P.O.P Reflection

Abby here, writing about P.O.P--

P.O.P came so quickly! It was just last week we were all preparing for P.O.P and then performing on Monday was so surrel. So from my group- Ria, Angelie, and I went to Lawrence's house on Sunday for what was supposed to be a whole run through of the show. But it turned out to be that we were the first ones there. So we chilled for a bit and waited for people. People started coming around 11 o'clock. Out of all the people form the class that raised their hands that they could make it on Sunday, it seems as though only a few of us actually made it. Since we needed most of the people from my group to actually do something productive, we didn't get much done. So it was pretty much hella chill for the three of us. It was fun seeing the dance group, and Ben and Jon practice. Lawrence told us to have confidence in ourselves as we were performing and everything would be fine. I agreed with him. But when Monday came, just being at the theater gave me butterflies! Watching the first class perform was very funny. Then when we had to perform, I was so nervous! I wasn't even on stage! But when my group and I was up, and being that I had to read off from a paper, I think my nervousness got the best of me. I couldn't read from my paper because I was behind the curtain and there was no lighting source whatsoever so I had to ask Julien if he could hold my phone up to my paper for some light and thank God he did! I didn't realize I was reading so fast. I know during the first blog, I paused for a bit because I really could not see. Overall, I think our performance went well. I know we could've done better if we all practiced before-hand but wasn't able to do so because most of the peoples in my group had class or work until 6 that day. For the whole class performance, we went over our time limit. Each class was supposed to perform for only 30 minutes, but with our class, I think we performed for over 45 minutes, or at least it felt like it. I think it's cuz we had a lot of technical difficulties, but Irene explained to us that Lawrence's laptop froze. Another thing we could've had was an MC for the class performance that could've introduced each performance so that audience wouldn't be wondering "WTF are they doing?!" haha. But other than that, I'm really proud of the whole class. Jon and ben's performance was tight! I wish someone could've recorded the class performance but sadly no one didn't. I couldn't stay for the rest of the performances for the night because I had to study for a final the next day, but I hope to see clips of it online!

Yesterday was officially our last class together. Everyone brought food. We started the class off by writing questions related to EThs 210- whatever we learned in class or futuristic questions. And it was funny! I was watching everyone and how we were all laughing, having a good time. It was sad knowing that it was our last day together. I had to leave 20 minutes early though because I had to meet with a TA from another class.. I kind of regret that. I started with everyone on the first day of class, and leaving early makes me feel like I didn't finish Eths 210 with everyone else...

finals

so, we recently had finals. oh how stressful this turned out to be. lawrence was saying how we shouldn't stress off finals too much and that it'll turn out fine. and yeah everything went good in a sense especially within the time frame given. so i give kudos to our class for all their performances. i just wish we had more time to rehearse our skit and i understand time wise it was nearly impossible for us to find a time and day where we were available all at once. but we tried our best and did what we can and that's all what really counts, the effort. the other classes were pretty impressive too, everything was entertaining yet very educational. the majority of performances were skits, videos, and people spitting some mad flows though. i personally enjoyed the song performances because i'm so big on music. a little off topic but you know how there's certain images out there. for instance, what a artist should look and don't take this the wrong way because i'm all for being a individualist. but yeah most of the guys who came up to perform a song surprised me. i look at them as if they're just regularass people until they open that mouth of theirs and wow pure genious type of shit. the one person who really surprised me was the asian boy who performed before our class and came out the cuts in a polo and some slacks. like he looked really asian and hope this does not offend no one, you'd expect him to be on some other shit. i was like this boy has mad talent with words, lyrically he fucking just blew me away. and i love when a person can prove me wrong in a sense where you couldn't picture a person doing this or that, or being this or that you know. so props to him had me bobbing my head the whole time, haha. so yeah i touched on that subject pretty long. overall after finals i felt like this semester just flew by fast. like it just hits you that it's finally over and you won't be going to irene's dopeass class no more, hah. and it kind of sucks like i mean i liked being in our groups throughout the semester but i wish we mixed it up more. because i felt towards the end that's when i really met other people in our class. and it's so much different out of the classroom especially going to lawrence's place i felt like that's when i actually spoke to other people in our class and had a real conversation. nonetheless a memorial semester with some cool folks, i enjoyed having this class. i guess this is see you guys around. . .

--ria.

poet: native guns

Native Guns

Native Guns

iron chef

this is pretty late, but hey i still remember that day pretty vividly haha. so near the beginning of the semester irene introduced a pretty sick activity called the iron chef. i'm sure many know the show, i use to watch it all the time. we basically recreated the show by having each team come up with a asian american inspired dish which is taking an american cuisine and infusing it with the tastes of the culture we chose. our team thought we were pretty sick coming up with a continental breakfast with a mix of chinese foods, but it happens that irene's example was a previous class who attempted the same dish. but it's okay, i thought our dish turned out quite good though. it had a fried rice hashbrown, egg and ginger omlette, chinese sausages, tofu mixed with sausages, and bombass slices of pork. although i did not help cook the actual dish, we all done our part by researching the background on each of the foods. so of course in iron chef your competing with another chef so we went against the justsosick girls who created a vietnamese sandwich. although both groups did well, our group won. our first and only victory, but it was fun. i thought this activity was hella clever and you learn a lot from it. it touches on the idea of what is asian american, gain history behind the foods, experience the different tastes, and learn to work as a team. it's activities and lessons like these that makes students want to actually come to class. and irene is very good at that, haha i sound like a fucking suck up whatev.

--ria.

POP!

So as our final, we were to prepare a show together with the other Eths 210 classes. POP, Producing our Power, showcases the different ideas that we all learned in class and what we will take along with us for the future. For our class, we decided to divide up into groups, each focusing on a different element- dance, skits, poetry, video and music. As apart of the skit group, we decided to split up into two groups so we can make two skits. When given the theme of Stereotypes and the struggle of Asian Americans, we tried to think of different ideas to incorporate them into a skit. We decided on making a skit about our whole experience in the class and the activities we did. One person would be blogging, just like how our assignments are, and another person reads it in the background as if they were the inside voice, while the others acted out the scene. The concept seemed really coo and different, but we were short on time so we had to figure out how we were going to pull it off. Our group met up about once or twice, but all the time was spent on thinking about what we were going to do as oppose to actually rehearsing it. Me, Ria and Abigail even went to Lawrence's on Sunday but we weren't able to do much without our whole group. When it came to the day of the show @ Brava Theater, me and Ria were actually pretty excited because we never really done anything like this before. Although we were kinna worried about the performance because we hardly had time to rehearse all together. Seeing all the other students in the other classes was nice and how we all came together to put on this show. When it came down to show time,our class opened up with a News video. I wasn't able to actually watch it there, but I seen it on our MySpace and the commercials they made were pretty hilarious. The other skit group went second, and it was coo how they used popular reality shows as their model. The dance group started off with a hip-hop routine, then brought it back to a cultural dance and ended it with a contemporary piece. Our skit group was up next, and I'm not sure if it showed our unpreparedness but we tried our best. The poetry and music groups went next. But there were technical difficulties with the songs. Props to Jon and Ben for their performance though! And lastly, we concluded our part of the show with a commemoration video for the whole class. Overall, the whole experience was fun. It gave us a chance to interact with people outside of our regular groups and show everyone what we have learned. Despite the short amount of time to prepare and some technical difficulties during the show, we still pulled it off and everyone did their best.

- Angelie

Angel Island Immigration Station

In class, we watched a short video on Angel Island to introduce our poetry assignment.

The Angel Island immigration station is located in the San Francisco Bay where thousands of immigrants hoped for their papers to be completed and processed to be able to enter the U.S. Beginning in 1910, thousands of Chinese immigrants poured into the station only to find out that were going to be detained and interrogated. Many of the immigrants stayed in barracks for not only weeks or months, but some even years, awaiting their approval. Many told the stories of their struggles and expressed their fears and frustrations through poems that were carved on the wall, many of which are still visible today in the museum. The immigration station operated for 30 years before a fire destroyed the administration building in 1940 forcing the government to decide on abandoning the station.

After watching the video, I've realized the great length thousands of immigrants endured to be able to live a better life for not just themselves, but their families. Many immigrants traveled on their own, leaving behind loved ones to find work to provide and support their families. I can't even begin to imagine what was going through their minds and how they felt going to a foreign country, completely different from their homes and what they know.

- Angelie

Ryan does Cantonese Opera? WTF?

Yes, i do Cantonese Opera. its something i started about three or four years ago. It started when a friend of my brother, needed more people for a show, because they were short some. So my brother recruited me and few others from the Oakland High School lion dance club. We help out a group call the Red Bean Opera house. so now every summer we help out with their variety show. Last year, thought that it would be cool to do a skit that is full of ABC (American born Chinese). Mainly to show the Chinese community that us American born are into our Chinese culture and want to learn more about it. Wanting to prove to them that even if we're born in America, we are not just Americans but Chinese as well. Even it most of us are new to the art, lot of people enjoyed our show.
This past summer we did another show called," The Swaying Reeds". here are the links to watch it on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7s4X2XWQus&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_UdCfYV2Tc&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_gicpAkLug&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj1ycGuY7k0&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY-QBju9hFo&feature=channel
As you can clearly see, its in 5 parts. I'm in the first and second part. The guy in green and the large black beard.
This opera is an excerpt from the classical Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. in this show, the eastern kingdom of Wu is determined to regain the province of Jing Zhou. To lead this campaign is their military strategist, Zhou Yu, who leads with 3000 troops towards Jing Zhou. But the opposing kingdom of Shu's military strategist, Zhuge Liang, predicted this attack and was already well prepared. At Jing Zhou he stationed two generals, Huang Zhong and Wei Yan( thats me), with an army of 50000 foot soilders and 7000 calvary. They were meet Zhou Yu with the orders to not to kill him but to mock him and taunt him. Because Zhou Yu had ashort temper, he was easily overwhelmed and had to retreat to the Swaying Reeds Marsh, where he encounters Zhange Fei, another oppseing general under the command of Zhuge Liang, with the same order. Not to kill Zhou Yu, but to mock and toy with him. However Zhange Fei accidentally wounded Zhou Yu. Frightened that he was killed, Zhange Fei inspect Zhou Yu's body. Discovering that he was still alive, Zhang Fei throws Zhou Yu back to his troops for a shameful retreat.