Dialectic
Nov 9th, 2004, 08:38 PM
A few weeks ago, the noble and august Terry Woo invited me to an Asian Writers'/ Artists' Supper Club to present a few of my prose and rap pieces and speak on North American Asian Art and Issues.
It went quite well, there were writers, artists, actors, a journalist, a professor, and a couple random happy AMs (engineer and accountant I believe) who were there to see whassup. When one of 'em found out Lopan (he came too) and I were 44 Founders, he was real happy we were local and proceeded to emphasize the hotness of Missmel. Good times were had by all.
Anyway the prof liked my stuff and invited me to present/ guest-lecture at her Asian Literature class (she's Black-Chinese) at a local university. I agreed, and it all went down yesterday.
I spoke for the whole two hours, presented quite a few prose and poetry pieces (FOB, Jump, Asian and the Acorn, Stereotypical, Integral stuff, and stuff that I haven't put on this site, like a rhyme called No Peace For Me and a summary of inter-cultural analysis via Geert Hofstede's Four Factors), and had great discussions with all the students. Lopan and Masia One (interview up SOON!) came along as well, and their stories/ contributions were amazing. The prof said to me afterwards that she was very glad we came, as we even got a student who had NEVER once spoken in class to ask questions and discuss (the class was comprised of Asians, Whites, Arabs, and Browns) issues. I've also been invited to help re-design the curriculum/ syllabus for next semester, which means the 44s will very much be infecting academia in the coming months.
Anyway the point I wanna make is that people are very receptive to what we have to say, along both artistic and advocacy lines, IF we present our shit properly. It doesn't matter who they are: guy, girl, young, old, gay, straight, White, Asian, Brown, Black, Olive, whatever, if you can present something with wit and intelligence and tailor what you say/ do and how you say/ do it to your target audience, you'll be able to get through and really effect positive change. Hell I think most of 'em have even checked out this site!
Let the infection begin!
It went quite well, there were writers, artists, actors, a journalist, a professor, and a couple random happy AMs (engineer and accountant I believe) who were there to see whassup. When one of 'em found out Lopan (he came too) and I were 44 Founders, he was real happy we were local and proceeded to emphasize the hotness of Missmel. Good times were had by all.
Anyway the prof liked my stuff and invited me to present/ guest-lecture at her Asian Literature class (she's Black-Chinese) at a local university. I agreed, and it all went down yesterday.
I spoke for the whole two hours, presented quite a few prose and poetry pieces (FOB, Jump, Asian and the Acorn, Stereotypical, Integral stuff, and stuff that I haven't put on this site, like a rhyme called No Peace For Me and a summary of inter-cultural analysis via Geert Hofstede's Four Factors), and had great discussions with all the students. Lopan and Masia One (interview up SOON!) came along as well, and their stories/ contributions were amazing. The prof said to me afterwards that she was very glad we came, as we even got a student who had NEVER once spoken in class to ask questions and discuss (the class was comprised of Asians, Whites, Arabs, and Browns) issues. I've also been invited to help re-design the curriculum/ syllabus for next semester, which means the 44s will very much be infecting academia in the coming months.
Anyway the point I wanna make is that people are very receptive to what we have to say, along both artistic and advocacy lines, IF we present our shit properly. It doesn't matter who they are: guy, girl, young, old, gay, straight, White, Asian, Brown, Black, Olive, whatever, if you can present something with wit and intelligence and tailor what you say/ do and how you say/ do it to your target audience, you'll be able to get through and really effect positive change. Hell I think most of 'em have even checked out this site!
Let the infection begin!