Monthly Archives: March 2017

Seeking Sanctuary

Film Review: "Women without Men" (2009)

The 2009 magical realism film Women Without Men, directed by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, follows the lives of four Iranian women during the 1950s.  Set in Tehran, the events of the film take place against the background of the coup which toppled the democratically elected regime.  Through the stories of these women, the film shows the many challenges associated with being an Iranian woman and the difficulties in escaping them.  Women Without Men presents four women imprisoned in their circumstances, depicting their attempts to free themselves and ultimately their failure to do so.

The first woman, Munis, lives with her controlling brother who hopes to marry her off soon.  Munis, however, is engaged in the political happenings of the time and resentful of her brother’s desires. She describes herself as a prisoner in her brother’s house.  We are next introduced to Faezeh, a friend of Munis who appears to be in love with Munis’s brother.  Faezeh looks forward to marrying and disapproves of her friend’s political inclinations. In contrast to Munis and Faezeh’s domestic setting, the third woman, Zarin, lives and works at a brothel.  While she does not speak, the defeated look and expression of discomfort on her face suggests that she too is trapped in her circumstances.  After a surreal sequence in which one of Zarin’s customers appears faceless to her, she flees the brothel.  The scene shifts and we are introduced to Fakhri, an older, well-off woman.  Although she is married, she becomes entranced by an old friend recently returned to Iran from the United States.  Later, in their home, Fakhri tells her husband that she wants out of their marriage and calls for a divorce.

At this point in the film, all four women and the prisons they are trapped in have been introduced.  Munis is stuck in a future dictated by her brother, Zarin is haunted by men, and Fakhri is stuck in an unhappy marriage.  Faezeh’s prison is less obvious.  Her self-imposed goal of marrying Munis’s brother limits the way she sees herself and her self-worth. We watch as these women attempt to escape their prisons

Fakhri escapes Tehran in the literal sense, purchasing a large, walled orchard and house outside of the city. After leaving the brothel, Zarin finds herself well outside of Tehran.  She follows a small stream, eventually reaching Fakhri’s orchard. Fakhri later discovers Zarin, motionless, floating in the water outside of the house. The caretaker of the orchard carries her inside.  Eventually Zarin awakens and begins to recover.

Munis takes the most extreme action to escape her circumstances, jumping from a rooftop. Faezeh finds her in the street, apparently dead.   Her brother buries her in the yard. Sometime later at the wedding of Munis’s brother, Faezeh is in the yard and hears Munis’s voice coming from the ground.  She digs at the dirt and finds Munis, still alive.  Rather than reveal her resurrection to her brother, Munis immediately makes her way to a nearby café to sit and hear the latest political news, never to return to her brother’s house.  Faezeh hesitantly follows her.  In the café, Munis meets a young man who is a member of the communist party.  For Munis, this moment marks the beginning of her emancipation from her brother’s control.  For the rest of the film she is an active member of the party, fighting against the American-backed coup.

For Faezeh, however, visiting the café marks the peak of her struggle.  While Munis goes inside, Faezeh hangs around outside the café.  After noticing two men watching her, she rushes away, only to be followed by them.  Later, Munis finds her crying on a doorstep; it is apparent that she has been raped. Faezeh is engulfed by shame and faced with the reality that she will have a difficult time finding a husband because she is no longer a virgin.   Munis and Faezeh leave the city and find themselves at Fakhri’s orchard. It is not clear why Munis knows of this place or why she brings her friend there. It is here Faezeh is left to free herself from her shame and accept herself.

Despite political upheaval in Tehran, Faezeh, Fakhri, and Zarin are free to do as they wish in the sanctuary of the orchard.  For a time, it seems that all of the women have escaped their prisons to the safety of the lush green gardens.  However, as the film ends it becomes clear that this is not the case.  Zarin, upon recognizing the caretaker as the faceless customer, falls ill, eventually dying.  Faezeh and Fakhri are unable to save her. Fakhri’s oasis is further invaded when soldiers arrive, apparently looking for enemies of the Shah.  The soldiers are only appeased when they learn that Fakhri is the wife of an important general, once again reducing her to the role she was attempting to escape.  Faezeh is surprised when Munis’s brother arrives at the party and proposes.  Although she had once hoped to marry him, she refuses his advances, knowing that as a second wife she would not truly have the marriage she wanted.   She too is unable to escape the attention of men even though it was once desirable to her.

Munis’s fate is no better than that of the other three women.  After the successful coup d’état, Munis and the other communist party members are hunted by the police. Having lost her means for political expression, her escape too has failed.  In the final scene, we see Munis once again standing on a rooftop.  Her voice narrates, explaining that “[she] thought, the only freedom from pain is to be free from the world.”  She then jumps to her death.

The mystery of the orchard- its isolated location, how any of the women knew of its existence, and its ambiguous size- only serves to highlight its importance as a space for women.  While we know very little about its background, we do know that the orchard serves as a sanctuary for the three women.  In this way, the filmmakers create a literal safe space for women which they then ultimately break down by introducing men to the setting.  This deliberate destruction of a female space emphasizes the inescapability of the prisons built for women in a patriarchal society. Munis, in contrast to the other three, does not seek asylum in the orchard.  Her narrative instead shows that breaking into a men’s space (the realm of politics) also does not guarantee freedom from a woman’s prison.  Through the lens of these women’s lives, the film successfully speaks to the unavoidability of oppression in many forms for women in Iran.

This pessimistic message does not suggest that women can never be free of their oppressors but that they cannot do so within today’s society.  It is not enough for women to defy their oppressors: for the status of women to change, the patriarchy must be fully dismantled.  Otherwise, Fakhri, Munis, Faezeh, and Zarin will always be a wife, a sister, a tainted woman, and an object of sexual pleasure. In this way, the filmmakers successfully underscore the need for societal change.  While the film is set in Iran, Women Without Men can appeal to an international audience because its message is relevant in any patriarchal society.

While the its message is evident, the filmmakers fail to clarify many of the film’s details.  The elements of magical realism in the film, like Zarin’s faceless customer and Munis’s resurrection, go unexplained. It is unclear to the viewer how these aspects relate to the film’s overarching themes.  This ambiguity leaves the viewer confused, as though they missed something important, making the film less enjoyable to watch.  While Women Without Men succeeds in telling the poignant stories of four Iranian women, it leaves the viewer a bit lost at times.

The Saint and the Sinner

Film Review: "Ida" (2014)

Ida, released in 2013, is a black and white film about self-discovery, betrayal and family set against a backdrop of 1960s Poland. At the time, the landscape of the country was grim, suffering from economic downturn and failure to recover after the world war. The film follows the journey of Ida and her aunt, Wanda. The two are brought together for the first time after the convent that raised the orphaned Ida urges her to visit Wanda, her only living relative. They embark on a mission to uncover the truth behind Ida’s parents’ death. Her father was Jewish and had been slaughtered with his wife and nephew, whom we later discover to be Wanda’s son, by their neighbor. Their killer believed Ida could pass as a non-Jew and left her with the priest of the local chapel.

Days away from completing her vows to become a nun, Ida, paired with her secular, promiscuous aunt, discovers life outside of the convent: smoking, drinking and jazz. As she and her aunt get closer to finding the burial site of their family, Ida starts exploring herself and her femininity by looking at herself in the mirror or bringing her beautiful hair out from under her nun’s veil and chatting with a young saxophone player. These small moments of temptation create doubt in Ida’s mind as to whether or not she is prepared to fully commit herself to a life as a nun.

Throughout the film, we see elements of the western world, suggesting that even through the Cold War era, the progress of the West has rippled through to Eastern Europe: a “Bar” sign in a small village, and the most prominent feature throughout the film, American jazz.

The common thread is music. In fact, the film is defined by it. Sometimes the tempo is fast and lighthearted, in scenes such as the evenings attended by Wanda and Ida in the hotel’s basement. Other times its tone is melancholic and grey.

There are also scenes in which the camera does not follow whatever character it is focused on, and as this person exits the shot there are some seconds of suspense in which our focus is fixed on inanimate objects rather than the living, breathing characters.

Towards the end of the film, Wanda is overcome by sorrow: the son of the neighbor who killed their family has shown them where he buried their relatives. Here Wanda finds the bones of her infant son – she had left him in the care of her sister, and had joined the resistance against Germany. Her choice had taken her son from her, but it also allowed her to become a state prosecutor, and ultimately a judge; it had turned her into an essential “comrade” of the new Polish order, and had given her status. However, this does not seem to give Wanda strength. On the contrary, it eats at her, as though it were all for nothing. She refers almost sarcastically to the other Poles she’s sentenced to death in her position of power, as though the words should carry an important weight. Instead all they do is make her feel cowardly, like a traitor.

Felix, the man who murdered her son, is also overwhelmed. In the small ditch he’d dug to bury the family, he crouches down in pain, succumbing to the guilt he feels over his past actions.

Once Ida leaves her to return to the convent, we see Wanda spiraling into despair by drinking more, smoking more and bringing more men home with her.

Just as her son’s murderer is desperate after years of carrying the weight of his past actions, Wanda enters a state that is increasingly similar to Felix’s. Their despair is reflective of the Polish times the film is set in: after a temporary surge of success that brought them a new regime and new hope after the tragedies of WWII, the country had fallen into a dark pattern that no false hope could alter. Wanda had fought for a better Poland, now she was merely a tool of the Communist regime. Her ideals were shattered: she’d given up her child for nothing and was left feeling empty and desperate.

At the peak of her sadness, Wanda plays one of her Mozart symphonies where the tempo is fast and loud. She goes about in regular routine, smoking a cigarette, opening her window, putting on her coat as if ready to go out. Then, with chilling speed, she walks up to the open window, steps onto the ledge, and jumps out. The scene happens so quickly, paired with the liveliness of the music playing in the background and the nonchalance with which Wanda steps off the ledge, that it is shocking to the viewer like a sudden electric shock from a loose wire.

After separating from her aunt, Ida shows increasing signs of doubt in her commitment to her faith. She begins giggling in the middle of a meal, a traditionally silent affair, and stares ambiguously at another nun that is bathing in front of her, leading us to believe she is, as Wanda put it, having “sinful thoughts.” This climaxes in her confessing to a statue of Jesus that she is not ready and asking for forgiveness. By the time she returns to the city, her aunt is already gone.

Ida moves into Wanda’s now vacant apartment, and simultaneously inhabits the space as well as the identity of her aunt: she puts on her aunt’s clothes, tries a cigarette, consumes a bottle of vodka. At her aunt’s funeral, she is reunited with the charming saxophone player she had met on her travels with Wanda. After meeting him at one of his gigs, they return to Wanda’s apartment, and spend the night together.

The abrupt change in Ida’s character seems to signify her haste in cutting ties with the life she had always known, of chastity and devotion to God. It seems as though she is on the verge of changing for good – that she will follow her new romantic partner to the seaside where he is scheduled to play with his band, and as he suggests, get married and start a life together.

It seems as though the “happily ever after” we are promised in most modern-day cinema is nearing. Instead, just as quickly and harshly as Wanda took her life, Ida changes her own narrative in a completely unexpected way: as morning comes, the young girl retrieves her convent clothes, retires her hair once again to her veil, and quietly slips out of her late aunt’s apartment, leaving behind her lover and the life they could have had together.

Some may interpret this ending as a sad one, as though we have been cheated of the romantic ending we were expecting. In truth, the ending reflects a great deal of what we have seen throughout the movie: the dynamic between a saintly, quiet girl, and a woman wrecked by loss. Ida chooses solitude and salvation: she chooses her loyalty to her family at the convent, the ones that had raised her, rather than following in the footsteps of her bereaved aunt.

There is power in this ending. It almost seems as though she is moving toward a life that serves a greater purpose than serving as a man’s wife, a mother to his children. Instead she chooses to serve her creator, what she believes to be the most powerful thing in existence.

The final shot, in which Ida walks steadfast, almost defiantly down the dirt road, with clear conviction in her eyes, shatters the bleak trends of the movie so far. It makes one feel as though there is hope for the young girl, and by association hope for Poland. There is nothing beautiful, or romantic, about the state Poland found itself in at the time. However, Ida is a small ray of light in an otherwise grey landscape, a woman who chooses the greatness of the unknown over the safe promise of a domestic life.

Unanswered Questions: A Review of the Film Ida

Film Review: "Ida" (2014)

Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2013 film Ida raises several questions and offers few answers, frustrating any attempts to find closure at the end of the film.

Set in post-World War II Poland, the film follows the journey of a young woman who strives to learn about the life and death of her parents. After her parents’ death, Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is raised in a convent to become a nun. However, before taking her vows, the mother superior decides that Anna should meet her only living relative, Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza). She sets off across Poland to meet her aunt, only to discover that her entire life has been a lie. Her name is not Anna; it’s Ida Lebenstein. She is the orphaned child of a Jewish couple killed during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Wanda and Ida travel across the country to learn about the true fate of Ida’s parents.

Ida and Wanda are polar opposites. Wanda has several strings of one night stands (including one man who is there the day Ida arrives), drinks too much, and smokes constantly, all to numb her guilt over the role she played in the communist resistance during the occupation and the death of her infant son during the Holocaust. Ida, on the other hand, is rarely seen without her nun’s habit. She denies having any sexually impure thoughts and doesn’t drink or smoke. For much of her life, Ida’s world has been constricted by the walls of her convent. Unlike Wanda, Ida has never lived through war; she is innocent and naive. While their stark differences could easily paint one character as a “sinner” and the other as a “saint,” both defy overly-simplistic categorizations.

The film dances around the most interesting issues and subplots, leaving much of the film’s potential untapped. Though Ida and Wanda spend the bulk of the film searching for answers about the death of Ida’s parents and Wanda’s son, the film never tells the audience what happened. We learn that while staying with the Skiba family to evade capture, the Leibensteins were lured into the woods and murdered by the son, Feliks Skiba. It is unclear why he did it. Did he kill them in order to protect his own family and avoid a legal dispute? Was he anti-Semitic? The audience is given no resolution.

It’s possible that the uncertainty surrounding the Lebensteins’ death – at least, for Wanda and Ida – might be reflective of the time. There are millions of people for whom the exact details of their deaths during the Holocaust will forever be unknown. For the surviving immediate family members, it’s possible that knowing the truth wouldn’t provide closure at all. While the film stubbornly refuses to offer audience members any sense of closure, perhaps that’s a parallel to life, where oftentimes questions have no answer and sometimes tragedy strikes in a way that can only be described as inexplicable.  

Other instances of vagueness and ambiguity in the film are not as easily rationalized. Throughout the course of the film, I found myself asking one question in particular: though Ida was raised Catholic, should she continue to practice Catholicism given the fact that her parents and millions of her people were killed in a mass genocide because they were Jewish? The film has the potential to broach this topic, but never does. We learn towards the end of the film that Ida was only able to survive the war because she passed for Anglo-Saxon even as an infant. In a twisted way, Ida was able to evade persecution as a Jew by assimilating into the dominant culture through Catholicism. While we see Ida eventually begin to question her interpretation of Christianity, it’s unclear if she ever becomes curious about Judaism. The possibility of Ida exploring Jewish culture, which she could participate in without converting to Judaism, is also never explored. I find it strange that in this coming-of-age film the protagonist expresses no curiosity toward the religion and culture faced with such persecution that it lead to her parents’ death.

The ending of the film itself is yet another mystery. The audience sees Anna dressed in her habit, walking along the road wearing a confident expression after her one night stand with Lis. While it’s tempting for audience members to interpret this as Anna returning to the convent, is that truly the case? In the other scenes involving travel to and from the convent, the audience can clearly see buses. In that case, why is Anna walking at the end of the film? Does the look of conviction across her face refer to her decision to return to the convent or her decision not to return?

Ultimately, the film Ida is widely praised because it contains many of the elements consistent with good stories: dynamic characters, an engaging plot, a deep history. However, the film refuses to delve deeply into its most engaging issues and ignores opportunities for character development. Because of this, many audience members will finish the film with a sense of deep dissatisfaction, wondering to themselves, “Is that it?”

 

Seven Dresses

Feature article

Moroccan weddings are a big deal. While spending a semester abroad in Morocco this past fall, I often wondered whether I would get the chance to partake in the traditional celebration so unique and significant to the country. A lesson in our Arabic textbook centered around weddings in the Arabic-speaking world, and while we learned about certain traditions in countries like Somalia and Egypt, our professor focused for an entire week on the details of Moroccan weddings. My chance to attend a Moroccan wedding appeared at the very end of the semester: three days before finals started, my host dad told me that we would be going to Marrakech that weekend for the wedding of two of my host mom’s cousins, Ihssane and Amine. I had met both of these cousins earlier in the semester during Eid al-Adha, a religious holiday that we spent in Marrakech with the extended family. I was excited not only to return to Marrakech and show off my much-improved language skills, but also to attend such an unfamiliar tradition surrounded by familiar people.

Multiple events lead up to the actual wedding day, starting with the khatuba, or the engagement ceremony. The two families come together about a year before the wedding to agree on the marriage and for the groom’s presentation of gifts to the bride and her family. The other two ceremonies take place during the week of the wedding: the bride first goes to the hamam, the Moroccan baths, with her close female friends and relatives. The next day, the bride receives elaborate henna designs on her hands and feet. Some grooms receive henna as well: a small, circular design will sometimes be drawn in the center of their palms. Once all of these ceremonies are complete, the bride and groom are ready for the wedding.

The zifaf is a long and elaborate process. Details of the ceremony vary depending on region and social class, but there are a few major tenets of a zifaf, primarily having to do with the bride. After certain Koranic verses are read, religious songs sung, and the guests gathered together, the bride enters. At many weddings, she enters on an amariya, an ornate litter, and is carried around the room multiple times while thelitter carriers perform certain dances. She is then brought to a platform where she sits next to the groom for pictures. Over the course of the night, the bride will change dresses up to seven times. Depending on when the ceremony starts, the stamina of the guests, and how quickly the bride can change, a zifaf could end anytime between 4:00 and 7:00 am.

We arrived at the wedding venue, and I realized that the wedding was actually being held in the house of the bride’s parents. This was remarkable, in that the house was actually large enough to host everyone and beautiful enough for the high standards of Moroccan weddings.

All of the guests found seats around the edge of the crowded room, and once everything had settled down, the couple walked in. While Amine wore a rather ill-fitting polyester suit with a skinny tie, Ihssane was radiant in an emerald green caftan covered in gold embroidery, topped off with a golden tiara. The two sat on a couch placed on top of a platform. After Ihssane’s dress had been arranged by her two assistants, a photo session lasted for what felt like an hour. Folders containing the legal marriage documents were then brought in, and the couple proceeded to sign them to the accompaniment of camera flashes. At the end of the legal ceremony, both exited, signaling a new phase of the wedding.

At this point, all of the men went upstairs to a different living room, and for the rest of the evening, Amine came in and out of the room, occasionally sitting next to his bride in her various dresses and participating in a few ceremonies. Ihssane, on the other hand, was either on the platform having her dress arranged and posing for pictures with friends and relatives, or upstairs getting changed in a process that usually took around half an hour. In total, she wore seven sumptuous, as well as symbolic, dresses: green, blue, yellow, pink, the amariya dress, a Western-style white wedding dress, and finally a simple white djellaba, which symbolized leaving her parents’ house and travelling to her new husband’s home. By the time she appeared in the djellaba, we could all see how exhausted she was, despite her joy at the success of her wedding. In the days that followed, I couldn’t help but contemplate the different roles expected of Amine and Ihssane during their wedding.

At first glance, Amine’s license to wander throughout the ceremony—from the main floor with his bride and all of the women to the upper floors where the men were seated—represented the total freedom and agency of men in Moroccan society to do as they like. After all, there are customs and traditions for Moroccan men during the zifaf, in which Amine was able to choose not to partake. Ihssane, however, was both literally and figuratively placed on a pedestal, the object of the guests’ and the camera’s gazes. After further reflection though, I came to view their roles in a different light; it seemed to me that Amine’s occasional presence and participation provides an example of only partially engaging with culture and tradition, while Ihssane carried the burden of fully interacting with and upholding the customs of her heritage. The experience affirmed for me that weddings in Morocco are indeed a big deal: not only are they a celebration of joy and family that reflects the family’s culture and traditions, but they also make clear who is actually responsible for upholding those traditions.

Form and Meaning

Feature article
"It is Happening There," By Khaled Al-Saai
Khaled’s painting “It is Happening There”
Source: http://www.kunstverein-grafschaft-bentheim.de/195.html?&L=1

The painting projected on the screen in front of me is overwhelming and chaotic.  I try to pick out the Arabic letters and words. They are all tangled together, written in different sizes and rotated to every angle making it impossible to read most of the words. The piece, called “It is Happening There,” is Khaled Al-Saai’s most recent painting.   He explains that it represented his response to the evolving conflict in his home country, Syria.  I sit there feeling somewhat defeated, assuming most of the meaning of the piece was lost on me.

This was the first day of the Arabic calligraphy class I took with Khaled at Wellesley last spring. This lecture, given by Khaled himself, was my introduction to both the artist himself and his work. He insisted we call him by his first name, a request that reflected his modesty in spite of being a world-famous artist. Although I had never taken an art class in college, at that point I had been studying Arabic for almost three years, so I figured I was reasonably prepared for what was in store for me.  However, the complexity and precision of Khaled’s piece was immediately intimidating and swept away any confidence I had had when I walked in.  Khaled presented his work, then had us spend the remainder of the four-hour class drawing the most basic letter, alif, over and over again.  When written, an alif is a simple vertical line, not unlike a lowercase L. I had always thought of calligraphy as a more complicated and highly-stylized kind of writing, so I had hoped that my frequently-complimented Arabic handwriting skills would reduce the learning curve I faced in the class. However, from day one Khaled made it clear to us that “calligraphy is not the same as writing.”  I struggled to understand what he meant by this.  Even though I had written a thousand alifs in my Arabic homework, my exercises looked like a child’s drawing when compared to Khaled’s work. Calligraphy seemed insurmountably difficult to understand, let alone create.

In Islam, the depiction of living beings is prohibited.  As a result, calligraphy has become the dominant art form in the Islamic tradition. Calligraphy varies in style by region and context: for example, the Taj Mahal in Agra is decorated with verses from the Quran written in Thuluth script, while the walls of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo are lined with Kufic.  More contemporary Arabic calligraphy like Khaled’s combines these traditional styles with a more modern use of color and shape. In our class, Khaled teaches the basics of several types of script, with a focus on the Sunbuli style (Sunbuli takes its name from the Arabic word for a kernel of wheat, sunbul.) Khaled explains that the basic leaf-like shape of the style echoes that of the wheat, a shape incorporated into every other letter in the alphabet. Considering that Arabic calligraphy is composed entirely of letters and that I had such trouble mastering the most basic one, I had little hope for my artistic prospects.

A few weeks into the semester, Khaled gave a public lecture about his work.  The audience in the library conference room was a mixture of his students and community members from the town of Wellesley.  The lecture was not unlike the presentation we had received on the first day of class.  He gave a brief overview of the history and different styles of Arabic Calligraphy before showing a sample of his own work, ending with “It is Happening There”.  At the end, there was time for questions.  One woman introduced herself as a resident of the town and commented, “I can’t read any Arabic; to me this is just shapes.  It’s beautiful but is there some kind of meaning that I am missing?” Khaled paused for a moment and responded, “In some ways I think that you have an advantage.  My students get caught up in trying to read the words and they forget to see the bigger picture.”  He continued, “In this piece I wanted to convey the chaos and the confusion of war and of trying to understand it from afar.  Do you see that?” The woman said she did and the audience echoed her response with nods of agreement.  Khaled explained that, yes, the words did have meaning but understanding them only added nuance to the bigger ideas.  In the case of “It is Happening There,“ many of the words are the names of towns and cities in Syria, under siege or overrun by violence. However, it is by no means necessary to grasp this detail in order to see the big picture of the piece.

It became clear to me that Khaled’s painting transcended the meanings of the words with which it was created.  Arabic calligraphy is not so much writing as it is painting.  Khaled’s work especially depends less on the literal meaning of the words and more on the overall movement and color of the piece to convey meaning.  This style makes his art accessible to people with little knowledge of its background.

That lecture took place a year ago. Today, in the context of increases in Islamophobia and misconceptions about the Middle East, sharing this kind of art is even more important.  Exposing the American public to Middle Eastern culture in a context other than the news helps to break down existing assumptions and stereotypes. Although there is more depth to be explored by reading into the meaning of the letters and words, grasping the emotion of Khaled’s calligraphy requires no more than an open mind.

Life in a Yukata

Feature article

I pushed aside the fusuma, the rectangular sliding doors characteristic of Japanese architecture, and peered inside the room. I was overcome, especially after a night of karaoke, by the peace and stillness. The walls of the expansive bedroom were beige. Two pairs of blue slippers for me and my friend rested by the door. A tiny brown table with two white square mats sat in the middle. I heard the gentle flow of a little waterfall and walked to my window where I gazed at a school of white and gold carp swimming leisurely in a pond. The room’s light fragrant scent reminded me of the times I spent lying on the couch in my grandmother’s living room as she rubbed her Chinese body oil, which always felt minty to my skin, into my back. I suddenly felt a sense of calm and familiarity in this room that had housed many strangers and was thousands of miles away from home.

I was in the mountains of Hokkaido, Japan, for my first hot springs experience. It was time for dinner, and my friend and I looked forward to changing into our yukata (soft cotton kimonos) for the first time. The word yukata refers to “bathing clothes,” and they were designed for wear before entering and after leaving an onsen (hot springs). We stripped out of our shirts and jeans, and then dressed in matching white and blue yukata with black sashes. Since my yukata resembled my taekwondo uniform, I tied my sash like I always did for my taekwondo belts, but loosened it for greater comfort.

Wearing the yukata was liberating as I realized how effortless I felt moving around without the nuisance of rough jeans, constricting bras, shoes that pressed my toes together and the itchy tags on most of my shirts. I felt as if I were enveloped in a huge, warm blanket, and exposing my body to a new culture.

I felt strange walking into the dining room, a larger version of our own room with many low brown tables, wearing just my yukata and no undergarments. My skin felt as bare as an oyster without its shell. As my friend and I sat on our knees in front of our tables eating shabu shabu (Japanese hot pot), I began to feel more comfortable in the yukata like all the other diners around me. The name shabu shabu was the Japanese onomatopoeia for the soft swishing of the chopsticks in our pot’s water. One by one, I grabbed vegetables, fish balls and thinly-sliced pieces of marbled beef with my wooden chopsticks and plunged them into the water, for a few seconds until they had cooked. Before each anticipated bite, I dipped my food in a soy sauce and then savoured the juicy flavours.

Next came the visit to the onsen. Upon entering the changing room, we carefully undressed, put our yukata into cubbies, and each grabbed a towel. It is disrespectful to be loud, to run and to tread around with outdoor shoes once one enters the changing rooms. Even the children who were hyper at dinner understood. We entered through glass doors that led to the onsen. To my left was a wall with a row of shower heads, each next to its own mirror, bathing products and a small stool. It is important for guests to clean themselves before entering the onsen, a place of rest and serenity.

I stepped into the 40 degrees Celsius water. Steam was drifting into the air and I felt as though I were a wrinkly piece of cabbage in a shabu shabu pot. At first, the water was too hot, so I lowered myself gradually. Once I was fully immersed, I folded my towel into a little square and placed it on top of my head as the other women did – to let my hair or towel touch the water would be rude. I feared making a mistake since I had learned all these rules last minute and felt that it would be easy to offend the Japanese people around me. But as no one was staring at us, my friend and I quickly began to unwind as the warmth of the water washed over us. Being naked in the onsen felt as freeing as being naked under my yukata. I had never felt so comfortable with my nudity. We blended in with the women around us; many had their eyes closed, some were sitting on rocks and everyone’s faces were slowly turning pink and sweaty from the heat. I felt as though I were truly becoming a part of the culture.

After the hot springs, I was glad to be back in the yukata; I had never felt more relaxed. I soon fell asleep on the thin cotton futon on the floor of our room, which was surprisingly a lot more comfortable than my own bed at home. I almost forgot that I had spent an entire day without wifi or any technology, far from the busy and packed city.

Wearing my yukata permitted me to welcome another culture. I had opened my body and mind to a side of Japanese culture that differed greatly from the nightlife of the brightly-lit cities and their prominently advancing world of technology. I realized that although the strict rules rooted in the tradition were initially daunting, they ultimately allowed me to feel a greater sense of peace and freedom that I had never experienced in my own culture.

One Woman Among A Million

Feature article

The Women’s March on Washington, which took place on January 21 of this year, was an event that drew people from all over the country.  It was a day dedicated in part to protesting President Donald J. Trump, the language he uses when discussing women, and the policies he promised to enact once in office.  The infamous words, “Grab ‘em by the pussy” struck a nerve with many during the campaign season and became a summation of Trump’s brash and unapologetic character.  My mother and I went down to Washington to express our disapproval of the values the new administration embraces.  My mother is a single parent and a proud Wellesley alum.  She strongly identifies with Hillary Clinton and has always believed and participated in civil disobedience.  I, on the other hand, am a first-time voter and very conscious of the effect Bernie Sanders has had on my peers, energizing their enthusiasm for politics; as a result I have not yet become quite so resolute in my opinions.  In my attempts to become an informed participant, I read many articles detailing the discourse surrounding the March, both those for and against it.

The March began as an idea on Facebook, ironically the same social media platform accused of facilitating the spread of misinformation that further divided members of the Democratic and Republican parties and aided a Trump victory.  Designed to echo the peaceful resistance methods of the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s March was meant to unify women and feminists from diverse backgrounds against a common adversary.  For people blindsided by the election results and feeling compelled to act, the March offered the tangible and immediate relief of action.  Young voters, for whom this was their first election, could now participate in what was possibly their first protest.  Older voters who have been fighting sexism for decades could match a new face, an orange face, to an old problem.  Even so, there were many critics of the March who claimed that the issues on the table were not intersectional and failed to address the diversity of modern American identity.  People showed concern that the March excluded people who didn’t identify as female— a response to increasing awareness of transgender and gender non-conforming identities.  Following the conversations started by important social and cultural moments, such as #OscarsSoWhite, the release of “Master of None” on Netflix, Beyoncé’s “Formation” video, and Trump’s use of the phrase “bad hombres,” the call for representation was especially crucial.   For many, this March seemed to fall short of being as inclusive as it could have been.  On the other hand, the idea of a Women’s March became a catchall for minorities and anyone taking issue with Trump.  For this reason, it felt as though no two people were marching for the same set of reasons.  I see this as an example of American diversity, while others saw it as a hindrance to the success of the March.

Prior to the March many articles surfaced on social media about people abstaining from the March because it didn’t perfectly align with their needs.  Some of those people expressed their desire to have the March itself, and by extension all the participants, officially recognize and address their personal hardships, which could often be explained through categorical descriptors like race, economic status, and sexuality, among others.  This became manifest as many Marchers were accused of white feminism, a term that suggests white feminists fail to acknowledge that the difficulties women of color face are very different and disproportionately worse.  White feminism also points to the fact that the face of the feminist movement is too often white. For example, from what I could tell, Gloria Steinem’s presence was widely publicized and she was the most highly anticipated speaker that day.   Despite the fact that March organizers gave away posters depicting a Muslim woman, a Latina woman, and a black woman to those who came without signs, I couldn’t help but notice most people in the crowd were white.  Some protesters held signs that reminded Marchers that 94% of black women voted against Trump while the majority of white women voted for him.  On the day of the March I sensed many separate factions protesting under the umbrella ideas of equality and representation.

Even so, I think the large public expression of feminism seen at the March was a long time coming.  The trend of celebrities embracing feminism shows that the movement is now a part of mainstream consciousness.  What I find interesting is that in our current political climate no one can become a feminist slowly. To avoid being judged and criticized as fake or discriminatory, each participant had to be all-inclusive and well-versed in the vocabulary, history, and current concerns specific to any given minority group.  I think this is too tall an order for any person, let alone a group numbering several hundred thousand.  Generally, anyone who begins to think about social equality thinks first in terms of themselves, grounding their understanding in concrete examples, before shifting their perspective to others. This process takes a lifetime.  Complaints about the March, which minimized its valiant and in some ways successful attempt at fellowship, seemed to stem mostly from impatience.

I have three white female cousins from Tennessee, a place that does not generally support feminist thinking, and despite this two of them attended the March.  Although they are new to feminism, they are beginning to get involved.  Progress is progress.  To me, the March was about showing an impressive force of resistance against Trump, and that required bodies.  While not everyone there was satisfied or in complete agreement, still they showed up. On the March and the days that followed the cacophony of voices asking to be heard – including the voices of my cousins – is both overwhelming and encouraging. I think that is a step in the right direction.

Almost Human

Feature article
Image of the outside of the Miraikan Museum
The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Japan (Miraikan) in Odaiba, Japan

Androids are robots designed to look human. I developed an interest in them while studying technology in an upper-level Japanese language course at Wellesley where we watched videos of androids that served as receptionists and held basic conversations. These machines that had once only existed in the realm of science fiction are now a reality. Naturally, while studying abroad in Japan, I leapt at the chance to see multiple androids up close at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Japan (Miraikan) in Odaiba, an island near Tokyo.

A long, steep escalator led to the exit of the train station (Tokyo Teleport Station) where the island of Odaiba came into view. I spotted a giant Ferris wheel off in the distance. Much closer stood a large, rectangular building that was more than seven stories high. Beside the building was a giant Gundam statue from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam that was nearly as tall as the building itself.  I couldn’t help but notice how futuristic everything seemed.

Further down the road sat Miraikan, a large building with floor-to-ceiling windows along all sides and a giant chrome globe protruding from the front. Scattered around the museum were several pools, and through the water, you could clearly see the illuminated granite surface.  

Inside, passing several interactive exhibits about robots, climate change, and infectious disease, I spotted a group gathering excitedly around a demonstration that seemed about to begin.

This exhibition area looked like a minimalist living room. There were two white couches facing one another. On one of the sofas sat Otonaroid, a young female android. Otonaroid was designed to look like the average Japanese woman. She had long black hair and was dressed in black slacks and a white vest. As an employee of the museum, she also had a badge with her name on it pinned to her chest. Her entire body was coated in a beige material similar to skin, and even her eyes glanced around in a humanoid fashion. As I watched, she came to life. “Who here thinks I am human?” she asked. Her voice sounded realistic, except for a faint hum that betrayed its mechanical origin. Her question was followed by peals of laughter from the audience at its absurdity – especially as a few children raised their hands, so confused were they by the realistic android before them. “Who here thinks I can move my arms and legs?” continued Otonaroid. She went on to explain that she could not move her legs; she was designed to facilitate communication between humans, so she didn’t need to walk. A moment later, a museum employee exited a booth next to the exhibit to explain that Otonaroid could not talk independently either. Instead, humans use a microphone in the connected sound booth to speak through her. In fact, depending on who was voicing her, she could either sound male or female. Later I discovered that her creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, has said that he believes that his androids are the future of telecommunications.

After the presentation, I wandered along until I found another exhibit. This one was tucked inside a large room that sat toward the end of the hall. I stepped inside and found myself in a dark room divided in half by a wall. In the middle of this wall was an opening that ran its length, just below eye-level. I crouched down to look inside. The second half of the room was painted white. On a stool in the center sat Kodomoroid, a young girl android with short black hair, wearing a white dress. Kodomoroid had one simple task: reading the news. She sat in that room all day and read the news online; the intention was to force the adults listening to think about the state of the world by viewing it through the eyes of a child. She spoke in a sing-song voice that mimicked that of human children; in fact, if you squinted at her or closed your eyes altogether, it would have proved difficult to distinguish Kodomoroid from a real child. I left the room deeply disturbed. In fact, I left the entire Miraikan pondering philosophical questions that would have seemed ludicrous before my visit, but, now that I had seen the pinnacle of android technology, seemed all too real.

Did these androids have feelings? Of course, the people who created them would say that they didn’t, but what if they did? In that case, should androids also have rights? It would be illegal to force a “real” girl to sit alone in a dark room day in and day out, reading world news, isolated from the outside world. It was ok – or maybe it wasn’t. What if “she” had feelings that humans simply dismissed?  I thought back to the Japanese children who were too young to understand that Otonaroid wasn’t like us, she wasn’t human. I thought about Kodomoroid, who seemed more humanoid than android. Of course androids don’t have feelings. But what if someday they could?

Shabbat Shalom!

Feature article

Every Friday afternoon, at 3 p.m., like clockwork, the city of Tel Aviv undergoes a transformation. Stores begin shutting down, the market is packed up, the bars and restaurants become silent. For the next twenty-four hours, finding even a carton of milk becomes a challenge.

In the Jewish tradition, this metamorphosis is better known as Shabbat.

Graffiti-covered metal shutters replace the store fronts and the standard greeting of “Shalom” turns into “Shabbat Shalom!” for a day.

Historically, from Friday evening to Saturday evening, sundown to sundown, observers of the tradition of Shabbat will retreat into their homes. In Hebrew, the term means “to cease, to end, to rest,” and is the equivalent of Christian Sunday, the day of rest and the day of worship.

Across Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel, each family gathers into a single house. The women of the households have spent the entire day preparing Challah bread, soups, and various types of mezze that will be served at the evening meal. Because Shabbat is a day for rest as well as for worship, it is tradition that nothing else is done but pray and eat. Food is kept on a slow-burning flame throughout the duration of Shabbat so such menial things as cooking do not interfere with the centuries-old tradition.

As the Torah dictates, at dinner the wine and food are blessed, everyone washes their hands, and the feast begins. Sometimes the meal is shared with friends in large numbers, sometimes it is a small family gathering. The common thread among all Jewish households, be they traditional or more modern in their ways, is the concept of Menuchah, the idea of rest. Worshipers remain in their homes until the end of Saturday, without using their phones, doing homework, watching television, or undertaking any other task that would take them from their prayers.

It may sound as though the guidelines for a “proper Shabbat” are rather strenuous, especially considering the millennial generation that is addicted to its technological gadgets, its social media accounts and its outings with friends. God forbid they miss out on a Friday night party! However, as the country of Israel, and in particular the larger cities such as Tel Aviv and Eilat, break out onto the global platform of technology and advancement, their traditions have followed. Just as western children will personalize their rooms and closets, in the new era Israelis and Jews across the world are personalizing their own traditions. Though the religious authority on how Shabbat should be observed remains unwavering, there has been a clear cultural shift in the greater Israeli cities and among younger generations.

One can see how the newer generations have created a variety of ways to find balance between pleasing their families and enjoying their youth.

In the liberal city of Tel Aviv, both ends of the spectrum exist.

Some will participate in the Friday night dinner with family and then celebrate their youth later in the night at the bar or club of their choosing. Others will gratefully retire their cell phones for the day to undergo a “technology cleanse.” Yet another group will disregard the tradition entirely, going about their days, and expressing their frustration at the limited resources offered in the city during those twenty-four hours.

In spite of the initial afternoon lull, Tel Aviv turns into a vibrant and energetic city by evening-time: most of the hip restaurants, bars and clubs are now owned by twenty-somethings who are more concerned with running their businesses than wasting an entire day’s income on a rigid tradition. The newer generations are catering more and more to their millennial peers, and to increasing numbers of tourists passing through their cities.

Shabbat has a varying effect on the passers-by, the study-abroad students and the tourists of Tel Aviv. For some, it is simply frustrating: the stores and cultural attractions all closed, the streets deserted until night time, and the hotels with their peculiar elevators without buttons that, on a loop, stop at every floor. A tourist that does not know any better might get stuck in the longest elevator ride of their life.

Others, those who are in town for more than a weekend getaway, may become grateful for the tradition: it provides an excuse to be lazy and relaxed for twenty-four hours. As for the party-goers, they are free to dance all night and sleep all day.

Though among Jews Shabbat is a religious and historical tradition, it has in time turned into a weekly cultural event. The evening dinner has become an excuse to have over friends, new and old. Its less rigid guidelines now allow for secular people and other religious minorities to partake in the process. In a conversation, you are more likely to invite the other over for Shabbat dinner, rather than a regular, week-day coffee. It has turned into a special evening for the practicing and non-practicing, religious or not.

With the modernization of the tradition, a program was created in the larger Israeli cities that connects newcomers with natives to share a Shabbat dinner, as an introduction to the city and its traditions. Elsewhere, we might do this by touring the city with a newcomer, or taking them to a fun event in the coolest neighborhood.

In Tel Aviv, what brings people together is a Shabbat dinner.

Connect for a Moment

Blog Post

Since infancy, whenever I went out with my mother, others would see a young Chinese girl accompanied by a tall middle-aged Caucasian woman.  I am adopted (a result of China’s “one child policy”) but culturally identify 100% as an American.  In the summer between fourth and fifth grade my mother, after reading many parenting books, decided to bring me back to China.  Her reasoning was that it would allow me to get to know my birth culture and I would perhaps find comfort in the experience of being around people who looked like me.  We joined a program that lasted three weeks: two were spent in Beijing, where we learned to speak Chinese with other adoptive families and saw all the biggest tourist attractions.  For the final week each family split up and traveled to the child’s respective hometown, making sure to visit the local orphanage.

You’d think visiting the orphanage would bring up a surge of emotion and leave a lasting impression, but it was my daily interactions with the Chinese people that stuck with me.  Everywhere we went we were a spectacle.  The trip took place before the Beijing Olympics when China was still emerging from its long isolation.  A group of white people invited stares and questions.  Naturally the Chinese people, noticing the foreigners, would come up to us children and question us in Chinese.  I couldn’t understand a word they said and I remember being not only apologetic at their disappointment but also feeling confused and startled by their assumed familiarity.  This happened everywhere we went and was often only sorted out when our translator stepped in. On the streets, our group was constantly stared at and harassed by beggars who associated white skin with generosity and wealth.  This meant that we were treated like celebrities at the local restaurants; servers frequently brought out foods that were not on the menu.  The cooks clearly wanted to show us the best China had to offer and I could tell that they, like any Italian grandmother, took deep satisfaction in watching our eyes roll back in enjoyment.

Despite the many daily activities, I found time to swim at the local pool with Mimi, a Chinese-American adoptee friend I had made.  My mom later told me that a friend of our translator, not realizing we were in her program, examined us saying, “Those two children look Chinese and yet aren’t Chinese.” He noticed that Mimi and I were doing underwater handstands and splashing while the other children swam laps; In China, playing at our level of noise and spontaneity was restricted to toddlers and babies.  Together Mimi and I stood out more than I did by myself, even among Westerners.  As we rode the elevator back to the hotel room a middle-aged British man overheard our conversation and profusely praised our English.  Now I can understand his assumption: Asian-looking people you see in China are native Chinese speakers.  At the time his approval of my English felt odd and alienating; apparently I was an anomaly to everyone.

Once we had traveled away from Beijing, on our way to my hometown, I began to interact with other Chinese kids. The train we took was packed to bursting.  The strategy of the railroad company seemed to be to sell as many tickets as possible regardless of any fire code or number of seats available.  Although my mother and I were traveling alone we drew the usual crowd.  As it happened, this was a vacation week, so most of the passengers were school teachers and children going out to the countryside for a respite from the heat of the city.  To pass the time my mother had brought travel-sized Connect Four, a tic-tac-toe-type game, and since the concept was simple enough I soon found myself competing against all the other children who’d been drawn by the sight of the game.  After our translator explained the rules the parents would push a child forward to take on the American.  I won most of the time, since I was the most familiar with Connect Four.  Some parents took pleasure in simply watching the game play out, happy to be entertained during the uncomfortable ride; others expressed frustration when their child lost.  One man even dared to insult me calling me Japanese. It was in this environment that I felt the most comfortable.  I wasn’t being treated like a foreigner but like an equal.  No one was bending over backward to show us a good time or pestering me with questions I couldn’t understand.  There was no conversation: the onlookers were in rapt attention, their love of amicable competition transcending the barriers of language and culture.  All the parents, not least my mother, shared in the universal experience of rooting for their own child.  In rural China, where English was non-existent and white skin still exotic, I felt we were understood.