episode 5 has left me considering the different - and similar - ways taeyoung and kwonsook think about themselves, and how they respond to pain/violence.
kwonsook calls herself a monster, someone who goes crazy in the boxing ring. that monster, she says, was created by her father, and her father used abuse, violence, and emotional manipulation to create that monster. he didn’t treat her like human, so it’s no surprise that the way she talks about herself when she boxes is as if she’s discussing an animal: she gets cornered, gets scared for her life, and lashes out to kill. she calls herself a monster with resignation; it’s not what she wanted to be, but she knows it’s what she was. she ran away to escape that monstrosity, to live as a human, doing good things, but that part of her never really died.
taeyoung, too, calls himself a monster. he’s a SOB, he does thing no one with an ounce of humanity would do. he seemingly has no qualms about what he does, perhaps because he can always justify it to himself, always has an exit prepared for when things really get bad (until, i’m sure, he doesn’t). like kwonsook, taeyoung accepts the label of monster, accepts his own inhumanity, even if they are inhuman in very different ways. whereas kwonsook wants to break away from that monstrous part of her - she’s only returned so she can free herself from that part of herself permanently (and if she finds a way to box without a monster, then...) - taeyoung embraces it. it’s through being a monster that he’s found success, how he secures futures for his athletes, and how he’s able to ‘solve’ their (and his) issues. monstrosity was not imposed on taeyoung, but (due to what we know so far) is something he chose for himself (although the factors surrounding this part of his past are decidedly murky).
in this episode, taeyoung and kwonsook also demonstrate similar responses to violence and (emotional) pain. when taeyoung upsets kwonsook by working with her father behind her back, he offers her an outlet for her anger by punching him. later on, after ahreum has already slapped kwonsook, instead of lashing out, kwonsook offers to let ahreum hit her again if it will make her feel better. in parallel responses, both ahreum and kwonsook debate taking that opportunity to hurt, but decide not to (kwonsook because she’s taking a chance on taeyoung, or moreso giving him another one, and ahreum because she decides that she doesn’t owe kwonsook that, that kwonsook is beneath her in terms of boxing, no longer on her level).
kwonsook learned to respond to pain at a young age. in boxing, you can’t flinch from the hit - you have to learn how to take the pain, absorb it, and get back up to hit again. outside of the rink, kwonsook absorbs the pain, but she doesn’t hit again. she’s experienced firsthand what her hits can do to people, and that terrified her. after all, she only boxed so that she could protect her mother. so when confronted with violence and pain, she takes the hit, because pain is what she knows and understands. it’s the emotions behind it that are hard for her. pain is easy for kwonsook, because she’s used to living through it, surviving it; beneath it, she’s always empty. she’s never really cared about boxing; it was what she had to do. the lee kwonsook that was a boxing genius was a monster she ran from, after all. but in order to break away from that monster, she has to come to understand the emotional investment of her fellow female boxers. before, they were just her opponents, never her friends, but now she has to face their own feelings about the sport, the passion they have for boxing that she never felt. like ara said, she didn’t feel happiness about winning, and kwonsook has never lost, so she’s never had to live with that humiliation, either. how her feelings will change in relation to boxing will likely be a reckoning for her.
taeyoung, on the other hand, is confronting his fair share of non-boxing sanctioned boxing. even though kwonsook is the boxer, it’s taeyoung who’s been touched by ‘true’ violence in this present timeline. his life is quite literally on the line, which has been shown again and again. he’s been ambushed by her father, threatened, blackmailed, and beaten up by chairman nam’s guys. he lives on the edge, anxious at every shadow, which is chewing him alive. to him, kwonsook’s anger is much easier to deal with. he knows she might hurt him, but his potential to hurt her is so much more (and if he does, in that case he’d find her anger justified, and probably let her beat him to death or something if what we’ve seen of his feelings for her is an indication of anything), and she might hurt him, but she’d never hurt him as much as other people in his life at the moment would (i.e. by killing him, or hurting the people he cares about). taeyoung is used to weathering the storm of other people’s dislike; he’s the scumbag, and he does bad things, deserves other people’s anger when it’s directed at him.
both taeyoung and kwonsook want to resolve things through violence. i think it’s telling that despite being two emotionally aware people, they both consider other people’s feelings to be so easily taken care of. they want the quick, instant pain, and then they want to get it over with. because the violence is what they’re used to, and to a degree it’s what they both think they deserve. however, what lies beneath that, what doesn’t go away with a single hit, is much harder for them to confront and understand.
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Martin-Baker is a company that for more than 70 years has specialized in engineering the ejection seats utilized a majority of the world’s fighter jets. They have saved thousands of lives that in otherwise would likely have been lost. Martin-Baker revolutionized an industry that for a long time had been characterized by low survival rates, and in doing so have created an exclusive club very few are able to join, one that unifies aviators in a way that will never be taken away. I’d say only the best of the best are allowed in, but that wouldn’t be true.
A lifetime membership to the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club is awarded to those who have ejected from an aircraft using a Martin-Baker ejection seat, which as a result has saved their life.
These are (some of) their stories…
DAVE “BIO” BARANEK
EJECTEE #4813
For me and my pilot, 19 December 1981 was the date of a memorable excursion in a Martin-Baker ejection seat following a split-second decision to eject. I was an F-14 RIO and we were landing on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean when things went wrong. I was fairly new, but I realized we were in trouble, and when my pilot said “Eject! Eject!” I pulled the lower handle. It happened in the blink of an eye, and only later could I be philosophical about it, to think about leaving the familiar and comfortable cockpit for the unknown. Thanks to the Martin-Baker MK-GRU7A seat my pilot and I survived in excellent condition and have enjoyed 38 (and counting) more years of living, flying, families, and everything else. I am thankful for the skilled US Navy technicians who maintained our equipment and the people of Martin-Baker who provided the seat that saved my life.
CDR. J. R. DAVIS
EJECTEE #4004
Martin-Baker – Thank you for the rest of my life. On 20 March 1987 my F-14A ran away with me as an unwilling passenger. Fire in the environmental control system burned through the flight controls. The airplane started un-commanded pitch oscillations and the last nose down excursion made it clear that I had to eject. My ride in F-14 BuNo 161614 ended 15 seconds before the crash with a Martin-Baker ejection seat and a parachute descent. My wife Sweet Denyse thanks you too.
CDR. TODD A PARKER
EJECTEE #4822
“It was a spring day in 1995 about 200 miles SW of Sicily. The USS Theodore Roosevelt was heading up to the Adriatic to enter the Bosnia conflict. As we expected combat, we needed to make sure as many jets as possible were up and ready so the past few days had been a maintenance blitz. We were conducting a post-maintenance check flight on our F-14 Tomcat, which the jet passed with flying colors.
After the flight we were heading back to the carrier, when suddenly the jet began bucking like a bronco – negative 2 Gs followed by 5 Gs, back and forth for about 1 minute, then it suddenly stopped. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but another aircraft joined up and noticed a mismatch in our horizontal stabilators. After two more events similar to the first, each time with the jet losing about 5000 feet, the jet suddenly pitched over into a negative 2 G dive and started rolling uncontrollably. I looked at the altimeter and it read 3000 feet so I pulled the handle. After the loud flash and bang, I found myself under the parachute, and looked down just in time to see the jet hit the water – what turned out to be just 4 seconds after we ejected. We were both safely under parachute, with only minor injuries but alive. We were plucked out of the water by helos from the carrier about 45 minutes later. –
Thanks to Martin-Baker and my Parachute Rigger, I am still alive, and by being able to “live to tell” about our story a major mechanical problem was found. All F-14 Tomcats were subsequently inspected and the same problem was found on dozens of other jets, so Martin-Baker not only saved my life but likely prevented many other aviators from (at best) joining the Tie Club themselves or at worst losing their lives. It was just a month later that a high school friend who heard I was deployed wrote me a letter…We’ve now been married 17 years with two wonderful children. Thank you Martin-Baker!!!
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লিখি লোৱা, মই এজন মিঞা ("Write Down 'I am a Miyah'", 2016) by Hafiz Ahmed, translated from Assamese to English by Shalim M. Hussain, began a movement of resistance poetry among Assamese Muslims of Bengali descent, referred to as Miya Poetry after a slur used to describe this community. From Abdul Kalam Azad, for Indian Express ("Write...I am a Miya", 2019):
This poem went viral and other young poets started responding to him through poems. The young poets also started reclaiming “Miya”, a slur used against us, as our identity with pride. This chain of Facebook posts continued for days, reiterating the violence, suffering and humiliation expressed by our community.
As time passed, more poets wrote in various languages and dialects, including many Miya dialects. The nomenclature ‘Miya Poetry’ got generated organically but the poets and their associates have been inspired by the Negritude and Black Arts movements, and queer, feminist and Dalit literary movements, where the oppressed have reclaimed the identity which was used to dehumanise them.
The trend transcended our community. Poets from the mainstream Assamese community also wrote several poems in solidarity with the Miya poets while some regretted not being poets. Gradually, this became a full-fledged poetry movement and got recognised by other poets, critics and commentators. The quality and soul of these poems are so universal that they started finding prominence on reputed platforms.
For the first time in the history of our community, we had started telling our own stories and reclaiming the Miya identity to fight against our harassers who were dehumanising us with the same word. They accused us of portraying the whole Assamese society as xenophobic. The fact is we have just analysed our conditions. Forget generalising the Assamese society as ‘xenophobic’, no Miya poet has ever used the term ‘xenophobic’ nor any of its variants. The guilt complex of our accusers is so profound that they don’t have the patience to examine why we wrote the poems.
Amrita Singh, writing for The Caravan ("Assam Against Itself", 2019), detailed the political backlash against Miya Poetry, in particular the above poem.
On 10 July this year, Pranabjit Doloi, an Assam-based journalist, filed a complaint at Guwahati’s Panbazar police station accusing ten people of indulging in criminal activities “to defame the Assamese people as Xenophobic in the world.” Doloi claimed that the ten people were trying to hinder the ongoing updation of the National Register of Citizens, a list of Assam’s Indian citizens that is due to be published on 31 August. The premise of Doloi’s complaint was a widely-circulated poem called, “Write down I am Miya,” by Hafiz Ahmed, a school teacher and social activist. “Write. Write down I am a Miya/ A citizen of democratic secular republic without any rights,” Ahmed wrote. The police registered a first information report against Doloi’s complaint, booking all ten persons for promoting enmity between groups, among other offences.
[...]
At the press conference, Mander emphasised that people in Assam are in distress because of the NRC’s arbitrary and rigid procedures. “One spelling mistake when you are writing a Bengali name in English … that is enough for you to be in a detention center, declared a foreigner,” Mander said. “If you are not allowing this lament to come out in the form of poetry, then where is this republic of India going?”
Ahmed's poem is influenced in structure by "Identity Card", a 1964 poem by by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish which uses the symbolic figure of the Palestinian working man to confront Israeli occupiers. Darwish's identity card, a symbol of Israeli subjugation transformed into a cry of Palestinian national identity, is reshaped by Ahmed into the National Register of Citizens for Assam and the accompanying fear of statelessness and disenfranchisement for the Miya people.
This solidarity between writers from oppressed groups is, of course, not one that ends with Darwish and Ahmed, nor with the Black, queer, feminist, and Dalit influences of Miya Poetry. As long as there is oppression, there will be companionship and recognition reflected in art and activism. On December 13, 2023, Black Agenda Report reprinted Refaat Alareer's "If I Must Die", acknowledging the connection between Alareer's poem and "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay, written in 1919 in response to the Red Summer white supremacist riots. In 2000, Haitian community activist Dahoud Andre translated "If We Must Die" into Kreyòl, and the Black Agenda Report editorial honors Alareer in a similar way, reprinting "If I Must Die" with an accompanying Kreyòl translation. (POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023.)
Transcripts under the cut.
[Hafiz Ahmed Transcripts (Assamese and English):
লিখি লোৱা, মই এজন মিঞা
লিখা,
লিখি লোৱা
মই এজন মিঞা
এন. আৰ. চিৰ ক্রমিক নং ২০০৫৪৩
দুজন সন্তানৰ বাপেক মই,
অহাবাৰ গ্ৰীষ্মত জন্ম ল’ব আৰু এজনে
তাকো তুমি ঘিণ কৰিবা নেকি
যিদৰে ঘিণ কৰা মোক?
লিখি লোৱা,
মই এজন মিঞা
পতিত ভূমি, পিতনিক
মই ৰূপান্তৰিত কৰিছোঁ
শস্য-শ্যামলা সেউজী পথাৰলৈ
তোমাক খুৱাবলৈ
মই ইটা কঢ়িয়াইছোঁ
তোমাৰ অট্টালিকা সাজিবলৈ,
তোমাৰ গাড়ী চলাইছোঁ
তোমাক আৰাম দিবলৈ,
তোমাৰ নৰ্দমা ছাফা কৰিছোঁ
তোমাক নিৰোগী কৰি ৰাখিবলৈ,
তোমাৰে সেৱাতে মগন মই অনবৰত
তাৰ পিছতো কিয় তুমি খৰ্গহস্ত?
লিখা,
লিখি লোৱা
মই এজন মিঞা
গণতান্ত্ৰিক, গণৰাজ্য এখনৰ নাগৰিক এজন
যাৰ কোনো অধিকাৰ নাইকিয়া
মাতৃক মোৰ সজোৱা হৈছে সন্দেহযুক্ত ভোটাৰ
যদিও পিতৃ-মাতৃ তাইৰ নিঃসন্দেহে ভাৰতীয়
ইচ্ছা কৰিলেই তুমি মোক হত্যা কৰিব পাৰা,
জ্বলাই দিব পৰা মোৰ খেৰৰ পঁজা,
খেদি দিব পাৰা মোক মোৰেই গাঁৱৰ পৰা,
কাঢ়ি নিব পাৰা মোৰ সেউজী পথাৰ
মোৰ বুকুৰ ওপৰেৰে চলাব পাৰা
তোমাৰ বুলড্জাৰ
তোমাৰ বুলেটে বুকুখন মোৰ
কৰিব পাৰে থকাসৰকা
(তোমাৰ এই কাৰ্যৰ বাবে তুমি কোনো
স্তি��� নোপোৱা)
যুগ-যুগান্তৰ তোমাৰ অত্যাচাৰ সহ্য কৰি
ব্ৰহ্মপুত্ৰৰ চৰত বাস কৰা
মই এজন মিঞা
মোৰ দেহা হৈ পৰিছে নিগ্ৰো কলা
মোৰ চকুযুৰি অঙঠাৰ দৰে ৰঙা
সাৱধান!
মোৰ দুচকুত জমা হৈ আছে
যুগ যুগান্তৰৰ বঞ্চনাৰ বাৰুদ
আঁতৰি যোৱা,
নতুবা
অচিৰেই পৰিণত হ’বা মূল্যহীন ছাইত!
Write Down ‘I am a Miyah’
Hafiz Ahmed, 2016
trans. Shalim M. Hussain
Write
Write Down
I am a Miya
My serial number in the NRC is 200543
I have two children
Another is coming
Next summer.
Will you hate him
As you hate me?
write
I am a Miya
I turn waste, marshy lands
To green paddy fields
To feed you.
I carry bricks
To build your buildings
Drive your car
For your comfort
Clean your drain
To keep you healthy.
I have always been
In your service
And yet
you are dissatisfied!
Write down
I am a Miya,
A citizen of a democratic, secular, Republic
Without any rights
My mother a D voter,
Though her parents are Indian.
If you wish kill me, drive me from my village,
Snatch my green fields
hire bulldozers
To roll over me.
Your bullets
Can shatter my breast
for no crime.
Write
I am a Miya
Of the Brahamaputra
Your torture
Has burnt my body black
Reddened my eyes with fire.
Beware!
I have nothing but anger in stock.
Keep away!
Or
Turn to Ashes.
]
[Mahmoud Darwish Transcripts (Arabic and English):
سجِّل
أنا عربي
ورقمُ بطاقتي خمسونَ ألفْ
وأطفالي ثمانيةٌ
وتاسعهُم.. سيأتي بعدَ صيفْ!
فهلْ تغضبْ؟
سجِّلْ
أنا عربي
وأعملُ مع رفاقِ الكدحِ في محجرْ
وأطفالي ثمانيةٌ
أسلُّ لهمْ رغيفَ الخبزِ،
والأثوابَ والدفترْ
من الصخرِ
ولا أتوسَّلُ الصدقاتِ من بابِكْ
ولا أصغرْ
أمامَ بلاطِ أعتابكْ
فهل تغضب؟
سجل
أنا عربي
أنا اسم بلا لقبِ
صَبورٌ في بلادٍ كلُّ ما فيها
يعيشُ بفَوْرةِ الغضبِ
جذوري
قبلَ ميلادِ الزمانِ رستْ
وقبلَ تفتّحِ الحقبِ
وقبلَ السّروِ والزيتونِ
.. وقبلَ ترعرعِ العشبِ
أبي.. من أسرةِ المحراثِ
لا من سادةٍ نُجُبِ
وجدّي كانَ فلاحاً
بلا حسبٍ.. ولا نسبِ!
يُعَلّمني شموخَ الشمسِ قبلَ قراءةِ الكتبِ
وبيتي’ كوخُ ناطورٍ
منَ الأعوادِ والقصبِ
فهل تُرضيكَ منزلتي؟
أنا اسم بلا لقبِ!
سجلْ
أنا عربي
ولونُ الشعرِ.. فحميٌّ
ولونُ العينِ.. بنيٌّ
وميزاتي:
على رأسي عقالٌ فوقَ كوفيّه
وكفّي صلبةٌ كالصخرِ...
تخمشُ من يلامسَها
وعنواني:
أنا من قريةٍ عزلاءَ منسيّهْ
شوارعُها بلا أسماء
وكلُّ رجالها في الحقلِ والمحجرْ
فهل تغضبْ؟
سجِّل!
أنا عربي
سلبتُ كرومَ أجدادي
وأرضاً كنتُ أفلحُها
أنا وجميعُ أولادي
ولم تتركْ لنا.. ولكلِّ أحفادي
سوى هذي الصخورِ...
فهل ستأخذُها
حكومتكمْ.. كما قيلا!؟
إذنْ
سجِّل.. برأسِ الصفحةِ الأولى
أنا لا أكرهُ الناسَ
ولا أسطو على أحدٍ
ولكنّي.. إذا ما جعتُ
آكلُ لحمَ مغتصبي
حذارِ.. حذارِ.. من جوعي
ومن غضبي!!
Identity Card
Mahmoud Darwish, 1964
trans. Denys Johnson-Davies
Put it on record.
I am an Arab
And the number of my card is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth is due after summer.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab
Working with comrades of toil in a quarry.
I have eight children
For them I wrest the loaf of bread,
The clothes and exercise books
From the rocks
And beg for no alms at your door,
Lower not myself at your doorstep.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
I am a name without a title,
Patient in a country where everything
Lives in a whirlpool of anger.
My roots
Took hold before the birth of time
Before the burgeoning of the ages,
Before cypress and olive trees,
Before the proliferation of weeds.
My father is from the family of the plough
Not from highborn nobles.
And my grandfather was a peasant
Without line or genealogy.
My house is a watchman's hut
Made of sticks and reeds.
Does my status satisfy you?
I am a name without a surname.
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
Color of hair: jet black.
Color of eyes: brown.
My distinguishing features:
On my head the `iqal cords over a keffiyeh
Scratching him who touches it.
My address:
I'm from a village, remote, forgotten,
Its streets without name
And all its men in the fields and quarry.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
You stole my forefathers' vineyards
And land I used to till,
I and all my children,
And you left us and all my grandchildren
Nothing but these rocks.
Will your government be taking them too
As is being said?
So!
Put it on record at the top of page one:
I don't hate people,
I trespass on no one's property.
And yet, if I were to become hungry
I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
Beware, beware of my hunger
And of my anger!
]
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I think Boston got a happy ending. He's getting a fresh start, and everything in the finale just felt like it was setting him up to leave for America with no regrets or loose ends.
He apologized for the things he did wrong, and pointedly did not apologize for the things he didn't do wrong. He's a messy boy and I love him for that, but he absolutely did some things worth apologizing for, so I'm not mad at the fact that the show let him apologize. He did everything he could to repair his relationships with his friends, and for the most part, he did repair them. Cheum is happy to welcome him back into the group. Ray is still protective of Mew, and is always going to side with Mew over Boston when forced to choose, but he doesn't seem to harbor any hard feelings of his own. His friendship with Mew is irreparably broken, and that's kind of ok with me. It's true to life; some relationships you can repair, and some you can't. But Boston did what he could. He doesn't have to hold onto guilt or wonder what would have happened if he reached out.
The friend group dynamic was never going to go back to what it was before, because Boston was leaving the whole continent. There was always going to be a shift. We were always going to end up with all of the others getting close and having experiences together without Boston there. But he fixed things enough that they're staying in touch.
And he and Nick broke up a bit earlier than they would have. But they would have broken up anyway. That relationship always had an expiration date. Boston set it up that way on purpose (I feel like knowing it had an ending was the only way he could give himself permission to even try for the first time, but that's probably a whole other post I could make). And he got to learn about himself. He likes romance; he can fall in love. It's just that romance and sex are two completely separate things for him. And he's moving to NYC! You know he's going to find some like minded people and figure himself out further, and find fulfilling relationships that work for him, now that he knows more about his wants and needs.
And it's so much better that Nick didn't follow him to New York. I cannot see that ending well. Because once Boston and Nick both learned enough about themselves to have an open and honest conversation about what they wanted in a relationship, it was clear that they loved each other AND they wanted fundamentally different things. Somehow a clean break for a reason other than the move to America feels better. They're not holding on or trying to stretch out the end so it hurts more or longer. They loved each other. It meant something. And it ended. The end doesn't make the rest matter less.
And Boston, a Boston who learned and grew from the events in this series, is planning to be totally out in America, away from his dad. No more hiding. No more worry about black mail. He's the person taking the photos and choosing to make them public as art.
Everything about the finale just felt like it was setting Boston up for a fresh start in the best and cleanest way possible. Repairing the ties that could be part of his support system, even across continents. Cutting ties that were only going to hold him back or hurt him worse. Letting him get things off his chest, so he could leave without regrets or what-ifs. I think this episode was so good to Boston.
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