In the Belly of the Beast
March 10, 2009
Jet-lagged novelist Haruki Murakami used a trip to Israel to accept the prestigious Jerusalem Prize Feb. 15 to criticize the Israeli government’s massive bombing of Gaza and of the Jewish state’s persecution of Palestinians. His pro-peace remarks were made before an audience of gathered Israeli dignitaries and the full text of his statement was published nationwide. Murakami’s decision to accept the literary award had drawn protests and boycott threats in Japan. Murakami, 60, who has lived in the United States since the late 1980s, has won most of Japan’s top literary prizes, but usually doesn’t accept awards in person. He delivered his remarks in English.
—Yellowkid
- Murakami’s Jerusalem Prize Speech Showed His Responsibility as a Novelist, Koichi Oi, Mainichi Shimbun
- Novelist Murakami Defends Fragile Eggs, Eiji Maeda, Mainichi Shimbun (Jerusalem Bureau).
- “Israel Is Not the Egg,” Shaya Lyon Loney, Jerusalem Post
- Reader Reaction to Murakami’s Speech, Letters to the Editor, salon.com
Read the full text of Murakami’s 2009 Jerusalem Prize for Freedom of the Individual in Society acceptance speech after the jump.
Sauced In Translation
March 10, 2009
STEW JUICE, ONION RINGS, LOVE STORY
Our story started with Kim Ve Wei-Wong Soy Sauce.
When we first met, he was shy.
Our love story walks along the road of, Stew juice, onion rings— Kim Ve Wei-Wong Soy Sauce.CLOSING SHOT: “Fall in love at first sight choice, unforgettable good flavor, fermented Kim Ve Wei-Wong Soy Sauce.”
Cute, but this spot needs balance, just like American mass media needs one straight Asian American leading man or at least one pretending to be. “No, Russell Wong. That was not your cue.”
Asian American conspiratorialists may say that ad spots like this one for Kim Ve Wei-Wong Soy Sauce smack subliminal, planting hints that Asian-White couplings are more fairy-tale-like than other racial recipes.
Ha, I say. If this is some Madison Avenue Madame Butterfly mindfuck, it’s useless. Asian women already hold the WBA title of “World’s Most Outmarrying Women.”
It’s got to said: “If aliens from the planet Cubiczirconia landed on Earth, Asian women would immediately hookup with them.”
But the thing that’s really bothering me about this ad: Is that Zac Efron in dat joint?
- Marriage Patterns For the Six Largest Asian American Ethnic Groups, Asian-Nation
- Interracial Marriage (Globally), Wikipedia
- Race, Interracial Marriage and the New Administration, Free Press Release
- 40 Years After Loving v. Virginia, Interracial Marriage Flourishing in U.S., MSNBC
- The Myth of Interracial Marriage (Yikes! A white supremacist group’s view, VDare.com
