Tag: Politics

What Can I Do?

November 2, 2025

When I used to ask “What can I do?” in response to the world’s terrible events, I’d imagine marching in the streets and all the dramatic scenarios which spin out from there. At that point, it’s a troubling question of constitution, and integrity. “Am I willing to risk my life – or more realistically, my job – for what I claim to believe in?” During the first Trump administration, though, I saw how much the real fight happens in courtrooms, by organizations like the ACLU and the SPLC. The best I can do there is donate money. For the more dramatic end, I’m not a frontline guy. At least, so far, I haven’t been called upon. ICE invaded my hometown (and in doing so, made national headlines) but hasn’t occupied where I currently live. I assume that if I were to join one of those protests against a horde of ICE agents and be detained, it would be for so long that I’d lose my job and, judging by how things are going, my citizenship. Whether or not I’m willing to give up my livelihood and back up my convictions with courage – as so many have elsewhere in the country – is something I have to decide, especially as the situation tilts ever toward state violence. … More What Can I Do?

Palace-Minded Man | Uprising (2024) Review

September 12, 2025

The 2024 historical epic Uprising is about two things: the Japanese killing Koreans, and Koreans killing Koreans. This is literally the experience in an early sequence of two cross-cut battles, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s samurai advance beyond the Han River in the first invasion of the Imjin War, and the hungry Joseon masses turn on the fleeing King Seonjo (who Wikipedia notes shouldn’t be confused with Sejong the Great). Fans of the recent Shogun will remember Hideyoshi as the taiko whose death incites the feudal struggle for power, briefly embodied as “Nakamura Hidetoshi” by my man Yukijirô Hotaru, of Zeiram (and not actually featured in Uprising). Apparently, this guy was trying to take Korea all the way till his consequential death in 1598. And fans of Netflix’s Kingdom will remember the Imjin War, the historical backdrop to that tragically short-lived zombie masterpiece. Well, rejoice for now, as Uprising shares the same brutal world of beheadings, cannibals, and funny hats – stopping short at zombies, of course, but not before outrageous political corruption. It’s a timely tale of ancient revolution against a cruel aristocracy. … More Palace-Minded Man | Uprising (2024) Review

Lessons from Television

April 25, 2025

My memory of the movie Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society is that my memory of it is fuzzy. Even for Ghost in the Shell, it’s a little too murky, with less promise of a reward than the similarly complicated Ghost in the Shell 2. Still, it’s an appropriate sendoff for Stand Alone Complex, refocusing the story to the “what” of the Major from the “why.” After having fun playing hacker pirate, she returns to Section 9, though her continued employment is nevertheless a question. It actually frustrated me how indecisive the show was, as if afraid to muss the continuity. One of the things I do remember is mention of Dejima, the island of migrants whose manipulation into declaring itself a nuclear state by a rogue intelligence agency bent on returning Japan to prewar imperialism was the subject of the show’s second season. By the finale, Dejima’s hero Kuze has been executed, with the criminal mastermind behind the manipulation, Gouda, assassinated by the Major – his head a-splode. Where does that leave Dejima? According to Solid State Society: nowhere. The immediate threat is over, but the broader problem remains unresolved. In this case, the indecision is useful. … More Lessons from Television

Gotta Be Number One at Something

March 27, 2025

I’ve always meant to dedicate space on this blog to the exploits, the travails, of Michelle Wu, mayor of Boston since 2021. Immediately following her election, I subscribed to the Boston Globe to follow her policies, and opened a couple of Google Docs for notes and scratch thoughts on, say, Mass and Cass. How indeed would she fulfill one of her major campaign promises and solve the city’s homeless problem? Well, as I discovered, the answer was “slowly.” I ended up not writing about Mayor Wu simply because there wasn’t really anything [for me] to write about, and also because this is a blog about Asians, not their scurrilous Western counterparts. So it looks like this blog’s actual introduction to Mayor Wu is gonna come in response to something that happened on The Daily Show. That’s about as much as my brain can output. … More Gotta Be Number One at Something

Will They Know There Were Good Americans?

March 3, 2025

I’ve never liked the phrase “Don’t feed the trolls,” because it comes from a place of apathy. Functionally so, as advice from someone on the outside of whichever outrage to the person within it. We’re ankle-deep in 2025 (and drowning), and have likely been thinking about how to navigate the crush of abstract politics with our personal lives, of social media and real relationships, and startling new developments which are also exhaustingly familiar. Will we make the same mistakes as last time? Maybe those “mistakes” were actually stemming the tide of the “worst,” giving us merely “terrible” instead. Here’s why you don’t feed the trolls: if they’re making an argument so infuriatingly stupid, it’s probably because they haven’t thought about it too hard, and that’s probably because they don’t really care. You can’t educate someone like that, because in order to learn something, you first have to care about the subject in question. … More Will They Know There Were Good Americans?

Three More the Korean Way: Wow, Cool Capitalist Critique!

October 6, 2021

One of the stranger experiences I have on Twitter is witnessing non-Koreans speak in defense of Korean pop culture against the clutches of Hollywood, as it’s both heartening to witness and not something I completely agree with. The assertion is that America doesn’t understand what made these originals so great, that X factor unique to the culture. Admittedly, we have a proven track record, from The Uninvited to Oldboy, to still easternmore scars like Death Note and Ghost in the Shell. And yet, we say that a film like Parasite is distinctly Korean but universally understood. Train to Busan is better without a remake despite that remakes are a cornerstone of the zombie subgenre. And then there’s our Squid Game, and if you must take what little remains, hey, The Running Man is good! Believe me, I get the concern that American adaptations won’t capture what the originals are saying — but what are they saying? … More Three More the Korean Way: Wow, Cool Capitalist Critique!

Your Guide to the Politics of Shin Godzilla

March 1, 2021

I’d wanted to write this story about a giant monster attack and realized I didn’t know how it would play out, point by point. Which government organization would do what, at what moment? Who are the key people? And then it struck me, with the power of discouragement: that story already exists, and it’s one of my favorite movies, Shin Godzilla. So onto the shelf that story went, but the question stuck: what would have to happen if a giant monster attacked? I imagined there’d be a treasure trove of resources for “speculative crisis management” or something like that, but maybe some things are too silly even for the Internet. We’ll have to go straight to the source: how do co-directors Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno answer this question? A closer look at the bureaucratic drama of Shin Godzilla might help us understand their political critique. … More Your Guide to the Politics of Shin Godzilla