Here's a comment on my CBC Radio Commentary heard on Early Edition on May 21st, at approximately 6:45 am, from Dr. Jan Walls. Dr. Walls is the Director of the David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communications at Simon Fraser University. He is also former cultural attache for the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, and currently an advisor or board member for many organizations. Most recently he was invited to Boston by Yo Yo Ma to perform his "clapper tales" at the Peabody Essex Museum. http://www.pem.org/events/silkroads.php
Hello from Seattle, Todd.
I wanted to congratulate you, by the way, for the excellently worded "Commentary" I hear you deliver on CBC's Early Edition the other day. I think you're on to something, which may have to do with what I would call "misplaced cross-cultural expectations," a phenomenon we noticed when comparing the very different responses to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" among Chinese (PRC and Hong Kong, and recent Chinese immigrants overseas) and among "foreigners." to long-time kung-fu fans, it was not all that great, while Western people who didn't know all that much about the kung-fu move tradition, but who had been "prepped" by "The Matrix," were entranced by it. I'm sure it's much more complex than this, and I look forward to having the time to figure it out.
I'll talk to you when I get back.
Jan
