Sweet Dreams
"Taiwan's cultural heritage is so strong, that I wonder why anyone would want to lose oneself. With the accumulation of history, life is full of delights. This is the best place, as long as you know how to appreciate and cherish it."
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Dear Kate,
I've just finished watching Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang's "Goodbye, Dragon Inn," a cinematic symphonic poem that, if missing the single continuous elegiac movement, one can easily dismiss it as a little head-scratcher--or a very big butt-scratcher. To me, it is a singularly unforgettable delight. I am going to dream about the movie tonight, I know it already.
It imagines one lonesome rainy night, a historic and regal cinema in Taiwan plays its final reels of film, the Chinese classic "Dragon Inn" (a movie, to double your delight, in which Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" finds more than a few inspirations).
I am coming here to write, for the second time today, not a movie review, but because of what Tsai said in an interview (posted above) about the current state of the Taiwanese cinema, an adjective he used, one word in Chinese: 虛. It means empty, shallow, hollow. False and vain. And he was talking about, like in his movie, not only the cinema, but the society as a whole.
I've been writing about serious topics in the last little while, justice and integrity, human flourishing and vision of hope. I've asked first myself and then you many questions, genuine questions that I asked only because I really didn't know the answer to and still don't. The only question I will never ask is whether I should stop asking questions since the world around me seems to have no genuine interest in them. That, being a hollow man, false and vain, is out of the question for me. Which is not to say I am not: I am speaking about my intention to not be 虛, even if the temptation is strong and the encouragements to resist are few.
I wonder if I've been an artless person, living otherwise frivolously, if my interest in those "serious" matters would have ever been serious at all. A life maturing is, like Tsai said in the interview, a cultural effort, and cultural effort takes time, is not a business plan with actionable items to achieve predictable ends.
"Most People Say They Plan to Spend More Time Consuming Entertainment Post-Pandemic," says a study I mentioned this morning. Now imagine, the same "most people" also claim to be quite concerned about justice and equality, thirsty for facts and quick to action. What's to become of such a society I am not sure. Maybe it is not for me to question either. I don't even know why I am bringing this up. Still I want to say, this, Canada, is the best place, and I appreciate and cherish her.
Have a good night. Sweet dreams.
Yours, Alex
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