WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:01.290 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:01.290 --> 00:00:04.500 align:middle line:84% So what did people want to listen to next? 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:90% Hobos, Hollywood, prostitution? 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:07.650 align:middle line:90% Chinese death rituals. 00:00:07.650 --> 00:00:09.240 align:middle line:90% Chinese death rituals. 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.910 align:middle line:84% Everybody likes a Chinese death ritual. 00:00:11.910 --> 00:00:13.740 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:14.760 align:middle line:90% That sounds so dark. 00:00:14.760 --> 00:00:16.050 align:middle line:90% Why did I say that? 00:00:16.050 --> 00:00:17.100 align:middle line:90% The wine. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:17.940 align:middle line:90% The wine. 00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:18.990 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:18.990 --> 00:00:22.560 align:middle line:90% Let me just read one of these. 00:00:22.560 --> 00:00:23.460 align:middle line:90% And then I'll play-- 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:25.170 align:middle line:84% There's two videos attached to it. 00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:27.720 align:middle line:90% So first, "Body." 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:30.090 align:middle line:84% As part of their death rituals, Chinese workers 00:00:30.090 --> 00:00:32.759 align:middle line:84% would pay a huiguan, a district association, 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:35.790 align:middle line:84% to bury their bodies, then have a bone collector exhume them 00:00:35.790 --> 00:00:37.830 align:middle line:84% months later to scrape away the flesh 00:00:37.830 --> 00:00:40.440 align:middle line:84% and break the bones up to fit into earthen jars or wood 00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:41.460 align:middle line:90% boxes. 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:43.680 align:middle line:84% These boxes would then be shipped to Hong Kong 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:46.500 align:middle line:84% to the Tung Wah Hospital, which would distribute the remains 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:47.940 align:middle line:90% to the workers' families. 00:00:47.940 --> 00:00:50.100 align:middle line:84% The man may die on foreign shores 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:52.290 align:middle line:90% but he always returns home. 00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:54.180 align:middle line:84% Bones were shipped from San Francisco 00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:56.910 align:middle line:90% to Hong Kong as early as 1855. 00:00:56.910 --> 00:00:59.070 align:middle line:84% No one knows how many Chinese workers died 00:00:59.070 --> 00:01:01.720 align:middle line:84% building the railroad, as the Central Pacific kept 00:01:01.720 --> 00:01:03.910 align:middle line:84% no casualty records, so no one knows 00:01:03.910 --> 00:01:05.980 align:middle line:84% how many coffin boxes linked to the railroad 00:01:05.980 --> 00:01:07.240 align:middle line:90% were shipped to China. 00:01:07.240 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:84% And not all men's bones were collected once returned. 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:11.110 align:middle line:90% I 00:01:11.110 --> 00:01:14.110 align:middle line:84% am sent a video by a mixed race artist named Summer Mei Ling 00:01:14.110 --> 00:01:17.200 align:middle line:84% Lee who has documented the hundreds of boxes abandoned 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:18.910 align:middle line:90% in Tung Wah's mortuary. 00:01:18.910 --> 00:01:21.700 align:middle line:84% In her video, Lee paints an art gallery with scenes 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:25.510 align:middle line:84% from Guangzhou and ash ink made from burnt incense. 00:01:25.510 --> 00:01:28.270 align:middle line:84% I'm startled by the detail of her scenes. 00:01:28.270 --> 00:01:31.420 align:middle line:84% Lee depicts houses, roads, villages. 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:34.300 align:middle line:84% Many images include seabirds which reminds me 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:36.010 align:middle line:84% of something my grandmother Po Po once 00:01:36.010 --> 00:01:38.260 align:middle line:84% said about the cormorant, the bird whose 00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:40.420 align:middle line:84% neck fishermen fitted with a tight ring 00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:43.480 align:middle line:84% so the bird could catch fish, but never swallow them, 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:46.090 align:middle line:84% as it could never swallow the souls of the dead it hunted 00:01:46.090 --> 00:01:47.470 align:middle line:90% on the seas. 00:01:47.470 --> 00:01:50.860 align:middle line:84% Why would birds hunt souls, I asked Po Po as a child. 00:01:50.860 --> 00:01:54.700 align:middle line:84% Because, she said some people never find themselves anywhere, 00:01:54.700 --> 00:01:56.830 align:middle line:90% in life or death. 00:01:56.830 --> 00:01:59.500 align:middle line:84% In her video, Lee stands before her installation 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:02.350 align:middle line:84% in the tiny San Francisco Chinatown gallery. 00:02:02.350 --> 00:02:04.420 align:middle line:84% She looks white, the gallerist says 00:02:04.420 --> 00:02:07.870 align:middle line:84% to the audience in Chinese, but she is one of us. 00:02:07.870 --> 00:02:10.360 align:middle line:84% The artist flinches as if slapped. 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:12.580 align:middle line:90% The camera catches the flinch. 00:02:12.580 --> 00:02:15.625 align:middle line:84% I am at home watching the flinch on my screen. 00:02:15.625 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:23.800 align:middle line:90% Whoops, no. 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:25.330 align:middle line:90% No. 00:02:25.330 --> 00:02:26.080 align:middle line:90% Too eager. 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:31.807 align:middle line:90% 00:02:31.807 --> 00:02:32.307 align:middle line:90% Body. 00:02:32.307 --> 00:02:36.350 align:middle line:90% 00:02:36.350 --> 00:02:36.950 align:middle line:90% Oh, sorry. 00:02:36.950 --> 00:02:40.248 align:middle line:90% 00:02:40.248 --> 00:02:40.790 align:middle line:90% I'm ruining-- 00:02:40.790 --> 00:02:42.620 align:middle line:90% A carload passed last night. 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:46.430 align:middle line:84% Their bones returned in barrels marked "pickles." 00:02:46.430 --> 00:02:51.830 align:middle line:84% Thick as bees, ants, locusts, celestials lay siege to nature 00:02:51.830 --> 00:02:53.690 align:middle line:90% in her strongest citadel. 00:02:53.690 --> 00:02:55.910 align:middle line:90% Their genius is imitation. 00:02:55.910 --> 00:03:00.170 align:middle line:84% Show them once to do a thing and their education is complete. 00:03:00.170 --> 00:03:03.140 align:middle line:84% Wherever you put them, you'll find them good. 00:03:03.140 --> 00:03:06.740 align:middle line:84% They can withstand freezing, hunger, thirst, and heat. 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:11.720 align:middle line:84% Their simple narrow but not dull minds running in old grooves. 00:03:11.720 --> 00:03:13.610 align:middle line:90% Congealed quantities. 00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:16.460 align:middle line:90% Crystals of social substance. 00:03:16.460 --> 00:03:20.660 align:middle line:84% Eunuchated as boys or sodomites, they breed defunct 00:03:20.660 --> 00:03:22.370 align:middle line:90% in the heat of germs. 00:03:22.370 --> 00:03:25.580 align:middle line:84% They can be shipped to shore in great quantities. 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:31.990 align:middle line:84% Even their clothes come identical, studded with rivets. 00:03:31.990 --> 00:03:34.510 align:middle line:84% This comes with another video, "Return." 00:03:34.510 --> 00:03:37.460 align:middle line:90% 00:03:37.460 --> 00:03:40.760 align:middle line:84% I got a drone for this to get the-- 00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:44.610 align:middle line:84% I just always like to say, I got a drone for this. 00:03:44.610 --> 00:03:46.790 align:middle line:84% The falling leaves return to roots, 00:03:46.790 --> 00:03:50.120 align:middle line:84% what grows when leaves cannot be gathered. 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:52.790 align:middle line:90% What returns, if not the body? 00:03:52.790 --> 00:03:56.030 align:middle line:90% What remains, if not the soul? 00:03:56.030 --> 00:03:59.240 align:middle line:84% Who is to say these graves, empty of their bones, 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:02.870 align:middle line:84% mean only loss, not that these men escaped 00:04:02.870 --> 00:04:04.610 align:middle line:90% death's hold entirely? 00:04:04.610 --> 00:04:08.690 align:middle line:84% They are not home, but they are not here either, 00:04:08.690 --> 00:04:13.790 align:middle line:84% or have become so full of here we need another word than gone. 00:04:13.790 --> 00:04:18.290 align:middle line:84% So throw out the cormorant, its leg tied with silken ropes, 00:04:18.290 --> 00:04:24.500 align:middle line:84% let it drag the air from memory over and over, as many times 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:25.520 align:middle line:90% as you want. 00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:28.640 align:middle line:84% You can't snare what isn't missing. 00:04:28.640 --> 00:04:31.670 align:middle line:84% This country claimed their bodies. 00:04:31.670 --> 00:04:33.515 align:middle line:90% It never trapped their souls. 00:04:33.515 --> 00:04:36.450 align:middle line:90% 00:04:36.450 --> 00:04:38.020 align:middle line:90% "Return." 00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:41.920 align:middle line:84% The Chinese believe the living possessed two souls, hun, 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:44.410 align:middle line:84% the light, male, active spirit that gives us 00:04:44.410 --> 00:04:48.160 align:middle line:84% our spark of life, and po, the dark, female, passive spirit 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:50.080 align:middle line:90% which animates our flesh. 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:52.930 align:middle line:84% In death, the male spirit ascends to heaven, 00:04:52.930 --> 00:04:55.450 align:middle line:84% the female part remains on earth. 00:04:55.450 --> 00:04:59.110 align:middle line:84% Falling leaves return to roots, a Cantonese saying 00:04:59.110 --> 00:05:02.230 align:middle line:84% about the return of the dead to their homeland, but not 00:05:02.230 --> 00:05:04.570 align:middle line:84% everyone cares which leaves fall. 00:05:04.570 --> 00:05:07.960 align:middle line:84% Women, children, those who died a violent death were 00:05:07.960 --> 00:05:11.380 align:middle line:84% buried without ceremony, remaining where they died. 00:05:11.380 --> 00:05:14.140 align:middle line:84% I think of the Angel Island suicide. 00:05:14.140 --> 00:05:16.120 align:middle line:84% I think of my grandfather Gung Gung 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.300 align:middle line:84% and our family's July firecrackers, the sparklers 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:21.310 align:middle line:90% he nudged into my fists. 00:05:21.310 --> 00:05:23.980 align:middle line:84% It was a point of pride for him that all three of his sons 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:27.970 align:middle line:84% joined the US military, though one, Kingsley, nearly died. 00:05:27.970 --> 00:05:30.280 align:middle line:84% Once I asked Po Po what she considered the best 00:05:30.280 --> 00:05:31.840 align:middle line:84% day of her life, and she told me, 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:35.440 align:middle line:84% the day your uncle King returned home from Vietnam. 00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:37.700 align:middle line:84% If my uncle had died in that war, 00:05:37.700 --> 00:05:39.770 align:middle line:84% his body would have been closer to his parents' 00:05:39.770 --> 00:05:42.200 align:middle line:84% ancestral homeland, but not his own. 00:05:42.200 --> 00:05:45.620 align:middle line:84% It is possible he might never have been recovered. 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:48.350 align:middle line:84% We treat the elegy as a pathological mode, 00:05:48.350 --> 00:05:50.930 align:middle line:84% the mourner incapable of resolving loss, 00:05:50.930 --> 00:05:53.150 align:middle line:84% but what if the point of grief is not 00:05:53.150 --> 00:05:56.570 align:middle line:84% its resolution but the extension of memory, the insistence 00:05:56.570 --> 00:06:00.260 align:middle line:84% that the listener, too, carry our history into the future? 00:06:00.260 --> 00:06:03.860 align:middle line:84% Po Po bowed her head as she wept in front of me, her body 00:06:03.860 --> 00:06:06.060 align:middle line:90% not making a single sound. 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:07.260 align:middle line:90% What about the women? 00:06:07.260 --> 00:06:09.150 align:middle line:84% I asked Summer Mei Ling Lee on the phone 00:06:09.150 --> 00:06:11.670 align:middle line:84% when I interview her about her installation. 00:06:11.670 --> 00:06:15.000 align:middle line:84% I drew a face, she says, in one window. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.070 align:middle line:84% You can just see her if you look. 00:06:17.070 --> 00:06:19.440 align:middle line:90% The video pans by the houses. 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:23.300 align:middle line:84% On the white screen, a blur of ash.