giles li

yesterday saw giles li, a community activist and slam poet (who coincidentally works in a community center in my grandmother's condo building) perform and talk as the keynote speaker for asian heritage month. really liked his performance and his poems none of which i remember well enough to quote but i always find it amazing how much word twisting and texture can go into these poems that are also embedded with meaning both for the poet and for the listener. even though most of his poems cover pretty serious stuff, he kept the show light with lots of talking and stories and some acoustic guitar.

here's one of his poems that he didn't perform, but that i found on his website and really liked (remember what i said about some of his poems being serious/a bit of downers):

For Bang Mai, 16
stabbed to death on July 11, 2004 in South Boston

The sky is getting darker.
We’re losing our stars one at a time
to streets that don’t hear prayers
and calls to stop the violence.

Our sons are dying in the city scenes they call home
as their mothers send breakfast-time chants in their direction,
keeping them safe until streetlights come clean
to serve as makeshift guardian angels.
A generation disappearing before its light has a chance
to shine through,
etch its shadow in our minds,
decorate our night sky with spirits
we can remember without having to try.

A generation disappearing, begging for blessings
from anyone who might have them to give.

It’s harder to notice stars from the city
because lights from the ground
make them harder to see.
Another one of our stars has fallen to the ground,
and all we can do is keep our heads up,
eyes toward the heavens,
and wish there was an answer that
would keep our night sky from falling,
falling,
trying to lull us back to sleep.

But it’s hard to find sleep tonight,
because looking into the sky,
we know another one of our stars was taken
before his time.

copyright Giles Li, 2004

vietnam and iraq: lessons for obama

two excellent historians talking about the vietnam war and the iraq war and what lessons we can draw from them for the present day situation. (basically the title of the talk said it all).

more on this later if i get a chance.

betrayed

quick hit on a play i went to see on friday night about iraqi interpreters during the war and how their views on america evolved over the course of the war and what it was like to be working for the americans - i.e. how dangerous it was, but how they were still always seen as threats by the security in the green zone, how the woman translator of the trio was killed because she wouldn't wear her hijab (sp?) when all she wanted to do was be able to ride a bicycle through the street. The two men were also divided societally because one was Sunni and one was Shia but they were still good friends.

the end was particularly poignant and i wish i could remember some of the exact lines but the two remaining interpreters (both male) end up leaving iraq for sweden because they can't get visas to america even though their skills would probably be more useful there. one talks about how he has to burn all these things, all these pieces of history, before he leaves.

i can't even begin to imagine how hard it must to feel a mortal need to leave one's home country. or even to see it being torn apart by war and strife and suffering.

beyond blond: diversity in scandinavia

so despite being sick as mentioned below, i did still go to the international studies colloquium today which was on what the title of this post says it was one. for the most part. there was a lot more on gender equality, stereotypes, sexuality, that kind of thing than diversity in the more commonly connotated meaning of the word. prof. martin talked a lot about how scandinavian women have, for quite a long time (1930s-), been portrayed as blond and beautiful but that scandinavian women are in general relatively radical given their portrayal in books and plays and movies (think ibsen's a doll's house, hans christen andersen's little mermaid, i am curious yellow, others which i've forgotten...) and often challenge the stereotypes of marriage and women's roles and sexuality. anyways there was more to that part, and not as much on the part that i think is really interesting which is...the part that first pops to mind when you hear beyond blond. immigrants in scandinavia. (ok, maybe it wasn't the first thing, but it was close). so apparently there's at least one town in sweden (i think it was sweden) that had a town that was 40% immigrants and that there used to be a 18-month integration program for immigrants for language help etc. that has now been cut down to 6-months of language and job help etc. (more appealing i'm sure to an immigrant family). but that all aside, i guess as the center-right wing has taken over they created this ministry on immigration and something else i can't remember (you can tell my mind is like a sieve right now) that many have disparagingly retitled the ministry of racism - i guess the government uses that ministry as a facade for harassing and discriminating against immigrants which just sucks since they seem to have a lot of immigrants up in scandinavia. so i would have liked to hear more about what this effect might have for the future of immigration in scandinavia which on many issues has been rather progressive. after all, the first openly gay head of state (iceland pm) is a part of scandinavia. and they've done all kinds of stuff relating to maternal and paternal leave before other western nations as well. anywho, just something to think about and something i would not have stumbled upon any other time.

sick.

so i'm sick. which amazingly is the first time i've been this sick at college (yay my immune system for lasting that long in a college dorm). anyways everyone's been really sweet about checking to see how i am and generally just being nice (not that they aren't usually) but being sick does also mean that i've felt justified missing out on some stuff here and there that normally i might have gone too. as my friends say: you're sick. you have a real excuse.

tim be told

just saw the band tim be told tonight and they were most excellent, really enjoyed it. the lead singer has a great voice and i really liked his piano accompaniments and lyrics.

---

GRAVITY’S HOLD


Verse 1
A little longer I’m thinking
give me my space so I can face it alone
I’ve always been one for sober reality
can’t find the pieces for the increasing unknown


Chorus 1
I sigh
just try to convince me I’m not entirely sold
well I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’ till the sun comes up
I’m slippin’ into gravity’s hold


Verse 2
he said its fun for the moment
when I grow up, I’ll give it up later on
one day he’ll snap back to sober reality
leave it to fate, look it’s too late and he’s gone


Chorus 2
I sigh
it’s been the same new generations too old
the deceiving and the lying as the saints fall down
we’re slippin’ into gravity’s hold


Bridge
what if one day I fall away
and I believe what the Pharisees say
what if I pray just to find its all fake?


Chorus 3
I’ll fly
fall into grace, don’t have to face it alone
well I’m laughin’ and I’m dancin’ till the sun comes up
I’m slippin out of gravity’s hold

why blog?

considering how rarely i've been posting lately i've been wondering why i even have a blog...it started as a way to get some opinions out and act as a sort of journal for my college experience which in twenty years i will not remember all of and then morphed into something that just had random stuff - news quotes, song lyrics, comics, events, etc. but i don't even really put everything in here. so i doubt it will effectively chronicle my college frosh year. maybe it'd be better to write it on paper which is definitely something i'm considering. i think i just feel as though i'm more likely to put something down if i'm typing than if i'm handwriting and i want to put something down even if its just a title or a picture.

i guess there's just that part of me that needs the practice and aspires to be more eloquent. i wish i could twist words into prose or poetry or something more meaningful than the semi stream of consciousness that ends up here. but in the end, beautiful or not, it means something to me that the words still end up somewhere.

frazz

abduction of boys in china: nyt quote of the day

"a girl is just not as good as a son. it doesn’t matter how much money you have. if you don’t have a son, you are not as good as other people who have one."

su qingcai, a tea farmer in China who paid $3,500 for a 5-year-old boy

so this was the quote of the day today in the new york times and my only reaction really is ew. ew ew ew ew ew. i mean i have others too. like how still in china girls just aren't as good as boys - the stigma clearly thrives given the article this comes out of about how there's a lucrative business in kidnapping and selling boys. and that's not even half the problem...i mean i know it's not the focus of the article but how much must it suck to be a girl there. you have to be good so your parents can be proud of you and you have to make up for the fact that you're a girl and not a boy. egad. it's sad that people see such justification in buying up boys to make their family better.