Jean-Dominique Bauby

Many girls want to stay young forever, some males want to become babies, but I want to become an old granny like the girl in Howl's Moving Castle. It's probably because my body has stopped growing since I was thirteen.

Something is wrong with my gallbladder. I feel a steady pain under my right rib cage. BU's Student Health Services Office will reopen on Jan. 5th. Hope nothing goes seriously wrong before then, otherwise I will go to the hospital on of these few days. Oh my God, why does 2009 have to start this way? I am sick.

I spent the new year eve in the emergency room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. My gallbladder was giving me troubles. The doctors didn't find anything seriously wrong with me, but I was asked to look out for other symptones which might develop in the future. I went to Shaws and CVS pharmacy this morning to get my medicine, but they were not open. I shopped for grocery anyway: applesauce, apple sauce, vegetable broth, and jell-o. I was told not to start on solid foods until my pains were gone. Right now, I can still feel the pain.

Mike is doing his senior thesis, which looked to me like a dissertation, on human trafficking in South-east Asia. He is an exceptional writer.

Solly asked me about my health. He just got the bad news that his father had developed liver cancer. We then talked about communication, which he had been busy writing about these days. I expressed my views, and he found them useful.

I received Ziheng's gift. It is a solar-energy powered potted flower, which moves when there is sunlight. I absolutely love it! Also, I am sure I have seen it somewhere before, but I just can't recall where.

It has been eight days since the pain under my right rib cage first started. Am I in a serious trouble?

93089

Dead, nowhere, the past in a glass coffin of

Curses and blessings.

. . .

Sweet looks, black holes, tall hopes, and young dreams.

Who saves them? Who else have to strive harder?

Chien-lien Wu

What did they just inject in me? Poison or magic potion? I feel no pain, but there's no pleasure either. I feel totally free, but I am so frustrated too. Why do they make me forget? My body is light, so is my mind. I am flying, but I don't feel the gravity. 

I just submitted my application to Yale. I don't feel quite nervous at this moment as I did when I submitted the applice to NYU last time. Although I can't tell if it is because that I am more confident as a candidate to be selected by Yale to study as a Ph.D. student, I know that I have done my best, and I am happy with my writing sample, my resume, my personal statement, etc. This is the best I can offer now. Hope my dream will come true. My new year wish? Haha, didn't I say it earlier? I wish for a good book. I really want to read Professor Grundmann's book Andy Warhol's Blow Job. 

Diversity Statement

Yale University

Combined Ph.D. Program in Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literature

Tianzi Cai

My screenwriting professor once said that the movies we liked would tell him the scripts we were to write. These words struck me as supercilious, but they finally sank in. Something does not come from nothing; here are a few facts about me that I think worth mentioning.

Being international is my biggest characteristic. I have spent most of my life away from home since twelve. In China, I went to a boarding school. Growing up with my classmates in a closed setting, I learned how to interact with people fast. At the end of the three years, because of my excellent performance in my schoolwork, I was awarded with a full scholarship to study in Singapore. The first two years were difficult because of the language barrier. Poor English limited my circle of friends and prevented me from doing well in humanity subjects. Homesickness also kicked in when I was disappointed in myself. Luckily, my character began to gain more strength at that time. Later I rose to National Junior College of Singapore, a high school with a diverse student body. I met students from all over Asia. Because I could speak perfect Singlish—English with borrowed terms from Cantonese, Malay, and other languages, I blended in with Singaporeans easily. In 2005, I came to Boston University to study film. The changes taken inside me since then have been tremendous. I began to speak differently, dress differently, and think differently from before. As time goes by, it has been more and more apparent to me too that I can interpret things in at least three distinct mindsets: the Chinese, the Southeast Asian, and the American. Maybe this special ability is what allows me to enjoy film and literature extraordinarily. I used to joke that I killed to read and write. 

David Hume

Two storms in a teacup.

Handed in my paper this morning. Met Alonso and another classmate on the way.

I made myself the very first veggie burger. Tasted great!

Last night Penny told me about Lin: Lin called her repeatedly the day before yesterday to ask her out; they went shopping together; Lin helped her pack, so she gave Lin some of her left-over stuff. I think Penny wants me to feel that I'm in a bad position at home simply because she wants me to feel bad about myself. She is jealous of me in some ways, but she is unable to deal with her jealousy positively. She invited Keoki for dinner the other night without telling me. At the dinner, Keoki snapped at me by saying, "You have to emphasize below, don't you?" We were talking about the belt system of Tae Kwondo. I simply responded to Keoki's question of how higha ranking that a yellow belt was considered. I knew what Keoki meant when he said that; he expressed something that Penny wanted to express but could not bring herself to express. Anyway, if there is a second chance, I will make every decision exactly the same way as I did. From the first day to now, there is only one matter that's causing all the troubles whichever angle you want to view it. It is right for Lin to get her own Internet provider because she will not stop downloading. Tired of saying this, but I talked, I wrote, and I warned. Nothing worked. Lin's a little unhappy (maybe a lot unhappy) at the moment, but there's nothing I can or will do. Lin should learn by now what it means to live with other people under the same roof. One last thing about Penny and my friendship, I just think that it is a bad time for Penny to be cranky at me because it is time for me to pick a graduation gift for her. I can think of very few things, but I guess I know what to give her.

A- for BU Cinematheque. A- for Bresson and Tarkovsky. I am not very confident about the other two courses, especially Asian Americans. I don't think I like them. I am getting a little tired. B for Asian Americans. B+ for Human Evolution.

Roy Grundmann on Zhang Yimou. 

http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1503

Tianzi Cai

Yale Univeristy

Ph.D. Program in Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literature

Statement of Purpose

Very few people with a similar cultural background to mine have been as lucky as me. I come from a historically rich city, Wuhan, of Hubei province in China. At age fifteen, an air-ticket and a full scholarship brought me to one of the tiniest nations in the world, Singapore. I spent two years studying in Nanyang Girls’ High School and another two years in National Junior College, where the current Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsian Loong, also graduated. Singapore had been a British colony until 1965. My exposure to the diverse cultures on this island during the molding years of my personality shaped my dream invariably. Despite the great opportunity to continue my scholarship in either the science or the mathematics field by going to a local university, I chose to study film in America. From the first class in the College of Communication at Boston University, my life has leaped into a contrapuntal phrase full of surprises, illuminations, and gains that come after pains. 

At BU, I am a film major and anthropology minor. Upon graduation, I will have also completed the requirements for a second minor in philosophy. I have learned the basics in film production, screenwriting, and film studies. Last year, I made five student films. I also wrote film scripts both inside and outside class. However, a simple but serious interest in what film images mean has remained in me since I first loved film. I have made conscious efforts to connect what I learn in one class to another class throughout my undergraduate years. Slowly awakening to my own cultural background and upbringing, I also find myself consciously searching for oriental values that contrast and complement core western values. 

The search is not an end in itself. Thanks to the encouragement from my writing professor Christina Michaud and a series of fortuitous events, I started my first English novel in my freshman summer. The protagonist, Captain Isa, is a mirror image of me, including my physical self and my spiritual self. The materials that I learn in class—especially those that overwhelm me and challenge me to think, such as feminism, realism, and existentialism, and also ideas from filmmakers like Michael Haneke, Chris Marker, and Andrei Tarkovsky—manifest themselves in my writing. A few startling incidences where my reality and fantasy world crash to yield unexpected gifts of life, sometimes a spiritual uplifting, other times a prophesy that comes true, are now some of my most treasured memories. 

I apply the combined Ph.D. program in Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literature in hope of contributing deep, complex, and productive thoughts to film and literature. My anthropology classes have assured me that Culture with a capital "C" is not entirely inexplicable, and my film classes have taught me ways of understanding films in the context of art, history, philosophy, etc. I am serious about sharpening my skills in distinguishing good films from bad films, and great films from good films because I see myself becoming a bó lè, a Chinese term literally referring to a horse connoisseur who discovers exceptional steeds. It pains my heart to see native Chinese artists with persistent hard work never receiving international attention or achieving international acclaim, even if the reasons are more complex than what I can imagine. 

My formal training in Chinese literature started in my secondary school. Nanyang Girls’ High School offered a two-year Chinese literature class taught in Chinese. We used four textbooks that covered Chinese literature from the Tang Dynasty to the 1980s. My grade in the Ordinary Level Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education for this subject is an A. During high school, because of the nature of my scholarship, which only allowed foreigners to take mathematics and science subjects, I did not have any literature classes. However, my informal training in literature went on despite the structural limitations. As a young child, I read classical literature for fun. Over the years, I have continued reading Chinese literature. I like the English versions of Chinese classics such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, but I think the English version of contemporary works by Lu Xun lacks the original acuity. I also read Asian American writers like Amy Tan and Anchee Min, and Asian writers like Kazuo Ishiguro. 

Three years ago my favorite teacher from China visited me in Boston. She came because her husband, a famous brush painter, died of cancer after the last desperate try of medical treatment in the U.S. She wanted me to switch into a more practical major than film, which she considered to be art, just like her husband’s field of profession. I understood her feelings, but I could not do as she said because I had to be responsible for what I chose. Last year, on the Christmas train to Philadelphia, I thought about opening a film school in my hometown thirty years later. I think by enrolling in the Ph.D. program in Yale, I will be on the right track. The program in Yale suits me perfectly because I have a solid background in film studies, and I have always longed to focus my attention on Asian films. I even spoke to my professor Roy Grundmann, who was the curator of the Michael Haneke Conference last year, about the possibility of me conducting a conference on Wong Kar-wai in future. 

I am a native Chinese, I can pass as a Singaporean, and I am half-Americanized. I believe that my international background should be matured under the good mentorship at Yale University.

Rene Descartes

Stabbed from behind while she was still thinking about what gift to give for Christmas. Fell into a pool of blood, she could not even have a chance to look behind her shoulder. She couldn't, or wouldn't?

Gloria bought tea and cheese for the farewell party for Jackie who is going to London next semester for an exchange program. We stood around and talked over the delicious food. Josh couldn't understand the stuff I wrote in his card: 读千卷书，行万里路。

12/12 dinner at Fire and Ice

12/12 biggest and brightest moon in the past fifteen years. I saw it.

I'm really sick of writing my anthropology paper.

Isabella Tianzi Cai

AN350 Asian Americans

Professor Nancy Smith-Hefner

December 13, 2008

Boston Chinatown: Culture and Housing as One

Igloos built by the Inuits, dachas built by the Russians, and plattenbauten built by the Germans all define these peoples’ cultures to a certain extend. There are many other examples that illustrate the relationship between housing and culture; they shall make us wonder if housing and culture indeed exert a mutual influence on each other. Modern architects have developed extensive theories on this matter, but cultural anthropologists probably have more insightful information about this hypothesis. My paper looks at the changes in the housing pattern in Boston Chinatown in the most recent decade. Through my interviews of a group of Asian American youths who have grown up in Boston Chinatown, I would like to assess the impact of the changes of the housing pattern on this group of Asian Americans’ culture. My theoretical perspective follows Professor Min Zhou’s in her book Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave. Basically, Chinatown is a positive transitional place for new Asian immigrants to integrate into American society; instead of degenerating and disappearing from the horizon, Chinatown is revitalized by the Asian American community.

Boston Chinatown shares some key characteristics with New York and San Francisco Chinatowns where Asian immigrants first settled. It is crowded, full of ethnic businesses, and very close-knit. Over the years, because of the increasing number of businesses both in and around Boston Chinatown, the place has become more crowded and expensive to live. The leading community organization of the area, the Asian Community Development Corporation, helps solve the overcrowding issue of Boston Chinatown by getting involved with real estate developers and building affordable housing for the community. According to their website,

ACDC has built over $100 million in mixed-income affordable housing development in the past 20 years. We have accomplished this in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston, and in one of the hottest market in the nation by forging partnerships with experienced, socially-conscious for-profit developers. We recently completed a 251-unit, mixed use and mixed income project with Edward A. Fish, Associate with a total development cost of $89 million. We are currently working on a 315-unit smart growth, green building project with New Boston Development Partners on Parcel 24 at the head of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. (ACDC 2008)

The first project mentioned in the paragraph refers to The Metropolitan or Sun Yi Da Ha, which was completed in 2002 at Parcel C of Chinatown. The Boston Globe features this project in detail:

Of 134 rental units, 35 are reserved for the low-income elderly and disabled. Another 46 are for households with incomes below 60 percent of the area’s median income. And 13 will be available to the city to house people who are considered homeless.

Of 118 condo unites, 34 will be sold at affordable rates, the rest at market. The 283 parking spaces will mostly be for residents. (Palmer Jr. 2002)

The above statistics show the effort spent by the community organization to help the less privileged group in Boston Chinatown obtain housing. Although the number of special units is insufficient to cover all of the struggling immigrant families, the unit distribution across different income groups shows some fairness. The second project mentioned in ACDC’s website is a 26-story high-rise new building by Israeli developer Ori Ron. Unfortunately, despite being three floors taller than The Metropolitan, Ron has promised only 48 affordable units for the local community (Allis 2008).

Maybe the number of middle- to low-income families in Chinatown is too big to accommodate, or else what the developers call affordable is hardly affordable for the local community. Two years ago, I visited Amanda Chin’s house in Chinatown. It was a two-floor shotgun house in a row of houses of similar design. Two other families were crammed in it with Amanda’s family. The entrance of the house consisted of two front doors that were back to back and with large locks on both. A dark and narrow stairwell led to the second floor where three closed doors were within an arm’s reach. The shared bathroom was lit by a single bulb and had no tiles on its stained wall. Amanda shared a room with her sister. Their bed occupied almost half of the room. When I interviewed Amanda this year, she said that she still lived in the old place with her mother while her sister had married and moved out. Inquired about ACDC, she replied that she did not know about this organization. As for the new condominium buildings, she thought that they were hardly affordable for her family. Her friend, Shirley Chin, who has lived in an apartment complex in Boston Chinatown all her life, agrees with Amanda about the high price of the new condominiums. Except the few units of low prices, the rest are unaffordable for many.

The condition of Amanda’s house may remind us of the general public’s view of Chinatown a decade or two ago. Back then, people thought of Chinatown as an isolated socioeconomic sphere consisted of newly-arrived poor Asian immigrants. It was supposed to be self-contained, segregated, and exclusive. In his book Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society, Gwen Kinkead simply calls it impenetrable. The crowdedness and the uncleanliness of Amanda’s house would make sense in Kinkead’s picture of Chinatown because the immigrants have to work hard but scrimp and save by accepting a low living standard in order to survive.

This negative picture of Chinatown probably still persists in our popular imagination and collected memory. On the other hand, this image could also be one of the driving reasons for ACDC to form liaisons with outside developers to gentrify Chinatown. How do those who live in Chinatown react to the supposedly positive changes in their physical environment brought about by ACDC and other city-planners? Here are some quotations from The Boston Globe.

Karen Chen, a paralegal with Greater Boston Legal Services, worked with a number of families that were priced out of their apartments above the Chau Chow City Restaurant on Essex Street after the Hamilton Co. bought the building in 2003.

“The units used to have families and new immigrants who paid between $500 to $700 in rent,” she said. “After Hamilton bought the building, rent went up to between $1500 to $2000.” The legal services group and the families were unable to negotiate lower rents, Chen said.

Facing the higher rents, many residents prefer to move out as quickly as possible. One women Chen contacted about being displaced from the Essex Street housing units expressed reluctance to tell her story publicly. “She felt that it’s over, she’s in public housing now, even thought it’s not in Chinatown, and there’s nothing she can do about it,” Chen said. (Cheng 2008)

The inevitability to move out of Chinatown is probably present in many other cases. Among those who are privileged enough to stay in Chinatown, there is an apparent sentiment of nostalgia toward old-day Chinatown.

Both Shirley and Amanda recount their experiences of growing up in Chinatown. Their experiences are similar to the generation before them.

Paul Lee was born in Chinatown and lived there until he was 11, but his family moved to Brookline after its home was purchased by New England Medical Center in 1961. He noted that the cultural cohesiveness of a community depends heavily on geography.

“Growing up in Chinatown, not only were your friends there, but their parents knew who you were and watched over you, and it was a very close-knit community,” he said. “When we were dispersed, it was harder for us to socialize with other Chinese families and out friends from Chinatown. Gradually, we lost touch with a lot of our friends.”

He added that Chinatown has also changed dramatically in the last few decades. “In the old days, you could walk down Hudson Street, and people would be sitting outside on a stoop and the whole time you were walking down, you would run into a lot of friends. Nowadays, you have to make play dates before kids can play with somebody.” (Cheng 2008)

The same element of being watched over by the elderly is present in Shirley’s account.

Well, I have always lived in a building, and it’s the same building complex . . . To describe my unit, outside my door, there is a formed square. All four of our doors face each other, so they form a square. So when I open my door, I see my neighbors. And when they open their doors, I could see right through their units. And it’s the same thing with the other two neighbors. It was pretty quiet. It was very private because not every floor had an elevator . . . I was really lucky because growing up we had the elderly whom we called Grandma and Grandpa. And whenever my parents had to go to work, they would watch over us. So we would just open our doors, every now and then, they would pop over and see how we were doing, whether we had dinner yet, and that type of thing. So we were pretty close. And one of our neighbors had a grandson, so we got along really well. Our third neighbor, who also had a grandson who was our age, so we got along really well . . . It was such a nice and safe environment. Even with people who are not your relatives, you feel safe with them. We kinda know their whole family, and they kinda know my whole family. (Shirley Chin)

Amanda mentions the elderly too.

My house is different from hers (Shirley’s) . . . My house is more private . . . Before that school was there, there was a huge parking lot. What we do is that all the kids, we would all just play in the streets. If we see a car, we will just run . . . we will run back to the sidewalk. Cause like our grandparents, my whole street there are just a bunch of elderlies right there who are just watching us. And there will like only a few kids, like me and my sister. There are hardly anybody, probably a few other kids. (Amanda Chin)

Basically the people who live in Chinatown miss the sense of trust forged among their neighbors because of their closeness in space. While outsiders consider Chinatown being crowded, the people who live in Chinatown enjoy the proximity of their neighbors. Shirley’s description of her unit could be an example of the lack of privacy, but she rather considers it safe. Amanda describes her house as private, but she also acknowledges the fact that the elderly sit outside the house. Besides keeping an eye on the playing kids, the elderly probably chat among themselves too. In this way, they also pass on the news of different families on the street, making people feel that they know about their neighbors and thus feel safe about them.

Shirley also mentions that she feels comfortable living with Chinese neighbors because she does not need to explain everything in Chinese customs. Her family likes to stick pieces of red paper with auspicious Chinese characters written on them next to their doors. Because their neighbors are Chinese, they not only understand but also appreciate the act, which is said to bring good luck to the family. Amanda agrees with Shirley that being able to understand one another is important for living together harmoniously. Disrespect for Chinese culture could easily become a personal offense in their cases because they come from very traditional Chinese families, and it only needs to take the form of simple mockeries.

When asked about if they would like to stay in Chinatown when they were older, Amanda and Shirley gave slightly different answers. Amanda said that she would definitely move out, but she said the reason was mainly to travel the world and hopefully find a job in China. Shirley said that Chinatown had become more diverse. Instead of being the “Combat Zone,” Chinatown now welcomes different ethnic groups to settle in. Therefore, to live inside or outside Chinatown no longer means very different experiences for a person. I was lucky to join their reunion dinner with four of their friends at The Pour House the same evening after I interviewed them. One girl stayed very excited throughout the dinner because she had not seen them since she moved out of Chinatown three years ago. She is also one of the three who now live elsewhere among all.

Zhou thinks that the residential mobility of the people who live Chinatown is inevitable. However, Chinatown remains a success in the assimilation model because Chinese keep in contact with those who stay behind in Chinatown. Instead of disappearing and degenerating, Chinatown expands and disperses. In the concluding chapter of her book on New York Chinatown, she writes, “Obviously, departure from the enclave is closely associated with higher socioeconomic achievement for immigrant groups, but the higher socioeconomic status of a particular immigrant group may not necessarily lead to abandonment of the original enclave” (Zhou 229). Zhou does not focus very much on the cultural aspect of the residential mobility. However, her observation informs us about the larger picture of people’s movements in to and out of Chinatown.

High-rise buildings have so far been the most reliable solution to solve the high-density problem in Boston Chinatown. Unfortunately, only a small number of low-income families are lucky enough to move into the special units reserved for them. Over the years, the number of affordable units for this income group seems to decrease too. In order to cope with the raising rents, some people who used to live in Chinatown have chosen to move out. Unlike the situation in New York City as analyzed by Zhou in her book, where people choose to live in places other than Chinatown because of higher incomes and higher demands in housing conditions, the Asian immigrants in Boston Chinatown choose to move because they cannot afford the rents. When the immigrant group slowly moves out of Chinatown, they bring their cultures to other parts of Boston. This process stimulates the formation of other ethnic clusters like in Malden and Quincy. Boston Chinatown, though becoming smaller and smaller as more and more developers seek to buy the land there and start new businesses, cannot be said to become an urban ghetto day by day. Gentrification is more appropriate to describe the changes in Chinatown. Slowly people’s perception of Chinatown will change along with their perception of Asian immigrants including Chinese, Vietnamese, and others as these peoples blend in with the larger population. While it is hard to say if the new communities will be as close-knit as old Chinatown, some elements of their cultures ought to travel with their residences, and their cultures will eventually diffuse wherever they settle. By then the definition of Chinese culture or other cultures are likely to adapt to the new situations.

References

Allis, Sam.

27 Apr. 2008 Here, Density May Work on Chinatown Site’s Future, A Clash over Priorities. The Boston Globe: A2.

Asian Community Development Corporation.

2008 http://www.asiancdc.net.

Cheng, Victoria.

6 Jul. 2008 Moving in Moving out. The Boston Globe: Reg1.

Chin, Amanda.

Interviewee. Email: amyc611@yahoo.com.

Chin, Shirley.

Interviewee. Email: schin@lesley.edu.

Kinkead, Gwen.

2001. Chinatown: A Portrait of a Closed Society. New York: HarperCollins.

Palmer Jr., Thomas C.

25 Aug. 2002 Barely Noted Project Has Chinatown Smiling. The Boston Globe: H1.

Zhou, Min.

1992. Chinatown: The Socio-economic Potential of an Urban Enclave. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

The Dalai Lama

Capt. Isa is distressed because suspicion gets her, lust gets her, and finally fear also gets her.

Performed at an informal showing session with my classmates in Ramelle's movement improvement class.

Finished my paper on Tarkovsky's Solaris.

Starting my paper on the housing condition in Chinatown.

Went out with Sue yesterday, had dinner at Le's and talked for a long time. She is going to visit her boyfriend in the Netherlands. Then she will head back to Taiwan.

Gloria made two beautiful cards for Jackie and Josh.

Maria scheduled some hours for me to work during the study period and also on 12/22. I don't know my schedule for the winter break and the new semester yet.

I love coffee. Oh my god.

Dream 36

I have been wanting to sit in a quiet corner and write a good entry for a long time. It's quite easy for me to tell when I have good stuff to pour. My trick is simply to take note of my dreams at night. A lot of rain means that I am filled with complicated emotions, unexpressed, undulating, and more or less cleansing the soul.

 

My undergraduate studies in the States will soon come to an end. Over these years, my biggest change is probably having turned more flexible psychologically. There is a string of adjectives that I want to put down here: raw, open-minded, free-spirited, even rough. I understand fully why Mike said that I was cultured, refined, and disciplined. I hope one day I will have a chance to tell him that he has a talent in language.

 

The reason that I started using the word "fuck" in a lot of my mental processes was not because that I wanted to be cool. I am not a fool. There are situations when "fuck" does a better job to the situation than being nice to somebody. Some of us have been lucky and have not been hauled into unjust situations where you feel totally powerless. The point is that some of us have not been as lucky as those. To say "fuck you," at least in my case, means that I still have a sense of justice. It's just not in my power to enforce that justice.

 

(Bingo, Krasker is not a quiet corner.)

 

I am not trying to be one of those cool kids. American slang for me is not to mean insults to people that I am not happy with. I am angry at them, and I don't want to keep how I feel unvoiced. They should feel bad for what they do, and I am making them feel bad. Will I get myself into troubles? Possibly. But I hope I will make friends too. I believe there are still those around to be trusted.

 

That's all for Dream 36. See you later.

Don Quixote

Time passes so fast that I am afraid that I will regret some of my decisions made in this hurry.

I ran into Professor Grundmann outside Krasker today. He was in a green outfit with a yellow shirt. A couple of nights ago, I dreamt of Solly in green and yellow.

Ziheng wants me to bite him. I will do it with pleasure. Evil smiles.

I am working on a paper on Tarkovsky's Solaris. I have two term papers, one response paper, one quize, and two final exams left for this semester.

Got myself two audiobooks from audible.com. I have read both and loved them, but I just wanted to listen to them over again. Audible offers free credits for first time users, so another advantage of getting what I want is to not have to pay. The two books are Sophie's World and The Blind Assassin. Both have influenced me a lot.

Also, I received my Creative Zen V-Plus 2GB player and Sony Net MD player. So far I have been very happy with both. They are not very expensive. I got them for $24.99 and $29.99 respectively.

Got up at around 7 this morning to prepare for a quiz in my biological anthropology class. I have no passion for that class, but I keep an open mind.

Isabella Tianzi Cai

FT554 H1 Bresson and Tarkovsky

Professor Charles Warren

December 5, 2008

Solaris and the Admiration for Science

As the saying goes, “Great minds think alike.” If Socrates had really corrupted the youth by questioning morality and justice, we might also blame Andrei Tarkovsky for disrupting our sense of security toward science. In 1972, Tarkovsky adapted Polish writer Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction novel Solaris for a film. Instead of committing himself to the purport of the original work, which celebrates the power of science to understand the world and disparages the need of humans to understand humans, Tarkovsky repackages the story to make people feel uncomfortable in thinking that science is the ultimate solution to the problems in the world. He is able to get his point across by contrasting science with nature, human nature, and super-nature in the film. Whereas science bestows those who worship it with self-assurance, nature, human nature, and super-nature are ready to offer more if people are willing to embrace them.

The portrayal of nature in the film is fraud with beauty. Nature organizes everything in it effortlessly and pleasantly. The opening shots of the film focus on the shape, color, and sound of the natural environment. The landscape where Kris Kevin wonders looks sinuous. It consists mainly of irregular curves. Sometimes Tarkovsky employs smooth tracking shoots to depict the similar movements of the vegetations, other times he simply depends on a static camera to reveal the beauty of the tranquil pond, grass, and trees. Some prominent features of the landscape include the mist and the rain. They suggest wetness and create the impression that this piece of land is teeming with life. The color of the natural environment is dominantly green. Without much of the sky being shown, the color of green stands out even more sharply. It is probably unfair to associate green with fixed emotions or to define what it symbolizes here because the story is yet to take place. However, it is obvious that Tarkovsky wants to immerse us in green before he continues with the rest of the story. The lengthy shots of the landscape are like a ritual for any further engagement with the story. As for the sound, there are faint noises of broken branches, footsteps, and water ripples. Occasionally we hear distant bird chirpings too. Everything looks and sounds normal, but out of this normalcy grows the feeling of anticipation.

From the closest encounter with nature, the story travels farther and farther away from nature; the dacha can be said as the intermediate step between nature and the space station. Located next to a pond, the pale yellow dacha has a perfect view of its neighborhood. The pond is like a mirror, reflecting what is happening in the sky. Inside the dacha, there are newly picked flowers and potted plants. At the back of the dacha, there is a horse stable. All these details speak in unison of Kris’s closeness to nature. In terms of geometry, the dacha is the first physical setting that comprises most of straight lines and regular shapes. As Kris leaves for his space mission later, he experiences a complete change of environment. Although he does not seem to dislike the station, the differences between the earlier natural environment and the station are striking, thanks to our initial immersion with the green.

The perfect circles and squares seen in the design of the space station not only contrast to the irregular shapes of the natural environment on the Earth, they also suggest human beings’ desire to emulate nature. Nature does not produce perfect geometrical shapes, but men do. In a sense, men outsmart nature because of their power to recreate nature. Unfortunately, the space station is in a mess. Its dilapidated condition mocks its high-end research purposes. When Kris first arrives in the station, the long tracking shots capture his surroundings in minute detail. The corridor of the station has random junk items strewn over the floor. Some wires stick out from the body of the spaceship; they leak electricity by sending out electric sparks. In relation to the planet Solaris, the station is an intruder. Unlike the dacha that blends in with its surroundings, the station is yet to develop a symbiotic relationship with the Solaris Ocean. It is a dysfunctional oddity once hailed as the genius creation of men.

The contrast between nature and science is not a coincidence. According to Vidat Johnson an Graham Petrie’s research about the film,

Tarkovsky’s distaste for Lem’s style of “hard” science fiction was confirmed, just as he began work on the film, when he, Romadin, and Yusov saw Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, which all three viewed as an unnatural, sterile demonstration of future man’s technological achievements. As a result, they decided to make their film an exact opposite: the perfunctory attention paid to the journey through space, the run-down space station, the messy rooms and elegant library—overflowing with an extremely odd assortment of earthly objects—were designed to counter the futuristic technology of Kubrick’s film. (Johnson 100)

Tarkovsky’s intention to downplay science is thus clear from both the film and the background of the film. Although we may still criticize the road trip scene shot in Japan and other scenes shot out of a tight budget for being unconvincing, it is not fair to laugh at these scenes and dismiss them for what they mean. At least, the lengthy travel on the road is consistent with the deliberately slow pace of the rest of the film. Even the Tarkovsky seldom speeds up the story or changes the rhythm of his film because certain contemplations have to come by slowly. The duration of the travel is necessary for self-reflection even if it means to tire us first.

From the analysis of the spatial relationship of the dacha and the space station to nature, we ought to conclude that the farther men are removed from nature, the weaker their abilities to live well become; furthermore, science is not omnipotent as many like it to be, although men can use it to imitate nature. Besides the contrast between nature and science, Tarkovsky is also able to make an equally strong statement about human nature versus science or rationality using dialogue and dream sequences. Basically, human nature matters more to a person than science. The film portrays how Kris’s uneasiness in the space station originates, develops, and finally dissipates not because he understands more about science but more about human nature.

Fear is the dominant mood of Kris’s stay in the space station. Although he appears composed most of the time, his sweat and silence betray his uncertainty and distress. Sartorius and Snaut, the two scientists stationed there, do not behave similarly to Kris because they know more about the Solaris Ocean than Kris. In other words, knowledge of the unknown rids them of fear. Kris meets Snaut first. He has many questions for Snaut, but Snaut does not give him satisfactory answers and only appears anxious for Kris to leave. Kris is left in the dark with a few warnings from Snaut of things that he already knows, for example, there are only three human beings on the station. Kris’s fear is manifested in small gestures like piling up suitcases behind his door to prevent visitors from entering his room. Later, Snaut and Sartorius feeds Kris with more information about the Solaris Ocean. They do not look scared because they practically have an explanation for every strange event or encounter on the station. Putting some medicine on Kris’s burnt face, Snaut tells Kris that Hari is “the materialization of [Kris’s] conception of her.” Sartorius also speaks of Hari as made of unstable neutrinos instead of atoms.

Despite being able to understand the scientific explanations behind the extraordinary phenomena on the station, Kris does not want to side with Snaut to communicate with the ocean or Sartorius to destroy the neutrino system. Their conversation in the library reveals what obstructs each one of them to achieve happiness. Sartorius thinks that his purpose on the station is to do research. He also expects the others to be equally devoted as he is. However, he has no right to force either Snaut or Kris to do what he expects him to do. When he finally vents his anger by accusing Kris for the romance with Hari, he appears more jealousy than angry. For Snaut, the research is no longer a noble cause for their presence on Solaris. He responds to Sartorius’s toast to science and to him by saying, “In this situation, mediocrity and genius are equally useless.” He concludes his speech by uttering an almost aphoristic statement that “man needs man.” He then lets himself get drunk. His tragedy is thus his total despair with life. Unlike Snaut and Sartorius, who have formed their respective stances on the mission, Kris is still deep in thought. It is Hari’s articulation of her observation of men that prompts Kris to think about human nature. At first, Hari is touched by Kris for treating her like a real human being. She says that she loves Kris and feels like becoming human. Touched by Hari’s words, Kris then knells before Hari. This gesture suggests Kris’s sense of guilt as we know from their previous conversations that Kris used to belittle love. Real Hari who committed suicide did it to prove that her life was meaningless without Kris.

Jealousy, despair, and guilt all come about through human interactions, and they are all common human emotions. Although science may equip human beings against the unknown, it cannot cure people of their pains risen from such emotions. In order to come to terms with his past, Kris unconsciously looks for redemption in his dreams. Toward the end of his time on the station, Kris becomes sick. Tarkovsky brings us to Kris’s dream world by showing an intensifying light bulb until the screen is completely white. A long panning shot then reveals several duplicates of Hari in different postures either standing still or roaming around the room. Occasionally another woman, presumably Kris’s mother, replaces Hari. The scene probably takes place in Kris’s mind because later he also appears in it, looking fully recovered. Kris addresses the woman his mother. He tries to communicate with her, but she listens to him half-heartedly without a smile on her face. Instead of showering her son with attention, the mother flips a book blank-mindedly and later munches an apple. Their movements show her trying to distance herself from Kris whenever Kris gets close to her. Finally Kris is tired in his futile chase and sits down on the bed with his back facing the camera. The mother sits down beside Kris, but she does not face him. When they do face each other a moment a later, the mother begins to admonish Kris. Kris listens to her quietly, but she is distracted by Kris’s bleeding arm. She stops talking and help Kris wash the wounds with water. Afterwards, she kisses Kris gently on the back of his neck. With no further talk between them despite that Kris starts to cry, she exits the room.

This dream sequence demonstrates some degree of human warmth, which Kris must miss terribly in his debilitated condition. However, Tarkovsky presents it in black and white as if he wants to repress or avoid such sentimentality. In discussing the use of dream in Tarkovsky’s films, Johnson and Petrie outlines a dilemma:

Charles Rycroft . . . points out that most dream imagery is intensely private and almost impossible to describe or convey successfully to another person. This . . . present[s] a problem for a film director who wishes both to convey an authentic dream atmosphere and to suggest that these dreams have meaning beyond the private experience of the dreamer. (Johnson 241)

Johnson and Petrie go on to theorize Tarkovsky’s dream imageries. Like Rycroft, they agree that Tarkovsky intends for dreams to help his audience recall a common experience. Moreover, dreams are an invitation for people to imagine a dreamer’s life and thus find explanations for his or her behaviors. Using the analysis here as guidelines, we may read Kris’s imaginary encounter with his dead mother fruitfully. For example, this sequence is slow-paced and painfully reserved. Maybe in reality Kris’s feeling toward his mother is a mixture of distant respect and unspoken love. Although the film does not specify the reason for Kris’s unconsciousness to bring him to his mother at his moment of weakness, it is possible that Kris is also guilty toward his mother because he has always been busy with his work.

Another way of looking at dreams, also suggested by Johnson and Petrie, involves the comparative thinking of dreams and science.

Dreams are central to Tarkovsky’s imaginative achievement because they bypass all that he felt was most inhibiting and destructive in the contemporary world—the scientific rationalism, the materialism, and the mindless faith in technology that he and his favored characters reject—and speak directly to what is both most private and most universal within us. (Johnson 242)

Tarkovsky shows the relevance of dreams to human nature through the curing power of dreams. Kris convalesces after he wakes up from the dream. He learns from Snaut too that ever since Sartorius sends an encephalogram to the Solaris Ocean, none of the guests have come back. Maybe the ocean has understood human nature through Kris’s brain waves by then. This miracle could not have happened at all if Kris had not come in touch with his guilt through his interactions with Hari and through his dream. In other words, the ocean is like a metaphor for some superpower, which stops men from suffering in a perpetual psychological turmoil after they understand their human nature.

The discussion of human nature ends with the last dialogue between Kris and Snaut. Snaut wants to refrain from thinking too deeply about the meaning of life because the truth may be distressing. Kris, on the other hand, thinks that the meaning of life is simple. In fact, it may be so simple that it is easily hidden to help preserve the truth about human nature. Both these views may be right, but either implies that science is imperative for finding the truth.

The ending of the film can be read as the last overtly subversive statement to science because of a supernatural phenomenon in it. The familiar landscape and the bare treetops tell us that Kris is back to the Earth in a different season. He strolls from the pond to the house, preoccupied in his thoughts. A sudden change in the background music suggests a mood change. While the previous organ music shows Kris being mesmerized by nature, the following electronic music shows him becoming uneasy again. A shot from inside the dacha reveals rain drizzling inside the dacha. Kris must have noticed the rain as he approaches the dacha, but he looks melancholic instead of surprised. If scientific explanations have so far been satisfactory to unravel the strange phenomena in the film, the ending must present itself as a conundrum to science. Separated by a glass window, Kris and his father make a long-lasting eye-contact. A moment later, the father comes out, Kris knells before him in the same manner as he does before Hari, and they embrace each other. The camera zooms out little by little until the dacha and its surroundings are revealed as an island on the Solaris Ocean.

Johnson and Petrie present three ways of reading the ending: Kris is still on Solaris with the ocean fulfilling some of his wishes; Kris is back to the Earth with the happy imagination that he is with the ocean; Kris has imagined everything from the beginning to the end (Johnson 105). All of these readings would not have been possible if there had been a scientific explanation for the rain or the island. Maybe Tarkovsky simply wants to prevent people from thinking that Solaris is a coherent science-fiction film. After the beauty of nature and the power of human nature, the inexplicability of super-nature is like a final blow on science. This reading should hardly be surprising because Tarkovsky states that he is not interested in the fantasy elements of the novel at all (Tarkovsky 199). His duty as an artist is “to stimulate reflection on what is essentially human and eternal in each individual soul,” and his “function is to make whoever sees [his] films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware beauty is summoning him” (Tarkovsky 200).

By decomposing the film into four thematic elements of science, nature, human nature, and super-nature, we are still able to recognize the film as typically Tarkovsky‘s. Tarkovsky presents the Earth in supreme beauty to extol nature; he illustrates the meaning and power of guilt and love to stress human nature; he also presents unearthly phenomena to remind us of the existence of super-nature. Science cannot compete with any of the three because man-made space is never as marvelous as nature, rationality does not satisfy men’s innermost needs, and scientific explanations cannot account for everything in the world. Maybe Tarkovsky is a little biased in his view of science, but the contrasts that he makes between science and nature, human nature, and super-nature are true. Therefore, we can say that like Socrates, Tarkovsky is committed to the truth. Even though he makes a science-fiction film, he feels responsible for warning people of the danger of a totalistic admiration for science.

Works Cited

Johnson, Vidat and Graham Petrie. The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Tarkovsky, Andrei. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.