{"id":880,"date":"2023-09-06T11:38:27","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T15:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/?p=880"},"modified":"2023-09-07T12:09:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T16:09:51","slug":"chi-tsung-chang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/2023\/09\/06\/chi-tsung-chang\/","title":{"rendered":"Chi-Tsung Chang"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chi-Tsung Chang<\/strong> is currently a PhD student in the Film & Media Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds an MFA in Film and Television Studies from Boston University. Outside of academia, he has a professional background in software engineering and video production. Chi-Tsung\u2019s research interests include queer theory, racial and gender representation, industry studies, political economy, and digital media.<\/em><\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
After Yang, Comes Asian Futurity?<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

After Yang<\/em>, written and directed by Korean-American filmmaker Kogonada, is a 2021 science fiction film that tells the story of Yang (Justin H. Min) and his American family in the aftermath of his loss. Yang, a Chinese-presenting robot, or a techno sapien<\/em>, suddenly becomes unresponsive after a family dance competition in the opening credit sequence. As Jake, the adoptive father (played by Colin Farrell), embarks on the quest to repair the unconscious Yang, the family members each introspect their life and the meaning of Yang\u2019s words and deeds. With the box office success of Crazy Rich Asians<\/em> and the subsequent emergence of more Asian-led projects, one could say Hollywood is finally joining the tech and the finance field in the so-called \u201cAsian Century,\u201d a futurist-conceived time that sees \u201ca reorientation of global activity from the West toward the East.\u201d[1]<\/span><\/a> However, in American popular culture, \u201cAsianness\u201d has already made its way into the science fiction genre in the 1960s\u2014seen in foundational works such as Frank Herbert\u2019s Dune<\/em> and Philip K. Dick\u2019s The Man in the High Castle<\/em>. Betsy Huang writes that, as renowned authors such as Philip K. Dick and Ursula K. Le Guin \u201clook to Daoist thought as a means of cognitive revision and spiritual transformation for the West,\u201d the \u201ctechnologizing of the Orient\u201d paves the way to \u201cthe postmodern techno-Orientalism of the eighties cyberpunk and beyond.\u201d[2]<\/span><\/a> But whether it is the premodern techno-Orientalism of Star Wars<\/em>\u2014also heavily inspired by Dune<\/em>\u2014evoking ancient Chinese philosophy with the absence of Asian bodies (until Disney and Lucasfilm try to court the Chinese theater audience with the casting of Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story<\/em> in 2016), or the postmodern techno-Orientalism of Blade Runner<\/em> and its depiction of a Los Angeles already conquered by highly industrious and technologized Asians<\/p>\n

In Vivan L. Huang\u2019s Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability<\/em>, she proposes a reconsideration of inscrutability\u2014from an Orientalist rhetoric that casts Asians \u201cimpenetrable or unfathomable to in\u00advestigation; quite unintelligible, entirely mysterious\u201d from the perspective of \u201cEuro-American subjectivity\u201d to an Asian diaspora-centric way of engagement that \u201cprotect a creative space and time in which minoritized lifeworlds may exist for their own audience.\u201d[3]<\/span><\/a> The term \u201csurface relation\u201d refers to how the Asian population and its culture are flattened and homogenized, but it also describes a way to interface with other people while maintaining cultural opaqueness. Huang uses a passage from the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> from 1906 to illustrate the common temporal paradox that simultaneously portray Chinese people as \u201cthe awakening infant\u201d and \u201cforty-four centuries in the making\u201d\u2014adding racist anatomical descriptions of their lack of expressions and stressing cultural difference, the Oriental subject is conceived as the temporal, epistemological\u2014and as history has proved, legal\u2014Other.<\/p>\n

Likewise, in Long T. Bui\u2019s Model Machines: A History of the Asian as Automaton<\/em>, Bui traces the racialization of Asians as automatons back to European Renaissance and the humanist project to determine the qualities\u2014\u201cself-control, rationality, and autonomy\u201d\u2014that separate \u201chumans\u201d from nature, and so the metaphor of the Oriental automata emerged in the seventeenth century to put in contrast with the humanistic values possessed by the enlightened Occident.[4]<\/span><\/a> The European nations\u2019 colonial conquest and dominance on the world stage cemented the idea of \u201cAfricans, Oceanians, and Amerindians [occupying] an obtuse place in humanity\u2019s primordial past,\u201d with Asian nations in the process of passing out of history and Europe as \u201cthe absolute end of history.\u201d[5]<\/span><\/a> The Oriental automata then manifested in the colonial myth to describe colonized laborers as human machines to \u201csubstantiate white racial superiority\u201d and justify the exploitation of colonized subjects, since \u201cadherence to primitive lifestyles meant they did not maximize or utilize the ecological abundance of nature.\u201d[6]<\/span><\/a> The rhetoric of Asians as automatons later coincided with the emancipation movement that threatens the African slave trade, and the demand for labor \u201conly reinforced workers\u2019 nonhuman status rather than encouraging their inclusion in the Western humanistic tradition.\u201d[7]<\/span><\/a> For the Irish and Italian workers and American progressives who advocated for better pay and working conditions, the racialized\u2014 \u201cmachine-like\u201d and \u201cunnatural\u201d\u2014work ethics of the Chinese workers render them into the threat of automation akin to new factory machines.[8]<\/span><\/a> The inhumanity of Chinese workers was considered fundamentally incompatible to the American society and its idea of personhood, since they \u201c[contributed] nothing to the market or the bourgeois family\u201d and were viewed as \u201ctireless (and sexless) drones.\u201d[9]<\/span><\/a> The general anti-Chinese sentiment pushed Congress to sign the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 into law and banned all Chinese immigrants, who were instrumental to the California Gold Rush and the building of the transcontinental railroad.<\/p>\n

Yet, as the \u201cOrientals\u201d are raced as a people of dull but diligent workers, Japan\u2019s rising automobile and tech industry between the \u201870s and \u201880s fueled the xenophobia which gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. However, Japan\u2019s innovative enterprise did not emancipate itself from the model machine myth; rather, the rhetorical tool of colonial subjugation is simply retooled. Japan\u2019s cutting-edge development of robotics feeds into the anxiety of losing jobs to automation, and Japan\u2019s mastery from heavy industries to consumer electronics \u201cdid little to change views of this country as an evil empire,\u201d as the US trade deficit to Japan was referred to as the \u201ceconomic Pearl Harbor.\u201d[10]<\/span><\/a> In a similar vein, cyberpunk as a genre operates in the language of colonial conquest, but now it is the \u201cOccident\u201d that is being invaded by the \u201cOrient.\u201d The trope of the <\/span>rainy street scene filled with neon light signs is a hallmark of the cyberpunk genre, and while the Asianness is appropriated to signify the future, according to Thomas Foster, the depiction of cyberpunk\u2019s cityscape contains \u201cthe ideological and often specifically racist subtext that informs the language of urban \u2018ruin,\u2019 \u2018decay,\u2019 or \u2018blight,\u2019 language more often used to describe racialized \u2018inner-city\u2019 ghettoes than cities in general.\u201d[11]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

For cyberpunk, time and location\u2014the \u201c2019\u201d and \u201cLos Angeles\u201d in Blade Runner<\/em>\u2014are vital in conveying the logic of conquest. The homogenous time, as theorized by Bliss Cua Lim, is \u201cepitomized by the ideology of progress, served as a temporal justification for imperialist expansion.\u201d[12]<\/span><\/a> The teleologic of homogenous time conceives the past and the future as the logical extension of the present, and the fixed temporal setting of \u201c2019\u201d or \u201c2049\u201d collapses all potential imaginaries into an inevitable singularity. Similarly, the name \u201cNeo-Tokyo\u201d\u2014simultaneously denoting the progress of a new world and the decay of the old one\u2014is often invoked in many cyberpunk media, including Akira<\/em>, Ghost in the Shell<\/em>, and as one of electronic music artist Perturbator\u2019s songs, whose naming scheme for his cyberpunk concept albums fringes on pastiche. In Sarah Ahmed\u2019s \u201cAffect Economies\u201d essay that connects affect to objects, Ahmed argues that \u201cborders are constructed and indeed policed in the very feeling that they have already been transgressed: the other has to get too close, in order to be recognized as an object of fear, and in order for the object to be displaced.\u201d[13]<\/span><\/a> For the cyberpunk genre, anxiety and xenophobia are mapped onto Asiatic signifiers on US soil\u2014what renders Los Angeles dystopic<\/em> is the cacophony of foreign tongues spoken by pedestrians and vendors and displayed on neon signs in the streets. Rick Deckard flying his spinner then becomes Blade Runner<\/em>\u2019s way of surveying the route of conquest from Tokyo to Los Angeles as indexed by the city itself.<\/p>\n

The depiction of the environment in After Yang<\/em> is a drastic departure from the logic of the cyberpunk genre. The setting of the film is seemingly unmoored from teleological space and time; besides the advent of robotics, nothing else in After Yang<\/em> necessarily places the film in the future. The mise-en-sc\u00e8ne in the film may contain elements of Asian culture\u2014particularly in clothing and d\u00e9cor\u2014but their existence does not emphasize cultural differences and appear woven into the overall design of the world. The queer topography of the unnamed city in After Yang<\/em> is largely inscrutable; the large, futuristic structures that would normally be treated as landmarks are often shot with foliage as the foreground, which obscures any relationality between the landmarks and the rest of the city. Even as Jake embarks on the odyssey to get Yang the help he needs, the film refuses to elucidate how places such as Yang\u2019s family home, the technician\u2019s shop, the Museum of Technology, etc., connect to each other. Traversal in After Yang<\/em> is done through a moving pod in underground tunnels (whether it is part of a public transportation network is unclear), but the lack of establishing shots in general makes imposing direction on the city impossible. The shot\/reverse shot employed for the scenes taking place in the pod further confuses the directionality of the travel, as the passengers are seated face-to-face. Narratively, Jake\u2019s odyssey is not unlike Homer\u2019s\u2014the quest to repair Yang is winding and frustrating.<\/p>\n

Cyberpunk as a genre depicts an Asian-dominated futurity, but as the genre moves into the twenty-first century, aesthetically it did not evolve far from the foundational works, such as William Gibson\u2019s novels, Blade Runner<\/em>, and Ghost in the Shell<\/em>. Though Japan\u2019s asset price bubble and the Asian financial crisis should have supposedly assuaged the West\u2019s economic anxiety, the visual language of cyberpunk today still largely traffics the xenophobia of yesteryears. In between the thirty-five-year gap between Blade Runner<\/em> and its sequel Blade Runner 2049<\/em>, the sequel updates the Japanese and Chinese scripts seen in the first movie and adds Korean to signify the emergence of a new Asian power, yet the world of Blade Runner 2049<\/em> still uses microfilms and cathode-ray tube monitors. The coming of the \u201cAsian Century\u201d did not see the dissipation of the model machine myth. Rather, the international division of labor under global capitalism outsources labor and manufacturing to countries with lower labor costs, such as China and India, where the model machine myth takes on a second life. Mainstream Western press such as Time<\/em> and Wired<\/em> employ \u201cthe visual vocabulary of Asians as the cogs of hyperproduction . . . as mere simulacra and reinforces a prevailing sense of the inhumanity of Asian labor\u2014the very antithesis of Western liberal humanism.\u201d[14]<\/span><\/a> <\/a><\/a> which <\/span>is reflected in<\/span> the<\/span> mainstream media\u2019s prevalent use of \u201cmasked Asians\u201d images in reports on COVID<\/span>,<\/span>[17]<\/span><\/a> as well as <\/span>the general American public\u2019s rising distrust of Asian Americans<\/span>.<\/span>[18]<\/span><\/a> The casting of Yang as a Chinese robot remains a timely commentary on being\/feeling Asian in the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n

Yang\u2019s family bought him second hand in order to connect Mika to her Chinese heritage because while both Jake and Kyra (played by Jodie Turner-Smith) exhibit an affinity to Asian cultures, none of them could speak Mandarin. But what makes a robot Asian? Later on, Jake learns from Yang\u2019s friend Ada (Haley Lu Richardson) that it is a question Yang asks himself. For a robot, physical appearance can be reoutfitted and language skills and cultural knowledge can be downloaded to a memory bank. Just as Asians are raced as robots, the reverse can also occur. In Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures<\/em>, Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora write that robots and AI act as surrogates of (racialized) human labor, and they use the Massachusetts Institute of Technology robotic project Kismet to trace the programming of affect to Darwinian theories of emotive display. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals<\/em>, Charles Darwin attempts to define the universal expressions by observing \u201cprimitive\u201d ethnic groups \u201cuntouched by civilization,\u201d since they reveal a baser and more primal version of emotional response compared to the \u201ccivilized\u201d Europeans.[19]<\/span><\/a> This racialized hierarchy of affectability is in turn transcribed onto robots that are designed to complement human users rather than to mirror them.[20]<\/span><\/a> How Yang\u2019s behaviors are programmed is then not just a reflection of the Western society\u2019s expectation of how an Asian would act, but also his subservient position to the Western users. Therefore, Yang is polite, soft-spoken, and obedient. In the endlessly improvised language of racial subjugation, inscrutability and transparency are two sides of the same coin, where the Occidentals deny Orientals interiority\u2014a requisite for Enlightenment. During a conversation, Yang says \u201cMay I be honest with you\u201d to Kyra, and Kyra, surprised, asks, \u201cWas not being honest an option for you?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d Yang replies.<\/p>\n

In addition to being a \u201ccultural techno\u201d as the museum specialist Cleo (Sarita Choudhury) calls Yang, he also provides childcare, even though neither Jake nor Kyra mentions it in the film. It is not until Yang malfunctions that this part of his functions is made evident. The family\u2019s daily routine consists of Kyra working full time as a businesswoman and Jake shopkeeping at his struggling , and when Yang\u2019s malfunction disrupts that schedule, it falls on Jake to take Mika to school since Kyra is the breadwinner of the two parents. The outsourcing of reproductive labor in global capitalism is first alluded to by the name of the shop that sold Yang: Second Siblings. Jake travels to the shop and finds out it has closed down and the location is now an aquarium. Jake tells the owner: \u201cThis used to be a store where you could buy an older sibling for Chinese adoptions.\u201d Parents buy from Second Siblings specifically for the companionship the robots offer to Chinese adoptees and not for the robots\u2019 own companionship, since the robots do not possess any reproductive future like the adoptees do. On the other hand, Mika is also figured into the global reproductive supply chain. Since the inception of China\u2019s international adoption program, it has put 152,000 children up for adoption between 1992 and 2018, with the United States\u2014which alone accounts for two-thirds of the adoptions\u2014and European countries as top adopters.[21]<\/span><\/a> Peter Selman attributes the initial popularity of Chinese adoptions to \u201ca preference for older parents and an acceptance of single women as suitable to adopt\u201d compared to other countries and the ample supply of \u201cabandoned\u201d babies under the One Child Policy \u201cwas cited as a positive by some United States [adoption] agencies.\u201d[22]<\/span><\/a> At the same time, human-trafficking rings emerged to meet the global demand for Chinese children; though the Chinese government reported that most of the abducted children (20,000 per year) were adopted domestically, some American adoptive parents have found out the adoption paperwork was illegitimate.[23]<\/span><\/a>[24]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The morning after Yang becomes unconscious, Jake\u2019s neighbor George stops by and recommends a technician by the name of Russ that would fix Yang for \u201ca third of the cost.\u201d As Mika quietly waits at the shop while Jake and Russ discuss the next course of action, the camera cuts to a bulletin board in the room. On the board are a \u201cYellow Peril\u201d poster, a newspaper clipping of an article titled \u201cThe U.S. and the Chinese Naval Forces Clash in the Pacific,\u201d and a print of the American flag with the words \u201cTHERE AIN\u2019T NO YELLOW IN THE RED WHITE AND BLUE.\u201d Under the global division of labor, China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea become the leading manufacturer of computer chips and other technologies, but as the cyberpunk genre shows, the Asian techn\u0113 is to be feared. Under the Trump administration the US government engaged in trade\/sanction war with China to prevent it from \u201csurpass[ing] the West\u2019s technological prowess.\u201d[25]<\/span><\/a> The politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic as a \u201cYellow Peril\u201d rhetoric by President Trump and the rest of the Republican party led to a sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes[26]<\/span><\/a>\u2014a 339% jump in 2021.[27]<\/span><\/a> Subsequently, the global supply chain shortage only heightens the tension between the US and the People\u2019s Republic of China, as the latter renews its imperialist ambition over Taiwan, the leading semiconductor manufacturer of the world in quantity as well as cutting-edge manufacturing process.<\/p>\n

Orientalism homogenizes and flattens Asians, and as an inscrutable surface\u2014also how some racists have h<\/span>istorically<\/span> described<\/span> Asian facial features\u2014the inscrutability is grounds for suspicion. At times of conflict, the monolithic view of Asians conflates individuals with their (home) states, and citizens become suspected state actors or even enemy combatants. During World War II, the US government displaced 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans and interned them in camps because they possess \u201cthe face of the enemy.\u201d[28]<\/span><\/a> Russ, as it turns out, is a conspiracy theorist who believes that the robots are spying on the users. Russ hacks open Yang\u2019s abdomen and produces an inaccessible \u201cblack box\u201d as proof of his claim. To Russ, Yang is inscrutable. The \u201cblack box\u201d is only a black box to Russ; Cleo, the museum specialist who studies techno sapiens is able to identify the black box as Yang\u2019s memory bank and teaches Jake how to access it, and for the first time, Jake gets a glimpse of Yang\u2019s interiority. The visual representation of the Yang archive via Jake\u2019s virtual reality glasses shows Yang\u2019s mind as a cosmos with individual memories in neatly arranged constellations. Since the storage space of a robot\u2019s memory bank is limited, they only selectively record memories, and according to Cleo, the museum dedicates its research to uncovering what a robot deems important enough to remember. To Jake, the memories are seemingly organized in no apparent order\u2014breaching Yang\u2019s \u201csurface\u201d after his passing does not give Jake any explicit insight. Where legibility is used to benchmark racial hierarchy, Yang\u2019s subjectivity is maintained.<\/p>\n

Jake and Kyra each have an extensive scene recalling their conversation with Yang. Yang asks Jake what he likes about tea. Jake explains that he enjoys the process of making tea, which holds its own significance in the film because the convenience of \u201ctea crystal\u201d is the reason why his tea shop sees very few customers. As the two discuss the enjoyment of tea-making vs tea-tasting, the film overlaps Yang\u2019s recorded memory and Jake\u2019s recollection. The gestures and dialogues repeat themselves from slightly different camera angles, and the editing does not attribute a particular moment to either Jake or Yang; two subjectivities intermingle without one giving way to the other. The scene where Kyra discusses with Yang his growing butterfly collection operates in a similar manner, but towards the end of the conversation, two different versions of the conclusion play out consecutively. Kyra asks Yang if it makes him feel sad that he may be programmed to feel accepting of his own end; in one version, Yang says \u201cThere is no something without nothing\u201d with tears streaming down his cheeks, and in the other version, Yang says the line without crying.<\/p>\n

Later in the film, it is revealed that Yang is much older than previously thought. Second Siblings sold Yang to Jake as a \u201ccertified refurbished\u201d whose prior service only lasted for five days. If one database is worth a lifetime of memories, then Yang has lived three lifetimes. Jake complains in the film that Yang only teaches Mika \u201cChinese fun facts\u201d but not Mandarin, but it is also possible that he might have deleted his knowledge of the Chinese language to make room for newer memories, making Yang resemble more of the Chinese adoptee he is supposed to mentor. Jake\u2019s investigation of Yang\u2019s past brings him to Ada, a clone whose visage has a constant presence in Yang\u2019s memories. In one of Yang\u2019s past lives, he became close to Ada\u2019s original (the great aunt of the clone) until her sudden passing from a traffic accident. It is unclear whether Yang could access his past lives that were compressed to preserve storage space, but he eventually meets and befriends the new Ada. Jake asks after the Ada clone the nature of their relationship, but Ada is elusive. The queerness\u2014as opposed to the heteronormativity of nation-building\u2014of this relationship is double. On the one hand, Vivian L. Huang writes that \u201cThe figures of the inscrutable Asiatic and the closeted queer both obstruct a modern will to know through public spectacle, through \u2018staying in\u2019 as opposed to \u2018being out.\u2019\u201d[29]<\/span><\/a> On the other hand, Yang\u2019s identity as a male Chinese robot simultaneously embodies the \u201cemasculated and asexualized Asian American men\u201d[30]<\/span><\/a> and the non-personhood which disqualifies him from legally forming a family\u2014real-life anti-immigration and segregation laws come into in mind\u2014and contributing to the nation\u2019s reproductive future. After Mika tells Yang that her classmates\u2019 comments about her as an adoptee made her question her place in the family, Yang brings Mika to an orchard and introduces her to the grafting technique. \u201cYou\u2019re connected to Mom and Dad just like this branch. You\u2019re part of the family tree. For real,\u201d says Yang. \u201cThen, so are you,\u201d Mika replies. Yang smiles but does not answer, because the \u201cfruitful\u201d future is closed to him.<\/p>\n

The director Kogonada explained his decision for the science fiction setting in an interview with The Washington Post<\/em>: \u201cThere was something about the indirectness of a robot malfunctioning and [Jake] processing loss, or almost catching up to grief, that felt enticing.\u201d[31]<\/span><\/a> The mundaneness of technology in such a setting allows Jake to go from treating Yang as a household appliance to eventually seeing Yang as his son; \u201cHe really has to come to that knowledge.\u201d[32]<\/span><\/a> What does Yang consider worth remembering that leads the family to view him in a new light? Nothing spectacular. For Yang, what is important to him are the everyday moments. In envisioning a distinctively Asian futurity that stands apart from Asian neoliberal (financial) speculation, Aimee Bahng proposes routes to an alternative futurity that \u201cupend conceptions of wasted time,\u201d highlights \u201cthe waste of capitalist overproduction\u201d and refuses \u201cthe seduction of neoliberal ascension and individualism in favor of cultivating extended practices of care and more inclusive notions of family and collective responsibility.\u201d[33]<\/span><\/a> Yang\u2019s passing causes the family to reorient itself; Jake and Kyra decide to spend more time with Mika, and Mika teaches herself Mandarin to say a final farewell to Yang. The perfect albeit incomplete record of the Yang archive does not leave him frozen in time. The memory of Yang moves forward in time with the family and comes to life in every possible mundane moment\u2014triggered by the sight of a family photograph or by the making of tea.<\/p>\n

Where does Asian futurity lie? <\/span>Orientalism <\/span>and its technological-minded offshoot <\/span>function<\/span> as<\/span> epistemological <\/span>and temporal <\/span>containment of<\/span> Asian<\/span>s and Asian cultures<\/span>. A<\/span>s such<\/span>,<\/span> they <\/span>are<\/span> not<\/span> a factual survey of<\/span> real cultures and people\u2014<\/span>they only <\/span>serve<\/span> to complement the Occident and affirm the Occident\u2019s superiority<\/span>. <\/span>Edward Sa<\/span>i<\/span>d<\/span> writes of <\/span>Lord Ar<\/span>thur Balfour\u2019s justification <\/span>for<\/span> occupying Egypt: \u201c<\/span>To have such knowledge of such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it<\/span>. And authority here means for \u2018us\u2019 to deny autonomy <\/span>to \u2018it\u2019\u2014the Oriental country\u2014since we know it and it exists, in a sense, as<\/em> we know it.<\/span>\u201d<\/span>[34]<\/span><\/a> And since the <\/span>dominant race<\/span> \u201c<\/span>knows [the subject race] and what is good for them better than they could possibly know themselves,<\/span>\u201d<\/span>[35]<\/span><\/a> the Occident<\/span> assumes custody of the Orient<\/span> at the end of history<\/span>. <\/span>Defying Orientalism <\/span>requires the reclamation of agency. <\/span>Here, <\/span>After Yang<\/span><\/em><\/span> eschews <\/span>positive <\/span>neoliberal media representation<\/span>\u2014which favors individual empowerment\u2014<\/span>and <\/span>the<\/span> teleo<\/span>lo<\/span>gical <\/span>construction of time <\/span>for<\/span> a <\/span>radical imagining of <\/span>futurity<\/span> and different modes of kinship<\/span>.<\/span> Th<\/span>e film<\/span> makes<\/span> clear the<\/span> queer <\/span>possibilities<\/span> alternative to<\/span> heteronormative nation-building and <\/span>neoliberal (financial) speculation <\/span>after Yang\u2019s death<\/span>. <\/span>I<\/span>n<\/span> Yang<\/span>\u2019s absence<\/span>, <\/span>his impact is <\/span>diffused and <\/span>felt across his community<\/span>. T<\/span>he <\/span>memories of Yang<\/span>\u2014now carr<\/span>ied by his loved ones<\/span>\u2014<\/span>can be endlessly sampled and considered, but <\/span>Yang continues to evade definitive characterization<\/span>. <\/span>Embodying Asian futurity is t<\/span>husly not who <\/span>one is<\/span> but how <\/span>one is<\/span>.<\/span> U<\/span>nderneath the film\u2019s serene atmosphere<\/span> an<\/span>d <\/span>the near-post-scarcity Sci-Fi setting<\/span>,<\/span> Kogonada<\/span> confront<\/span>s the <\/span>contemporary <\/span>realities of being\/feeling Asian in America<\/span>: <\/span>alien<\/span>ated<\/span> from dominant <\/span>social<\/span> schema and faced with <\/span>whispers<\/span> of racial violence. <\/span>Vivian L. Huang<\/span> reappropriates<\/span> \u201cinscrutability\u201d<\/span> for<\/span> Asian \u201clifeworlds<\/span>;<\/span>\u201d<\/span> in the same vein,<\/span> Kogonada <\/span>creates a wealth of interiority<\/span> outside of the confines of Oriental<\/span>is<\/span>t <\/span>rhetoric<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/span><\/a> Long T. Bui, Model Machines: A History of the Asian as Automaton<\/em>, Asian American History and Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022), 157.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/a> Betsy Huang, \u201cPremodern Orientalist Science Fictions,\u201d MELUS<\/em> 33, no. 4 (2008): 25.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/a> Vivian L. Huang, Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability<\/em> (Durham: Duke University Press, 2022), 2\u20133.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/span><\/a> Long T. Bui, Model Machines: A History of the Asian as Automaton<\/em>, Asian American History and Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2022), 10.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 13\u201314.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 16\u201318.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 20.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 50.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 56.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/span><\/a> Bui, 144.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/span><\/a> Julie Ha Tran, \u201cThinking about Bodies, Souls, and Race in Gibson\u2019s Bridge Trilogy,\u201d in Techno-Orientalism<\/em>, ed. David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu (Rutgers University Press, 2015), 143.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/span><\/a> Bliss Cua Lim, Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic, and Temporal Critique<\/em>, E-Duke Books Scholarly Collection. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 13.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/span><\/a> Sara Ahmed, \u201cAffective Economies,\u201d Social Text<\/em> 22, no. 2 (2004): 132.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/span><\/a> Bui, Model Machines<\/em>, 166.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[16]<\/span><\/a> Huang, Surface Relations<\/em>, 7.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/span><\/a> Natasha Roy, \u201cNews Outlets Criticized for Using Chinatown Photos in Coronavirus Articles,\u201d NBC News, March 6, 2020, https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/asian-america\/news-outlets-criticized-using-chinatown-photos-coronavirus-articles-n1150626.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/span><\/a> Hope King and Shawna Chen, \u201cPoll: Distrust of Asian Americans Is Rising,\u201d Axios, May 4, 2022, https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2022\/05\/04\/asian-americans-covid-hate-survey.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/span><\/a> Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora, Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures<\/em>, Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019), 122\u201325.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/span><\/a> Atanasoski and Vora, 128.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/span><\/a> Peter Selman, \u201cInternational Adoption from China and India 1992\u20132018,\u201d in Social Welfare in India and China<\/em>, ed. Jian\u2019guo Gao et al. (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2020), 395\u201396, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/978-981-15-5648-7_22.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/span><\/a> Selman, 397.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/span><\/a> Charlie Custer, \u201cKidnapped and Sold: Inside the Dark World of Child Trafficking in China,\u201d The Atlantic, July 25, 2013, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/china\/archive\/2013\/07\/kidnapped-and-sold-inside-the-dark-world-of-child-trafficking-in-china\/278107\/.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/span><\/a> John Leland, \u201cFor Adoptive Parents, Questions Without Answers,\u201d The New York Times<\/em>, September 17, 2011, sec. New York, https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/18\/nyregion\/chinas-adoption-scandal-sends-chills-through-families-in-united-states.html.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/span><\/a> Emily Stewart, \u201cThe US Government\u2019s Battle with Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei, Explained,\u201d Vox, December 11, 2018, https:\/\/www.vox.com\/technology\/2018\/12\/11\/18134440\/huawei-executive-order-entity-list-china-trump.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/span><\/a> Yao Li and Harvey L. Nicholson Jr., \u201cWhen \u2018Model Minorities\u2019 Become \u2018Yellow Peril\u2019\u2014Othering and the Racialization of Asian Americans in the COVID-19 Pandemic,\u201d Sociology Compass<\/em> 15, no. 2 (2021): e12849, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/soc4.12849.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/span><\/a> Kimmy Yam, \u201cAnti-Asian Hate Crimes Increased 339 Percent Nationwide Last Year, Report Says,\u201d NBC News, February 14, 2022, https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/asian-america\/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/span><\/a> Emily Roxworthy, \u201cBlackface Behind Barbed Wire: Gender and Racial Triangulation in the Japanese American Internment Camps,\u201d TDR: The Drama Review<\/em> 57, no. 2 (May 24, 2013): 123\u201324.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/span><\/a> Huang, Surface Relations<\/em>, 10.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/span><\/a> Huang, 6.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/span><\/a> Sonia Rao, \u201c\u2018After Yang\u2019 Director Kogonada on His New Sci-Fi Film, the \u2018Pachinko\u2019 Adaptation and the Imperfection of Memory,\u201d Washington Post<\/em>, March 4, 2022, https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/arts-entertainment\/2022\/03\/04\/kogonada-after-yang-pachinko-interview\/.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/span><\/a> Rao.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/span><\/a> Aimee Bahng, Migrant Futures: Decolonizing Speculation in Financial Times<\/em> (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 133\u201338.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/span><\/a> Edward W. Said, Orientalism<\/em>, 1st Vintage Books ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 32.<\/p>\n

[35]<\/span><\/a> Said, 35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chi-Tsung Chang is currently a PhD student in the Film & Media Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds an MFA in Film and Television Studies from Boston University. Outside of academia, he has a professional background in software engineering and video production. Chi-Tsung\u2019s research interests include queer theory, racial and gender representation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ampersandjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}