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sophia-sol · 2 years

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Every year at about this time (...very approximately) I post a reclist of 10 short stories I particularly enjoyed reading in the last year, all of which can be read online for free. Here's the latest list, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

1. Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven - MH Cheung Beautiful and odd. A story of what happens after you've killed the gods, the unexpected realities and the things you have to live with. I love stories about after the climactic things traditional fantasy narratives are about, and this one excels!

2. If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You - John Chu Two butch Asian weightlifter dudes bonding with each other and then dating, and one of them happens to have superpowers, but the superpowers aren't the focus. This is SO charming!!

3. Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold - SB Divya This is a really cool retelling of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin from the Rumpelstiltskin character's pov, building out the world and his background and making him a sympathetic character with a specific history. Haven't seen a fairy tale retelling quite like this before and it's great! And I say that as a connoisseur of fairy tale retellings.

4. A Farce to Suit the New Girl - Rebecca Fraimow A troupe of Jewish actors in Russia, in a time of political upheaval. This story has such a good and powerful feeling of activity and forward momentum, and of the way a community supports people even if things are weird or complicated! I love every single character and how firmly they are themselves.

5. Sheri, At This Very Moment - Bianca Sayan The sacrifices you make to spend time with the ones you love - a snapshot of one brief visit together, out of two lives that only rarely get to align. Made me teary the first time I read it!

6. Spirochete - Anneke Schwob An engaging second-person pov story about possession and identity. It has such a great sense of timing! And the last line GOT me even on second read when I hypothetically knew what was coming!

7. To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma Ahhhhhh this story is so good at embodying the horrible complexities of the choices people make in the worst of situations, that good and bad and divine and evil and just plain personness can all reside in one being. Also it's about a dragon society and the revolutionary humans who tried to make everyone into dragons, and also about parent-child relationships, and also about a bunch of other things. God it's good.

8. Obsolesce - Nadine Aurora Tabing Is it really me if I don't have at least ONE story about robots in my rec lists? (actually I just went back and checked and in multiple previous years I inexplicably didn't, maybe it wasn't me writing the reclist in those years lol) ANYWAY who wants to have sad feelings about robots again! I know I always do! In a world where anyone who has a physical body instead of having their consciousness transferred is more and more obsolete, no matter if your body is human or robot, what do you hold onto? This one has a real good melancholy tone.

9. Letters from a Travelling Man - WJ Tattersdill ....does what it says on the tin. Letters to a dear friend, from a man travelling for the first time to the unfamiliar part of the world that friend comes from. I love the sense of place you get from the letters, as well as the deep and abiding importance of this friendship in both their lives. Another one I cried over!

10. Texts from the Ghost War - Alex Yuschik Another epistolary one, but this time in text messages instead of letters, and between characters who start the story antagonistically! About mech pilots in a ghost war, and making connections, and finding things to care about, even when stuff sucks. I love them!! (also, I am inescapably me, whoops, it took me until I read some fanfic of this story to realize that almost certainly the story was meant to be canonically shipping the two leads, I never notice romance unless there's anvil-sized indications.) Anyway this is a really good story!

#annual rec list #short stories #short story recs #fantasy #science fiction #sff

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wlwcatalogue · 10 months

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Female Queer Icons of Hong Kong // Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)

Photo 1: Promotional photo for 1955 contemporary movie The Model and the Car (玉女香車) (no video available) (Source: LCSD Museum Collection Search Portal)

Photo 4: Photo from Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe's 1958 trip

Photo 5: Photo from a 1962 newspaper feature on Yam, Pak, and others at their (?) summer villa in Central, Hong Kong

Photo 6: Christmas celebrations with Yam, Pak, and their protégés of the Chor Fung Ming Troupe

Far and away the most iconic duo in Cantonese opera, Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙) – commonly referred to simply as Yam-Pak (任白) – were famed for their partnership both on and off the stage… Click below to learn more!

Edit on 28/07/2023: Updated to link to a photo of the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Pop Culture 60+ exhibit, and to add information regarding Yam and Pak's marriage status.

Iconic? How?

Yam-Pak are the face of Cantonese opera; you can't talk about the latter without mentioning the former. It's to the point where a gigantic picture of them graces the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s permanent exhibition on Hong Kong pop culture’s evolution across the past 60 years (“Hong Kong Pop 60+”) - they are the first thing you see upon entering!

Best known as the originators - with Yam playing the male leads and Pak the female leads - of five masterpieces of Cantonese opera, namely:

1. Princess Cheung Ping (帝女花) 2. The Legend of the Purple Hairpin (紫釵記) 3. The Dream Tryst in the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭驚夢) 4. The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記) 5. Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) (Note: Princess Cheung Ping, Purple Hairpin, and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom were made into abridged movie versions, with the Sin Fung Ming troupe members reprising their roles from the theatre productions. Also, the "Fragrant Sacrifice" (香夭) duet from Princess Cheung Ping (movie clip) is one of - if not the most - famous songs in Cantonese opera.)

Yam and Pak were the leading pair and co-founders of the legendary Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe (仙鳳鳴劇團; 1956-1961), which is widely held to have pushed Cantonese opera forward as an artform due to Pak and scriptwriter Tong Tik Sang’s (唐滌生) emphasis on poetic libretti and adapting source material from Chinese literature and history. (Note: it has been common practice since the 1930's for Cantonese opera troupes to be founded by key actor(s).)

They were also very active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1950's, being paired in over 40 movies together across roughly 8 years. One of those – the aforementioned Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) – is the sole Cantonese opera movie on the Hong Kong Film Archive’s 100-Must See Hong Kong Movies list (IMDB list / archived version of the official PDF). It's a well-deserved inclusion - check out this beautifully-shot dance scene.

Even their post-retirement activities had a significant effect on the industry! In the early 1960’s, they held auditions for prospective students and provided - for free - systematic, hands-on training to those who passed; Yam and Pak even hired other veterans to teach skills they personally were not as familiar with. Prior to this, apprentices were expected to learn primarily from observing their masters, and to pay handsomely for the privilege. Yam-Pak’s methods proved exceedingly effective: the Chor Fung Ming Opera Troupe (雛鳳鳴劇團; 1963-1992) starring their apprentices reigned supreme in the 1970’s-1980’s. Following this success, Cantonese opera institutes - most notably the major 1900s-era guild, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong (八和會館) - started to offer systematic coaching to young hopefuls in the 1980's.

Okay, so why are they queer icons specifically?

The lazy answer is that they're queer icons because nearly all of Yam's roles were male, so Gender is involved by default, and since most hit Cantonese operas of the time were romances, that means you get to see two female actors performing being in love onscreen (and also on stage, but there aren't any video recordings from back then). So far, so Takarazuka Revue.

Female actors playing male roles in Cantonese opera To give some context, each Cantonese opera performer specialises in one of four major role-types, and Yam was a sung (生) - i.e. an actor specialised in playing standard male roles. Female sung were fairly common in the 1910's-1930's due to women being banned from performing with men during that period, but when the ban lifted in the mid-1930's, many troupes shifted towards cis-casting. Yam was pretty much the only one whose popularity survived the transition. Just take a look at the huge number of Cantonese opera movies produced during the 1950’s-1960’s – you’ll be hard-pressed to find a female sung other than Yam, let alone one with top billing. Happily, thanks to Yam's immense popularity, her profilic film career (over 300 movies!), and the prominence of Sin Fung Ming works in the Cantonese opera canon, there has been a resurgence in female sung which endures to this day. Two noteworthy examples are Yam's protégé Sabrina Lee/ Loong Kim Sang (龍劍笙) - a star in her own right - and Joyce Koi/ Koi Ming Fai (蓋鳴暉), one of the biggest names still active in the industry. (Note: perhaps due to cinema being more "realistic" in nature, Yam's early movies often involved her playing female characters cross-dressing as men, including in some Cantonese opera movies. However, she received increasingly more male roles as her fame grew, and from the mid-1950's onwards she was playing male characters onscreen nearly exclusively-- even in non-Cantonese opera movies! See Photo 1 above.)

What sets Yam and Pak apart is that they were particularly known for their chemistry. Long before Sin Fung Ming's formation in 1956, the advertising copy for their first Cantonese opera movie together - Frolicking with a Pretty Maid in the Wineshop (酒樓戲鳳, 1952) - declared "Only this movie has Yam-Pak flirting on the silver screen" (source - 華僑日報 1952/05/23-26). And indeed, they were popular for their flirtatious duets: their Cantonese opera works invariably contained at least one, and such scenes made it into some of non-Cantonese opera (i.e. "contemporary") movies too. In fact, there are not one but two contemporary movies where Yam and Pak's characters are not paired up and yet still sing a duet together in such a way that their significant other(s) become convinced that the two are in romantically interested in each other - see 1952's Lovesick (為情顛倒) and 1956's The Happy Hall (滿堂吉慶) - a weirdly specific situation which doesn't crop up in the other, non-Yam-Pak movies I have seen.

Speaking of contemporary movies, let's talk about a certain plotline that keeps cropping up in works featuring the both of them and where Yam plays a woman! Six of the eleven movies which fit that criteria involve Yam's character cross-dressing as a man (a common characteristic across Yam's handful of female roles), and Pak's character falling for her. Nothing ever comes of it, of course, but, um. It was certainly a trend. Actually, even their very first movie together - 1951's Lucky Strike (福至心靈) - falls into this category.

Such storylines, and the emphasis on their chemistry, are particularly interesting given that both Yam and Pak remained ostensibly unmarried throughout. This was unusual for female performers of their stature, who tended to wed in their twenties, often to fellow-actors or wealthy men (e.g. Hung Sin Nui/紅線女, Fong Yim Fun/芳艷芬, and Tang Pik Wan/鄧碧雲)... In contrast, by the time Yam-Pak retired from the stage in 1961, they were both over 30 years old and without husbands.

Also, did I mention they were popularly believed to be living together? There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way... although it's a little strange that separate newspaper pictorials depicting "Yam at home" and "Pak at home" seem to be of the same location... however what is conclusive is that they did spent a lot of time together offstage. Pak has talked about how when they had no guests over, Yam would watch TV by herself while Pak was in the living room (source - p93), and protégé Mandy Fung/ Mui Suet Sze (梅雪詩) has said that Pak would sometimes cook for Yam at home (source - 03:53~). They would also celebrate birthdays, New Year's, and Christmas together (see Photo 6 for an example of the latter).

Shortly after Yam's passing in 1989, Pak set up the Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation (任白慈善基金) to support the arts and provide welfare for the elderly. In 1996, Pak made a large donation to Hong Kong University, resulting in one of the buildings being renamed Yam Pak Building (任白樓) in thanks (source).

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions, or are just interested in learning more.

If you made it here, have this bonus piece of trivia - Yam and Pak were also well-acquainted with Hong Kong's preeminent queer icon, Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who was a massive fan of theirs. Sadly there don't seem to be any pictures of them before Yam's passing, but here's one of Pak (centre) having afternoon tea with Cheung (left) and his long-term romantic partner Daffy Tong (唐鶴德) (right) at the Cova cafe in the Pacific Place shopping mall.

#wlw recommendations #sapphic #lgbtq #asian lgbtq #hong kong #theatre #cantonese opera #chinese opera #yam kim fai #leslie cheung #pak suet sin #yampak #yambak #pak sheut sin #bak sheut sin #hong kong queer icons #not me hastily adding tags because i keep forgetting certain ones

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potteresque-ire · 1 year

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A very young Stanley Kwan 關錦鵬 (right) directing Leslie Cheung 張國榮 (left) and Anita Mui 梅艷芳 (middle) for Rouge 胭脂扣 (1987). Kwan would win the Best Director title for the film at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Stanley Kwan 關錦鵬 is not only a famous director from Hong Kong, but also the first well-known openly gay figure in Hong Kong entertainment. He came out of the closet in 1996 (before Leslie Cheung, who did so in 1997), in the documentary he directed for the British Film Institute named Yang ± Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema 男生女相：華語電影之性別. His works had garnered accolades for their in-depth portrayal of female characters, at the time when women in local movies often did little more than being pretty and screaming a lot.

(Under the cut: Director Kwan's own words on one of his most famous works and a gay film classic in Chinese-language cinema, Lan Yu (2001), in 2022 after BL culture has entered mainstream)

Most BL fans know Director Kwan via his gay-themed film Lan Yu 藍宇 (2001), about the eponymous Bejing university student falling in love with a wealthy, closeted businessman, Chen Handong. The film, based on a popular online novel Beijing Story 北京故事, has remained censored in mainland China for its queer content and its mentions of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Its fate of being perennially censored was never a surprise—the film was shot in Beijing in secret, with the crew pretending to be shooting commercials around the capital. Digital filming also didn't exist then, and so the 100,000 ft + of film had to be smuggled out of China later to be developed.

Lan Yu was a project about love. Of love.

The poster of Lan Yu in Cannes Film Festival (left), Hong Kong (center), Taiwan (right), at the time of its original release.

In 2022, Lan Yu celebrated its 20th anniversary with a 4K remastered version. Among the interviews of Director Kwan made for the celebration was one by The Initium 端傳媒, during which Kwan shared some of his views on Lan Yu, in the context of how public reception of queer media has changed over the years after the film's release.

These views may deviate from what some fans, especially those in BL circles, would expect. Precisely because of that, however, I'm posting them here. After all, maybe, hopefully, Kwan will collaborate with Dd (and Gg) one day. Maybe, fans like ourselves will interact with Kwan on social media spaces one day.

I hope Kwan's views will be kept in mind, considered and respected. Due to the length of the full interview **, I'm only translating the two parts that are relevant (lazy turtle here 😊):

《藍宇》雖為華語電影同志片的經典，但過去廿年，關錦鵬卻在不少訪談中提過，電影改編自當年於大陸風行一時的網絡同志小說《北京故事》，而最初他其實並不喜歡那篇小說。

「原著基本上是用偷窺角度去看一段同志關係，特別是集中描寫男體的情色關係，有很多露骨的性愛場面。作者本身是知道這些描寫會令小說受歡迎。」關錦鵬接著說：「但在拍這部電影前，我在 1996 年已經出櫃。而我覺得作為一名同志導演，就更不應該去消費這個題材，所以當我看到原著小說將情色描寫，譬如肛交、口交的過程放大，當時我便跟製片人說，如果要原封不動將小說內容拍出來，我就不做了。」

Although Lan Yu is a classic Chinese-language gay film, in many interviews in the past 20 years, Kwan has mentioned that the film was adapted from the online gay novel Beijing Story, popular in mainland China at the time, and that he actually didn't like the novel at first. "The original novel basically looks at a gay relationship from a voyeuristic point of view, especially the erotic relationship between male bodies, and there are many explicit sex scenes. The author (of the novel) himself knows that these descriptions will make the novel popular."

Kwan continued, "But before making this movie, I had been out of the closet since 1996. And I thought, as a gay director, I shouldn't exploit this subject, so when I saw the original novel expanding, zooming in on the eroticism -- the processes of anal sex and oral sex, for example -- I told the producer at the time that if the novel's content is to be filmed without changes, I won't do it.”

2. 在《藍宇》面世的年代，電影確實意識大膽。但二十年後，當電影得以重新修復，社會氛圍其實亦有了翻天覆地的轉變。近年不但多了同志題材的作品，甚至大行其道，人人消費，成為一種時令的商業元素。譬如人氣男團會拍 BL 電視劇，而過去幾年的華語電影節，最快售罄的場次，都一定是同志電影。此情此景，在《藍宇》剛上映的年代簡直不可思議，電影當年在香港的票房談不上亮眼，普羅大眾對同性戀故事有所抗拒，而本身就是同志的觀眾，想看卻不敢購票入場，怕被旁人標籤。二十年後世界變了樣，甚至總會看到「腐女」在 BL 電影的宣傳海報前打卡拍照。關錦鵬笑說：「是呀，前陣子的確有朋友跟我說，她其實是一名腐女。腐女族群喜歡看男同志電影，但到底喜歡看什麼呢？她某程度上都承認，想看的就是身體，是兩個好看的男人身體如何做愛。」然而，這恰恰就是他當初對執導《藍宇》有所卻步的顧慮。當同志題材今日已走入主流，變成一種受歡迎的商業元素，關錦鵬則仍然有所警惕，跟潮流保持距離：「可能有些腐女都會喜歡《藍宇》，但我想未必完全是她們那杯茶。它真正要說的是兩個男人從色情買賣演變成一段感情關係，尤其是魏紹恩替我改編劇本之後，陳捍東這個角色，在我看來不一定是男同志，而是他在藍宇身上找到一些連自己都不知道的感覺。」但關錦鵬也承認，從好的方向去看，在 BL 作品蔚然成風的助力之下，至少令同志以及 LGBT 性少數族群，相對容易被今日的大眾主流接受：「這是令人開心的。近幾年，特別是年輕人，確實會用比較開放的態度去對待 LGBT 族群。」稍頓，關錦鵬解釋道：「換個說法，關於 LGBT 議題的重點，現在就不再放在色情之上，而更多是感情關係，甚至是性少數族群認清自己身份之後，於生活上如何面對社會。那起碼是朝著一個正確的方向。」 In the era when Lan Yu was released, the film was indeed bold in its ideology. Twenty years later, however, at the time when the film gets its restoration, the social atmosphere has actually undergone earth-shaking changes. In recent years, not only have there been more gay-themed works, they have even become very popular and consumed by all, becoming a kind of fashionable commercial element. For example, popular boyband members are willing to make BL TV dramas, and in the past few years of Chinese-speaking film festivals, the fastest sold-out shows have all been gay movies.

[Pie note: The reporter was unlikely to be referring to Gg and Dd with their mention of "popular boyband members". Instead, they were probably thinking of Edan Lo and Anson Lo from Hong Kong's local boyband MIRROR, who starred in the BL drama Ossan's Love.]

This phenomenon is unbelievable in the era when Lan Yu was first released. The box office of the film in Hong Kong couldn't be said to be impressive. The general public resisted gay stories [Pie note: Hong Kong hadn't decriminalised homosexual relationships until 1991, 10 years before], and the audience who were gay wanted to watch it but didn't dare to purchase tickets, for fear of being labeled by others. Twenty years later, the world has changed -- BL fans can be seen photographing themselves in front of the promotional posters of BL movies.

Kwan smiled and said, "Yes, a friend told me a while ago that she's actually a "rotten woman" (Pie note: = woman BL fan, translated from the Japanese term fujoshi). The "rotten women" group likes to watch gay movies, but what do they like to watch? She admitted, to a certain extent, that it's the body. It's the body, how two good-looking men's bodies make love."

And yet, this was precisely the concern that made Kwan hesitant to direct Lan Yu at the beginning. As gay themes enter the mainstream and become a popular commercial element, Kwan has remained vigilant, and has kept his distance from the trend: "Maybe some "rotten women" enjoy Lan Yu, but I don't think (the film) is entirely their cup of tea. What the film really wanted to express was how two men evolved from a transactional sex relationship to an emotional relationship, especially after Wei Shaoen adapted the script for me. The character of Chen Handong, in my opinion, didn't necessarily have to be a gay man; instead, he found on Lan Yu a feeling that even he himself couldn't understand.”

But Kwan also admitted that, from a better perspective, with the aid of popular BL works, it has become relatively easy for gays and LGBT sexual minorities to find acceptance in today's mainstream: "This is a happy thing to see. In recent years, especially young people have indeed treated the LGBT community with a more open attitude.” After a short pause, Kwan explained: “In other words, the focus of LGBT issues is now no longer on salacity, but more on emotional relationships, and even, on how sexual minorities face society in their daily lives after recognising their (sexual) identities. At least it's moving in the right direction.”

** None of you see this footnote, but a copy of the interview without a paywall can be found here. 😊

#pie metas

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seoul-bros · 9 months

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Sometimes...

Jungkook remind me of another very famous Asian artist, Leslie Cheung.

Leslie was a very famous actor and singer. He remains one of the most celebrated artists in China, 19 years after his death. He was also openly bi.

His film "Happy Together" is one of the earliest films in Asia to deal with a gay relationship.

Jungkook doesnt really resemble him physically but I do think their appeal/aura kinda similar?

Like they both have/had a very soft, yet powerful masculine appeal. Their masculinity is not threatening yet very palpable and inciting instead of repelling. Dunno how to describe this any other way.

Also both are Virgos lmao.

Leslie Cheung in his own words

So sorry, I took so long to respond to this but I don't get many messages like this and I wanted to take time replying and try to do justice to what you are saying here. I have been reading more about Leslie Cheung his life and his legacy and in so doing I begin to see where the comparisons you make to Jungkook come from.

Leslie Cheung (1956 - 2003)

“I believe that a good actor would be androgynous, and ever changing”

I remember Leslie Cheung for his performance in the 1993 film Farewell My Concubine. The film won the Palm D'Or at Cannes as well as awards for Best Foreign Language Film at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes. He plays Cheng Dieyi, a Peking opera singer, abandoned and abused as a child and trained to sing the opera's female roles. The film focuses on his tumultuous lifelong relationship with fellow opera singer Duan Xiaolou and Xiaolou's wife Juxian. It is set against the massive societal upheaval in China in the early 20th century. It's a heartbreaking performance which reminds us of the fragility of love and friendship and the lasting effects betrayal can have upon us all.

"Leslie Cheung gives the performance of his career" Time

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What I didn't know when I saw the film, was anything more about his life. His singing career, his huge celebrity in Asia and the fact that he was an openly bisexual man at a time where globally, attitudes towards homosexuality were at their most negative.

"Your love belongs to you and you alone.....as long as you are happy and, harm no one, do not be bothered by idle chatter."

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I also wasn't aware of the role he played in shaping LGBT representation in Hong Kong cinema and the lasting impact that this has had on subsequent queer films and filmmakers which is perhaps best embodied by the 1997 film Happy Together which you mention.

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"The theme of my performance is this: The most important thing in life, apart from love, is to appreciate your own self"

He was determined to be true to himself in a world that was not yet ready for such honesty. His 2000, Passion tour included eight costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier which blurred gender lines. Although the tour was very successful, there was a backlash at home which affected him deeply.

Article Link

"I hope you'll forever remember me, because I will forever remember your cheers and applause."

2023 is the 20th anniversary of his death and it is a testament to his legacy that every year people still visit the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong to pay tribute.

There was a commemorative concert in April and the Miss You Much Leslie exhibition is being held at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum until October 2023. Leslie Cheung continues to garner new fans as his films and his music reach new younger audiences.

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This GQ article from last year tries to capture how Leslie Cheung continues to influence the next generation of artists.

Leslie naturally possessed both feminine and masculine [qualities]—not to mention an enigmatic mystique that was just so unique I think no other star has come remotely close to having,” the trans Filipina filmmaker Isabel Sandoval told me. “I think he's the closest we've come to a modern-day Garbo in his sexual ambiguity.”

Jungkook definitely shares that characteristic of tantalizingly blending feminine and masculine qualities to create a unique presence which cannot be ignored.

"Great style is wearing anything you like, regardless of gender"

He is known for rejecting traditional gendered fashion and his support for LBGTQ friendly brands.

On stage he is mesmerizing.....

...and off stage he is grateful and giving with his fans.

"Whenever ARMYs miss us, you can come to us. If you have to go or if you want to go, it’s okay for you to leave us. But always remember, I will always be here."

Although, Jungkook has never and may never talk about his sexuality, I do believe that every day he is trying to be true to himself, show us who he is and live an as authentic life as is possible. He is an icon for this century just as Leslie Cheung was an icon for the last one.

Post Date: 25/08/2023

#leslie cheung #jeon jungkook #jungkook #farewell my concubine #happy together #queer icons

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yakuzacanons · 3 months

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Hi there absolutely love your content! What do you think all the Ichigangs favorite bands/musicians are?

This is such a big brain ask cuz I have a Spotify playlist for almost every protag/big character, so I can finally put my efforts in that into an answer for once lmaoooo

Ichiban Kasuga

Mostly pop, light rock, and rap for our Ichi. Doesn't really have a particular favorite artist, just kind of likes a bunch of random songs. Kind of into J-Hope and Fallout Boy, if he had to specify.

Yu Nanba

Pretty old fashioned, defaults to jazz or classical music most of the time. Has no specific favorite artists and will listen to most anything. Likes The Seatbelts the most.

Adachi Koichi

Hard rock. That's it. That's all there is to it. Mostly into oldies from American and Europe. Lots of KISS, ACDC, Scorpions, Journey, etc.

Tianyou Zhao

Pop or hip hop for him, either in Japanese or Chinese. Almost never listens to music in English. Likes Jay Chou, Jackey Cheung, and Teresa Teng.

Joon-Gi Han

K-pop or visual kei are his go-to styles. He can get down to some emo music too sometimes. Most fond of BUCK-TICK, Agust D, and EXO.

#majima megaphone moment #yakuza #ryu ga gotoku #yakuza headcanons #yakuza imagines #ryu ga gotoku headcanons #ryu ga gotoku imagines #joon gi han #han joon gi #zhao tianyou #tianyou zhao #koichi adachi #yu nanba #ichigang #ichiban kasuga #yakuza like a dragon

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bizarrequazar · 3 months

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GJ and ZZH Updates — February 25-March 2

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This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

02-25 → Rare posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

→ The Instagram posted a video from the latest scam concert.

02-26 → BEAST posted a teaser video featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

→ The Instagram posted another of the same.

02-27 → BEAST posted another teaser video (1129 kadian) and a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ The Instagram posted three photos of "Zhang Zhehan" and "Zhang Mama" and seven of an aquarium. The previous Zhang Mama impersonator has visibly been replaced by a new one, likely due to the previous one being in declining health.

→ PRSR posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

02-28 → Tissot posted a promotional video spoken by Gong Jun.

→ Gong Jun posted a commercial he did for BEAST. (10:42, 511 kadian possible if you push it) Caption: "Spring is coming, and the God of Flowers is about to wake up… I hope you can meet the golden finger and find the black vanilla"

→ BEAST posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

→ Gong Jun's studio posted a behind the scenes video from the BEAST shoot. Caption: "The subtle fragrance stays and lingers for a long time. Meet @ Gong Jun Simon in the early spring~"

→ Xiao Chu (aka Nada), who moved to Canada at the end of last year, changed her LinkedIn profile to credit herself as the sole writer for Word of Honor, despite it being an adaptation and despite Xiao Chu herself admitting back in 2021 that it was a collaborative effort. There has also been speculation that her husband may have been involved in the writing, as his name is the one in the contract. Xiao Chu has openly been involved with the Zhang Sanjian scam, and has recently been hiring ghost writers.

02-29 → Nothing of note.

03-01 Addition 03-06: Gong Jun's studio posted a douyin with footage from the BEAST shoot. BGM is 偷心 by Jacky Cheung.

→ 361° posted a teaser commercial featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian) Fan Observation: The logo at the end of the video, which is used for Gong Jun's line with 361°, has what appears to be oranges added.

→ The makeup brand Za posted a photo ad teasing an upcoming endorsement with Gong Jun. (1129 kadian)

→ Gong Jun's studio posted fourteen photos from the BEAST shoot. Caption: "Spring returns to all things, @ Gong Jun Simon's warm fragrance awakens the radiant poetry."

→ The Instagram posted ten photos of the new fake Zhang Mama.

03-02 → Za posted another photo ad teaser. (1129 kadian)

Additional Reading: → Late addition to last week: The cram school that included slander against Zhang Zhehan in their test prep books after 813 are facing scam claims and resulting refund requests of 40 million RMB. → [Here] (shirtless Sanjian warning) is a really good comparison showing how much photoshopping is being done to the photos posted on the Instagram, and [here] is one showing the height difference between two different Zhang Sanjians.

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This post was last edited 2024-03-06.

#Zhang Zhehan #Gong Jun #Word of Honor #woh cast #lld timeline

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telomeke · 1 year

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MOONLIGHT CHICKEN – THE THEME SONG

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I think everybody must already know this by now, but just in case – Moonlight Chicken is a series that leans heavily into the Thai-Chinese experience (cultural markers abound – chicken rice, the names like Wen and Li Ming, the joss sticks and offerings, mooncakes and the Mid-Autumn Festival, the temple with its red Chinese characters, so many others).

The reasons are multiple I think; ostensibly this is Director Aof's homage to his childhood in Pattaya (if I'm not mistaken that is, I think I read it somewhere on Reddit?) and if it was a Thai-Chinese childhood then yes it makes sense. But it also dovetails nicely with Thailand's efforts to market its cultural offerings (of which BL is one) to the giant East Asian market, while potentially attracting even more visitors for the important tourism sector.

Anyway, this partly explains why the theme song is sung NOT IN THAI but in Mandarin Chinese. And it's significant for a couple of reasons.

The first – the song is titled "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心/yuè liang dài biǎo wǒ de xīn), and it is a perfect fit for all the lunar-themed references in this series (or maybe it was their start point? 🤔).

But there's more – the song (originally popularized by the late Teresa Teng in the 1970s) was given an LGBTQ+ twist by the late, great Leslie Cheung when he publicly came out and sang this love song to his partner in a 1997 concert:

Because of this, in some Chinese-majority areas (I'm thinking Taiwan and Hong Kong, not sure about Singapore) the song has now become an iconic queer love song. And this is why Mile and Apo also sang it during the Taipei leg of the KinnPorsche World Tour (Taiwan being the first state in Asia to legalize gay marriage).

It's not just any old song – it fits the themes of this show perfectly, and I'm hopeful that other aspects of Moonlight Chicken will also show that they came about from the same deliberate and deeply thoughtful approach to the creative process.

Can't wait for the next episode! 💖

#moonlight chicken #the moon represents my heart #moonlight chicken theme #YouTube

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