A Divide

Probaly the biggest single influence on my blogging has been Harvard, and today is no exception. I think I was drawn to Harvard because, well not to be racist, the cultural divide betwixt me and him, is vastly smaller than the cultural divide between me and his many country men and women that I could equally have been drawn to in the time I lived with him in IH.
Infact there were many candidates from his home-country Malaysia that I lived with and have known longer. But Harvard wasn't like the others. There were none of the usual cultural traits that erected a wall betwixt me, or anyone becoming a friend/associate/aquaintence/cousin of Harvard's.
One I was most self conscious of was not having the balls to sit on a table with 10 or 12 Malay students that had clustered around the 8 seater tables to avoid anyone having to mix with the outgroup.

And I'm not picking on Malaysian's in particular. For example the Japanese students, even though their population was around 3 or 4 at a time, used to form pretty impenetrable groups, and even though I had conversational Japanese I couldn't break into the group. Most of my Japanese friends from IH, I made friends with after we had all moved out.

Harvard was one of those bridging people. As in he would be friends with anyone, and as such could facilitate you meeting and intermixing with people you normally would only face across the abyss of the cultural divide.

I remember him taking me to a party in his building once, and me and our mutual friend a palastinian/australian were clearly on the outskirts of the party. People weren't friendly or unfriendly, they just didn't know what to do with us, and resolved to ignore us. I still found people to talk to, but it was like being in someones house and there's plastic covers on all the furniture. You just don't feel welcome to sit on anything.

I wonder if it was akin to the time I took Misaki and Kyoko to Balifornia for an Australia day party (a national holiday I recognise in terms of slacking off, but feel no particular devotion to the idea of 'Australia') and there were a few IH buddies from asian backgrounds, a Japanese host, my two Japanese friends, and I was just kind of embarassed that we ended up segregated from the other guests, who were 'really australian' and I kind of felt embarassed for them, because they didn't know how to talk to people that didn't share pretty much the exact same background as they did. The low point being when one of them really didn't trust two of the Malaysian pals to operate his bbq.

And I guess I got lazy and thought that Harvard was more like well, a caucasian than an asian. And by that I mean, he's pretty intrinsic rather than extrinsic referencing. An individual, doesn't dress for status (though way classier than me), doesn't follow the herd. Doesn't give me the impression he is big into filial piety and all the usual cliche's.

Except recently because Harvard and I have been working together, and one could even argue competing against eachother (a no contest, with my amatuer design skills). I've become more aware now of the cultural divide between us.

Like when Harvard is a fan of Murakami's books, I used to suspect he was whiter than I am. But when it comes to creative differences, I wonder how much is cultural.

Take for example, Manga, for me reading manga (I guess its actually an improper noun? fuck I can't even remember what a proper vs improper noun is, nor whether it's improper or common) I have a way low tolerance of the psuedo science in them.

In western sci-fi, there's a subgenre called 'Ray Gun Gothic' which is where you have retro-futuristic technology (like a raygun) that is a specifically silly aesthetic, where you write a modern sci-fi with Buck Rogers-esque technology, even though such innovations have been discredited now.

But generally speaking, in western sci-fi, you go for extremes, either you attempt extremely plausible, realistic settings or you go for wacked out future fantasies like Star Wars or Dune series. There's no inbetween, such that if you have a realistic setting, and have sloppy psuedo-science you'll be criticised for being too kitsch or no where near kitsch enough.

Now if I can make some generalisations about impressions I've been given, manga is far more preferred not just in Japan but throughout China and South-east asia than western comics are. Its shaping up that Manga is going to engulf the western comic book world much as R&B dwarfs the entire rest of the music scene. But still I find that caucasian fans of manga tend to be fans of comics in general, whereas I've come across far more asian fans of manga that just won't give the western comic world the time of day. Far more dogmatic if you will.

And whilst Harvard isn't dogmatic, I more aware that he has a greater preference for manga than me, and a higher tolerence of psuedo-science in realistic settings for example.

The hard part is, seeing it the other way, like when he says 20th century boys is "THE manga that I think the story, substance and drawing surpasses even American graphic novels." and whilst I would actually agree that it probably is more moving than most American graphic novels, and maybe it scores a 7 in the story, substance and drawing criteria, it isn't a fair comparison to say that's better than a work by Alan Moore like 'From Hell' that scores a 10 for story, 8 for substance and a middle of the road 5 for art. Perhaps cultural divider one (or perhaps just personal) is that story trumps artwork. (there's certainly many western comic creators that think the reverse).

I haven't finished 20th century boys yet, but it'll have to beat when I put 'Watchmen' down after reading it the first time, and sat around for an hour just thinking about poor Rorschach. I guess also, I like economy in a story whether it be novel, graphic novel or brochure (ironic for someone with such a history of inefficient blog posts), and I suspect that 20th Century Boys strings the reader along, when the point could be made in a third of the time whilst retaining the essential and strongest characters and doing away with a bunch of other ones, even at the cost of emotional investment in the characters.

And it applies to movies as well, discussing with Harvard we had almost inverse evaluations of 'Apocalypse Now Redux' and '7 Pounds' etc. (unless when Harvard described Apocalypse Now as 'painful' he meant it as 'he felt the characters pain, and self destruction as they approached the heart of darkness, and nihilistically accepted his fate, before returning a hollow shell of himself' which was precisely the point, and precisely why I liked it so much.

And then there's other shit, like he doesn't seem to appreciate ribbing at all. Often debating my insults, or worse, shrugging them off as a waste of time. Is this like when I was in China, and my friend explained his Uncle shouted and spoke loudly to create a warm and friendly atmosphere in just the same manner an Australian would describe someone as having had too much to drink, and was a real liability?

Or is the divide more personal, as in personal tastes and preferences? He's an escapist where I'm a deconstructionist? He likes chilli in his cooking, I like offensiveness in my art? you know all that shit.