The real Vladek

On page 134 of Maus II, a real photo of Vladek is used for the first time. Up until this point, we are aware that the mice in the graphic novel represent the story of human characters, but it is not until now that this awareness is brought up to the forefront. By depicting his characters as mice, Spiegelman employs an aesthetic euphemism; the pain that the Jews suffered seems a little less severe; a little less real in general. However, upon seeing a true photo of Vladek, Spiegelman strikes us with the reality that all the pain and suffering depicted in the novel thus far do indeed apply to humans, those with distinct facial features, bodies, and emotions. At this point, the bridge between the characters and the readers is finally fully established.

The other notable aspect of this image is the fact that the photo was taken as a souvenir -- survivors of Auschwitz have the opportunity to be photographed in "new and clean" camp uniforms in memory of their time spent captive. This is deeply ironic: although such photos are branded as "souvenirs", they are far from a true representation of life in the concentration camps. As Vladek repeatedly describes throughout the work, possession of a new and clean uniform was virtually impossible. Prisoners could scarcely find themselves content or energized enough to present themselves in the collected demeanor that Vladek displays in the photo. However, this contradiction makes sense for the survivors in the long run. Of course, Vladek would rather keep an expertly finished self portrait than an near-death candid on his desk to see every day. The true horrors or the Holocaust are too severe to be represented through physical means, even for those tho have triumphed through it.

The Truth About Photos

There is an ongoing debate on the legitimacy of photography: do photos accurately portray reality, or do they hide more than they display? It can be argued both ways.

I'm sure we're all familiar with a certain photo of a certain article of clothing that took over the internet about a month ago -- THE dress. This photo baffled humans across the globe because for the first time, differences in perception were glaringly evident on a visual level. My brain simply could not comprehend the fact I saw black and blue while other people saw white and gold. We were looking at the same photo! My mind was blown. I began to question the validity of reality like never before. Photos were an utter lie.

Now that the craze is over, I understand that the dress photo works by some scientific concept involving retinas. However, contrary to my previous distrust of photos, I later saw a post in my Facebook feed that brought me to a striking realization: photos that may not display a genuine image can in fact be altered to express a deeper truth. Days after the dress infested the Internet, The Salvation Army took advantage of this photo to raise awareness of female abuse. They created a photo that looks like this:

Don't worry, the dress is supposed to look white and gold here. Obviously, this photo is not 100% authentic. This girl is probably not a victim of abuse, but a professional model, and those "bruises" are probably just body paint or a really big waste of eye shadow. But the image as a whole conveys a deep message: abuse against women is often overlooked in society. "Why is it so hard to see black and blue?" It's a clever spinoff and an prime example of how an edited photo, when manipulated correctly, can actually express a principle that words or actions cannot. In this way, photos are a pretty reliable medium of communication after all.

Sarcasm Sunday

It is a typical day for the lounging Angela Chen. She scrolls passively through her Facebook news feed, in a ceaseless attempt to escape the lofty workload ahead of her. She sees the typical sights: a changed profile picture, a useless status about some random food item, a depressing post on the Troy High Confessions page, and -- oh wait! What is this she sees? A blurry AND grainy photo of a random girl she doesn't know and her boyfriend making out? Perfect! Just what she wanted!

Well, I can't exactly say I don't know this girl. After all, we've shared the formidable bond of Facebook friendship for almost four years, elevating her status from "random stranger" to "cherished middle school acquaintance". Unfortunately, those good old days are over. Now I have to settle for understanding every detail of her personal life through her endless stream of Facebook posts, day in and day out. Despite the fact that she moved to a new home somewhere in another state, putting hundreds of miles between us and limiting our interaction solely to social media, I am proud to know that her anniversary with her boyfriend is "10.21.2013 <3 <3 <3", they have been dating for exactly one year, five months, one day, and 379 seconds, they spend every living moment of the day together with her fluffy white and brown terrier, 90% of that time is devoted to sucking each other's faces, and that "he means the world to [her] and [she] loves him sososososo much <3 <3 <3 <3". We're basically best friends, considering all the inside information I know about this girl. Too bad she has 459 other Facebook friends who could say exactly the same.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against those who are happily in love and aren't afraid to show it. Even I myself occasionally undergo the revelation that not every member of the male population belongs in a landfill. However, if we haven't spoken in four years and you've likely forgotten every trace of my existence, I think it's safe to say that I can live without knowing every detail about your relationship (much less worrying about the effectiveness of your contraception usage). So please do not be offended when I suggest you get a room. Even a chat room will suffice, my dear.

Death, Richard, and other depressing things

Am I the only person who cried when Richard died?

While watching "The Hours", I couldn't help feeling extremely sorry for Richard. Does it not tug on your heartstrings to watch the cutest little boy with the shiniest eyes ever be neglected by his mother, only to acquire AIDS and grow up to become a lonely, disheveled man who throws himself out a window in the presence of the one woman who he has stayed alive for? It should.

Something significant I noticed about Richard's story is the idea of living solely for someone else. During the flashback scene to the birthday dinner, his father introduces this trend, recalling Richard's mother as the beautiful, mysterious girl who he deemed the sole purpose of his life during the war. Although at the time Richard is merely a young boy listening intently to his father's words with big, innocent eyes, he seems to understand this concept. Later, we see that he applies this to his own life, revealing that he has stayed alive only for Clarissa all these years. In both cases, in the face of adversity or weakness - illness for Richard and war for his father - men hold on to a feminine figure for security. Simply put, they associate love with life. Thus, it is evident that love is a powerful driving force of humanity. Nevertheless, as Clarissa realizes in Mrs. Dalloway, time is an even stronger motivator. Although Richard stays alive for Clarissa, he recognizes that there comes a time for his life to end. Because he is able to accept the passage of time and his impending death, his ultimate decision is to kill himself.

P.s. is it just me or is Miss Kilman not represented in the movie?

This Book is Not a Piece of Cake

"Elizabeth rather wondered whether Miss Kilman could be hungry. It was her way of eating, eating with intensity, then looking, again and again, at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next to them; then, when a lady and a child sat down and the child took the cake, could Miss Kilman really mind it? Yes, Miss Kilman did mind it. She had wanted that cake - the pink one. The pleasure of eating was almost the only pure pleasure left her, and then to be baffled even in that!" (Woolf 130)

If anything, this passage truly reveals the darkness of Miss Kilman's character. While I can sympathize with her in craving unhealthy desserts, Miss Kilman's cake ordeal is not a simply a casual desire -- it is a refection of the deep misery that characterizes her life. As detailed previously in the novel, Kilman seems to be cursed with all the possible misfortunes in 20th century English society: physical unattractiveness, financial instability, and a figurative label on the back of her head reading "forever alone". As a result, she embodies the ultimate miserable human being: invariably spiteful, constantly jealous, and eternally hateful of herself and the rest of the world.

Because she is unable to attain emotional fulfillment, Miss Kilman can only settle for physical satisfaction. Deeming food consumption one of her sole purposes in life, she reveals within herself a profound sense of hunger - for food, for love, and for acceptance and affluence in society. However, even in the instance of eating, she is able to find hate. When she reacts violently to a young child enjoying a piece of cake, Miss Kilman's hunger becomes so powerful that she not only seeks to fulfill her own desires, but resents the everyday actions of others as a detraction from her own happiness. Because Miss Kilman has lived her whole life envying the simple pleasures that women like Clarissa enjoy, she inevitably treats the cake - and its young and innocent recipient - the same way. Ultimately, every little thing in her life comes down to one core philosophy: if I can't enjoy it, then no one can.
Someone please give this poor woman a piece of cake.

The Leaden Circle of Life

As the characters of Mrs. Dalloway go about their contrasting lives, lost in individual sporadic thoughts (can they not), one thing remains a constant - the passing of time. In fact, Woolf essentially uses the time of day as concrete checkpoints for the often abstract stream of consciousness that embodies the bulk of the novel. So far in the piece, three particular times are noted by the striking of Big Ben: in the early morning as Clarissa sets out to buy flowers, at 11:30 AM as Peter Walsh departs from Clarissa's home, and at noon as Clarissa finishes mending her dress and the Warren Smiths make their way to Sir William Bradford. Despite the contrasts in setting and differences in character at each of these three scenes, each mention of Big Ben is followed by the line "the leaden circles dissolved in the air". This is a sentence speaks volumes about the novel's recurring motif of time.

Not really leaden or circular but that's ok

Because so much of the novel deals with the multiplicity of time, the striking of Big Ben serves as a reminder that as characters reflect intensively on past memories, the passage of time at the present occurs simultaneously. The repetition of this line stressing "leaden circles" creates a sense of weight and oppression, as if each character under the clock's strike has been burdened with yet another source of stress - the passage of time. This oppression is eternal and inclusive, for time is a phenomenon that never ceases to exist; it effectively shapes the past as well as gives way to life in the future. However, the passage of time is also ephemeral, as each moment of the present resonates only shortly before it "dissolves" into the amorphous body of the past. Thus, Big Ben's every strike takes the form of "leaden circle", snapping the characters from an abstraction of their pasts back to the weight of reality, reminding them ominously of "the hour, irrevocable" (4).

Fish Bones

Yes, this is another post about being Asian.

If there was a spectrum of relatedness between literature and my life, "Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan would have literally broken the scale. I've lost count of how many times I "[pulled] black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns" or watched "dried fungus [soak] back to life" (Tan 95). For those of you who don't know, that is basically extracting the intestine out of raw shrimp and seeing edible, floating black blobs unfold in water. Which actually tastes amazing and is good for your hair, thank you very much.

Perhaps the most relatable theme of this narrative is the feeling of shame for one's cultural identity. However, this shame is not realized until a white figure comes into play. I remember inviting a white friend over for dinner in 5th grade. While I do not recall a single thing about what we did or what we talked about, I will never forget the wave of embarrassment I felt when my family casually spit fish bones onto the table and when my mother so foolishly offered us ice cream served in Chinese rice bowls. In the newly launched TV show "Fresh Off the Boat", which tracks the lives of a Chinese-American family, Eddie (the cute and cuddly son) matter-of-factly pulls out his container of Chinese noodles for lunch - only to be banished to another table because the noodles resemble "worms". After school that day, in the same way I once did, Eddie declares to his mother: "I need white people food!"

In this way, Tan, Eddie, and I share a sense of humiliation for our Chinese culture. However, it is not until the presence of a white influence that this humiliation truly hits. After all, in the safety of our own homes, the dishes that we regard so contemptuously are actually "all [our] favorite foods" (95).

Peace.Love.Asian Round Two

Often times when an individual makes a public accomplishment, it is a statement for all of his people. Joe Louis's wrestling victory was a defining moment for African Americans across the country, but this concept of racial pride does not end with the black community.

For as long as I could remember, the Olympic games called for automatic "Go China" mode in the Chen household. Every time the Games came around, my parents would never fail to turn on the TV for China's strongest sports, primarily gymnastics, diving, and lifting. Just as Angelou's "race groaned" (para. 16) in reaction to Louis's mishaps, it has become customary to scream "AIYA" at every fault of the Chinese, and to openly (and often quite racist-ly) denounce the skills of all opposing countries' contenders (including Americans.) According to my parents, the Chinese gymnasts were always prettier, the Chinese divers were always slimmer, and the Chinese lifters were always the most muscular (yes, they actually say that.) Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter that my dad can scarcely run 100 feet or that my mom can't even do one push-up. If Chinese athletes can harvest scores of Olympic gold medals, then by some mysterious twisted logic, my family becomes world renowned athletes as well. The sight of this screen prompts lengthy "aren't Chinese people just so exceptional" lectures -

and the sight of this one calls for "Americans think they're so good but they actually suck" rants for days. I mean, what kind of Chinese person can live with being second best?

Sometimes it just seems outright ridiculous, but when I see that smiling Chinese athlete standing on the top podium, Chinese national anthem blasting and noble red flag rising on the screen, I understand.