Kris Wu, William Chan, and the Desperate Desire to be Cool

Kris Wu has just dropped a new single, Juice. In it, he pays tribute (presumably; hopefully) to the imminent Chinese New Year by wearing a rooster-like hairstyle. Its spikes spill out from the top of his head like the soggy shell of a châtaigne in the autumn. Behind him, weird automobiles zoom by a wall full of childish drawings that remind me of a hipster burger joint, or those "edgy" Converse designs from 2009. It's like his role in Mr Six all over again, but also not, because that movie was actually quite nice. He crouches in front of a white object and looks up towards the camera from beyond his browbone. Below his hairline, he has a (fake?) tattoo of some kind, which I cannot be bothered to zoom in and read, but it's probably even lamer than Kylie Jenner's "sanity" tattoo that makes her thigh look like an egg from the supermarket. I fast-forwarded to the end because it's pretty much just frames from the same few shots over and over again intercut with flashes of the new Vin Diesel movie, and because the song is just too mediocre to stay on longer.* It's a generic rap song with a rather oddly high-pitched first verse (which Kris' expressionless delivery makes even more discomforting**), some standard fare autotuning and a catchy chorus thing.

In July, from November 2016, has more of an RnB feel with synthetic sounds and more of that autotuned-sounding voice. It sounds like a dollar-store mix of  The Weeknd and Drake, with a sort-of bass drop as the hook. The music video shows him dancing in some kind of corridor with ugly bright blue lights, and sporting (oh, God) a nasty, sludgy-rat-looking bleached 'do reminiscent of Draco Malfoy, if Draco Malfoy was a heroin addict who was forbidden from ever taking a shower. He hangs out with a cute black girl who has cool hair. And in the main dance routine, he wears a cap with "KW" inscribed on the front (which I assume stands for Key West, Florida), underneath which are... six skinny, lizard-tail-like blond braids. Oh, and he's wearing grills, too. And a full orange outfit that is oddly reminiscent of a prison jumpsuit, but I don't know what that's meant to imply, so that might be a reach.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww

These two videos mark Kris' true launch into the international (specifically, American) pop sphere –– after about a year and a half of very blatant trying and failing*** ––– and it's obvious he's set to crack it. He's starring in Valerian alongside Dane Dehaan (whom I absolutely love despite his pasty-white-boy-ness), Cara Delevigne (who has a "BACON..." tattoo on her foot. Need I say more?), and Rihanna (who once called Karrueche Tran "rice cakes" and also sounds like an overrated goat), in a role that was allegedly created specifically for him by Luc Besson (who made the very racist Lucy. Hm.) He's also in xXx or whatever that new movie is called. He's definitely left behind that post-K-Pop, sparkly-lights-and-piano romantic guy from Somewhere Only We Know. He's cool now. He's hip. He's got black friends. He's got foreign producers. He sings in English. He's probably gonna make it big in the US.

But that's the thing. How did Kris become cool? By passively appropriating African-American culture. I say passively, because I don't know if he's even aware that that's what he's doing. For him, he's just making pastiches of the trends he sees, which originate from black people in the USA but pass through non-black Americans, general Western culture, and perhaps also Korea before he gets wind of them. What Kris is doing is what G-Dragon and Justin Bieber are doing, which is are what The Weeknd, Young Thug, and A$AP Rocky are doing.

a comment on YouTube for "JULY"

I'm totally for Asian stars going to the West. Western media needs more Asian faces, and if diasporic Asians are often trapped that vicious cycle of not-enough-famous-diasporic-Asians-because-they-never-get-hired-for-anything-(partly)-because-they're-not-famous-enough-because-..., then at least already-famous people in Asia can help, even if they're often blind to race relations due to having grown up in Asia and are only really in it for the money. I really like Jane Zhang's Dust My Shoulders Off, for example. It is fun and cute and creative.

But like Iggy Azalea, Kris Wu is appropriating black culture –– black coolness –– for his own American success. But unlike Keith Ape, he's not going to be a one-hit oddity. Everything he does is a calculated move to turn him into the dearly-needed East Asian face in Hollywood and at the Grammys. Hip hop is a genre created by black people specifically for black people, and non-black participants need to be aware of the legacy of slavery, segregation, and institutional racism that led to the creation of hip hop in the first place. Obviously, we aren't forbidden from listening to and creating rap music, but we shouldn't appropriate markers of black culture like wearing grills and braids and saying the N-word. While such actions are casual for us, and seen as "edgy" and "cool" when we commit them, black people are at the receiving end of discrimination. They can be fired from work for wearing natural hairstyles like afros and dreadlocks, which are seen as "unprofessional" because they're associated with negative stereotypes of African-Americans. But these are all things you've probably read before. It's 2017. We all know what cultural appropriation is and why it's bad. But people still do it –– from the Kardashian-Jenners who are thankfully going to be going away soon because their heyday is almost over, to people like Kris Wu who probably hasn't been called out on it that much yet. Considering he's Canadian, it's disappointing. He should know better.

William Chan**** is a dollar-store version of Kris Wu. If Kendrick Lamar is Nintendo, then Justin Bieber is Mario, and G-Dragon is Luigi, and Kris Wu is Wario, and William Chan is Waluigi. (Not a perfect analogy.) He's a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, and is therefore extremely faint. In the music video for W企劃, his only real song (by which I mean it isn't a song written just to celebrate his own birthday (who does that?), or a movie OST, or something from 5 years ago), the main storyline, as I understand it, is a traditional story of good vs evil. The "good" William Chan is a rich man living a life of luxury who is bored by the day-to-day running of his company. His "evil" alter ego wears eyeliner, really cheap-looking dirty blond cornrow-ish things, and black leather. Evil William (i.e. hip hop William) torments Good William (i.e. Asian pop William), who decides to break out into song and dance in the middle of company meetings. In the end, Evil William and Good William have a dance-off, but neither wins and they end up just standing back to back, because yin and yang, I guess. So blackness is implicitly associated with evil, though the video ultimately argues that Evil William is not Evil, but just wild and unconventional and oozing with alternative coolness, and that without him, there would be no Good William, either. I bring William Chan up because, first of all, Kris also had this Hip-Hop-VS-Asian-pop internal struggle, except Hip Hop Kris won, obviously, and now he's wreaking havoc everywhere. William is not diasporic, and probably doesn't know anything about anti-blackness and cultural appropriation, but he acts this way because he learned from his buddy Kris that this is what "cool" looks like, and Chinese people will know that this is what "cool" looks like.

I do not want 2017 to be the year of Chinese people wearing cornrows and listening to rap music but simultaneously: bleaching their skin because dark skin is seen as ugly, being horrified at the thought of their daughter bringing home a black man, holding their breath because black people apparently smell bad, etc. etc. etc. Although China is a country with very low immigration and most Chinese have never even met a black person, the black community is growing in China, especially in the South.

Not only is Kris encroaching on hip hop, he is also ruining the sanctity of Chinese music. His cover of Cui Jian's Greenhouse Girl is an absolute abomination. He, and many other young and "edgy" Chinese musical guys I have seen, feels the urgent need to turn everything into mediocre rap. Why? Why? Why? Kris did that to Cui Jian! The father of Chinese rock, whose music rang across Tiananmen Square! It's so utterly different from the original song... he could have just made up a new one!

Please forget about Kris Wu. He's like the kid who changes every aspect of his personality and his wardrobe just to get in with the cool crowd. Although the popular kids have accepted him, he's always going to be slightly inferior to them. And it's not because he's an ex-nerd. It's because he is oozing desperation. You can smell it on him. He wants to be cool so bad that it makes him pathetic.

Instead of listening to July, I recommend the exquisite Run From Your Love by Khalil Fong, featuring Chinese-British artist Fifi Rong. It's got that Weeknd vibe, but is also so quintessentially Khalil. In fact, all the songs from his latest album are great. He's innovating, becoming more pop-y, but staying creative and interesting. This man isn't trying to become best buds with Joey Bada$$. He's effortlessly cool. He's just like that. He does his own thing. He's really into Journey to the West. And he's better than Kris Wu in every way.

Instead of listening to Juice, I recommend Bohan Phoenix's entire discography. (His new EP drops soon.) I met and wrote a profile on Bohan for issue 2 of Sine Theta Magazine. He's a Chinese-American rapper and his music is fantastic. Not to mention he's super nice. Although his tracks are all standard length –– between 3 and 5 minutes (except 3 Days in Chengdu, which is 12 minutes long and amazing) –– whenever I listen to them I still feel like they end too early. And he's aware of the racial implications of what he does, though he preaches that "we're all one race, the human race". He's a bona fide hip hop artist, unlike Wu, who just jumps on bandwagons. Bohan, too, is better than Kris Wu in every way. Support independent artists.

-----

*I gotta admit, though, after hearing it so many times to write this... I'm starting to warm up to it. A lot.

**Kris' face pretty much does not move as he delivers these lines. It is really making me very uncomfortable. Every time I see him he looks like he's been dead inside for years and is doing all this half-heartedly. Maybe it's just because he's trying to give off that nonchalant vibe, but even when he smiles it looks like part of his soul has exited his body.

***I mean, GOD, have you seen Bad Girl? Gross pseudo-2000s fashion, weird electro sounds, weird color correction... not to mention a disgustingly worthless song that could easily have come out of TFBoys. Whose idea was that? No wonder it's not on his official channel. This was the first song by Kris I heard, back when he was less annoying and I actually thought he seemed pretty cool. Then I heard this, and was utterly repulsed. I never stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt, though. Now that his music sounds more like how I originally thought it'd sound, I like him less. I thought he'd be effortlessly Zayn-like, but he's really not.

****My boyfriend. I love him on a purely aesthetic basis. I mean, look at this:

Bad Poems #4

Gravure: une série de haikus

I

Vernis à graver

On a écrit en dessous:

Satiné lamour

II

Odeur: une mixture

Térébenthine et Coca. 

Comme dans mon enfance.

III

Mes cours de peinture;

Le Coca un peu rassis

Moins frais, moins de bulles.

IV

Doucement sucré

Un après-midi dehors

Ou comme une sucette.

V

Pas Américain.

Carambar au goût Coca.

Plat, et noir profond.

VI

Pinceaux différents

Boucles d'or a demandé

Trois. Pas assez doux. 

VII

Vieille térébenthine 

Et de la peinture à l'huile

Un mélange toxique.

Post-mocks

Mock exams are over and today is the day we all have to return to real life. Everything starts again where we left off -- the homework, the monotony. The holiday was full of studying but I felt a little better. As I write I can feel my soul withering away again and my personality dying. Everything feels gray again. Chelsea Manning's sentence was commuted; she'll be free in 120 days. I'll be free in 120 days, too. So I guess that's my motto until May: WWCMD? (What Would Chelsea Manning Do?) Be like Chelsea. She can do it -- you can definitely do it.

Last night I had a dream that I exchanged presents with Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine Nine. I gave her something small, but she gave me this massive pile of around 20 books tailored to my liking. There was a book by John Berger, among many others that she knew I'd love. Ah. I remember in year 8 or year 9, at the beginning of the school year, our English teacher Mrs Hancock (who is an absolute angel and is so... motherly) asked us to set a goal of how many books we wanted to read this school year. I said I wanted to read 100 books. So I started a page in my sketchbook to record the books I read. I reached my goal by January... I read 100 books in 4-5 months! When I think about it now, it's crazy. That's more than 20 books a month, more than 5 books a week... pretty much one a day! A book a day as a preteen keeps the SAT Reading revision away when you're in high school and need to study. (Seriously, I barely studied for the reading section and got 790.) These days it takes me 5 weeks to read a book. In 2016, I read... maybe 12 books? I know the first book I read in 2016 was The Trial by Franz Kafka. Then I tried to read America by Kafka but it was too Kafkaesque, I guess. It made me feel like I was suffocating, like I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't finish it. It was unbearable.

I'm almost done with United States of Banana. It's pretty interesting. I don't really get it that much. The style is difficult to comprehend. But the whole thing is a channel for Braschi to talk about Puerto Rico, and the struggles that Puerto Ricans have in terms of identity and of sovereignty. I quite like it. I'll need to reread it in 10 years though. It's like The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I read it in the winter break of 2014-5. I liked the story, and I understood that it was about the importance of the ego or whatever... but I didn't really get it. I know people make fun of Ayn Rand for being totally wrong about capitalism or whatever, but I didn't understand that in the book. It did teach me a bit about architecture, though. Last summer at Harvard Summer School I would walk past the Widener library with its big Greek columns and be like "Yeah... that does look pretty kitsch."

Edit: I didn't want to make a new post, but I'm currently writing my French tache écrite based on Divines and I have to say how beautiful that movie was. I cried horribly near the end. But I think the most underlooked aspect of that film is the best part –– that is, the theme of religion. Maimouna's father is the local imam. She tells Dounia, the main character, that when she looks at the moon, she sees God, and they have a conversation about Him not caring for his flock. When Dounia first starts to sell drugs in that little passageway behind the apartment-mosque, she is beaten by a client who takes advantage of her small size and inexperience and steals her wares. As she crawls away, face bloodied, she hears (or imagines hearing) the chanting sounds of prayer leak out of the mosque. That scene is so spiritual. (Later, when she's in the bathtub, watching all the money rain down from the ceiling, there's a bit of a parallel –– though this time, she's worshipping cash, not God. Is that symbolism I see? The death of Maimouna, who was her link to her childhood as well as to piety, really signified her transition to adulthood and the cost of her loss of morals.) I saw this film in September, so I don't remember the details, but I do remember being struck by the loving & gentle & sincere manner in which religion is presented, especially today when a lot of people fear Islam.

Lan Yu & Winter

Today I watched Lan Yu, and I may write something more substantial later but here are some notes otherwise:


-- Much of it (especially near the beginning) was composed of quick scenes that would cut to another, jumping abruptly to the next. I wish the camera had just lingered for even just one more second. It felt like something was missing. Perhaps this is a way to convey the fleetingness of their early relationship. It became better near the end.

-- The end was melodramatic. There are too many sad movies about gay people, and I feel that this movie would've been more effective if it'd had more of a happy-ever-after ending. And even if it had to be tragic, the tragedy should have been delayed -- there should have been more happiness before it. It was over just as they had reconciled and were getting ready to live a life together. It ended too fast for the audience to really register, and wasn't as sad.

-- The dialogue was quite theatrical: actors enunciated/articulated clearly and spoke at a healthy pace. (Maybe this is because, as a Hong Kong director, Stanley Kwan wanted them to speak a little slower so he'd understand?) A couple of times, the actors sounded a little too artificial. However, I quite liked this. There was just a hint of staged-ness, as if they were reciting lines. It makes the story seem more romantic -- more Shakespearian, perhaps. I liked the idea that it didn't seem like a spontaneous film, but a more composed... /elegant/ one. (If you compare it to "Happy Together" dir. WKW, another Hong Kong film about a tumultuous gay relationship -- the latter feels more improvised and more visceral. But Lan Yu is more poetic, more beautiful.)

----

It is so incredibly cold. I'm at home and I can hear the wind whipping violently outside. The curtain in the living room is partly open and the naked branches of the neighbour's trees keep swinging around. The wind sounds like all those airplanes passing over the house, except it's constant, and dies down slightly just to pick up again, stronger. Some of it comes vertically down the chimney too, so you can hear it whirring in the hearth. When I walk the approximately 200m distance from the bus stop to home, it takes me twice as long. My entire body becomes numb rather quickly from the violent cold. The wind is always blowing at my face and knocking my hood off my head and unravelling my scarf. When it gets so strong that it starts to roar in my ear I have to stand still, turn around, and wait for it to stop beating at my back. Otherwise it's unbearable. The other night, it rained (it was less cold than it is now) and the wind hit my half-sealed blinds so that the thin metal sheets that protruded only slightly from the windowpane rattled. I woke up and had to close it. Then I had a dream that we were on an outdoor ed trip, and I was rooming with Yasmin and some others, and at night a hurricane arrived through the window. Today during mock exams, there were all sorts of weird knocking sounds all over the aula. It sounded like it was hailing. I dislike the winter. 

Stop Praying, Kanye is Not Going to Help You - Extract

I dearly hope that I will get to finish the final draft for this someday, because, if I may say so myself, it is honestly one of the most unique novels to ever have been produced and will surely revolutionise YA fiction in a post-Trump era where real news feels like fake news. Its satire is hilarious and all the characters are fascinating. It will win every literary award to ever have been invented and will be studied in schools for centuries to come.




The extract is a critical moment in the first part of the novel. Russian Roulette is a harmless game played by the teenagers of the Root-seeking camp that has only directly resulted in the death of one person so far. However, the game of Truth or Dare played alongside it is about to claim a victim... Which is worse: death or having to eat someone's disgusting hair?

------

“Oh,” Banksy said. “Right. Dare.”

“Eat Ruttemark’s hair.”

“Baboon,” Banksy said, rolling his eyes. “You say that every time. This is getting old.”

“Just like you,” Frog said.

“You’ve been telling people to eat his hair since this camp started. What, like, three years ago? Every. Single. Time. Could you please be more original? Literally nobody wants to have Ruttemark’s greasy-ass disgusting hair anywhere near them.”

“Woo!”

“Preach!”

This time the whole room laughed, but it died down quickly. We’d realised too late what we’d done. I turned my gaze anxiously towards Ruttemark and watched as, steadily, his eyes began to swell up with tears. They soon spilled down his cheeks. His nose became red and snotty. “This is so,” he sniffed, “cruel, guys.” He sniffed. “You’re all just jealous!” His voice cracked and he began to sob. “I hate you!” He hiccupped and wailed. Someone passed him a packet of tissues and a bottle of petrol. He wiped his nose, but threw the bottle to the side. “I’m just so ––” he hiccupped again, and took a deep breath. “I can’t –– this is absolutely inhumane. I’m being ––” he sniffed –– “bullied. I hate you all!”

“Ruttemark, oh, no. Take a chill pill. We’re not bullying you. It’s just that… well, nobody wants to eat hair!”

“My hair isn’t greasy! It’s great! I eat it all the time.” Ew.

“Ruttemark,” Frog said. “Shut up.”

“No!” he screeched, clawing at his face. A cascade of dandruff fell onto his shoulders. “My feelings are hurt! They are ––” hiccup ––”so hurt! You don’t know how much this hurts! I’m hurt! You’re hurting me!”

“Baboon, look what you’ve started.”

“It’s not my fault!” Baboon protested.

“It is so your fault. You keep asking people to eat his hair, and we always refuse because, obviously, literally nobody wants to eat hair. And even if we did, it would definitely not be Ruttemark’s.”

“Frog! Don’t say that so loudly!” Banksy hissed.

We all looked over at Ruttemark, who had quieted down for a second, just to start again. Louder this time. He began to beat his fists against his chest, screaming, “My feelings are hurt! Stop it!”

There was a collective sigh. “All I wanted to do was play Russian Roulette,” A$$hole said. “This is ridiculous. Only one person has played so far. Can we please continue?”

“No!” Ruttemark said. “We will not continue until somebody eats my hair. To prove that you guys aren’t discriminating against long-haired people… no. Against mixed people! You guys hate me because I’m half-white. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Ruttemark, I’m mixed too, but everyone loves me because I’m not a big fat baby,” Frog said. “So shut up.”

“That’s true.”

“I agree.”

“Frog rocks. You suck.”

“Woo!”

Baboon clenched his jaw. “Banksy, give me the gun. We’re going ahead with this.”

“Aaargh!” Ruttemark screamed. He lunged at Banksy and grabbed the gun, shoving it under his armpit. “I said, We aren’t continuing until somebody eats my hair!”

A silence fell upon the room.

“Yeah,” Ruttemark said, quieter this time. He glared at us all with a wild look in his eye. He had begun to sweat profusely, and he panted, crouching, gritting his teeth.

We were all thinking the exact same thing.

I could feel my heart pounding, my blood roaring behind my ears.

“Guys,” Banksy said quietly. “Someone take one for the team.”

“What?” Gross Hair Anime Guy said. He knew what she meant, but refused to acknowledge it. “You don’t mean…”

“Yes. Someone has to eat his hair. It’s for the greater good.”

“Any volunteers?”

We all looked down, finding a sudden interest in the carpet. Some grabbed their phones and began scrolling on social media. Others noisily ate chips. Some just stared into space with empty expressions. Not one of us made eye contact with the other –– we were cornered. The only person making any noise was Ruttemark, who kept sniffing and staring at us all defiantly.

The clock on the wall was ticking, each click another second of strained tension. We all knew that someone had to do it, but nobody was ready to make such a sacrifice.

Suddenly, there was a heavy knock on the door. ToulouseDidi and his older brother ToulouseGege -– the weird French brothers who wore the same pair white socks and sandals every day so that by this point the socks were gray and filthy –– peeked through. “Hi,” ToulouseGege said. “Did it already start? Sorry we’re late.”

Silence.

Who would be the first to speak? Who would act as Judas and force ToulouseDidi/Gege into becoming a martyr?

After a prolonged silence, I decided to take the fall. This, I thought, was a moment for me to display my leadership skills. I could even write about it for my application to Lindt® University. I cleared my throat. “You’re late,” I said, faking a cheerful tone. “Shame on you.”

“Yeah, sorry,” ToulouseGege said.

“You’re very late,” A$$hole joined in. “We’ve been playing for five hours now.”

The immediate expression of guilt and anxiety that appeared on the French brothers’ faces made me feel sick. But I went on. “There has to be a punishment.”

Ruttemark frowned. “But what about me?” he yelled.

“Oh, shut up. We’re getting to it. Jesus Christ!”

Frog and I sighed.

“Anyway, as a punishment, we decree that you must eat Ruttemark’s hair––”

“Punishment? That’s not a punishment!” Ruttemark interrupted. His mouth was wide open, and snot was dripping into it. His face was bright red and streaked with tear marks. “It’s a goddamn privilege!”

ToulouseGege looked queasy. “C-come on, Marathon. You don’t have to do this. It’s not that bad, right?” He forced a laugh. “We were –– we were just a little bit late. W-we have an excuse! A good one. A great one. We were left behind at the restaurant. The counsellors didn’t notice until just now, so they came to get us. But by then we had already begun to walk back to the hotel and had gotten lost. So they called the police and there was a citywide search, and ––”

“Quit stalling and just do it, ToulouseGege,” Banksy said.

“Yeah, man, it’s just for kicks. Don’t make it a big deal,” Frog said, sweating.

“It takes, like, two seconds.”

“Do it, and then you can play. Otherwise, we’ll...” Baboon paused to think. “Uh…”

“We’ll excommunicate you!” A$$hole said. “From all root-seeking camps! For the rest of your life!” He crossed his arms and leaned back onto a poofy pillow. “I have the power to do that. My dad is a counsellor.”

“Look,” I said. “I’d do it if I were in your position. Except I’m not. Just play along, okay? It’s no big deal.”

ToulouseGege. “Will I really be excommunicated?”

“You and your brother,” A$$hole said.

“No, A$$hole,” I said, swatting him away. “Alright, you can play twenty rounds of Russian Roulette all by yourself. Take your chances.”

“That’s even worse!” ToulouseDidi said. “Isn’t it?” he added in a small voice.

ToulouseGege sighed. “Fine.” He sounded as though he was vomiting his words, forcing himself to pronounce those four letters.

His little brother looked at him in awe. “Really? You’d do it? You’re going to eat Ruttemark’s hair?”

Grim-faced, he said, “Of course not. You are.”

“Wait, what?”

“Hey, I walked in here first. You were behind me. So technically, you arrived later than I did. So you can take the punishment.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Have you heard of Kong Rong Rang Li? Take one for your big bro. It’s filial piety, man. Or… fraternal piety.”

“B-but––”

“Do you know what Mom would say if I told her you didn’t do this?”

“I have to eat Ruttemark’s hair?” ToulouseDidi was only 3 years old, but nobody protested. Someone had to eat Ruttemark’s hair. As long as this person wasn’t me, I didn’t really mind. It was obvious that all the others felt the same. ToulouseGege, though… to think that he would throw his baby brother to the lions. I made a mental note never to trust him.

The silence in the room wore an air of agreement. That was it, then. ToulouseDidi would be the wear to bear the burden.

Gross Hair Anime Guy took out a pair of scissors from his pocket and snipped off 30 centimeters of Ruttemark’s hair. The strands stuck together with grease. “Here,” he said, flinging it at ToulouseDidi. It landed on his head and began to slip down his face.

ToulouseDidi screamed. It was a blood-piercing sound that chilled my very bones. But I forced myself to see it through. This was the only way.

“Come on, man, I’ll buy you ice cream for the rest of your life. I’ll even get you green pea-flavored popsicles. You know how rare those things are these days. Even in China,” ToulouseGege whispered.

ToulouseDidi gulped. For a few seconds, we were all tense, fearing that he would back out of it. But finally, he nodded. “For the popsicles,” he said.

And then, as we all watched, jaws open, leaning forward, eyes wide, he tilted his small fragile head backwards and put the strand of hair into his mouth. I could see his flaring nostrils trembling. He slurped it all in like a piece of spaghetti, and then began chewing, slowly at first, his young innocent eyes full of determination as they looked downwards at his trembling lips. I had been holding my breath for so long that I thought I might burst. I could hear the crunching sound of the oily hair being crushed under his weak little teeth. Then, taking a deep breath, he swallowed it all. I heard the hair go down his throat quickly, like a snowball rolling down a hill, gaining traction as it went. I imagined the hair making its journey down his esophagus and into his stomach, where it would be gradually dissolved by acid, floating around amongst mounds of green pea-flavored popsicles. Each strands would disintegrate and travel down to his intestines, where they would be absorbed by the epithelial cells. Hair was made of keratin, a protein, so it would probably need to pass through the partially permeable cell membrane by means of facilitated diffusion, such as with the aid of a protein pump, or through active transport like co-transport or phagocytosis. It certainly couldn’t pass through gaps between cells, which were sealed by tight junctions. ToulouseDidi burped a loud burp like the roar of a lion, disrupting my train of thought.

We looked at Ruttemark. He was nodding approvingly. He looked content.

I finally let go and allowed myself to breathe again, spluttering and coughing as air returned to my lungs. I cleared my throat and looked at Frog with relief.

“Hold on a second,” Ruttemark said. My heart skipped a beat. He turned to ToulouseDidi, whose eyes were glazed over. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh, dear,” X said.

ToulouseDidi seemed not to register the question. He looked at Ruttemark with a dead, empty expression.

“Hello? Did you hear me, MarseilleDidi?”

“It’s ToulouseDidi,” ToulouseGege said fiercely. Oh, so now he was defending his brother.

“What?” ToulouseDidi said faintly. “Yes. Sorry, I just feel… really, really sick.”

“But did you enjoy it?”

“I, uh ––” ToulouseDidi looked at his brother. His brother looked back. This was now a critical moment –– if the child said anything that Ruttemark didn’t like, all the progress we’d made would be undone. We would fail and be forced to start again at the beginning, with another victim. That victim could be me, for all I knew. We were so close, yet so far. Please, please, please.

“It was good, right?” ToulouseGege said slowly.

“Uh ––” ToulouseDidi pursed his lips. I prayed that he would know to say the right thing. “Yes!” he said. “It was the most –– d-delicious thing that I’ve––” he belched––”ever had. Ever.”

“Cool,” Ruttemark said, satisfied. He returned the gun to Baboon. “Continue the game.”

“Finally!” Baboon said, raising his arms to the ceiling. He aimed, and clicked. Chrysanthemum petals leaked from the barrel of the gun and landed onto the ground. People began gathering them. Around the room, the din began to rise again as people started talking and joking, putting everything behind us. In the distance, ToulouseDidi snuck away to the bathroom to vomit.

Trying and failing to tackle Farewell My Concubine

Around the time that I wrote a bunch of film reviews for my school magazine (none of which were published), I tried to write one about Farewell My Concubine. It was very difficult. I gave up. There are big films, like this one, like Ashes of Time, that I find very difficult to articulate my feelings about. Nevertheless, I just checked my document and found out I'd written a lot more than I thought. I'm putting it here, unedited, but it's very unpolished, and I think if I had to write about it I wouldn't approach it from there anymore.

There are many different ways to approach this film. It's just too large. I could write a book about it. For this half-baked review, I guess I was going to focus on the historical epic aspect to it. But the gender aspect is also very major.

Anyway, here goes...

Crazy Stone (2006)

Wrote this for my school newspaper but they never published it because nobody cares. I really like this review and I really like the film, though. It also appeared on my Wordpress, which I abandoned because I didn't like the interface, and on the Sino Arts blog.

Crazy Stone (2006)

Jiaqi Kang

The first scene in the movie Crazy Stone (Fengkuang de shitou) features one of the main characters getting his anus checked by a doctor. We won’t discuss that.

The second scene in the movie Crazy Stone (Fengkuang de shitou) is set in a gondola in Chongqing, a municipality that was once part of Sichuan province. As it lurches forward on its cable, we catch a gray, desolate overview of the city, with its damp-looking concrete buildings, milky skies, and patchy roofs. A voiceover that seems at first to be a monologue on the godlessness of this pathetic metropolis is stripped of its romanticism when it turns out to be spoken by a fat man with bad teeth and chapped lips trying half-heartedly to seduce a beautiful woman as old ladies look on in disgust. Similarly, later in the film, an image of a pair of artists sketching an ancient statue zooms out to show, next to them, a topless man lying on a table getting suction cup therapy, the circles on his back swelling into purple prunes; and a dialogue between an illiterate peasant and a benevolent stranger is revealed to be an unoriginal scam for money that nobody falls for anymore. The oddly touching beauty of Chongqing is compared to, contrasted against, and complemented with the vulgarity of its inhabitants, a huddle of low-level hustlers and dusty-fingered corporates with no real ambitions.

This is the essence of the film, a marvelous low-budget heist comedy made in 2006 with an unknown cast and crew that, against all expectations, topped the national box office. It is a thoughtful meditation on the urban ecosystem of unglamorous Chinese city life, yet never strays into the pretentious or the melodramatic. Instead, it drags the audience into a world of chaos, crassness and confusion, an elaborate mash of storylines all circling violently around the titular object, a single piece of mesmerizing green jade… found inside a toilet in a bankrupt D-class museum-slash-operahouse.

There is the security guard with urinary troubles, fiercely loyal to his job at the failing institution, despite not having been paid for almost a year; the fashionable Hong Kong assassin with thin lips hired to do whatever it takes to steal the stone; the three conmen who, just as they have begun to run out of tricks, see their big break; Cha-er-si (Charles), the talentless photographer who wishes to woo a lady with riches; the jumpy, rodent-like real estate assistant with his repulsive white shoes and flimsy contract; the museum owner who is as old, fragile, and treacherous as his crumbling imperial property; the zero-star saloon-like hotel that houses crooks and employees alike; the seemingly infinite Coca-Cola cans that pile up mountainously in a cramped guestroom; the suitcase large enough to fit a grown man; the lamb brochette barbecue; the pothole covers; the lethal crossbow; the light diffusers; the pair of identical spy suits; the ash from a cigarette … all of these and more are the players in this brilliantly hectic plot peppered with a menagerie of local dialects and the cynical, omniscient clash of traditional Sichuanese opera cymbals. The film is a Western set in a frontier land where the people are still frantically taking advantage of Deng Xiaoping’s 1980s post-Communist market reforms, where the cowboys are really the Indians and vice versa, where honor dictates all actions but dignity is nonexistent, and where the fatal high noon showdown takes form in two installments: at first as a scrambling, medieval-style joust by the road in the middle of the night, and again the next day in a nouveau riche’s tall office accompanied by a mournful, closed-eyed guitar soundtrack.

Watching this cacophony in which the characters are constantly covered in bruises for myriad reasons fills the audience with a strange sense of pleasure, and the schadenfreude is made more intense by the greasiness of the color palette and the dim lighting that makes everything in the frame look as though it is coated with a layer of grime. We watch on with glee, mocking the obliviousness of the characters and grateful for our own clean lives in which we have the privilege of living amongst good-mannered people who know how to flush a toilet. Casual yet masterful editing and perfectly-timed visual twists turn cliché into pastiche art and misfortune into dark humor. Huang Bo, who ten years later today is one of the most successful actors in mainland China, exudes ugly and cunning charm as a pseudo-Jean Valjean, and Guo Tao is pitiful as a humble and resigned yet clearly intelligent man with vast potential that we all know will forever go untapped. Most of all, however, it is director Ning Hao who excels, and this at the green age of 28. There are a million ways to ruin such a film, but with a magic touch, he is able to avoid pitfalls and create a wonderfully exhilarating and aesthetically inelegant (yet exquisitely so) piece of work that deserves to be as highly regarded in Chinese cinema as the historical arthouse films so adored by foreign cinephiles.

9.2/10

You can watch Crazy Stone with Chinese subtitles here. (Warning for strong but not Tarantino-esque violence): https://youtu.be/3vDHal--ov0