Mardi Gras: Made in China was one of the films featured in the Humans Rights Watch International Film Fest at the Pacific Film Archive. it was certainly a very interesting and good documentary that raises several difficult/controversial questions... not that i'm sadistic or something, but in my opinion, the main question should be about globalization... rather than human rights issues; technically speaking, viewing it from US standards, yes, the living conditions aren't great.... but from what i've seen in China so far, the living conditions really aren't that bad. yes, they work really long hours, but as the documentary shows, these girls really do get more money working at the factories.... so i think sometimes it really boils down to whether those individuals themselves think it's really that intolerable.... sometimes i just feel... who are we to say what's good or what's bad for them?

a really cool thing the director did was this mini cultural exchange thingy. so he went to streets of New Orleans to interview partying ppl if they knew where the beads came from- many of them didn't know and didn't care; in China, many of the girls didn't even know what the beads/ Mardi Gras paraphernalia were used for, how much they could be sold for etc...and when shown pictures of American girls stripping for beads these Chinese girls felt totally embarrassed for them... i just thought it was interesting that alongside themes on globalization, stark differences in cultures were also highlighted...

was researching Hayao Miyazaki for my Jap essay and i came across this interview excerpt from Jan 2006:

YS - You have received a number of prizes, including the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002 and an Oscar for best animated feature film in 2003 for Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), which first came out in 2001. Hauru no Ugoku Shiro also was awarded the Osella prize for outstanding technical contribution at the Venice International Film Festival.

MIYAZAKI - Prizes do not mean anything to me. I think it is more important to make a child aware of the existence of a weird creature like a water spider that breathes through its backside.

In Yadosagashi, the leading character, a girl, encounters a lot of bugs when she spends a night at an empty house. The insects stop approaching her after she draws a line between herself and them.

That kind of thing would never happen in real life. But children like to play with these kinds of rules that stop you from crossing some kind of boundary. I think it is important to hold on to that kind of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life. That is why the girl observes civilities [toward bugs, trees and shrines].

His first statement, that prizes dun mean anything, and the example of what is more impt to him... just made me really impressed. well, perhaps one can say that he can afford to say such things since he's so accomplished, widely-acclaimed and all, but still, i would give him a benefit of the doubt and believe that he really thinks these little things are important... such an attitude is just very admirable in my opinion.

also, in the last paragraph where he says "it is important to hold on to that kinda of sensitivity. It also is important to have the feeling that everything in the world has a life..." i just feel like the world would be so much better if more ppl think this way. you know, just have some basic respect for all the living things around you... ok not to be extreme lah, not like let all the mosquitoes suck your blood as much as they want kinda thing u know.... but like if some bug is just crawling along a window ledge, just let it be... like dun try to kill it or something?? (the difficult thing though for me is i sometimes dunno where to draw the line...eg. sometimes i get really scared and just want it to go away and in the process might unintentionally murder it)

along these lines, i once was very impressed with my landlord. i think Kai once wanted to kill a bug. then he got a scolding from his dad (and started crying...) but my landlord didn't really care that much about his wailing and made it a point to drill it into his little mind that it is NOT ok to try to harm any living thing.... haha this 'poor' little kid also got another scolding once when he tried to scare a pet bird our neighbor (who went away for a few days) brought over... i was just really impressed how he tried to teach the kid about the world, and how he really tries to instill this sense of respect for living things into Kai...

I borrowed the documentary War Photographer from Elephant Pharmacy yesterday...this film follows renowned photojournalist James Nachtwey through some of his assignments in Kosovo, Indonesia and the West Bank (among others) and answered one question that frequently came to mind-- how are these photographers able to take close-ups of grieving people, corpses, riots, conflicts and what not? you just really have to be there. and not only do you take shots; you also experience the smells, the sounds, the dirt, the horror yourself... while some choose to take pictures from a distance, some really go close up and go all out... and it can be a really dangerous profession at times...

i have also always wondered why people would allow photographers to capture them in their very worst moments... but as James Nachtwey put it in the film, because they also realize that it's a way of letting the world know about the injustice that's happening to them, that these pictures are perhaps the only way (and a very powerful one too) they can reach out for help....(i'm not quoting him, just rephrasing what i think he said) i just think it's so cool, to have individuals like him willing to take on that responsibility...

to see some of James Nachtwey's work, you can go to his gallery

i had the luxury of chatting online with 'old friends' this morning and ended up chatting for almost 4 hours! with ppl coming on and going off one after another. and so i got to talk to huining, ting, sumei, crys, jeannice, jun all in one morning! certainly made me very happy =) and post-first draft submission, i decided to finally download the newest version of MSN... cos ppl hav been telling me (for a year or so!!) how 'behind the times' i am haha. realized that the add-ons and animated stuff can be rather cute. cept for someone's animated 'OK' hehe... (sorry, crys)

it's been especially cold this week...