For starters, there was already a movie called The Karate Kid that everyone loves. It’s the tale of Jersey boy Daniel LaRusso who moves to Reseda and learns how to defend himself against the town dicks from his Japanese handyman. Other than the fact that Japanese handymen are hard to come by these days, there’s nothing wrong with the original Karate Kid — the plot still gripping, the contrast between ethnic East Coast kid and blond Cali dude as valid today as ever, and the karate on which the story focuses would still be cool to watch on screen today. It doesn’t need a remaking, it needs a re-release, to remind people how movies for kids used to be — genuine, inventive and unafraid to go all the way in caricaturing old Japanese people.

At this point I’d like you to view the trailer for new version of the film, to be released in June. Go ahead:

OK, so Will Smith’s son and Benjamin Button’s mom move from Detroit to Beijing because, according to IMDB, of the mom’s “latest career move.” Will Smith’s son falls for a Chinese girl in his class, Mei Ying, which in turn ticks off class bully “Cheng” who starts roundhouse kicking at the new kid. Will Smith’s son finds Jackie Chan, the handyman of his new building, who teaches him how to defend himself.

Here are the major problems with this plot:

1. It’s not a good “career move” for someone to move to mainland China, unless you’re upper management at a company outsourcing operations to China and you are offered a generous expat package from your company to move. The first scene in the trailer clearly shows that this single mother lives in the projects (in Detroit no less) and thus, it’s safe to assume she’s not VP of Asia region for Citigroup. For any women in the Detroit hood who may be reading this, moving to the place with the world’s largest supply of blue-collar laborers: not a good move.

2. The names of the kids are ridiculous. Will Smith’s son is named “Dre” — couldn’t get any more cliche than that. The object of Dre’s fever is Mei Ying, which means “beautiful flower”. And then there’s “Cheng”, the bad guy. To my knowledge, that’s not even a name in Mandarin, it’s a Cantonese name that no one would have in Beijing, and for the purposes of this film, just a word that sounds really Chinese.

3. There’s not a chance in hell that a handyman in Beijing would speak a fraction of the English that Mr. Han, Jackie Chan’s character, speaks in the trailer. Not a chance.

But for the sake of the film, I’ll suspend my disbelief and pretend that these plot elements could actually exist in real life. Even then, there’s a serious flaw in the new Karate Kid and it’s the other reason the film needs a new title. Here it is:

IT’S NOT KARATE!!!

They’re in Beijing, not Okinawa! He’s Mr. Han, not Mr. Miyagi! They’re doing Kung Fu, not Karate. You can’t just call it The Karate Kid!!!

You wouldn’t call it “The Black Karate Kid”, would you? Of course not, that’d be racially insensitive. And so is calling this film “The Karate Kid”. It takes the racial insensitivity of the Karate Kid films to new heights.

And for me, Mr. Miyagi catching flies with a pair of chopsticks was just right.

Just for fun, here are the trailers for the real Karate Kid films:

Part One

Part Two

I missed China’s big 6-0 here on Flumesday, but there were a couple things of note I thought I’d throw up on here, for the benefit of my readers (basically my Uncle Michael at this point). The first is a link to something really brilliant written at the Huffington Post by my favorite writer. It’s on the Empire State State Building going red and yellow in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Communist Revolution. Very bizarre, very interesting and the hunky author actually went to the lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building and did some original reporting with protesters outside and with the Chinese Consulate. Here’s a link.

The second thing of note is how unbelievably well China’s government-funded propaganda film, The Founding of a Republic, is doing in the Chinese theaters. Not such a big shocker, considering it was released to coincide with the 60th anniversary and China’s national pride these days is at Hulk Hogan-esque levels. It’s like Chinese Hulkamania. According to a piece in Monday’s Financial Times, the film made $48 million in its first week, putting it on pace to become China’s highest-grossing film ever, breaking the record set by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. At this point, I’d normally make fun of China for being so into Transformers. But I can’t really, considering that in America, the Transformers sequel made more in its first day (62 mil) than it has altogether in mainland China (55 mil). The whole world is into Transformers, evidently. Here’s a link to a post I wrote earlier in the year about China’s propaganda film.

And last, I wanted to share this video a friend sent me, shot in Beijing on National Day, during the 60th anniversary parade in Tiananmen Square. It was made by the Guardian and shot in slow motion on a 7D (have no idea what this means). It’s a really amazing video and was done in a very classy way. Colors are fantastic and you can watch in HD. Here it is:

Big news out of China this weekend: the government is now encouraging couples in Shanghai to have two kids, a reversal of the country’s famous “one-child policy” — the federal mandate instituted in 1979 to control China’s raging population. But with this week’s announcement by China’s Family Planning Commission, something else will be raging: the dormant passion between single-child parents in Shanghai, who themselves must also be only children, who thought they’d never get the chance to conceive again. It’s just so romantic.

The relaxation of the world’s most famous infringement on personal freedom comes not because of any realization by the Chinese government that social engineering is wrong and that Chinese citizens should be trusted to make their own decisions about the size of their families. Rather, China’s leadership is simply tweaking the population engineering formula: as the country’s population is growing older, there might not be enough young people around to care for all the old people. What’s the answer? Have more kids!

As Clifford Coonan reported for the Telegraph Saturday:

The spectre of an ageing population hangs heavy over Shanghai, where the proportion of working adults to retirees is high and threatens a major burden. By 2050 China will have more than 438 million people over 60, with more than 100 million of them 80 and above. There will be just 1.6 working-age adults to support every person aged 60 and above, compared with 7.7 in 1975.

And who wants to live in a city full of old people?

As the goal of the one-child policy was to rein in China’s population, does this new measure signify that China’s population has been reined in? China’s state news agency published the findings of an expert on population growth who believes China will reach zero-growth by 2030. Tian Xueyuan, former president of China’s CASS Institute of Population and Labor Economics, predicted that in approximately 20 years, China’s population will peak at 1.465 billion.

And if China’s population begins to drop within the next two decades, I suppose the Chinese government would have to look at the one-child policy as a huge success — minus the forced abortions, the absurdly out of whack 117:100 male-to-female birth ratio, the abandonment of girl babies, and the infanticide. A huge success, but also a policy that doesn’t seem all that necessary. Another thing to keep in mind is that China’s “population problem” isn’t all that big of a problem. According to United Nations figures taken in 2005, China ranks 75th on the global list of population density — the population of a country compared to the size of that country’s land. For a point of reference, India has 890 people per square mile, while Mainland China has only 360. Hong Kong has over 16,000 people per square mile.

In terms of how fast a country is growing, China is nowhere near the top of that list either (perhaps due to the one-child policy, but who knows). In the 2006 edition of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, China ranked 156th out of 230 countries for rate of population growth, with a projected .58% growth between 2005 and 2010, well below the global average of 1.17%.

So what’s the big deal with China’s population? And why do the people of China not pressure their government to reverse the one-child policy faster? Perhaps this is one of those great China mysteries. Perhaps the Chinese put too much trust in their government. Perhaps Chinese couples don’t mind giving all their love and affection to only one child, a phenomenon that has been labeled the “Little Emperor” syndrome. Whatever the case may be, Shanghai couples should now rejoice in their ability to have another kid, and hope with that second child, brings some sweeping changes to the idea of what a 21st century Chinese family is all about.

For those who may not have seen The Tank Man, I’m posting here as an essential part of Flumesday’s effort to provide the most interesting stories on Tiananmen leading up to the 20th anniversary. The Frontline doc isn’t anything new — it aired in April, 2006 on PBS. But it is, 20 years later, the best source on the history of the “Tank Man,” the brave Chinese man who stopped a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989, immortalized in the iconic photograph. This short film reveals the conflicting theories on the fate of the “Tank Man.” Was he executed days after his stunt, or is he hiding in the Mainland, preserving his legacy as the anonymous symbol for the Tiananmen protesters? A must-see.

A new book, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, to be released Tuesday, documents the dissent from China’s former leader over the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989. Zhao Ziyang, China’s leader from 1987 until a month before the massacre, recorded 30 hours of audio before his 2005 death claiming, among other things, that China’s leadership never legitimately voted to establish martial law on May 20, 1989, 2 weeks before the infamous crackdown. Seen as sympathetic to the student protesters and pro-democracy, Zhao’s views on the martial law and crackdown were, and still are, suppressed by the Chinese government and caused the former Premier and Party General Secretary to be banished from public life. Zhao was removed from all of his positions in China’s government following controversial statements in May, 1989 and until his death, was placed under heavily surveillance and house arrest. The new book offers Zhao’s views on the era, translated from secret cassette tapes left to his family and close friends. The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic article on the Zhao memoir and offers some great insight into one of the best kept secrets in Chinese history.

As June 4th draws nearer, many will be looking back twenty years and observing China’s most shameful memory — the government massacre in Tiananmen Square that left hundreds dead. But what many forget, including myself until recently, is that just a week after that bloody Sunday in Beijing, a 17 year-old kid in Paris made a different kind of history for China. That kid was Michael Chang, who defeated Stefan Edberg in a five-set French Open final to became first-ever tennis player of Chinese heritage to win a grand slam title, his first and only. Moreover, Chang became the youngest player ever to capture a Slam, a distinction he still holds today. While Chang was born in New Jersey and is, in fact, American, he has always been a major source of pride in the Chinese tennis world. He was arguably the most popular tennis star in America for a brief period, but his French Open win made him the most popular player in China for well over a decade. The Los Angeles Times did a cool little feature on Chang today that reveals that Chang is married (to a girl 12 years younger I found out on Wikipedia), breeds tropical fish and has a two handicap in golf. But Chang also discusses the role the Tiananmen Square event played in is 1989 French Open victory:

A lot of people forget that Tiananmen Square was going on. The crackdown that happened was on the middle Sunday at the French Open, so if I was not practicing or playing a match, I was glued to the television, watching the events unfold… I often tell people I think it was God’s purpose for me to be able to win the French Open the way it was won because I was able to put a smile on Chinese people’s faces around the world at a time when there wasn’t much to smile about.

I wasn’t old enough to understand Tiananmen Square when it happened, though I do remember my father telling me about it. However, I vividly remember Michael Chang winning the French — an 8-year-old sports nut cares much more about these things. Sadly, Chang’s remarkable achievement won’t be what comes to mind when we think of June, 1989.

With a month to go before the 20-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre or crackdown or whatever you choose to call it, news publications are already beginning to run pieces on the 20 years since the massacre, and what has become of all those bright-eyed students and youths who chose to stand up to the Chinese government. To me, this is going to be the most interesting aspect of the June 4th commemoration — the “where are they nows.” China itself plans to ignore the anniversary and surely, all over the world, we’ll read pieces about how China has changed and positioned itself as a world superpower in the last 20 years, blah blah balh. Because we certainly won’t read about how China’s philosophy toward dissidence and free speech has changed since 1989. It hasn’t. But what has changed, and drastically, is the direction of the lives of those who were imprisoned for their roles in the Beijing protests. And these were some of China’s most promising minds. These stories are what should dominate the news on June 4th, stories of people who are constantly monitored now that they’re free, people who aren’t allowed to publish, speak to the press, earn a living, or travel in or out of China. Twenty years later, those who stood up for democracy, are still paying the price for that decision. I came across a fantastic piece from the AP on the lives of former Tiananmen protesters, how they live in 2009, and how that decision they made 20 years ago has completely altered their lives. Over the next month, I hope to post some good stuff that I read on the Tiananmen anniversary. Here’s a good start:

AP: Ex-Tiananmen convicts still struggling to survive

A strange, strange story in the New York Times today looks at the grass-mud horse craze in China, an effort by a fed-up Chinese citizenry to mock Beijing’s web censorship. Though my understanding of this is somewhere between mediocre and sound, what I can gather is that the grass-mud horse, an alpaca-like animal, sounds exactly like “fuck your mother” in Mandarin Chinese. Someone made a YouTube children’s video, that as of Thursday has logged 1.5 million viewers, which says something to the effect of “the grass-mud horses are courageous and tenacious.” The horses come from the Malegbi desert, which translates to “your mother’s cunt” (no joke) and work to defeat the river crabs (synonymous with “censorship”). Not only are people watching the video, but people are buying grass-mud horse stuffed animals and in general, celebrating the new symbolism of what could be the next major Chinese democratic resistance. And just in time for the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. If I were Hu Jintao, I’d be totally fine with a cute furry animal replacing a student in front of a tank as the iconic image of China’s pro-democracy movement.

Here’s the YouTube video:

In a breaking story Monday morning, the Chinese navy has pulled a high school-style prank on a U.S. vessel in the South China sea. Reportedly, a Chinese intelligence ship and four other vessels surrounded the USNS Impeccable, came dangerously close to the ship and then Chinese crew members sprayed the U.S. vessel with fire hoses, stripped down to their underwear and, as MSNBC reported, “mooned” the U.S. Navy. According to an AP report, the Obama administration is protesting the aggression to the Chinese government, to be delivered to Beijing on Monday. MSNBC is reporting that a day earlier, Chinese planes circled the Impeccable 11 times, proclaimed that the U.S. ship was operating illegally and ordered the ship to cease operations or “suffer the consequences.” It remains unclear whether the mooning was a full moon or a half moon or whether Chinese soldiers used the preferred pre-mooning question, “How about this black hole?”

Photo: USNS Impeccable

The World Baseball Classic rolls on today without the Small Red Machine, the Chinese national team, eliminated Sunday by Beijing Olympic champs South Korea. The Seoul Men slapped around China in a 14-0 rout that had to be called after the top of the seventh inning in accordance with the WBC’s “mercy rule.” As an aside, my favorite sports commentator Mike Francesa said it best last night on his show Mike’d Up that this mercy rule is a “complete joke” and it makes what could otherwise feel like an elite international tournament, feel like a softball tournament. That being said, if there was ever a team, or a continent for that matter, that needed a mercy rule, it’s China and the rest of Asia. The first reason is that you have teams like Japan and Korea, two legit baseball powerhouses playing meek squads like China and Taiwan, and the probability that you’ll have a 14-0 game is much higher than, say, in a Braves-Marlins series. But these type of blowouts could occur in any of these Classic games — especially when you have Cuba in the same pool as South Africa or the Dominican Republic in the same pool as the Netherlands. Why the Netherlands is in the tournament could be the subject of another post. The major reason the mercy rule suits the Asian teams is that all of these countries bring a higher standard of “honor” to international play and view blowouts as the ultimate embarrassment. For instance, in one of the bigger political grudge matches of the tournament, China beat Taiwan 4-1 on Saturday. One day earlier, Taiwan was shut out by the Koreans 9-0. Following the two losses, Taiwanese legislators have called for sweeping reform to the island’s baseball program. Likewise, while China doesn’t, and shouldn’t, think of itself as a baseball power, losing to Japan, the object of national hatred, doesn’t sit too well with its sports authorities. But unlike Taiwan, whose leaders openly blast its own team, China’s preferred response to its baseball failures is to pretend the tournament never happened. For instance, the top story Sunday on the online version of the China Daily sports page isn’t China’s elimination from the Classic, but rather Manchester United’s English Cup win. Fine, Man U is huge in China, but even if you click on the section of the sports page marked “World Events” or “China,” there is no mention of the World Baseball Classic anywhere on those pages. And if you search China’s state news agency Xinhua for “baseball,” the only hit for the Classic is a story from March 4 on Cuba’s national team. China is pretending that its dismal performance at the Classic never happened. Rest assured, if China had made it through pool play to the next round of the Classic, we’d know about it. China went winless in the inaugural Classic in 2006 and has since attempted to make strides in the development of players in the mainland. But as can be seen from China’s brief appearance in the Classic, I’m not sure the world has anything to worry about.

Image: Bleacher Report