As Russia moves into Ukraine, it seems that Ai Weiwei's description of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 seems an appropriate reading. Not just for the people of Ukraine, but for the people of the world. If Putin is able to 'take' Ukraine, what's next? And what does this foretell about future relations between Europe, Russia, and the US, not to mention China, and the rest of the world?
In July 1937. Ai Weiwei's father Ai Qing was a young poet who had started getting noticed. Three months earlier, the wife had their first baby on the day the Japanese began their invasion of China. They are trying to keep ahead of the Japanese army and have arrived at Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a little west of Shanghai and is known for its beautiful West Lake which is now a World Heritage Site.
Ai Weiwei writes:
"The West Lake was unchanged, hazy and indistinct. It seemed to him that the locals were drifting through life, still clinging to an illusory notion of leisure. The onset of war had failed to shock Hangzhou; while the fate of the nation hung in the balance, people simply continue with their routines. 'I cannot pretend to love Hangzhou," Father would soon confess. 'Like so many cities in China, it is crammed with narrow-minded, selfish residents, with complacent and vulgar office workers, low-level officials accustomed to currying favor, and cultural types who make a hobby of hyping things up. They commonly think of themselves as living in unparalleled happiness, as though lounging in their mother's lap.' He would write these words at the end of the year, when news came to him that Hangzhou had fallen, after he and his family had escaped to Wuhan." (p. 51)
Sound familiar?
Ai Qing, who had moved his family further west, was once again faced with an advancing army. This is surely happening right now in parts of Ukraine.
"When they arrived at Jinhua Railway Station at eight o'clock in the morning, wounded soldiers, freshly evacuated from battlefield, lay strewn along the platform. One of the soldiers, a faint gray light shining in his eyes, told Father that hospitals in the area were no longer taking in casualties. Some had covered themselves with straw for warmth, while others threw straw in a heap and set fire to it to warm up inside dirty bedrolls. The fight had disrupted the normal train schedule, and in the confusion it was unclear whether rail service would even continue. Ticket sales had been halted, and if a train came in everyone simply piled in,whether they had tickets or not."(pp 51-52)
Later, he writes about poetry and democracy. Ideas to contemplate as those in power aim to abolish truth with mistruths.
"'Poetry today ought to be a bold experiment in the democratic spirit,' he declared, ' and the future of poetry is inseparable from the future of democratic politics. A constitution matters even more to poets than to others, because only when the right to expression guaranteed can one give voice to the hopes of people at large, and only then is progress possible. To suppress the voices of the people is the cruelest form of violence.' Eighty years later, his faith in poetry's freedom's ambassador has yet to find vindication in China."
For those of you unfamiliar with Ai Weiwei, he's probably modern China's best known artist, though he's living in exile now. Here's a short bio.
I haven't seen much of Ai Weiwei's art in person. But I did see this tree at an exhibition of modern Chinese artists at the Louis Vuitton museum in Paris five or six years ago. The link describes it somewhat.
The Trevor Noah interview below doesn't tell you much about his art or life, but it's worth watching as we deal with an increasingly oppressive takeover of the Republican party.
I have to add, reading a good book is so much more satisfying that scanning Twitter or other online collections of alarmism and distraction.
What's different about Germany, Japan, and Korea from Vietnam and Afghanistan? First Germany and Japan. Both were soundly defeated in WWII. Germany was divided by the Soviet Union, the US, France, and England. The Soviet Union, which controlled East Germany, was seen as the biggest threat to West Germany.
Japan was also soundly defeated and ruled by the Allied forces, though effectively headed by General Douglas MacArthur. A democratic Constitution for Japan was created under MacArthur's leadership. Japan's two greatest adversaries were neighboring China and the Soviet Union. Again, the US presence served as protection for the severely battered post-WWII Japan.
South Korea was threatened by North Korea supported by the Chinese. The US helped keep the North Koreans and their Chinese allies from taking over South Korea.
In all three cases, the US was seen as a military protection from outside invasion - China in Korea's case, the Soviet Union and China in Japan's case, and the Soviet Union in West Germany's case.
In contrast, both in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the US was supporting a government that was more aligned with foreign powers. Vietnam had recently gotten rid of the French colonial rulers. The US came in backing the Catholic French colonial Vietnamese against the indigenous Buddhist Vietnamese.
In Afghanistan, again, the Kabul government was aligned with the US against Afghan groups - Taliban and local tribal leaders. It's more complicated than that, of course, but basically the Muslim nation was fighting a basically Christian outside force.
In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, there was outside support for the North Vietnamese and the Taliban, but it was to oust was was seen as an occupying force from the West.
So in the cases of Vietnam and Afghanistan, the US military was fighting a war, far away from home, in a country they knew little or nothing about. They didn't speak the language and needed interpreters or locals who spoke English to communicate. They couldn't tell their friends from their enemies. Their opponents were fighting for their homeland and to expel the invaders.
Perhaps this is one of the key lessons we should have learned. We can support countries that see us as allies against their fight against a feared enemy. We oughtn't, otherwise, be outsiders picking a side in a civil war, especially in countries we (the average US citizen and the soldiers) know little or nothing about.
And, of course, we should not assume that what happens us in the future will be exact matches to what happened in the past. We must be careful to choose our models carefully and to weigh various factors.
And the world has to figure out how to protect humans from their own ruthless rulers. It's all very thorny and no one emerges unscathed.
I can't believe there are still five narrative features I haven't seen yet. Or that I'm writing about two obscure films instead of addressing more significant issues. But there are plenty of people commenting on US politics and not very many commenting on these two films - one Turkish and and Japanese.
Toprak -
I just looked up Toprak on google.translate. It means Soil. You don't have to know that watching the movie (I didn't), but it makes a lot of sense.
Often times, watching a film based in a culture other than one's own, people need to change their sense of time, their pace. I suspect, given the success of US films around the world, that speeding things up is easier to adapt to than slowing things down.
This film slows things down a lot. It takes place in rural Turkey, where this slower pace is the norm. It focuses on the remnants of one family - a grandmother, her son, and his nephew - who eke out a living growing and selling pomegranates. It's a theme we've seen repeatedly in AIFF films - young people leaving rural areas and small towns to pursue a more interesting, if not better, life. And we know this saga in the US and here in Alaska all too well.
This movie takes us into how these tensions between carrying on the family traditions and breaking the ties plays out in this (and to a much lesser extent one other) Turkish family.
Originally, a copy of this film without subtitles was up on the AIFF site. That was corrected yesterday (Wednesday). Slow down and take a trip to rural Turkey. Pomegranates would make an appropriate snack for this film.
The Woman of the Photographs
We watched this one after Toprak. The topics of this film are very contemporary and the pace much faster. It's an odd film - the main character doesn't speak a single word until the last few minutes of the film; a praying mantis has a significant supporting role - that explores the boundaries between the reality of who people are - what their actual faces and bodies look like, the manipulated photographic images on social media, or how other people perceive them. This is a perfect film festival selection.
I found The Woman of the Photographs a more watchable film than Toprak, I think because the issues raised in Toprak are well-known. Toprak merely adds a case study to the stories of people leaving their small town/rural lives to larger cities. Woman of the Photographs offers interesting material for the current concerns about how social media are changing the nature of reality, how we communicate, and personal identity.
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial is a short drive from here. A friend from Anchorage who is also in Seattle visiting grandkids brought two and two dogs to visit us on Bainbridge today. So I haven't had much time to even think about posting. But here's a bit.
There's a path here with a series of panels with wooden pictures of the removal of Japanese-Americans, many, not most, American citizens, from Bainbridge Island after the US declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor. Japanese had settled here and many raised strawberries. The book Snow Falling On Cedars is a novel about this period here on the island. This path is also the path the internees were walked down to get to ships to remove them on their way to internment camps further from the coast.
There are also quotes here and there from people who experienced this, like this one:
This echoes the sentiment of Holocaust survivors in Europe during World War II. And give the imprisonment of asylum seekers and the separation of children from their parents there, it seems that we are letting this happen again.
The LA Times today reports that California is going to officially apologize for internment of Japanese in World War II.
Then we walked along the nearby beach, where the dogs had a great time off leash.
Here, the ferry from downtown Seattle is coming into downtown Winslow.
Sunday's Anchorage Daily News classified section included a bunch of long ads for:
1. Salmon Roe Technicians: 5 Temporary, full time positions to work from 6/1/2019 to 9/20/2019. Work will be performed at plant in Valdez, AK. Responsible for processing salmon roe to produce Ikura and Sujiko (Japanese salmon roe products) for export to Japan. [Then there's a long description of all they have to do such as "sorting, salting, preserving, brining, seasoning, mixing, agitating, dewatering" and then inspecting and packing, and providing technical expertise in grading and quality control . . .]
This positions is 40 hours a week plus up to 40 hours overtime for $14.50/hour and $21.75/hour overtime. It includes transportation to the site, housing and meals, and transportation back "if the worker completes half the employment period or is dismissed early by the employers."
Experience needed? two years of this work processing roe for the Japanese market and knowledge of processing and grading standards for the Japanese market.
2. Salmon Roe Technicians: 5 temporary, full-time positions to work from 5/5/2019 to 9/20/2019. These will be at "3 land plants in Kenai and Kasilof, AK. This one is pretty similar, but it's up to 44 hours overtime and pays $15/hour and $22/hour overtime.
4. Peter Pan Seafoods is looking for 9 Salmon Roe Technicians - for Dillingham and Valdez. This ad has much the same details though the language is a little different. It only pays $14.48/hour and $21.72/hour over time, but it has up to 50 hours of overtime possible. They'll also pay for visa and border crossing expenses. And you apply, not to the company, but to the Alaska Dept. of Labor.
5. Westwood Seafoods has openings for 7 seafood processing technicians (surimi and roe) in Dutch Harbor. "Must be willing to work up to 12 or more hours per day, 7 days per week, depending on fish availability. Big difference here: Wage is $20-$40/hour DOE plus health insurance and potential for bonus. Overtime at $30-$60 per hour DOE. Free room and board as well, however, return transportation paid only if employee works the whole contract or is dismissed. (Getting back from Dutch Harbor is a lot more than Valdez or Kenai!) And the contract is from 5/24 to 10/24/2019. Again, apply at Alaska Dept. of Labor.
6. Premier Pacific Seafoods, Inc has openings for 3 seafood processing technicians (surimi and roe) on board M/ Excellence or the Phoenix vessel in the Bering Sea and North Pacific. Wages here are $16.65 to $30/hour and $24.98 to $45/hour overtime, depending on experience, or if higher, $235 - $300 per day, plus health insurance, possible bonus, and room and board.
Here are some worker comments about Premier Pacific.
7. Finally Nicherei U.S.A. LLC has 25 openings for Salmon Roe Technicians "at multiple work sites in SW Alaska, incl. plants in Cordova, Kodiak, Naknek, and Valdez. 35 regular hours at $14.48/hour and up to 30 additional at $21.72/hour overtime. This one has slightly different wording about food and lodging. The others said this was free. This one includes it in a sentence about travel to site (reimbursed if complete half the period) and travel back (if complete whole period.) The wording suggests that meals will be covered if half the contract is worked.
I understand that lots of college students go work in fish processing plants and on fishing ships over the summer for the adventure and the pay that comes with all the overtime. But it would seem to me that a Salmon Roe Technician with two years experience are harder to find and should get paid more than minimum wage. The only two companies here paying more than minimum wage are Westwood Seafoods and Premier Pacific Seafoods, though the later is on a ship which adds more adventure but also much more risk.
NOTE: I saw these ads in the print edition and couldn't find them online. They're on pages C-2 and C-3, of the Sunday Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 2019.
We ended up at the Japanese Garden after dropping off our grandson at his pre-school. Our timing was great - as we walked in Mary Ann Provence was about to start a tour of the garden and invited us to join. There were six of us altogether.
"Originally created as a “Japanese Village” exhibit for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, the site originally spanned about one acre and showcased a Japanese style garden. When the fair closed, Japanese landscape architect Makoto Hagiwara and superintendent John McLaren reached a gentleman’s agreement, allowing Mr. Hagiwara to create and maintain a permanent Japanese style garden as a gift for posterity. He became caretaker of the property, pouring all of his personal wealth, passion, and creative talents into creating a garden of utmost perfection. Mr. Hagiwara expanded the garden to its current size of approximately 5 acres where he and his family lived for many years until 1942 when they, along with approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans, were forced to evacuate their homes and move into internment camps. When the war was over, the Hagiwara family was not allowed to return to their home at the tea garden and in subsequent years, many Hagiwara family treasures were removed and new additions were made."
It's all in there - Makoto Hagiwara's great contribution and then his forced evacuation due to xenophobia in 1942. They even changed the name to Oriental Gardens in WW II and it wasn't until many years later it became the Japanese Garden again.
The rock is the head of a dragon - the hedge winds on up the hill with a rock tail.
Rocks are a key foundation of Japanese gardens. They give it structure, we were told. Trees and flowers come and go, but rocks stay. Other aspects - water, walks, fish. There might have been one or two more. Oh, yes, bridges.
Most of the paths were gravel, but this stone path, our guide pointed out, was to force you to slow down as you approach the zen meditation garden.
Here the gravel is sculpted to look like ripples in water. You're supposed to look at it, not walk in it. But the squirrels, she said, don't follow the rules.
The free tour was one of many offered by San Francisco City Guides. They do give you the chance to make a donation at the end, but there's no pressure.
Mary Ann was a great guide and she also gave us a great tip - next door at the DeYoung Museum you can go to the top of the 9 story tower to the observation room which is floor to ceiling glass windows all the way around. That part of the museum is free. And the view is stunning. My camera could not in any way capture it, but here's a couple of glimpses.
A post on the Earth Null School has suddenly started getting lots of hits from people in Korea. So I decided to see if I could figure out why.
Earth Null School has a dynamic map of the world showing wind, currents, air, among other things. [Click on EARTH in lower left to get options.] So I went to the site and looked around. You can see the hurricane headed toward Hawaii. And then I spun the globe, so to speak, and saw two more little swirling balls - one off Japan and one headed to Korea.
Japan is the island with the orange weather pattern. And to the left of that is a yellow ball at the southern tip of Korea. If you go to the Earth Null School page, all these wind patterns are moving.
"After grazing southern Japan, Severe Tropical Storm Soulik is on track to sweep across the Korean Peninsula through Friday.
As AccuWeather predicted, Soulik reached the equivalent of a Category 3 major hurricane in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific basins at its peak. Soulik has since weakened to a severe tropical storm."
"Three tropical cyclones are lined up in the Pacific Ocean, and one, Hurricane Lane, may hit Hawaii in a few days. The other two, Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron, will crash into east Asia, directly affecting South Korea and Japan later this week.
All three storms contain winds of at least 74 mph, indicating hurricane strength (typhoons and hurricanes are the same kind of storm, but have different names depending on the section of ocean they traverse). Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron are on a collision course with the Asian continent, and effects from torrential rain, strong winds, and dangerous surf appear unavoidable"
I'm assuming that as Koreans are preparing for some weather, the word got out that you could see it coming toward them at Earth Null School and google offered them my old post. That's purely speculation.
There are several posts I should have done (and still should do) on the impact of Netflix on my movie viewing. Succinctly - we've spent a lot less time watching movies in theaters, but we've seen movies and tv shows that offer a much wider view of life, both in the US and beyond, than one normally gets at the cinema.
But I just want to mention a couple Netflix offerings here. Season 1 of Aziz Ansari's Master of None was a disappointment. It portrays the life of a Muslim Indian-American. The topics were good, but it just didn't have the crispness and bite I've come to expect on good Netflix series.
But this second season has a much different tone and I'd like to strongly suggest two episodes:
Season 2 - Episode 6: New York, I Love You
We barely see the main character. Instead we see glimpses of life in New York from the perspective of people who are outside the normal white, straight, able-bodied mainstream as they deal with life's obstacles because of being the outside the 'norm.' It's light, it's well done, and it has an important message for those of us who generally have a 'normal' pass.
Season 2 - Episode 8: Thanksgiving
Screenshot from Netflix
If you only want to watch one of these episodes, watch this one. Aziz, in this series, has several close, old friends. Denise is a black lesbian and up until this episode we didn't know why she was in Dev's (Aziz's character) circle.
This episode corrects that and fills us in on who she is. It covers a number of Thanksgiving dinners from the early 1990's (the second one is dated 1995, and I would guess Dev was about 8 or 9 in the first one) until the present. Dev was over because his family didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving, so Denise's mother invited him over for every Thanksgiving. We watch the two kids grow up together, including Denise coming out to Dev, and then her mom. And how that first Thanksgiving after she comes out is very awkward and how over the years the family becomes comfortable with her orientation and even her girlfriend. It's a wonderful show that takes on its own unique structure - compared to the the other episodes (except episode 2) which more or less follow a typical sitcom story arc. A very insightful episode.
Screenshot from Netflix
Hasan Minhaj - Homecoming King
Netflix filmed Daily Show correspondent, Hasan Minhaj's comedy show, at his performance in Davis, California, where he was born and raised. The audience is very supportive. Basically, he talks about how he became a comedian and all the bumps along the way as the US born son of Indian immigrants living in a mostly white area. There's a lot of humor and understanding to help us understand the anger he felt because of the way he was treated because he wasn't white. Again, insightful, and something white Americans should watch.
Is it a coincidence that Netflix has these two shows (Minhaj is just a single show, not a series) starring Muslim Indian-Amricans? (I'd love to track that down, but a quick online search didn't find the answer and if I'm going to get anything up today, that will have to be left for someone else.)
I also have to mention Midnight Diner - Tokyo Stories. This is a gem of a show with short, poignant episodes that give us glimpses into the lives of ordinary folks in Tokyo who work late and stop at the Midnight Diner on the way home. Each episode tells the story of a different person. As it tells their stories, it also reminds us that people are people everywhere - they just dress and speak differently, but under all the cultural camouflage, they're just human beings with the same kinds of needs and dreams and foibles of humans everywhere. This is such a charming show and each episode just takes 20 minutes or so. And the music is good.
Of course, you have to subscribe to Netflix, or know someone who does, to watch these. I resisted long enough and only joined so I could show my mom a movie, which turned out not to be on Netflix. But there were other good movies she enjoyed. And at about $9 per month (for online only, including dvd's is a little more), it's less than the price of one person at most theaters for one viewing. (Yes, I know, Anchorage's great Bear Tooth theater is less.)
There are lots and lots of interesting movies on Netflix, including many international films and television shows that give you a very different view of the world.
We did an early morning visit with our grandson to the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park. A wonderful time to visit - early morning sunshine and hardly any other people. And the koi and the various bridges over the water and the pagodas all kept the youngen's attention.
It reports on how they spied on the Japanese delegation at the 2007 International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage. It has a strangely school-boy prank "look what we did" quality to it. And 20 miles from an office on Elmendorf to the Captain Cook Hotel seems a bit far. Judge for yourself.
"DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(S//SI//REL) Special-Delivery SIGINT: How NSA Got Reports to US Negotiators In Time for Them
To Be of Value
FROM: ooooooooooooNSA Representative to Department of Commerce (S112)
Run Date: 07/13/2007
(S//SI//REL) Imagine that you represent the US at an international forum. You and your allies from other nations are trying to win a key vote, but the opposition camp is lobbying furiously and it's really coming down to the wire. You would dearly love to obtain some SIGINT that lets you know what the other side is up to, wouldn't you? But if the meetings are being held in a remote location, how can NSA get it to you?
(S//SI//REL) For scenarios like the above, NSA improvises! Recently I was fortunate to serve as the NSA on-the-ground support to just such an international forum - the meeting of the International Whaling Commission. "The International Whaling Commission?" you ask. The IWC recently held its 59th annual meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, where the 77-member commission voted on several whale conservation measures, which the US government supports. When the meeting ended on 1 June, the anti-whaling camp won, but the outcome was not clear going in.
(S//SI//REL) Japan again hoped to end the 21-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling, but failing that, lobbied for votes supporting other pro-whaling proposals. New Zealand had the target access, and collected and provided insightful SIGINT that laid out the lobbying efforts of the Japanese and the response of countries whose votes were so coveted. US officials were anxious to receive the latest information during the actual negotiations in Anchorage. But how do you get GCSB* SIGINT to the IWC Chair at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage?
Japanese
(U) Japanese delegates listen on the opening day of the International Whaling
Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska in this handout photo taken May 28, 2007. (Reuters)
(S//SI//REL) Everything comes together in the global cryptologic enterprise. We contacted the Alaska Mission Operations Center (AMOC) at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage and were assured that they could accommodate us, even though we would be showing up at work on the Sunday before Memorial Day and working the holiday. Department of Commerce funded the TDY for a Commerce Intelligence Analyst and me, NSA's External Representative to Commerce. I admit to being skeptical that we would get all AMOC had promised - immediate access to NSANet and MAUI. But it was really true! In no time the airmen on duty had me up and running on NSANet with access to MAUI and a working printer.
(S//SI//REL) The time difference from New Zealand to Alaska worked in our favor, as the very latest collection was ready for distribution first thing in the morning, before the IWC convened. The AMOC is located about 20 miles from the hotel where the IWC meeting took place. I took a 30-minute cab ride to the AMOC daily at 7:00 a.m. in order to retrieve the latest SIGINT products, which I placed in my locked bag. My Commerce colleague picked me up in her rented vehicle and together we couriered the SIGINT to the hotel. The US delegation had a private conference room with a lock. We arranged to have the room emptied at a specific time and then distributed the material to the fully cleared delegates to read in silence. When everyone finished we couriered the material back to the AMOC and shredded it.
(S//REL) We knew the delegates valued the material simply because they took time from their very hectic schedules to be there and read it. The pointing and nodding was also a good indicator. Two US delegates from Commerce and two from State read, as well as two New Zealand and one Australian delegate. Was the outcome worth the effort? The Australian, New Zealand, and American delegates would all say "yes." I believe the whales would concur. _______________________________________________________________________
(U) Notes:
*GCSB = New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau"
The lead story in the article also has an Anchorage connection. It's about how a Japanese spy agency recorded the Russian pilots who shot down the Korean Airline passenger jet that briefly strayed into Russian territory in 1983. That flight, KAL 107, refueled in Anchorage before it was shot down.
[UPDATE 9:30PM: I should have added this originally. From Wikipedia:
"Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT). Signals intelligence is a subset of intelligence collection management."
Yesterday we got in some beach time before it started raining again. We did then go across to the Bainbridge Island Japanese Exclusion Memorial as the rain began. I thought I'd posted about this memorial before but I can't find such a post. It's very powerful, reminding us about the dangers and injustices of condemning whole groups of people.
From the beach walk, here are some images of the driftwood someone little walked across.
That's from an editorial in the Japan Times as reported in ICEF Monitor, in reaction to the Japanese government's call for
"universities to close social sciences and humanities faculties."
According to the article,
"Higher education policy in Japan is now reportedly determined via the President’s Council on Industrial Competitiveness, a special body composed of government ministers, business executives, and (two) academics. And it appears that the Minister’s June letter to universities emerged from deliberations within that group and, more fundamentally, from the President’s conviction that Japan’s higher education institutions should be more directly focused on the country’s labour market needs."
(Another factor in this debate is the decline of the student age population in Japan which means there are fewer applications to universities. The article also mentions a threat of loss of funds from the government to universities that don't comply.)
And the University of Alaska Fairbanks is shutting down the philosophy department and others. Budget cuts give good cover for making such moves. "We wish it was not necessary to reduce the number of programs we offer, but our state budget scenario leaves us few choices." Of course, Alaska's legislature, like many others, is under constant anti-government and budget cutting pressure from right wing lobbyist organizations based on so called 'think tank' studies. But that's another story. (The Anchorage International Film Festival had a documentary, The Brainwashing of my Dad, which chronicles how the right is pumping out this sort of propaganda, that eventually leads to this sort of regretful, handwringing apology for shutting down such programs.)
I recall when the Masters of Public Administration (MPA) program worked with its advisory committee - made up of active executives in state, federal, local, military, and non-profit organizations - the faculty were surprised by the outcome. While our existing program emphasized thinking and problem solving skills, our then existing objectives focused on practical management skills such as human resources, budgeting, supervisory, and planning, and public involvement skills. But our advisory board was more interested in students who could think, solve problems, were flexible, and could deal with ethical dilemmas, than it was with a mechanical understanding of the budgeting process or personnel rules. And so we adjusted our program learning objectives to reflect those processes we taught already, but hadn't explicitly identified in our learning objectives.
And apparently this is the case too among key Japanese business leaders. Again from the ICEF Monitor article:
"The powerful business lobby group Keidanren was also quick to respond to the government’s assertion that the business community only requires people with practical skills. “Some media reported that the business community is seeking work-ready human resources, not students in the humanities, but that is not the case,” said Keidanren Chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara. He added that Japanese companies desire “exactly the opposite” – that is, students who can solve problems based on “ideas encompassing the different fields” of science and humanities."
“It’s important to develop in young people the ability to think broadly, to operate in the context of other societies and become agile and adaptive thinkers,” Trainor said. “What you’re trying to do is teach them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. They’re having to deal with people from other cultures. They have to think very intuitively to solve problems on the ground.”
That's more or less what our advisors were saying in the MPA program back in the 1990's.
There's a lot more to say on this. Is this just the task-oriented types narrowly trying to eliminate what they see as useless philosophizing wasteful programs, or are these more calculated attempts to stop universities from teaching students to think? Which harkens back to the quote on totalitarianism in the title. But my job here in LA is to clean out my mom's house and play with my granddaughter for the few more days she's here. So consider this post, like many posts, just notes on the human condition and how we know what we know.
[Sorry for those seeing this reposted - Feedburner problems again.] [And the reposting got it onto other blog rolls in three minutes this time. The original post had not gotten picked up after several hours.]
Special Directors award to Shoji Toyami and Shuichi Tan of Magic Utopia.
King Tan, and Toyami
Also involved with the film was King.
This was very much an artistic film with lots of abstract imagery. A beautiful film that you won't see coming out of Hollywood.
Audience Award
This is one of the most coveted awards because it's the one the audience liked most.
Sharon Shattuck (l) listening to audience member
Winner - From This Day Forward
Below is a shot I got of director Sharon Shattuck at the Bear Tooth Tuesday night listening to one of the audience members after the showing of From This Day Forward.
This was a film about a family whose dad comes out as transgender when the kids were fairly young, made by one of the daughters, much later. It was a powerful film.
Here's Part 2, and a reminder - no Festival movies at the Bear Tooth today, but there are films at the Snow Goose, so don't go to the wrong venue. An * means the film is in competition. Here's the grid, with details below. Grid is screenshot, so no links. Go to the original here to get links for everything. For Saturday Part 1 - the morning and early afternoon, go here.
Since this is the second half of the day's grid, the locations got cut off.
Left is AK Experience Large, Middle is AK Experience small, Right is SNOW GOOSE
Animation Program* - All the animated films are in this program. I haven't seen it yet, but these usually have some of the most interesting films. And they're short, so if you don't like what you're watching, a better one will be soon. All the 'in competition' animated films are in this program. For more on each film, click here. 5pm AK EX Large No Greater Love - A military chaplain's movie about his work with the soldiers in war and going home. 5:30 pm AK EX small.
Where Do We Go From Here? - A 25 year old moves into an nursing home. 6pm Snow Goose.
Magic Utopia* - I saw this Thursday night and have some video of the co-directors during the Q&A that I haven't had time to put up yet. This is a beautiful film, but definitely NOT a Hollywood film. A lot of loving attention is paid to details. Art is part of the fabric of this film. And strange things happen - levitation, a phone call from a dead person. But I'd note, they played the trailer for Die Hard before this film, and there's nothing more unreal in this film than there is in Die Hard. If you're looking for a strong plot line and plenty of action, skip this film. If you want to see the kind of artistic film you can't normally see, then this is for you. 7pm AK EX Large
Love Between The Covers* - I haven't seen this documentary yet. It didn't get the audience I expected when it first played. It's an exploration of romance novels and novelists, why they aren't taken seriously, and why they are such an important part of the fiction market. I'm told this is a serious film to be watched. And I'm looking forward to seeing it. 8pm AK EX Small They Look Like People - Here's the blurb:
"Suspecting that those around him are actually malevolent shape-shifters, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself." 8pm Snow Goose
Living With The Dead - I still have some of my mom's ashes. Does that mean I can relate to this film? The blurb:
"Max McLean is eighteen years old and can't get out of bed. Since her boyfriend Adam killed himself over a year ago, Max has been using sex, drugs, and parties to ignore the pain until one day she wakes up in a hospital, haven taken a nearly lethal dose of sleeping pills. While being haunted by visions of Adam, Max runs away from home and ventures into the forest with a bizarre but endearing boy named Ish."
As you can see, I can't post the trailer here, but just go to the link below. 9pm AK EX Large
Everything except the After School Special and the Quick Freeze (which are more like local contests) is in competition. Circus Without Borders looks at acrobats in the Arctic who team up with acrobats in Guinea. Jasmine is a Hong Kong based murder mystery.
Screenshot - click here for actual schedule with links
I've been told that Japanese made Magic Utopia is the feature to see. But it's not an easy film they say. My early perusal of the features in competition led me to believe that Creditors is also an interesting and complex film. You can see details and trailers of both (and Jasmine) at my overview of the features in competition.
I'm going to pass on Creditors tonight (it's playing again Friday at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8pm) so I can see the Shorts Jury Selection. This program has all the short narrative films that are in competition, plus a few more. I haven't seen any of the shorts programs yet because of the way things have been scheduled. Tonight's the right time for me to start.
The Quick Freeze films are always fun. The groups get three prompts that somehow have to be incorporated into a film and then have six days to make a film. This year's prompts are:
VHS tape
Kiss
Dolly/slider shot.
Each year these productions have gotten more and more clever and professional. These should be good, for those of you who can sleep in late on Friday.
I'd seen the trailers for this enough that I was getting a bit jaded, but I had high hopes for this film. What could go wrong? People find tsunami debris on Alaska and Canadian beaches and track down the owners and take the things back. International cooperation, returning lost items to disaster victims, all good fodder for a movie. Generally the movie was good and I felt the people in the movie were sincerely trying to do some good.
But somewhere along the way it got a little cloying and annoying. I think the underlying issue for me is the construct of helper and help. Being a helper means you have the power to do something for another who, in this situation anyway, has less power. That doesn't mean we shouldn't help others, but we should understand our motives and not get carried away with what we've done. I posted long ago about charity and included some Jewish thought on charity that is relevant here, though not sufficient, I'm sure, for some to get my point about the power relationship in giving. Part of the issue is that in Japan there is a very strong culture of gift giving and thanking. So the degree of thanks became a bit embarrassing.
After all, these people where doing what they enjoy doing - beach combing. They found some stuff an said, wow, wouldn't it be interesting if we could find the owners? So far so good. But then they get on planes and fly to Japan and become the recipients of this overwhelming level of thank you. I get all this. It's my nature to try to find the person who lost something, to get something back to a rightful owner. But I also know that it's what I enjoy doing and I'm not making any big sacrifice to help out. I'm not interrupting my life or giving away money that I can't afford to give. I'm just doing what I enjoy doing and if that makes someone else happy, then that's a bonus.
Kevin and kids answer questions after Lost and Found
So I was sitting there watching the film end and thinking about whether I'm being overly picky and critical. But my gut was telling me this was a bit over the top.
And then the movie ended and one of the finders, who's from Anchorage, and his kids went to the front to answer questions. Two things he said stood out:
Some people weren't interested in getting stuff back or even talking to us. Wow, that certainly wasn't in the story. We were told about a signed volley ball whose owner hadn't been found, but not about people who weren't interested, who didn't want to be 'helped.'
That he'd been contacted by the film makers and they were interested in his story and that they paid for his trip to Japan.
OK. That made more sense, because the returning of the found items and the meetings between the losers and the finders were all filmed. So maybe that was my problem. This was the story line for a film and the filmmakers found the folks to fit their story line. Japan experiences disaster. Debris crosses Pacific. People find the debris and track down and return the debris. What a wonderful heartwarming story. But at least some of these folks wouldn't have gone to Japan on their own if they hadn't been encouraged and financed by the film makers. And the film never mentioned the people who didn't want their stuff back and didn't want to meet or even talk to the people who found it. Including that would have made this a much richer film. But instead we got an, apparently, artificially sweetened feel good story.
It makes Ruth Ozeki's novel, A Tale For The Time Being, all the more remarkable with its richness and darkness. This story, completed just before the tsunami hit, tells the story about a Japanese-Canadian who finds a teenage Japanese girl's diary on a beach in British Columbia. She too wants to find the owner and return the diary. But the story doesn't have the Disneyesque happily after after quality of Lost and Found. The diary tells us very dark tales of life as a teenager in Japan.
That said, I have no criticism for any of the beach combers. My sense was that they were each doing their thing and genuinely wanted to be helpful and that they all learned a lot and grew from these experiences. What I saw in the film makes me think the people returning stuff to Japan were themselves a bit overwhelmed by their reception. And it's up to the filmmakers to decide how to tell their story. It's just that they told a story that didn't sit all that well with me. Their story put happy makeup onto a situation that wasn't nearly so happy.
Interesting, strange characters in a small dying (dead?) town in rural Turkey. Beautiful shots. And the end left me, and apparently others, perplexed. My assumption is that Turkish films today, especially if they are sent to festivals abroad, have a political and/or social meaning that Turks would get, but that is more obscure to foreigners not paying close attention to Turkey. The images from this film will definitely be floating around my skull for a while.
But this one will stay with me.
The Japanese Counsel-General is now introducing the film Lost and Found - a documentary about earthquake and tsunami debris washing up in the US and Canada and the search for the Japanese owners of some of the things found.
[The wifi at the Bear Tooth wasn't getting this post through when I tried to post it.]
The Documentaries have been one of the strongest parts of the Anchorage
International Film Festival and this year looks like no exception. I've
been working on this post on and off for two weeks now and I need to move on to
other parts of the festival.
"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be
eligible for awards at the festival. "Features" are 'stories' that are
full length. While there are always other features which different folks
like better than those in competition, it's a good bet these are among
the best features at the festival. This year's picks are all from
outside the US.
The point of this post isn't to tell you what each of the features in
competition are about, but rather to just give you a glimpse of
something about the film I found interesting.
I've added when the films play with the overview of each film. (Let me
know if you catch any errors.) If you have to make hard decisions, I'd
recommend going to the films where the filmmakers will be present, which
I've marked in red. When you're using the festivals schedule program -
you need to put the name of the film into search to be sure you're
seeing all the times it's playing (usually two.)
Here's the whole list and below I look at each film.
Children of the Arctic Nick Brandestini Switzerland √
99 min 1. Sun Dec. 6:00-7:00 pm 5pm Filmmakers Attending Bear Tooth
2. Wed Dec. 9
6:00- 8:00pm Filmmakers Attending
Museum
Outsiders coming to a place are often derided by people who live there.
They don't really understand what is happening. They don't know the
history. But outsiders also see things that insiders take for granted.
Last year's Shield and Spear was a wonderful film by a Swede, Petter
Ringbom, who spent a relatively short time in South Africa looking at
the fringe art scene. Children of the Arctic is a
" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan
teenagers coming of age in Barrow"
Below is a Santa Barbara tv interview with director Nick Brandestini
that includes the trailer. Having a Santa Barbara perspective gives it
an extra twist.
Lost & Found
Nicolina Lannie, John Choi
Canada √
82 min
1. Wed. Dec 9
5:30am – 7:30pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth
2. Sun Dec. 13
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
AK Experience Small
I'm sure the filmmakers are sick of hearing about Ruth Ozeki's book, A Tale For The Time Being
about a Canadian woman who finds a diary on the beach that has come over
from Japan along with other tsunami debris. But it's what I thought of
as I saw the trailer of this film, which tells the story of people
finding the debris in the US and Canada and getting some of it back to
the people it belonged to. But the novel and this film appear to treat
these events very differently. Looks like a film worth watching.
Circus Without Borders Susan Gray, Linda Matchan United States √
69 min 1. Sunday, Dec. 6
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Bear Tooth 2. Thursday, December 10
7:00pm – 8:45pm
AK Experience Small
"CIRCUS WITHOUT BORDERS is a documentary about Guillaume Saladin
and Yamoussa Bangoura, best friends and world-class acrobats from remote
corners of the globe who share the same dream: To bring hope and change
to their struggling communities through circus. Their dream unfolds in
the Canadian Arctic and Guinea, West Africa, where they help Inuit and
Guinean youth achieve unimaginable success while confronting suicide,
poverty and despair.
Seven years in the making, this tale of two circuses — Artcirq and
Kalabante — is a culture-crossing performance piece that offers a portal
into two remote communities, and an inspiring story of resilience and
joy." [from CWB website]
Love Between the Covers Laurie Kahn Australia, United States √
83 min 1. Sat Dec. 5
2:30pm – 4:30pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth 2. Sat Dec 12
8:00 - 9:45
AK Experience Small
"Christyna: What prompted you to make the documentary Love Between the Covers? Laurie: I want to bring the lives and work of
compelling women to the screen, because any industry dominated by women
is typically dismissed as trivial and “merely domestic.” My previous
films — A Midwife’s Tale and Tupperware! –
are very different from one another, but they were both shaped by my
desire to look honestly at communities of women who haven’t been taken
seriously (but should be), who deserve to be heard without being mocked.
I think there’s a lot to be learned by looking at the communities
that women build. As you and your readers know better than I do, the
romance community has been dismissed for decades, even though romance
fiction is the behemoth of the publishing industry."
I'd note today's (Nov 14) LA Times story about a romance novel cover model that says,
"The debate over the relative merits of the romance genre
is so tired it’s not even worth having anymore. The market is huge,
generating an estimated $1.4 billion, making it by far the top-selling
literary genre, outperforming mysteries, inspirational books, science fiction and fantasy, and horror. Romance has spawned an academic
discipline with its own forum, 'The Journal of Popular Romance Studies,'
which describes itself as 'a double-blind peer reviewed
interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance fiction and the
logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global
popular culture.'”
I'm guessing these showings will be packed.
Here's the trailer:
Screenshot from trailer
Madina’s Dream
Andrew Berends
United States √
80 min
1. Sat. Dec. 5
4:00pm – 6:00pm
AK Experience Small
2. Wednesday, December 9
AK Experience Large
6-8pm
"Berend's film follows the inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains, who are
under a constant barrage of attacks from the Sudanese government (the
instruments of war are so commonplace, that the children even mold toy
models of RPGs and machine gun-mounted tanks out of clay). This
unflinching look at a war-torn group of people focuses on Madina and her
fervent dream to return home -- if only a pair of ruby slippers could
do some magic here.
Short Docs - colors show which programs they're in
Bihttoš Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers Canada √
14 min Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8 7:00pm – 9:00pm AK Experience Small
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
Everywhere I look they have the same description of the film. So I'm going with a bit of description about the film maker from her website.
"Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is an emerging filmmaker, writer, and actor. She
is both Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation as well as Sámi from
Norway. After studying acting at Vancouver Film School in 2006, she went
on to work in film and TV with credits in Not Indian Enough, White Indians Walking, The Guard, The Reaper, Shattered, and Another Cinderella Story. In 2009, she appeared onstage in the Presentation House Theatre’s production of Where the River Meets the Sea."
From what I got out of reading that same description over and over
again. I can tell you it's short, about a woman and her father, And
there's animation.
Superjednostka Teresa Czepiec Poland √
20 min 1. Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8 7:00pm – 9:00pm AK Experience Small 2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11 2:30 - 4:30 pm Bear Tooth
If you're like me, as you wander the world, you wonder about things
like, "who lives in this town, in this building, in this house?" Well
this film answers that question, apparently, for a large block of
apartments in Poland.
Superjednostka to ogromny blok mieszkalny zaprojektowany zgodnie z ideą
Le Corbusiera jako "maszyna do mieszkania". Na 15 kondygnacjach
budynku może mieszkać nawet 3 tysiące ludzi. Winda zatrzymuje się co 3.
piętro więc mieszkańcy, żeby dojść do swoich mieszkań, muszą pokonać
prawdziwy labirynt korytarzy i schodów. Głównymi bohaterami filmu
dokumentalnego są ludzie zamieszkujący wnętrze Superjednostki i
przeżywający w niej ważne chwile swojego życia. Tu pulsują ich emocje,
rodzą się oczekiwania i spełniają się - lub nie spełniają- ich
pragnienia.
"Superjednostka a huge block of flats designed in the spirit of Le
Corbusier as a "machine for living" . At 15 floors of the building can
accommodate up to 3000 people. The elevator stops at the third floor so
the inhabitants to come to their homes , they must overcome a maze of
corridors and stairs. The main characters of the documentary are people
living in the interior Superjednostka and surviving in the important
moments of your life . Here are flashing their emotions , raise
expectations and meet - or not fulfilling their desires ."
From an interview with the film maker at Polish Docs:
Before shooting the film, I spent a year meeting the inhabitants. The
formal assumptions behind the film were already agreed upon. I knew that
we were looking for interesting people of various ages, from children
to the elderly. What worked was chance and methodical actions. The first
person I met was Zbigniew, one of the conservators, who was busy
closing the window of his workshop. At first he was reluctant, but in
the end he was persuaded to allow us to shoot here for the
documentation. We were also looking for the protagonists by going from
door to door. Sometimes it happened that we had already arranged to meet
someone, and they changed their plans and declined. But going to the
corridor or to the lift, we met someone else, an equally interesting
person, who wanted to participate in the documentary film. I know that I
did not include some of the stories, but it was impossible to do so,
taking into account the huge number of them. What is in the film is the
result of months of preparations and of chance, of what we managed to
observe on location and during editing. Paradoxically, it seems to me
that it reflects the substance of the case rather faithfully.
The House is Innocent Nicholas Coles United States √
12 min 1. Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6 5:30pm – 7:30pm AK Experience Large 2. Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11 2:30 - 4:30 pm Filmmakers Attending Bear Tooth
Here's another film that explores who lives in the house you pass
walking down the street. This house was owned by a serial killer and
now there are new owners trying to make it their home. They'll be on the
same program at the Martini Matinee, Friday at 2:30 at the Bear Tooth.
Man in the Can Noessa Higa United States √
38 min Short Docs Program - Sun. Dec. 6 5:30pm – 7:30pm AK Experience Large
Warning: This is the only showing I see for this one.
"While the film focuses on the tight-knit rodeo community and
small-town America, it tells a more universal story about following your
dream, second chances and the sacrifices that can come from following
your passion.
“Ronald was really open to the process of being filmed,” Higa said.
“He gives people a glimpse into rodeo culture, which is fascinating and
wildly entertaining. Everyone can relate to having a dream, and I think
audiences will be pulling for him to get into the PRCA.”
According to Ronald Burton's website, he performed at a rodeo in Anchorage SEPTEMBER 5 & 6. State Fair maybe? Anyone see him there?
[Once again, reposting because of Feedburner problems, sorry. But there's lots in this post so if you saw it already, I bet there's stuff you skipped the first time.]
