Heavy day. I saw Someone Else's Shinjuku East, a low budget, quasi-guerrilla documentary about Taiwanese ex-pats living in Japan, which is well-known in Asia for treating other Asians like total crap. For a while as I sat there watching it, I wasn't thinking it was an all-that-good documentary, I was mentally pointing out things I didn't like about it. But then there was one scene with one of the subjects counting out 11 1000 yen notes (roughly a hundred bucks) and handing it to the filmmaker who was holding the camera, and jokes, "for film costs", but then says, "please give this to my father" and I found myself tearing up, immediately thinking, "whoa! why?". On the whole, I'd give it a thumbs up, but would recommend it with caveats.

It was a bizarre picture of Japan. Seeing images of Japan, but hearing almost exclusively Chinese (I couldn't tell if they were speaking Mandarin or Taiwanese). I think the filmmakers were successful in showing Japan through the eyes of unwelcome outsiders. The otherwise familiar and normal images of Japan really felt foreign or hostile. The private spaces, naturally, didn't seem like Japan at all. It's not easy being an ex-pat, but part of me wondered what would be so bad about going back to Taiwan. The subjects were all older, and they came to Japan when Taiwan wasn't doing too well (yay Nationalists and 40 years of martial law), but things have changed. I don't know. I have a great-aunt living in Osaka and even having fallen on rough financial times, she didn't make any move to go back to Taiwan. Once you've integrated your life somewhere, it becomes your life.

It's still hard, though, these human lives, swept through life like leaves on a stream. What are they (we) doing? What control do they (we) have? So much suffering, so much hardship. But we're given these lives and we make do. I see other people and their lives and I feel lucky that I'm me, but train a documentary camera on me and I can give you a tragic subject.

And then I got home and watched PBS all night, and it was all bad news. First up was a Nova and it was about populations and demographics and how Japan, India, and Africa are in such big trouble, with the idiot and evil Bush administration making things worse, posturing on their stupid so-called moral stance while people die in Africa. Next up was the second part of that Nova program focusing on China and the environment and modernization, and it's just like "what are we doing to this world?" And for what? Greed, capitalism, materialism.

Finally, I watched most of a documentary on a guy named Ram Dass. I clicked on the TV and there were scenes in India, music, dancing, so I watched. Then this old white guy was being interviewed, and just as I was thinking of changing the channel to see who the musical guest would be on Letterman, it dawned on me, "Is that Ram Dass?". One of my last Netflix rentals was on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and there was a short bit on Ram Dass that didn't make any impression on me. Otherwise I know nothing about him. Oh, and there was one time at the SF Zen Center bookstore when I overheard someone asking about a Ram Dass book. But it was Ram Dass, it was a documentary on Ram Dass, and it turns out that he was quite a big shot in the 60's hippie scene. Great. But no, I watched with an open mind. He was a spiritual luminary and I have no reason to doubt it (unlike those damn hippies). He does a lot with the dying. He suffered a stroke several years ago, and part of the documentary covered his recovery. Kind of a downer. Not supposed to be. But that whole aging and suffering thing.