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.”
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