Wisdoms of the East and West is an animated video created in 2010 by artist Ben Wood and puppeteer Michael Schuster to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the East-West Center in Honolulu Hawaii. The video is based on the flagship Charlot and Affandi murals in Imin Center-Jefferson Hall at the East West Center.

In keeping with the East-West Center’s mandate to promote better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the Pacific region, the video shows Semar, the Javanese shadow puppet on a voyage from East to West. The video’s soundtrack is a fusion of Indonesian and western music and was performed by musicians Annie Reynolds and Made Widana.

Ben Wood is a British-born visual artist. A recipient of the California Governors Award for Historic Preservation, his work has been shown Internationally, at the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, the London Jewish Museum, and the East West Center in Hololulu. Since 2004 he has carried out over 5 large scale video projections onto Coit Tower in San Francisco.

Sunday’s first feature, A Spray of Plum Blossoms (1931), is an unexpected choice to showcase Ruan Lingyu. In spite of her top billing, she is not the movie’s leading lady. Nevertheless, Plum Blossoms is a fun and fascinating film that offers a rare glimpse of Ruan’s lighter side, which often gets lost in the shadow of her tragic life and more serious film roles.

Loosely adapted from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (and retaining the characters’ original names in its bilingual intertitles), A Spray of Plum Blossoms is set in contemporary China. In this version, the two gentlemen are newly graduated military cadets. Valentine (played by Jin Yan, an ethnic Korean who grew up in China and was elected Shanghai’s “Emperor of Film”) is eager to serve his country, while his friend Proteus (played by Wang Cilong) is more interested in girls than the future of China.

Ruan Lingyu is the quintessential “modern maiden”

When Valentine travels to Canton for his commission, Proteus stays behind and woos Valentine’s sister Julia (played by Ruan Lingyu). Described in the intertitles as “a model of the modern maidens”, Julia is a Chinese flapper just waiting to be loved (she first appears singing and dancing to an English tune titled “I Am Willing”). The quartet of lovers is completed by Valentine’s romantic interest, Silvia (played by Canadian-born Lam Cho-cho). She is the daughter of Canton’s military governor and, in contrast to Julia, is “a maiden with the spirit of masculinity”.

Helmed by Bu Wancang (who directed Ruan’s debut in 1927), A Spray of Plum Blossoms was one of the top three films produced by the Lianhua Film Company in 1931. The studio’s two other hits, Love and Duty and The Peach Girl (available on DVD from the San Francisco Silent Film Society), were also directed by Bu and featured Ruan Lingyu and Jin Yan as the romantic leads.

It’s not hard to see why A Spray of Plum Blossoms was so popular. Combining the aching lyricism of the “Mandarin Duck and Butterflies” romance with the righteous heroics of the knight-errant tale, Bu Wancang added a dash of Hollywood, à la Pearl White and Douglas Fairbanks (both were favorites with Chinese audiences), to create an enchanting blend of East and West.

Maggie Cheung’s award-winning portrayal of Ruan Lingyu

Sunday’s second feature is Center Stage (1992), by Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan. Eschewing the traditional biopic format, Kwan incorporates discussions with the film’s actors about the historical figures they are playing, interviews with people who worked with Ruan Lingyu, and footage from her surviving movies. It’s a testament to Kwan, and especially to Maggie Cheung (who stars as Ruan), that in spite of the self-referential reminders of its construction, I was completely drawn into the drama of Ruan Lingyu’s life. At times, I even felt like I was witnessing Ruan’s resurrection.

Indeed, there is a ghostly presence that permeates Center Stage. The film opens with a succession of movie stills from Ruan’s early films (of the 28 titles that she made between 1927 and 1935, only 8 survive), followed by an interview with Maggie Cheung in which Kwan asks her whether she hopes to be remembered half a century from now. Later, when Kwan recreates a scene from one of Ruan’s lost films, accompanied by the film’s title, date, director, and the words “no longer available”, one can’t help but feel the fragility of life and a pang of loss. After the second such scene, Kwan inserts for the first time in the film moving images of Ruan Lingyu. The effect is transcendent.

In an interview with Kwan (featured as an extra on the DVD), he relates an unusual experience that happened to cinematographer Poon Hang Seng when they were shooting the scene of Ruan’s suicide. According to Poon, he saw the spirit of Ruan at the door, weeping as she watched Maggie Cheung reenact her suicide.

Whether you believe this anecdote or not, there’s no denying that Center Stage compellingly brings Ruan Lingyu back to life for a new generation of movie fans.

— Contributed by Dave Wells, who writes for Soft Film: Vintage Chinese Cinema.

This coming Sunday, the Asian Art Museum will be screening a double feature — Shanghai Triad and Two Stage Sisters — that provides a glimpse, both on and off the screen, of the violence and social injustice that lay behind the glamorous facade of “High Times” Shanghai and the heroic mask of Revolutionary China.

Shanghai Triad (1995) depicts the power struggles of the city’s criminal underworld through the innocent eyes of a young country bumpkin employed to serve the mistress of Shanghai’s top gangster. While sometimes considered one of Zhang Yimou’s lesser works, the film is quite compelling when seen in the cultural and historical context afforded by the current exhibition.

The film’s gang boss is based on Du Yuesheng, a native son who rose through the ranks of the notorious Green Gang to become the most powerful man in pre-Communist Shanghai. Don’t miss the hanging-scroll portrait of “Big-Eared Du” and fellow gangster “Pockmarked Huang” on display in the exhibit. It provides an amusingly self-reverential counterpoint to the film’s brutal portrayal. As for Gong Li, who plays the gang lord’s glorified sing-song girl, she looks just like one of those radiant “celestial” beauties depicted in Shanghai’s popular calendar art, several fine examples of which can also be seen in the show.

Shanghai Triad: portrait of a tortured artist

For me, the most fascinating character is the silent, but ever watchful, country boy whose dream of finding a better life in Shanghai becomes a cruel nightmare. I can’t help but see him as a surrogate for director Zhang Yimou. During the film’s production, not only was Zhang under intense government scrutiny because of his previous film, To Live (1994), but he was also on the verge of a breakup with his muse and lover Gong Li.

Seen in this light, the final scene of Shanghai Triad is a haunting metaphor for the intense powerlessness Zhang must have felt at that time.

Sunday’s second feature is an inspired choice to follow Shanghai Triad. While Zhang Yimou was censured for his portrayal of the Cultural Revolution in To Live, Xie Jin and his film Two Stage Sisters (1964) were actual victims of that mad era. Now regarded as one of the best Chinese films of all time, Two Stage Sisters was initially branded a “poisonous weed” and — except for select screenings to criticize the film — it remained unseen by the general public until 1979. For the crime of advocating the reconciliation of social classes, Xie Jin was denounced at a mass rally of more than 100,000 people. Although Xie himself survived the Cultural Revolution, his parents were not so lucky. His mother and father both committed suicide.

Two Stage Sisters: sisterhood is powerful

A revolutionary melodrama, Two Stage Sisters follows the personal trials and tribulations of two opera performers against the backdrop of China’s struggle for liberation. United during hard times, the women choose different paths once they achieve fame and fortune in Shanghai. One retires and marries a man she doesn’t love for the promise of a life of comfort, while the other awakens to the injustice around her and organizes the city’s female opera workers. Thanks to Xie Jin’s abiding humanism and emotional sensitivity, the film never succumbs to mindless didacticism or cardboard characterization. While certain scenes, such as the final conversation between the two women, are evidence of outside interference, the heart of the film remains intact: a personal love strong enough to weather the storms of life.

“Green water goes through numerous mountains”
[from the film's opening song]

Let me end by calling attention to the brief but incredibly moving performance by Shangguan Yunzhu as the film’s fading opera star. Shangguan Yunzhu was a popular actress during 1940s. (Look for her on the video monitor in the exhibit’s “High Times” section in a scene from the 1949 film Crows and Sparrows). It’s rumored that she had a brief affair with Mao Tse-tung which led to her persecution during the Cultural Revolution by Mao’s wife — and former film actress — Jiang Qing. In 1968, four years after her final role in Two Stage Sisters, Shangguan Yunzhu jumped from the window of her apartment building, the Normandie. Some say that her ghost, and those of the many others who also leaped to their death, still haunts the historic French Concession building.

Veteran actress Shangguan Yunzhu’s last goodbye

— Contributed by Dave Wells, who writes for Soft Film: Vintage Chinese Cinema.

According to local lore, xiao long bao were created by Huang Mingxian, in the Shanghai suburb of Nanxiang, around 1861. Huang owned a pastry shop and also hawked large steamed buns in a nearby classical garden.  It was a competitive business, and Huang, with his pastry-making skills, came up with the delicate, thin skinned xiao long bao to distinguish his wares from the other vendors’, creating an instant sensation.

Their fame spread beyond the confines of Nanxiang, and in the year 1900, a relative of Huang’s named Wu Xiangsheng brought them to Shanghai, taking over an establishment named Changxing Lou.  He perfected the delicacy, renamed the restaurant the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, and booming Shanghai introduced xiao long bao to the world.

On a cool, misty day in early April 1992, I had my first ever meal on Chinese soil – a brunch consisting of xiao long bao at the Nanxiang Mantou Dian.  My host Daisy (she’s now my sister-in-law) decided that the quaint snack shop that had hosted the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and Fidel Castro was a suitable introduction to Shanghai, and it is testimony to her judgment that I have been xiao long bao-mad ever since.  The timing of our visit there was fortunate, for when we attempted to return three weeks later we found it closed for an extensive remodeling and reconfiguring as a more tourist-oriented enterprise.  The dining area was expanded from a single room to three on two upper floors, and a takeout window added on the ground floor.

The Nanxiang Mantou Dian is now owned by a holding company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and has added additional branches in Shanghai and more than a dozen franchises in other Asian countries. Xiao long bao connoisseurs will tell you that its dumplings no longer meet the gold standard the restaurant established, though smaller enterprises throughout Shanghai have risen to the challenge.  Nonetheless, locals still revere the Nanxiang as the Mecca of xiao long bao and flock there to jockey for tables; the street-level takeout window, where the dumplings are still a proletarian $1.80 for sixteen dumplings, draws hour-long lines.

– Contributed by Gary Soup, a retired transportation planner with an abiding interest in Shanghai and its food  stemming from his first visit and a xiaolongbao epiphany there in 1992.  He keeps a blog at http://eatingchinese.blogspot.com and has contributed articles and photos to a number of on-line and print publications.

(From left): AHSC  poster winners Imani Chapman and Dave San Pedro. You could be the next winner!

Call for Artists for the Asian Heritage Street Celebration POSTER CONTEST!

The Asian Heritage Street Celebration, Kearny Street Workshop, and NEW PEOPLE have teamed up to host the annual poster competition for the 6th Annual Asian Heritage Street Celebration. The yearly festival is to be held on Saturday, May 15, 2010 in front of the Asian Art Museum leading up to the Little Saigon District.

Organizers are looking for innovative artists to create an exciting and unique image. The winning artwork will become part of the personality for this year’s event and will be featured in posters, postcards, Muni bus ads, BART banners, bus shelters, newspaper ads and in a TV commercial.

AHSC 2009 winning artwork by Dave San Pedro featured at a MUNI bus stop.

The Asian Heritage Street Celebration gathers the diversity of the Asian American populations of San Francisco and promotes cross-cultural interaction through creation of innovative programs and entertaining activities for visitors and participants. The winner will also earn a $500 grand prize and citywide exposure. All entries will be posted at www.asianfairsf.com. For more information please e-mail ahscposter@gmail.com or call (415) 321-5894. 

DEADLINE for submissions is Friday, February 12, 2010. Send AHSC Poster Entries to: ahscposter@gmail.com.

For official rules go to www.asianfairsf.com and click on “poster contest.”

This is a wonderful opportunity for artists to support the San Francisco community and celebrate Asian Pacific American culture.  Come to the Asian Art Museum for cultural and art inspiration! Don’t forget our next Target First Free Sunday is just around the corner (February 7, 2010). Admission is always free for Asian Art Museum Members!

Please note that this contest is not affiliated with the Asian Art Museum. For questions and concerns please e-mail ahscposter@gmail.com or call (415) 321-5894.

The following is a guest post by Peter Baggaley. Thanks, Peter!

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The samurai armor pictured is a Halloween costume that I made using paper, string, and other household materials. Most high school students do not go trick-or-treating for Halloween. For the past few years, I have been a proud exception to this rule. My costumes are all handmade and reflect a historical warrior idea, in chronological order. First, I was a hoplite, a Greek heavy infantryman from the Bronze Age. I then progressed to a Roman centurion, followed by a Viking/barbarian. As I entered high school, I entered the middle ages in the guise of a crusader. Last year, I made the slight leap to Renaissance period infantry.

For this year’s costume, I was faced with a dilemma. I didn’t plan on trick-or-treating my senior year, so this would be my last costume; thus, I reasoned that it would have to be spectacularly elaborate. However, following the Renaissance was the age of gun-powder, and elaborate armors gave way to more simple cloth uniforms. That was no good, especially since I despise working with cloth. I was considering my options when I received an unexpected present. My aunt, Dr. Katharine Burnett, sent me a copy the 2009 summer issue of the AAM Treasures, featuring an amazing set of samurai armor on the cover. Traditional samurai armor, made from silk, lacquer, steel, gold, and other materials, was notoriously elaborate. Additionally, the samurai persisted as warriors until long after the Renaissance, until the late nineteenth century.

Having decided on an idea for a costume, and with a great picture to model it from, I was ready to begin. I worked on my costume for most of the summer, and much of the fall in my spare time. Most of the materials I used were paper and other common household materials. I used:

• poster board
• printer paper
• tissue paper
• construction paper
• black crafts paper
• foam board
• gold cloth
• white muslin
• string
• black ribbon
• scotch tape
• lots of Elmer’s glue
• duct tape
• brass fasteners
• several gold-colored curtain rings
• 1 gold-colored shower curtain ring
• black netting w/ a gold floral embroidered design
• two different sizes of decorative red upholstery cording
• a black, long-sleeved shirt

By far the most time-consuming aspect of the costume was weaving the string into the body armor. The front of the main body piece (cuirass) also features hand-drawn floral designs with birds and animals. The back has two hand drawn butterflies and an elaborate knot modeled off a uniform I found in a book I was referencing. Arguably the most impressive feature of the armor is the pattern on the plates over the forearms of the costume. It features a golden plant design that I cut out using my Swiss Army knife. Of course, a samurai needs a weapon; I also created a paper katana (sword) and sheath.

I had planned to indulge my ego by showing off the costume in my neighborhood on Halloween night. Unfortunately, my tour of the area was cut short by rain. I intend, however, to make the necessary repairs. Then the samurai costume will be retired to my bedroom; paper may not last forever, but I hope it will be remembered through these pictures.

– Peter Baggaley