Mon Visage, Moi (extrait de la lettre du mois de mars)

Est-ce mon apparence qui me définit en premier ou est-ce plutôt l’inverse ? Aussi notre Focus intitulé « Mon Visage, Moi » porte-il une touche très féminine ce mois-ci. Diverses contributrices nous présente d’une manière esthétique leur conception du lien entre identité et apparence : Aimée Hsu est peintre et maîtrise aussi l’art du maquillage, elle nous décrit ici l’art d’appliquer des couleurs sur un visage. Aurélie Kernaléguen est allée enquêter sur la chirurgie esthétique à Taïwan tandis que Wen-chun Kuan nous fait partager l’intimité de ses autoportraits photographiques. De son côté, Alice Lin se demande si la beauté est mathématique et constate que les apparences sont souvent trompeuses quand il s’agit des jeunes asiatiques d’outre-mer.

Pour vous, eRenlai s’efforce de mettre en ligne régulièrement de nouvelles créations vidéos : chaque semaine, nous vous invitons à visionner notre commentaire sur la homepage. Parmi nos éditoriaux du mois de mars, nous vous proposons de courtes vidéos rapportées d’un village situé dans la province du jiangxi en Chine : pourquoi ne pas démarrer avec Good morning Changxi village! ou Le Forgeron ? En outre, ne manquez pas le récit du prêtre Jésuite Andres Diaz de Rabago âgé maintenant de 92 ans et ayant vécu en Chine, aux Philippines, au Timor Oriental et à Taïwan. D’autres vidéos, articles et animations Flash abordent les sujets de l’enseignement des langues ou le décès récent du maître bouddhiste Sheng Yen.

My Face, Myself - eRenlai March 09 newsletter

Dear Friends,

Are our appearances meant to define our identities, or vice-versa? There is a feminine touch in our Focus this month entitled “My Face, My Self”. Contributors share their approach on the relation between identity and appearance through aesthetic concepts: Aimee Hsu is a painter and a make-up artist, she describes the art of colors in “My Face, the canvas of my life”. Aurelie Kernaleguen provides us with a report on eyelid surgery in Taiwan. Wen-chun Kuan shares with us her intimate journey into self-photography. Alice Lin wonders about the mathematical equation of beauty and how appearances can be tricky when it comes to the overseas Asian youngsters today.

As you know, eRenlai uploades multimedia features on a regular basis; don’t forget to check our weekly commentary on the homepage. In our March editorials, watch short videos brought back from a village in Jiangxi Province: start with Good morning Changxi village! or The Blacksmith.
Also read and watch an exclusive interview with 92-year-old Spanish Jesuit priest Fr Andres Diaz de Rabago, who has lived in China, the Philippines, East Timor and Taiwan. Other videos, flash animations and articles broach subjects such as language education and Buddhist Master Sheng Yen who passed away in January.

Finally, we would like to thank you for your encouragements and the positive feedbacks we have received regarding eRenlai’s new layout. Nevertheless, we know that the new version has had some technical problems and we apologize for it. If you still encounter troubles in entering or opening our website pages, you can either try clearing your browser cache or pressing F5 to refresh your browser.

We wish you a great month ahead,

Who wants to be a Slumdog millionaire?

I didn't expect Slumdog Millionaire to win the Best Picture Oscar and even less to win 8 Oscars at all! Before the Oscar ceremony I had only seen the trailer and it is Alice, my colleague, who announced me the results last week. We decided then to film a short commentary about it (watch it here).

After watching the movie last week-end, I understand better how it can be an oscarized movie despite its relatively low-budget and its absence of famous actors from the US film-industry: the plot, a success-story with a happy-ending, is still quite hollywoodian, the characters and especially Jamal, the main hero, are manicheistic enough to be recognized as "types" (the naive and idealistic one, Jamal, the cynic who redeem himself, Salim, the beauty, innocent but pushed by social and economic imperatives, Latika). Even the non-linear construction of the narration does not seem that original after one hour... (for a maestro piece of cinema, in editing and narrative terms, see Valkyrie, which, in my sense is not a historical movie but a successful suspense exercise in cinema).

Still, I cannot say that I didn't like watching the movie, I did feel a bit irritated by the predictable nature of the end but the movie is enough entertaining and meaningful to be recommended and, probably, awarded!

Le carnet magique de Tafalong

L'an dernier, j'ai participé à la réalisation d'un documentaire se déroulant dans un village aborigène situé sur la côte Est de Taiwan. Cette expérience a été pour moi l'occasion de mieux connaître une partie à la fois géographique et culturelle de l'île. Taiwan reconnait en effet officiellement 14 peuples aborigènes dont celui des Amis, mais on ressent relativement peu leur présence à Taipei. L'expérience entière mérite plus qu'un simple post de blog (et fera d'ailleurs peut-être l'objet d'un récit plus long), je vous laisse d'abord "feuilleter" le site créé par Nicolas Priniotakis (en charge de notre nouveau département audiovisuel) et cliquer sur les liens mentionnés dans l'extrait de la newsletter de décembre ci-dessous:

http://erenlai.com/tafalong/

(Lettre de Décembre)

Tafalong est habité par le peuple Amis, l’un des quatorze groupes aborigènes de Taïwan. Nous avons suivi pendant toute cette année une jeune femme Amis, Nakao Eki, qui pour la première fois en neuf ans est retournée dans son village : de cette expérience, nous avons tiré un film documentaire, intitulé « On the Fifth Day, the Sea Tide Rose* », et dont vous retrouverez certains moments forts ce mois-ci sur notre site. Vous pourrez notamment y découvrir une nouvelle manière de narrer et d’écouter l’histoire orale des peuples aborigènes d'Asie.

Le grand-père de Nakao chante un air ancestral qui raconte les origines du village de Tafalong : Tafalong a niyaro.

Un autre personnage important du film est Haruko, la tante de Nakao, qui a perdu récemment l’un de ses fils. Elle et ses petites-filles revêtent ici les costumes traditionnels Amis pour entonner un dernier chant d'adieu avant le “Ilisin”, une fête durant laquelle les hommes de la tribu dansent en mémoire du fils décédé d’Haruko.

Soyez le témoin d’un spectacle insolite : des femmes âgées de Tafalong se réunissent chaque semaine dans la cour de l’église catholique et font revivre leur enfance par l’intermédiaire des kimonos qu’elles portent et des comptines qu’elles chantent, dans un mélange de religiosité et de divertissement.

Alice

As comments made about articles on eRenlai cannot appear directly on the website, I post below a comment we received a couple of weeks ago about an article written by Alice Lin. This is also the right time to introduce Alice: she has started to work for eRenlai as our English editor since December. Born in Taiwan, she has grown up in Namibia and lived in a lot of different countries including New Zealand, Singapour, France and Morocco. She recounts her numerous travels in her article Down with Zugunruhe which triggered the reader's comment below. Alice has many talents among which singing in !Xhosa, also listen to her and her friend Brenda here.

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This article is an extremely interesting testimonial. It reminds us that nomadism is an interesting and vast subject, as much of the past as of the future; discussing this subject may act as a valuable catalyst, may bring new ideas, even inspire new fields of research -at least in my case-... It is the second time in recent years, and from a very different angle, both apparently very important in terms of sociology, that I hear about 'nomadism' as a key subject, worth deeper analyses. Here with Alice Lin it is the angle of 'animal migratory behavior', engrained in the genes of a few species or individuals. The first time it was a more futuristic, theoretical and sociological angle. It was in browsing through the book "Une Brève histoire de l'avenir" (Paris Fayard 2006) by Jacques Attali (see his bilingual site www.attali.com). Very roughly the well-known and very prolific French essayist Attali describes the future, in a few decades, as an increasingly unified small planet where dominate two main social classes, the nomads (the 'higher', better educated and richest class) and the others, the (more) sedentary people. Whatever one may think of Attali's works and personality, I just discover here in checking this reference that he wrote a more precise book on the subject of human nomads, which I didn't read yet, "L'homme nomade", Paris Fayard 2003 (I didn't check translations of his books in other languages). Besides, amongst other ideas popping up in my mind with the term 'nomadism' right now, there is, with cheap flights and Internet, the link with this other important subject (one of my pet subjects) the possibly worrying 'acceleration of history', directly related to the growing size, complexity, but also interlinkage and unification, of the human society, due to technology (even if history repeats itself ...probably because the human body and brain doesn't evolve at all at the same pace than human society and technology -like nothing new with nomadism since the Paleolithic and probably in a thousand years through galaxies !-; ... thus human history may seem to be accelerating like a point moving along a spiral, towards -or away from ?-, a kind of noosphere or omega point !).Other ideas are popping up: the growing and bumpy disappearance of the concept of nation and/or state (especially in light of the present world economic crisis -the present sudden return of the nation-state is just a in my view reflex bursts of slowly dying complex bodies, for which wars and guns still unhappily remain the ultimate solution-), and thus the obvious necessity of a wider and better world governance of our small 'planet-village',...; on the opposite, the necessity somewhere in the genes of some living species -especially h. s. sapiens - of a 'home', of the German concept of 'heimat', a 'nest' where to grow up quietly and safely, where to acquire memories, an education, a conscience... The theme of 'nomadism' is also indeed linked to the subjects of education, languages and cultures, religions, family, friends and social links, freedom (of movement)(itself linked to the concept of democracy; where do I vote if I am a nomad ?, should I or can I if need be 'vote with my feet' ?), etc. etc.Besides, it was my first time on erenlai.com; congratulations for this site.

Arthur Syel

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Down With Zugunruhe

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=2125&lan=3

Prédictions pour l'année du bœuf

L'année du bœuf commence samedi. Qu'elle vous soit propice !
Sur eRenlai vous trouverez un édito vidéo en français de Benoît Vermander qui se risque à émettre trois prédictions pour la Chine au seuil de cette année.

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=2184&lan=3

Le travail, c'est la santé

Depuis que je me suis inscrite à un club de gym, je suis devenue une vraie loque. Trois fois par semaine, je quitte mon bureau et traverse la rue pour me rendre dans un centre sportif portant le nom d'un état ensoleillé des Etats-Unis (dix balles pour celui ou celle qui trouve). On pourrait d'ailleurs s'étendre longuement sur le nom choisi, évocateur de jeunes surfeurs bien balancés, aux dents éclatantes de blancheur pour mieux contraster avec le bronze de leur peau. Mais dès qu'on pénètre dans les lieux, c'est une toute autre chanson qu'ahanent les sportifs en salle: vêtus de leurs plus beaux survêts, ils s'acharnent sur des machines électroniques qui affichent des coeurs, des losanges et des rythmes cardiaques. C'est la foire à la montre, à qui arbore les plus gros biceps et les plus larges auréoles de sueur. C'est la souffrance et l'effort qui font la loi et moi-même j'avoue m'être prise au jeu bien que je n'aie pas -encore- poussé le vice à m'affubler de la tenue complète : je n'ai ni les baskets de marque, ni les petits gants pour soulever les haltères. Etant nouvellement inscrite, on m'a, par contre, gentiment accolé un " personal trainer" qui essaye à tout prix de me motiver à acheter des séances d'entrainement privé. Après m'avoir longuement expliqué que je j'ai du gras partout et du muscle nulle part, mon "personal trainer" met mon petit corps chétif à rude épreuve et voilà trois jours que j'essaye de m'en remettre, la seule position qui ne fait pas souffrir quand je suis debout étant celle du golfeur constipé, à savoir : le dos légèrement voûté et les fesses en arrière... Fort heureusement, je ne sens presque rien quand je suis assise à mon bureau devant mon écran d'ordinateur, je suis donc toujours apte au travail.

"Le travail, c'est la santé", comme chantait l'autre, "rien faire c'est la conserver, les prisonniers du boulot font pas de vieux os..." (Henri Salvador)

Je signale à ce sujet un petit article posté sur le site http://china-crossroads.com/ : Why China’s Economic Rise is Unhealthy, (Pourquoi l'essor économique de la Chine nuit à la santé) dans lequel l'auteur évoque brièvement les heures de travail et le rythme de vie frénétique auxquels sont astreints les cols blancs en Asie, expats compris. 80 à 100 heures de travail par semaine arrosées d'une bonne dose de café, d'alcool et de tabac car l'on se détend le soir et le week-end dans les boîtes, lounge bars et karaokés... Et pour se déculpabiliser de tous ces excès, on finit ensuite la semaine par une petite séance de tapis roulant! Pour ma part, mon club de gym aura eu ma peau, je ne suis plus bonne à rien ces temps-ci, j'ai même récemment abdiqué devant mes courbatures, refusant de boire une bière avec des amis pour rentrer chez moi m'affaler sur mon canapé et regarder des jeux télévisés japonais...

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Aurélie Kernaléguen (auteure de la photo) a réalisé l'interview d'un adepte du body building à Taiwan:

Strong body strong mind

Le sport, le sang et la sueur (je m'exprime en vrac sur les joueurs de rugby français, le football féminin à Zanzibar)

Of blood and flesh

The hour of truth

On November 6, Ma Ying-jeou, the president of Taiwan met Chen Yun Lin, the chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). It is an historic moment for the cross-strait relations as it has been 60 years since a Chinese dignitary of this rank came to the island.

Benoit Vermander comments on the events that occurred during the visit
http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=2030&lan=3

(Photo taken from The Chinapost )

Taiwan Perhaps...

Gelan Chang (葛蘭) was born in Shanghai in 1933 and she was an actress and a singer in the 50's and 60's in Hong Kong. She's known for her appearances in musicals where she covered many classicals such as Carmen in The Wild, Wild Rose which is one of her most popular movies. To me, she's completely part of my mental reconstruction of the "modern" Chinese culture from the past: Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 60s, a perfume of old rose and camphor, colourful dresses which my grandfather taylored at this time and a small but peculiar event a couple of years ago, my own "petite madeleine" experience. When I went to visit my father for the first time in Cambodia, my father took me to the places where he spent his childhood and his youth. This trip in the past ended at home, when my father decided to show me mambo steps in front of a large stained mirror... One year later, I was struck by its reminiscence when I saw the hero of Days of being wild do the same. The images of my father and Leslie Cheung just perfectly superimposed and time seemed abolished the moment of a short mambo dance. Since then, I have a weakness for the music inspired by Latin rhythm of the fifties and the sixties, I confess that the first time I have heard "Quizas Quizas" was through the kitsch cover by Nat King Cole "Perhaps Perhaps", and Dean Martin's "That's amore" is a very familiar tune as well...

Likewise, the imaginary Taiwan I partly built from movies is also made up of these oldies: the Hole, directed by Tsai Ming Liang, is one of the first Taiwanese movies I taped and watched restlessly when I was a TVphagous. The movie takes place at the turn of the millenium and depicts a very gloomy Taiwanese city devastated by a strange virus which is responsible for a illness called "the cockroach disease" as people suffering from this disease tend to act like cockroaches! Although the movie is quite dark (in every sense as it is also raining most of the time), it also goes through merrier moments when it depicts the love story between the two main characters who start to sing and dance as if they were in a musical comedy. One of the songs interpreted by the female character is nothing else than one Gelan's song!

Then, to me, 我要你的愛 (Wo yao ni de ai, "I want your love") is also closely related to my fantasized Taipei and, after visiting one of its most picturesque sites, The Taiwan Beer Brewery, I did this small montage on erenlai TV:

http://www.erenlai.tv/index.php?show_id=9

Also watch Bendu creation:

http://www.erenlai.tv/index.php?show_id=5

(Photos from Air Hostess (Li Men, 1959) and

C.P.)

Asian local cultures against global warming

Dear Friends,

The Climate Change Talks in Accra (Ghana, August 21-27) have shown an accrued international mobilization against global warming. These talks are to be continued and finalized in December during the United Nations conference on Climate Change in Poznan. In between, Renlai and the Taipei Ricci Institute organize an international colloquium focusing on “culture and climate” (Taipei, October 4), featuring Dominique Baudis, President of the Institute for the Arab World in Paris as the European keynote speaker. The program and the registration form are on the eRenlai conference page.

Ying-chun Hsieh, an architect in Taiwan and China, introduces his concept of a sustainable construction in community which is why he got one of our 2008 Life Sustainability Awards. One of our contributors, Shufan Yang, shares her experience as an apprentice in the Atelier 3 founded by Ying-chun Hsieh.
A video and a short text also give example of how Taiwan tackles global warming.

In our editorial section, the Sichuanese photographer Liang Zhun presents pictures taken one hundred days after the earthquake in China during a ceremony for the dead. Less mournful is my short movie about an ominous oracle in Kyoto. Benoit Bouquin rails against stereotypes in some Hollywood movies: Movies and cultural diversity. Bob, inspired by the previous article, reflects on another kind of stereotype: An American Perk.

On the occasion of the publication of a book by Christian Cochini, Guide des Temples Bouddhistes de Chine, Benoit Vermander provides us with an overview of Buddhism revival in China. The Taipei Ricci Institute is also celebrating the launching of a new book published by Jean Lefeuvre: Collections of Oracular Bones Inscriptions which is an analytical catalogue of 412 collections of oracular inscriptions. This volume will be presented on September 19, at the Tien Educational center in Taipei, at 6pm (for more information, contact Alexandre Chen)

We hope that this month’s releases will give you lots of new energy for September!