Yellow with anger

>> For the guys behind the Yellow Fellas project, "Asian male" is not an oxymoron

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

In these post-Fantasia days it's not hard to list off a number of resonant masculine figures in Asian pop culture: Chow Yun-fat and Lau Ching-wan, Jet Li and Sonny Chiba. Try this one, though. List off their Asian-North-American counterparts. Let's see... Russell Wong... uh, that's it for now. And how many of you mumbled "Russell who?"

Six or seven years ago, when Tetsuro Shigematsu was doing his one-man stage show Rising Son, about growing up Japanese-Canadian, he was by his own admission blissfully unaware that, as an Asian male in a predominantly white society, he was being short-changed, denied his right to his masculine identity.

"What provided a real catalyst," says Montreal-based Shigematsu, "was my series of interviews for the NFB, for a documentary called Who's Albert Woo? by Hunt Hoe. Basically, he was exploring the experience of the Asian male, not only in North America but worldwide.

"I realized that I had a great deal to say, but it really felt like I was holding back, self-censoring. I don't know if I'd internalized certain character traits that are expected of Asians in general--politeness, understatement. I was a little upset with myself, because here was an opportunity to be a spokesman for fellow Asian brothers. Ironically, though, the director congratulated me afterwards for being one of the most candid subjects. That made me realize that having all these things to articulate, but not allowing myself to do so, is probably a universal condition among Asian men."

The real thing

That itch, that bothersome sense that something important was there but not addressed, started to snowball in Shigematsu's mind. "I started thinking about creating an alter ego--not even necessarily in the context of a movie. I wondered, what would it take for me to give the harshest of feelings the harshest of words? I couldn't do it myself. I don't function in the world as a bombastic, militant, angry young man. At the same time, there was this voice inside me, screaming to get out, that was didactic and profane."

That voice took the name Lee Hiroshima, who would become the central character in Yellow Fellas, the rogue indie film on which Shigematsu is now focusing his energies. He's finding himself less and less alone in the undertaking. "The movie sprouted up around Lee's need, by necessity, of a world to live in. In my mind, I believed that Lee wasn't alone in the world, that he had kindred spirits. Sitting behind my computer, envisioning this world inside my head, I had no idea that the real equivalent actually existed. They've always been out there, just waiting for the call. The theme of this movie, angry young Asian men who won't abide the wrongful depiction of themselves in the media any longer, has really touched a nerve. Hence the strong response I'm getting from Asians across the country.

"I envisioned these underworld types, Asian gangsters with tattoos, but also, more importantly, Asians like myself who are empowered, awakened by their own anger. Then I get e-mails from people like St. John, who's the real thing, ex-Mafia. I'd written a character just like him, and he shows up on my doorstep."

Seeing the light

St. John Jung is a Korean Canadian, based in Toronto until he caught word of Shigematsu's idea. "I read about it in Rice Paper, an Asian-Canadian quarterly publication," says Jung. "I was in a bookstore one day, checking it out, and there was this title I found kind of funny--'Sexy Asian men?' with a question mark. I thought, 'Oh, no, one of these hokey, blow-sunshine-up-our-ass, minority-type articles.' I flipped through it and got to Tetsuro's page. When I read what he had to say, it was revolutionary to me, in the sense that he was willing to break ground, to start at ground zero and create. I think a lot of Asian Canadians don't realize the situation we're in, that we're in a sense oppressed."

Jung's affinity for the project manifested itself in more than just lip service, a long-distance thumbs-up. He's taken the responsibility of production tasks, scouting locations and so forth--a boon for Shigematsu, whose current budget for Yellow Fellas is roughly the loose change in his pocket.

"When I read the article," says Jung, "that character Lee wasn't just an alter ego. He was me. That's why I felt such a strong urge to just drop everything and come out here. I don't think that anger has been expressed yet. Until it is, we can't move on to the next stage. We rationalize and say, 'oh, that's just the way things are.' Meanwhile, we're still taking it up the ass the whole time. We have to stand up and say, this is who we are, straight up. We are Asian men."

Double-edged sword

Both Shigematsu and Jung recognize the contradictions and complexities inherent in the project. For starters, "Asian male" is two words. The issue of masculinity under fire is one that crosses lines of race and class, and is a moral minefield at that. As for the trials of the Asian Canadian, the pair acknowledge the "rock and a hard place" quality of being trapped between a societal norm that won't readily accept them on one hand, and the often-oppressive expectations of the Asian family on the other.

"As Asian artists, culture producers, what have you," says Shigematsu, "we're twice removed. We're removed from the mainstream white infrastructures, the movie-making machine and cultural organizations, because we're not in the positions of decision-making. At the same time, by choosing this unorthodox path, we're removed from our own communities. Asian parents naturally want success for their children, in law, medicine, accounting. So there definitely is that dual pressure."

One issue that cuts deep is the sense of betrayal by Asian women--note that in our "multicultural" society, the most frequently seen mixed-race couple is the Asian woman and the white guy. "In a sense, Asian women have been complicit. They have no complaints when it comes to dating--there's a huge part of the population that have been duped into buying the whole Madame Butterfly complex. It's sexual mythology, and Asian women buy into that, even come to believe it. So many Asian males have strong frustration towards Asian women, who won't even date their own kind."

There are further multifaceted topics to be laid out here as well--tensions among the different Asian cultures, Asian racism against non-Asians, the sexism all too frequent in Asian societies. Neither Shigematsu nor Jung has gone into this expecting to lay out the final truth on any aspect. Yellow Fellas is about putting the questions on the table, not the answers.

"I'm not going to gripe about the white man not giving us recognition," says Jung, "or white society oppressing us. Fuck that shit--that's just being a whiny pussy. Rather, I look to things like what Tetsuro's doing--producing, creating, starting things up. I hope a whole slew of Asian writers come out of this, inspired to create and form our foundation, somewhere we can stand from and say, 'look at the tangible manifestations of our identity.'" :

Yellow Fellas is currently in pre-production, and in need of volunteers, particularly production crew and non-Asian actors. For more info, or to get involved, go to

www.shigematsu.com or call 934-1908