大鱼海棠 [Big Fish and Begonia] (2016)

《北冥有鱼，其名为鲲，鲲之大不知其几千里也 。》

Above is the opening line in this Chinese animated film that reeks of Studio Ghibli influences, most in particular my favorite SG movie Spirited Away. The first time I knew of this is through a song 《大鱼》performed by 周深 and 郭沁, both having such fine delicate voice quality, the kind that refreshes the soul. It is a coming-of-age story about a girl named Chun who follows the typical hero (or maybe we should create a new trope which is the heroine) journey which changes her life forever.

Chun is friends with Qiu and early on one can already sense that even these two have entangled fates, because well, homophones for 春秋 (Spring and Autumn). Both are part of a community of magical beings. For instance, Chun has powers to grow vines and trees pretty much like Kurama of Yuyu Hakusho and Ueki of Law of Ueki. Qiu has the power to control wind, like Airbender Aang and Fuu of Recca no Honoo. LOL I just can't help but compare. There is also a fire user who reminds me of 哪吒, for whom I have grown a big obsession because of his role in 《封神榜》. 

Chun participates in a ritual wherein youngsters visit the human world in the form of red dolphins for seven days. After that, they will come back to their community. Chun's mother is worried because previously a girl was not able to return and so she reminds Chun never to interact with human beings. Chun spends most days happily swimming with other red dolphins in the sea. One night she is caught by a net from a big ship and calls our for help to which a boy responds who set her free. The boy drowns in the process leaving his little sister crying in the storm. Chun becomes guilty and seeks of a way to restore the boy back to life. She visits the SoulKeeper and makes a pact with him that in exchange for the boy's soul, she will lose half of her life. She is given the responsibility to care for the fish, which reminds me of the animated movie 《哪吒之魔童降世》wherein the spirit ball is given to a master to cultivate and this spirit ball becomes the young fire warrior 哪吒. Qiu suggests the name Kun for the fish in reference to the big fish in Chinese mythology, and quoting 《北冥有鱼，其名为鲲，鲲之大不知其几千里也 。》For a while, Chun is happy with Kun until things get out of hand and a calamity is starting to be felt in the community which according to old folks, is caused by a violation of sorts to the natural order of things. Qiu helps Chun in every way possible even though at the start he also almost caused harm to Kun, but seeing Chun's determined efforts to bring Kun back to life in the human world, he helps him and sacrifices himself as well in the end, giving his own life in order that Chun will not die when she releases Kun in the human world. Qiu is also responsible for opening the portal to the human world so that the two can escape. In the destructive flood and chaos that ensue, the Mouse Keeper takes advantage of the open portal to go to the human world. Meanwhile, seeing her community in distress, Chun sacrifices her own life and merges herself with her grandfather who has now become a begonia tree "after death" to help the people to safety. After the chaos, Chun sets Kun free and at this moment, Qiu casts a spell given to him by the SoulKeeper so that he will burn away and in return, Chun will not die. He grabs Chun and they both jump off the cliff telling his friend that they will meet again (Spirited Away feels again). In the end, Kun is transformed back to his original form. He is seen washed ashore together with Chun. Qiu on the other hand, is revived to become the SoulKeeper's successor.

《上古有大椿者，以八千岁为春，八千岁为秋。》

Above confirms the relationship between Chun and Qiu, that they indeed have entangled fates.Why do I have the feeling that there will be a part 2 of this movie? 

In 1:00:30, Qiu tells a barman that he wants to forget something but can't seem to be successful in doing so. The barman tells him, it's no use to try to forget because to really forget something, one does not need to put in effort. 

Qiu: It's painful

Barman: Sometimes to feel pain is a good thing.

Qiu: Is there something I can take to ease the pain?

Barman: I have this what humans call 孟婆汤 which can make you forget all your painful and beautiful memories.

Qiu instead asks for a jar of wine.

Note: The 孟婆汤 in Chinese mythology allows one to forget everything when drunk. It can very well be the inspiration for Andy Lau's 忘情水. 

This is one animated film I will most probably watch over and over again. I wish China makes more animated movies of this kind. I've seen a few China-made animated films and so far everything has surprised me and exceeded my expectations, like the 2017 小门神 and last year's 哪吒之魔童降世. I am also looking forward to watching 白蛇缘起 next. Honestly, I want China to really develop an excellent animation industry because of the very very good materials that Chinese culture has. The four classics have been made into different film and TV series versions. And we're not yet talking about the ultra cool 封神榜 and 蒲松龄's 聊斋志异. As a huge fan of fantasy and having known some of these Chinese tales as a child, I have always relied on Japanese anime to adapt them and turn them into visual spectacles. Now is the time that finally China takes its soft power seriously and is paying attention to its creative industries which it should have done a long time ago. Western fantasy seems super boring compared to Eastern stuff, I must say. Just that to be honest there are a lot of crappy Chinese films and you really really have to sift through a lot of material to find gems.

中国加油！

藏獒多吉 [Tibetan Dog] (2011)

On Q's birthday, I was on leave. I filed this beforehand with the thought that we might be spending time together but then things ended in July, a week after our last meetup. Instead of cancelling my leave, I used the time to read on stuff and to watch a movie and 藏獒多吉 happened to catch my attention. I love big dogs and I think they are so much more huggable than toy dogs. If ever I would love to have a big furry one like chow-chow, Alaskan malamute, Siberian husky, and now a Tibetan mastiff. Super cute! Except I will need to sacrifice because these huge dogs carry with them huge appetites as well. 

The movie opens with a boy whose mother just died and so he is fetched to join his father in Tibet where he finds himself unaccustomed to the pastoral life. He takes on the duty of herding sheep and one day encounters danger when bears appeared but a golden Tibetan Mastiff saves him. The golden dog is challenged by another mastiff and they dueled until they fell off the cliff, but were both nursed back to health. The boy grows close to the golden dog.

Somewhere, another group of men encounters a wild monster, probably a yeti. The leader's brother is killed and the last thing the group sees is Toji the golden Tibetan Mastiff. They assumed that he is the one who did the killings. In parallel, the boy's father has also been investigating the unusual killings going on. Toji is held captive until proven innocent and fearful that the dog will be executed, the boy and his friend released him to escape. Eventually the yeti appears and kills off the other group's leader. The yeti and Toji engage in a fight and even Toji's friend, the challenger mastiff helped in the fight. When the boy's life was in danger, Toji rushed to him and saved him, himself falling in the process resulting in his death. Later on it is learned that Toji has left behind a cute golden puppy which now accompanies the boy wherever he goes.

This is a must-watch for children or even adults who love dogs. Not only does it show the friendship between humans and animals, it also shows how intelligent dogs can be. I shared this movie to Q after wishing him a happy birthday. He just said he'll watch but I doubt it, and I don't want to care. I stopped believing in a person whose integrity and sincerity is questionable in order to appear civil and polite. I believe that people can be polite while still being true and authentic. But then in many many ways, animals are way better than humans. It's true what they say about how caring for animals is more worth it than caring for humans who will one day just hurt you.

紫禁城里的小食光 [Royal Kitchen in Qing Dynasty] (2020)

I once again let YT recommendations choose what to watch and this week as soon as I opened my YT app, 紫禁城里的小食光 is the first video I saw and since I like food-themed shows, I watched it and the opening scene of chefs cooking fish made me decide to watch until the end although honestly the movie's story is a big bore although the food featured throughout seemed delicious.

The movie tells the story of  a royal chef 张东官who through flashbacks we learn used to be a commoner who strove hard to get in the  royal kitchens just so he could see his former sweetheart who became a princess. The princess 景娴格格 luckily is married to a general 长叙 who agrees to their arrangement of being husband-and-wife in name only. The princess meets her former lover again and is baffled why the latter is always evading her. Now there is another princess 婉贞格格 who is very naive and who likes to eat. She has a huge crush on a prince and wants to slim down. In order to please her, she is fooled into thinking that the more she eats the more she loses weight. 景娴格格 discovers the trickery and 婉贞格格 is tricked into doing many activities like kite-flying and tug-of-war so she can indeed lose weight. After some time, she slims down but discovers through an army trainer who is her friend and who likes her that the prince she likes likes her only for her status and will use her to gain power. She eventually realizes that the army trainer is the one who cares for her sincerely and when she is with him she can be herself.

The movie covers other storylines as well such as how a maid named 敏慧 is implicated in a crime about stealing the empress' treasures. Later on it is revealed that the empress is always short of money and the maid is used as a pawn to be able to smuggle the treasure out in exchange for cash. 景娴格格 visits the place she and 东官 used to hang out and learns that 东官 does not want to alter anything in the place. Eventually the two becomes close again until the princess sees her husband who is thought of as having died in battle. 长叙 and 东官 meet and negotiate to complete a mission. It turns out that 长叙 's beloved 紫鹃 is the one killed in battle and not him. She has taken his place when he was heavily injured and unconscious. After that, he told the rest of the army to inform the palace of his death or else he will commit suicide. He wants 东官 to steal the weapon plans kept in the palace to destroy it and not cause any more human destruction in fulfillment of 紫鹃's will. 景娴格格 and 东官 enlist the help of their friends but they are caught. It is revealed why they did such things and the emperor forgives everyone and the two lovers can now be together with the emperor's permission because as he says, this kind of true love is very rare inside the palace.

It's a very simple story actually with not much room for character development and further struggles. It's like everything is resolved because of the generosity and benevolence of the rulers who "understand" why the people act and behave in such way. In reality though, you can never trick a Chinese emperor without being punished heavily or without being put to death since the emperor loses face. Even 还珠格格 and company were thrown into prison and were supposed to be executed had not the princes decided to take them away to safety. And the title itself is very misleading because there is not much food shown in the movie although at the latter part the iced dessert 冰碗莲子羹 is served to the emperor so that the moisture will wet the pages of the book and will be taken away. Through this, 张东官 intercepts the official and obtains the book. It is a case of perfect timing because the emperor needs to read the right book when the dessert is served. The movie could have used much more clever tricks and more mind-boggling stuff for that wow moment as I sometimes encounter in some Chinese drama series. Also, I don't see how the different subplots cohere. It's like some are just fillers which can be developed into another film on its own. The same with 敏慧's case which is very characteristic of the palace's political intrigues.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globaization

There was a time after graduating college that I contemplated on taking up foreign service to make better use of my language skills and also because many friends think I am most apt for the job not only because I know many things about people and different cultures aside from their languages as a result of frequent traveling (now ruined by Covid-19 ) and because above all, I handle issues in a very diplomatic way. On the other hand, I know in myself that I know very little about world history and especially about the Balkans, Central Asia, and other not so prominent geographic spaces but which contribute to the unfolding of world history. There were some points in my life that I would buy books on globalization to better understand the concept as a process, a system, and a phenomenon, and supplement it with books on related topics. Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat was very much talked about then and it was this reason that I probably bought every book of his that I could find in Booksale.

Getting TLATOT for only PHP75 is a big bargain!

I started reading this book only last year and finished it last month, but I was reading stuff in between (not to mention doing a mountain of chores and income-generating activities coz a girl's gotta earn her own money and doesn't live off others). I instantly liked Friedman because of his accessible writing style which betrays his playful and witty mind, but then it changed toward the end when it became more apparent that he is a proud American who, although aware of globalization's negative consequences, would rather insist on this US-led system because of the "benefits" that the world will reap from it. As an advocate of free market capitalism, he voices out the importance of competition and the ability to be agile in today's rapidly changing environment. To give him credit, he does raises interesting and some valid points but I still have my reservations.

The book is comprised of 20 chapters, each detailing our journalist's experiences with the globalizing world as he moves around and talks to the rich and powerful shapers of world events, in one way or the other, directly or indirectly since we are all connected more than we realize. So below are some key takeaways/ insights:

1. Globalization is THE new international system, characterized by both clashes and homogenization of civilizations, environmental disasters and rescues, triumphs of liberal free market system and the backlash against it, the durability of nation-states and the rise of enormously powerful non-state actors. And an important thing to remember is the role of CYBERSPACE/INTERNET.

2. The Lexus here is a symbol for modernization, prosperity, privatization of economies; in more concrete terms, the lexus represents material improvements in the form of global markets, financial institutions, computer technologies. Olive trees refer to the abstract things that root us--- sense of belonging, individuality, personal rituals, relationships, sense of confidence and security. 

3. Golden Arches Theory banks on the global popularity of the famous fast food franchise and influenced by liberal IR tradition. It states that no two countries that both have McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other ever since they each got their McDonald's. It's funny how shortly after the first edition was published, NATO bombed Yugoslavia. (Mine is the 2000 edition.) Then again closer to home and considering recent events, we see that GAT is a very weak theory with China being aggressive (or for some scholars, assertive... But maybe its assertiveness is read by outsiders who do not have to contend with direct conflicts with this gluttonous panda) to its southern neighbors with which it shared centuries of relations. I also remember when I was still an employee of a multinational food company around 2014 or 15 and suddenly Russia and Ukraine had a fight over Crimea. I remember that time well because we had a Ukrainian visitor with whom I spoke Russian, realizing later on that Russian and Ukrainian are actually very different. The awkward thing is, at that time, Ukrainian nationalism was seen to be very fierce despite their small size compared to a giant Russia so the visitor would remind me that the two are different languages and indeed they are. I have to add that US played a role in this crisis because as usual it keeps on interfering with others' internal affairs and as usual it succeeded in throwing away then Ukrainian President out of the country. (*rolls eyes)

4. Friedman does acknowledge the ill effects of globalization, the thing he absolutely supports. So in this book he points out the things required to survive and compete and still emerge as successful. His core suggestion is by INTERNET DOCTORING which is essentially helping companies be e-ready. And since we also cannot leave out the nation-states, there is a need that a country has excellent infrastructures, the hardware as Friedman calls it, as well as robust regulations and law enforcement. He emphasizes the role of the Electronic Herd (i.e. technocrats) as primary source of capital. And despite having being the US's ally in this part of the world to contain China, the US has made little to help build this hardware that we need. So now that our President breaks off ties (partially) with US and pivots to China, I sure am more content. Because as Friedman himself says there are freemarket democrats and there are also freemarket kleptocrats and the latter are far more in number in my poor country.

5. Aside from world politics, I also pick up some useful insights for personal development:

- Beat the system at its own game

- The fast eats the slow

- Openness can lead to rapid growth (just look at China since 1979)

- You don't earn a living, you learn a living (page 447 talks about constant upskilling)

- When you are at the top, be generous and benign to keep your position

  The last quotes from Paul Schroeder: "If you look at history, the periods of relative peace are those in which there is a durable, stable and tolerant hegemon who does the adjusting and preserves the minimal necessary norms and rules of the game. And that hegemon always pays a disproportionate share of the collective costs, even foregoes opportunities for conquest or restrains itself in other ways, so as not to build up resentments and to make sure the system stays tolerable for others." (That hegemon is without a question the US. But these days it should also apply to China and China knows it, that's why it is focusing on its soft power's "peaceful rise" alongside hard power, in a move to tap into smart power.)