Monday, April 6, 2009

Fantasy in Asia

Today I'm camped out over at the Enchanted Inkpot hoping for some discussion about my post on "Fantasy in Asia." So please please PLEASE will you go here and make some sort of comment even if it is to yell at me for posting such a long ass post? Even if all you do is tell me I bored you to tears? But it would be even better if you could share your opinions on the very interesting subject matter, but beggars can't be choosers.

So Ima beggin' ya, please go and comment. And if you do, I will reward you all! There will be a contest coming soon to win an awesome prize at the end of the month just for commenting... Ok this is a lie, I was going to have a contest anyway to raffle off 2 signed copies of Cindy Pon's new book (how awesome am I? and how awesome is Cindy?). But it would really mean a lot to me if I had lots and lots of wonderful comments over at the Enchanted Inkpot so that all the real published authors I'm hanging out with see that I am pretty darn useful to have around.

Alright groveling over, knuckles are cracking...

13 comments:

Christina Farley said...

I'm heading over there! Such a great website by the way. Thinking of you today!

Hugs

writtenwyrdd said...

thank was a wonderful post and I was going to link to it on my blog when I get home tonight. I have several very expensive books on Asian mythology because there is apparently so little market for the books you end up having to buy college texts to get any sort of comprehensive information. It's sad, especially considering how rick and wonderful the Far Eastern and Indian mythologies are, in particular. I think most Westerners are fairly familiar with a lot of the Middle Eastern tales, or some of them. And there are more stories based on Middle Eastern mythology than any other Asian mythos, from what I have seen.

Kelly Polark said...

Your begging and pleading worked...I'm off to the website!

Spy Scribbler said...

Wow, I LOVE their header! Beautiful website. And I absolutely loved your post. I must do more research on this. It sounds fascinating! I've known little bits, but I need more. :-)

I hope you post more about this. You could do a whole series!

I've put it in my reader, but I can't comment. I don't have a livejournal account!

Anonymous said...

I thought it was a good post. I wanted to comment but it was forcing me to create a LiveJournal account.

Stuart Neville said...

Unfortunately, I couldn't post without creating a LiveJournal account, so my comment will have to go here instead - including a couple of YouTube clips you might find interesting...

As Cindy points out, there was indeed a dubbed version of an Asian TV show about the Monkey King, titled Monkey Magic (or sometimes just called Monkey). It aired in the late 70s to early 80s when I was a little 'un, and me and all my mates thought it was the bestest thing to hi the telly since Starsky & Hutch! There's a Wikipedia entry about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)

And here's the title sequence, complete with its brilliantly cheesy theme song: Monkey Magic!

Interestingly, when the BBC commissioned Damon Albarn (formerly of Blur) to collaborate on the title sequences for their coverage of the Olympics last year, he themed them on the Monkey legend. Albarn is around my age, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was inspired by the same 70s show. Again, here's the title sequence on YouTube - very nicely done, I thought: Monkey lights the Olympic flame!

You know, I've always wanted to read Journey to the West - the most respected translation is also titled Monkey and is by Arthur Waley. I may have to seek it out now...

Charles Gramlich said...

Ok, I did read it but when I went to comment it said you had to be a livejournal user and I'm not. What I would have said is:

I find the Asian mythologies fascinating but since they are quite unfamiliar to me I've never felt very comfortable using elements there in my own fiction. I do enjoy reading fantasies that have such elements.

Kappa no He said...

I just visited the Enchanted Inkpot. What a lovely post! I'm surprised I remembered my Live Journal name and password. I'm Urameshiya over there. I really do have too many alliases for my own good. I need to consolidate.

terrie

Mary Witzl said...

I tried to comment, Ello, but I'm LiveJournal challenged, it seems.

I'd just like more exposure to Asian myths and stories in the West ,and less Disney-fication. We went to see Miyazaki's 'Howl's Moving Castle' in Glasgow and were sad to see that we were the ONLY ones in the whole theatre.

About those blue-eyed djinns, though: here in Turkey, I've got lots of Asian-looking students with blue and green eyes. It's just amazing...

Unknown said...

I'm like everyone else--can't comment without a LJ account! So I'll comment here, too...

You provided so many great books to add to my TBR pile!! Thank you!

I love all mythology, and find the Asian mythology especially intriguing. I think our books today have an influx of Western myth (especially Greco-Roman) and I always sit up and take notice of Eastern myth.

I can absolutely see the influence of mythology in even non-mythological based Asian works. Take BOUND for example (although not written by an Asian, certainly influenced heavily). It's a fairy tale, true, but there's still a subtle present insistence of the myth.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Thanks everyone for commenting! I'm sorry that the LJ issue poses a problem. That bites, but I really appreciate you all reading such a long post. Can you tell i took a long long time over it?

Ww - I have bought so many expensive books off the internet cause there was no other way to get them. i wish it wasn't so difficult to get, but until we see more interest here, there isn't any reason.

Stuart - I am so thrilled with this! Thanks for the link. I really think England is way more open to other cultures than over here. Which is sad.

Mary - my kids loved howl's moving castle but I wasn't very happy with it because I loved the book and thought it was so off base from the fab book. But the blue genie is not a blue eyed genie, but the blue skin colored genie that robin williams voices in Aladdin. That's what I meant! I hear you about eye color. In fact my MC in my novel has golden eyes!


Beth - so funny you mention Bound! it is on my tbr pile from the library! I can't wait to read it!

writtenwyrdd said...

Hi Ello, I heart your blog so I'm giving you an award. You can pick it up here:
http://writtenwyrdd.typepad.com/writtenwyrdd/2009/04/blushes.html

Unknown said...

I headed that way the other day and found I couldn't comment because the Enchanted Inkpot is LiveJournal which doesn't seem to like blogger/googler types. Sob!
But I will try again. It's that perseverance thing, right...

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