Sadness - From Lindt to The Daily Telegraph

This morning I woke up with the heaviest of heart. There was ping on my phone and when I picked it up the message read “What happened? Why 3 ppl dead?”

I immediately logged on to ABC News 24 and found out two hostages were killed over night in the Lindt café siege. The gunman was also killed but that did not compensate the loss of innocent lives because of someone’s extreme agenda.

I have been following the case since it started yesterday at 9.45am. I immediately called a friend who works opposite to the café to make sure she is alright. The whole city was thrown into panic. We all hope there would be a peaceful resolution.

With this ended in bloodshed, nobody in this beautiful city is unaffected. The #MartinPlace and #SydneySiege had been trending on social media in the last 24 hours. We all held our breath and watched helplessly. As more information comes dripping out from the official channels, more questions were asked. There are scrutinies on the operation and there are questions whether the judicial system failed the society because of the ocean deep criminal records the gunman had. For me apart from extreme sadness when my eye swelled up during breakfast, I couldn’t help but ask why did things come down to this? What went wrong?

During the course of events, I was extremely angry when The Daily Telegraph published an obviously cash in edition of the paper sensationalising the whole incident while it was still happening. I am never a fan of the practice of News Corps, or some called it the News Corpse, but taking advantage of the situation to sensationalise a story that you have no information of just to push your agenda and sales is beyond low. This morning when ABC interviewed the editor, he was non-repentant saying that they made good judgement of what they saw in the pictures and thus the headline and the story. They said they can justify their move and did not care what the public thinks. He even went further about capitalising the incident as they see there will be good stories to write about in the coming weeks.  For me I just couldn’t believe they could still call themselves journalists when there is no sense of social responsibility with them. The lack of compassion for human lives, especially lives lost, and simply saying these are good stories to cover for sales is just beyond my comprehension as a trained communication professional. When I was at university, I took a unit of journalism and that was utterly not what I was taught. Also because of their irresponsible stories they would continue to spread unnecessary fear and hatred across the society thus undermining the works of other people who wanted to build a harmonious society. Maybe that is their agenda and maybe that is what they wanted. But then if that is the case what is the difference between them and ISIS?

There is no doubt the Sydney society is shaken to the core by this incident. We are no longer a blank canvas anymore. But what I see is the opportunity to build something good out of this. Yes the canvas is soiled but it is how we restore and continue with the painting that counts. The brushes and the colours may never cover the stains but then we can still paint something beautiful out of it if we make an attempt to do so. Every one of us is an artist of our society and it requires all of us to apply our brushes to make this society beautiful again. One of the good initiatives that came out in the last 24 hours was the “I’ll ride with you” movement that came out from a simple story. The #i’llridewithyou has become one of the biggest trends across social media and that is the kind of beauty that I want to see our society exhibits. Some media outlets or personalities see Islam as cancer cells in the Christian societies and continue to paint them black.  But for me who is more lethal and poisonous? The people with a different religion who want to be part of the society or the people who continue to condemn and stereotype other people whom they are not well informed of and have little knowledge about? The #I’llridewithyou movement is significant because it is a strong message to the society that people do care about each other disregarding their differences. It is the will power of we want to be together and support each other disregarding our differences that will continue to improve our society.

There is nothing we can do about innocent lives being lost but we can contribute to make our society better, not in a personal agenda kind of way but thinking of the society as a whole and thinking of where we want mankind to go kind of way. There is no doubt there are Islamic extremists around the world but they do not represent Islam as a religion and Muslims as its followers. It is the same for KKK does not represent Christianity and Christians. If we care about how Christians being treated in Islamic states we should also care about how Muslims are being treated in Christian countries. I hope something good would come out from this tragic event and Sydney and Australia will become stronger as one and not weaker as many.

My condolences on the innocent lives lost in this tragic event.

Artists are from the Left?

Was having a catch up with some friends in the arts circle the other day. Usually we just talk about arts and nothing else. However with all the recent developments in Australian politics we inevitably touched on the subject and surprisingly we had pretty distinctive views about a number of issues. We pulled up experience and facts and debated. And then we suddenly noticed that this is the first time we had such distinct views about certain things and could not reach a common ground.

However, there was one thing that we all agreed on – the relentless attack on the arts sector by the government. From a broken promise of enormous $254 million cuts to ABC and SBS to the not too many people mentioned $30 million cuts to the Australia Council. One of my friends pointed out that the Coalition government hated ABC because “it was run by a bunch of lefties” that relentlessly criticises the government. But then I said there was a report sometime last year or early this year indicating that ABC’s criticism to the government is not biased as both the Labor and Coalition governments received similar shares of scrutinies by ABC’s programming. I further pointed out that it could be an impression the Coalition government was trying to build by repeatedly criticising ABC publicly as I did not recall the Labor government doing so during their terms. I said what the agenda behind this is something behind their party doors but certainly my impression was that the Coalition government was trying to create a false impression about ABC “left-wingness”.

Then our discussion went on to about the left wing sentiments of artists. For me I personally feel that artists are not necessarily left wing. I would never consider myself as left wing because I simply am not. However artists tend to be more independent thinking and tend to question status quo more. That is something that comes with the artistic quality – it is something important to continue to shape and evolve our culture and society. I can’t say for other people, but since I was little I questioned about things that I do not think make sense to me and sometimes I express this through my drawing, writing or other artistic channels. It is that kind of questioning and continued scrutiny of the world around them that artists are so important for a society to grow. Without that art is nothing but some token brushes on a canvas or some standard structure on a music score that offers not a lot of values to the society and culture they reside in.

So for me an attack on arts is not an attack on the lefties but an attack on the society. For me I am angry and upset about all these cuts because I see it as a way this government trying to suppress free speech and expression while at the same time trying to change the racial law about bigotry under the same pretence of free speech and expression – it is irresponsibly hypocritical. For me it looks like an act of curbing the society’s ability to think independently so they could create a “harmonious” society that will only say yes to the government without questioning whether it is for the better of the society or for the better of the politicians and their cohort of friends. It is a class war waged without much class.

I cannot say for all other art forms but as a theatre graduate and practitioner, looking at the theatrical literatures in Australia, you can distinctively identify the periods, history, school of thoughts and not to mention the creativity of these writers. They could be either writing in response to the society and world they were living in or they could be writing simply via the manifestation of their imagination and experience. But most of them provide point of views. Some of them challenged the tokenism in their societies. Extraordinary pieces like Radiance, The Doll Trilogy, Don’s Party, Keating, Seven Stages of Grieving and When the Rain Stops Falling will not exist if the writers were not encouraged to be independent thinking and to question about the norm. And for this I am not saying questioning for the sake of questioning but questioning with an inquisitive mind that try to make sense when things do not make sense.

If the Coalition government’s current cuts on ABC, SBS and Australia Council are simply because they considered them not being part of their team, they are just diminishing themselves into authoritative institutes that they think they have the rights to condemn relentlessly on the international platform. They have to understand that criticisms on them do not automatically mean these people are lefties. I  question the meagre percentage raise for the defence force because the politicians are getting higher raise than the rest of the government while claiming strong focus on defence to justify spending 400 million on planes in hangers and at the same time crying no money for education, Medicare and the public broadcasters. I question them because they don’t add up and they don’t make sense.

For me an attack on arts and artists is not an attack on the lefties but an attack on a society everyone except this Coalition government is attempting to build – progressive, independent, inclusive and articulated.

The White Elephantisation of the Library Business?

A recent job requires me to decommission a special library in an organisation. The reason behind this was the organisation received a substantial cut from it funding organisation so it is up to the organisation to find ways to cut expenses. With the Library being under-utilised, it became the target of cut to avoiding cutting grants they need to give out.

The email for the close down of the library went out the other day asking for all staff to return their loaned items for decommission and write off. When staff members started showing up, they were sad about the library getting closed down and said they will miss it. My response was “Well that’s what happens when you don’t use it and it cannot justify continued funding”. In most cases, there were guilty looks on them. But this is a cold hard fact in an age where everyone thinks Google is an unlimited source of information and other things were just supplementary. When people said that to me, I usually responded, “How do you know the information is correct?” And most often I would receive blank looks from their eyes. It is another cold hard fact – are we actually informed or we are just thinking we are being informed?

I am not here to defend the value of libraries or the library profession as I believe if you make yourself valuable, you have your value out there. However, it seems to be more often now that special libraries or libraries themselves have become white elephants in organisations and when the axes land, they land on them.

The thing is people seemed to like the fact that there is a library in the organisation. Somehow they feel the library emanates knowledge and wisdom. But then at the same time they don’t feel like going into them and spending time inside them. They became “use by needs” institutes that could help people crossing tight deadlines for projects they have no idea how to complete.  Otherwise libraries just sit there and look nice. Why has it become like this? Most people were trained to use libraries since schooling started but then its importance in people’s life diminishes over time as they grew up.

I personally think that while Google played a part in decentralising information, the library profession also has a share of responsibility for its own demise in certain cases. I have seen libraries and library professionals who claimed to be proud of their profession but did nothing to improve library as an entity or establishment. Old materials were not reviewed and weeded to make its collection up to date and relevant to their organisation needs; no promotion of services; no proactive help or presence for their services; no service charter informing users what are on offer; no continuous training and education for users to utilise their resources etc. In my opinion, unless the organisation showed no interest in keeping the library, doing all these would help to increase the value of libraries in organisations. The library profession is more than just coming in do some ordering, cataloguing and circulating, and then going home. This for me is an “I couldn’t care less attitude” and in the end will only lead to the demise of your own profession.

I might sound very critical about this whole situation but for me it is important that libraries and library professionals continue to grow and improve. Library conferences provide a lot of new technologies and ideas but are we just limiting ourselves to what were put on a plate and offered to us? In the past I repeatedly mentioned to my peers that librarians need to take a more disruptive approach to technology. They should look at how to exploit technology to their advantage instead of just using technologies as presented to them.  Thinking outside of the box is extremely important for library professionals if they want to stay relevant to business or otherwise they will just be limited to academic and school libraries and then slowly die out. Of course if that’s the stance I am fine with that but I do not know about other people.

On the other hand, I personally think there should be a change in dynamics on how other people and organisations see librarianship as a profession. I have moved on from purely library roles to information and knowledge management roles but from looking at the job market, I still feel that a lot of organisations still see information management as data analysis, data mapping and data migration, which I think is hugely underplaying what it is about. For me it is also about understanding why data is being collected and how to use them in a business context that is relevant to the business. To achieve this, an information and knowledge professional who understands users, technology and the business is required. I personally think this is a new road young librarians should start looking into and transforming their relevance as information and knowledge professionals. For organisations they need to open up their views about what information management is about and understand the value a properly trained information and knowledge management professional can offer.

It takes two to tango. If either side is unwilling to change and adapt, this will just become a tangled mess for both.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Are Aussie Movies Good At All?

Read an article shared by a friend on Facebook today and I frowned. It is another one of those why do Australians don’t watch Australian movies articles. I frowned not because I am an Australian actor and nobody is watching Australian movies. I frowned because of the whole narrow view about Australian movies and the incomplete picture that it presented. At the end it kind of redeemed itself by saying something more objective but then it was a quote from someone else not the writer’s personal view point.

It is a known secret that Australian films are not doing well in local box office. This could be contributed by multiple factors. Is it about the points that the article raised? Being too dark? Ocker stereotypes? Critics fault etc etc. I engaged in a few discussion about this on the post and it is quite obvious for me personally that Australian movies are not engaging for the audience. For me the first step to engagement is about establishing relationship with the audience. And one of the main flaws of this article was that it completely ignored quite a number of successful movies that do not lie within the writer’s framework of Australian movies. They include:

Mao’s Last Dancer – 2.7m

The Sapphires – 14.2 m

Samson and Delilah – 3.1m

Rabbit Proof Fence – 4m (6.10m)

Japanese Story – 4.5m

Lantana – 6.1m

Somersault – 2.1m

Little Fish – 3.8m

Animal Kingdom – 4.3m

Please note that figures quoted are only Australian box office so they do not include the gross number around the world.

From the list above you can see these movies represented a great diversity of productions and were considered as successful. For me I wonder why they were not included in the discussion of Australian movies by the writer. From what I read, the movies cited as Australian were mostly Anglo centric, which in my view is just a subset of what Australian movies were about. When you consider the list above you will notice that there are a number of movies that represented Australia’s diversity and did very well at the box office. If you want to just consider a subset within a subset i.e. a subset of Anglo centric movies within a subset of failed box office project, of course it would seem that nobody cares about Australian films at all. But is that the truth?

Further the writer considered The Great Gatsby as an Australian movie, why Mao’s Last Dancer was not? And why was Moulin Rouge not cited as an example? For me we can’t just pick and choose convenient “facts” and presents them as the full picture. Certainly there are a lot of failed Australian film projects, but then half-baked pictures would not help to improve the situation.

Then it is the engagement and relationship issues that I raised earlier Personally I do not find a lot of them very engaging. It seems to me a number of projects are what I considered as toothache literature – things that only you can feel but nobody cares. At the same time it seems to me some funders or funding authority stakeholders are like parents who love to spoil their kids and kept on feeding them candies that worsen the situation. When it get worse and all swollen up, it is the audience’s fault and they expect the audience to be dentists to fill the cavity and ease the pain. This kind of immature approach to film making might work if you have a big industry but this simply doesn’t exist in Australia. Personal stories are great, artistic stories are marvelous but then if you want to have an industry to be able to sustain itself with continuous funding, you need revenue and revenue can only come from box office and box office can only come from productions that relate to the audience.

Then there were accusations of talents not staying in Australia. The fact is that the Australian industry did little to nothing to encourage talents to stay. A friend of mine’s experience in getting his film project up and running with local funding authorities seriously signaled how lack of respect these stakeholders have for talents. Also my friend’s experience of nearly being exploited during the process by these stakeholders so their friends could have a finger in the pie further reflected how immature and lack of system it is in Australia. People wanted to go overseas because they have to. The producers and writers of the Saw series were knocked back everywhere in Australia because the stakeholders told them there is nobody who wants to watch that kind of film. They were wrong obviously. The whole franchise scored 873m worldwide. Australian actors go overseas because projects were not facilitating developing new talents. So talents who can’t find work or talents to start to have a name needed to go overseas to sustain a career. And the situation that they could then be invited back to become leads in Australian projects further cemented the necessity to go overseas to make it first. So I wonder whether it is fair for some people to blame talents exporting themselves at all.

The less than rosy situation of the Australian film industry is not ideal but I do believe before pointing fingers at the audience and the talents, critics and key stakeholders in the industry should find a magic mirror to ask the question first to have a reality check. Only by admitting their own responsibilities in this “mess” could help them out. Otherwise the industry will only become rare species of animals that had no choice but to continue to inbreed and drove themselves to their own extinction.

The Value of Art

I recently attended an interview for a Knowledge Management position with a private business. At the opening of the interview, the interviewer was asking me about my involvement in acting and creative arts. She said it is a very unusual combination when knowledge management is about discipline and standardization and acting is about creativity and thinking out of the box. I replied saying that while we need to keep our work processes tightly organized in order to provide standardizations and responsible growth, it is essential that traditions do not tie us down. Creative arts is to help us thinking creatively and out of the box so the organization can continue to grow with new ideas that keep them abreast with or even ahead of time, trends and developments. The interviewer seemed very happy with my answer and I think we had a great interview as she did comment that in a few sentences she already knew I know my stuff.

I have yet to receive another call for this job, but the conversation and a recent speech given by Cate Blanchett when she accepted her honourary degree from Macquarie University did get me think about how I valued art in my life and tried tirelessly to keep that alive.

Creative art has always been an important part in my life and I have always placed a high value on it. I remembered when I attended my one and only TOEFL examination as a teenager they had newly introduced a writing segment in the test. I still remember the question was about the value of art and culture in a society. I was on fire in my response and could not stress enough how important it is for art and culture to be an integral part of our society. I eventually got a full mark for that portion of the test and I was quite happy about it.

I have never been a standard kind of guy who just wants to live a standard kind of life. That of course does not make life any easier for me. However, my emphasis and stress on creative art did provide a lot of buffer for me to stay creative and sane at the same time. I could be happy by just listening to a good piece of music, watching a good movie or play or even reading a good play or book. That kind of happiness has ripple effects on me when I am down and have to faced difficulties in life. It gives me the energy and power to think in a less traditional way and thus avoiding me cornering myself mentally. I might still not be able to figure out a viable solution immediately as some of the real life issues are very pressing and menacing, and no creativity could provide instant solutions for them. However, art does help to provide a bigger playground for me so I have more space to move around in my thoughts. It also provides a bit more positive energy that I need to face these difficulties. Does that mean I don’t worry? No, but it makes me more at ease with situations.

In the wake of this Australian government marginalizing art and creativity through cutting funding for ABC and SBS out of their own political agenda, I felt extremely sad and disappointed with the society we are living in. Art has become a valued commodity in Australia and a lot of time art is about power and whom you know instead of real talent and creativity. If you do not fit into the boxes authorities created for themselves, you probably won’t get a chance to crack it. The current approach of the Australian government to art had stifled its imagination and development in the same way as some totalitarian governments that the Australian government condemned did. Are we qualified to criticize others while we are standing on the same continuum but just a bit behind?

It might sound silly and unrealistic for me to insist on my creative pursuit while trying to make a living in a non-creative art profession. For me both things don’t necessarily need to be segregated. We just need to find a balance. And to find that balance, we need to start with our mind because that is where system and creativity work together. For me art and creativity should not have an expiration date in our life.

I think at the end of the day it is about what you believe in. I believe in a life that earning a living, creating art, appreciate science and engaging in sports can co-exist and enrich each other. I might not see that change in this so called current “Australian way of life” as propagated by this Australian government, but as long as I can I will continue to push this believe forward because you never know what change this could bring when you expected it to.

Racing Harmony

Got a picture in one of my messaging apps on my phone. It was a poster about free health checks for Asians only. Non-Asians are not welcomed. My friend was very offended that a workplace would allow that kind of race specific activity being promoted in the organisation. She found it insulting and racist.

My first reaction to the poster was "Are there Asian specific illness that needs to be checked? Like Asian specific cancer or bird flu (I actually used a different one in my reply but it won't be appropriate to put it on here)?" My friend found my reply funny but still didn't change the fact that this kind of activity or promotion annoyed the hell out of her.

However, the whole conversation got me to think about, "When we accused other people of being racist, do we not have a part of it?" For example whether certain disruptions about racial issues in our society were actually caused by behaviours of people who actually blamed the society for being racist to them?

I cannot speak for other racial groups but as a Chinese Australian living in Australia there were occasions that I wondered whether we did contribute to people not liking us. Not because of us as a race but because of what we were doing? The fact is a lot of times people remember bad things about you and then they start to generalise that this is what they are like. For example when I was at the university many a time I could hear some of my fellow Hong Kong students talking among themselves during classes. Now Cantonese is a very loud language even when you whispered the words. So you can imagine how disruptive this kind of non-stop talking during the class is. Even worse was that when people shushed them these Hong Kong students will give other fellow students dirty looks as if it was their right to talk in class. There were many occasions the lecturer had to ask them to leave. Under such circumstance, is it racist that other people don’t like these Hong Kong students in class?

Take another example, when I was in the college, I have heard some of the mainland Chinese residents saying how they didn’t like the toilets in Australia so they would simply squat over them or squat on them. As a result the “disposal” was not entirely “on target”. They think it was Ok but then I felt bad for the cleaners dealing with regular complaints from other residents how bad the state of the toilets were. When I was working at a University, there were debates about whether teaching certain sector of students to properly use the toilet is racist or not as they were scared of being labelled as a racist University. However, at the same time the maintenance costs of toilets are getting unbearable, as they were not built to be squat on. I personally did not think it is racist but education, but other people might have some different views.

Meanwhile I heard that a friend’s friend’s daughter was complaining how racist the Australian lecturers were when she was studying in Australia. The reason behind this was she never got grades as good as her Australian classmates. Now she was studying a curriculum that requires the mastery of the English language. However, her English, to be honest was not great. It was sufficient I guess to get her into the course but not great to enable her to debate in papers or in class eloquently. Furthermore when she was studying in Australia, she only wanted to hang out with Hong Kong and Macau students. Under such circumstance, with a lack of appreciation of the English language and at the same time no motivation to improve it, how would you expect to do well when it comes to an English demanding course? Is it really because of racism that you did not get good marks?

Further during my years in the higher education sector I have encountered mainland Chinese students who told me I have no right to tell them what is right and what is wrong if I do not speak Mandarin with them. They think they paid tuition in this country to study, they have the right to anything and only a fellow Chinese person who can speak Mandarin can tell them what they can and cannot do. They were at that time the active groups who usually filed complaints about my Australian colleagues for being racists when they were told not to smoke in the no smoking areas, unplugging public computers to charge their mobile phones, reserving seats in a whole area for their friends by pulling off rows of books from the shelves and playing online games when terminals were reserved for online database and catalogue searches only. If that really constitutes racism that could be it – but is it?

Recent reports about some Chinese restaurants in Sydney are charging non-Chinese customers higher prices also brought to light about the whole racism issue in Australia. I personally had Australian friends who were not served by staff members in a Chinese restaurant in a predominantly Chinese suburb because they could not read the Chinese menu. They eventually had to leave because every staff in the restaurant just ignored them. Is this racism? That is something we need to think about before waving the racism banner in the air.

I am not writing this article to defend Australia that there is no racism. That will be painting a completely unrealistic picture, not just of Australia but also of the world. I am not writing this article to accuse my fellow Chinese counterparts of wrong doings either - I must emphasise that I love a lot of them and they are great people with great talents and abilities. But what I am trying to point out is, racism sometimes can be created by certain behaviours that the groups claiming to be victims of it had exhibited. They might not start as racist issues but then the repetition of these issues allowed generalisation to be made about these racial groups. It then gradually develops into racism per se. Racism is a complex issue and not every flavour of racism was based on the same issue. However, as the world becomes more compact, I certainly as once a foreigner living in a foreign land where I now called home, think that we should all contribute to remove misunderstandings and tensions and help build a more understanding and harmonious society. Adopting some reverse racism like tactics like what my friend experienced at her workplace would not help the situation at all. There is no one single antidote to the racism – just a lot of collaborative efforts across the board. And everyone has to take part in it.

I Wonder How I Wonder Why

Walked pass a cast and crew on location yesterday. It was an Australian drama in its second season. The drama features a bunch of 20 something people living in a building in Coogee. It is all good except for the fact that it does not look anything like what I saw in my own suburb. When the first season was launched it was criticized for being overly white and presenting another version of a white washed Australian beach suburb. An Asian Australian actor once tweeted about his disappointment with this new series and was immediately warned by some executives in the production company about his job opportunities with their company because of his comments.

Fast forward to yesterday. I did not know that they actually have a second season until I saw them filming. Nothing had changed. The cast is still all white and even the extras who are beach goers are all white. Girls slim and beach babish and guys are blonde hunks with six packs. At this point I couldn’t really care less about this production. But then when I looked around the crew I noticed that the crewmembers were actually very multi-cultural and diverse. Then I came to realize that while it is ok to be diverse behind the camera, it is not ok to be diverse in front of the camera. I suddenly felt very angry and disappointed. So I left.

The fact that the mainstream Australian media and entertainment industry still refuses to admit the fact that this is a multicultural society in year 2014 is disturbing. The fact that they segregate multiculturalism between on and off screen members of the production is even more disturbing. Multiculturalism on screen is still limited to ABC and SBS but not on other commercial channels (hm is it partly because of this the current government wants to reduce their funding?).  The fact that commercial television only acknowledges multiculturalism in reality shows but not in scripted shows is extremely frustrating, disrespectful and condescending.

Multiculturalism on screen is not a token you exchange for media headlines (as in Neighbours) or a lip service you can pay to quell criticism. Multiculturalism, in 2014 Australia, should be a matter of fact because this is the society we are living in. Past excuses of can’t find multicultural actors are long gone when you look at the theatre school graduates from the last 10 years especially NIDA. If you check out Pearly Productions Minority Box series you will know how many trained non-Anglo actors are waiting for the opportunity to show what they can do – and they are just some of them.

Some people keep saying non-Anglo actors need to write materials and produce these materials to get their voice heard. Yes that is happening but at the same time why is it so important to segregate non-Anglo materials from Anglo materials? When we are all living as normal people in this modern Australian society, why is it that every piece of material that involves non-Anglo actors has to be specifically written for them? I recently worked in a new hospital and there are a number of non-Anglo workers when you just listen to them, they are as Austraaaalian as you can imagine. A lot of them are professionals such as doctors, nurses, administrators and IT professionals. So why is it that as soon as their skin colour is different they have to tell their own stories but not as part of the bigger Australian stories? Are they not Australians when they, well, actually speak Austraaaaalian?

Maybe for us to actually get this message out, I need to reiterate the following:

·      I am Chinese Australian but I have never worked in a Chinese restaurant except when I am in front of the camera

·      I have a number of female Chinese Australian peers who had never whored themselves in real life except when they are being cast in productions

·      I have a number of Muslim friends who have no idea how to make bombs except when being asked to do so on screen

·      I have a number of Indian peers who do not work in news agencies or Indian take away – in fact they are IT professionals and medical professionals

·      I have a number of Middle Eastern peers who had never been involved in Underbelly kind of activities apart from going into the studio or on location

So next time when producers are casting, maybe they should look around and think this twice. Casting agents in my experience are a lot more open minded (and I love them) so who are the gatekeepers? I don’t think I need to articulate that.

It is all good to tell people “I have a lot of non-Anglo friends so I am not biased or racist”. But for me, actions are louder than words. If you do respect your non-Anglo friends and acknowledge them, reflect that in your work. It is not a challenge but a simple acceptance – nothing more nothing less.

The Art of Appreciation

It was your typical beach side suburb morning – it was sunny, kind of windy but nonetheless a beautiful day. So you do what most people who live there do – going down to the beach to have a coffee.

You walked down the road to the beach and ran into retirees and families taking their dogs or kids, or in some cases both out for a walk. (It was a weekday so the younger generation are all at work or at school) You saw each other at a traffic junction, smiled and greeted each other.

“A beautiful morning isn’t it?”

“Yes it is. That’s why coming down for a coffee” I replied.

“It is good that finally it is warm and summer is coming. The dreadful cold was too much”

I smiled, “True but then we still start complaining it is too hot in a few months’ time”

She laughed, “Yeah you’re about right”

“So enjoy while it is here!” I joked

We laughed and continued with our own business.

But then suddenly something struck me – am I enjoying what I have now? The honest fact was that I went down to the beach to clear my mind. The sea gives me the tranquility I needed to move forward and that’s what I do. But then in the mist of everything did I lose sight of things that I could have appreciated?

I have always been a, what I called “Cautious Optimist”. I attempt to see opportunities in whatever situations I am in and try to make the most out of it. I understand that I cannot control the uncontrollables even though I am a well-known control freak. However, the conversation this morning with this lady reminded me that during the process when I was busily trying to improve the current situation, I might have forgotten to appreciate what the current situation offered to me.

The art of appreciation is one of the hardest things to learn in life for me. I am a person with a vision for my life and I have not stopped trying to attain that vision. But just like a lot of library users, I sometimes fixated on bad experiences and forgot to appreciate the goods that were offered. I admire people who can really appreciate life, as I was never able to fully do that. My parents are well aware of this and have been reminding me to appreciate life while I still can.

A good friend of mine regularly questions me about my never ending anxiety about money and could not understand why I can’t just appreciate the money I currently have and make the most out of it. My usual reply was I needed to prepare for the rainy days and I never believed I am fully prepared for it no matter what because I believe that when it rains it pours. To some that is a bit sad but for me that is security. I still don’t believe that I have sufficient buffer for the rainy days but then at the same time I fully understand like real weather, you can never predict when it would rain.

So the questions remains – if we can’t predict the climate changes in our lives, can we just appreciate the process of living a bit more? The answer is certainly we can. But the fact is some people are talented than I am doing so. I still try to appreciate life and what’s around me to the max, but then when I need to try so hard am I really appreciating it for real? That is the question I do have too.

I still admire people who are carefree and can appreciate life. The truth is sometimes this kind of carefree attitude makes a person more attractive and then better things become attracted to them. This might sound sleazy but it is like the guy who does not intend to pick up usually got picked up in a bar. A try-harder like me could usually just sit there and admire.

This morning’s conversation with this beautiful stranger did strike a chord deep inside me. How much I could change myself to fully master the art of appreciation I don’t know. But certainly I would like to move from the “Try Hard” category to the “Natural” category at some point.

Good Morning and Goodbye Robin Williams

Today we bid farewell to another outstanding actor and comedian Robin Williams. Initial finding was he had committed suicide. According to the statement released by his representative, Robin Williams has been suffering from severe depression and probably eventually gave in to it. I have read some people’s comments about not understanding how people as successful as Robin Williams would be depressed and killed himself. I personally think these comments are quite ill informed and lack of compassion.

I had worked with a medical association for a few years now role-playing for their accreditation for their clinical psychiatrists. During these few years I have learnt a lot about depression – the cause of it and the difficulty in treatment. Unlike some other illnesses, depression is the dysfunction of the mind that by no means physical treatments can touch fully upon. Medication and tablets attempt to cure it from a physical perspective in a way that it raises the physical threshold with the mental system. But ultimately it is the environment you are in and the events that surround you that matter most. While family and friend support are essential to recovery, personal will power and strength accounts a lot in the recovery process. And this is the hardest part because nobody else can experience what you are experiencing.

When you are battling depression, it is not just about “getting better” or “if someone wants to get better”. It is about getting better while attempting to overcome mental thresholds that tax you body and mind at the same time. You can be severely weakened during the process and all you need is just a stone being thrown into the water to trigger that ripple effect of disturbance in your head. Modern medication, as mentioned earlier, aims to raise this threshold against disturbances but ultimately it is the environment one is in that matters. And by environment, I mean the uncontrollable world around us. And the scary part is you can never predict what in the world around you would trigger that ripple effect.

While this is hard enough for day-to-day people to deal with this, for artists it is even harder. As an actor, I understand the pressure of the art in relation to life. Acting is a subjective business and as I always tell people it is taxing on your mind. In terms of acting, you could be a brilliant actor but still can’t score any jobs because you are not the hot one, or the right look or because you don’t know the power holder as good as the other person. There is no objective list to check against. You attend auditions doing your best, got great feedbacks but then when you know someone who is a bad actor or don’t even look remotely to the brief got the job, you could feel frustrated and dejected. It is a last man standing kind of business. For some people the continued validation through acting work builds up a very high and dangerous stage for them to tread on as one mis-step you could fall in a disastrous manner.

I personally do not know Robin Williams, but external success does not guarantee immunity against depression. No pass or future success would help one out of depression. Depression is a beast that lurks in the shadows that attempts to snatch and devour you whenever you are not alert. I remember there was one episode in Doctor Who known as Silence in the Library where victims were taken when they took one mis-step into a shadow. This is how depression works. For people to make comment about other people’s depression, I personally feel that it is disrespectful and unnecessarily judgmental.

I think everyone has his / her fair share of disappointments in life, but just basing on your personal experience to judge upon other people’s failure is something that I tried to avoid. Not that I had not done it in the past. I am a critical and judgmental person, especially when I was much younger, but the past 10 years or so in the acting industry taught me a lot of things – that includes not to judging others simply because of your own experience. The fact is you are only living your own life and you have no idea what other people had gone through or experienced. Simply expanding you own experience as a structure of judgment for others will only show your inadequacy and shallowness.

I might seem extremely opinionated on this issue but I do feel that if other people want to judge Robin Williams, they deserved to be judged too.

What is Feminism?

Had a very interesting discussion with a friend the other day. She is born in Australia but of Asian descent. We discussed about the whole point of “fitting in” to the society. As a kid grew up in Hong Kong and received British education, my parents from time to time would tell me I am not Chinese enough. They would first secretly and then later not so secretary hoped that I would just be a standard normal Chinese like them. Similarly this friend of mine had all sorts of expectations cast on her to behave like the rest of her ethnic group. As a girl her expectations were even higher and tougher.

This led us to discuss about the whole feminism thing. Feminism is something that has been around the block for a while. For me it seems that at different age, it represents different things. But that did not bother me that much as a kid as I always felt that it is some kind of adult related stuff (not knowing that I would become an adult myself). Also studying in a boys’ school means that I did not really need to deal with this ideological stuff.

However, things changed when I left high school and went to university. It is a mix of people and then you eventually got into this whole dating game, where feminism sometimes hit hardest. For me it was a confusing game. At times feminists (as some of my friends subtly called themselves) wanted all the rights in the new age, but then there were still occasions that they believed on top of the new rights they should have all the advantages offered to them by the old order. For example, they will debate to the end about women’s right to be in high position jobs and men should treat women equally both in terms of job opportunities and as a gender in the society. But then when you went on dates with some of them, they would expect chairs to be pulled, doors to be opened and bills to be paid in full. I once discussed with one of them why all those equality crap when they expected all the favours of the old world. She replied that is just social etiquette and any guy who does not conform is just bad form. But I hit back saying if you want old order social etiquette you cannot expect new world equality. Needless to say that one did not go down well.

Fast forward to now, when I was talking about this with this friend of mine she was so happy that I felt the same way. She said she had a hard time understanding why guys have to do that as she is strong enough to pull her own chair and open her own door. She told me that there was once that another guy pulled her chair but she just went for the other one because she was oblivious the chair pulling was for her. For me if feminism is looking for equality, it should not be applied selectively but to all aspects of life.

Then we discussed about how some people said celebrities like Beyonce represents the power of women and modern feminism. That is something that always baffles me because I personally did not see how a woman dressed scantily wriggly her bum singing Naughty Girl represents empowering of women and feminism. Yeah maybe it requires a lot of power to go out tell people what a woman wants but then do you need to dress like a go go girl in a strip club? I personally do not see how exposing your body to next to nothing represents empowerment. This is the same for Miley Cyrus whom I think was weird to think that to show how strong a girl should be is getting naked on a wrecking ball and twerking on stage. Yeah maybe you did not like your Disney years, but do remember it was Disney who made you. If that represents how a next-door girl grew into a strong woman, I am truly worried about the Hunnah Montana generation of girls. The good news is all the designers can sell their clothes to these girls with a fraction of their cost, as minimal textile is required.

Today I read that even Doctor Who is being criticized as becoming more sexist as there is less average dialogue time for female characters in the show. The study was based on dialogue and on screen time of female characters on the show. Despite the show had created some very strong female characters like Amy Pond and River Song under Steven Moffat’s helm, it was still be criticized as not female centric enough. The thing is I wonder whether one can decide the gender balance of the show with this kind of overly simplified mechanism. I can certainly get away with this kind of measurement by putting in a female character that finishes every single line of her dialogue with meaningless expression like “Kupopo”. This would no doubt increase her dialogue and screen time in the show, thus pleasing this kind of study. For me it matters more about the quality of the dialogue over the number of lines. Quantifying things that cannot be quantified within reasonable margin of error is just a flawed study in itself and this, in my opinion, does not reflect any wisdom of feminism.

I have been going on and on without finding an answer to what is feminism. Maybe there is no absolute answer. But personally I think if it is not improving female as a gender from all angles any feminist talk is just out of context talks of little consequence to the overall improvement of the situation. Maybe I am a bit idealistic on this but didn’t feminism start with an ideology too?

X-men: Days of Future Past

I have always loved the X-men movies. Yes it is another superhero movie but the variety of characters is what made the X-men movies so different from other superhero movies. Marvel is a world of superheroes and X-men has a quite central position to this world.

From the first movie when we were first introduced to some of the core characters, we know that there will be more movies to come, as one movie is just not enough to introduce all the colourful and interesting characters that populate this X-men universe. After the first movie, we had “X-men 2” and then “X-men: The Last Stand” that kind of wrapped up the initial trilogy. In these three movies we get to know Professor X, Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey (aka Dark Phoenix), Rogue (still think they did not do justice to this character), Magneto and Mystique. We also had a glimpse of Colossus, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Pyro, and Juggernaut etc. In the third movie we also had a glimpse of the Sentinels, which was one of the very important story arcs in the comics. After the first trilogy, we had some spin offs such as the Wolverine movies and “X-men: The First Class” that tell us more about the back-stories.

In “X-men: Days of Future Past” the Sentinels finally took centre stage and the scene was not pretty. Mutants are being hunted ruthlessly including humans who have the potentials to produce mutant offspring. The weapon once designed to protect the human race became a tool to oppress whoever is different or has the potential to become different. In order to save the day Wolverine was sent back to the past attempting to change the course of history. He needs to enlist the help of other mutants (the cast of “X-men: The First Class”) to change an important event so that mutants in the future (the cast of the original X-men trilogy) could avoid a complete extinction.

It is really exciting to see that director Bryan Singer did attempt to bring back most of the original cast members for continuity. After all a lot of them are now more expensive and well known. It is also very cool that these now super stars are willing to reprise their roles but some of them in a smaller capacity. Halle Berry reprises as Storm so did Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as Professor X and Magneto. They together with Ellen Page’s Kitty Pryde and Shawn Ashmore’s Iceman formed the pillar of the future arc. When Wolverine was sent back to the past, he encountered the younger version of Professor X and Magneto (played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender), Beast (played by Nicholas Hoult) and not to mention Mystique (played by Jennifer Lawrence). New comers to the series included Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, Bingbing Fan’s Blink, Omar Sy’s Bishop and Booboo Stewart’s Warpath. It was a strong cast with a huge variety of personalities.

One thing I like about Bryan Singer’s X-men movies is they do have great humour despite a lot of times they are talking about serious issues such as discrimination, fear and oppression. It is good that in this movie, humour is not just exhibited by Wolverine but also the younger or past version of the X-men. James McAvoy proved once again that he is no an inferior version of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and can hold his own ground. Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique had matured and now more and more similar to Rebeca Romijn’s famous interpretation. Michael Fassbender’s ruthless Magneto made sharp contrast to the older repenting Magneto who is fighting for his survival. Ian McKellen commanded most of the heavy weight story line with Patrick Stewart and you could see how a friendship bond by similarity then torn by differences came back in full cycle. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is as great as ever and I think when this character is thrown into the array of other X-men, it became more interesting than just him as Wolverine holding a full movie together. However I must say the short appearance of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver had stole quite a bit of limelight from his other fellow X-men. His scenes were just brilliant.

“X-men: Days of Future Past” is not a particularly uplifting movie as oppression and discrimination are at their peak with the sole intention of elimination and extinction. However, the story was so tightly woven together that you do not want to miss a single moment of it no matter how heavy the tone is. Also the story tied up a lot of loose ends in other X-men movies and wrapped up different storylines nicely by referencing them skilfully throughout the story. I personally hope that there won’t be another X-men movie coming out any time soon so I can relish this feeling for me for a bit longer. As for the movie itself, it was a full house of applause when the credits roll, so you know what that means and I rest my words here. 

Validation Acting

Had a really good audition the other day. I was a bit anxious to be honest as it was an important audition for me. I spent two weeks preparing the pieces and took a special voice session with my teacher to make sure I approached the text from all angles.

The artistic director of the Company held the audition, together with one of the resident artists for the year. I believed I displayed my anxiousness during the chitchat but then it was down to the business. It did two monologues from two Australian plays (it was a requirement that they are from Australian plays as it is a Company that supports and promotes local artists) - one from "A Manual from the Trench Warfare" by Clem Goman and the other from "When the Rain Stops Falling" by Andrew Bovell. The first one was an intense masculine piece about surviving Gallipoli. The feedback was "that was very intense". The second is a confession piece that opens the play. The response was "That was completely beautiful! I was transported to your world and I did not want you to stop".

I was cautiously happy about the response. It is something important and precious for me, this audition, so I tried to do my best under all the pressure I consciously or unconsciously put on to myself. Now that it is done I tried not to expect too much to avoid potential disappointment. I have now been in this business long enough to understand this. That said I was really appreciative about the feedback as it meant a lot to me.

I put the feedback on to my Facebook and people commented that it was a great validation of my skills. This got me thinking about the importance of validation in this acting business. For me a simple validation of my skills is already extremely satisfying at an audition. I am not an actor with constant flow of work, or even a constant flow of audition or casting. My skills have been highly commended by teachers I respected and look up to including Peter Andrikidis and Colin Friels when I took classes with them, though I wonder whether they would still remember me. Colin Friels told me during the break on one of the days that he had no notes for my work as with the calibre of work I was doing I should be working and not taking classes. This did not really translate in the real world. However I continued to work hard on my skills with my voice classes, as I believe when the opportunity comes I have to be ready. Being given an opportunity to an important audition is huge for me not to mention such a validation.

However I am also pragmatic enough to understand not to seek for such kind of validation actively. Validation for me is icing on the cake in this acting business. For me it is not something you can actively look for. Acting is an art form. For me it is an expression of how you relate yourself to the world around you, thus makes your art unique to your audience. Actively seeking validation would tind this freedom up with invisible chains because it is no longer about who you are and how you think as an artist. This is because you are actively trying looking for what other people want. The whole perspective became muddled and then you end up with something that is not true to who you are as an artist. Not that it won't work in the industry, as I did hear successful stories of people doing so. Some even went to distance in the industry with this approach and I feel happy for their success stories. Just that it is not my way of approaching acting. For me if acting is not about understanding the world around you and thus your character and it's world, it is no longer interesting.

I might sound naive or stupid in thinking so as I should be in this field long enough to understand this is a business after all. That might also be a reason that I am not as constantly working as an actor as others (or even as successful in my other working life). But for me if it is not something I believe in, what is the point of doing it? If it is not real acting it is just "acting". It would no longer have relevance to me. If it is not a real life what is the point of living it?

I understand that not everyone could afford this kind of indulgence about art and life. I do not know how long I could hold on to this either. But as long I could afford to do so, I am willing to fight for that self-indulging purity of art, acting and life.



 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Watching The Grand Budapest Hotel does give you a feel of reading a book through someone else’s eyes. It is very stylised but suit its context. At times it feel Tim Burtonish but with a slightly more colourful palette. It also feels very Baz Luhrmann but a lot less over the top.

The film recounts the events of a lobby boy turned millionaire through the recounting of the writer who via a chance encounter came across the story. And this recounting was done through another person reading the book wrote by this writer many years later. Sounds complicated on paper but in fact it was done quite ingeniously as each layer was peeled off like a Russian doll.

Under the lenses of Director Wes Anderson we were able to read this book chapter by chapter and let our imagination run wild. The good thing about this movie is that you do feel like images are leaping off the pages as you imagined when you are reading a book. This approach opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of how shots could be framed. Honestly it might not be everyone's cup of tea but personally I admired how the director managed to balance imagination with story telling. This is extremely important for The Great Budapest Hotel because it is telling a story. The imaginary in the movie are vivid and relevant. Sometimes you feel like you are watching a sequence in a video game, sometimes a dark tale by Tim Burton and sometimes a Baz glamour fest. But no matter what kind of technique was employed they all tied in to the context of the story perfectly. That I think is what is good about The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The Grand Budapest Hotel has recruited a number of who's who in the current acting industry. It is basically a hotel with Oscar winners or Oscar nominees in every room. Some of the big names include Ralph Fiennes as one of the leads to cameos of Tilda Swindon, Adrian Brody, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Murray and the list goes on. The great thing is that this is truly an ensemble piece. Everyone was just doing his or her part without attempting to upstage anyone. I think this is what great acting is about, know your part and do your part properly. Ralph Fiennes as one of the central characters M Gustav was particular and eccentric. This is a huge departure from his menacing performance as Voldermolt and his heavy and intense workmanship in The Reader. Gustav is a surreal character in a surreal environment. His popularity among older women was uncanny when compared to his pride in maintaining the meticulous high standard of the hotel for those who stay there. The Lobby Boy Zero was played by newcomer Tony Revolori. He is kind of fit for the part but then sometimes you do feel his performance is kind of one-dimensional. There are only a set numbr of looks from him most of the time. However, I have not read the original story so I could not pass judgement whether he is doing a good job or not. However, he did have good chemistry with Ralph’s Gustav, which is important. To be fair he did have some good moments to show the depth of his character. As for great cameo moments from other acting greats in the movie I could never forget Adrian Brody's dark velvet rope in bright red shoes. Those shoes really highlighted his status as a wealthy prick who cares about nothing but his own inheritance. Tilda Swindon's brief moment as the flailing Dowagers was also outstanding. Initially you didn't even notice that it is her. And her comic moments in just a few scenes were just right on the dot.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is not the easiest of the movies to watch and understand. It does require undivided attention to understand the relationships and events. Not that the story is complicated but you would certainly enjoy the movies more when you pay attention to all the tiny bits of details planted by the cast and crew throughout the movie. It is a comedy with its own quirk that distinguishes itself from the pack. Great performances from a great cast is a selling point (as you can see from the movie poster) but be sure to bring an open mind into the theatre before sitting through this production. However, if you are looking for a straightforward comedy, this is not something for you.

 

Music (that) Makes the People

Was trolling through my music collection on my iPod over the weekend. During the process I re-discovered a lot of songs that I haven't listened to for quite some time. That Sailormoon theme song; those good old Cantonpop songs that I still miraculously remember not just the tunes but also the lyrics. I was surprised that I was still able to play that sing-along thing to those songs. However at the same time I noticed that I haven't updated my music collection for quite a while.

I used to buy a lot of music. It has always been an important part of my life. I never was the person who stick to a particular kind of music. I listen and buy music according to the pleasure of my ears and my heart. As a classically trained person I always love classical music and have a sizeable collection. Growing up in Hong Kong without a doubt I got hooked on to Cantonpop. Some critics may classify most of them as sickly sweet candy tunes, which in my opinion is a sickly over-generalised view without understanding the music and it's culture. Then there are English pops. Some of them introduced by my radio days, some of them from the school's music club and some of them by accident. I also got into Japanese anime songs as these were stuff I grew up with. I even learnt Japanese because of that. With the "invasion" of Japanese drama I got into J-Pop, which for most of my friends I was a late bloomer. When I developed my interests in video games, I started listening to video games music too. To top all of these, there are also Latino music, French music and musical theatre. So with such wide spectrum of musical interest (or according to some people lack of specialisation) my music collection should be growing continuously. How did it happen that I am spending less and less of my disposable income on buying music?

With the advance of technology buying music had never been easier. Long gone are the days you need to go to the shops to get a CD. I still enjoy browsing on the shelves flipping through racks of CDS enjoying their packaging and covers. But then online shopping is now complimented with digital download purchase, which means I can virtually buy any music I like at a click of the mouse. So why isn't my music collection growing as it should?

I believe my love for music has not waned but probably as I grow older, I get a lot more picky on what to buy. This probably due to that fact that not all my disposable income is that "disposable" anymore. As I moved out of home, expenditures rises. Bills that were dealt with by parents are now my stuff. Utilities, food, car and now a mortgage they all inevitably shrunk my share of disposable income. So I have to rationalise my spending across all categories of things that I like - theatre, cinema, concerts, music, videos, video games, books etc. As a result I began to play safe in my purchases. Some of my adventurous attitude to music and cinema was eroded and leading me to restrict myself to all the safe purchases instead of just buying anything that seemed interesting. For me this is not healthy as it starts building fences around my interests, which is not great when you work in a creative industry. I believe you always need new catalysts to stimulate your creativity.

Radio used to be a main source for exposing me to new music but nowadays radio is so boring that I eventually just switched it off. One thing I sometimes cannot understand about radio in Australia is that a lot of time it is about the shock jocks not the music. Maybe the industry had moved forward and I was left behind.  The fact is on any day I prefer to listen to music broadcast than wasting my time listening to the babbling of some radio hosts who think they are funny and relevant to the society. Radio seemed to have lost its function of promoting music.

Some people may think this is a mid-life music crisis - you live to a point in life that most musical contents became irrelevant to you. You can no longer relate to those puppy and silly love songs the newer and younger artists are talking about. Yet you refuses to admit that you belong to an older generation of musicians. As a result you become the void generation on the dichotomy of music appreciation. I personally do not agree. I am still open to new music just that I do not know where to find them sometimes, or worse still do not have as much time to find them. Maybe my appreciation levels and standards are now more refined with all these years, good music is still good music. By that I do not mean music that complies with certain composition structure or marketing blitz, I mean music that pleases my ears. Once a colleague made a comment on me saying "I would never expect you to listen to this kind of music" and there was another friend who once said, "You could play such beautiful classical music why would you listen to any Madonna stuff?". For me if I like the music it is relevant to me. I don't need to build a framework around it.

So the question remains - how could I continue to expose myself to new music? Maybe I just need to find time and make the effort, as with all things you love, you need to work hard to keep the love going.