Inconsistant Asian influence? by cct

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Inconsistant Asian influence?

POSTED BY: CCT
UPDATED: Thursday, August 28, 2003 06:54
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Friday, August 22, 2003 6:16 PM

Something's been bothering me about Firefly, and that's the inconsistent expression of Asian culture on the show. We see this all over the place- every planet side scene is half full of Asian appearing people, vendors, costumes, etc., and of course a quarter of what is said is some Chinese expression, but it's almost as if no Asian character has spoken a single word.

It seems very odd- if half of the population is of Chinese/etc. decent, given decades of co-existence, how can it be that there isn't a single Asian character on the show? And all the influence seems so "optional"- wall hangings, phrases, and such, but its all superficial- you would think it would be more pervasive. Actually I'd think that given the time span it would have blended into one culture!

One exception of note is the funeral scene in Heart of Gold, particularly Inaras behavior, but that's not much.

Is it just there for color, or is there some explanation for the division?

cct

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 5:19 AM

CANADIANJON

I think there may have been a reason Joss had why they rarely appeared in the show, but I don't remember it. It would have been explained better if the show continued.

I think, in Firefly, Chinese people tend to be much more well-off and live on the rich planets, and the show focuses more on the poor parts of the universe.

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 5:33 AM

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

There seems to be segregation of some kind, but whether but it's cultural, economic, or geographic (planetary?) has yet to really be explained.

And has anyone ever considered that the Tams might orignally have been parts written for Asian actors?

History repeats the old conceits

http://topshelftvshow.com
Updated! Improved! Shiny!

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 6:20 AM

MEIGUOLANGREN

There seems to be a cultural hodgepodge. The Tam family obviously has roots with an Asian heritage (Tam is a Chinese name - same as Chen) - so there was an Asian father along the bloodline somwhere.

I too wish there were some Asian speaking roles in the series . . . but one thing I would like to see even more is . . . coaches for the actors who need to speak Chinese so that they could at least halfway get the tones right.

In all honesty, unless they are told the characters are speaking Chinese, many Asians won't realize that's the language being used by the characters. :-) While the written scripts make nice decorations for sets and creates a multicultural ambiance, the spoken is very rough.

I had to tell my wife and daughter that the characters were speaking Mandarin Chinese as they couldn't tell (even though both my wife and daughter are native speakers of Chinese - we live in Taiwan, Republic of China). I could understand the dialog but they couldn't as I'm used to sloppy pronunciation . . . kind of like an old John Wayne film where The Duke speaks Chinese but was obviously coached by someone from Hong Kong with a thick Cantonese accent and very little tone control (not that John Wayne even tried proper tone control).

The only time we've heard Chinese spoken with any degree of intelligibility has been when the ship's alarm system was playing a recording of a woman's voice speaking in Cantonese (my wife did understand that as she's from Hong Kong).

Mandarin has four tones so the same syllable can have four very different meanings depending upon the inflection. Tones can also shift when in proximity with syllables of certain tones. Other dialects of Chinese can have as few as three or as many as nine or even twelve tones. Given that the Chinese lines are always very short sound bytes, it would not be unreasonable to have a language coach work with the actors to get a more reasonable approximation of the tones and proper pronunciation instead of phoning in the lines as often seems the case. The Tam charcters should certainly be fluent in spoken Chinese without a rough accent.

Every time we see Chinese characters in the series, my wife will comment on how ugly the font is or how the words don't make any sense (once in awhile they seem to make sense but a number of times it just looks like someone who doesn't speak or write Chinese copied from an elementary school student's text). Of course, it could be that the set dresser is trying to create a futuristic dialect and extrapolating the evolution of script . . . but it's doubtful . . . it feels more like those idiots who get Chinese words tattooed on their bodies without knowing the real meaning of the characters (we saw a porn start once with "idiot" tattooed on his chest).

I am hopeful that for the film . . . please let there be a major motion picture for this series . . . perhaps with the bigger budget they can hire some better dialogue and accent coaches as well as put some kool space-samurai and wu-shu type characters . . . perhaps some hot Asian babe type Geisha-slash-Assassin Companion types.

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
Assoc. Prof., English Dept., NCCU Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/index.html

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 7:03 AM

JOHNNYREB

Being a professor of English, you must be aware of how much a language can change in 500 years. Here is an excerpt of a piece written in English almost 500+ years ago:

Quote:
In þat lond ben trees þat beren wolle, as þogh it were of scheep; whereof men maken clothes, and all þing þat may ben made of wolle. In þat contree ben many ipotaynes, þat dwellen som tyme in the water, and somtyme on the lond: and þei ben half man and half hors, as I haue seyd before; and þei eten men, whan þei may take hem. And þere ben ryueres and watres þat ben fulle byttere, þree sithes more þan is the water of the see. In þat contré ben many griffounes, more plentee þan in ony other contree. Sum men seyn þat þei han the body vpward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun: and treuly þei seyn soth þat þei ben of þat schapp. But o griffoun hath the body more gret, and is more strong, þanne eight lyouns, of suche lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere þan an hundred egles, suche as we han amonges vs. For o griffoun þere wil bere fleynge to his nest a gret hors, 3if he may fynde him at the poynt, or two oxen 3oked togidere, as þei gon at the plowgh.

Is it unreasonable to assume that Chinese can become virtually unrecognizable in as little as 500 years? You may ask yourself, "Ah, But why hasn't English evolved more than what is depicted?" Simply put, the viewers have to understand what is going on, right?

Actually, I'm just playing the devil's advocate. I tend to agree that the work on the Chinese pronunciation is a little sloppy, but why shouldn't it be? Chinese is THE hardest language in the world to learn. Perhaps time constraints made it impossible for the actors to get the correct inflections. At any rate, The knowledge that languages evolve make it easier to suspend disbelief.

Woody McF., BA
Slacker and Drunkard, America

Viva Firefly!

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 8:07 AM

CPTBUCK25

Another possible reason we haven't seen any explicitly aisan people is that the "races" (not meaning to offend, please don't shoot me) have mixed to a degree. Kalee, at least, seems to have a somewhat aisan look to her face. If the cultures and the languages have mixed to a degree, why not the genetics?

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 10:53 AM

JOHNNYREB

Leave it to me to think of more to post long after it should have been posted.

Another reason the Chinese could be "sloppy" is censorship. Many of the things they say in Chinese would not fly on American T.V., if they could be readily understood. "Shit," "piss," and "All the planets of the universe are stuffed in my ass" aren't exactly prime time fare.

Yet another consideration is "corruption." Look at the following examples:

Spanish's el lagarto(the lizard) = English's alligator

Spanish's vaquero (cowboy) = English's buckaroo

Spanish's nino pequeno (small child) = English's pickaninny (absolutely no offence meant to anyone)

Latin's non compos mentis (not competent) = English's nincompoop

and so on. Perhaps the Chinese they are speaking can't be called Chinese at all but rather Anglochin, you know like Texmex? And the Chinese language as the Chinese people speak it are spoken on planets not seen yet.

Whole languages can be corrupted this way. Has anyone ever seen a Parisian try to speak to a Louisiana Cajun? They both speak French, but damn if they can understand each other!

Viva Firefly!

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 12:36 PM

MEIGUOLANGREN

I don't buy the corruption of the language argument . . . certainly it is possible . . . a street patois could have developed . . . but the film makers aren't using a "street lingo" with a self-consistent grammar and pronunciation, so to speak, they are using Mandarin. The actors have been very inconsistent in how they pronounce it - we've heard "shema dongzi" pronounced in radically different ways, even by the same performer.

Chinese is one of the most difficult written systems to learn, yes . . . but as a spoken language it is one of the easiest to learn . . . but we're not even talking about learning a language, we're talking about being able to parrot a few phrases - I once performed as a deaf man and was able to convince an audience of deaf and near-deaf folks that I was deaf and was a native speaker of American Sign Language when all I was really doing was speaking the lines I had in the play (a major role) by rote . . . since we are talking about actors who should have some rudimentary skills in mimicry from their training (I have both a BA and MA in Acting/Directing) then it should not be that difficult for the dressing - and if not there are plenty of dialogue coaches out there who can explain the tones and the importance of getting them right to coach them through the process. I don't fault the actors, if they really understood the importance of getting tones right then they'd take the ten minutes it would take to get the lines right.

After all, performers playing Klingons can manage to learn their lines and pronunciations and they don't have the benefit of native speaker coaches to work with. :-)

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
MeiguoLangren Zai Taibei (An American Werewolf in Taipei)
Assoc. Prof., English Dept., NCCU Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/index.html

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 12:42 PM

MEIGUOLANGREN

I agree that there's probably been a LOT of racial mixing . . . thus the cultural mix . . . but as there are obviously characters with predominately African ancestry, it would be nice to see a few Asians (and others) in there too. Since the Chinese seems to be more pervasive than other languages (other than English) then seeing a few Asians in non-set-dressing capacity would make sense.

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
MeiguoLangren Zai Taibei (An American Werewolf in Taipei)
Assoc. Prof., English Dept., NCCU Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/index.html

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 1:37 PM

JOHNNYREB

You make some pretty convincing arguments against the linguistic corruption and difficulty-of-the-language theory. That only leaves censorship. Would the FCC come down on Fox if Mal told Wash, "That's a *piss and shit* manuever," if *piss and shit* could clearly be understood by Chinese speakers? That doesn't explain why "understand" and "sister" are in Chinese, but I don't know how mangled these words are. If "sister" is spoken clearly and "fuck" is garbled, that might explain something.

If the actors' pronunciations are consistently inconsistent, how would you explain it? Laziness? Eurocentricity? Certainly not poor acting and directing!

Also, I'm not sure I would call it a street patoi. Everyone on the show speaks Chinese, even the good doctor. I wouldn't expect him to slip into urban slang. Someone as educated, cultured and proper as he should speak very well. Chinese probably entered the language the same way Latin did--thoroughly.

Viva Firefly!

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 3:29 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

What's this? American and Canadian actors can't pronounce Chinese properly?

The movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a movie received poorly by critics throughout China.

One of the chief complaints? The actors had sloppy pronounciation of Chinese.

Anybody seen Terminator 2? Sarah Connor can't pronounce Spanish worth a damn.

Back when I used to be a security officer at a ritzy condo in what is now Aventura, we had a lot of young wealthy Russian residents. (I didn't ask. You shouldn't either.) I asked them how to say various key phrases in Russian. You know, Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Night. That sort of stuff. I still remember the session.

Russian Resident: It's pronounced "Spakoyne Noche."

Me: "Spakoyne Noche?"

Russian Resident: No. "Spakoyne Noche."

Me: "Spakoyne Noche?"

Russian Resident: Yes, that's right.

Me: Cool. "Spakoyne Noche!"

Russian Resident: No. "Spakoyne Noche."

Me: I just said "Spakoyne Noche."

Russian Resident: No. You said, "Spakoyne Noche." It's pronounced "Spakoyne Noche."

Me: "Spakoyne Noche?"

Russian Resident: Yes, that's right.

As you can see, I have no idea what I did differently in the various utterances. There were nuances of pronounciation I wasn't even hearing, and was copying only by accident. To this day, I can't even hazard an accurate spelling of what I was trying to say.

I wouldn't expect much better from a movie version of Firefly. 'Parroting' is not as easy as it seems sometimes.

--Anthony

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Saturday, August 23, 2003 7:20 PM

NEVERFEARSTEVEISHERE

during european colonialism:

colonies were foundered in various parts - south america belongs to decendents of southern europe. north america - northern europe. Yet macdonalds is everywhere.

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Sunday, August 24, 2003 8:49 AM

MANIACNUMBERONE

yeah, no speaking roles by any Chinese. I don't know what's up there.
I do know that there is (or was) a coach onset trying to help the cast with their pronunciation, as evidenced from the gagreel. The coach even sounds like a native speaker, although I never got a look. I bet that info is available somewhere. The gagreel also shows multiple takes by the cast of the chinglish parts of the script. So, we know they practiced.

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Sunday, August 24, 2003 9:39 AM

SUCCATASH

It looks like the actors struggled with the Chinese. It can't be easy. Did someone with a Master's degree and a cool business card say it's easy to speak perfect Chinese?

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Sunday, August 24, 2003 5:53 PM

XENARC

Just one more random idea:

Many people have noticed similarities between Firefly and parts of various anime stories. Is it possible that the handling of the Asian influence in Firefly is another of these. For instance, Rurouni Kenshin is 'Japanese' and in 'Japan' and most of the background characters look Japanese, but the main characters and major plot characters do not.

XenArc

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Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:38 AM

MEIGUOLANGREN

I don't think it's a matter of censorship . . . most of the expressions in Chinese that one might call bad language could be translated by folks in a clean interpretation that might be naughty but not obscene . . . an exception would be authentic bad language which when used in context is bad but these aren't that common in the series. The mispronunciations are not just the "naughty words" but occur even with common expressions.

I don't think it's laziness either. I suspect it's that the actors just didn't have the coaching on tones that they needed to accurately reproduce the sounds.

The inconsistency is probably due to taping without a "coach" on one day or misremembering how things were pronounced previously in other episodes . . . or even inconsitent spelling of phrases so that the actors don't even realize they're saying the same word at different times.

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
MeiguoLangren Zai Taibei (An American Werewolf in Taipei)
Assoc. Prof., English Dept., NCCU Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/index.html

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Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:54 AM

MEIGUOLANGREN

It may not be "easy" to have perfect pronunciation in Mandarin Chinese but most comparative linguists agree that spoken conversational Mandarin (not written Chinese) is one of the easiest languages to pick up.

The grammar is simple and very flexible and once you get the hang of the tones it is easier to build fluency than most European languages.

Of course, the actors for Firefly are not learning the language, they are learning to parrot a few phrases.

If they have a coach, then either the work is sloppy or the production company just doesn't have the time to put into proper practice or retakes. The accuracy of the Chinese is probably not really very high up on the priorities in getting the show out.

I haven't seen the gagreel so I wasn't aware that there was a language coach on set . . . that makes me feel even worse about the Chinese pronunciation as any actor worth his salt with good model material should be able to reproduce the lines well enough . . . unless, as has been the case on MANY Hollywood films that uses Chinese, the coach is someone who isn't strong at pronunciation in the first place. The John Wayne film I mentioned earlier had language coaches for Wayne but the guy was a Hong Kong Chinese who actually didn't speak fluent Mandarin himself - just a few broken phrases with an incredibly thick Cantonese accent - and so Wayne - who is not the most natural dialect or accent actor in the first place - really didn't have much to work with anyway.

Heck, if you just give 'em the lines with tonal marks on the words and explain the way the tones shift from first (flat), second (rising), third (shifting from falling to rising), and fourth (falling) then the accuracy should be greatly improved - especially if the simple rules on pronunciation of Romanized Mandarin (each syllable is pronounced in specific ways with no variation as in English - so the "an" in words is always pronounced the same, with no long or short or modified pronunciations.

Some Hollywood films use folks with thick "American Chinese" accents and pass them off as native speakers . . . or they just use an Asian face and call it anything - in the original Canonball Run film (Burt Reynolds), Jackie Chan and Michael Hui are playing Japanese characters but in all of their bits where they are "speaking Japanese" they are actually speaking Cantonese. This sort of think is usually because the filmmakers neither care nor have the ability to tell the difference. Since Firefly has made such an effort to include the Chinese in the background of the world, I would hope that the language could be a bit more consistently expressed - or at least be intelligible.

Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]
MeiguoLangren Zai Taibei (An American Werewolf in Taipei)
Assoc. Prof., English Dept., NCCU Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/index.html

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