Crash: the movie

See details about Crash on IMDB!

In a significantly impressive way, this movie deals with issues of race, gender, economic and social status, discrimination, etc. The tagline says:

Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with one another.

These collisions are unpretty. In fact, violent and uncompromising, these intersections become places/spaces where these characters discover who they really are and begin to understand the histories that created who they have become. At these intersections, at these points of connection, one character after another comprehend their part in human history, and they see more fully their potentials in stepping into/out of the great weight of humanity.

I am disappointed, however, that this powerful movie does not include the rich and dynamic -- and pained -- realities of some of the Asian American communities, whether they are East Asian, Southeast Asian or whatever. The pan-Asian communities in the U.S. is a large part of the American demography, and yet there isn't anything substantial that is mentioned. It is yet another subtle reminder that the discussion about race and ethnicity revolves around -- in large part -- the black/white issue. The histories that comprise the United States have proven that there is so much more to who we are as Americans, and that isn't just black or white, no, not even that.

Mendelssohn's St. Paul oratorio

Friday night, November 17th. 8:00 p.m.
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley, CA

San Francisco City Choir performed Mendelssohn's oratorio St. Paulas.

Larry H. Marietta, Conductor
John R.S. Walko, Organ
Ellen St. Thomas, Soprano
Jeffrey Fields, Baritone

www.sfcitychorus.org

The show began with a rocky start, especially with the sopranos not quite warmed up yet. Their voices betrayed some strain as they tried to hit those high notes, but the male voices (tenors, basses) were strong and well-controlled.

Mendelssohn was so young (28?) when he composed St. Paul. It is unfortunate that his father died before seeing his son's accomplishments.

Chuyen cua Pao

She is Hmong, living in the mountains of north Vietnam. A young woman on a journey to recover the biological mother she once lost. On the way, she discovers secrets of a family she thought she knew...

In the panel discussion after the screening, Ngo Quang Hai, the film's director, talked about the ending of the film. After she embarks on this journey, she realizes that she needed the security provided by the familiarity of the little window in her modest home. After traveling for days and covering hundreds of miles searching for her biological matter, she discovers that there are certain secrets that she would rather not know, rather not reveal. She acknowledges that she hopes to return to the square window, where she sits gazing out into the world, observing from the safety of her home, where she is comfortable and protected.

Pao confesses this to the audience in a voice-over as the audience is shown scene after scene of the ending images. However, these visual offerings suggest something different from what Pao, the narrator, recounts to the audience, for one of the very final scenes of the film shows her walking hand in hand with her lover down a wide, open road. This stunning image presents a contrast to the little window of security in the wooden house. The road is wide and long, and she is ambling comfortably down this road (interestingly, it is strikingly similar to the road which her father worked on years before) without any fear or hesitation.

For me, the visual is a stronger testament to the changes that Pao has undergone during her journey. She has grown in ways that are deeper and more complex than even she can articulate.

Journey of Van Nguyen

She is an Israeli-born Vietnamese woman in her early twenties. She lives in a world conflicted and marginalized by a Jewish community that was once ostracized and persecuted for their own religious beliefs. As a Vietnamese-Israeli (she speaks such poor Vietnamese that I have a hard time differentiating her Hebrew from her Viet!) living among them, she is the one ridiculed, critiqued, marginalized and confused...

Her return to Vietnam is similar to my journey to Vietnam, and the similarities make me think more critiqually about my own experiences...

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

How astonishing it is that language could almost mean,

and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,

God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words

get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according

to which nation. French has no word for home,

and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people

in northern India is dying out because their ancient

tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost

vocabularies that might express some of what

we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would

finally explain why the couples on their tombs

are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands

of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,

they seemed to be business records. But what if they

are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve

Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.

O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,

as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.

Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts

of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred

pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what

my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this

desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script

is not a language but a map. What we feel most has

no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.