in the village of Cam Tuyen, Vietnam. The siblings where born with profound physical and mental disabilities that the family, and local officials, say were caused by his parents' exposure to the chemical dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange.]
35 years after the end of the Vietnam War, its most contentious remaining legacy is Agent Orange. 82 percent of Vietnamese surveyed in a recent Associated Press-GfK Poll said the United States should be doing more to help people suffering from illnesses associated with the herbicide, including children born with birth defects.
After USA President George W. Bush pledged to work on the issue on a Hanoi visit in 2006, the U.S. Congress has approved $9 million mostly to address environmental cleanup of Agent Orange. But while the U.S. has provided assistance to Vietnamese with disabilities - regardless of their cause - it maintains that there is no clear link between Agent Orange and health problems.
Vietnamese officials say the U.S. needs to make a much bigger financial commitment - $6 million has been allocated so far - to adequately address the environmental and health problems unleashed by Agent Orange.
"Six million dollars is nothing compared to the consequences left behind by Agent Orange," said Le Ke Son, deputy general administrator of Vietnam's Environmental Administration. "How much does one Tomahawk missile cost?"
---
Tran Van Tram and Tran Thi Dan are desperate for help. Their four grown children crawl around the family home on all fours, rumps in the air. They have trouble standing up straight and can take no more than a few steps at a time with a walker.
Each of his children appeared healthy at birth, said Tram, 61. But after a year or so, they could not roll over. They never learned to talk.
Tram remembers watching U.S. planes dump Agent Orange several times daily over his village in Quang Tri Province, near the former demilitarized zone that once divided North Vietnam and South Vietnam. He used to fish in nearby lakes and streams every day.
Now he and his aging wife spend virtually all their time caring for the children.
They shower the children outdoors, an ordeal for all concerned. Hoang, 26, sat on the patio recently after his father hosed him down, and waited for his mother to pull his pants on. His spine is bent and he has a large lump on his back.
"I have no time for myself," said Dan, 59. "Even when I die, I will have no peace. I will always be worried about my children. Who will take care of them when we are gone?"
Dan says she can't believe it's a coincidence that many of her neighbors started having children with birth defects after the war ended.
"It's not just my family," she said. "Many families here are suffering the same problems. I'd like to see the United States government do more to help ease the pain of the war."
Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed roughly 11 million gallons of Agent Orange across large swaths of southern Vietnam. Dioxin stays in soil and the sediment at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.
Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses caused by it - including the children of people who were exposed during the war.
The U.S. government says the actual number of people affected is much lower and that Vietnamese are too quick to blame Agent Orange for birth defects that can be caused by malnutrition or other environmental factors.
"Scientists around the world have done a lot of research on dioxin and its possible health effects," said Michael Michalak, the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi. "There is disagreement as to what's real and what isn't, about what the possible connections are."
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oizDVAMj
That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
The U.S. Veterans Administration covers the medical treatment of American servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange and subsequently developed one of 17 illnesses associated with dioxin. Children of exposed servicemen who were born with spina bifida also receive a medical benefit.
"American and Vietnamese Agent Orange victims haven't been treated the same way, and it's not fair," said Tran Xuan Thu, secretary general of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, whose suit against the U.S. manufacturers of Agent Orange in 2005 was rejected by a U.S. court. "It's not in keeping with the humanitarian traditions of the United States. I hope the American people will raise their voices and ask their government and the chemical companies to take responsibility."
U.S. officials point out that an "association" has been established between Agent Orange and the illnesses on the list, but that the scientific evidence has not been high enough to establish a causal relationship.
"We don't know if there's any linkage or not, but we believe in trying to do our best to take care of our veterans," Michalak said. "If Vietnam wants to take care of its veterans, then we think that is a very worthy cause."
---
The U.S. spends just a small sliver of its budget in Vietnam on Agent Orange. Last year, it allocated more than $80 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, where the epidemic is relatively mild, but just $3 million for Agent Orange work.
A coalition of non-profit groups led by the Ford Foundation, which has been trying to draw attention to the herbicide's toxic legacy, spent more than the U.S. government.
Tests conducted by Hatfield Associates, a Canadian environmental firm, have shown that dioxin is within safe levels across most of Vietnam. But it is well beyond acceptable levels at a number of "hotspots" where U.S. soldiers used to mix, store and load Agent Orange onto planes.
According to one estimate, cleaning up the three biggest hotspots - at former airbases in Danang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa - could cost as much as $40 million.
Since 2006, at the request of the Vietnamese government, the United States has been focusing its Agent Orange work on Danang. Tests taken by Hatfield found extremely high levels of dioxin - up to 400 times accepted international limits - in soil samples taken near the site and in the blood of a few dozen people who lived near a contaminated lake on the old airbase, where they often went fishing.
Working with Vietnamese officials, the U.S. government has sealed off the site to prevent further leakage of dioxin. They are now seeking ways to decontaminate the site, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.
More than two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated so far has been devoted to cleaning up the Danang hotspot, with just $2 million set aside for health programs to serve disabled people in the area.
Since 1989, Michalak said, the United States has spent $46 million to help Vietnamese with disabilities, but it does not keep track of how many of the beneficiaries have illnesses associated with Agent Orange.
"We just think it's the humanitarian thing to do, it's the right thing, and it helps to improve relations between the two countries," Michalak said.
---
The current U.S.-Vietnam efforts to enhance cooperation on the issue stand in marked contrast to their disagreements seven years ago, when the two sides attempted to conduct a study of birth defects in children whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange.
The study fell apart amid bickering and finger-pointing. When the Vietnamese and American scientists failed to agree on how to design the $1 million project, the U.S. National Institute on Environmental and Health Sciences withdrew funding.
A leaked U.S. embassy memo written in 2003 captures the bitterness and suspicion that divided the two sides.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653_p2/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oiz2pNqB
That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
The U.S. Veterans Administration covers the medical treatment of American servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange and subsequently developed one of 17 illnesses associated with dioxin. Children of exposed servicemen who were born with spina bifida also receive a medical benefit.
"American and Vietnamese Agent Orange victims haven't been treated the same way, and it's not fair," said Tran Xuan Thu, secretary general of the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, whose suit against the U.S. manufacturers of Agent Orange in 2005 was rejected by a U.S. court. "It's not in keeping with the humanitarian traditions of the United States. I hope the American people will raise their voices and ask their government and the chemical companies to take responsibility."
U.S. officials point out that an "association" has been established between Agent Orange and the illnesses on the list, but that the scientific evidence has not been high enough to establish a causal relationship.
"We don't know if there's any linkage or not, but we believe in trying to do our best to take care of our veterans," Michalak said. "If Vietnam wants to take care of its veterans, then we think that is a very worthy cause."
---
The U.S. spends just a small sliver of its budget in Vietnam on Agent Orange. Last year, it allocated more than $80 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, where the epidemic is relatively mild, but just $3 million for Agent Orange work.
A coalition of non-profit groups led by the Ford Foundation, which has been trying to draw attention to the herbicide's toxic legacy, spent more than the U.S. government.
Tests conducted by Hatfield Associates, a Canadian environmental firm, have shown that dioxin is within safe levels across most of Vietnam. But it is well beyond acceptable levels at a number of "hotspots" where U.S. soldiers used to mix, store and load Agent Orange onto planes.
According to one estimate, cleaning up the three biggest hotspots - at former airbases in Danang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa - could cost as much as $40 million.
Since 2006, at the request of the Vietnamese government, the United States has been focusing its Agent Orange work on Danang. Tests taken by Hatfield found extremely high levels of dioxin - up to 400 times accepted international limits - in soil samples taken near the site and in the blood of a few dozen people who lived near a contaminated lake on the old airbase, where they often went fishing.
Working with Vietnamese officials, the U.S. government has sealed off the site to prevent further leakage of dioxin. They are now seeking ways to decontaminate the site, which is likely to cost millions of dollars.
More than two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated so far has been devoted to cleaning up the Danang hotspot, with just $2 million set aside for health programs to serve disabled people in the area.
Since 1989, Michalak said, the United States has spent $46 million to help Vietnamese with disabilities, but it does not keep track of how many of the beneficiaries have illnesses associated with Agent Orange.
"We just think it's the humanitarian thing to do, it's the right thing, and it helps to improve relations between the two countries," Michalak said.
---
The current U.S.-Vietnam efforts to enhance cooperation on the issue stand in marked contrast to their disagreements seven years ago, when the two sides attempted to conduct a study of birth defects in children whose mothers were exposed to Agent Orange.
The study fell apart amid bickering and finger-pointing. When the Vietnamese and American scientists failed to agree on how to design the $1 million project, the U.S. National Institute on Environmental and Health Sciences withdrew funding.
A leaked U.S. embassy memo written in 2003 captures the bitterness and suspicion that divided the two sides.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/05/22/1275653_p2/vietnam-us-still-in-conflict-over.html#ixzz0oiz2pNqB
Kenny G plays Taiwan, gets an earful from Pat Methany on why he sucks bigtime (but you don't want to read about it)!
When "the smooth [Jewish-American] saxophone maestro returned to Taiwan in May 2010 for two concerts, Andrew Huang wrote in the Taipei Times features section:
For more than two decades, saxophonist Kenny G. has warmed the hearts of countless fans with his velvety smooth delivery of romantic jazz tunes.
The king of smooth jazz visited Taipei tomorrow and Taichung on Sunday for concerts that saw him play a few classics and preview
a new tune from his upcoming album Heart & Soul. He also appeared in the season finale of the Taiwan TV talent show One Million Star (超級星光大道), where he shared the stage with Taiwanese singing sensation Lin Yu-chun (林育群).
Kenny G is a prodigy who started his career by playing as a sideman in Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra when he was only 17, Kenny G. (maybe ''hiding'' his Jewish last name Gorelick, full name Kenneth Bruce Gorelick?), has moved on to a career as the most successful instrumentalist of his time by selling many albums worldwide.
Kenny G. is married to Lyndie Benson, with whom they have two sons, Max (age 16) and Noah (age 11).
He has collaborated with the likes of Andrea Bocelli, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion and Aretha Franklin, and his 1994 album Miracles is the best-selling Xmas album ever.
“I consider good music to come from an artist who has spent a long time perfecting his art and accomplishing his style,” the 54-year-old star in a phone interview with the Taipei Times.
Of his compositions, Kenny G considers his breakthrough hit Songbird and Coming Home as two of his favorites.
Asked why he thinks he has managed to build such a successful career, he said, “I’m glad audiences around the world responded to these melodies. I’m just glad my music communicates with people.”
Kenny G performed two Chinese tunes for his Taiwan concerts, the folk song Jasmine Flower (茉莉花) and Teresa Teng’s (鄧麗君) classic The Moon Represents My Heart (月亮代表我的心).
“I’m glad to have the chance to play these two songs because I don’t normally have the chance to perform them in the US,” he said.
Asked who he would like to perform a duet with, Kenny G replied, “Jackie Chan (成龍). I have performed on stage with him before. It would be great to record a duet with him.” The two met in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and became friends.
To establish a closer connection with his fans during concerts, Kenny G makes it a routine to roam through audiences while performing.
Kenny G is often criticized by purists like Pat Metheny [SEE BELOW] for crafting easy-listening background music, but he jazzes up his tunes during concerts by improvising — which he considers to be “visually entertaining.”
“There won’t be any stage effects in this concert. It will just be my music,” he said.
Pat Metheny on Kenny G
Question:
Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems.
Pat's Answer:
Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.
I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.
But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.
Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.
Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.
And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.
As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.
But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently".
Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a Wonderful World". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.
This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.
But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril.
His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring.
Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.
Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different.
There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!, magazines, etc.). Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.)
NOTE: this post is partially in response to the comments that people have made regarding a short video interview excerpt with me that was posted on the internet taken from a tv show for young people (kind of like MTV)in poland where i was asked to address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that they could understand about jazz. while enthusiastically describing the virtues of this great area of music, i was encouraging the kids to find and listen to some of the greats in the music and not to get confused by the sometimes overwhelming volume of music that falls under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say that i think that for instance, kenny g plays the dumbest music on the planet – something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the planet already intrinsically know, as anyone who has ever spent any time around kids that age could confirm - so it gave us some common ground for the rest of the discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing wrong with the statement that i made was that i did not include the rest of the known universe.) the fact that this clip was released so far out of the context that it was delivered in is a drag, but it is now done. (its unauthorized release out of context like that is symptomatic of the new electronically interconnected culture that we now live in - where pretty much anything anyone anywhere has ever said or done has the potential to become common public property at any time.) i was surprised by the polish people putting this clip up so far away from the use that it was intended -really just for the attention - with no explanation of the show it was made for - they (the polish people in general) used to be so hip and would have been unlikely candidates to do something like that before, but i guess everything is changing there like it is everywhere else. the only other thing that surprised me in the aftermath of the release of this little interview is that ANYONE would be even a little bit surprised that i would say such a thing, given the reality of mr. gs music. this makes me want to go practice about 10 times harder, because that suggests to me that i am not getting my own musical message across clearly enough - which to me, in every single way and intention is diametrically opposed to what Kenny G seems to be after.
For more than two decades, saxophonist Kenny G. has warmed the hearts of countless fans with his velvety smooth delivery of romantic jazz tunes.
The king of smooth jazz visited Taipei tomorrow and Taichung on Sunday for concerts that saw him play a few classics and preview
a new tune from his upcoming album Heart & Soul. He also appeared in the season finale of the Taiwan TV talent show One Million Star (超級星光大道), where he shared the stage with Taiwanese singing sensation Lin Yu-chun (林育群).
Kenny G is a prodigy who started his career by playing as a sideman in Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra when he was only 17, Kenny G. (maybe ''hiding'' his Jewish last name Gorelick, full name Kenneth Bruce Gorelick?), has moved on to a career as the most successful instrumentalist of his time by selling many albums worldwide.
Kenny G. is married to Lyndie Benson, with whom they have two sons, Max (age 16) and Noah (age 11).
He has collaborated with the likes of Andrea Bocelli, Whitney Houston, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion and Aretha Franklin, and his 1994 album Miracles is the best-selling Xmas album ever.
“I consider good music to come from an artist who has spent a long time perfecting his art and accomplishing his style,” the 54-year-old star in a phone interview with the Taipei Times.
Of his compositions, Kenny G considers his breakthrough hit Songbird and Coming Home as two of his favorites.
Asked why he thinks he has managed to build such a successful career, he said, “I’m glad audiences around the world responded to these melodies. I’m just glad my music communicates with people.”
Kenny G performed two Chinese tunes for his Taiwan concerts, the folk song Jasmine Flower (茉莉花) and Teresa Teng’s (鄧麗君) classic The Moon Represents My Heart (月亮代表我的心).
“I’m glad to have the chance to play these two songs because I don’t normally have the chance to perform them in the US,” he said.
Asked who he would like to perform a duet with, Kenny G replied, “Jackie Chan (成龍). I have performed on stage with him before. It would be great to record a duet with him.” The two met in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and became friends.
To establish a closer connection with his fans during concerts, Kenny G makes it a routine to roam through audiences while performing.
Kenny G is often criticized by purists like Pat Metheny [SEE BELOW] for crafting easy-listening background music, but he jazzes up his tunes during concerts by improvising — which he considers to be “visually entertaining.”
“There won’t be any stage effects in this concert. It will just be my music,” he said.
Pat Metheny on Kenny G
Question:
Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems.
Pat's Answer:
Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.
I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.
But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.
Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.
Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.
And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.
As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.
But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently".
Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a Wonderful World". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.
This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.
But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril.
His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring.
Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.
Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different.
There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!, magazines, etc.). Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.)
NOTE: this post is partially in response to the comments that people have made regarding a short video interview excerpt with me that was posted on the internet taken from a tv show for young people (kind of like MTV)in poland where i was asked to address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that they could understand about jazz. while enthusiastically describing the virtues of this great area of music, i was encouraging the kids to find and listen to some of the greats in the music and not to get confused by the sometimes overwhelming volume of music that falls under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say that i think that for instance, kenny g plays the dumbest music on the planet – something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the planet already intrinsically know, as anyone who has ever spent any time around kids that age could confirm - so it gave us some common ground for the rest of the discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing wrong with the statement that i made was that i did not include the rest of the known universe.) the fact that this clip was released so far out of the context that it was delivered in is a drag, but it is now done. (its unauthorized release out of context like that is symptomatic of the new electronically interconnected culture that we now live in - where pretty much anything anyone anywhere has ever said or done has the potential to become common public property at any time.) i was surprised by the polish people putting this clip up so far away from the use that it was intended -really just for the attention - with no explanation of the show it was made for - they (the polish people in general) used to be so hip and would have been unlikely candidates to do something like that before, but i guess everything is changing there like it is everywhere else. the only other thing that surprised me in the aftermath of the release of this little interview is that ANYONE would be even a little bit surprised that i would say such a thing, given the reality of mr. gs music. this makes me want to go practice about 10 times harder, because that suggests to me that i am not getting my own musical message across clearly enough - which to me, in every single way and intention is diametrically opposed to what Kenny G seems to be after.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
MAY DAILY, (梅德丽), China-based entertainment website, launches ! (interview here)
LINK
http://maydaily.com/
INTERVIEW with May Daily's May Daily
Question: Hello, May Daily. May we have a moment of your time for a couple of questions?
MAY DAILY: Sure, pleasure to be online with you. Ask away!
QUESTION: What is MAY DAILY, what does MAY mean in Chinese translated to English, and who is the founder, CEO and who are staff people and how many staff on board yet?
ANSWER: May Daily (梅德丽) is the name of the company and the name of the people who write, edit, moderate, design the website and so on. It is based on an individual, but it is a collective effort, so we have gone collective. We are all May Daily. We have CEO May Daily, our reporters are all called May Daily … you get the idea.
As for the name in Chinese, it’s the mei (梅) for plum, which is a common name for Chinese ladies; the de (德) for virtue or ethics and the li (丽) for beautiful. So, literally, the name means “beautifully ethical plum,” but really it’s just a name like any other. You’re given one at birth and you have to live with it. Luckily, I like it.
It works well as an English name and a typical name for a publication, so it is a good fit in both Chinese and English.
2. When did MAY DAILY go online LIVE for real worldwide?
May Daily went live on May 1st, International Workers’ Day. May Day has been a traditional date for celebration for thousands of years, so it seemed appropriate given the name.
We liked going with the name of the person May Daily because it also sounds like a typical newspaper and that’s our background. It’s also original, so that’s cool. The closest is Daily Mail, an English paper. I don’t know why the name wasn’t registered before, maybe due to the Marxist connotations, and perhaps because people wouldn’t be interested in a newspaper called May Daily for the other 11 months of the year.
Also, it should be mentioned that we have been following the same celebrity beat since February 2006 under different names and in various columns that have been regular weekly items in various publications in Taiwan, China, and the United Kingdom.
The website is the latest incarnation of all the columns and the old media network. It’s just a new set of clothes.
3. Who is MAY DAILY aimed at?
The biggest market is China and the United States, about equal, followed by Europe and so on. The average demographic is young 16-40, and about 50-50 male/female, because they tend to be more interested in celebrities. But we welcome anyone outside this range – and why not?
We have heard that a lot of students like May Daily, both those who are learning Chinese because it gives them a key into China’s contemporary youth culture; and Chinese students who want to learn a more colloquial and youthful, non-textbook style of English.
Obviously we are Tweeting and Facebooking and doing the social media thing. You kinda have to because they are powerful in terms of reach. But at the end of the day, it is content that attracts eyeballs. In the restaurant business they say, “location, location, location.” In this case, it’s “content, content, content.”
4. Later, in a year, if goes well, MAY DAILY will introduce more items like video with May Daily, then turn it bilingual, so become a central source for Chinese language entertainment reporters, etc. How might this scenario unfold and who might pick up your link?
When the May Daily website is bedded down comfortably, then we will think about adding more items, like video, social media, all incrementally. Then we’ll have to do another redesign so all the elements are integrated again.
Eventually, we will go bilingual because we think mainland gossip is a bit tame and eventually there will be a need for a more sophisticated product, for a more sophisticated audience.
In Taiwan, it’s a different situation, the gossip market is fairly saturated and totally sophisticated. But on the other hand, a lot of Taiwan readers are eager for more mainland celebrity circle news, so there’s no reason why we can’t fill that role.
Obviously there’s a growing interest in the West about China and this will increasingly include entertainment content. It won’t be long before a Chinese star, like Tang Wei, is mega not just here but there and everyone will want to know about her. In a way it’s already happening.
5. How does the staff find all these gossip items? what are YOUR resources for this ?
The usual interviews, press events, media releases, word-of-mouth, deep-throat sources and then there’s a lot on the Web, in papers, magazines and so on, that is collated, or translated, or turned from forums and chats to news and views.
We don’t do the private eye investigation kind of stuff, but nevertheless recognize that we benefit from it. So, I wouldn’t say we were paparazzi, but we’re not entirely innocent either.
What we do is in the public domain and in the public interest, even if it is only from the point of view of entertainment. It’s bread and circuses, but better than politics.
Celebrities are famous, obviously, because they have made themselves into public figures. And from our point of view that’s why it’s hilarious when you hear some stars turn around and cry about invasion of privacy. Because, at the same time, they are working to be media icons and paying their agents to make sure they get plenty of publicity. So our motto is: “Don’t believe the hype.” And our advice to wannabes is: “If you don’t want the fame don’t play the game.”
But equally, there is a line. I think we should respect celebrities and what they do, because they are ordinary people too, deserving of respect and privacy. So, for example, in the case of a celebrity who does not use their kids for self-promotion (like Cecilia Cheung and Nicholas Tse) then we do not mention them either. Equally, if a celebrity isn’t making their life an open book and isn’t being a hypocrite then let them be. But if they say this and do that, or hug the limelight, then it’s a different matter.
At the end of the day, it’s a mutual relationship. They need us, we need them. They just don’t like to admit it.
In my opinion, celebrities are our new neighbors. Most of us live in cities. You know how it is, the denser the population, the more need for personal space. We often don’t know who our next-door neighbor is. We shut the door and we want privacy, peace, from all the people out there at work, on the street, on the train, in the club, whatever.
In a village or town, everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s gossip, basically, but you could also call it information and entertainment.
So celebrities function like people in a global village. We follow their stories, their ups and downs, ins and outs, and we talk about them as if we know them over the water cooler.
Celebrity gossip has to be entertaining because the information value isn’t high. At the end of the day it’s a story and we love stories. They’re good to pass around and are the basis of a kind of positive social communication.
What we do is collate these stories and this is no different to Dream of the Red Mansions; Bright Lights, Big City; or Vanity Fair.
If Clinton was in this business he would be saying, “It’s the story, stupid.”
6. how often will May Daily be updated? daily? hourly? as it happens? BREAKING NEWS?
It says May Daily, so it has to be that. But obviously, the more the better and that will increase in time, until we are, without doubt the heavyweight, reigning champion of Chinese celebrity news, every minute of the day – though I don’t think we will be changing our name to May Minute.
On the other hand there’s no point, to our mind, telling readers, for example, that Jay Chou did a promotional event and is selling Nutra Bars (whatever). This is just sales and an example of where we don’t want to go, unless there’s a story element to it, or it has an entertainment factor.
7. will there be any photos of ''nipple slips'' a la Bai Ling or wardrobe malfuctions a la Janet Jackson? And how far will you go or can you go with censors there for nakedness?
We would like to do it all because we don’t see anything wrong with showing the human body. But the world ain’t ready, so we will wait for the right time. For instance, a nipple slip is worth showing, but we will cover or pixellate the nipple, so as not to frighten younger or more sensitive readers. We absolutely do not want to offend. But actually, in a perfect world no-one should get so upset about such a little thing as a nipple.
There will never be pornography for the simple reason it’s not our domain. Other people do that. We are celebrity focused, with strange stuff, contemporary culture trends, that sort of thing. And, actually, to our minds, stories and good-looking celebrities are more interesting and sexier than vulvas and glans penis in your face.
8. Will you pay stringers for news gossip items from Japan or Taiwan or Philippines or Vietnam or anywhere?
We are already doing that. And they are all called by the ''May Daily'' byline when we publish their stories.
9. . Do you expect any interference from censors?
There’s censors everywhere, that’s the reality. For instance, we once ran a story about Li Kai-shek, the richest person in Hong Kong. Now, he’s got mega reach and he managed to squash the story in some papers we wrote it for. There are plenty of other examples of this type of thing we have run into involving companies and management of the stars themselves, or the papers and magazines we have worked for – whether it was Taiwan, China, Hong Kong or the United Kingdom.
Which is one of the reasons we decided to go independent. There were stories we couldn’t cover and we wanted to. In my opinion the quality of the stories are better because of this.
We don’t have strong relationships with most of the people we write about so we don’t have to tone it down. We can be as straight as we like. It’s a kind of freedom and it’s great and we want to maintain this.
On the other hand, when we do know a star or get special access this is made clear, because it often comes with strings attached. It’s the payoff for original material. The point is to be straight.
10. Are there any rules at MAY DAY? How far can the gossip go and will items be fact chcked before after or later or never?
How long is a piece of string? Is there any length to which someone who wants to be famous won’t go? We will follow them all the way.
The stories are always fact checked and double-checked, of course, and we provide our sources if we can, which is 90 percent of the time. This is elementary and professional, which means a good standard of work and the truth or not of an assertion can be back-checked.
It is not our intention to publish incorrect, untrue or deliberately inflammatory material. First, reality is always stranger than fiction, so we don’t need to. Second, we don’t want to because that is the kind of people we are and for the entirely obvious reason that if we are a trusted source, then people will believe us and will return to us.
If we do get something wrong, and this is inevitable at some point given the nature of the business -- companies manipulating the media, vicious gossip, vested interests and so on -- then of course we will say sorry and put it right. It’s as simple as that. This type of attitude is best for everyone.
LAST QUESTION: Who are the financial backers of the site ?
ANSWER: May Daily is a private, limited company set up by two partners and with a certain amount of external investment. It’s independent and therefore able to publish without fear or favor.
BLOGGER: Thank you for your time today, May Daily.
MAY DAILY: My pleasure, sir. Please visit our website often. Daily, if you have time!
LINK
http://maydaily.com/
http://maydaily.com/
INTERVIEW with May Daily's May Daily
Question: Hello, May Daily. May we have a moment of your time for a couple of questions?
MAY DAILY: Sure, pleasure to be online with you. Ask away!
QUESTION: What is MAY DAILY, what does MAY mean in Chinese translated to English, and who is the founder, CEO and who are staff people and how many staff on board yet?
ANSWER: May Daily (梅德丽) is the name of the company and the name of the people who write, edit, moderate, design the website and so on. It is based on an individual, but it is a collective effort, so we have gone collective. We are all May Daily. We have CEO May Daily, our reporters are all called May Daily … you get the idea.
As for the name in Chinese, it’s the mei (梅) for plum, which is a common name for Chinese ladies; the de (德) for virtue or ethics and the li (丽) for beautiful. So, literally, the name means “beautifully ethical plum,” but really it’s just a name like any other. You’re given one at birth and you have to live with it. Luckily, I like it.
It works well as an English name and a typical name for a publication, so it is a good fit in both Chinese and English.
2. When did MAY DAILY go online LIVE for real worldwide?
May Daily went live on May 1st, International Workers’ Day. May Day has been a traditional date for celebration for thousands of years, so it seemed appropriate given the name.
We liked going with the name of the person May Daily because it also sounds like a typical newspaper and that’s our background. It’s also original, so that’s cool. The closest is Daily Mail, an English paper. I don’t know why the name wasn’t registered before, maybe due to the Marxist connotations, and perhaps because people wouldn’t be interested in a newspaper called May Daily for the other 11 months of the year.
Also, it should be mentioned that we have been following the same celebrity beat since February 2006 under different names and in various columns that have been regular weekly items in various publications in Taiwan, China, and the United Kingdom.
The website is the latest incarnation of all the columns and the old media network. It’s just a new set of clothes.
3. Who is MAY DAILY aimed at?
The biggest market is China and the United States, about equal, followed by Europe and so on. The average demographic is young 16-40, and about 50-50 male/female, because they tend to be more interested in celebrities. But we welcome anyone outside this range – and why not?
We have heard that a lot of students like May Daily, both those who are learning Chinese because it gives them a key into China’s contemporary youth culture; and Chinese students who want to learn a more colloquial and youthful, non-textbook style of English.
Obviously we are Tweeting and Facebooking and doing the social media thing. You kinda have to because they are powerful in terms of reach. But at the end of the day, it is content that attracts eyeballs. In the restaurant business they say, “location, location, location.” In this case, it’s “content, content, content.”
4. Later, in a year, if goes well, MAY DAILY will introduce more items like video with May Daily, then turn it bilingual, so become a central source for Chinese language entertainment reporters, etc. How might this scenario unfold and who might pick up your link?
When the May Daily website is bedded down comfortably, then we will think about adding more items, like video, social media, all incrementally. Then we’ll have to do another redesign so all the elements are integrated again.
Eventually, we will go bilingual because we think mainland gossip is a bit tame and eventually there will be a need for a more sophisticated product, for a more sophisticated audience.
In Taiwan, it’s a different situation, the gossip market is fairly saturated and totally sophisticated. But on the other hand, a lot of Taiwan readers are eager for more mainland celebrity circle news, so there’s no reason why we can’t fill that role.
Obviously there’s a growing interest in the West about China and this will increasingly include entertainment content. It won’t be long before a Chinese star, like Tang Wei, is mega not just here but there and everyone will want to know about her. In a way it’s already happening.
5. How does the staff find all these gossip items? what are YOUR resources for this ?
The usual interviews, press events, media releases, word-of-mouth, deep-throat sources and then there’s a lot on the Web, in papers, magazines and so on, that is collated, or translated, or turned from forums and chats to news and views.
We don’t do the private eye investigation kind of stuff, but nevertheless recognize that we benefit from it. So, I wouldn’t say we were paparazzi, but we’re not entirely innocent either.
What we do is in the public domain and in the public interest, even if it is only from the point of view of entertainment. It’s bread and circuses, but better than politics.
Celebrities are famous, obviously, because they have made themselves into public figures. And from our point of view that’s why it’s hilarious when you hear some stars turn around and cry about invasion of privacy. Because, at the same time, they are working to be media icons and paying their agents to make sure they get plenty of publicity. So our motto is: “Don’t believe the hype.” And our advice to wannabes is: “If you don’t want the fame don’t play the game.”
But equally, there is a line. I think we should respect celebrities and what they do, because they are ordinary people too, deserving of respect and privacy. So, for example, in the case of a celebrity who does not use their kids for self-promotion (like Cecilia Cheung and Nicholas Tse) then we do not mention them either. Equally, if a celebrity isn’t making their life an open book and isn’t being a hypocrite then let them be. But if they say this and do that, or hug the limelight, then it’s a different matter.
At the end of the day, it’s a mutual relationship. They need us, we need them. They just don’t like to admit it.
In my opinion, celebrities are our new neighbors. Most of us live in cities. You know how it is, the denser the population, the more need for personal space. We often don’t know who our next-door neighbor is. We shut the door and we want privacy, peace, from all the people out there at work, on the street, on the train, in the club, whatever.
In a village or town, everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s gossip, basically, but you could also call it information and entertainment.
So celebrities function like people in a global village. We follow their stories, their ups and downs, ins and outs, and we talk about them as if we know them over the water cooler.
Celebrity gossip has to be entertaining because the information value isn’t high. At the end of the day it’s a story and we love stories. They’re good to pass around and are the basis of a kind of positive social communication.
What we do is collate these stories and this is no different to Dream of the Red Mansions; Bright Lights, Big City; or Vanity Fair.
If Clinton was in this business he would be saying, “It’s the story, stupid.”
6. how often will May Daily be updated? daily? hourly? as it happens? BREAKING NEWS?
It says May Daily, so it has to be that. But obviously, the more the better and that will increase in time, until we are, without doubt the heavyweight, reigning champion of Chinese celebrity news, every minute of the day – though I don’t think we will be changing our name to May Minute.
On the other hand there’s no point, to our mind, telling readers, for example, that Jay Chou did a promotional event and is selling Nutra Bars (whatever). This is just sales and an example of where we don’t want to go, unless there’s a story element to it, or it has an entertainment factor.
7. will there be any photos of ''nipple slips'' a la Bai Ling or wardrobe malfuctions a la Janet Jackson? And how far will you go or can you go with censors there for nakedness?
We would like to do it all because we don’t see anything wrong with showing the human body. But the world ain’t ready, so we will wait for the right time. For instance, a nipple slip is worth showing, but we will cover or pixellate the nipple, so as not to frighten younger or more sensitive readers. We absolutely do not want to offend. But actually, in a perfect world no-one should get so upset about such a little thing as a nipple.
There will never be pornography for the simple reason it’s not our domain. Other people do that. We are celebrity focused, with strange stuff, contemporary culture trends, that sort of thing. And, actually, to our minds, stories and good-looking celebrities are more interesting and sexier than vulvas and glans penis in your face.
8. Will you pay stringers for news gossip items from Japan or Taiwan or Philippines or Vietnam or anywhere?
We are already doing that. And they are all called by the ''May Daily'' byline when we publish their stories.
9. . Do you expect any interference from censors?
There’s censors everywhere, that’s the reality. For instance, we once ran a story about Li Kai-shek, the richest person in Hong Kong. Now, he’s got mega reach and he managed to squash the story in some papers we wrote it for. There are plenty of other examples of this type of thing we have run into involving companies and management of the stars themselves, or the papers and magazines we have worked for – whether it was Taiwan, China, Hong Kong or the United Kingdom.
Which is one of the reasons we decided to go independent. There were stories we couldn’t cover and we wanted to. In my opinion the quality of the stories are better because of this.
We don’t have strong relationships with most of the people we write about so we don’t have to tone it down. We can be as straight as we like. It’s a kind of freedom and it’s great and we want to maintain this.
On the other hand, when we do know a star or get special access this is made clear, because it often comes with strings attached. It’s the payoff for original material. The point is to be straight.
10. Are there any rules at MAY DAY? How far can the gossip go and will items be fact chcked before after or later or never?
How long is a piece of string? Is there any length to which someone who wants to be famous won’t go? We will follow them all the way.
The stories are always fact checked and double-checked, of course, and we provide our sources if we can, which is 90 percent of the time. This is elementary and professional, which means a good standard of work and the truth or not of an assertion can be back-checked.
It is not our intention to publish incorrect, untrue or deliberately inflammatory material. First, reality is always stranger than fiction, so we don’t need to. Second, we don’t want to because that is the kind of people we are and for the entirely obvious reason that if we are a trusted source, then people will believe us and will return to us.
If we do get something wrong, and this is inevitable at some point given the nature of the business -- companies manipulating the media, vicious gossip, vested interests and so on -- then of course we will say sorry and put it right. It’s as simple as that. This type of attitude is best for everyone.
LAST QUESTION: Who are the financial backers of the site ?
ANSWER: May Daily is a private, limited company set up by two partners and with a certain amount of external investment. It’s independent and therefore able to publish without fear or favor.
BLOGGER: Thank you for your time today, May Daily.
MAY DAILY: My pleasure, sir. Please visit our website often. Daily, if you have time!
LINK
http://maydaily.com/
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Some of Frank Rich's greatest hits from his New York Times columns
Here are excerpts from some oped columns by Frank Rich in the last few months.
• "On ABC's 'This Week,' a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe." 3/28/2010
• ". . . the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his 'Hell no, you can't!' incantation . . . Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons." 3/28/10
• "How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn't recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far." 3/28/10
• ". . . an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from ‘Kill the bill!' to Sarah Palin's cry for her followers to ‘reload.'"3/28/10
• "If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that's their right. . . . But they can't emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts."3/28/10
• "How our current spike in neo-Confederate rebellion will end is unknown."4/17/10
• "What is known is that the nearly all-white G.O.P. is so traumatized by race it has now morphed into a bizarre paragon of both liberal and conservative racial political correctness."4/17/10
• "Former Bush propagandists will never lack for work in this climate."4/10/10
• "Depending on where you stand—or the given day—he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley." 4/3/10
• "Last week, after I wrote about the role race plays in some of the apocalyptic right-wing hysteria about the health care bill, a friend who is a prominent liberal Obama supporter sent me an e-mail flipping my point." 4/3/10
• "Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove's memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney's daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol."3/14/10
• "Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick?" 3/14/10
• "Liz Cheney's crackpot hit squad . . ."3/14/10
• "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged." 2/27/10
• "The leaders embraced by the new grass-roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. . . . But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism." 2/27/10
• "This G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course."'2/14/10
• "Shelby is so unashamedly addicted to earmarks that he used a senatorial ‘hold' to halt confirmation votes on 70 Obama administration appointees until his costly shopping list of Alabama pork projects was granted."2/14/10
• "Even the G.O.P./Tea Party heartthrob of the hour, Scott Brown, is not the barn-coat-wearing populist he purports to be."2/14/10
• "The Republicans are so disciplined at claiming the fiscal-hawk high road that even Jenny Sanford, the wronged first lady of South Carolina, is still defending her husband, Mark, as an uncompromising defender of ‘hard-earned tax dollars' in her new tell-all memoir, ‘Staying True.' Though she gives us the skinny on her husband's philandering, she never mentions the subsequent revelations that expenses for his trysts and other personal travel were billed to taxpayers."2/14/10
• "John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of ‘don't ask, don't tell.' But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington's attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule."2/6/10
• "Now that explicit anti-gay animus is an albatross, those who oppose gay civil rights are driven to invent ever loopier rationales for denying those rights, whether in the military or in marriage."2/6/10
• "It's in this political context that we can see that there may have been some method to Obama's troublesome tardiness on gay issues after all. But as we learned about this White House and the Democratic Congress in the health-care debacle, they are perfectly capable of dropping the ball at any moment."2/6/10
• "Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama's signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn't make good on a year's worth of false starts."3/7/10
• "But the buck stops with the president, not his chief of staff. And if there's one note that runs through many of the theories as to why Obama has disappointed in Year One, it cuts to the heart of what had been his major strength: his ability to communicate a compelling narrative. In the campaign, that narrative, of change and hope, was powerful—both about his own youth, biography and talent, and about a country that had gone wildly off track during the failed presidency of his predecessor."3/7/10
[TIP OF THE HAT TO MARK BAUERLEIN AT EMORY UNIVERSITY]
• "On ABC's 'This Week,' a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe." 3/28/2010
• ". . . the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his 'Hell no, you can't!' incantation . . . Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons." 3/28/10
• "How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn't recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far." 3/28/10
• ". . . an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from ‘Kill the bill!' to Sarah Palin's cry for her followers to ‘reload.'"3/28/10
• "If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that's their right. . . . But they can't emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts."3/28/10
• "How our current spike in neo-Confederate rebellion will end is unknown."4/17/10
• "What is known is that the nearly all-white G.O.P. is so traumatized by race it has now morphed into a bizarre paragon of both liberal and conservative racial political correctness."4/17/10
• "Former Bush propagandists will never lack for work in this climate."4/10/10
• "Depending on where you stand—or the given day—he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley." 4/3/10
• "Last week, after I wrote about the role race plays in some of the apocalyptic right-wing hysteria about the health care bill, a friend who is a prominent liberal Obama supporter sent me an e-mail flipping my point." 4/3/10
• "Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove's memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney's daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol."3/14/10
• "Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick?" 3/14/10
• "Liz Cheney's crackpot hit squad . . ."3/14/10
• "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged." 2/27/10
• "The leaders embraced by the new grass-roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. . . . But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism." 2/27/10
• "This G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course."'2/14/10
• "Shelby is so unashamedly addicted to earmarks that he used a senatorial ‘hold' to halt confirmation votes on 70 Obama administration appointees until his costly shopping list of Alabama pork projects was granted."2/14/10
• "Even the G.O.P./Tea Party heartthrob of the hour, Scott Brown, is not the barn-coat-wearing populist he purports to be."2/14/10
• "The Republicans are so disciplined at claiming the fiscal-hawk high road that even Jenny Sanford, the wronged first lady of South Carolina, is still defending her husband, Mark, as an uncompromising defender of ‘hard-earned tax dollars' in her new tell-all memoir, ‘Staying True.' Though she gives us the skinny on her husband's philandering, she never mentions the subsequent revelations that expenses for his trysts and other personal travel were billed to taxpayers."2/14/10
• "John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of ‘don't ask, don't tell.' But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington's attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule."2/6/10
• "Now that explicit anti-gay animus is an albatross, those who oppose gay civil rights are driven to invent ever loopier rationales for denying those rights, whether in the military or in marriage."2/6/10
• "It's in this political context that we can see that there may have been some method to Obama's troublesome tardiness on gay issues after all. But as we learned about this White House and the Democratic Congress in the health-care debacle, they are perfectly capable of dropping the ball at any moment."2/6/10
• "Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for Obama's signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his presidency could be toast if he doesn't make good on a year's worth of false starts."3/7/10
• "But the buck stops with the president, not his chief of staff. And if there's one note that runs through many of the theories as to why Obama has disappointed in Year One, it cuts to the heart of what had been his major strength: his ability to communicate a compelling narrative. In the campaign, that narrative, of change and hope, was powerful—both about his own youth, biography and talent, and about a country that had gone wildly off track during the failed presidency of his predecessor."3/7/10
[TIP OF THE HAT TO MARK BAUERLEIN AT EMORY UNIVERSITY]
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
"Breathless" will take your breath away
TAIPEI
Ik-joon Yang is a South Korean actor and director, and his gangster
film "Breathless" is a marvel of Korean cinema. Yang wrote the script
and plays the lead, and of course, he sat in the directo'rs chair as
well. The theme: love and betrayal. The setting: Gangster life.
South Korean actress Kot-bi Kim plays the role of a sassy high school girl who
is not afraid of standing up -- and talking back! -- to Yang's
tough-guy gangster role.
While this film could have been set in Japan or Taiwan as well, where
gangster culture
is also part of the very fabric life, the South Korea setting gives it
a special touch. Only
in South Korea, one might say! It's that good of a movie and the fight
scenes and violence
are not for the tender-hearted.
And the language! Don't get me started! This movie is so foul-mouthed,
it's beyond words!
The cast of characters include Yang as a petty gangster who works for
a loan shark with a very short fuse, Kim as the high-school coed with
some heavy domestic violence issues at home, and a half dozen other
people with stories to tell as well. It's not a pretty picture, and
you
won't leave the theater with a smile on your face, and if you're
watching the DVD at home, be prepared for a very violent show.
Yang's directorial style is visceral, no-holds-barred, and it goes for
your gut. According to Yang, the film is partly autobiographical, and
that might be why the movie packs such an emotional wallop. It's more
than cinematic posturing, and it's not Hollywood violence. This is
South Korea
on speed on celluloid! Ouch!
To make the highly personal film, Yang had to beg, borrow and steal
(and use as many credit cards as he could to finance it), but the
result
was worth every ounce of sweat he used in setting the entire project up.
South Koreans were have seen the film were reported to be deeply
affected by it, and due to the realistic depictions of domestic
violence incidents in the story, many viewers were moved to tears,
according to director Yang. While domestic violence is a terrible
cultural malaise in the West,
from Germany to the USA, it is especially violent in a society like
South Korea, where women are considered second-class people.
The Korean-language title of the movie is "Shit Fly", and the more
gentle "Breathless" title in English does not really do the film
justice.
"Shit fly" says it all: a man who would do anything to get through the
day as gangster insect with little connection to the real world of
love and feelings. Godard this movie is not. This is Ik-joon Yang all the way!
PINOY SUNDAY is a movie that deserves an Oscar for Best Foreign Film -- it's that good and that universal!
''PINOY SUNDAY''........... is an uproarious yet tender indie comedy by a Chinese-Malaysian director about the trials and tribulations of a pair of happy-go-lucky Filipino foreign laborers working in a factory in a newly wealthy Taiwan.
Yes, they'll release a DVD after about 6 months. We're being careful before the Philippine release, and once that's over, you can be sure we'll release it on DVD soon afterwards.
These two dudes represent the Third World workers who make the iPads, iPods and iPhones in spotless factories in Taiwan that fuel the consumer-hungry Western world.
And yet this movie, a truly wonderful film, will likely NOT be shown in the West or anywhere outside a few art theaters and film festivals UNLESS the Internet and blogosphere propel this movie to the place where it belongs: winner of the Oscar award for Best Foreign Film. Think CINEMA PARADISO, think LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. It's that good!
I am a fan. See the trailer here [LINK]and you will understand why. This is not a film for just a few people to see. This film belongs in every movie theater on the planet. Danny Boyle and Shekhar Kapur need to see it. Ang Lee, too. Robert Redford and Steve Spielberg, too. And you. Yes, YOU dear reader. Go see this film.
The film is both comedy and tragedy, with a storytelling touch that is as sublime as much as it is divine.
And the star of the movie, the inanimate yet colorful star of this wonderful cinemagical masterpiece -- as part of the entire 90 minute romp in la condition humaine -- is a red sofa.
Yes, you read that correctly. A bright red leather sofa that's been thrown away by a wealthy Taiwanese family -- discarded and left on a dirty city sidewalk in metropolitan Taipei -- is one of the stars of this movie. It's a symbol of many things in the film: the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the factory bosses and the factory workers, the Taiwanese rich and the dark-skinned foreign worker migrants from the Philippines, dreams and reality, justice and injustice, love and betrayal -- all wrapped up in one bright red sofa!
It's red. It's a couch. It's been thrown away as garbage. To the two Filipino factory workers from overseas, working in Taiwan to make money for their families back home in Manila, the red sofa is a dreamed-of ticket to comfort.
So they spend the entire film trying to get the oversized, cranky, creaky, ungainly, and yes, heavy red sofa back to their worker's dormitory on the outskirts of town. In factoryville.
Red, red, red. The sofa is red. You gotta see this movie. You will never quite look at a sofa the same way again, especially a red sofa like this one!
The various attempts to push, pull, carry and even float the sofa to their spartan dormitory room is at the heart of this laugh-out-loud tragi-comedy that would make even Shakespeare proud, yes, the comedic Shakespeare, and not only Shakespeare....
James Schamus and Ang Lee need to see this film. Brilliant Mendoza must see this movie. Richard Corliss at TIME magazine needs to hear about this movie. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland and Shekhar Kapur in India need to see this film. It's that good!
And that universal!
PINOY SUNDAY is not just a movie about Taiwan. It's a universal story about love, life, dreams ..........and reality!
Dragonbones said:
Saw it tonight -- recommended! We enjoyed it very much. Great job, Gus (and all involved)!
Some have expressed that they're not interested in a film about Filipino workers in Taiwan, but that's not really what it is. I'd rather characterize it as an amusing and informative film which I think a broad audience will enjoy; it shows a side of life in Taiwan which most people don't see, and it is as much about human character, optimism, friendship and perseverance as anything. It is fresh, refreshingly non-commercial, and definitely entertaining.
Dragonbones wrote:
BTW, I was really pleased with the quality of the acting, especially that by the four Filipino leads. Really top notch!
Yes, I only met the two leads once (on the day they were filming at Ren'ai Circle) and Wi-ding has told me that throughout the entire process, they were all very professional and really wonderful to work with. Epy, in particular, was very easy to communicate with about what moods and emotions Wi-ding wanted to convey. A real natural, apparently.
It has been mentioned a few times in interviews that Epy and Bayani were not the original leads we were casting. Two years ago, we had a different Philippine producer and they were focused on a different actor. We ran into trouble trying to nail down terms with both our producer and that actor's agent. We had actually begun pre-production in Taipei before contracts were signed with both, and that was a fatal mistake. We ended up not being able to agree, and almost canceling the entire project altogether.
This was November 2008, and Wi-ding and I met in Taipei to decide if the project could continue. He'd been trying to get this done since 2005, and he wasn't going to do it half-assed with so much compromising (which was working what the first Philippine producer and the original lead actor seemed to entail). I didn't mind the delay, since I hadn't actually transfered any cash yet - Wi-ding was great about being very mindful of the investors. By calling a halt, he earned a lot of respect from me.
We set a deadline to find a new Philippine producer by CNY 2009. And did we - Mark Meily is a very experienced and very accomplished director in Philippine cinema. Unwittingly, I first met him the week his movie "Baler" swept the Metro Manila film festival that year (and of course, I was oblivious to that fact) but getting him on board was key to reaching Epy, Alex and Merryl. I think Merryl was actually at the Tribeca film festival at that time, or some other festival in New York. We had been talking to Bayani already, I think we originally had cast him in what became Epy's role. Unlike the first time around, their attitude, enthusiasm, and strong interest were so different.
It's hard to overstate how important it was to have the right people nailed down. It wasn't just that Mark was well-known in the industry, so he could open more doors. That wasn't really the problem to begin with. It was the quality of communication that transpired between Mark and Wi-ding. Filmmaking in the Philippines and Taiwan has many differences - contracts, expectations - but these two were able to connect and agree very quickly on a range of things that were needed on the Philippine-side. Mark understood who and what Wi-ding needed without as much discussion as the first time, so WI-ding's few trips to Manila for casting were more efficient and meaningful.
Can't say enough good things about Mark. He has a long list of accomplishments, but one of the more recent things he has done is adapt the Camera Cafe TV Show from France into a Filipino setting. His firm -- Spark Films -- won the contract for the Philippine market and has won awards and recognition for it, among many other things. Looking at the Wikipedia entry, I can see that Epy and Alex's sister were part of that show
Bayani and Epy do have great chemistry on screen.
Here's another tip in the movie - that very very last scene (which was actually the first scene that was filmed, because it was filmed onsite in the Philippines) is *not* part of the main story. It shows the close friendship of the two heroes, and was intentionally meant to be unclear whether it happened BEFORE or AFTER the main story in Taipei. There are a number of flash backs to the beach where they are from in the Philippines, so that final scene is supposed to be treated as EITHER a flashback or a flashforward. When I watched it with my inlaws at the Golden Horse, I explained this to them, but they figured it was easier to understand as happening after the main events of the story. (When you see it, this paragraph will make more sense)
Oh, and actually, I was kinda expecting the credits to roll while they were singing on the river. I don't know whether anyone else mentioned this to you. That would have made a good ending too.
I saw the movie at SPOT. Makes me feel at home while watching it and doesn't want the movie to end Great movie! I love the simplicity of it.
Just to share an experience, while waiting for the screening, I saw this petite chinese-looking man with a backpack loitering around SPOT's vicinity. As I was reading some clippings with pics on SPOT's bulletin boards, i just recognized that the guy i just saw was actually the director Thanks Mr. Wi Ding Ho and the production team for making this movie happen.
Does anybody knows if there are plans to release a DVD of the movie? Salamat po.
I watched the movie at SPOT as well! Lot's of Taiwanese students watching so the place was full and I had to sit in the 2nd row.
Pinoy Sunday was great! It's actually the type of film I would write a looooong paper on in my student days. There was a Q&A after the movie and I wanted to ask a question but I was too shy and my Mandarin is really poor... in the scene where they were fighting over the dog, why were the scenes cut/spliced so obviously? I was wondering if there was a metaphor behind that I wasn't getting...?
I was pleasantly surprised with Bayani's acting in this movie. The audience kept laughing at his facial expressions, especially the 'serious' face. He came across as someone you and I would know in real life... well played!
I'm really hoping to read a review on this movie that would outline/point out the underlying meanings/symbols of the story. For one, it wasn't obvious to me that the colors represented the flag until someone asked about it in the Q&A. I'm sure there are lots more such as what the sofa represents... and the ending...
Planning to watch it again! And I know my friends are going to watch too... Thanks so much to everyone who made this movie possible! Good luck with the film festivals - praying for the win!
Yes, they'll release a DVD after about 6 months. We're being careful before the Philippine release, and once that's over, you can be sure we'll release it on DVD soon afterwards.
These two dudes represent the Third World workers who make the iPads, iPods and iPhones in spotless factories in Taiwan that fuel the consumer-hungry Western world.
And yet this movie, a truly wonderful film, will likely NOT be shown in the West or anywhere outside a few art theaters and film festivals UNLESS the Internet and blogosphere propel this movie to the place where it belongs: winner of the Oscar award for Best Foreign Film. Think CINEMA PARADISO, think LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. It's that good!
I am a fan. See the trailer here [LINK]and you will understand why. This is not a film for just a few people to see. This film belongs in every movie theater on the planet. Danny Boyle and Shekhar Kapur need to see it. Ang Lee, too. Robert Redford and Steve Spielberg, too. And you. Yes, YOU dear reader. Go see this film.
The film is both comedy and tragedy, with a storytelling touch that is as sublime as much as it is divine.
And the star of the movie, the inanimate yet colorful star of this wonderful cinemagical masterpiece -- as part of the entire 90 minute romp in la condition humaine -- is a red sofa.
Yes, you read that correctly. A bright red leather sofa that's been thrown away by a wealthy Taiwanese family -- discarded and left on a dirty city sidewalk in metropolitan Taipei -- is one of the stars of this movie. It's a symbol of many things in the film: the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the factory bosses and the factory workers, the Taiwanese rich and the dark-skinned foreign worker migrants from the Philippines, dreams and reality, justice and injustice, love and betrayal -- all wrapped up in one bright red sofa!
It's red. It's a couch. It's been thrown away as garbage. To the two Filipino factory workers from overseas, working in Taiwan to make money for their families back home in Manila, the red sofa is a dreamed-of ticket to comfort.
So they spend the entire film trying to get the oversized, cranky, creaky, ungainly, and yes, heavy red sofa back to their worker's dormitory on the outskirts of town. In factoryville.
Red, red, red. The sofa is red. You gotta see this movie. You will never quite look at a sofa the same way again, especially a red sofa like this one!
The various attempts to push, pull, carry and even float the sofa to their spartan dormitory room is at the heart of this laugh-out-loud tragi-comedy that would make even Shakespeare proud, yes, the comedic Shakespeare, and not only Shakespeare....
James Schamus and Ang Lee need to see this film. Brilliant Mendoza must see this movie. Richard Corliss at TIME magazine needs to hear about this movie. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland and Shekhar Kapur in India need to see this film. It's that good!
And that universal!
PINOY SUNDAY is not just a movie about Taiwan. It's a universal story about love, life, dreams ..........and reality!
Dragonbones said:
Saw it tonight -- recommended! We enjoyed it very much. Great job, Gus (and all involved)!
Some have expressed that they're not interested in a film about Filipino workers in Taiwan, but that's not really what it is. I'd rather characterize it as an amusing and informative film which I think a broad audience will enjoy; it shows a side of life in Taiwan which most people don't see, and it is as much about human character, optimism, friendship and perseverance as anything. It is fresh, refreshingly non-commercial, and definitely entertaining.
Dragonbones wrote:
BTW, I was really pleased with the quality of the acting, especially that by the four Filipino leads. Really top notch!
Yes, I only met the two leads once (on the day they were filming at Ren'ai Circle) and Wi-ding has told me that throughout the entire process, they were all very professional and really wonderful to work with. Epy, in particular, was very easy to communicate with about what moods and emotions Wi-ding wanted to convey. A real natural, apparently.
It has been mentioned a few times in interviews that Epy and Bayani were not the original leads we were casting. Two years ago, we had a different Philippine producer and they were focused on a different actor. We ran into trouble trying to nail down terms with both our producer and that actor's agent. We had actually begun pre-production in Taipei before contracts were signed with both, and that was a fatal mistake. We ended up not being able to agree, and almost canceling the entire project altogether.
This was November 2008, and Wi-ding and I met in Taipei to decide if the project could continue. He'd been trying to get this done since 2005, and he wasn't going to do it half-assed with so much compromising (which was working what the first Philippine producer and the original lead actor seemed to entail). I didn't mind the delay, since I hadn't actually transfered any cash yet - Wi-ding was great about being very mindful of the investors. By calling a halt, he earned a lot of respect from me.
We set a deadline to find a new Philippine producer by CNY 2009. And did we - Mark Meily is a very experienced and very accomplished director in Philippine cinema. Unwittingly, I first met him the week his movie "Baler" swept the Metro Manila film festival that year (and of course, I was oblivious to that fact) but getting him on board was key to reaching Epy, Alex and Merryl. I think Merryl was actually at the Tribeca film festival at that time, or some other festival in New York. We had been talking to Bayani already, I think we originally had cast him in what became Epy's role. Unlike the first time around, their attitude, enthusiasm, and strong interest were so different.
It's hard to overstate how important it was to have the right people nailed down. It wasn't just that Mark was well-known in the industry, so he could open more doors. That wasn't really the problem to begin with. It was the quality of communication that transpired between Mark and Wi-ding. Filmmaking in the Philippines and Taiwan has many differences - contracts, expectations - but these two were able to connect and agree very quickly on a range of things that were needed on the Philippine-side. Mark understood who and what Wi-ding needed without as much discussion as the first time, so WI-ding's few trips to Manila for casting were more efficient and meaningful.
Can't say enough good things about Mark. He has a long list of accomplishments, but one of the more recent things he has done is adapt the Camera Cafe TV Show from France into a Filipino setting. His firm -- Spark Films -- won the contract for the Philippine market and has won awards and recognition for it, among many other things. Looking at the Wikipedia entry, I can see that Epy and Alex's sister were part of that show
Bayani and Epy do have great chemistry on screen.
Here's another tip in the movie - that very very last scene (which was actually the first scene that was filmed, because it was filmed onsite in the Philippines) is *not* part of the main story. It shows the close friendship of the two heroes, and was intentionally meant to be unclear whether it happened BEFORE or AFTER the main story in Taipei. There are a number of flash backs to the beach where they are from in the Philippines, so that final scene is supposed to be treated as EITHER a flashback or a flashforward. When I watched it with my inlaws at the Golden Horse, I explained this to them, but they figured it was easier to understand as happening after the main events of the story. (When you see it, this paragraph will make more sense)
Oh, and actually, I was kinda expecting the credits to roll while they were singing on the river. I don't know whether anyone else mentioned this to you. That would have made a good ending too.
I saw the movie at SPOT. Makes me feel at home while watching it and doesn't want the movie to end Great movie! I love the simplicity of it.
Just to share an experience, while waiting for the screening, I saw this petite chinese-looking man with a backpack loitering around SPOT's vicinity. As I was reading some clippings with pics on SPOT's bulletin boards, i just recognized that the guy i just saw was actually the director Thanks Mr. Wi Ding Ho and the production team for making this movie happen.
Does anybody knows if there are plans to release a DVD of the movie? Salamat po.
I watched the movie at SPOT as well! Lot's of Taiwanese students watching so the place was full and I had to sit in the 2nd row.
Pinoy Sunday was great! It's actually the type of film I would write a looooong paper on in my student days. There was a Q&A after the movie and I wanted to ask a question but I was too shy and my Mandarin is really poor... in the scene where they were fighting over the dog, why were the scenes cut/spliced so obviously? I was wondering if there was a metaphor behind that I wasn't getting...?
I was pleasantly surprised with Bayani's acting in this movie. The audience kept laughing at his facial expressions, especially the 'serious' face. He came across as someone you and I would know in real life... well played!
I'm really hoping to read a review on this movie that would outline/point out the underlying meanings/symbols of the story. For one, it wasn't obvious to me that the colors represented the flag until someone asked about it in the Q&A. I'm sure there are lots more such as what the sofa represents... and the ending...
Planning to watch it again! And I know my friends are going to watch too... Thanks so much to everyone who made this movie possible! Good luck with the film festivals - praying for the win!
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