Biggest ever Asian Games set to kick off in China’s Hangzhou

 

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Chinese President Xi Jinping extended a warm welcome to international dignitaries attending the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games at a welcoming banquet on Saturday noon in Hangzhou, East China's Province of Zhejiang Province.

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Frankly, the majority of the 289 athletes in Hangzhou will likely be making up the numbers in their respective events. - NSTP/AIZUDDIN SAAD

Hangzhou Asian Games expected to begin with spectacular opening ceremony

"We hope that the charm of Hangzhou can be conveyed to the world through this Asian Games." The Hangzhou Asian Games, slated to open on Saturday, September 23,2023 is expected to impress the world with a spectacular opening ceremony. #GLOBALink

Hangzhou, China – The Asian Games are finally upon us.

Delayed by a year due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions, the 19th edition of the event is set to officially begin on Saturday in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou with a two-hour opening ceremony.

Dating back to 1951, the Games are bigger than the Olympics when it comes to the number of athletes and sports – and this year’s competition is billed as the biggest in history.

Nearly 12,500 athletes – more than ever – from 45 countries and territories will be competing across 40 sports.

“It is really a pleasure to see that, after the three years of pandemic, the interest that has been generated for these Games,” said Vinod Kumar Tiwari, acting director general of the Olympic Council of Asia.

“Because these will be the first Games that will be held without any restrictions … for the first time after the pandemic.”

The Games will be held in 56 venues, 12 of which have been newly built. The programme includes the more traditional events, such as athletics and swimming but also those which reflect Asia’s diverse sporting culture, such as sepak takraw, or kick volleyball; kabaddi, a mixture of team tag and wrestling; and wushu, a martial art.

China, as the host country, has the privilege of choosing which sports to include in the programme, with bridge, chess and Xiangqi (Chinese chess) being among the non-Olympic events featured in the schedule. Meanwhile, e-sports, breakdancing and sport climbing will be making their Games debut, in an effort to attract the interest of younger people.

0 FIFA Online 4, Street Fighter V and League of Legends are among the seven e-sport medal events.

“Together, we will celebrate the beauty and diversity of e-sports,” said Wissam Trkmani, the project and operations manager at the Olympic Council of Asia, speaking at the Road to Asian Games opening ceremony in June.

“May the Road to Asian Games be a testament to the incredible achievements and unwavering dedication of e-sports athletes in Asia.”

India’s javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra [File: Denis Balibouse/Reuters] © Provided by Al Jazeera

The Games will see participants competing for 481 gold medals across 15 days.

India’s javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is arguably the biggest star to look out for at the event. He won India’s first track-and-field Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and became the world champion in August.

Chopra, who also won the Asian Games title in 2018, has 6.2 million fans on Instagram which makes him the most followed athletics star other than Usain Bolt who retired in 2017.

Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim is the Olympic high-jump champion and will go in search of a third Asian Games title after winning gold in both 2010 and 2014.

The star of the 2018 Asian Games, Riako Ikee, will also be one of the big names to watch as swimming takes centre stage in the first week of competition.

Ikee won six gold medals for Japan in the previous Asian Games hosted by Indonesia and became the first female athlete to be named the Asian Games MVP.

She was then diagnosed with leukaemia but fought back to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

Swimmer Zhang Yufei is one of China’s great hopes for a gold medal [File: Issei Kato/Reuters] © Provided by Al Jazeera

China, the Asian Games superpower

China has topped every Asian Games medal table since 1982 and is sending an 886-strong team to Hangzhou, including 13-year-old skateboarder Cui Chenxi and 60-year-old bridge player Dai Jianming.

“Be good hosts, conduct extensive friendly exchanges and demonstrate our country’s good image of reform and opening up, economic development, and social progress to Asian and international communities,” said China’s director of the National Sports Bureau, Gao Zhidan, at the team’s launch.

Gao also called for the athletes to “bring glory to the country, and fully demonstrate the immense power of China’s modern sports practice.”

Among China’s most likely medal hopefuls is swimmer Zhang Yufei.

The Olympic champion won the 100-metre butterfly at the world championships in Fukuoka earlier this year and will compete for up to seven golds in Hangzhou.

Her compatriot – 19-year-old rising star Pan Zhanle – is a favourite to win the 100-metre freestyle, having already lowered the Asian record twice in 2023.

The host nation is expected to dominate the diving events, as well as table tennis with two world number ones, Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha, both going for gold.

In badminton, fans will treated to two newly crowned world champions: Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn and An Seyoung of South Korea.

There is also great excitement for a potential clash between great cricket rivals India and Pakistan, after the former sent a team to the Asian Games for the first time.

The closing ceremony on October 8 will include the handover to Japan before the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Games. Qatar will host the Asian Games in 2030.

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Asian Games, China

Al Jazeera English on MSN · 1h

Biggest ever Asian Games set to kick off in China’s Hangzhou

Nearly 12,500 athletes – more than ever before – from 45 countries and territories 

Xi to attend opening ceremony of 19th Asian Games, kicking off major diplomatic ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of the highly expected 19th Asian Games to be in Hangzhou from Friday to Saturday and will hold a welcoming banquet and bilateral ...

Hangzhou Asian Games a big day for the whole of Asia: Global Times editorial

No one will doubt the level of organization and the splendor of the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Final Rehearsal for 19th Asian Games Opening Ceremony Held in Hangzhou

https://youtu.be/qsR9OML0u0w?si=OAafEY4L6fUTBPTN

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture

By Deng Zijun and Zhang MingyuePublished: Sep 12, 2023 10:37 PM

 

 

 

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GT

 

When Hangzhou Asian Games meets Chinese culture Graphic: Deng Zijun/GTD

 

Start work on Friday for better luck? Sink or swing with the Monkey: Pay peanuts, get monkeys!

THE fifth day of the Chinese New Year, which falls on Friday, is the best day to start work in the Year of the Fire Monkey, China Press reported.

The best time to report to work on that day is from 5am to 11am and from 1pm to 3pm, according to Feng shui Master Wei Xuan.

However, Wei Xuan said it was not a good date to start work for those born in the Year of the Horse.

He said other good dates to start work are on Feb 15, 16, 19, 22, 24 and 27.

According to Chinese belief, a person will have a prosperous year if he or she starts work on an auspicious date and time at the beginning of the lunar calendar.

Wei Xuan also advised the employees to be dressed decently and not to be late on the first day to work as it will affect their luck.

Bosses and their employees should also give angpows to each other on the auspicious day, he said.

Sink or swing with the monkey

There’s a lot to learn about this simian which can be lovable and loathable in equal parts.

WELCOME to the third day of the Year of the Monkey!

I must say it’s a great relief to say goodbye to a wild and woolly Year of the Yang during which we witnessed much sheep-like behaviour and had quite a lot of nasty things rammed down our throats.

A year ago in this column, I shared that yang is Mandarin for a horned ruminant mammal which can mean either sheep (mianyang) or goat (shanyang).

I argued the case for celebrating the Year of the Goat as the animal has more attractive and positive traits than the sheep.

Sheep have been documented as dependent, nervous creatures that require close supervision and are known for being mindless followers.

Goats, however, are a lot smarter, independent, nimble-footed and full of fearless curiosity.

Well, as it turned out that while some Malaysians tried to be goat-like, there were more who were sheep-like and got spooked by scare-mongers who, as usual, used the race and religion cards, and the sheepish ones ended up bunching together even more tightly in fear and suspicion.

So, what now in the Year of the Monkey? What sort of traits does this simian have that can give us some pointers to go by?

But first, we should get some basics right. Just as we had to separate the goats from the sheep last year, I have learned there are 264 known species of monkeys, but the chimpanzee is not one of them. The chimp, like the orang utan and gorilla, is an ape. Monkeys are different from apes, the most obvious difference being apes don’t have tails. So, let’s not confuse monkeys with apes.

Primatologists will tell us that monkeys in the wild behave very much like humans. They are intelligent creatures with the capacity to learn, innovate and live in social structures.

According to monkeyworlds.com, “the hierarchy of the social structure is very detailed. It doesn’t matter if there are only a few members or hundreds of them. They all have their role within that group”.

Interestingly, like humans in political parties, the monkeys can form smaller groups (what we would call factions) within the larger group. What’s more, if the monkeys aren’t happy about their social status within that group, they can leave and create a brand new group.

The similarities don’t end there.

Male monkeys frequently challenge the leaders of the group. Experts say this is to give better opportunities for breeding: a strong alpha male will sire sturdy offspring which will ensure the survival of the species. That happens in monkey groups but sadly doesn’t seem to have the same effect in political parties.

The monkey society is also admirable in that they have a welfare state: they “help each other with finding food, caring for the young, and staying protected” to quote monkeyworlds.com.

But like humans, they can be stressed if they lack food and shelter, which can lead to conflicts. But when there is plenty of food and they don’t feel threatened, monkeys are more likely to live in harmony with each other. Co-existence 101!

Perhaps it is because they are so human-like that the monkey is an animal that evokes both admiration and scorn.

In most African and Asian folk tales, it outsmarts its cunning adversaries like the crocodile and the shark, but in some, the overconfident primate takes the fall.

In Chinese culture, the animal is immortalised as Sun Wukong or the Monkey King, and the main character in the classic novel, Journey to the West.

Sun Wukong is depicted as highly intelligent, mischievous and so bold as to rebel against the Jade Emperor that results in his imprisonment by Buddha for 500 years. He is finally freed to allow him to atone for his sins by accompanying and protecting the monk Xuanzang on his perilous pilgrimage to India to obtain sacred Buddhist sutras to bring back to China.

Then there are Japan’s Three Wise Monkeys. That’s how they are seen – wise – in Asia because their desire to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil has roots in Confucianism which exhorts people to not look, listen or speak in a manner that is contrary to propriety.

But in Western societies, this behaviour has a negative connotation.

It’s associated with pretending to not see, hear or speak about the misconduct or impropriety of others. It’s similar to the idioms “turning a blind eye” and “looking the other way”.

I must say, I am pretty pleased with the Star Media Group’s clever take on the Three Wise Monkeys by turning a passive response to an active one.

The message urges Malaysians to see with clarity, hear with an open mind and speak with kindness.

These are actions we sorely need to connect with each other again. This is especially so in a year that has been predicted to be seriously difficult and challenging on many fronts.

After all, in simian terms, many people feel like they have already started the new year with a monkey (or two) on their back and wish the authorities will stop monkeying around with them.

And I would add, after months of witnessing a lot of monkey business, especially among politicians who seem to turn the state assemblies and Parliament into a monkey house, people would dearly like less monkey see, monkey do behaviour from both leaders and their supporters.

Of course, some people may see antics in the August House as more fun than a barrel of monkeys but I would prefer to throw a monkey’s wrench into that sort of nonsense.

Indeed, many of us keep hoping to return to a time when sanity, equilibrium, inclusiveness and trust and honour prevailed, but cynics will most likely reply, “I’ll be the monkey’s uncle!”

I have saved the last idiom which I think will resonate with a lot of my fellow citizens, which is a reminder to employers thinking of pay-cuts and hiring cheaper and that is “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.

But for this festive season, enjoy your peanuts because the huasheng (as it is called in Mandarin) is an auspicious food representing good health and long life, as well as wealth and good fortune.

That’s the Chinese for you. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

By June H.L. Wong, So aunty, so what?

Aunty was gobsmacked when the pig character Zhu Bajie went missing from the Monkey King 2 movie posters and billboards in Malaysia. If this animal is the cause of so much sensitivity, how in the world are we going to celebrate the Year of the Pig in 2019? Send feedback to aunty@thestar.com.my.


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Chinese New Year Reunion 2016

‘Falling’ in love: A screengrab of Mah Sing Group’s Chinese New Year video that is going viral on social media.

Another year, another reunion

The modern Malaysian Chinese family has come a long way. Many practices have been ‘adjusted’ but some things never change.

NOT many families want to talk about it openly. But the all-important Chinese New Year reunion dinners have become more complicated and in recent years, more stressful for sure.

It is almost impossible and even unfair to expect the patriarch and matriarch of the family to cook the meal, traditionally sumptuous and heavy in some cases, especially when they are getting along in years.

Mum’s cooking sounds good everywhere but in many cases, this has become a fond but distant memory. The maid has taken over this role and of course, our expectations have also become more realistic.

The world has changed. The women family members, whether daughters or daughters-in-law, are part of the work force now.

It is wrong to expect them to take over the kitchen duties. In fact, don’t even expect them to do the dishes. Don’t even think about it if you know what’s good for you especially during the festive season.

Cleaning up the house after a feast is a daunting task. All of us understand and accept the fact that we cannot overwork the maid, who are already grumbling about the weaker ringgit.

So, the modern Malaysian Chinese family settles for a compromised position – have the reunion dinner at a hotel or restaurant. Never mind if the food might be crappy.

For a Penangite like me, where Perakanan dishes are compulsory in the reunion meal, I resign to the fact that I won’t find my favourite jiu hoo char (stir-fried turnip with dried cuttlefish) and lobak (meat rolls) at any hotel banquet.

But you know that’s not all. The family member – perceived to be the most successful in life – always ends up paying the hefty bill. It’s only expected.

And we all know that hotel food, like those served on planes, is bad. But telling the person footing the bill that the meal is “lousy” right after dinner is not exactly the appropriate CNY greeting ....

Next, the giving of ang pow for the kids. While no one wants to admit that the amount in these red packets matter, it does!

It’s not going to look too good on you if the ang pow is small – and I mean the money inside, not the size of the packet – and especially if you are perceived to be better off.

Then, the conversation after the reunion dinner. And that is the most sensitive which can cause friction and great unhappiness.

I am not talking about the 1MDB and the RM2.6bil donation issue but explosive questions to family members, who are past 30 and still unmarried.

Yes, these purportedly choosy types, who think their partner, especially if you are a woman, should have better degrees, bigger car, a house, a club membership, a steady job with hopes of further promotions and of course, good looks, a great sense of humour as well as soft skills. By this, I mean having the ability to appreciate fine food and wine.

For the guys, they expect their partners to be able to cook like their mothers, be as good looking and curvy as the celebrities they see in heavily photoshopped pictures in magazines and of course, have a good career to help pay for the household bills.

But that’s not the end of it. If you are married and have not started a family, you would be offered many unsolicited solutions from busybody aunties – from artificial insemination to eating bull’s penises. Of course, there are subtle accusations of dangerous liaisons in China, what with the frequent business trips there.

No wonder the Chinese population in Malaysia is shrinking fast. But of course, like many Chinese voters, the blame has to fall on the Government. Their failure, or inability or refusal, to start a family, is the fault of the government entirely.

And if you happen to work in the media, all eyes will be on you. In this case, it’s me. With Google and news portals with anti-government slants easily available these days, everyone is now an expert on every issue. We have all become instant analysts and opinion shapers.

Yes, yes, of course, Malaysia’s temperature during the CNY will drop to as low as 16°C and will be the coldest CNY ever.

“That’s what the social media said what, so must be true mah!”

But it’s a reunion dinner. After the interrogation of the poor singles, it undoubtedly has to come to politics. I am not sure if this is a Malaysian thing, like the open house, but do people in other countries whine too?

Probably they do, and by now politicians in modern democracies would have realised that they have to earn their respect.

Don’t expect the people to pay homage to you because no one told you to stand for election and for sure, don’t expect us to be eternally grateful to you because you came begging for our votes with plenty of promises.

They have to learn that they will be belittled, ridiculed and criticised. So don’t run to the powers that be to shut anyone up with sedition charges. Get used to it.

I expect the grumbling and cynical remarks to be louder this year at gatherings with family and friends. There are a lot of unhappy people around.

But politicians do not have to worry too much as the louder yam seng will drown the complaints. To all Malaysians celebrating Chinese New Year, I wish you all Gong Xi Fa Cai!

By Wong Chun Wai on the beat The Star

Wong Chun Wai began his career as a journalist in Penang, and has served The Star for over 27 years in various capacities and roles. He is now the group's managing director/chief executive officer and formerly the group chief editor.

On The Beat made its debut on Feb 23 1997 and Chun Wai has penned the column weekly without a break, except for the occasional press holiday when the paper was not published. In May 2011, a compilation of selected articles of On The Beat was published as a book and launched in conjunction with his 50th birthday. Chun Wai also comments on current issues in The Star.

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What makes us Malaysian? Happy Mereka!

I always get excited when I meet fellow Malaysians, whether at work or during social functions. - Lee Yee Thian

Our sense of belonging is strong, despite living miles away from our homeland.

BACK home in Malaysia, “Chinese” is one of the options in the race column, while in China, it refers to a nationality.

It took me awhile to get used to not nodding when I was asked if I am a Chinese.

“I’m a Malaysian,” I would answer, and get a bewildered look from the inquirers.

“Oh, so you are a Malay? But you look exactly like us. And your command of Mandarin is so good,” was their usual reply.

I would then launch into a lengthy explanation of how I am ethnically Chinese but a Malaysian national, and “Malay” refers to the largest ethnic group in Malaysia and not the people of Malaysia.

I would add that I can read and write Mandarin because I attended Chinese vernacular school, but I could tell they were confused.

“Were you born in China? How old were you when you left for Malaysia?”

“No, I was born in Malaysia. I’m a third-generation Malaysian Chinese.”

And then came the inevitable question: “Where do you feel you belong?”

I grew up singing Negaraku every Monday during school assemblies.

I learned how to draw our national flag when I was in Year One. Next to the crescent, I traced the outline of a 50 sen coin and then carefully drew 14 spikes around the circle.

And until today, I can still hum the tune of Sejahtera Malaysia, a patriotic song that was aired years ago on RTM.

When we say we are Malaysians, we say it with a tinge of pride.

In addition to Malay, English and Mandarin, most Malaysian Chinese here can also understand one or more Chinese dialects.

It is a fact that draws the admiration of many locals.

I asked a few Malaysians in Beijing what makes them Malaysian.

Lee Yee Thian, who has been abroad in the United Kingdom and then China since 2000, said our multicultural background was instrumental in helping him to adapt to living in a foreign country.

The sense of belonging is strong, despite living miles away from our homeland.

“I always get excited when I meet fellow Malaysians, whether at work or during social functions,” the 37-year-old chartered surveyor said.

“We speak freely with our Malaysian accent and pepper our sentences with slang that only Malaysians understand.”

Wesley Tan of Wav Music Production said it was the vast opportunities in the entertainment industry in China that drew him to the Chinese capital 10 years ago.

“The market is huge with endless possibilities to grow and expand,” he said.

“We have to admit that we could not do as much in Malaysia, but it does not make me any less patriotic. I grew up in Malaysia and it will always be my home.”

The advantage of Malaysians, Tan said, is our ability to create products that appeal to an international target audience, with our tolerance and diverse background.

With Beijing being a fast-paced metropolis, the quality of life has plenty of room for improvement.

Air pollution and food safety aside, trust between people is thinning. Tan said he misses the courteous and caring ways of Malaysians.

“My parents-in-law, who are Chinese nationals, were so surprised that Malaysian drivers would actually pause to give way to opposite traffic during their visit to Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

The little gestures, such as placing one’s left hand on one’s right forearm when receiving or offering something, speak volumes about Malaysians’ pleasant disposition.

I couldn’t agree more.

Two weeks ago, I made a brief return to Malaysia. When waiting for my family to pick me up at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, a Malay girl next to me kindly shared a packet of buah jeruk (pickled fruits) with me. In return, I offered her my chocolates.

We did not exchange names during our brief encounter; only smiles and snacks, but in that moment, I knew I was home.

Happy Merdeka.

Source: 
Check-in China by Tho Xin Yi The Star/Asia News Network

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  A love story like a fairy tale 

Chinese man meets a Malaysian woman online, and romance begins to bloom in a special way.
 Happy together: Li gazing lovingly at Gan as she admires Li's gift to her for Valentine's Day. LI Kangyu has not left his house ...  
A Chinese man meets a Malaysian woman online, and romance begins to bloom in a special way.

A love story like a fairy tale

Happy together: Li gazing lovingly at Gan as she admires Li's gift to her for Valentine's Day.

A Chinese man meets a Malaysian woman online, and romance begins to bloom in a special way.

LI Kangyu has not left his house for 30 years. Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, he has been paralysed and bedridden since he was seven.

But his life took an unexpected turn for the better when he met a Malaysian woman Gan Suh Eng by chance on QQ, an online instant messaging platform, three years ago.

Despite being physically miles apart, they were drawn to each other.

“She has opened the windows of my soul,” Li, 39, said.

A year ago today, they exchanged wedding vows and began their life together at Li’s hometown, a village in Tangshan, Hebei province.

Li described their love story, which has attracted widespread media attention, as a fairy tale.

To him, Gan is an angel sent from heaven.

Her presence in his life has opened many doors for him.

Lying on a customised wheelchair given by a Good Samaritan, he can now enjoy the sunshine outside his house with Gan by his side.

Together they have travelled to Shanghai and Suzhou, among other cities, where Li has been invited to give motivational talks.

“A Shanghainese enterprise has shown interest in training me to become a motivational speaker.

“A book on my life story, to be penned by a writer, is also in the pipeline,” he said during The Star’s visit to his house, about 45 minutes by car from the city centre of Tangshan.

It is obvious that the love between the inseparable couple is going strong.

For the Chinese Valentine’s Day, qixi, which was celebrated last Saturday, Li presented Gan with a novelty ring that had a hidden clock face, while she surprised him with a blue striped tie.

Wearing a pink top that he had bought on online shopping site Taobao specially for the occasion, Li was delighted when told that the patterns printed on the shirt were that of Malaysia’s national flower, the hibiscus.

“It was a happy coincidence,” he said.

As Li recounted their first year together as husband and wife, Gan sat next to him, stroking his head affectionately.

They were more than happy to oblige when Gan was asked to give a peck on Li’s cheek.

“In the blink of an eye, a year has passed. We are both tolerant of and accommodating to each other’s shortcomings. Our love has grown deeper,” Li said.

Gan, 36, who hails from Selayang, was smitten by Li’s romantic and caring nature.

“Sometimes he will insist on helping me blow-dry my hair,” the former employee of a Malaysian Christian NGO said.

The couple leads a simple life in the village, surviving mostly on Li’s financial assistance from the government.

Although it is a meagre sum, Gan said the cost of living in the village is low, so they are doing fine.

Family members on both sides, who originally objected to their marriage, have now accepted them.

“My mum now cares about Li more than she cares about me,” Gan protested in jest. “She will ask to speak to him every time we talk on the phone, reminding him to take good care of himself and rest more.”

A local reporter who has been following their story since last year noted that Li appeared rosier and more cheerful.

“I am about 5kg heavier now and I have gained more muscle on my thigh,” Li said.

Their bright and neat space, a room in the house of Li’s third sister, is furnished with a double bed and sofa. Adorning the walls are their wedding photos.

A small wooden table sits on the bed for Li to use his laptop. As he cannot move his joints, he operates the laptop with a mouse placed near his right hip.

Looking ahead, Li dreams of having their own house and raising a child.

“We also want to start a charitable foundation to help the less fortunate. It looks like a far-fetched goal but I believe it will come to fruition one day,” he said.

Check In China by Tho Sin Yi The Star Columnists/Asia News Network

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The Roots of Success !

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Lisa See and the roots of her success

By AKSHITA NANDA 

An author’s search for her Chinese roots has led her to write critically acclaimed novels set in her ancestral land.

CHINESE-AMERICAN author Lisa See watches about 100 movies a year, but the one film she is too afraid to catch is based on her own best-selling novel of 19th-century China, Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (the movie opened in Singapore last month but there is no Malaysian release date yet).

The story of foot-binding and female friendship is brought to the screen by Chinese-American director Wayne Wang of Joy Luck Club fame. Chinese actress Li Bingbing and South Korea’s Gianna Jun play the main roles of two devoted friends.

In a recent telephone interview, See, 56, confesses that during the July screening of the movie in New York, she posed for photographs with the director and actors, then sat outside the theatre for the duration of the film.

Chinese at heart: Author Lisa See is enamoured by her Chinese heritage.

“It made me too nervous to sit in with other people,” the California native, whose father is Chinese, says over the telephone from Colorado, where she is on vacation. “Now I understand why actors, during interviews, say they have not seen their movies!”

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, published in 2005, is the first of See’s works to be adapted for the big screen and is among the most popular of her four evocative literary novels of China.

She declined to write the script – “I’m a novelist, not a scriptwriter” – but was insistent that the period details in the movie be accurate, down to cooking rice in a pot, without stirring.

See’s latest book, Dreams Of Joy, tackles the Cultural Revolution in China and topped the New York Times’ bestseller list when it was released in June.

She has also written three thrillers about Beijing detective Liu Hulan, and a biography of her Chinese-American grandfather, On Gold Mountain (1995, Vintage).

That family history inspired a five-month exhibition at Los Angeles’ Autry Museum of Western Heritage (now the Autry National Centre) in 2000 and an opera from the Los Angeles Opera company that same year.

Right now, See is working on a book about the “chop suey circuit” of night clubs in 1930s America. These clubs were known for their Asian dancers and performers, often touted as “the Chinese Fred Astaire” or the “Chinese Ginger Rogers”.



The daughter of Washington Post book critic Carolyn See and anthropologist Richard See, Lisa says her desire to learn more about her roots inspires most of her writing.

“I’m Chinese in my heart,” she says, even as her red hair and freckles, legacies of her mother’s Irish ancestry, give some pause.

Her parents divorced when she was three but much of her childhood was spent with her father’s family, at the antique stores her grandfather Fong See established in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

“My mum and I moved a lot because of her work and the Chinese side of the family stayed where they were. To me, that was a part of my life that was most secure,” she recalls.

To this day, rice is comfort food for her two grown sons and she translates family conversations in Cantonese for her husband, lawyer Richard Kendall, though she insists that she is not fluent. “I think something happens in families, where you can understand one another,” she says.

Influenced by her mother’s choice of career, See, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, turned her bachelor’s degree in humanities towards writing.

She was industry magazine Publishers Weekly’s West Coast correspondent for 13 years, wrote freelance for magazines such as Vogue and also wrote three books in the 1980s under the pseudonym Monica Highland with her mother and her mother’s partner John Espy.

“It was great fun, it was like an apprenticeship,” she says of historical novels Lotus Land and 110 Shanghai Road, and art book Greetings From Southern California.

It seemed natural then to tell the actual story of her father’s family in On Gold Mountain. She also wrote her first detective novel, Flower Net, set in modern Beijing, partly to provide a window into Chinese culture.

“I get to go so much deeper into the traditions and holidays that are so much a part of life that we’ve forgotten their meaning,” she says about her books. “Even though the books are not about my family exactly, they continue my family’s traditions.”

See is no armchair researcher. She first heard about nu shu, the women-only alphabet central to Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, while writing a review of a book about foot-binding. In order to find out more, she headed to China in 2002. With a translator, she visited villages in Hunan province via car, cart, boat and foot to interview women who might know of the language.

For Dreams Of Joy, her newest novel, she headed to China’s Anwei province and interviewed elderly folk who remembered the famine and hardship of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961. They shared stories of starvation, of families trading babies for food and in the hope that the child would fare better under foster care.

Asked if she was surprised by how easily the survivors opened up to her, she says no.

“I have found that people who are older want to tell you their stories. They have this attitude – ‘What can they do to me now?’ With my own grandmother, she felt that she had outlived her husband, friends, she could say whatever she wanted to say.

“People are willing to share their life stories with you if they know they are never going to see you again,” she adds.

Her research adds depth and texture to her novels, which are lauded by book reviewers and honoured for adding to the Chinese-American story.

The Los Angeles’ Chinese American Museum gave her its annual “historymaker” award in 2003, while the Organisation of Chinese American Women named her its 2001 Woman Of The Year.

Academics are also starting to pay her the sort of attention so far granted to the doyenne of Chinese-American literature, Maxine Hong Kingston, author of the 1976 memoir The Woman Warrior. Perhaps the only popular author ranked with Kingston in academia is Amy Tan, whose 1989 tearjerker The Joy Luck Club turned the sub-genre into a mass-market success.

Now See’s critically acclaimed 2009 novel, Shanghai Girls, is seen by some as a seminal work. The prequel to Dreams Of Joy and set during the Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1940s, Shanghai Girls was also set last year as a text for a post-graduate class in Chinese-American literature at the National University of Singapore.

The university’s literature professor, Walter Lim, 52, is also including See in a book on the history of Chinese-American writing.

“She is part of the community of Chinese- American writers who are fashioning themselves into communicators and purveyors of history,” says Dr Lim, who has taught Chinese-American literature for more than two decades.

The author herself puts it this way: “I’ve always been interested in stories that are lost or have been covered up. It’s not always horrifying, like the Great Leap Forward, just something that people would be interested in.” – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network