Free Planet Press

Da Vinci boost for Malaysia writer

2007-11-15T07:14:00+08:00

The phenomenal success of the US thriller novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has caused an unexpected windfall for feng shui masters. Between chunks of action-adventure, the book powerfully pushes “sacred geometry”: the belief that there are right and correct proportions for things. Where can ordinary fans get advice about this kind of thing? Feng shui masters, of course. Malaysia-based Stephen Skinner, who has made a career publishing Chinese feng shui works in English, has taken to following the thriller writer closely, having recently published a volume called Sacred Geometry. Dan Brown’s next book is called The Solomon Key, titled after a book of magic originally published in the Middle Ages. Skinner’s new book is shortly to hit the stands, and is also a compilation of ancient magic spells from the Middle Ages. Dan Brown has unexpectedly brought eastern and western geomantic sciences together.

Meet the Men in White

2007-11-08T04:12:00+08:00

Men in Black, meet the Men in White. The former is a Hollywood classic comedy while the latter is a film in production from Singaporean horror director Kelvin Tong. Due for release this summer, it tells the story of a group of Singaporeans who die and return as ghosts. The film is billed as a horror-comedy, with lots of horror-themed slapstick. But industry-watchers say there’s risk in naming a project after a Hollywood hit. First, the title doesn’t quite fit: some of the ghosts are female. And second, does he really want to invite comparison? The 1997 movie Men in Black was written by successful comedian Ed Solomon (John Cleese’s son-in-law), and had a budget of US$90 million.
Singapore’s Men in White was written by Tong himself and has a budget of just half a million US dollars. The financiers of Tong’s horror movie may well have shivers up their spines.

'Colonialism' fear overshadows Asian prize

2007-11-06T16:50:18+08:00

Asians submit, but Western expats stand in judgment

November 6, 2007

THE NAME of the Asian author who will receive the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize will be finally revealed on Saturday, November 10 th. But will the names of the people giving out the prize also become more apparent?

The press release doesn’t give the organizer’s names. Communications tend to use the term “Administrative Committee”. Even the front pages of their website prefer to use that anonymous phrase, with the actual names tucked away on deeper link. Why are administrators so shy about revealing who they are?

The prize is for authors from most countries in Asia, but the administrative team consists entirely of a small group of Western expatriates living in Hong Kong: none are Asian. The organization also includes a three-person judging team: two from North America and one from Australia. Although one is Chinese-Canadian, not one of the judges lives or works in Asia.

The missing Asian roots at the top of the organization has been noticed by critics, and the administration’s reticence about pushing themselves forward suggests they’re also aware that this issue could crucially undermine the prize’s legitimacy in many eyes.

ABSENSE OF ASIAN-NESS

The absence of Asian-ness is curious given that the prize grew out of a very Asian journal called the Asia Literary Review, started in 1999 by Hong Kong-based Sri Lankan author Nury Vittachi and Indonesian-Chinese novelist Xu Xi. The journal, like the award, is for “works as yet unpublished in English”, a clever concept that enabled its editors to include Asian authors who initially produce their work in their vernacular languages (as Chinese and Indonesian authors do) and those who work in English (as many South Asian authors do).

The new prize was born in January last year. Vittachi made a presentation to the board of director of Man Group plc, sponsors of the Man Booker Prize, showing how this principle could be used as the foundation of an award. He received a green light on the spot.

But in the weeks that followed, Vittachi changed the way his book distributor. His former distributor Peter Gordon, who was handling the paperwork for the prize, suddenly became chairman of a separate prize organization and banned the author from any involvement. The shocked Vittachi cried foul, but it was too late. Resources from Man Group plc for the prize went to Gordon’s new organization.

HOST OF ISSUES

Since then, there has been a host of issues debated in a row which has “convulsed the Asian literary scene”, according to news wire services. In news reports and Internet chat-rooms, it has been suggested the new administration “hijacked” the prize.

There was more upset when Malaysia and Mongolia were initially omitted from the list of Asian countries from which Gordon’s administration said entries would be accepted. Another issue is that from the point of view of authors, the prize aimed to create publicity and blaze new networks for Asian authors, but the new administration appears weak on those fronts.

But the choice of expatriate administrators and judges remains the main sticking point. Many South Asian readers and writers found it particularly galling that the South Asian initiator of the prize was dropped, since that region has became legendary for its talent in English literature. “Colonialism is so yesterday,” a commentator said on a literary website managed by Indians. As if to prove the point, almost two-thirds of the entries for this year’s prize were from South Asia.

Amusingly, Vittachi’s supporters have set up a website, www.themanasianliteraryprize.org , to provide more interactivity than exists on the official site, www.manasianliteraryprize.org. The independent site “designed to felicitate the awarded” certainly has a more Asian feel to it.

QUALITY THE CONCERN

Prize spokeswoman Rosemary Sayer, an Australian living in Hong Kong, told the press earlier this year that she saw no problems with the judges being from outside Asia, arguing that quality was the main concern. “Why should Asian people judge Asian writers?” she told an interviewer from Radio Television Hong Kong. Concerns about the propriety of Westerners judging the prize were “distasteful”, she said. “I’ve lived here for nearly 12 years. I’m a permanent resident. Am I not Asian?” The interviewer chose not to respond to that question.
More recently, Ms Sayer has declined to answer further questions about the prize.

Meanwhile, Vittachi insists he is not bitter about what happened, although his voice occasionally becomes strident, implying that the opposite is true. He repeats the names of the shortlisted candidates like a mantra – Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Reeti Gadekar, Jiang Rong, Jose Dalisay Jr and his old colleague Xu Xi – and says the focus of attention should be on them, not the administrative problems (although he has called for Asians to take top spots in the administration and judging next year).

“ My joy at seeing my dream come true for these fellow writers far outweighs my disappointment at being banned from the party,” he said, adding with a somewhat tired smile: “It’s amazing what a person can achieve if he doesn’t mind who takes the credit.”

Disney goes for Asian tale

2007-10-25T11:17:00+08:00

WALT DISNEY is being Asianified. The US movie maker has moved on from its normal diet of Western fairy tales such as Snow White and looked east for inspiration.

The newest film is The Secret of the Magic Gourd, a mix of live action and 3D computer-generated characters, based on a novel written by children’s author Zhang Tianyi in China in 1958. It will spread to cinemas in various countries after its summer launch on the mainland.

A boy has a sentient, wish-granting magic gourd (hey, that’s no more far-fetched than a talking mirror with a beauty fixation).

Hong Kong songstress Gigi Leung fills the role of the child’s teacher, and provides star power eye-candy on the way.

Disney is using local partners (the China Film Group Corp. and Centro Digital Pictures) to give it a genuine Eastern flavour.

You can buy Disney-themed cookies and snacks these days, but I doubt if movie-tie-in gourds will be on sale. Gourds may be related to melons, but kids are unlikely to want to chow down on the latest cute Disney character.

Pop idol to be "ethical"

2007-10-11T11:10:00+08:00

The producers of hot new Chinese television series Happy Boy are being super-careful with their Mandarin version of American Idol, itself a copy of UK show Pop Idol. Happy Boy is an all-guys version of Super Girl, a competition for Chinese female singers said to have attracted 400 million mainland viewers: that’s more than the entire population of the United States.
The producers of Happy Boy know they have a winning format. But the broadcasting authorities issued an edict telling them that songs must be healthy and ethically inspiring, judges are banned from humiliating the contestants (which proved to be the big sales point in other versions of the show), and stars must display “no weirdness”. That last point would instantly put the vast majority of Western pop stars out of the running. This isn’t going to be Pop Idol as seen elsewhere on the planet.

Dessert wars break out

2007-10-04T11:08:00+08:00

Asian dessert wars have broken out in Los Angeles. The latest food fad in West Hollywood is Korean frozen yogurt. People have been queuing for up to an hour to buy the stuff, available in plain or green tea flavours, from a store called Pinkberry.
But Korean company Red Mango has cried foul, claiming that they started a chain of yogurt stores in Seoul in 2003. The name, the menu and even the design of the two chains are very similar. They sell the same products in cafes with similar Asian pop aesthetic: plastic seating in bright colours with menus written on glass walls. Now Red Mango is opening stores in the United States so consumers have a choice of outlets.
Why such a fuss about this east-west dessert? Unlike American “froyo” (the heavy ice-cream-like frozen yogurt of the past), the Korean stuff is light, retains an addictive, yogurt-y sourness, is served with chunks of fresh fruit, and is relatively low in calories. Who would have thought that a dairy dessert sensation would come from Asia, a place where people were until recently intolerant to lactose?

Norah Jones for HK movie

2007-09-26T11:05:00+08:00

Talk about a charmed life. Singer Norah Jones is starring in the next Wong Kar-wai movie, despite having no acting experience. My Blueberry Nights is the story of an enigmatic blueberry pie eater who travels across America to find true love. It’s the first English language movie for Wong, and will be launched in June. One of the actresses in it, Rachel Weisz (you know her as the female lead in The Mummy and The Constant Gardener) is working with Wong on his 2008 project, a 1930s spy thriller called The Lady From Shanghai.

Wong has revealed that My Blueberry Nights was based on a Hong Kong short movie he did, but it must have evolved: the two main elements are long-distance road travel and blueberry pies, neither of which are exactly characteristic of Hong Kong.

Here comes fish-free sushi

2007-09-13T11:03:00+08:00

Many people like sushi but don’t like to think about eating raw fish. This is no longer a problem. Western chefs are taking sushi (historically Chinese, but now identified with Japan) and breaking all the rules. The California Roll, made of cooked crabmeat and avocado, has become one of the most popular varieties. Other parts of the US have hit back with their own inventions, such as the Philadelphia Roll, which features cream cheese and salmon, and the Boston Roll, which contains prawns and lettuce. Yo! Sushi, a restaurant in London offers strawberries-and-cream sushi.

In the meantime, the US government has developed a way to take out the seawood taste, having developed sushi wraps from substances such as broccoli and carrot. Food scientists at the US Department of Agriculture have produced a roast pork sushi rolled in a pineapple-apricot-ginger wrap, which you can follow with dessert: a creamy cheesecake sushi in a blueberry wrap.

Tang Dynasty chefs must be rolling in their graves.

It's their loss as China director moves

2007-08-02T10:56:00+08:00

Chinese film director Lou Ye has found himself banned from working in China -- so he’s plying his trade outside his homeland. The moviemaker showed Summer Palace at Cannes last year, despite it not having been officially approved, and was punished with a ban on working in China until 2011.
      So Shanghai-born Lou is making a film in the Middle East, based on the story of a man he met at a writers’ program in Iowa, in the United States.
      The tale: Ahmad, a Palestinian, is released after a decade in an Israel prison, and returns home to his wife Ameena. After waiting all those years for a reunion, they are horrified to discover that prison has left him impotent.
      Lou says that he is excited not just by the human drama of the story, but by the evocative locations: Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah. The working title is Ameena in Chinese, and The Last Hour in English.

Europeans meet the Asian comic

2007-06-14T16:40:57+08:00

OO-LA-LA! Le Manga est arrivé! At first glance, you might think French society and its Japanese counterpart have little in common. But they both share a common love for grown-up comic books -- and have now given birth to a hybrid offspring.

In Japan, the public buy huge amounts of manga, which are lengthy comic tales usually on domestic themes. Top titles sell millions of copies per issue. In France, bande dessinées, which are illustrated stories often sold as large format hardbacks, are a staple of bookshops.

Recently, European distributors have been translating manga for consumers in France, who now buy more than 10 million volumes a year, making them the second biggest consumer after Japan. Now the two societies have their own offspring. Nouvelle Manga is a movement credited to Frédéric Boilet, a French artist who became a mangaka -- manga-maker.

What are the characteristics of the new generation? From Japan we get the sophisticated, low-key tales of modern life and relationships, and from France, the fine art standards of European illustration techniques.

Meanwhile, as the word manga becomes common in the West, Japanese youth these days talk about collecting komikku.