People just want to live!

Cabrini (Italian/English, 2024)

Director: Alejandro Gómez Monteverde

After their exposè of transborder abduction of minors to satisfy the sexual needs of the deviant in 'Sound of Freedom' and hitting a runaway success at the box office, Angel Studio tries their hand at distributing a film that tries to highlight the bad treatment of early Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century to the USA.

The expansion of white Americans southward and westward opened the door to an influx of economic immigrants from Europe. The potato famine sent the Irish there, and abject poverty brought Italians and Jews to escape persecution. There was plenty of menial work to be done that the locals found too dirty, dangerous and demeaning to do. Immigrants filled the gap willingly. The Americans were not welcoming of them, however. Shoving them to the most unflattering part of New York, infested with rats, crime and disease, they had to live like rats. Healthcare was poor, social amenities were dismal, pimping was rampant and in short, there was general lawlessness.

Against this background, a troublemaker Roman Catholic nun was sent to care for the poor Italian migrants in New York. The nun, Frances Maria Cabrini, and her sisters arrive in New York and find themselves in the dirty streets of Point Five. Amidst the non-cooperation of the Diocese and the Mayor, Cabrini, with her fighting spirit, despite her failing health due to past TB, starts an orphanage. The powers that be were not so excited that a woman could do so much and for, in their eyes, vermins of society. She got eviction notices and fines from the city council.

Through the help of the press, she acquired donations to purchase a piece of property, which she turned into an orphanage. She and her team soon set up a private hospital to earn money to subside the poor immigrants. Her chain of hospitals grew and had many branches worldwide.

There is a lesson for us all to learn. Recently, many videos have emerged on social media of self-appointed vigilantès who pounce on foreigners in Malaysia who set up shops, ride around without valid driving licences, or extend their premises illegally. These foreigners comprise refugees with UNHCR cards, foreign workers who overstayed their visas, and runaway workers.

Vigilantes showing foreign businesses

In the video, the vloggers quickly pass disparaging remarks about their living conditions and choice of food. In the vigilantes' eyes, the guest workers should be subservient to the locals, not independent, earning lots of money, perhaps more than the locals. The vloggers would feel unhappy that the guests bring their cultures and practices into the country, akin to polluting the Malaysian culture (sic.)

The vloggers should hear themselves speak. It sounds so ridiculous. A person in the prime of his (or her) youth is bound to have surmount of plans for his future. He would want to be a notch higher than his parents, maybe two. The desire of the human mind has no boundaries. Wealth is often used as the yardstick of success. If one does not seek wealth in his youth, when else? If his living conditions in his country are not conducive, the only logical thing to do, as generations before us did, is to migrate, looking for safer and greener pastures. The immigrants are there to do work that the locals feel is beneath them, which is demeaning and a side effect of the prospering society.

Aren't we all, the citizens of the world, all migrants, anyway? From the first hominid who walked out of the Savanah for food, we are all emigres. Some flee from famine, others for opportunities, and to escape persecution, we move. The world is for everyone. Borders are artificial demarcations, not cast in stone but in our minds.

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google.com, pub-8936739298367050, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

A Malaysian gem

Spilt Gravy, Ke Mana Tumpahnya Kuah(2022)
Director: Zahim Albakri

There is a Malay saying, 'ke mana tumpah kuah, kalau tidak ke nasi', which implies that the traits of children do not differ much from their parents. Its direct translation would be, 'where does the gravy spill, if not to the rice?' Its English equivalent is 'the apple does not fall far from the tree'.

Even though this movie was due for screening in 2013, it never saw living daylight. Thanks to the local censorship board, it was put in cold storage till 2022. Apparently, the board felt that the story could hurt the sentiments of the Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Hence, it had to undergo multiple edits, some dialogues were muted, a significant plot change, a hand gesture blurred, etcetera to qualify for a PG-13 certificate. The version that appeared on Netflix seemed close to the original copy, with the dialogue, gestures and all.

After a long time, we see an intelligent Malaysian movie minus the typical racial stereotyping and silly slapstick comedies that Malaysian movies are often guilty of. Underneath the main story about an elderly father summoning his five children from his five previous marriages for a last dinner as he senses that his end is near is the narration of our country's history. 

Two characters in all-white airline pilot outfits pull their roller luggage. They are actually angels (or maybe a sort of Grimm Reaper) out to pick up 'Bapak', a widower, an ex-journo, living all alone in the heart of KL city. 

Like peeling an onion, the story of his life and his children is revealed to us. Their childhood, time growing up as a family and the different directions life took them is shown. 

Slotted within this is the discriminatory nature of our history against women, LGBT issues, being Malay and even the different 'types of Malay' within the community. 

The last part of what it is about being Malay is relevant even today. It is apparent from the analysis of the latest election results, GE15. The Malays in this country are not the single-minded same-thinking entity that the country's leaders want them to be. Increasingly they, the leaders, misuse religion towards this end to produce a single-tracked unquestioning brand of Malay. Even at the infancy of its inception as a nation, Malaya had to grapple with this conundrum. 

Roughly, there were two major divisions. The first was the so-called elites who benefitted from education and opportunities the ruling colonisers or government offered. These mainly comprised civil servants and professionals confident enough to voice their opinions and mingled in civil society. The second comprised the bulk of the heartland occupants who were suddenly jolted to the forefront. The latter felt lost, unable to understand independence when everything in front of them was foreign. They were told it was their land, but nothing made sense - the lopsided economic distribution and the sense of being snatched of what was rightfully theirs. The ill feelings continue till today, with the non-Malays being the bogeymen.

It makes you think. Kudos to the excellent screenplay, direction and acting. Essential viewing for Malaysians to appreciate how the potpourri of cultures within Malaysia is given due respect and to know how a Malaysian movie should be made. 4/5.

(RIP Playwright and actor: Jit Murad)

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Now you know!

Heard that the word 'hunky' does not only refer to a buff guy with muscles. It could be a derogatory word for a white guy, specifically one from the East European block. 

At the turn of the 19th century US, many Slavic and Hungarian economic and religious refugees from the ailing Austro-Hungarian Empire turned up at Pennsylvania and West Virginia coal mines. As per the norm, many immigrants were hardworking people who were there to earn and go back and lead a better life. A group of young blokes expressed their newly found freedom in the saloons and sin dens. Over time, their alcohol-filled emotions would spiral into street fights and general public nuisance. Many were Hungarians and Pollacks (Polish), collectively called Hunyaks or Honyaks. 

Maybe because these manual labourers were defined with well-endowed physiques and using slur terms against any group became politically incorrect, the word hunky is now exclusively for a buffed person. 

Curiously, the words' hongkies' and 'honkytonk' are not precisely accepted kindly. People originating from Hong Kong rather be referred to as Hongkongers. 'Hongkie' is officially a slur word. Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones penned 'Honkytonk Women' after his trip to Portugal. He watched some cowboys at work and imagined probably sexual escapades in hongky-tonk bars. Incidentally, the music played in honky-tonk bars is called hillbilly music, referring to the loud music and bawdy comedy that accompanies it. It is a low-brow establishment with drunken patrons having a jolly good time. Jagger's lyrics do not precisely elevate its status. The music is catchy, nevertheless. 

Incidentally, in urban lingo, hongky-tonk refers to the gluteal region of a female, particularly a cute one. Now you know.

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It is only natural to move forward!

May 4th Movement
Tiananmen Gathering 1919;
a turning point in Chinese history.

It seems biological warfare does not just mean sending anthrax spores or releasing serine gas at a railway station. It had evolved to something quite specific to the intended victim.

Like in the latest James Bond offering, like how Spectre had perfected the art of individualising weapons against its enemies, some conspiracy theorists believe that the emergence of the Wuhan virus is one step closer towards this end. The constant mutation of this RNA virus at such neck-breaking speed all through alpha to zeta variants in a matter of years further cements their arguments.

When the western world decided that facial recognition software does not work well, in came the Chinese with a technologically functional system so advanced that it puts shame on the Western stereotype that 'all Chinese faces look alike'!

The condescending look of the world (read West) probably reached its zenith after the 1919 Versailles Treaty. After dismantling the Chinese dynasty and fighting an uphill battle with opium addiction, the Treaty sealed the last nail on the coffin at a time of turmoil. Even though China was aligned with the Allied Forces, she got a raw deal. She had the area around the Shandong peninsula, German holdings before WW1, assigned to their mortal enemy, Japan.

The time after that was of great upheaval; the age-old Confucius styled civil service entrance examinations were revamped, the May Fourth Movement, political and cultural revolution and finally Communist China came to being to restore China's past glory. At every turn, the world viewed China hawkishly as a despotic, third-world godless country that does not respect human dignity.

So when the world foolishly thought that China could be cajoled to perform the Western world's menial and laborious chores, China jumped at the opportunity. Slowly, on the sly, it improved its human capital.

Zheng Ho, the 1400s

After a century of slumber, the dragon has awoken. The ugly duckling has turned into a swan. Suddenly their brilliance shines the world over. If the club of space-venturing countries thought going to the moon was unproductive, China shocked everyone by approaching the moon from the dark side.

The fear of 'Yellow Peril' is ignited once again by people who tend to be negatively affected by the rise of the sleeping dragon. Will they repeat their previous feat in the early 15th century when their fleets explored the four corners of the world, including the New World, almost a good 90-over years before the European looters?

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Obey Fu Manchu Or Every Living Thing Will Die!

The Face of Fu Manchu (1965)
Director: Don Sharp

A film like this, made in the 21st century, would be wrong by all accounts. Words like cultural appropriation and stereotyping would be hurled to shoot this film into oblivion. Many of its dialogue can be construed as offensive or downright racist. But then, in the 60s, when this film was released, it was pretty okay. In fact, it was such a hit that it earned four subsequent sequels.

The character Fu-Manchu is the brainchild of an English novelist, Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry "Sarfield' Ward 1883-1959). His first short story in 1912 with the character took such a liking on either side of the Atlantic that it spurred follow-up novels, plays and even a movie in 1923 titled The Mystery of Fu-Manchu.

The average Englishman in the early 20th century UK had probably no contact with an Oriental person. They had probably read about the industrious Japanese and their effort towards modernisation via the Meiji Dynasty. This was perhaps not the case in the USA or continental Europe, especially Russia. Chinese and Japanese immigrants have been working on the Pacific coast and were subjected to the same mistreatment as the blacks. The Russians had been perpetually fighting with the Japanese for imperial ambitions over Manchuria and Korea. The British were sympathetic towards the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese wars.

Sax Rohmer

For the imperialists and expansionists amongst the British, the Far East was a lucrative avenue for business and wealth. Their entry into China was resisted by the Chinese dynasty's closed-door policy. The colonialists justify their involvement in the Opium Wars by vilifying the Chinese as a mystic race with evil exuding from their every orifice. The anti-foreigners and anti-Christian stance of the Boxer Rebellion further cemented the idea the Chinese were terrible. Maybe the Europeans had not forgotten the cruelties Genghiz Khan and Atilla of the Oriental race. The sentiments to paint the Chinese as bad was skyrocketing by the late 19th and early 20th century. Hence, characters like Fu-Manchu and the looming fabled Yellow Peril seem justified. The 1905 Japanese win over the Russians seems to defend their claim that that anti-White yellow race was out to rule the world. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II was honoured to have coined the term 'Yellow Peril' (Gelbe Gefahr) to encourage Imperial German interests and justify European colonialism in China.

A racist cartoon of The Yellow Terror in all His Glory
(1899) depicts an anti-colonial Qing DynastyChinese
man standing over a fallen white woman who
represents the Western world. (Wiki)

The xenophobic outlook towards the Chinese and other Orientals never went away. The central involvement of the Japanese in the Second World War and the embrace of Communist by China made the Great White powers somewhat sceptical of them. I guess now with China's threat to the US hegemony of world affairs puts them back in the wrong light. Even the Australians who had overt anti-Chinese clauses in their White Australia have resorted to labelling China and CCP as the Southern Continent's number one enemy of the State.

The yellow peril has had many faces, but Fu Manchu epitomised them for mass culture. A hugely popular icon, he even has a full facial hair is named after him - Fu-Manchu moustache, a wiry well-oiled moustache that almost touches the chin.

'The Face of Fu Manchu' is a predictable offering that mimics many supervillains often seen on the silver screen with megalomaniacal ambitions of world domination. Like the baddies of James Bond, Fu Manchu is an evil genius with tonnes of knowledge into the mystical world of hypnotism and herbalism, escapes execution in China only to appear around River Thames. With his convoluted plan to weaponise Tibetian poppyseed to poison all lifeforms around London, he kidnaps a chemistry Professor to extract the toxic concoction.

In come Dr Fu Manchu's nemeses, Dr Petrie and Nayland Smith of the Scotland Yard, to thwart his plan.

Fu Manchu

Two points piqued my interest here. Firstly, it is the catchy 'Younghusband' documents. Such a document actually existed. As in most British expeditions where surveyance is used as a guise to the British imperial ambitions, it compiled British exploration of Tibet, probably an economic assessment of conquest of that land.

Secondly, it is Fu Manchu's daughter, Lin Tang. She is Fu Manchu's faithful sidekick. Shang-Chi only appears in 1973's edition of Marvel's comics. He is said to be Fu Manchu's son, but due to the non-renewal of rights and probably portrayal of a Chinese character in a bad light, Shang-Chi's father is depicted as Xu Wenwu. Shang-Chi's sister is Xu Xialing (not Lin Tang!). It would just go contrary to the producer's idea of including minority groups as superheroes to tap the lucrative Chinese market, would it not?

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All you need is introspection, not love.

Material (South Africa, 2012)
Netflix

Now that there is much discussion on racism and plenty of accusations of one group of people showing superiority over the other based on the colour of their skin, the time is ripe to look at ourselves and ask, "who amongst us is not racist?" 

Generally, we would admit that we are all inherently racists. From our time as cavemen and hunters, we had always found comfort in those who looked like us and practise our way of life. Life was hard, food was scarce, and the weather was gruelling, to say the least. We had always been suspicious of other tribesmen. They could take away the food that we had kept for the winter or a rainy day.

Fast forward, many many generations later, we had been indoctrinated of a particular way of doing things. We have been taught that daily tasks must be done in a certain way. All these were thought by our elders to ensure law and order and to provide a place for all in the community. Pretty soon, we thought we were doing quite well. Maybe needing to have the assurance that we were doing the right thing, we started looking down at others and mocking. We laughed at the way they were doing something. We called them ignorant fools. When we were the majority, we impose our so-called superior culture upon them and abhor their language and way of life.

That is when racism started. It happened when we walked with our noses high up in the air with a chip on our shoulders. We expect the 'other' - the one who should serve, who deserves no respect, the one beneath us - to bow down to our beliefs. There is no reason for us to respect theirs because they are the lost ones.

The feeling is, unfortunately, mutual. The 'other' also thinks that the exact way that we do. 

Every now and then, in the course of day-to-day interaction, differences and frictions are bound to happen. With both parties holding their convictions close to their hearts, sparks are bound to fly. If only one could introspect or be mindful, clashes can be averted. We can meet halfway.

If you thought you have not heard of films coming from South Africans, think again. Who can forget the rib-tickling super blockbuster of 1980, 'The Gods must be crazy' about a Coke bottle and a Kalahari bushman.

This time around, this movie centres around an orthodox South African Indian Muslim family from Johannesburg.  The family is led by a domineering father who believes that he has a God-sent duty to protect his family from the evil charms of modernity. A crisis looms when his son, whom he placed all hopes to take over his cloth merchant business, takes up to performing stand-up comedy in places he considers sinful. At the same time, this hard-headed patriarchial figure has relationship issues with his close relatives. Unlike him, they had learnt to embrace the modernity of post-apartheid South Africa. 

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Numbers for Offence and Defence

The BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Director: Spike Lee

About a year ago, I heard on a podcast called 'Snap Judgement' about a black undercover cop in the late 70s masquerading as a white guy wanting to join the KKK. The police wanted to investigate the involvement of the clan members in the defence ministry. The policeman, Ron Stallworth, was so convincing that he managed to become a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. Of course, he did most of the talking via the telephone and his colleague, whose identity is hidden for security reasons, was the one who appeared in person when the need arose. 

With artistic licence in hand to spice up the suspense, the screenplay must have been rewritten to be set in the early seventies. The fictitious duel between the revolutionaries Black Panther and the KKK was created. The cop who appeared in person was chosen to be Jewish to further spruce sweet revenge. A black and a Jewish cop defeating the self-professed members of a superior race sounds more dramatic.





There was a time in our civilisation that we needed to leave in tribes for strength and protection. It was a time when might and sword did all the talking. Even though we are supposed to have evolved to have moral standards and social mores, deep inside the tribal spirit lives on like a caged animal waiting to be unleashed. When things are working our favour, we maintain harmony with our surroundings. When our personal space is invaded and is threatened, we recoil into our shell, invoke race, religion or any common trait that binds us into greater numbers for offence and defence.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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