honor, family, work and the yakuza
I would like to write about the party i went to this weekend. I have a bunch of notes in my phone and maybe a couple photos to share too, but today i was home and had the day off to decompress. I idly enjoyed catching up on some TV and now i want to write about something different.
Last year i wrote about a show i was watching called Tokyo Vice. I really liked it because of how it depicted the lives of migrants who have taken the time to learn the language and integrate to some degree with the culture of the place they have moved to. And how strange that can feel when you are also a member of a visible minority that local people might have xenophobic or racist feelings towards, or perhaps are simply ignorant about. It can be jarring to be treated as poorly as the dumb tourists who don't know any better, but also it can feel uncomfortable when you become the token foreigner-who-can-hang - either way there is some prejudice you need to get over as part of every interaction.
That doesn't happen as much in Taiwan as it did in China, to be sure. There are far, far more foreigners in Taiwan. We're something like 3.5% here, whereas in China we are not even a tenth of a percent. Japan is a bit over 2%. The US is around 7% and Canada is around 9%, for reference. (Europe is hard to compare because they have freedom of movement.) But as any migrant to the US or Canada can probably tell you, even when you make up a larger proportion of society than minorities with influential advocacy groups, even when you have no direct power because you cannot vote, some people will still treat you like trash because of their preconceived notions about outsiders. The endless demonization of migrants by populist politicians and right-wing media is so exhausting, or at least it would be if being a migrant wasn't already exhausting. It's never been the easy path.
Interestingly the new Shōgun TV series - which is also very good - has been showing the life of a (reluctant) migrant to Japan in the 17th century, which was probably a lot worse than the life of migrants today. Then again, the life of everybody in those days was awful by modern standards, so hooray for the 21st century, right?
This season Tokyo Vice has moved past showing expat life and focuses more on the gritty noir. (Incidentally, i tried to watch the Hong Kong-based miniseries called Expats that came out recently and the characters were all so insufferable and the story so boring that i quit after a single episode. If you want to see self-pitying rich people who live in a bubble and don't give a fuck about the place they moved to, maybe it's fun? No. No it fucking isn't.)
Anyway, back on Tokyo Vice. (That reminds me, the opening DJ at the gig this weekend was called Vice City and she was good enough that she made my notes. Check out this awesome video of her playing a live set that is far more up my alley than the mildly jazzy progressive psy she spun on the weekend.)
迴潮 - Vice City (live set) / Tidaan, Taiwan │泊人ANKR Live Sessions
Oh man, but i digress.
Latest episode of Tokyo Vice our intrepid reporter flew home to some buttfuck nowhere town in Missouri. The way it's filmed is fantastic. They have done such a good job making the sleaziest and most starkly urbanized corners of Tokyo into a main character in the show, that suddenly flashing back to this place with emptiness and highways and gas stations and churches is incredibly alienating. He pulls up to his upper middle class home in a forested street, his dad is hanging fairy lights in their massive backyard where they are about to throw a party. Just a couple scenes earlier our reporter was in his micro apartment the size of the one i have in Taipei, barely big enough to fit a bed and a sink and some work shit.
It feels like he is landing on another planet, and i think even viewers who live in those expansive American suburbs where there is no real public space but everyone has their own private kingdom might be able to understand the weirdness of arriving there from a place that is structured so differently.
The episode is about the experience of people visiting "home" after living elsewhere for a while. A subtle but fantastic bit of scripting is how, when all his family and their friends ask about Japan, he doesn't talk about how his life actually is, he just gives them soundbites that reinforce their own stereotypes about the country. And - even though i've never been to Japan - i get it, because that's how you end up talking about your life elsewhere when you are expected to make smalltalk. People don't want to hear about how you ride a bike to work or that you smoke because everyone else does, they want to hear about the panty vending machines and gift-wrapped fruit. (Both also available in Taiwan, more or less - although the vending machines next door to my place sell sex toys.) It's too difficult to get in a long conversation about what's really different (and what actually isn't), so you just try to give the people what they want.
And it occurred to me i'm not very good at that. I don't have a pithy one liner about the places i lived that make people go "ahh yup". I think it might be because i also don't really have a "home", so i don't have the right frame of reference to pick the perfect quip to suit the audience.
Like, at the party this weekend, everyone the first thing they ask is "where are you from?" This is what it means to be a visible minority. It's very tedious. Here in Taiwan i always answer "Taipei", or "Wanhua" and then the second question is "no, where are you really from?" And what the fuck am i supposed to say to that? I was born in England but don't remember any of my life from there because we moved away when i was a child? That my earliest school memories are from West Germany, a country that doesn't even exist any more, and neither does the school, because the British Army of the Rhine is also no longer a thing? That i remember Scotland but not England because we lived there after my dad left the service? That i am a Canadian citizen now, but i have no family there and only lived there just long enough to qualify for citizenship? That my mother died in Australia just before she could return to her birth country of the Netherlands? That my father who was born in Kenya now lives in New Zealand, where his parents were from, but not where they died (England and the Philippines)? Or that my sister who was born in England has lived her entire adult life in Australia, despite growing up with me in Denmark, the Netherlands and all those other places previously mentioned?
I don't have a throwaway line about where i'm from. And i don't have a throwaway line about where i lived. When i was visiting Macedonia with my work colleagues some topic came up in conversation at dinner that was an opening to insert some light-hearted observation about cultural differences and - without even thinking - i started out "we Asians..." And people laughed at whatever it was, but then repeated "you Asians?" and i realized even though i fucking live here i won't ever be seen as "Asian", which is about as vague of a category as you could possibly imagine, because i'm white. (Never mind that a lot of people born here have paler skin than i do.) I can't even do meaningless jokes right because in order to make amusing generalizations about a place you either need to be from the place or NOT from the place, and i'm kinda neither.
So on one hand i was watching this episode and identifying with situations the character was placed in... I also realized i didn't identify with the character himself, effortlessly entertaining all the American suburbanites he grew up with. But then he did the thing that - if you watched the previous episodes - was inevitable. He got sucked back into his job and disappeared because being an intrepid reporter is more important than being a good brother. And boy do i get that. It was just Pi Day, the anniversary of my mom's death, and - as i wrote about here when it happened - i never went to see her. I probably could have wangled time off from my job if i had asked, but i didn't ask, because sticking with my job and ensuring i didn't fuck up my work permit was more important to me than being there while my own mother lay in hospital dying of cancer.
And i don't have any regrets about it. What could i have done anyway? Nothing. Mom died knowing i loved her. It's fine. I did the right thing for me at the time, even though my job was such a clusterfuck that i quit a month later. I hate my job and i resent having to do it just to keep my visa status, but work is still more important to me than family, no question. I have an obligation. I signed a contract. That matters to me.
Tokyo Vice - like most workplace shows - presents the apparent heroes of the story as incredibly passionate about the work they are doing. In reality i doubt very much that was ever the case, because most people i know hate their jobs but do them anyway because what other choice is there? It's a means to an end. But you do get to choose the least-worst means. Making that choice involves taking on a responsibility, and if you are an honorable person than that responsibility can and should matter more than the incidental biological connection you have to family that you did not choose.
The great thing is that these themes also appear in the show in a different way. One of the yakuza ran away from his family and joined up as a teenager. He pledged loyalty to the clan, but later starts to feel conflicted about his role, and in particular how it's influencing the younger brother he left behind. Eventually his feelings for his brother are exploited by an ambitious hothead vying to take over the clan and (spoilers ahead) in the most recent twist he ends up banished from the organization he gave up his entire life to serve, in exchange for sparing the life of his kid brother who becomes a killer anyway. Dum dum dummm! You can't have a gangster show without a big heaping of family melodrama.
Anyway, all this stuff made me think about being a migrant, being a visible minority, what home means, what family means, why work is more important (even when the work sucks), and why i feel honor-bound.
Sometimes i think about the contradiction that i like to imagine myself a bit of a rebel or a free spirit, while at the same time being an overachiever in jobs that i claim to hate. I think it happens because of my internal moral code, my sense of duty. I'm not sure where that came from, culturally. If i had the answer to that, maybe i would have a pithy one liner about where i'm "really" from.
In the mean time, i will keep saying it's complicated.
Oh, and i did get some good news this Pi Day. I got an unexpected raise that will easily take me over the threshold for the gold card salary requirement on next year's tax return. That's probably a bit late to be useful for immigration purposes, but money's money i suppose. It seems being honorable does not always go unrewarded.
Last year i wrote about a show i was watching called Tokyo Vice. I really liked it because of how it depicted the lives of migrants who have taken the time to learn the language and integrate to some degree with the culture of the place they have moved to. And how strange that can feel when you are also a member of a visible minority that local people might have xenophobic or racist feelings towards, or perhaps are simply ignorant about. It can be jarring to be treated as poorly as the dumb tourists who don't know any better, but also it can feel uncomfortable when you become the token foreigner-who-can-hang - either way there is some prejudice you need to get over as part of every interaction.
That doesn't happen as much in Taiwan as it did in China, to be sure. There are far, far more foreigners in Taiwan. We're something like 3.5% here, whereas in China we are not even a tenth of a percent. Japan is a bit over 2%. The US is around 7% and Canada is around 9%, for reference. (Europe is hard to compare because they have freedom of movement.) But as any migrant to the US or Canada can probably tell you, even when you make up a larger proportion of society than minorities with influential advocacy groups, even when you have no direct power because you cannot vote, some people will still treat you like trash because of their preconceived notions about outsiders. The endless demonization of migrants by populist politicians and right-wing media is so exhausting, or at least it would be if being a migrant wasn't already exhausting. It's never been the easy path.
Interestingly the new Shōgun TV series - which is also very good - has been showing the life of a (reluctant) migrant to Japan in the 17th century, which was probably a lot worse than the life of migrants today. Then again, the life of everybody in those days was awful by modern standards, so hooray for the 21st century, right?
This season Tokyo Vice has moved past showing expat life and focuses more on the gritty noir. (Incidentally, i tried to watch the Hong Kong-based miniseries called Expats that came out recently and the characters were all so insufferable and the story so boring that i quit after a single episode. If you want to see self-pitying rich people who live in a bubble and don't give a fuck about the place they moved to, maybe it's fun? No. No it fucking isn't.)
Anyway, back on Tokyo Vice. (That reminds me, the opening DJ at the gig this weekend was called Vice City and she was good enough that she made my notes. Check out this awesome video of her playing a live set that is far more up my alley than the mildly jazzy progressive psy she spun on the weekend.)
Click to view迴潮 - Vice City (live set) / Tidaan, Taiwan │泊人ANKR Live Sessions
Oh man, but i digress.
Latest episode of Tokyo Vice our intrepid reporter flew home to some buttfuck nowhere town in Missouri. The way it's filmed is fantastic. They have done such a good job making the sleaziest and most starkly urbanized corners of Tokyo into a main character in the show, that suddenly flashing back to this place with emptiness and highways and gas stations and churches is incredibly alienating. He pulls up to his upper middle class home in a forested street, his dad is hanging fairy lights in their massive backyard where they are about to throw a party. Just a couple scenes earlier our reporter was in his micro apartment the size of the one i have in Taipei, barely big enough to fit a bed and a sink and some work shit.
It feels like he is landing on another planet, and i think even viewers who live in those expansive American suburbs where there is no real public space but everyone has their own private kingdom might be able to understand the weirdness of arriving there from a place that is structured so differently.
The episode is about the experience of people visiting "home" after living elsewhere for a while. A subtle but fantastic bit of scripting is how, when all his family and their friends ask about Japan, he doesn't talk about how his life actually is, he just gives them soundbites that reinforce their own stereotypes about the country. And - even though i've never been to Japan - i get it, because that's how you end up talking about your life elsewhere when you are expected to make smalltalk. People don't want to hear about how you ride a bike to work or that you smoke because everyone else does, they want to hear about the panty vending machines and gift-wrapped fruit. (Both also available in Taiwan, more or less - although the vending machines next door to my place sell sex toys.) It's too difficult to get in a long conversation about what's really different (and what actually isn't), so you just try to give the people what they want.
And it occurred to me i'm not very good at that. I don't have a pithy one liner about the places i lived that make people go "ahh yup". I think it might be because i also don't really have a "home", so i don't have the right frame of reference to pick the perfect quip to suit the audience.
Like, at the party this weekend, everyone the first thing they ask is "where are you from?" This is what it means to be a visible minority. It's very tedious. Here in Taiwan i always answer "Taipei", or "Wanhua" and then the second question is "no, where are you really from?" And what the fuck am i supposed to say to that? I was born in England but don't remember any of my life from there because we moved away when i was a child? That my earliest school memories are from West Germany, a country that doesn't even exist any more, and neither does the school, because the British Army of the Rhine is also no longer a thing? That i remember Scotland but not England because we lived there after my dad left the service? That i am a Canadian citizen now, but i have no family there and only lived there just long enough to qualify for citizenship? That my mother died in Australia just before she could return to her birth country of the Netherlands? That my father who was born in Kenya now lives in New Zealand, where his parents were from, but not where they died (England and the Philippines)? Or that my sister who was born in England has lived her entire adult life in Australia, despite growing up with me in Denmark, the Netherlands and all those other places previously mentioned?
I don't have a throwaway line about where i'm from. And i don't have a throwaway line about where i lived. When i was visiting Macedonia with my work colleagues some topic came up in conversation at dinner that was an opening to insert some light-hearted observation about cultural differences and - without even thinking - i started out "we Asians..." And people laughed at whatever it was, but then repeated "you Asians?" and i realized even though i fucking live here i won't ever be seen as "Asian", which is about as vague of a category as you could possibly imagine, because i'm white. (Never mind that a lot of people born here have paler skin than i do.) I can't even do meaningless jokes right because in order to make amusing generalizations about a place you either need to be from the place or NOT from the place, and i'm kinda neither.
So on one hand i was watching this episode and identifying with situations the character was placed in... I also realized i didn't identify with the character himself, effortlessly entertaining all the American suburbanites he grew up with. But then he did the thing that - if you watched the previous episodes - was inevitable. He got sucked back into his job and disappeared because being an intrepid reporter is more important than being a good brother. And boy do i get that. It was just Pi Day, the anniversary of my mom's death, and - as i wrote about here when it happened - i never went to see her. I probably could have wangled time off from my job if i had asked, but i didn't ask, because sticking with my job and ensuring i didn't fuck up my work permit was more important to me than being there while my own mother lay in hospital dying of cancer.
And i don't have any regrets about it. What could i have done anyway? Nothing. Mom died knowing i loved her. It's fine. I did the right thing for me at the time, even though my job was such a clusterfuck that i quit a month later. I hate my job and i resent having to do it just to keep my visa status, but work is still more important to me than family, no question. I have an obligation. I signed a contract. That matters to me.
Tokyo Vice - like most workplace shows - presents the apparent heroes of the story as incredibly passionate about the work they are doing. In reality i doubt very much that was ever the case, because most people i know hate their jobs but do them anyway because what other choice is there? It's a means to an end. But you do get to choose the least-worst means. Making that choice involves taking on a responsibility, and if you are an honorable person than that responsibility can and should matter more than the incidental biological connection you have to family that you did not choose.
The great thing is that these themes also appear in the show in a different way. One of the yakuza ran away from his family and joined up as a teenager. He pledged loyalty to the clan, but later starts to feel conflicted about his role, and in particular how it's influencing the younger brother he left behind. Eventually his feelings for his brother are exploited by an ambitious hothead vying to take over the clan and (spoilers ahead) in the most recent twist he ends up banished from the organization he gave up his entire life to serve, in exchange for sparing the life of his kid brother who becomes a killer anyway. Dum dum dummm! You can't have a gangster show without a big heaping of family melodrama.
Anyway, all this stuff made me think about being a migrant, being a visible minority, what home means, what family means, why work is more important (even when the work sucks), and why i feel honor-bound.
Sometimes i think about the contradiction that i like to imagine myself a bit of a rebel or a free spirit, while at the same time being an overachiever in jobs that i claim to hate. I think it happens because of my internal moral code, my sense of duty. I'm not sure where that came from, culturally. If i had the answer to that, maybe i would have a pithy one liner about where i'm "really" from.
In the mean time, i will keep saying it's complicated.
Oh, and i did get some good news this Pi Day. I got an unexpected raise that will easily take me over the threshold for the gold card salary requirement on next year's tax return. That's probably a bit late to be useful for immigration purposes, but money's money i suppose. It seems being honorable does not always go unrewarded.