Author Archives: Ngawang Tsetan

Take notice of safe: the slippery are very crafty

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The title is a mistranslation of a sign in China, which actually should say “Slippery Road Ahead”, this is one of the many signs that have been mistranslated in China. This sets up the premise of the story in David Henry Hwang’s new comedy Ching’lish, about the perils of mistranslation while doing business in China. These mistranslations display the difficulty of understanding more than just the language but the culture of differing nations. The play attempted to demonstrate that the cultural differences between the two great powers, America and China, are still vast.

Gary Wilmes stars as Daniel Cavanaugh who has arrived in a small city in China named Guiyang. Daniel attempts to get the contract to make the signs for the new cultural center in Guiyang. Along the way Wilmes falls in love with Xi Yan, performed by Jennifer Lim, hires a business consultant Peter Timms, acted by Stephen Pucci. Throughout the play the audience slowly discerns that these characters all have their own secret agenda. Like how Xi Yan, only helps Daniel so that she can help her husband’s career. Also, Peter is not really a business consultant but only an English teacher. Even Daniel who appears to be a good man hid the fact that he worked in Enron.

Daniel’s interactions with the natives are the funniest scenes because of the problem they have with communication. The mistranslations during the business meeting scenes were very entertaining, especially with the incompetent translators. I thought that the character development of Xi Yan and Peter allowed me to empathize and comprehend their characters. Timms pretended to be a business consultant because I felt he wanted to feel useful because he was beginning to feel insignificant. Timms says that back when he first came the fact that he could speak Chinese so well amazed the locals but now there are dozens of westerners that speak Chinese. Timms represents the older era of China. His love for old Chinese operas and his story about the past demonstrates how much he misses the past and really feels out of place in the modern era. Hwang uses Timms to illustrate how China has begun to move towards a more modern era by having him run out to be arrested with Minister Cai (Larry Lei Zhang) towards the end of the play.  Timms and Zhang’s arrest displays that China has completely moved away from the old age into the modern age.

Xi Yan the vice minister of culture, plays the love interest in this play. Xi Yan helps Cavanaugh get the contract for the signage but her motive was not just for the sake of Cavanaugh. She only helps Cavanaugh because by helping him she helps her husband, a husband whom she has said she does not love. The complexity of the relationship among the Chinese is shown when Xi says that she doesn’t love her husband but still helps him to get a promotion.  Although she appeals to Cavanaugh saying that the affair part was for her, Xi’s other actions make it hard to believe her. I think that she cannot be believed because her other actions lead me to believe that she is a liar and would do anything to help her husband.

It seems to me that director Leigh Silverman has encouraged her actors to emphasize their emotions through body language and facial expressions. This could be because a large part of this play is in mandarin. In the scene with prosecutor Li (Angela Lin) and Judge Xu Geming (Johnny Wu) when Daniel confesses that he uses to work for Enron, Li and Xu are delighted. During this scene the expressions of prosecutor Li and judge Xu seemed overtly stressed, especially some of their laughing.

David Korin’s revolving sets was very nice touch because they transformed quickly. This set design really gave a feeling of a full city with offices, restaurants, and hotels. The revolving set is sometimes a little confusing with the set changing and actors running across the set. This goes hand in hand with the play, where the stark differences between the cultures that are shown and sometimes the troublesome problems of communicating. David Henry Hwang does a great job with Ching’lish, which is a very funny play but also has real depth to it.

Immortals

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In White’s review of new movie Immortals he describes director Tarsem SIngh how although this movie is very similar to a previous movie with similar plots “300”. Both movies are action packed historically based movies Immortals is about the greek hero Theseus while 300 is based on the spartans battle at Thermopylae. But White states that Singh has taken a new contemporary style to pay homage to the great story of previous eras. Sigh said that “Everyone is making comic strips, basically.” Sigh says this about the current way movies are made. He believes that these movies are based on comic strips but he wanted to make movies baseed on Renaissance paintings.

In Singh’s new movie a God comes down and fight humans.The war God Ares comes down and rescues Theseus. Obviously the humans were slaughtered and were left as mere patches of blood across the viewers face, seeing as this movie was in 3-D. This is a little strange, I haven’t really heard of movies where a God would actually come down and fight a human. I think that this insertion of this God-human battle is a little strange and doesn’t fit in with greek mythology because it went against the rule to interfere directly with mortal fights. And i personally feel that once the Ares came down the entire movie would be anti-climactic because you would know he would win and triumph. Even though the good-guy always wins, you still wonder aren’t a 100% sure if they will. But, once a God comes down and makes sure the hero doesn’t die then obviously he’s not going to die.

Stereotypes

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Throughout history immigrants have been coming to America. These immigrants come to America for change because of political unrest in their own countries or some sort of problem. Immigrants come to American and suffer from racism from people who have been here a little longer than them. These people who discriminate were once discriminated themselves, and this cycle continues. It is really strange how people, immigrants come to America for some sort of change but then cling together once they arrive here. Some examples would be Flushing, Chinatown, or little Italy. These are areas in NY where people attach themselves to the same people. Chinatown is an area for Chinese people and the entire area is filled with Chinese people. They stick together and isolate themselves from others. But, then the next generation that go to school with the “Americans” is mocked and detest their own culture. This is not everyone but the majority moves away and become more American. Then they go on to mock the people who are similar to their original selves, these fobs. This causes racism, stereotyping and the negative connotation with immigrants.

These stereotypes cause a lot of problems and apparently people find them funny. You’re Asian, why didn’t you get an A in math. You’re black, so you must be fast. You’re Mexican right go mow the lawn. These stereotypes care offensive and should not be present in our culture. The fact that we use them as jokes leads us to more serious problems. But in our conformist culture people will not stand up to these jokes, afraid of rejection everyone laughs. What happens is the person who is the but of the joke, even though he does not find it funny will laugh along because others who the joke does not apply to find it funny. Once they laugh then they open the gateway to more and more jokes. This isn’t as serious on most cases but in some cases where the jokes become intensified it might lead to bullying and rejection for being of a certain race. Muslim people dealt with a lot of problems after the 9/11 and not only muslim people but anyone who was even similar to them, Indians, Bengalis, Guyanese (etc.) Stereotype jokes might be funny for you but, when they intensify it can become serious.

Time is Money

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In his review “Die Young, Stay Pretty, and Watch Your Clock“, Manohla Dargis reviews the new movie “In Time”. This new movie stars Justin Timberlake(Will Salas) and Amanda Seyfried (Slyvia Weis) in a future where time is money, literally. People stop aging at 25 and then are given one year to live. Dragis mentions that this future has severe gaps in classes. Dragis states this extreme gap is obvious as the movie mentions that the wealthy “moves as slow as molasses” because they have so much time. He also states that there is some allusion to fascism and the holocaust. Dragis writes, ” invokes the Holocaust, specifically in the shots of the dead and poor who lie where they fall.”This premise is wonderful and has so many different ways that could make this movie oscar wothy. But, sadly Dragis writes that this movie was a waste of time/money.
I agree with Dragis and I thought that this premise about a future where time is money seemed extremely interesting. The fact that these people had the ability to live forever while some people had to die at asuch a young age. Also, with the fact that this movie reflected the current situation of the World. The poor suffer and struggle to make it through everyday, while the rich are in paradise. These mentions of the holocaust were also one of the several directions this movie could have taken but sadly it went with more of a “couple-on-the-run flick”. I wanted to watch this movie but sadly after reading this review and other reviews this movie is not worth my time.

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The opera version was very similar to the play version. Both have the same story line and ending. The story still remains about Count Almaviva trying to garner Rosina’s love. The count has the help of Figaro in his attempt to gain Rosina’s love; Bartolo still tries in force Rosina to marry him. The ending of the story as well hasn’t changed at all. The Count marries Rosina and Bartolo is left without love but with some money.  There were some differences though and the main one would be the importance of Figaro in the opera. In the play the title of the play was a little misleading because the play wasn’t really about Figaro it was about Rosina and the Count. In the opera though the title is very befitting. Figaro becomes someone who controls the fate of everyone around him. With his entrance in the opera it becomes evident that Figaro’s role in the opera would be more than a former employee to the Count.

Another difference was the ending. In the opera it was more of a happily ever after for everyone. In the opera even Bartolo was happy even though his love, Rosina, had just been stolen from him and his only compensation is some money. The ending of the play gave off an unrealistic fairy tale feeling. The fact that Bartolo was marrying Rosina for her money has completely changed the story from the play.  In, the play Bartolo was in love with Rosina as opposed to with her money.  I feel that I was able to be more empathic to the Bartolo in the play character because he was in love and you were able to feel sorry for him. But, in the opera he was a scrooge and even though people can relate to this opera version I did not feel as much emotion for him as I did for the play version.

Van Gogh’s killer

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There is a new book coming out next week about Van Gogh’s death called “Van Gogh: The Life”. The article by Pogrebin called “New Biography Says Van Gogh Did Not Kill Himself” talks about Van Gogh’s suspicious death. This book by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith is a biography of the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh and it questions whether Van Gogh really committed suicide or was murdered. The article claims “the bullet entered his upper abdomen ‘from an unusual, oblique angle-not straight on as one would expect in a suicide.’” The article also states “no gun was ever found.” that “Van Gogh had no knowledge of guns” and finally that he never left a suicide note as most people would do.  They say that Van Gogh’s friend’s teenage brother shot Van Gogh, but Van Gogh never accused the boy because “he saw no reason to punish anyone for bringing it about.”(Pogrebin)

I think that this article is a little suspicious that this evidence is coming out so late. Van Gogh died in 1890 and finally after 120 years have we figured out that he didn’t commit suicide. If this is true I wonder how it’s going to change people’s perception of Van Gogh. Van Gogh has now become some sort of saint in my eyes because he was able to forgive his enemy even though he tried to kill him. He was able to accept death and at the same time say there is no reason to punish anyone for bringing it about. (Pogrebin) Also there is a wide belief that “Wheatfield with Crows”, one of the late works signifies his loneliness and sadness. The painting “Wheatfield with Crows” is a somber painting and demonstrates Van Gogh’s misery. Van Gogh may have wanted to die, which is why he didn’t turn in his killer.