Asian Canadian research comes to Concordia

So this last weekend at Concordia was amazing for Asian Canadian research. On Thursday, Sean Metzger from Duke University presented the first lecture for The Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture entitled: "Unsuitable Bodies or What Happens When Jackie Chan Performs James Brown." While I still sometimes scratch my head at Film Studies (ironic considering I love doing movie reviews) and Cultural Studies his analysis of 'The Tuxedo' and what it reveals in regards to identity politics in America was certainly interesting.

The next day (and completely unrelated) the Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts presented two concurrent exhibitions. The first was a tribute to Norman Bethune (part of a city-wide homage to the good pinko doctor) which not only reinstated the now pigeon-free Bethune statue back on Guy and deMaisonneuve, but also showcased several busts from China (hero worship is something we do quite well), a series of photographs of him from the 1930s, and a few cultural revolution propaganda posters. Wow. Interestingly, I've got a half-finished Norman Bethune graphic novel script from six months ago (I started as they took down the old statue) and if you've got a drawing hand and don't mind drawing a Montreal-born white boy with bunch of dirty commies, we can talk.

Secondly, was the opening of Crossing Cultures and Rearranging Desires an art exhibit done by four Asian Canadian artists followed by a symposium the next day on thinking about and challenging culturally-specific work. The art was great considering my non-art-savvy perspective (I obviously don't know much as I consider throwing yourself into a crowd of people while screaming into a microphone good fun. I do however have a membership to the musee de beuxs-arts so I can at least feign coolness) ranging from tofu in jello, to a fashion show cleverly named "Yellow Apparel." Love it.

The symposium too was really good, and very relevant to my research. Sadly, I missed a fat chunk of the session entitled "Questioning Cultural Authenticity" which could very well have been my M.A. thesis title. In all fairness though, I had to run off to the Festival Nouveau Cinema to catch the Korean film "The Good, The Bad, The Weird." Review coming soon (but in a nutshell, it was great).

Scurrying back I was able to catch the final session, an artist round table. Following that I was able to chat with Karen Tam, an interesting and very cool Chinese Canadian Quebecois artist (now doing her PhD in London) about her work and ideas. As a funny little side note, Heather from New Voices actually clued me in onto Karen's work as when she was in Vancouver doing a guest lecture at UBC, she was able to check out tour exhibit at Gallery Gachet (sadly, I was in Montreal when this show was happening and wasn't able to see before it was taken down - heck I wasn't even able to make it to my own book launch!).

All of these events really helped convince me that, while not as big as it is in Vancouver, the Montreal Asian Canadian community is alive and kicking. As I've argued, the Quebec context of the Asian Canadian experience is unique and while the debates about the cultural difference between Asian Canadian and Asian American - the Quebec immigrant experience stands radically different than either of the two. Man, I'm so glad I moved out here.