The LongBow Papers

Liberal-oriented columns, commentary and archived articles on national and international news, politics, and the communication arts--with emphasis on China--by Joseph Bosco, author, journalist, director and actor; Professor of Drama and Communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Unkindest Cut of All

11:26 AM

I am back in Beijing; my sorrowful task in Mississippi is done. The living nightmare continues, though. Even in death, from the grave itself, the Bosco family still claws, rips, and eats its own. My soul, that deepest best part of me to which I am always true, the very part that what is left of the Bosco family says I do not possess, indeed have never possessed, was cast forever adrift this past week in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, with no safe harbor to which it may return.

Although frightened, anxious, abandoned, I know my soul will weather whatever lies before it. Because if home is where the heart resides, then that which heals even broken, homeless souls is stronger, safer than ever; I am home. I am in China. I am in Beijing. Most importantly, my heart is at home in the heart of another and she is here.

11:26 AM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Going Home...

8:41 AM

Although Thomas Wolfe, in the pantheon of my favorite wordsmiths, pretty much said it can't be done, I am going "home again." I am going to the deepest part of Dixie, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to attend my mother's funeral. Just about everything I wanted and needed to say about this sorrowful journey is in the post below.

This post is simply informational. Readers and Students: I am leaving Beijing, and these pages, Saturday afternoon, September 16th, and will return to Beijing, and one hopes to these pages, the following Saturday, September 23.

8:41 AM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Wilma Bosco (1926 - 2006) Resides Now In the House of Her Lord

3:24 PM

It is no secret that my Mother and I were often estranged due to my leaving the Christian faith when still a teenager and lifestyle choices I made thereafter. It also should be no secret that we loved each other with a love that transcended even the most fundamental of human divides. Unfortunately, I am afraid that it is a secret to way too many people who knew and loved us both. That is my great shame. However, the only people the truth really mattered to was us. She and I knew it and it was a bond so special and tempered by so much fire that, at the moment I learned of her passing from my son Joseph last night, I did not go into the terrible panic that I did upon learning of my father's death some 30 years ago. The pain was not fearful; it was just a very sorrowful, large, rock-hard knot in that which is the center of me.

When my father was violently taken from this world long before his time, even at the age of 27 I was still not sure of his love; I was definitely sure he was not proud of me at that moment. Love and respect had to be earned from Frank A. Bosco. And they had to be re-earned periodically from that great man to whom I owe so much for teaching me so much; most especially for teaching me the joy in learning itself. But the day he died, I knew he was not proud of me because he had told me so only weeks before. The last words my father spoke to me in this life were words of anger and criticism born from a passing moment of displeasure at a decision I had made against his advice.

But Wilma Bosco loved me. She loved me when I did not deserve even respect, much less love. She was also proud of me. Not for any accomplishments I might have achieved, but simply because I was her son. I hurt her terribly far too many times; yet she forgave me each and every time.

Even at this moment when I would like most to believe in it to comfort myself, I still cannot accept the pure, simple faith in Jesus Christ as a savior, personal or otherwise, as did my beautiful mother. But this much I can say temporarily using the skewed logic that is necessary for us to deal with the unknown: Wilma Bosco believed so strongly, so devoutly, so ceaselessly, that her belief alone makes me know that she is with her Lord in one of "His many mansions," because even science tells us that sometimes fervent belief alone can produce a reality where there should be none.

Perhaps she is also with the only man she truly loved in this life, Frank A. Bosco. We will have her funeral service in the church where we held his 30 years ago, in the church where, during the service for my father, a preacher who had many intellectual religious "disagreements" with Frank Bosco, mainly around the central element of faith-based religions, life after death, said something like this: "At least Frank knows the truth now, one way or the other." So, perhaps they are together again, Frank and Wilma.

I love you, mom; I always have. I am sorry for every tear you shed because I pushed every limit to its brink. Rest forever in peace with your Lord and Savior.

Mom was an innocent, and oh-so-sweet 18 year-old high school senior in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when she met and quickly married the 25 year-old sophisticated, opinionated New York intellectual working for the new Air Force in 1945.

Circa 1957, we have been living for about two years in the Beach House everyone told my father he could not afford (how wrong they were). Dad is on the far left; mom is next to me (the goofy, skinny kid with the band-aide on his knee) with Sylvia sitting in front of mom. Between us is the Manchesian family; the loving, tumultuous product of the marriage between my father's best friend during the war, Jake Manchesian, and his elder sister, my Aunt Lina (Angelina when they were orphans in Italy), my cousins Rose, Rita, and I don't know where my cousin Rex is. Perhaps he is taking the picture; that would be like him, even at that age.

This is mom doing what she loved most, hosting a party feast at 509 Beach Drive in 1985, this photo was taken by my best friend from childhood on, Lucien Westbrook.

This photograph is from one of the last times I saw my mother; I was visiting from China. Sylvia, mother and I are in a spot that once was my bedroom but, after the last, most brilliant renovation of the old Beach House by Sylvia before Katrina took it down, was the grand, formal dining room.

3:24 PM / Editor / permalink 7 comments

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

9/11 Anniversary Isn't the Biggest Story In the Bosco Family

6:02 PM

I have long wondered how I would react when my most primary identification in life went from father to grandfather. I mean, the latter term carries certain distinct connotations about one's personal and scary progress along the journey from cradle to grave; the earlier primary identification benchmark made and passed, from son to father, while wrought with complex emotions, holds no connotations regarding age and its definitive outcome.

I wonder no more. It is wonderful! It is exciting! It reduces age! Or at least it makes one feel younger!

The wonderful news I received from my best friend and son, Joseph, and my beautiful daughter-in-law, Michelle, first via e-mail and then telephone from Beijing to New Orleans, had me literally bouncing about my rather roomy apartment here at Beijing Foreign Studies University with these opening lines:

Hey Dad,
I don't know how to say it so I will just say it. Looks like you are going to be a grandfather!

I was unable to attend Joseph and Michelle's beautiful wedding (I do have it on DVD!). This is a photo of them walking down the aisle.

This is Linda, my former wife of 31 years and Joseph's mother, watching her "baby" and his bride walking down the aisle

What a beautiful couple they are. Can you imagine what my grandbaby will look like?

Joseph and Michelle dancing at their wedding reception.
This is Joseph dancing with his mother; something I never got to do in the 35 years we were together from high school till the end--she was always too shy to dance with me.

This is my favorite photograph of Linda (assuredly the most excited grandmother-to-be) from years ago.

The heartbreak of not being able to attend the wedding was somewhat mitigated when some weeks later I was able to get away from Beijing briefly and meet the happy couple in New York. Here, the three of us are in Katz Deli downtown.

Father and son in a swankier New York restaurant; you can surely tell he got his good looks from his mother.

Congratulations, Joseph and Michelle!

6:02 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Friday, September 08, 2006

It Hurts Just as Much In Chinese

8:47 PM

The Chinese language online edition of China Daily published a retrospective on the 1st anniversary of Hurricane Katrina last week, and one of the reporters there is a former journalism student at Beiwai and her editor suggested she interview me regarding the Bosco family's experience with that goddamn storm that forever changed our lives. During the interview with Ms. Chen Di (Cindy is her English name) I told her the paper was free to use any of the photographs of 509 Beach Drive, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that appeared in these pages.

The article was written, and two before-and-after photographs were published along with it. Even though I will receive another derisive missive from "Anonymous" taking me to shameful task for not yet being able to read and therefore translate more than a few Chinese characters, I can only excerpt the "before" picture of the house I grew up in--and love more than I do all but a handful of living souls--below, and cannot even excerpt the opening graph or even headline because my Blogger software won't reproduce Chinese in a recognizable fashion. In fact, every time I try, it destroys the formatting of the site. Surely there is a computer 101 dumb solution, but I don't know it, yet.

This much I can say, regardless of the language, the pain and shock of the visuals are diminished not even a tiny bit. The photo below is from about 1957, judging by my height and Prince being fully grown. My mother Wilma and my sister Sylvia are of course gorgeous. (One strange tip-off is that I am still a bit towheaded; yes, I was a blonde for the early years of my life, go figure.) This was a Sunday go-to-church morning, from when I was still a good little Christian. You don't think I dressed that way normally in sleepy little Ocean Springs, which is often hotter than Hell, and one hell of a lot more humid, do you?

Please read at ChinaDaily.com

8:47 PM / Editor / permalink 4 comments

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

'Tokyo Trial' Is A Hit!

4:57 PM

It took far longer than expected to hit the big screens in China, but the film 'Tokyo Trial,' which regular readers of these pages will remember was once ungainly titled 'International Military Tribunal for the Far-East' when I labored mightily on it some 13 months ago, finally opened nation-wide this past weekend to rave critical reviews. In all honesty, folks, I can happily, and as objectively as is possible, say that it is a Must See film--if you live in China, mainland or Taiwan, of course, and also Japan (oddly enough) and much of South East Asia quite soon.

You can read what the critics and news-writers say about the movie in links provided below, but I finally had time to see it Sunday night and will make a few comments here. This post cannot truly serve as a review since I was too intimately involved with its making during two physically exhausting months in June and July of 2005.

Unquestionably it is an important film and, apparently, somewhat unprecedented in Chinese filmmaking--as you will read in the links below. For starters, almost 80% of the film is in English and Japanese, rather than Chinese; there are Chinese subtitles throughout. While its subject is the trial and eventual punishment of Japanese "war criminals," and by historical fact can only be viewed as anti-Japan's "war of aggression," it is not anti-Japan, or more precisely, it is not anti-Japanese people, much to the contrary to my surprise.

We judges had fully translated scripts to what happened in the courtroom; we only had a brief synopsis of the fictional sub-plot, which is much more sensitive and compelling on the screen than it appeared in brief plot points.

It is a powerful film; it is an emotionally wrenching film; it is a mostly accurate reproduction of an important but little known story from the conclusion of the Second World War (with a few minor transgressions, which some Chinese historians and at least one surviving participant points out in one of the articles linked to below.)

I just learned this morning--while auditioning for a small part in a big-budget American film, "The kite Runner," which is filming in China throughout this fall--that 'Tokyo Trial' was number 3 at the box office for the weekend in China, which is exceedingly good for a Chinese film with such a heavy message. However, I am still concerned that it will not turn a healthy enough profit and thereby continue to discourage such risky filmmaking in China.

As stated, I will not actually review the film thoroughly here for reasons of subjectivity, but I will make a couple of observations about how director Gao Qunshu chose to pictorially tell his tale.

Perhaps because this was his first theatrical film after enjoying huge success in Chinese television dramas he went for a couple of stylistic conceits that, while innovative for the market here, without some stellar acting and story telling, could have proven fatally repetitious.

For one, the story is told visually almost exclusively in extreme close-ups. Although they are powerful often enough, after awhile one begins to become aware of it as an effect thereby in truth weakening the message.

For instance, while my role as one of the 11 international judges is important more as an historical set-piece than a narrative character, there are many minutes at a time when this ugly face is full screen yet I speak not a word during those long minutes. Thank god, I had enough acting experience to realize that the tightness of some shots meant that something damn well better be going on in my mind and on my face. As to how well I did that, I will mostly let other folks decide. However, quite strangely, after many years of seeing my face on too many television screens and hating every second of it, I will, immodestly perhaps, say that I did not feel that way about this visual experience.

Why? Frankly, I am more than a little perplexed by this new dynamic in my professional, creative life. Perhaps, as has been said before by far better thinkers and writers than me, I have finally grown into the face that I deserve, or at least can accept. It also certainly has something to do with the very special person with whom I watched the movie, someone who seemingly cares not a whit that I am now old and ugly.

The second powerful stylistic conceit that I think is used too often is that every scene cuts to black before the next appears. It is a very dramatic device no doubt, but I liken it to a writer who falls too deeply in love with the exclamation point. The very dramatic and quite wonderful score of the film musically reinforces each cut to black, therefore adding to the self-consciously repetitive effect of the device.

Having said the above, I must confess that I am exceedingly proud to be a small part of a film that should be seen and discussed by as many folks who can because of its gripping, ripping, soulful historical subject that to this very day still has front-page relevance for all of East Asia. It is also a damn good story and motion picture.

Note: I did not identify the actors and their characters in the photos above for design and space reasons. You can learn more than just who they are and the characters they play in the articles linked to below.

Tokyo Trial Website

Variety.com

People's Daily Online

China Through a Lens China.org

Shanghai Daily

Jiangsu News

Hong Kong Cinemagic

Xinhua Online

Sina.com

China Daily.com

English EastDay.com

CRIEnglish.com

4:57 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Friday, September 01, 2006

WOW Hits The Big Time In London, But On A Sad Note Indeed

7:15 PM

Except for most of this past Wednesday, I have been in a pretty dark mood of late, not the least of which was caused by the apparent, shameful end of the Zhao Yan case almost a week ago. Oh, I have tried bucking myself up by saying that his being acquitted on the Stealing State Secrets charge, a truly horrendous accusation that could have put him away for a very, very long time, if not even for life, and that the three years he was sentenced to on being convicted of the absolutely bogus charge of fraud, was perhaps the best worst end of his now two-year long ordeal. But there are precious few "moral victories" or "best deals" when the issue is imprisonment in China.

Regular readers of these pages know how much attention we have paid to Mr. Zhao's unjust arrest and detainment; regular readers also know that WOW, the blogzine produced by the journalism students at BFSU, published one of the best series of op-ed pieces on the case, written by then sophomore college students majoring in English language, western-style journalism. The faculty of the Department of Journalism and International Communications within BFSU's School of English and International Studies has taken great pride in that series.

Well, this week the faculty's sense of pride and humility in a job well-done received a rather large booster shot from The Times of London's Online Edition, which we excerpt below. We are very grateful to whomever tipped The Times off to the series and for Ms. Jane Macartney following up on it--thank you.

Seek Truth From Facts

What about Mr Zhao? The researcher for the New York Times bureau in Beijing has been in detention and under investigation for two years -- primarily on suspicion of stealing state secrets. A Beijing court cleared him of that capital offence, but found him guilty of fraud involving a sum of about 1,200 pounds and sentenced him for three years.

Is it coincidence that another 32 journalists, at least, are now serving jail terms in China for criminal offences?

WOW, or We Observe the World, an online news magazine produced by Chinese students of journalism had engaged in a fascinating discussion of the case. It offers different perspectives from those of the foreign media that are well worth reading. This was not a case that received coverage in the domestic, state-owned media.