Race, Robots, and Popular Culture: We Radiant Things by Franny Choi

 We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi

We Radiant Things book cover

Author and Poet Franny Choi

I recently read David Treuer’s The Savage Mind, which is a fascinating book that asks us to reconsider the ideas of savagery and civilization throughout American history. Treuer referred to literary critic Northrop Frye in a part of the book that resonated with me. Treuer emphasized the differences between a historian and a poet by noting that “history (and historians) tackle what has happened. But poets (and poetry) look at ‘a kind of thing that might happen’…The poet’s job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place. [She} gives you the typical, recurring, or what Aristotle calls the universal event.” I really liked this distinction, as it is a reminder of not only the importance of artists to complement the historical record, but also how important their perspectives and deep, personal understanding is for interpreting and making meaning to events, whether they are well-known or experienced by individuals. Franny Choi’s excellent new collection of essays We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg made me think again about Treuer’s points about the role of poets in providing more context and a more nuanced look at events, especially as we are continually inundated with various perspectives of different events, media and entertainment. Choi, who is also a poet, provides interesting perspectives on a wide range of topics, frequently critiquing how robots, aliens, cyborgs and other popular figures in sci-fi and horror are often coded as representations of Asian, and particularly Asian females. She examines popular films, shows, and even music to explore these representations, how they have impacted her own identity and how others perceive her, as well as how these representations are not necessarily new, but rather an evolution in the racialized portrayals of Asians that have led to exploitative practices and treatment in labor, employment, education, relationships, and sex. Choi begins the essay with an analysis of Kyoko from 2014’s Ex Machina, examining how Kyoko’s silence and subservient portrayals rely on her racial ambiguity and Japanese name. In an interesting twist, Kyoko ultimately kills the man responsible for her creation, yet Choi explores how Kyoko’s portrayal of a mute, obedient “other” has been shaped by stereotypes and myths about Asian women that have persisted for many years. I’ve only seen Ex Machina once, and I was blown away by the story, but I was more focused on Ava’s role in the story. Choi’s observations and analysis (and apparently a recut of the film with only the scenes of Kyoko) provided a new understanding and perspective, like the kind that Treuer argues poets bring to events. For what it’s worth, Alex Garland, the writer and director of Ex Machina, has worked with Sonoya Mizuno, the actress who plays Kyoko, in a few other projects, notably Devs, where she plays the lead role of Lily Chan, a software engineer trying to uncover the mysterious death of her boyfriend. Regardless, Choi identifies other portrayals of these kinds of racialized portrayals where a future in society is often portrayed as a dystopian Chinatown, like Blade Runner. It’s definitely something I’ve noticed, and with the recent reveal that the coding for The Matrix was taken from a Japanese cookbook, we can see how sci-fi filmmakers have often portrayed the future as an exotic other, like Edward Said’s argument about the West’s portrayal of other cultures, particularly in the Middle East and Asia as distorted and inferior, a portrayal that continues to play out not just in popular culture, but in policies and programs, unfortunately.

I found Choi’s analysis of cyborg films to be particularly interesting, as she brings her own personal interest to films like Ghost in the Machine and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. I loved her writing about T2, which I remember seeing in the theater. Choi recounts how this film became a favorite of her father’s and a family staple, but also notes it’s particular connection to Korean immigrant culture with the film’s themes of “good machines” and “bad machines.” Again, I appreciated the perspective she brings to analyzing this film, exploring scenes where Edward Furlong as an adolescent John Connor is trying to teach Arnold Schwartzenegger’s T800 to speak with some slang and idioms, almost like an immigrant learning to use American phrases and idioms. However, as Choi notes, the appearance of Robert Patrick’s T1000, who can mimic other’s appearances and takes the form of a police officer, provides some insight into the struggles of immigrants and other minorities with cultural assimilation. This was definitely not a reading I took when I saw the film as a teen, but I loved reading about how Choi’s viewings of the film have evolved over the years, and how this idea about good machines and bad machines resonated with her own experiences as a child of immigrants. Nevertheless, Choi grounds her understanding of these machines in the historical accounts of immigrant Chinese workers who helped to build the transcontinental railroad and were largely characterized by their machinelike work ethic and lack of complaining or pushback. Choi also explores how this view was often pushed by those who exploited the precarious nature of these immigrants’ work and later ended up implementing the Chinese exclusion act, also based on the portrayal of Asian countries as “the other”, a dangerous kind of image of the West. This was also resonant as we are currently witnessing a calculated and systemic backlash against immigrants, often relying on tired and reckless stereotypes that not only cast immigrant groups as backwards or uncivilized, but also as threatening to American’s jobs and culture. As Treuer noted in The Savage Mind, it’s the ability of these stereotypes that induce fear of the loss of status and culture among other things that leads to violence, whether it is institutional violence through policies or physical violence that Choi also documents against Asian Americans through the brutal murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 in Detroit.

Where Choi’s writing especially stood out to me was in her chapter “Love, Death, and Pink Robots” that explores how the Flaming Lips came to write one of their most iconic albums Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Like Choi, this album also has significant memories for me from the summer of 2002 and beyond. I was struck by the beautiful descriptions of the music for both the song “Fight Test” that opens the album and “Do You Realize”, which still nearly brings me to tears every time I hear it. Choi’s music writing includes some of the most aural elements, fitting for a poet: “The track begins with a simple four-chord progression on acoustic guitar, which warps at the end of each phrase. In the back ground, what sounds like a slide guitar (actually a pitch-bending whammy pedal) evokes cowgirls pining in space.” There are some other amazingly-apt descriptions of the sounds that Coyne and Company evoke throughout their iconic album, like “The key changes, and the strange chorus of Wayne Coyne’s sixteen cloned voices rises to fill the space around my heart again.” While Choi contrasts Yoshimi’s role in the song as a Japanese woman who fights the automation, possibly challenging the stereotypes of the female Asian automaton, she also notes how Yoshimi is relegated to parts of the other songs, without having much to do with any theme of this kind of resistance and challenging stereotypes throughout the entirety of the album. Similarly, she notes the smaller image of Yoshimi on the cover of the album, nearly dwarfed by the pink robots. Choi does share her heartbreaking connection with the song “Do You Realize”, one of the saddest and most beautiful songs about the eventuality of death. I won’t give the details here, I loved the way that Choi explores how the meaning of the song and its heartbreak take her back to different eras of her life from 2003 to 2009 to 2025. While she connects the album to her main themes, it’s also one of the enjoyable connections she makes with these forms of popular media that have influenced her interests in robots and Asian American culture.

Another chapter and observation that stood out to me was “Ghost in the Shell (Intensive Care)” where Choi recounts the last days she spent with her mother, who was hospitalized in Italy after an aneurysm burst, kept alive by a respirator and hooked up to machines. As someone who experienced a dying parent in the hospital, attached to machines, I can relate, and Choi explores how these machines that seem so inhuman and artificial can actually keep us alive and help us perform integral functions. Like her reflection on the Flaming Lips’ song, this is another beautifully written but heart wrenching experience that Choi manages to capture all the confusing and intense emotions that she experienced. Yet, she also envisions her mother as Kusanagi from Ghost in the Machine, and how her cybernetic connection enables her to have a new view of consciousness. In another chapter, she explores how she has a similar conflicted relationship with technology, and how she’s harnessed the power of spreadsheets to be “the bionic arms I use to keep up with the work, to run alongside the assembly line, or maybe, to outpace my alienation and disgust.” Choi explores this complicated relationship and how technology has become like a cybernetic extension of ourselves which we rely on to survive (or maybe it’s feeding off of us, harvesting something from us).

I wasn’t sure what to expect from We Radiant Things. I am fascinated by this idea of cyborgs and robots and their portrayal in popular culture, and Franny Choi’s observations and analysis helped to challenge some of those perceptions, especially in how they are often tied to portrayals of Asians, Asian Americans, and especially Asian women. However, she also draws from her own personal experiences, which create a more intimate, funny, sad, and heartfelt rendering of these portrayals and instances. I really enjoyed learning more about how these portrayals have affected her identity, and how she challenges many of these roles by analyzing them. I would also love to take her class “Race, Robots, and Asian American Literature” or “Poetry and Technology”, since some of the work from these essays probably informs her teaching. This is a wonderful collection that will hopefully provide new insights into looking at the implications of how robots, cyborgs and technology are represented on the screen and in popular culture. Many thanks to Ecco Publishers and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of this wonderful book. Highly recommended!  

Light and Thread- Reflections from Han Kang

 Light and Thread by Han Kang

Light and Thread book cover

Author and Nobel Laureate Han Kang

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Nobel Prize winning Han Kang’s latest book, Light and Thread. I was so excited to find this title, and even more excited to learn that this was Kang’s first book of reflections, a kind of nonfiction journal and brief exploration of some of her writing. I don’t know if there are other nonfiction publications in Korean from Kang, but this was the first time I’ve seen her nonfiction in English. After reading and being haunted by books like The Vegetarian, Greek Lessons, and last year’s incredible We Do Not Part, I was excited to see what this book has to offer.

Although the book is slim, there’s much in it, and Kang provides some insight into her writing, especially around the questions she attempts to explore with each novel. I loved reading about these influences and especially how her novels revolve around these questions of the relationship of the past to the present and the living to the dead. It’s something that emerges in her writing, and especially in the relationships between characters that are at the center of her books. In addition, there’s a section where she discusses some of the writing of We Do Not Part, which I did not realize took her 7 years to write. We Do Not Part is not only a powerful story about friendship, connection, and the restorative power of art, but it’s also an incredibly affecting and viscerally moving work of art that readers can feel. There is something tangible about the book, and in Light and Thread, we learn that Kang experimented with walking around her home in Jeju Island in the darkness before dawn to learn exactly how dark it was or how shadows from candles displayed on walls. More surprising was the fact that Kang went out into the snowy Jeju forests to see how long she could hold snow in her hands before succumbing to the numbness of the cold. It makes sense that Kang would delve into these sensory experiences to create such a vivid and tactile experience for readers.

There’s also some lovely poetry throughout the book that feels threaded to We Do Not Part, in which Kang discusses the kinds of connections she experienced. She notes that some of her earliest writing from elementary school featured poems that dealt with these kinds of threads and connections which she sought to bind writers to readers, and possibly members of society. I’m amazed at the kinds of questions she raises through her examination of some of the most brutal events in history- although she seems struck by the violence and brutality, she still wonders how the same humanity that can punish and brutalize others is capable of such love and forgiveness, or care. It’s something that is hard to reckon, especially when we tend to not see these threads that bind us, but often look for the separation and tears.

The last section of the book is titled “Garden Diary,” and it details Kang’s first how she owned on her own, and how she worked with a landscaper to plant some trees and greens and deliver light to them, despite the north-facing garden. The landscaper tells her to bring mirrors to her yard in order to catch the sunlight and deliver it to the garden, and Kang writes this lovely poem

“We’re catching the sunlight shining south. By reflecting it with mirrors.

…

Thus, in my garden there is light.

There are trees that grow, nourished by that light.

Leaves sparkle, translucent, and flowers slowly open.”

The rest of the garden diary details a year and a half of the growth and life she documents as she continues to bring light and life to her plants. She observes the bugs, including wonderous fairy bugs, whose luminescence makes them seem ethereal, and the aphids she worries about eating the leaves of her plants. These are mostly short observations throughout the year, but it’s marvelous to read the subtle differences in the changing of seasons, and the position of the sun gradually evades the garden, rendering the plants lifeless until the next spring. In one November entry, she mentions that “In winter, a south-facing house becomes a jar of light,” which was a phrase I just loved. Throughout the year, we see how the plants and growth connect Kang to her home, which she says “feels like a friend” when she “heard myself say, ‘Be right back.” It’s not just the home, but the life and growth that connects her to the space, and also demonstrates that kind of care and concern that counters the brutality and violence of humanity and history. Towards the end of these entries, Kang notes that “I had been wanting to fill the north wall full of green, and now time is doing the job for me.” Even though these entries are mostly a sentence or two, it’s a lovely document of how time unfolds in these older, seasonal ways, similar to Jenny Odell’s wonderous book Saving Time, that looks at different measures of time, and Donald Quill’s Living the Irish Wheel of the Year, which also takes a more seasonal approach to the passing of time, reminding us of the renewal and return that occurs in life. The last few entries from Kang detail how her viburnum “has grown taller than I am,” and how “When I step through the front gate, the scent of lilac is everywhere.” Kang’s entries not only made me long for spring as we made it through a rough winter, but it also affirmed how important it is to be surrounded by life, and especially how good it can be to take care of other living things, even if they are plants. I loved this brief book, and as I look back on rereading certain sections, my appreciation and joy for it grows more and more like Kang’s viburnum or lilacs. This is definitely a book to revisit and reread, but also one to share with others. Highly recommended! 

Art Rescuing Us From Past Trauma- Han Kang's We Do Not Part

 We Do Not Part by Han Kang

Han Kang 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature  by John Sears, CC BY-SA 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons

We Do Not Part book cover

Jeju citizens awaiting execution in 1948 (public domain)

Massacre of Daranshi Cave in Jeju by 지구벌레, CC BY 2.0 KR , via Wikimedia Commons

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of Nobel Laureate Han Kang’s latest book We Do Not Part. I was both looking forward to and somewhat steeling myself to prepare to read Kang’s latest book. After reading The Vegetarian and Greek Lessons, I’ve come to realize that Kang’s books tend to dive deep into dark feelings, exploring emotions and issues below the surface. We Do Not Part goes even deeper and mines new territory. Where The Vegetarian and Greek Lessons both examined families, marriage, motherhood, and relationships, how society sets conventions and roles and what happens when people challenge or question them, We Do Not Part explores history and trauma as well as the artist’s role and pain in delving into the past. I also wasn’t sure what to expect based on the narrative—the story of a writer Kyungha who seeks to help her friend Inseon rescue her bird from the island of Jeju during a snowstorm sounded both heartwarming and different from Kang’s other books. However, when we first encounter Kyungha, who is the narrator of the novel, she seems utterly defeated, resigning herself to death. Like her other books, this aspect is bleak, and Kyungha is unable to handle many basic interactions or daily tasks. She describes the overwhelming heat in her apartment and is separated from her family. I got the sense that after working on her last project, Kyungha was seriously affected by it. The research and writing took a lot out of her, and eventually moved her away from her family. Kyungha is so resigned to death that she begins to get her affairs in order, leaving instructions for her body, and laying down to waste away. She exists in like a suspended kind of state, not willing to live, but also not taking action to die.

We also learn about Kyungha’s relationship with Inseon, who was a photographer she worked with as a young writer. They eventually worked together on other projects, and later planned to collaborate on an art project to memorialize a massacre. They planned to use logs painted black to represent the people who died. While Inseon wanted to go ahead with the project, Kyungha eventually backs out. At some point, Kyungha receives a text message from Inseon asking Kyungha to come to her with ID. We learn that Inseon was injured working on the project, and severed her fingers in the process, losing a lot of blood. Kang’s description of the procedure Inseon endures to restore her fingers is brutal. I found myself wincing, and the level of pain and discomfort I imagined was probably greater than anything I’ve read in a horror novel. However, I also got the sense that with Kang’s vivid and grotesque details, she’s possibly making a point about both the nature of art and also about the pain of memory, since Inseon was working on a project about a civilian massacre at the hands of soldiers in Jeju.  Inseon’s other work, as a documentarian, also mines similar territory, interviewing survivors of the Vietnam War’s atrocities. Despite not speaking Vietnamese, Inseon seems to understand the pain and suffering these women have faced, and we also see how she suffered as a result.

Inseon then asks Kyungha to go to her home in Jeju to rescue her bird, Ama. However, Kyungha must go during an epic snowstorm on Jeju, and find her way to Inseon’s home, as a promise to her dear friend. Although the set up seems a little incredulous, Kang’s writing and the emotional connection between Inseon and Kyungha makes this quest for Kyungha more believable. Furthermore, it gives Kyungha some purpose in her seemingly bleak life. The journey to Jeju and through the storm comprises the first of three parts of the book. It is a harrowing journey to the home, and throughout the journey, Kyungha seems to plunge deeper into the white nothingness of the storm, moving further and further away from people. She encounters an elderly woman who seems to be unable to communicate and a bus driver who doesn’t seem to provide clear directions or understand Kyungha’s desire to travel to her friend’s home. Furthermore, not being from Jeju also puts Kyungha at a disadvantage, and she seems concerned that people will be able to tell she’s from the mainland due to her language and lack of familiarity with the cultural practices. The snow storm is blinding and painful. Kyungha’s eyes become sore. Snow gets into her shows and pants. Kyungha nearly dies due to the snow, but somehow manages to burry herself in the snow to emerge in the morning near Inseon’s home.

At Inseon’s home, Kyungha discovers more than the birds and also reminisces about Inseon’s mother, who apparently suffered from dementia, a disease that affects memory and the processing of reality. Kyungha’s journey to Inseon’s house also seems to have altered her perceptions, as she looks to find Ama, the bird. However, Kyungha discovers Inseon’s project and what kind of research she was conducting for her latest project. We also learn about Inseon’s personal connection to this massacre, as her father and mother both had personal connections to the massacre. I wasn’t familiar with this event and still need to learn more about it, but it sounds like it was suppressed from the public for many years, and Inseon’s research (and Kyungha’s reading/learning) is a way to unearth the injustice and violence, the death and destruction that happened. We can see how both women’s work, writing and documenting, lead to both physical and emotional trauma, yet, both women are willing to endure and persist, if not for themselves, then for others. Kyungha risks her life for a favor for her friend. Inseon endures a brutal treatment to regain the use of her fingers, so important for her work as a photographer and the woodworking that initially caused her injury.

The book’s title comes from the collaborative project that Kyungha abandoned but Inseon continued to work on. Interestingly, they both seem to have different interpretations of the project’s meaning, and whether it means that they are never separated, or whether they refuse to say goodbye. Their friendship proves that both are true, and that despite distances caused both by geography and the responsibilities of family and professional life, they maintained a kind of bond that is never really severed. Furthermore, even when Kyungha is on her quest to save Inseon’s bird, Inseon (and her research) guide her through the challenges of being alone in Jeju. One of the lines I highlighted kind of emphasizes some of the surreal qualities of this story: “Dreams are terrifying things. No—they’re humiliating. They reveal things about you that you weren’t aware”. In many ways, Kyungha’s journey is dreamlike. She travels into a blizzard losing a sense of sight and even her body’s feelings, unsure if she is alive or dead. Similarly, what she learns from Inseon’s project, the massacre at Jeju and the lack of closure that many of the Jeju survivors experienced, seems to awaken something in her. Her prior numbness abates and is replaced by a kind of anger and sadness. Like other Kang books, this is not an easy journey, but this kind of self-realization, especially on such an epic, historical scale, is never easy.

The other aspect of the book I wanted to mention was Kang’s use of birds. Inseon had two birds, but the other bird, Ami, died and only Ama is left. During her time at Inseon’s, Kyungha remembers first meeting the birds and experiencing them. She also shares how she learns that “Birds will pretend like nothing’s wrong, no matter how much pain they’re in. They instinctively endure and hide pain to avoid being targeted by predators”. The birds serve as meaningful symbols, and Kyungha’s attempts to rescue Ama both show a burial and a revival. Although the birds come out of their cage for Inseon, it takes time for Kyungha to bond with them, and readers can see how similar they are to the Jeju survivors, trying to just endure without questioning much about what happened to their loved ones, afraid of further repercussions. However, we learn that Inseon’s mother, who initially seemed childlike, was actually one of the citizens of Jeju who really pushed for action to find out more about her brother, who was likely murdered and dumped in a mine. Kang’s use of birds as symbols of both vulnerability and a kind of endurance and survival, masking their pain, was beautifully wrought. She uses birds in such a surreal way, I kept thinking that this book was kind of like Kafka’s writing—that there’s a kind of allegorical symbolism to it, and that she takes both beauty and degradation to explore the range of experiences and emotions. Furthermore, like Kafka, this isn’t an easy read, but it is a rewarding read. It’s haunting and powerful, and something I will need to revisit at another time.  

A Poetic Novel about Fandom and Identity

 Y/N by Esther Yi

K-Pop Fans by Joseph  Ferris III from On a Ship, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

K-Content Expo in UAE Korea by Creative Content Agency, KOGL Type 1 , via Wikimedia Commons

Thank you Netgalley for sharing this advanced copy of this book. I’m not sure how I got this book, but I was glad I read it. Not familiar with fan fiction or K-pop, I didn’t quite get all of the references in the book, but I really appreciated the kind of dedication and adulation that the narrator had for Moon in this book. It’s an interesting story about celebrity and how our society views the increasing role of celebrities in our lives. Amanda Montell kind of delves into this in her new book The Year of Magical Overthinking; however, Yi’s book looks at this from a fan’s extreme perspective. Ot was a little ridiculous, but also interesting to learn more about this kind of adulation and some of the potential reasons why we worship celebrity and how our own ideas and beliefs/desires for celebrities shapes some of the popular perception of these people as well. I was mostly impressed with Yi’s poetic writing and descriptions. I found myself highlighting and rereading many different sections because of the beauty of the descriptions and phrasing in this book. Although it was kind of a foreign topic, I found a lot to relate to in this book, and I look forward to reading more from Esther Yi. 

Historical Mystery Set in 1400s Korea

 The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

Namhansanseong Fortress Seoul, South Korea by Edward N. Johnson CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

June Hur’s The Forest of Stolen Girls is an incredibly interesting book. I wasn’t anticipating how compelling the mystery surrounding the missing girls in this novel would be. Furthermore, as a historical novel from the 1400s in Korea, I was expecting something more antiquated and slower, but I was really impressed with the pacing and challenges to growing up as an adolescent that Hwani faces. Hwani, as a girl growing up in mideval Korea, has little say or rights. Especially as more and more girls disappear in the forest, the concerns for her wellbeing also grow. However, once her father, a famous detective, investigates these disappearances and disappears as well, Hwani is forced to take action. I really like the kind of direction and lessons she learned from her detective father, and saw this book as also a coming of age story where an adolescent faces challenges that adults around her prevented her from addressing. Yet, she uses the lessons she’s gleaned from these exclusions to her advantage. The pace moves briskly, and with a mystery like this, it left me wanting to learn more and more about what happened. Furthermore, the characters, despite living in a world nearly 600 years ago, seemed relatable and realistic. I highly recommend this book and am hoping that June Hur creates more mysteries for Hwani to solve.