Chris Rock throws Jada, Will and the three Asian kids under the Oscars bus

Anna Chen discusses Chris Rock Asian joke on BBC World Service 

Well, Chris Rock REALLY wanted that gig, didn't he? With the eyes of the world on this year's Academy Awards ceremony following the 'Oscars So White' campaign and boycott, how's a chap to hold onto his integrity and reputation and still get to play the big time?

With a shocking number of African American deaths at the hands of cops, the Ferguson protests and the Black Lives Matter campaign coming to a head, the issues of black worth in US society were highlighted by the casual exclusion of a major section of the population from one of America's top cultural prize-giving ceremonies. This was the crisis moment that had so much riding on it. Would Chris join the boycott even if it meant giving up his role as MC for one of the most prestigious events in the showbiz calendar?

What Chris did was to take the job, aim a few soft balls at the white establishment and then show them he was only kidding. For is he not the house clown? He made his bones by reserving his keenest viciousness for Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, the very couple who raised awareness of the total absence of any nominations for black actors at this year's Oscars. The most effective assassins are always the ones from the doomed victims' own group, as it comes with an extra serving of relish. He did what no white person could have achieved: shooting the messengers from the lip. Greater love hath no man than he lay down his fellow black performers for his place at the top table. How the white audience laughed.

It was gruesome to watch, like some sort of a human sacrifice of Jada and Will. And then, in case they missed the point he was making, he tossed in three Asian children as dessert for whichever lower order daemon it was that he was ingratiating himself with on the night.

Hope the crumbs tasted swell, Chris.

I remember when Chris Rock was good. We liked him a lot in our house. The missing link between Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, Chris combined savvy sharp wits with righteous indignation over injustice. His documentary, Bad Hair, made me quite tearful thinking about his daughter coming to terms with her own black beauty and the rancid creatures for whom her black African hair is a mark of inferiority.

I wonder if Chris saw his child in the eyes of the three Asian kids he humiliated on stage at the Oscars. Oh look: Price Waterhouse Cooper clones because, as any fule know, we Asians are all corporate breadhead whores without an ounce of concern for our fellow humans. One of the kids was given a Jewish name, thereby gifting Chris with two racist insults for the price of one.

Then there's Sacha Baron Cohen at the Oscars, another swinging dick hiding his uber-dickness behind insults about Asian guys and small dicks. So brave. "Do it to Julia," screamed Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984, and here they are as broken and willing to pass the pain on to others in order to escape it themselves.

Anyhow, here I am in last night's World Have Your Say debate on the BBC World Service on the subject of the Chris Rock Asian Joke.

How the Asian kids were tricked into Chris Rock's Asian joke. One of the kids speaks out.

More salient points in 'Eight Reasons Why I Hated Chris Rock's Monologue'.

How Asian model minority stereotypes are used against black people.

In 2021, Black businesses in the US have struggled under Covid-19. Support Black-Owned Businesses: 181 Places to Start Online

Anna May Wong Must Die! in China: Anna Chen's radio interview on Studio Plus

Here is a radio interview I gave in Beijing when I did my Anna May Wong Must Die! talk for the China-based Bookworm Literary Festival in 2015.

Anna Chen: A Voice to Conjoin Britain with China

2015-09-30 10:17:08 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Li Shiyu

Anna Chen presents her multi-media one-woman show: Anna May Wong Must Die. [Photo provided by Anna Chen]

Anchor:

Chinese people are among the fastest-growing ethnic minorities in the UK. However, in areas such as arts, media and politics, they are still the quiet section of the population.

But London-based writer, performer and broadcaster Anna Chen is reluctant to remain silent. Actively involved in comedy shows and radio programs, she is using her voice to conjoin the British Isles with the Middle Kingdom.

Let's follow Li Ningjing to learn her story.

Reporter:

In a dimly-lit room in Beijing, accompanied with rhythmic music, stand-up performer Anna Chen rapped a trenchant, witty song on Anna May Wong, a Hollywood legend and one of the most misunderstood talents back in the Roaring Twenties.

"This is what fascinated me about Anna May Wong, who was Chinese movie star, Hollywood's first Chinese superstar (and) the most famous Chinese woman in the world in the 1920s and 30s. And the things she was up against then, I felt I was still bumping up against at the end of the 20th century. "

Off the stage,Anna acts like a typical Londoner. But born to a Chinese father and British mother, she admits that she has always been conscious about her dual identities.

"I grew up as an English girl, feeling very English, but also very aware of the Chinese side of my family. So I always say that I have Beatlemania yelling at me in one ear, and Red Guards yelling at me in the other. It's a very, very strange mix, but I think it's quite interesting."

Immersing herself in the cultural extravaganza in the UK during the 1970s, Anna Chen has developed a strong interest in the entertainment industry since an early age. But when she started to go to auditions, this fledgling performer was not satisfied with the stereotyped roles being offered.

"One of the things that I came up against with was (that) there were no parts written for Chinese women. The only Chinese women you saw on the screen, either on film or on TV, were very demeaning roles. See, (there were) either the Dragon Lady: evil, being destructive; or else you were the Lotus Blossom: very delicate, in the need of help, and a little bit feeble; or else, the third thing (is that) you are completely invisible. So after a while, I wrote my first show called Suzy Wrong-Human Cannon."

In 1994, Chen took her show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest arts festival in the world and thus became the first British Chinese comic to do so. A few years later, she also made her acting appearance in Stewart Lee's Fist of Fun. That experience not only granted her as the first Chinese comedienne shown up on British television, but to a certain extent, it also promised her future opportunities in broadcasting, particularly after successfully launching her first radio program on Yoko Ono.

"I started to make programs for BBC, for Radio 3 and for Radio 4. One of the things I always enjoyed was making programs about Chinese culture and Chinese people that showed in a positive light. I always said that if you dehumanize a group, if you make them just a blank canvas, if you create a vacuum and all sorts of really unpleasant monsters fill the vacuum, so I think it's very important to humanize. Because we are! That's the reality. "

Besides offering her voice as a regular guest talking about Chinese matters and current affairs, such as the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Anna Chen has also written and presented China-related documentaries and drama for BBC and London-based radio station Resonance FM. From her screen heroine Anna May Wong, China's manufacturing industry and its relationship with Britain, to Chinese sci-fi and chinoiserie cliches in music, the topics are diverse while her style is frequently labeled by critics as "witty, wisecracking and sophisticated".

One of her most well-received programs is a ten-part BBC series named "Chinese in Britain". Presented in an anecdotal manner, the program explores the lives of Chinese people who came to the UK before the immigration boom in the 1960s and unveils some less-heard-of truths. For example, the earliest Sino-UK cultural exchange could be traced back to the 17th century, when the Jesuit scholar Shen Futsong met King James II; while during the First and Second World Wars, actually there were a great number of Chinese sailors who joined the British merchant navy and contributed a lot to the British victory in those turbulent times.

"I do get people coming up saying: 'You know, we really, really enjoy your program.' 'Cause it's such a rarity! 'Cause what you normally get is that if they do look at Chinese, it is normally from the outside, from their point of view looking at something strange, rather than what we did, which is saying: 'This is us. We are here. Look, this is us telling you our story and just making it normal. '"

From stand-up, theatre to poetry and radio, this multi-talented artist is using her voice to "grapple with issues of politics and identity, subvert stereotypes and poke the status quo with a sharp stick" warts and all. Thanks to her projects, Chinese are no longer the takeaway owners or inscrutable Kung Fu experts, but ordinary people with diverse characters.

Anna says her role model is Prometheus, who inspires her to do her best to conjoin Chinese with the rest of the world.

"I think I am planting seeds. So whether it germinates, I don't know. But this is how I think of myself. I think with this next generation, we are starting to see more people coming up. So I think time is on our side."

Beside hosting her weekly radio show, Anna Chen is planning to write a memoir, which documents her life as a British Chinese.

For Studio Plus, this is Li Ningjing.

Click here to listen to Anna Chen's radio interview on Studio Plus, Beijing.

Anna Chen presents the series "Chinese In Britain" on BBC Radio 4: repeated October 2014 on R4 Extra

Anna Chen presents the groundbreaking ten-part series Chinese in Britain made for BBC Radio 4 broadcast in 2007, repeated from 27th October 2014 on R4 Extra. (Recorded 2006 and 2007)

Anna and the late Harry Dewar (Cheong) at the BBC launch of the ten-part series for Radio 4, Chinese In Britain

This seminal work on the Chinese diaspora was presented by Anna Chen and produced by Mukti Jain Campion of Culture Wise for BBC Radio 4.

The series Chinese In Britain brought into view many overlooked aspects of the cultural and social impact of the Chinese in Britain for the first time, including introducing BBC audiences to the first documented Chinese visitor to Britain: Jesuit priest Michael Shen Futsong who impressed King James II enough for the king to have his portrait painted and hung in his bedroom.

Its fascinating range of contributors ranged from the catering giant and philanthropist Wing Yip to the lesser known characters who have lived here and made their mark. Artists such as the late Pam So whose grandmother walked all the way across Europe from China; Yvonne Foley whose Chinese seafaring father was was one of hundreds forcibly repatriated to China after World War II having served Britain in the merchant navy and risked their lives; actors such as Jacqueline Chan, David Yip (The Chinese Detective) and the venerable Burt Kwouk; masterchef and Bafta film editor Dehta Hsiung, whose playwright father Shi I Hsiung had a massive hit on the West End Stage in the 1930s with Lady Precious Stream; Leslie and Connie Ho who were born into Limehouse Chinatown — actually two streets, Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields.

We looked at the myth of Chinatown and how it was created, and the yellow peril fears that made a career for Brummie hack Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry Ward) with his villainous creation, Dr Fu Manchu. While Fu Manchu was a fictional student at Edinburgh, the series provided a rare glimpse into the lives of the early Chinese medical students who actually did study there and who contributed to the British way of life, rather than the commonplace racist sensationalism preferred by dimmer media peeps with an eye on showbiz.

Other interviewees included the late Harry Dewar, Dr Diana Yeh, Professor Gregor Benton, Olga Adderton, Dr David Helliwell, Dr John Seed, Professor Michael Fisher, Graham Chan, Dr Ian Wotherspoon, Ying Chinnery, Lee Cheong, Rosa Fong, Grace Lau and Connie and Leslie Ho (above). Not forgetting the late Jessie Lim who wrote and came up with the idea for the series' creation. (Jessie was the mother of several key projects including the anthology of Chinese British writing, Another Province.)

And now, for the benefit of those who missed it first time around and fancy playing catch-up, it's back daily from Monday 27th October 2014 on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 00:15 and 14:15.

Making the series, Chinese In Britain.

Recording the history of Chinese in Britain, a ten-part 15 minute series for BBC Radio 4, for transmission at 3:45pm weekday afternoons over two weeks from Monday 30th April 2007.

Chinese In Britain was a landmark series in an impressive body of radio work produced by Mukti Jain Campion at Culture Wise. In January 2007, on the first day of the big storms, Mukti and Anna went to Liverpool to record more stories for the series.

Anna at the Chinese Seamen's memorial plaque, Pier Head, by a stormy Mersey.

Anna in Liverpool's Chinatown at the site of the old Arthur Holt/Blue Funnel offices in Nelson Street whose steamships brought Chinese to Britain from the late 19th century to the 1960s and 70s.

In Pitt Street where Anna's father used to live before World War II when the Lutwaffe flattened it.

Anna and Professor Michael Fisher at Shadwell Church near Limehouse in east London to see John Anthony's home ground. John Anthony was a Chinese seaman and then an agent looking after Chinese sailors for the East India Shipping Company in the late 18th, early 19th century. He was the first Chinese to be naturalised as a British citizen in 1805.

Burt Kwouk in Inn of the Sixth Happiness

The lovely Burt Kwouk and Anna. Burt has acted in many films including The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and The Pink Panther, where he played Inspector Clouseau's sidekick Kato. He can now be seen in the TV series, Last of the Summer Wine. 26th July 2006


Anna and actor David Yip at his home. The 1980s TV series, The Chinese Detective, turned David into a household name.

17th August 2006

Lunch with producer Mukti Jain Campion at David Yip's.

Actor David Yip at home.

With Yvonne Foley who deep dived into a forensic investigation on finding out what happened to her father. Like hundreds of other Chinese seamen, who worked on British merchant ships throughout the Second World War, Yvonne believes he was forcibly repatriated by his shipping company (in collusion with the British Government) as soon as the war was over. She also uncovered some material about Anna's own father who helped set up the Chinese Seaman's Union and Kungho Mutual Aid Association for Chinese living in Britain. 27th July 2006

The series introduced Jesuit Priest Michael Shen Futsong to BBC audiences as the first documented Chinese in Britain (thanks to Mukti's illuminating excavations). A favourite of King James II, his portrait hangs in the Queen's collection. He helped catalogue the Chinese books in the Bodleian collection while he was on his world tour of Europe in the late 17th century.

SERIES EPISODES

1) VIPs including the first documented Chinese in Britain, Jesuit priest Michel Shen Futsong who Dr David Helliwell describes at Oxford. Professor Michael Fisher talks about John Anthony, the first naturalised Chinese Briton around the turn of the 19th century.

2) Chinatown. The myth of Chinatown, Sax Rohmer, Fu Manchu and the Yellow Peril, and the reality of Limehouse with Connie and Leslie Ho who were born and raised in London's Chinese Limehouse community until the Blitz. Dr John Seed.

3) Ship to Shore. UK ports as centres of Chinese migration to the UK, the role played by Chinese in World War II, and their forced repatriation by the Atlee government after the war. Graham Chan, Yvonne Foley and Professor Gregor Benton.

4) Steam and Starch. Laundries: the iconic industry that gave so many Chinese in Britain a living until the advent of the domestic washing machine. Olga Adderton.

5) Educated in Britain. Students have studied here since the first Chinese medical students in Edinburgh. Dr Ian Wotherspoon.

6) Feet Unbound. The earliest Chinese women in Britain. The fascinating story of the women performers who walked from Hubei in China despite having bound feet. Grace Lau's mother was the wife of a diplomat and so arrived in more stylish fashion in the 1930s. Pamela So, Professor Gregor Benton, Grace Lau.

7) Mixed Blessings. Eurasians. With so few Chinese women in Britain, Chinese seamen often took on white wives, many of the Irish. Yvonne Foley is herself mixed Chinese and British. Her father was a Chinese seaman who was forcibly repatriated from their Liverpool home. Leslie and Connie Ho, who were born and raised in London's Limehouse, say they were better fed than their white counterparts because many white men drank. Lee Cheung of Limehouse welcomed the return of his father from voyage, laden with rare exotic presents such as Jaffa oranges. Actor David Yip was born in Liverpool whose Chinese seaman father was also absent for long parents. Mixed Chinese and black evacuees weren't welcome in Chester and had to walk home. Harry Cheong/Dewar was rejected by the army when he signed up for the Second World War until China joined the allied side.

8) Artistic pursuits. Shi I Hsiung was the first successful playwright and theatre director with his West End hit of the 1930s, Lady Precious Stream. Lauded by George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells and a raft of luminaries, he and his wife were the toast of the town. His son, the masterchef Dehta Hsiung, is interviewed, along with photographer Grace Lau and Dr Diana Yeh.

9) Screen Beginnings. David Yip, Burt Kwouk, Jacqueline Chan and Grace Lau talk about The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward, Robert Donat as the Mandarin and Curt Jurgens as General Lin and shot in Snowdonia. Made in 1958, it was a breakthrough for many of our best known Chinese actors, such as Tsai Chin.

10)  Takeway. With Wing Yip who started out as a waiter in Hull before founding his food empire.

Series music by Chi2. Intro voice David Tse.

“A fascinating story” - Chris Campling, The Times

“Each episode sounded effortless only because it had been crafted with such supreme care” - Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

LISTEN AGAIN FROM SUNDAY NIGHT, QUARTER PAST MIDNIGHT: daily from Monday 27th October 2014 on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 00:15 and 14:15.

LAUNCH PARTY at BBC Broadcasting House.

Edit 2nd August 2022: Yvonne Foley's campaign succeeds in winning today's Home Office acknowledgment of the secret forced expulsion of the Chinese seamen who'd aided Britain during World War II and settled in Liverpool.

Anna on the BBC World Service Weekend programme, 18th October 2014

I was a guest on the BBC World Service Weekend programme on Saturday, talking about the news: the Middle East, The Catholic Synod, Ebola and sheds. This year is the tenth anniversary of the Morecambe Bay Chinese cocklepickers disaster so I read my poem, "I Am Rich and Your Are Poor: lines on dead Chinese workers and their rich benefactors".

Daniel Johnson (son of Paul and editor of Standpoint mag) was the other guest. It was presented by Paul Henley and producer by Michael Innes.

You have seven days to listen … and other Ringu tropes.

Caleb Selah and Lenny Henry: TFYS radio show on Soundcloud

From Caleb Selah: "Recently this man accidentally became the TFYS's neighbour. Lenny may have done a few dodgy things on the tellybox but everyman has to earn a crust. I like the Brummie a lot, he has put many smiles on my face, given work to friends. It has been suggested by a politician that he should return to a black country. He's from the Black Country. UKIP must not be underestimated, first Lenny, then Craig Charles and then Lemmy from Motorhead will all be attacked by these stupid, cowardly wastes of blood and piping. Fuck You UKIP and Lenny, live long and prosper…"

Read more and listen to Caleb Selah's The Fuck You Sound show.

Women of the Blues on today's final Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance 104.4FM, 5pm

Today live at 5pm on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance 104.4FM, Charles Shaar Murray concludes his Guide to the Blues with Part 3, The Women of the Blues.

Presented by Anna Chen with Charles Shaar Murray.
Guest: Sarah Gillespie.

Today's final Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge of the series wraps with Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Part 3: The Women of the Blues.

Singer, songwriter and fine artist Sarah Gillespie joins Anna Chen and Charles Shaar Murray to look at the history of the Blues, its dominance by women in the early years, and the current resurgence of female artists. From Jim Crow laws, the cotton fields and abject poverty in the former Confederate Southern states to the promise of the big cities, these women not only rose to the top of a major western musical genre, they helped create it.

Featuring tracks by Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Clara Smith, Big Mama Thornton, Etta James and more.

Listen live (click on the Resonance FM widget in the sidebar) or afterwards online.

Full set of Madam Miaow on Resonance FM.

Resonance 104.4FM

Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Parts 1 & 2 on Madam Miaow at Resonance 104.4FM NOW ONLINE

We did it! The fabulous launch of the second season of Madam Miaow on Resonance 104.4FM (now named Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge) kicked off with parts 1 and 2 of Charles Shaar Murray's fabulous Guide to the Blues with guitarist and songwriter Stephen Dale Petit adding his expertise and good taste.

You can now hear the entire set of Madam Miaow on Resonance 104.4FM. Or … How to listen to Resonance FM.

Now online, Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Part 1 and Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Part 2.

Six more programmes in the series coming up, all with my lovely assistant in spangles, latex and leather, Charles Shaar Murray:

18th March 2014 — ANNA MAY WONG
Anna Chen

25th March 2014 — CHINESE ARTS
Guests: Daniel York, Jingan Young, Wondermare

1st April 2014 — THE BLOSSOMING OF ALTERNATIVE THEATRE IN THE POST-WAR YEARS
Guests: Dr Susan Croft, Neil Hornick

8th April 2014 — SLAM AND PERFORMANCE POETRY IN THE UK
Guests: John Paul O'Neill, John Crow

15 April 2014 — MUSIC CONCRETE
Guests: John Bowers

22nd April 2014 — WOMEN OF THE BLUES
Guests: Charles Shaar Murray and Stephen Dale Petit. (Also hoping to have either Bex Marshall or Sarah Gillespie depending on availability.)

Listen to Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Pt 1 launch Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge season 2 on Resonance 104.4FM

Listen to Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Part 1 on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance 104.4FM, last night. With special guest Stephen Dale Petit.

Charles Shaar Murray's Guide to the Blues Pt 1 on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance FM

I'm back with a bang! To be precise, a new eight-week radio series of Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge on Resonance 104.4FM on Tuesdays 5-6pm starting this week, 4th March.

To kick off, Charles Shaar Murray gives us his Guide to the Blues, Parts 1 and 2, Ancient and Modern: the 1920s to the early 1960s when the Blues was almost entirely African-American, and the mid-1960s to the present when the white kids got it and joined in (Part 2 follows on Tuesday 11th March).

In brief, pre- and post- Stones.

With guest Stephen Dale Petit. There will be a listen-again opportunity to hear it after broadcast on Soundcloud which I'll post here.

The new radio series of Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge kicks off on Resonance 104.4FM with CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY'S Guide to the Blues tomorrow (Tuesday) 5-6pm. Listen to previous programmes on Soundcloud. Or LISTEN LIVE here.

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

What am I up to? Coming up ...

"She's over there ..."

Tuesday sees the launch of my Resonance FM series with "Oh Other, where art thou?", discussing yellowface, blackface and east Asians in the kulcher. My guests include Daniel York (The Fu Manchu Complex) and his band Wondermare, actress Siu-see Hung, Dr Diana Yeh and Ben Chu of the Independent who's just published Chinese Whispers demolishing myths about the Chinese.

MADAM MIAOW'S CULTURE LOUNGE
Listen live on RESONANCE FM
5.30-6.30pm Tuesday 15th October 2014
Available online to LISTEN AGAIN

On Monday 21st October I'm on the Orwell Prize 2013 launch event panel talking about the phenomenon of online trolling.

This year's discussion will focus on 'Internet and the Modern Self: Manners and Abuse Online'. The panel of speakers include Helen Goodman MP, Madam Miaow Says blogger Anna Chen and Professor Suzanne Franks. What is going on after a notable summer of online abuse? Why are online personas so different? How do we fix this?

THE ORWELL PRIZE 2014 LAUNCH EVENT
The Frontline Club
13 Norfolk Place, Paddington, London W2 1QJ
Details to come

MADAM MAO'S GOLDEN OLDIES
3.30pm, BBC Radio 4
Saturday 26th October
A repeat of my programme about Jiang Ching's model operas made during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and what happened to some of the people who took part.

Madam Mao's Golden Oldies repeated 26 Oct BBC R4 at 3.30pm

MADAM MAO'S GOLDEN OLDIES
REPEATED 26TH OCTOBER 2013, FIRST BROADCAST 17TH JULY 2012
BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm, Saturday 26th October 2013
Presented and co-written by Anna Chen
Produced by Mukti Jain Campion for Culture Wise

In Madam Mao's Golden Oldies, I revisit the Chinese Cultural Revolution Model Operas that I first heard as a child in the 1960s and 70s and discover how they are, somewhat surprisingly, enjoying a new lease of life.

Growing up as a London-born red-nappy kid with Beatles and Bowie as my soundtrack, I was occasionally dragged by my parents to the Chinese legation in Portland Place (it had lost its official embassy status due to the cold war ruckus) for screenings of the latest movie spectacular to emerge from the arts commissar, Chairman Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. These were the Yangbanxi, the Eight Model Operas; films with titles such as The Red Detachment of Women and Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.

These state-sponsored works combined opera and ballet with simple plots about brave peasants uniting to defeat evil landlords, Japanese invaders and other enemies of the revolution. Heroes looked like heroes with rouged faces, kohl-lined eyes and great hair, while villains were easily identified by their sneaky demeanor and bad porn moustaches.

My Hollywood sensibility found these crude melodramas puzzling and somewhat turgid but then they weren't made for (relatively) pampered East End kids like me: they were made for the peasants and workers who had rarely if ever been represented in their own culture.

Within living memory, mass starvation, imperialist conquest and the horrors of the Japanese invasion had devastated the nation. Barely twenty years into its communist revolution, the population was struggling to get back onto its feet.

Madam Mao not only banned the traditional Beijing operas and their stories about emperors and princesses, but also cast out decadent western music and movies as being a corrupting influence on the masses. Quelle surprise when it later transpired that the former actress was fond of indulging her tastes in the privacy of her own screening room. But Jiang Qing was canny enough to harness the emotive power of these works with the help of the Chinese cultural intelligentsia who hadn't fallen out of favour.

In the programme, a variety of people who were intimately involved in the model operas recount their experience. Among them, Anchee Min, author of Red Azalea, had been plucked from working in the fields because she was used to "carrying 300 pounds of manure". Jingdong Cai is now conductor at Stanford but learnt his trade in Madam Mao's army of young musicians

Madam Mao's favourite films? The Sound of Music and Jane Eyre. No, not the classic Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine version, but the crappy George C Scott remake. Now, what does that tell you about arbiters of taste?

MADAM MAO'S GOLDEN OLDIES
BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm, Saturday 26th October 2013
Presented and co-written by Anna Chen
Produced by Mukti Jain Campion for Culture Wise
Available for seven days after broadcast on iPlayer

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.

Military industrial complex Skynet rewiring our brains

Not another radio drama about soldiers. Our 21st Century militarised culture seems to be shaping up with the help of an increasing number of army plays on BBC Radio 4 to go with the tedious humanisation of business drummed into us in programmes such as The Apprentice, Dragons Den, anything with Evan Davies, Secret Millionaire (boo-hoo!), and anything with Mary Portas.

Not to mention the bloody awful swathe of Confucian wet-dreams telling us where we are in the pecking order with a ready-made stratum of management big-heads enjoying putting the scum in their place. Very offending examples include: X-Factor, Pop Idol, Britain's Got Talent and anything involving Gordon Ramsey. Across the pond, there's a plethora of instances but let's go with America's Top Model where an imperious Tyra Banks and her thousand-yard stare regularly mash up young beauty, and Kate Perry's ghastly Part of Me video where she gets over a breakup by shearing off her lovely locks, donning khaki and learning how to shoot foreigners in their own lands.

Today we had Behind Enemy Lines in Radio 4's Red and Blue series, a tale about British Special Forces and war games. Last week it was Hearts and Minds. Even the National Theatre has got in on the act with its militarised Hamlet, although you'll have to take my word for it as all pix of the heavily tooled-up soldiery behind Fortinbras and manning Elsinore have disappeared off the net despite this being a crucial element of the production's mise en scene. Elsewhere we have images from Wootton Bassett stoking emotion so we daren't ask the important questions about why these young people were sent to fight, for what purpose and in whose interest.

Soldiers and commerce are stewing up a treat in a mercenary agenda where the state backs the interests of money, not unlike the East India Company of old. Even Islington Green isn't immune from that military magic now that the powers-that-be are changing its name to Islington Memorial Green.

Former residents of the one-time People's Republic of Islington are especially resentful of this. Shapely Charles Shaar Murray (42, 42, 42, 12.5) said: "I am especially resentful of this." He then flounced off, muttering, "I am a free man, not a cylinder."

UPDATE: Watching Britain's Got Talent, I realise that this breaks the mould in that it's not a freak show set up to entertain the mob. There's some awesome talent in there and the judges genuinely seem to care and want to develop the newcomers. So apologies to everyone at BGT — you're doing a great job.

BBC jumps the orientalist shark: Fu Manchu in Edinburgh

Even Radio 4 is at it. Hard on the heels of last week's Sherlock oriental hate-fest, my beloved BBC Radio 4 has just broadcast someone called Miles Jupp presenting a thinly disguised bit of sinophobia celebrating one of the most notorious exercises in colonialist literature: Fu Manchu In Edinburgh.

While it's valid to explore the imaginary world which an iconic literary creation inhabits, the unquestioning depiction of Chinese as dehumanised hate-figures in the almost utter absence of humanised Chinese in the culture is fairly loathsome, not to mention irresponsible. The (il)liberal peppering throughout of orientalised buzz-words such as "fiendish" and "diabolical" only reinforces the suspicion that they've dug up Leni Riefenstahl and hired her as executive producer.

So what were these stories of which Jupp is so fond?

Anglo-Irish author Sax Rohmer finally hit paydirt in 1913 with a nasty series of novels embodying paranoia and hatred for an entire race embodied in the character of evil Dr Fu Manchu. Rohmer (born Arthur Ward) rode the vicious Yellow Peril wave, presenting Chinese as subhuman, cruel and degenerate, although he was actually projecting the cruelty, degeneracy and inhumanity of a nation that could go to war in order to impose at gunpoint the consumption of opium on the Chinese in the nineteenth century.

Clive Bloom writes in his 1996 investigation of pulp literature, Cult Fiction:

It is commonplace nowadays to note the inherent racism of English fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sapper, Dornford, Yates, John Buchan, Edgar Wallace are targeted as the promulgators of a fearsome and totally irrational hatred of all things foreign. For them, the Black, the Chinese, the Argentinian, the Levantine and the Jew become sinister 'niggers', 'chinks', 'dagos', 'greasy Levantines' and 'oily Jews'. The race hatred of these authors employs a feverish conjunctivity, with oily Jews as both capitalists and 'bolsheviks', or Chinese who are both mandarin warlords and opium den keepers in Limehouse. Moreover, when not acting themselves these essentially cowardly employ peculiarly simian dacoits or things of a polyglot and nauseous origin.

This invention by a lower-middle-class writer for his similarly conservative-minded brethren diverted class anxieties and fears about an emerging working-class empowered by the unions onto an exotic Other. The desire for status quo and hierarchy was fought in the battles between hero Nayland Smith and the wily doctor.

The BBC blurb reads:

Miles Jupp investigates the hidden connections between Edinburgh and Sax Rohmer's criminal mastermind Fu Manchu. Did the 'Devil Doctor' get his doctorate at Edinburgh University?

Er, could the answer be 'no', because this was the invention of a propagandist hack? Jupp's dialogue with the scientist concerning the use of toxins derived from low forms of life — fungus and flies — by subhuman lowlife Fu Manchu sounds like a documentary about a real criminal mastermind and his baroque methods of assassination. He ends by urging Edinburgh University to mark the attendance of Dr Fu Manchu. Yes, nice to know where he learnt his homicidal trade, then.

I missed this programme when it was first broadcast in April, otherwise I would not have been backward in coming forward and vomiting all over this insidious crap at the time. I presume that it is the success of Sherlock which has prompted this repeat transmission.

Why are they trying to rehabilitate this lurid pulp as some sort of accurate representation of the Chinese? "It's only a bit of fun," cries the halfwit as he perpetrates some atrocity on a dehumanised minority. I'm not the first to note that there's no way they would get away with this sort of depiction of a racial or cultural group of people had it been Jewish, gay, black or south Asian, and quite rightly so. (I've excluded Muslims as they get shafted even worse.) So why is there a drive to do this to the Chinese? It's not the Chinese who have devastated the Middle East with wars for oil and dominance. What is the BBC's (and certain other media's) agenda in reviving these fantasies?

Clive Bloom quoting Cay Van Ash and Elizabeth Sax Rohmer in Master of Villainy: A Biography of Sax Rohmer:

And why is it that 'So vehement and repetitive were Sax Rohmer's references to Asiatic plotting against "white" civilisation that they cannot be explained simply as the frills of melodramatic narration. The man clearly was possessed by some sort of private dread'?

I can think of some others to whom that would apply.

Guess what? Africa was never full of cannibals. Transylvania was never full of vampires and werewolves. And Limehouse was never full of dacoits and opium dens. Get the hell over it.

I'm beginning to think that with the inexorable drip-drip-drip of poison (Hey! A cruel Western Media Torture!), there are those who won't be happy until there are anti-Chinese pogroms and race riots in Britain.

What was the point of me making Chopsticks At Dawn or Anna May Wong: A Celestial Star In Piccadilly for BBC Radio 4? Here's what I think of their orientalist clichés (the last two poems).

Madam Miaow on BBC World Service TV: China and Copenhagen Opening Day

Anna Chen in the studio for the BBC World Service "World Have Your Say" programme on the first day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Monday 7th December 2009.

Posted at YouTube in three parts.

World Have Your Say: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAMXCfnju6c



World Have Your Say: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVdKb5N-o8


World Have Your Say: Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeA8WZ6TyY


Read Madam Miaow on China, Copenhagen and climate change

UPDATE: Anna Chen on BBC World TV on the final day of the Copenhagen summit

Madam Miaow on BBC World Service TV: China and Copenhagen

Anna Chen in the studio for the BBC World Service "World Have Your Say" programme on the first day of the Copenhagen climate conference, Monday 7th December 2009.

Posted at YouTube in three parts.

World Have Your Say: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAMXCfnju6c



World Have Your Say: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVdKb5N-o8


World Have Your Say: Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeA8WZ6TyY


Read Madam Miaow on China, Copenhagen and climate change

UPDATE: Anna Chen on BBC World TV on the final day of the Copenhagen summit

Resonance FM Lucky Cat: Madam Miaow on the radio

Zoe Baxter, Merlene Emerson, MM

Zoe Baxter, MM, Jasper Sharp

Had a great time last hosting the weekly Lucky Cat hour at Resonance 104.4FM last night thanks to my guests Merlene Emerson and Jasper Sharp, and Zoe Baxter who invited me along and drove the desk.

Pix above of us celebrating our triumph, dwahlinks, in the local bar afterwards. Hmm, I need to work up a good moody face. Hey, what's that glow out the top of my head?

Resonance FM Lucky Cat: Madam Miaow on the radio

Zoe Baxter, Merlene Emerson, MM

Zoe Baxter, MM, Jasper Sharp

Had a great time last hosting the weekly Lucky Cat hour at Resonance 104.4FM last night thanks to my guests Merlene Emerson and Jasper Sharp, and Zoe Baxter who invited me along and drove the desk.

Pix above of us celebrating our triumph, dwahlinks, in the local bar afterwards. Hmm, I need to work up a good moody face. Hey, what's that glow out the top of my head?

Lucky Cat: Madam Miaow on Resonance 104.4FM Tonight

Madam Miaow, AKA Anna Chen, takes over the Lucky Cat hour on London radio station Resonance FM at 9pm tonight Tuesday 10th February, bringing cultural and political chat into your home. Not that my usual sophistimicated readers require my witteration to refundicate their erudition on home turf. Would I even think that?

I’ll be talking about a range of topics from Anna May Wong — including material I didn’t have time to cover in my recent Radio 4 profile of the Hollywood legend — to the 5th anniversary of the Morecambe Bay disaster when 23 Chinese cocklepickers died in icy waters off the north east coast of England.

What happened to the surviving families? How does the status of the unauthorised workers contribute to their vulnerability, and what can the government do to ensure there are no more tragedies like Morecambe Bay waiting to happen? How does the slogan, “British Jobs For British Workers” impact on these migrant workers?

My guests are Jasper Sharp — east Asian film expert — and Merlene Emerson who has helped raise funds for the victims' families and campaigns on migrants rights in the UK.

You can join in by phoning in: 0207 407 1210

Resonance 104.4 fm is the world’s first radio art station, established by London Musicians’ Collective. It provides a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting and does it brilliantly.

You can listen live to Resonance over the Internet worldwide in two formats: Real Audio and MP3 (at high quality for broadband and low quality for dial-up). Either click on the MP3 or Real Audio links on the website frontpage or click on the listen page for more information.

Thanks to Zoe Baxter who normally hosts Lucky Cat