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The Inspirational Chuck Johnson

Profile

It’s always been an uphill battle. That’s the way it’s supposed to be though. If it’s easy, it means you aren’t challenging yourself enough.

Chuck Johnson is an international action film actor based in Tokyo, Japan. A native of Michigan, when he began training in Olympic Taekwondo at the age of 15 he would never have imagined where he was going to end up! In just 2 ½ years Chuck earned his black belt; 6 days later he was named Michigan State Junior Olympic Taekwondo champion in both sparring and forms. He went on to study the sport in its native Korea, while he attended Yonsei University, under the tutelage of a former Korean national champion. During this time, he also competed overseas in Tokyo and Hong Kong. In 2001, while completing a course at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, he became the Inter-collegiate Taekwondo champion of Hong Kong even though he had originally come to the tournament just to watch.

During trips back to the U.S., Chuck also won the KTAA National Championship for sparring and forms and was a gold medalist at the State Games of America.

Inspired by a friend from Korea, moving to Japan was originally intended to be temporary—a gap year between college and the ‘real world’. After Chuck moved to Tokyo he worked an assortment of interesting jobs, including the standard work often taken on by expat Americans: teaching English. More unusual jobs followed: thanks to his physique, skill, and facility with English and Korean he was soon working as a bodyguard for visiting international celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone, Orlando Bloom, Jackie Chan, and Kim Sun Hee. However, the craziest job he says he had was work as a stripper.

I was doing fight choreography training during the day, so I needed a job that I could do at night; so that led me to that. Part of my work involved drinking with clients and customers though, so it was pretty tough. When I went to training, half or more of the time I was going hungover.

One of Japan’s first foreign stuntmen and today a film industry veteran of 15 years, Chuck started out on his action career in 2004 when his martial arts skill led him to be cast in Godzilla: Final Wars. The moment he walked onto the set, he knew that was what he wanted to do. It wasn’t easy though! At the time, he couldn’t speak a word of Japanese. Still, while he was on set he was able to meet the Japanese action director Yuji Shimomura (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid V) and soon after began his study of East Asian-style fighting choreography. The first African American to make an international name for himself in the Far East’s action film industry, he is also the first American to have been trained extensively in the art of Katana Tate (Japanese theatrical swordplay).

It has been an uphill battle with an assortment of highs and lows, but Chuck Johnson is the sort of man who knows how to face those challenges with humor and firm determination. Good-natured and quick to laugh, this father says his biggest advice for people is to remember:

Life is really, really going to test you. Know that. Own it. Push through it.

Chuck has over 25 years of martial arts experience. In addition to holding the rank of master in Olympic Taekwondo, Chuck is ranked in Capoeira, Karate, Kobudo, and Judo. Additionally, he has studied Wing Chun Kung Fu, Hapkido, Hanmudo, Krav Maga, boxing, Kickboxing, and Tai Chi. He is also the chief developer of Phat English, a system which uses hip-hop music to teach the subtle nuances of English pronunciation, a prize-winning writer, and founder of the Tokyo-based company Quiet Flame Productions. He also runs the Quiet Flame Stunt Team, Asia’s first all-English speaking multi-ethnic stunt team.

Chuck has appeared in over 50 dramas, films, commercials, and video games in Asia and the United States. In 2012, he even became the face of Village Vanguard’s Gachi Muchi brand curry. In addition to his native English, Chuck speaks, reads, and writes Chinese and Korean, languages in which he’s self-taught.

 

 

 

 

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The Boys’ Club: An Antiquated, Entitled System of Oppression

Op-Ed

No matter where you look it seems like there’s a new headline emerging about admissions fraud or gender discrimination, as elites manipulate the situation to their advantage. As if it weren’t bad enough that the less fortunate, myself included, have to compete with affluent students whose parents can pay for private school, tutors, test preparation courses, coaches, campus visits, and more to sharpen their academic skills and burnish their résumés. Innate ability can only take a student so far without the opportunity to actually take advantage of it. Money is a large enough hurdle without our sex also being held against us.

Now proof has emerged that parents have taken the extra step of bribing officials to get their kids into college, paying for test results to be manipulated, and having experts write their children’s entrance essays?! Not that any of us is surprised to hear this, but I feel outrage nevertheless. Scandals such as these are, unfortunately, true of most countries. However, having lived in Japan for over a year, I was surprised to discover this country was no exception to the scandalous trend.

You think it’s hard getting into medical school here in the U.S.? It could be worse. Getting into medical school in Japan is a hugely challenging process for two reasons. First, the difficulty level of the entrance exam is extremely high. The necessary knowledge for the exam is not covered in high school, which means just preparing for the test already requires that you attend an additional prep school every day after regular classes for as long as four years—and these classes themselves aren’t cheap either. Second, even if you do pass the exam and the interview, private medical school can cost from $180,000 to $270,000. This is 5 to 7 times the regular cost of a college education in Japan. Furthermore, they don’t have financial aid there like we do, so this is money your family is expected to pay out of pocket. It’s not uncommon for students to have to take the entrance exam multiple times, and each medical school has a separate exam that students have to pay to take. Thus, just taking the exam already involves a significant financial, physical, and psychological cost. Imagine all the hours of sacrifice and study, only to be cheated out of a place as less-qualified applicants circumvent the system.

Last year, an investigation into the medical school acceptance of an education ministry bureaucrat’s son in exchange for backdoor promises of research funds revealed more than expected. It brought to light widespread score manipulation based on donations and connections—and on gender. Women’s scores were being purposely decreased across the board at multiple top medical schools in order to keep their acceptance rate around 30%, so men would remain the majority. Investigation revealed this had been going on for more than a decade, and more than two decades for some of the schools. The guilty have claimed a variety of justifications, the main one being that women cannot be “real doctors” and will just leave their profession if they have a child or get married. Considering that women are traditionally expected to quit their jobs if they marry or have a child, is it any wonder? Given Japan’s current birthrate plight (its population is shrinking: of the 32 countries with a population of 40+ million, Japan ranks at the bottom with just 12.3% of the overall population being children), you would think they would be taking this more seriously. How hard would it really be to expand the child care options and support these women so they can do their job? Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was recently re-elected, promised to fix the daycare shortage and put women in positions of power. Like the head-bent apologies of those responsible for the med school admissions scandal, Abe’s promises seem likely to be nothing more than empty words.

In the 2017 Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 114th out of 144 countries in terms of economic participation and opportunity and 123rd in terms of political empowerment. Approximately 50% of Japanese women are college-educated, one of the world’s highest levels, yet rampant sexism and discrimination against women make it difficult for them to find high-level or full-time positions. Only 4% of managerial positions in Japan are held by women, and on average women earn just 70% of what a man with the same job and experience would receive. This boys’ club should have long since faded into the annals of history. That this antiquated, entitled system of oppression is still such a systemic problem is  absolutely unforgivable no matter where you live.

Here in the U.S., women are similarly shortchanged on pay and advancement because our reproductive capacity makes us a “liability” in the workforce. Plenty of memes pop up on the internet everyday about how hot it is to find a man who offers to wash the dishes or pick the kids up from school. That’s because it is not expected of them. Women are expected to marry, have children, and take care of the home. Sure, we’re “allowed” to work, but we are still expected to do everything else.

America or Japan, getting into school or making it in the workplace—discrimination and unfair practices seem to be everywhere you look. Officials bow their heads to apologize or are replaced, but it’s all window dressing. Nothing really changes. We need to start taking this seriously and level the playing field.

Women Without Men – An Allegory Falls Flat

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

Shirin Neshat, primarily known for her video installations and photography exploring gender issues in the Islamic world, forays outside familiar territory with Women Without Men (2009), her first feature-length film. Though born in Iran, she currently resides in New York, having been banned from entering Iran since 1996 due to her politically controversial photographs and experimental videos. Overly ambitious and ultimately unsuccessful, Women Without Men was originally envisioned by Neshat as a video installation. The film was loosely adapted from feminist writer Shahrnush Parsipur’s 1989 novel of the same name. This audacious debut feature looks back at the pivotal moment in 1953 when the progressive Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown. The Shah was then re-installed as dictator in a coup d’état engineered by the American and British governments. This film, which won Neshat the Silver Lion award for best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival, revolves around the lives of four women from different classes and backgrounds during this turbulent period in Iran’s history.

Representative of the expectations their society places on women, the four characters are largely cliché and their behavior often predictable. Munis (Shabnam Toloui), a serious woman obsessed with listening to the radio for reports on the Mossadegh situation and eager to participate in the street protests, refuses to limit herself to the circumscribed roles approved by her society and mandated by her tyrannical brother Amir Khan (Essa Zahir). In love with this brother who makes Munis’s life a misery, her conservative friend Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) is a timider woman. Emaciated prostitute Zarin (Orsolya Tóth) impulsively flees the brothel where she worked after the men’s faces start to blend together into a surreal blank. Lastly, Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad) is a stylish older woman unhappily married to the powerful General Sahri (Tahmoures Tehrani). After an old flame rolls into town she leaves her husband to live in a lovely country orchard where she encounters the other three women, who also arrive seeking refuge before the military coup intrudes on their peaceful idyll. Through these characters, the film celebrates women’s resilience and courage in the face of an oppressive, unyielding patriarchy that is present on personal, political and cultural levels.

While each of these women represents an aspect of what their country expects women to be, they simultaneously buck these roles, which gives them a presence greater than that of simple flesh-and-blood. Munis is desperate to take an active role in the politics of her nation, to affect change, but is forbidden by her fundamentalist brother to set foot outside the house or act other than the demure woman he expects her to be. Zarin is abused daily by men in the brothel as her only way to survive and get by, eventually leading her to flee to a women’s public bath where she scrubs herself bloody in an attempt to feel clean of their touch. Fakhri is reviled by her husband because she is menopausal and no longer sexually desirable to him; when her former lover returns she runs away with him to the orchard. These women come together in the almost magical orchard after their travails to form a family, cementing the importance of freedom and working together to attain it.

The director’s instincts as a photographer are evident in every frame of Women Without Men. The treatment of light to contrast with shadow and the expert use of color to paint each scene with rich, shifting hues creates a realistic view of the world that is still, at some level, magical.  The precise compositions of each shot present alternately troubled and serene landscapes, which contribute to the almost fantastical atmosphere of the movie. In contrast to the lush color palette of the orchard scenes, the scenes taking place in Tehran (re-created in Morocco) are muted and monochromatic-more like a newsreel. Each frame in the film appears carefully composed and it gives Women Without Men the ambience of an exhibition whose figures have come to life, like Pygmalion’s Galatea, to act out this tragic feminist allegory.

It’s more than just the composition and palette of each frame that lends the film its fantastical quality—it’s the surrealistic elements as well. This is especially evident when Zarin looks up at a client’s face and sees that it is completely featureless; this initiates the breakdown that ultimately leads her to leave the brothel. The orchard is another of these surreal elements. Purchased by Fakhri it is clearly located in the real world, but its representation gives it more the feel of a dream space set apart from reality–sometimes menacing, sometimes divine.

Both the original writer and the director have been persecuted by the country of their birth because of their beliefs. Women Without Men allows viewers to feel their emotions—and through them those of the women still held down by the men in their lives—and desire to be free and true to themselves in these characters. These performances are successful largely due to the skill of their actresses in achieving the right level of emotional intensity in each scene: Shahrzad’s portrayal of her character’s dissatisfaction and desperate desire to maintain sexual and social confidence, Tóth’s display of fierce intensity, Tolouei’s depiction of pride and deep-seated melancholy.

The actresses’ portrayals are especially important given Neshat’s lack of experience with extended narrative. While her compositions are arresting, the narrative sometimes fails to pack much punch. The film feels awkward and overloaded and, despite decent performances by the actors, the viewer never gets to know their characters. Ultimately this results in the emotional impact of their respective fates falling flat and somewhat predictable. Neshat bit off more than she could chew in this ambitious debut with its heavy socio-political and cultural commentary. Nevertheless, her film is worth watching for its message, striking imagery, and distinct blend of realism and imagination in the service of an affecting feminist message.

Fear and Ignorance Open the Door to Disease

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor,

While Japan contributes a significant amount to UNICEF towards the elimination of measles, and their infant mortality rates are amongst the lowest in the world, children there still die from preventable diseases.  The recent outbreak of measles, as described in the news article “Japan Battles Worst Measles Outbreak in Years,” (World, February 22) is not an isolated incident and has an impact beyond the island nation. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Japan has been one of the countries most responsible for exporting measles to the U.S. over the years. If nothing else, that makes it a keen point of interest for us. Just as an individual’s choice not to get vaccinated can impact those they come in contact with, Japan’s choices can impact our nation.

The measles vaccine was first introduced in Japan in 1966, followed by the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1989. However, the MMR vaccine was pulled in 1993 due to unexpectedly high incidences of aseptic meningitis. This led to widespread public distrust towards vaccines which, in 1994, resulted in them no longer being mandated by law. This fear, while understandable, led to a regulatory vacuum that left the country vulnerable to otherwise preventable diseases.

Although Japan is in the process of overhauling its vaccination policy and has made progress against measles in the last decade, the Japanese still have a way to go before they have eradicated the disease. Japan doesn’t have an “anti-vaxxer” movement like the one we are dealing with in the U.S., where the irrational and unfounded belief that vaccines lead to autism has become deeply entrenched, but many Japanese don’t understand how not being vaccinated can affect others. The groups largely responsible for the current measles outbreak in Japan were very willing to get vaccinated when they realized their actions could have a negative impact on others in their community. This shows a clear need for more understanding –both here and there–about the importance of vaccines and how they work. The measles outbreak in Japan has a lesson for all of us: promote science to combat fear and ignorance.

More Than a Game

Feature Report

Success at go requires the tactic of the soldier, the exactness of the mathematician, the imagination of the artist, the inspiration of the poet, the calm of the philosopher, and the greatest intelligence. — Zhang Yunqi, Weiqi de faxia, Beijing, Internal document of the Chinese Weiqi Institute 1991, p. 2

K-chk! The sound drifts to my ears as I make my way past stacks of books and people comfortably reading in plush chairs by the windows that span the wall. K-chk! It comes again as I progress through the library. Before I know it, the stacks open up to reveal cream-colored wooden tables and chairs inhabited by an assortment of people bent over in focused intensity. The source of that resounding snap is in front of me: the snap of slate stones being played on a large wooden board. I stand and watch for a moment, the players oblivious to my presence.

I first came across Go when I was in middle school. I have always been a voracious reader–you name it, I read it–but somehow, I moved from reading Homer and Jules Verne to books less highly regarded- i.e., manga. One of my favorite series was Death Note, so I was thrilled to discover the artist had illustrated another series, called Hikaru no Go. The series is an inspiring coming-of-age tale about a young boy haunted by the spirit of an ancient Go master. Initially resistant, the boy comes to learn and love the abstract strategy game and grows up to become a pro in his own right. I became enthralled by the game, reading books about its history and solving puzzles; before long I was looking online for people to play against.

The rules of Go are simple; two players take turns placing black or white stones on a 19×19 grid board, and whoever captures the most territory is the winner. However, if the rules of the game are simple, the strategies needed to obtain victory are complex. Considered more strategically challenging than chess, Go inspired chess grand master Edward Lasker to say

While the Baroque rules of chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play go.

That’s fitting, given that the number of possible board configurations in Go (2 x 10170) exceeds the number of atoms in the universe (1080), while chess has just 1050 legal positions.

The game is played on a solid block of wood, called a Goban in Japanese, which represents the earth. Each right angle signifies uprightness. The black and white stones stand for yin and yang, while their placement across the board represents the heavenly bodies. Unlike in chess or checkers, in Go the stones are placed at intersections. Nineteen thin, lacquered black lines run parallel to each edge; as a result, there are 360 plus 1 different positions at which to play. 360 represents the number of days in the ancient lunar year, the one is seen as supreme and the source of the other numbers, and governor of the four quarters. The four quarters of the board represent each of the four seasons. The 72 points around the edge of the board come from the weeks of the calendar, and the 9 black circles, called stars or hoshi, which correspond to the nine lights of heaven and mark the locations where handicap stones would be placed if they are used.

The best boards are made out of Kaya wood. Kaya boards have a bright, vivid color and a hardness that is ideal for use with shell and slate stones, which produce a lively and resonant click when struck without damaging the board. However, the wood is slow-growing and boards are typically cut from trees over 700 years old, leading to high prices.  Thus, more affordable spruce, also called shinkaya, has become the popular choice for the modern player. Go boards also come in several other woods, all of which are hard woods and have a resonant quality so that placement of the stones results in a clear, sharp sound.

Arguably the oldest of all known intellectual games, Go is the national game of Japan. It originated in China and is commonly attributed to Emperor Shun, who reigned from 2255 to 2206 B.C.E., which would make it approximately 4200 years old. Go was introduced to Japan in the year 735 C.E., when it was brought back to the country by an envoy to China. Originally played by the noble class, it would eventually reach samurai, monks, and even tradespeople. All three of Japan’s greatest generals, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu, were devotees of the game as it was the cognitive equivalent of a martial art. The first state institution opened to teach Go in the late 1500’s, and the Go Academy was founded soon after Ieyasu became Shogun in 1603. The game has only continued to increase in popularity over time. A 2016 survey by the International Go Federation’s 75-member nations found 46 million players worldwide, although the actual number is likely to be even greater.

Part of the game’s modern popularity is due to its reputation as a martial art for the mind, with Go seen as having strategic value in business and political communities, in children’s education, and in tournaments where victory is a way to display national pride. The game can help children to improve their focus and memory. Children who are especially talented can join Go schools as young as five and turn pro before their twelfth birthday like Lee Se-Dol, one of the greatest Go players of the modern era. Professional Go tournaments are held around the world, with prize purses as high as $500,000. The major Japanese tournaments come with titles and purses in the hundreds of thousands. With dozens of competitions held each year, star players can earn millions of dollars. Even those who do not become household names can make a good living from the game through local tournaments and teaching.  The publication of the international thriller Shibumi and the translation of Nobel prize winner Kawabata’s The Master of Go in the 1970s, as well as the appearance of Go in movies like A Beautiful Mind, helped to spread the game to the West. But, it was the emergence of the megahit manga and anime series Hikaru no Go that sparked the most recent resurgence of the the national sport of Japan both at home and abroad.

K-chk! That resonant clack as stone hits board calls me out of my reveries. The people playing in the Cambridge Public Library today are members of the Massachusetts Go Association, which is just one division of the American Go Association. This is but one of many meets that are held each week across the Boston area, each of which attracts a wide range of people. Go doesn’t appeal to just the young or the old. Its appeal doesn’t vary based on where you come from, how educated you are, or what gender you are. It is a game full of possibility and inundated with a rich cultural history. Here in the library today I see men and women, children and adults, and skin that runs the gamut of colors. I smile, glad for the chance to finally play in person against someone else who loves the game. I greet a woman whose game has just finished and slide into a seat.

いただきます

Itadakimasu

Blog Post

Neon lights glow in a riotous rainbow of color amidst the storefronts of a lively Shinjuku night as we exit the bustle of the subway and re-enter the city. He’s taking me to try Japanese barbeque for dinner tonight. I’ve been living here for months now, but this will be my first time trying it. We walk off the main thoroughfare, turning down a side street before descending a shady set of stairs. I glance to the side at Junpei and he smiles at me reassuringly. “It will be good!” he promises. I smile back and follow him into the restaurant. Outwardly unassuming, the location leaves me hesitant. It’s only after we open the door and step into the hazy interior to be embraced by friendly commotion that I shed my uncertainty about the location. It’s a neighborhood sort of place, where a visitor like me is rarely seen. The place you have to happen upon or grow up next to. I should feel like an outsider here, but I don’t. It’s boisterous, and dark, and matches absolutely none of my expectations. I love it. As we are guided down an aisle I catch snippets of conversation, more felt than heard, from the tables to either side. Joyous, celebratory, with comfortable abandon people’s lives play out in the room about us. Finally, our waiter stops to usher us into our own little nook and hands us the menu. As he goes to get us our drinks, I pause for a moment to look around and really take it all in.
 

Surrounded by horizontal planes of black-varnished wood, we have an illusion of privacy, but can still sneak peeks of our neighbors between the boards. Each table has its own little gray stove set in the middle with charcoal bricks nursing fiery crimson hearts. Next to it are an assortment of jugs, a couple of shakers with spices and pepper inside and a pile of small navy plates for dipping sauces. The walls have been painted a creamy hue of beige, or yellow, it’s hard to tell from our table. However, like the wood that embraces us, the ceiling has been painted black. A shiny metal bell-shape hangs above each table to draw up the smoke rising in tendrils from the charcoal stove, but the place is still smoky, and the lights are haloed in the clouds. That industrial bell, somehow so fitting here, snakes up and into one of the many large black tubes that try in vain to draw the smoke away and form a thick, tangled web on the ceiling above us. It’s like no place I’ve ever been in, but everyone is so full of life that I feel myself drawn into the excitement of this new experience.

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I stare at him wordlessly for a moment before sputtering, “I can’t believe you just ordered that!” He smiles and quirks his eyebrows mischievously at me before taking a casual swig from his tankard of beer and telling me that I should give it a try. My stomach churns with uncertainty at the thought of eating tongue, and liver, and all those crazy things my dad would never cook back home. But…he’s right, I find myself thinking. I am in Japan. I should give it a try. The food begins arriving at our little table and distracts me from thoughts of the more unusual body parts Junpei wants me to try. I watch spellbound as he masterfully begins placing food on the grill in front of me while explaining how to cook it, when to turn it, what the best sauces are for dipping, and if it’s better eaten alone or accompanied by something else. He, of course, thinks it all tastes better with beer. But I’m already drunk enough in his company and my enthrallment with the whole novel process, I don’t need any assistance. “いただきます” (Itadakimasu) we say together as we begin eating to express our gratitude for the food. With the unusual meat temporarily forgotten amongst more familiar parts, I find myself extending my silver chopsticks eagerly for each sizzling piece.

He has me try each type of sauce and pairing. I’m a Texas girl, I was born and raised on barbeque, but I have never had it like this. The sizzle as each piece of thinly cut meat hits the metal grate, the licks of flame as fat pops and drizzles onto the bricks, the way the meat curls and colors with the heat. I am entranced. Each piece of meat rings with a delicious and unique litany of flavor as it hits my tongue and its juices fill my mouth. Before I know it, the only tongue in my mouth is not my own. My eyes pop open wider in surprise, caught off guard, as he tells me what I just ate. I swallow, uncertain, as he watches for my reaction. It’s nothing at all like what I would have imagined! A dim red color with only a faint marbling to it, the meat doesn’t really look or feel like tongue. It’s a bit denser than what I ate earlier, but it’s not bad. He chuckles at my reaction and I blush a bit. Daring me, he sets the chicken livers on to cook next. The livers are small, rounded little gobbets of meat and look more fearsome to me than the tongue did. My stomach does a little dance again and I glance down at my assortment of small blue plates and the gamut of flavors they contain. I comfort myself with this reminder of the sauces I can dip the meat in if needed. And I still have plenty of water left if I need to gulp it down quickly. I remind myself of how amazing everything had tasted up till now and steal a mischievous sip of Junpei’s beer before reaching out for one of those little balls of meat. I plunk it in my mouth and squint contemplatively as it hits my tongue. Weird…a different texture than I’m accustomed to in my meat…but not bad, I conclude. He adds another piece to the grill and I breathe a sigh of relief it’s just カルビ – short rib.