More or Less Asian? Stereotypes in Literature: talk at Asia House 12th Nov 2014

The cuddly liberal Guardian thought this illustration was OK.

The original photo of the squirrel before the Guardian's Goebbels squad got on the job.

I'm on a panel next Wednesday at Asia House for a debate — More or Less Asian? — alongside actor and playwright Daniel York, playwright Yasmeen Khan, author Niven Govenden and chaired by the writer and broadcaster, Bidisha.

The debate explores Asian stereotypes in literature.

I've been challenging the lazy and dehumanising depiction of East Asian ever since I took my solo show, Suzy Wrong - Human Cannon, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1994.

My other explorations of the theme have included a profile of Anna May Wong for BBC Radio 4, A Celestial Star in Piccadilly (2009), a one-woman show, Anna May Wong Must Die! (2009), and The Steampunk Opium Wars (Feb 2012) which premiered at the National Maritime Museum to mark the opening of their Traders Gallery.

In 2007, I presented the ten-part series, Chinese In Britain (BBC R4), which gave me a rare opportunity to add balance to the skewed view of Chinese people. Among other things, the second episode managed to dismantle the myth of Chinatown. This dark region filled with opium-smoking, dagger-wielding villains is a location in the mind of the beholder and says more about what lurks beneath in the psyche than it does about the mundane reality. (The series is being repeated on Radio 4 Extra and is available to listen on iPlayer for another three weeks.)

However, the BBC series proved to be a rare slip through the white dominant net. I continue to be shocked but unsurprised by the liberal establishment's continued demented depictions of the Chinese in output such as the BBC's Sherlock reboot where everything was updated except for the sinister yellow peril in The Blind Banker episode, and the anachronistic Radio 4 programme, Fu Manchu in Edinburgh, which drew uncomfortably from the episode in the Chinese In Britain series in which we'd looked at the early Chinese medical students. These were rarely glimpsed real human beings who'd done so much good for British society, snottily eclipsed by a cheap rehash of the yellow peril stereotype.

Elsewhere, we're rendered invisible in areas where we obviously have a presence in the real world. There has never been an east Asian family on Eastenders, for example. I speak as an East Ender myself when I say that this is fairly (sic) ignorant and stupid. And it does us no favours, but warms us up for the slaughter.

The absence of east Asians in the culture means we are a blank canvas onto which all sorts of poisonous narratives and images can be projected. So when the Blair government required a scapegoat for its inept handling of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001, it was able to turns the guns of the press onto the UK Chinese by briefing Valerie Elliott of The Times that a Chinese restaurant was responsible. The media, with the honourable exception of The Independent, took up the cry lemming-like. This potentially deadly situation (fury was brewing, livelihoods were lost, farmers had committed suicide, Chinese were being targeted and spat at) required protests in London and Manchester Chinatowns and meetings with the now defunct Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) to get minister Nick Brown to vindicate us and for the absurdity of the claim to be made apparent.

So there is a politcal dimension to issues of identity. It's not a luxury add-on. This is about people's survival.

More or Less Asian? debate at Asia House, Wednesday 12th November 2014

Yellow Peril Orientalism past and present: awaiting Chris Frayling's new Chinaphobia book

This morning's hypnagogic state was interrupted by a call from Pat Edlin, who excitedly told me about a book by Chris Grayling about yellow peril fears and orientalism that he'd just heard discussed on the Today programme (BBC Radio 4).

I did wonder why a dodgy Tory minister would suddenly break the habit of a political lifetime and stick up for underdogs instead of sticking it to them. The thought of kindness and rationality emanating from John Humphrys and the laughably titled Justice Minister blew my noggin enough to have me reaching for Wiki.

Ah, Pat meant the other one. How unfortunate for academic Chris Frayling to so nearly share a name with the Slippery One: only one letter away on the keyboard for anyone with fat fingers.

I met Chris — the nice Chris — on BBC Radio 3's Night Waves in 2011 when I was talking about Anna May Wong and the dire representation of Chinese and east Asians in general in the media. I'm delighted to see him take on this subject and hopefully give it the Edward Said Orientalism treatment.

Here's a round-up of yellow peril episodes both historical and current that we've had to deal with.

From Anna May Wong having to die every time a white bloke fancied her, Sherlock's Blind Banker episode and propagandist hack Sax Rohmer's villainous Fu Manchu to the government blaming Chinese Brits for for its own failure to contain the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001, we've encountered a slew of challenges, and even won a few of 'em.

I'm looking forward to reading Chris Frayling's new book, The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu and the Rise of Chinaphobia (Thames and Hudson), presumably covering similar ground as Philip Dodds' sympathetic Radio 4 programme, Overwhelming China, that Daniel York, my fellow Fu Fighter, and I were on a while back.

Let's hope we're hitting a critical mass and that all this yellow peril nonsense will come to a swift end.

And then the BBC sacked Jeremy Clarkson, and then I woke up.

Dislocating Asia review: groundbreaking cultural event showcasing East Asian British music, literature and poetry

Liz Chi Yen Liew and Dennis Lee

Last night's Dislocating Asia event at The Forge in Camden was more than a whole heap of fun: it was significant in showcasing a variety of top East Asian talent without a hint of faux orientalism.

We were the cool kids (okay, we were the rebels smoking fags behind the bike sheds and sassing the dweebs from the back seats in the class), and all references to our East Asian heritage flowed from an organic part of who we are and our interests, without a panda or pander in sight — unless you count my poem, "Chi Chi's Glorious Swansong" (about the great panda star of London Zoo in the 1960s). It was one of the first events of its kind that I can recall where you didn't cringe with embarrassment at the insecurities of the third largest non-white ethnic minority on display: it was another marker in the British East Asian community at long last, finally growing up.

Dr Diana Yeh curated the evening around the publication of her book, The Happy Hsiungs: Performing China and the Struggle for Modernity.

Dr Diana Yeh

Diana was first up with an illustrated talk about the Hsiungs that flew by. Extracts from the play, enacted by Jennifer Lim, Daniel York, Melody Brown and Amanda Maud, revealed a witty comedy of manners and a case of mistaken identity: most apt for a minority constantly being denied theirs. This was underlined by photographs of the original cast — all white actors in yellow face. Oh, how we laughed.

L to R: Jennifer Lim, C Amanda Maud, Melody Brown and Daniel York

Shih-I Hsiung, now almost forgotten but about to be resurrected, was a barnstorming playwright whose hit West End play, Lady Precious Stream, made him and Mrs Hsiung (the first Chinese woman writer to publish a book in English) the toast of the town. George Bernard Shaw considered him to be the Chinese Shakespeare but advised him that Chinese-themed work would assure him of success. His great hit show, based on a Chinese classic, played the West End for 733 nights from 27th November 1934, going on to be performed internationally from Israel to Kenya, and was adapted for television in 1950.

He has been rediscovered in China, where diaspora pioneers such as Hsiung and Anna May Wong are seen as important cultural icons in the history of the new superpower.

Hsiung's son, the elderly masterchef Deh-ta Hsiung, attended with his wife Julia. The Forge is a great new venue with wonderful acoustics, like a mini-version of the Royal Festival Hall. Its 60-seat capacity was rammed for the show.

Melody, Amanda and Daniel took the stage in their other guise of the night: the three-piece acoustic band, Wondermare. Melody and Amanda's warm, delicately-nuanced harmonies convey a range of emotions from the menace of David Byrne's Psycho Killer to the gentle comedy of My Lovely Horse from Father Ted. Daniel departed from his mandolin to serve up a stonking slide guitar solo in Ode to Billie Joe. They called on Liz Chi Yen Liew and Charles Shaar Murray to accompany them for their final song, a stirring commemoration of the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers who died ten years ago this month.

I did a thirty-minute poetry set, reading from my book, Reaching for my Gnu, and performed a few new ones including Margaret Thatcher Died At the Ritz and Eating Placenta: Lines on the Royal Birth, before Charles Shaar Murray joined me for Anna May Wong Must Die.

Composer Liz Chi Yen Liew, who has worked with a host of big names in music including Moby, proves a fierce violinist and pianist, sensitively complemented by Dennis Lee on flute and zither. Lee's delicacy on the zither means every plucked note resonates with depth that reaches right into your belly. My friend Paul Anderson was literally moved to tears and snuffled away quietly into his beer. It was his birthday so he was most likely contemplating the passage of time and similar existential matters — it was that sort of a night. Liz and Dennis brought the show to a rousing end, leaving DJ Zoe Baxter, whose Lucky Cat series resumes shortly on Resonance 104.4FM, to spin her hidden wonders of early East Asian recording — always a fascinating listen.

We all had such a great time that we're hoping to repeat it. Who knows? There may even be a Wondermarey Christmas on the way.

Chinese arts tonight on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance FM, 5pm

Aowen Jin's Factory Girls

Tonight live at 5pm on Resonance 104.4FM, Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge's guests are actor Daniel York, playwright Jingan Young, and artist Aowen Jin.

Presented by Anna Chen. Charles Shaar Murray rides shotgun. With added Wondermare.

Expect a lively discussion on the conflicting state of Chinese artists in Britain as the West recognises there may be vulgar dosh at stake. And mainland Chinese artist Aowen Jin talks about her work looking at Factory Girls, China's One Child Policy and having Boris Johnson open her Sound Fountain in China.

Live music in the studio from Wondermare, practically my resident house band.

Listen here, live (click on widget) or afterwards online.

Resonance 104.4FM

MUSIC TRACKS:
1) INTRO: WOODY GUTHRIE — I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore
[LIVE MUSIC: WONDERMARE — Ode to Billy Joe]
2) ROLLING STONES — Can't You Hear Me Knocking
3) SYL JOHNSON — Is It Because I'm Black?
4) LANG LANG & METALLICA — One (Live at the Grammys 2014)
5) DRAGONFORCE with Herman Li — Through the Fire and Flames
6) AOWEN'S TRACK
[LIVE MUSIC: WONDERMARE — White Horses]
7) FRANK CHICKENS - We Are Ninja

The RSC Orphan of Zhao: one year on, East Asian British in the arts

BEAA founding members at Opening The Door, L to R: Michelle Lee, Lucy Sheen, Anna Chen, Jennifer Lim, Paul Hyu, Amanda Rogers, Kathryn Golding and Daniel York

February 11th marks the first anniversary of the groundbreaking Opening the Door event at the Young Vic. This was the first positive concrete step offered by a slice of the UK theatre establishment following the international protest led by East Asian British artists in response to the Royal Shakespeare Company's shocking yellowface casting for their first Chinese play, The Orphan of Zhao.

Despite the play being sold as the RSC's "Chinese Hamlet", and their marketing being directed at the Chinese — with promotion in Chinese and featuring an East Asian poster boy — the RSC cast only three minor parts out of 17 with east Asians even though this country has a fine pool of East Asian British (BEA) acting talent such as Benedict Wong, Gemma Chan, Lucy Sheen and Daniel York, among others.

You can also watch the British East Asian Artists (BEAA)— who came together at the outbreak of Zhaogate hostilities to fight this significant battle — discussing the state of play with the Asian Performing Arts Forum in these videos: Part 1 and Part 2.

BEAA founding members at Opening the Door, Young Vic, 11 Feb 2013, clockwise from bottom left: Hi Ching, Michelle Lee, Lucy Sheen, Chowee Leow, Amanda Rogers and Jennifer Lim.

For background information, read the chronology of The Orphan of Zhao controversy. 

BEAA open letter to Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey.

Lucy Sheen on the RSC Orphan of Zhao campaign one year on.

Press pick up on the BEAA letter to Ed Vaizey.

BEAA Facebook and website.

Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge launches on Resonance FM Tuesday 5.30pm

Tomorrow's (tonight, Tuesday) exciting launch programme of my new Resonance FM radio series is a yellow peril fest of all things colonialist.

"Oh Other where art thou?" features my guest Daniel York talking about the momentous WTF! moment when east Asians around the world realised that only a miserly three out of 17 characters in the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Chinese Hamlet", The Orphan of Zhao, had been cast with east Asian actors. What's ours is ours and what's yours is ours. (The RSC was invited to take part but has been unable to participate.)

Actress Siu-see Hung tells us about the day she and her friends saw a Yale graduate show called Beijing Cake at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, only to be drowned in a sea of yellowface. Never mind, the venue manager assured her yellowface is okay and besides, blackface is making a comeback in the US.

Dr Diana Yeh — expert on the history of British Chinese artists — gives us a historical context and explains colonial discourses on Chinese and East Asians and wider political picture.

Independent Economics Editor Ben Chu has just written a fab book demolishing the myths about people like me called Chinese Whispers: why everything you've heard about China is wrong. He'll be telling us why.

With music from Daniel York's band Wondermare (Melody Brown and C Amanda Maude), muscial accompaniment from Charles Shaar Murray and poetry from yours truly.

Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge on Resonance 104.4FM commences Tuesday 15th October at 5.30pm for an hour with "Oh Other: Where Art Thou?".
Listen to Madam Miaow Says on air and on the internet at Resonance 104.4FM Tuesdays at 5.30-6.30pm from 15th October.
Available to listen online here

Fu Manchu Complex review: a boisterous romp through the yellow peril canon

I'd already expressed my delight in seeing Daniel York's lively satire, The Fu Manchu Complex, at the Oval House Theatre last week, but a rash of resentful mainstream reviews prompts me to expand on my response.

In particular, the Guardian's theatre reviewer Maddy Costa seemed completely out of her depth, writing a stunningly superficial piece that simply did not geddit. The poor woman didn't even derive any fun from it, making me wonder why she bothers with theatre reviewing at all if it's all such a bore and a chore.

To be fair, York has a fine line in jolly-japes one-liners and crude national insults: the Scottish woman dismissed as a "moronic haggistani", the Irish man ridiculed as a "potato-nosher clover-face". But having a character acknowledge that events on stage are "dashedly dramatic" does not postmodern irony make: without it, the play feels weirdly anachronistic.

This is, at best, mischievous. Daniel York has deftly demolished a slew of stereotypes, setting them up and bowling them down like skittles in a boisterous romp through the yellow peril canon. He dredges up every unpleasant racist colonialist epithet and then, when you think he must have exhausted his supply, he goes and finds some more. As Artie in The Larry Sanders Show once said, he hits rock bottom and then breaks through to a whole new bottom no-one ever knew existed — much how racist ideology burrows into language.

What's different here is that because such archetypal EDL-esque heroes as Sax Rohmer's Nayland Smith and his sidekick Petrie, who deliver these insults, are played by east Asian actors — the very people mocked in the Fu Manchu books — the absurdity of such dehumanisation is shown up under a spotlight, diced, cubed and wrapped up in a pretty yellow bow.

According to Ms Costa, it's all merely a crude context-free repetition of national insults. "Oh look, they're just as racist." How she failed to notice both the sub-text and the twist, I can scarcely begin to fathom.

York could have written anything, and almost anything would be an improvement on this cod-Edwardian schlock-horror farce burdened with cock jokes and schoolboy sniggering.

This year marks the centenary of the original publication of the Fu Manchu books, making this a timely and pertinent production. And yet we still get Sherlock reboots regurgitating the same "cod-Edwardian schlock horror" (the Sherlock episode "The Blind Banker"), and Radio 4 giving us all-white Fu Manchu yellow peril fantasies (Fu Manchu in Edinburgh). How's that for  being"weirdly anachronistic". Why is the Guardian not challenging these?

She appears to have missed why tiny todger cock-jokes might be hugely relevant when Chinese males are uniformly dismissed as being hung like hamsters — one way colonialism dehumanised an entire race is by dissing their sexuality. "Black men were labelled superstuds. Chinese men got the reverse stereotype. It's a sort of Goldilocks Syndrome — or Goldicocks — not too big, not too small but just right. And 'just right' is the European norm. The 'horn norm'", as I pointed out in my own solo show, Anna May Wong Must Die!

Talking of colonialist dissing of sexuality, as Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu, Jennifer Lim's schizoid oscillation between dragon lady and sexy lotus blossom was a joy to behold, nailing both stereotypes with wit, brio and verve. The diminutive Paul Chan as Nayland Smith is a natural comedian, funny and likeable before he even opens his mouth: truly inspired casting. And there are many more great touches, such as the Borg implant-like white quarter-masks to go with the assimilation theme.

I do question why two Guardian writers (the other being Matt Trueman, who originally reported the RSC director Greg Doran's spiteful "sour grapes" comment) have given this hugely entertaining bundle of fun a measly two stars. Was it perfect? No. Did it deserve a mere two stars? Definitely not. If you're trying to reinforce the notion that we're "all crap so why all the fuss?", well done. Five stars. Keep the interlopers off our pitch and whatever you do, don't let them play with our ball. You'd think some people just don't like having their imperial myths deconstructed.

Resistance is futile. We're here to stay.

Oval House Theatre until 19th October

Yellow Peril orientalism past and present.

Anna Chen's upcoming performances: Bohemia N12, the Fu Manchu Complex public debate and BBC Radio 4's Overwhelming China

Charles Shaar Murray and I are reading poetry tonight at the Bohemian Community Centre pub, 762-764 High Rd Finchley N12, brought to us by the Friern Barnet library occupy crew who won a new lease of life for the only public space in the area, a lovely little purpose-built library that was about to be swallowed whole by developers. They appear to be doing another grand job and liberating an abandoned pub for the community. 7-11pm. Phoenix Rainbow MCs.

I'm also reading poetry at tomorrow's pre-The Fu Manchu Complex public debate at the Oval House Theatre, 4.30-6.30pm. The main event in the evening, a satire by actor Daniel York who was at the centre of the RSC The Orphan of Zhao controversy, is a satirical view of the yellow peril scare that is going through a revival at the moment.

Dan and I have been interviewed for Overwhelming China, a programme examining the origins of the anti-Chinese mania ratcheting up as China heads for superpower status. To be broadcast 11am, Friday 1st November on BBC Radio 4.

Before I forget, I am hosting a short series of Madam Miaow Says on Resonance 104.4FM commencing Tuesday 15th October at 5.30pm for an hour. We launch with "Other: Where Art Thou?" exploring yellowface, the return of blackface and the general backward march of representation for effniks. With Dan York, Julie Cheung-Inhin and Emily Seu-see Hung, and music from Charles Shaar Murray and Melody Brown.

BEAA Opening the door at the Young Vic: my South China Morning Post column

Here's my South China Morning Post magazine column on February's Opening the Door event at the Young Vic. (Published 17 March 2013) Full version below.


Was it when I reached for not one but TWO bags of cheese 'n onion crisps that my greed was exposed? First I'm demanding equal opportunities in the culture as a British person of east Asian extraction; then Hannah Miller, the Royal Shakespeare Company's head of casting, catches me red-handed grabbing that second bag at the end of lunch.

"Oh. TWO? I suppose they're small," says Hannah, daintily selecting a single one for herself. It's a spooky moment of deja vu as I'm sure I said something similar when the RSC cast only 3 east asian actors in minor roles out of seventeen in their "Chinese Hamlet": The Orphan of Zhao.

We're chatting at the Open Space "Opening the Door" event for east Asian actors and creatives at the Young Vic. It's an unprecedented meeting of talents put together by Improbable Theatre, Equity, the Arts Council England and various theatre bodies after prolonged talks with actor Daniel York, materialising only after the British East Asian Artists spearheaded the international protest over the RSC casting boob. This day would allow us to network and have THAT debate.

The noise we made over Orphan meant that, for the first time ever, we were heard clearly across the media and in the industry. As Samuel Johnson might have observed, is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a person struggling for life in the water, and when she has reached the ground, encumbers her with help? No matter. It's here and it looks great.

Some 160 performing arts practitioners — half industry, the Other half east Asian artists of differing hues — are gathered here today. While being surrounded by so many beautiful, smart, talented people makes my eyes moisten, the response of the RSC, who sent a promising five representatives, is eye-watering.

What had Hannah and her colleagues learnt from the Orphan protest and what would they do differently? Nothing, it seems. Hannah repeated the claim that they had searched Spotlight for east Asian auditionees and "saw lots". And yet, said I, we double-checked and could only find eight.

"That's their prerogative," said Hannah. "That's up to them."

It was disappointing to find the RSC still complacently unreflective and unaware of why we were angry. Still, they've promised to team up with Equity and casting directors to meet more east Asian actors and "widen the pool of talent" by early summer. So here's hoping: fingers crossed.

RSC The Orphan of Zhao debate Part 2: British East Asian Artists discussion

With charges of "sour grapes" and claims that east Asians couldn't be cast in parts that had no "Chinese connection", there's an awful lot to discuss concerning the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Orphan of Zhao.

So it's a shame that the RSC declined an invitation to take part in a debate between members of the British East Asian Artists and theatre academics from Swansea, Brunel and Royal Holloway Universities, organised by the Asian Performing Arts Forum.

Dr Ashley Thorpe of Reading University chaired this roundtable discussion. Taking part were Daniel York, Dr Amanda Rogers (Swansea University), Dr Broderick Chow (Brunel University) and Anna Chen.

VIDEO: Part 1 of The Orphan of Zhao debate.

Anna Chen's review of The Orphan of Zhao

The "two dogs and a maid" blogpost that kicked it off.

British East Asian Actors website

The Orphan of Zhao debate Pt 1: no show by the RSC at roundtable discussion

The Royal Shakespeare Company declined this chance to debate with members of the British East Asian Artists group who had been critical of the casting for The Orphan of Zhao, a Chinese classic. The 17 roles included only three BEAs, and those were in minor parts: chiefly working a puppet dog, and playing a maid and a ghost child.

Having seen the production, I can safely say there's a whole lot more that needs to be discussed, oh yes.

Dr Ashley Thorpe of Reading University chaired this roundtable discussion hosted by the Asian Performing Arts Forum; Taking part were Daniel York, Dr Amanda Rogers (Swansea University), Dr Broderick Chow (Brunel University) and Anna Chen.

Thanks to Chowee Leow on camera.
Edited by Anna Chen.

Part 2 of the Orphan of Zhao debate

The "two dogs and a maid" blogpost that kicked it off.

British East Asian Artists website

Anna's review of The Orphan of Zhao in the Morning Star.

Review by academic Amanda Rogers.