Transcript: "Claiming Narratives, Re-Telling History: Bringing Southeast Asian Steampunk to the World Stage"

Recently I went to a conference held by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley, entitled "Making Southeast Asian Culture: From Region To World." Thanks to Dr. Gui Weihsin, I was on a panel on literary transformations in Southeast Asia.

I wouldn't really say I'm a Southeast Asianist. In my main blog, I describe myself as being involved with UC Riverside's SEATRiP program not by research, but through my creative pursuits. I DO study Southeast Asian history and cultures, but that is because I write stories that are meant for a Southeast Asian audience. So when Dr. Gui invited me to submit an abstract for this conference, I wracked my brain trying to think of a good usable topic (that could, in the interests of an academic career, transform into a publishable paper) and thought of something completely different, but completely untenable, and he said, "why not just talk about your book? You edited it, you know the field, you'd be the only steampunk specialist there, and it's Southeast Asian literature."

I can do that?

And turns out, of course I can, which put me into the position of speaking as an academic about a book I personally edited. I was very uncomfortable because on the one hand, Dr. Gui was right, it IS Southeast Asian Literature (we've got one white woman in the entire Table of Contents; white women are very diverse these days) and I AM an expert on the field and it IS a great opportunity to tell people about the book, but on the other hand, I have been taught, in so many ways, that being proud of my work and what I've done and talking about it is kind of big-headed, arrogant, and kinda rude. But I have the support of many lovely people here at UCR, including my adviser, so I wrote it, and made a very nice Powerpoint (which I'm not actually putting up here). 

So here is the transcript!

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Olivia Ho #SteampunkHands

Olivia Ho hails from Singapore, and writes to us from Scotland (ah, we fine expatriates) a story that rather fits the theme that informs many other stories in this anthology: COMPLETE LADY-FEST. Cranky ladies, angry ladies, confused ladies, curious ladies, smart, smart-mouthed, ladies ladies ladies. Here she gives us an anecdote of explaining steampunk to her father, whose response is 10000x more awesome than my own dad's:

THE SEA IS OURS roundtable: Timothy Dimacali #SteampunkHands

When I first read Timothy Dimacali's story, I said to my co-editor, "Joyce, this thing has got flying whales." I didn't yet link him to the story I had read and adored in Alternative Alamat, "Keeper of My Sky," a retelling of a love story between an earth goddess and a god who holds up the sky. "Flying whales, Joyce," I insisted, to which Joyce replied, "flying whales!" It immediately made me think of the Fantasia 2000 segment, "Pines of Rome." As it turns out, butanding aren't whales, but very large catfish generally. Which I am also all for!

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Pear Nuallak #SteampunkHands

Pear Nuallak's story finishes off the anthology, a fine, crisp, clear, queer wine. They write to us from the seat of steampunk, England, and from there deliver this finely-crafted story of chittering clockwork bugs, lady spies, and ambitious village girls caught in the whirl of political upheaval. 

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Robert Liow #SteampunkHands

Robert Liow hails from my own home country, and like me, doesn't live there either. He writes to us from Singapore, with a story featuring a childhood game of FIGHTING SPIDERS. I have never played fighting spiders myself, but it's hard not to be aware that this is a thing. Combining this game with the technofantasy of steampunk, "Spider Here" has got the makings of a dramatic movie! 

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Alessa Hinlo #SteampunkHands

Alessa Hinlo is one of those small and fierce women that we Asians should be famed for. I had the joy of meeting her, after a long time being aware of each other through social networks, at WisCon last year.  Her story, "The Last Aswang," feels like a knife cutting in, and twisting. It is also a very strong example of steampunk that moves away from the materials we commonly associate with it to more nature-based materials--an indigenous steampunk form!  

THE SEA IS OURS roundtable: Ivanna Mendels #SteampunkHands

I got really excited over Ivanna's story, which brings to life (well, kind of) an old familiar legend--she calls him Malin Kundang, I call him Si Tenggang, but it is essentially the same story: a rich man passes through his home village, where his mother recognizes him. Ashamed of his past, he refuses to acknowledge her, and she curses him to turn to stone. Ivanna is a lot kinder to Si Tenggang than I am, but I was extremely excited nonetheless! 

THE SEA IS OURS roundtable: zm quynh #SteampunkHands

zm quynh I first met at WisCon, tapping away at her laptop during downtimes between panels. She was working on a larger project, she told me. This is her first ever short story sale, and I'm pleased to introduce you to her work. 

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Paolo Chikiamco #SteampunkHands

I am so so so so pleased to be able to say that I've published Paolo! I first came to know of him through his work at Rocket Kapre, and then at Usok. He told me about his steampunk comic, set in Spanish-era Philippines, High Society (purchasable on Kindle!), and the prequel, "On Wooden Wings," which has since been published in Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution. The story he has written for us, "Between Severed Souls," takes place between these two works. 

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Kate Osias #SteampunkHands

Kate Osias sent in a reprint from one of the famous Philippine Speculative Fiction Annuals, and as soon as I finished it, I was breathless, and did my best impression of King Haggard from The Last Unicorn: "I must have it... I must have it, for my need is very great!" Fortunately, my co-editor, Joyce, agreed heartily. "The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoroso" infuses mathematics and the arts with a passion!

THE SEA IS OURS Roundtable: Marilag Angway #SteampunkHands

Marilag Angway's story, "Chasing Volcanoes," is a high-flying (literally) adventure (we have a few of these) filled with different kinds of women, moral grays, principles, politics, and compassion. She coined a neologism, "malambaso," for this story, which is a combination of two Tagalog words, to name flexible glass!

Table of Contents for THE SEA IS OURS: TALES OF STEAMPUNK SOUTHEAST ASIA

It's been a while! What with grading and assisting teaching and writing my dissertation proposal and going to conventions and whatnot! 

But! The manuscript of THE SEA IS OURS is done and handed to my publisher, and I am pretty confident that nothing else will be changed, so here is the table of contents!

On The Consequence of Sound - Timothy Dimacali

Chasing Volcanoes - Marilag Angway

Ordained - L. L. Hill

The Last Aswang - Alessa Hinlo

Life Under Glass - Nghi Vo

Between Severed Souls - Paolo Chikiamco

The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoroso - Kate Osias

Working Woman - Olivia Ho

Spider Here - Robert Liow

The Chamber of Souls - Z. M. Quynh

Petrified - Ivanna Mendels

The Insects and Women Sing Together - Pear Nuallak

We have have first-timers and some more established writers, and all except one writer are of SEAsian descent, which I'm very proud of. Some of them you may know from the Philippine Spec Fic Annuals which is rather difficult to get outside of the Philippines, so I'm pleased to be able to have them here. They are all really talented, and I'm 100% certain that this anthology will have a particular voice that no other steampunk anthology (or anthology using the word "steampunk" in its title) has. You will have to read it to decide whether you agree with me.  

We are finalizing the AMAZING cover and I will announce that soon too! It is very similar to the postcard that Khor Shing Yin made for us to promote ourselves a while back.

Steampunk POC: Psyche Corporation (Chinese-American)

HAPPY NEW LUNAR YEAR! I, er, did not actually purposefully delay putting up this interview so it would fall on the first Friday of the lunar new year, but I thought about it afterward and really liked the idea. Anyway, this month I present to you that fabulous singer known to the steampunk community as Psyche Corporation! When I first met her, I was pretty impressed by her music and singing. And then I found out she's a med student and went, "hmmm." When I met her again at CNSE, I tried to hang out with her more, but she had to go write a paper, and I went, "oh, she's one of those Asians." You know, those overachieving Asians who embody that model minority stereotype?

I say that with affection, of course, because she really is one of the sweetest and coolest people on the scene. She comes up on stage, does her thang, and then goes off to do further business without much ado. She also has a quirky sense of humour. Evidence:

Myself, PsycheCorpwith a moustachioed
banana she painted with a Yam Yam stick, and Allison Curval  

Also, she has a song about zombies.

PsycheCorp is extremely prolific; the newest album, Crypts and Codes, recently came out, and is the fourth album since 2006. The music is about as weird as the world it was created for, and I caught up with the singer recently to talk about that music, her life in general, and her involvement in steampunk!

Link of Interest: Cosplaying James Ng's Imperial Sheriff

Over at Beyond Victoriana, the Steampunk Panda decided to make his debut into cosplay with an ambitious project: James Ng's Imperial Sheriff: 

I don't know why anyone would want to start off in steampunk with this much work, but if you got the ovaries for it, go for it, you know? Did he succeed? Well, pop on over to read his essay and check out the pictures, and judge for yourself! It is good to see more Asian dudes in steampunk actually being Asian.

Steampunk POC: Jeannette Ng (Chinese)

Jeannette Ng and the Steampunk Coat

It's July! It's the first Friday of the month! You know what that means: another steampunk POC feature interview! This month, we hike across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom... or across the Pacific to Hong Kong, depending on where she is this time, to meet Jeannette Ng, the Costume Mercenary! Jeannette is the genius behind my steampunk magistrate costume, and many others, such as this fantastic steampunk coat. I love exchanging emails with Jeannette; she is always thoughtful, and thoughtfulness is sometimes accompanied by lengthy paragraphs. She is also the originator of the term "ricepunk" which I rather like

Jeannette is an active LARPer and works with Character Kit.co.uk. I highly recommend commissioning something from her!

Without further ado, Jeannette Ng! 

Steampunk POC: Connie Chen (Chinese-Australian)

The very dapper Connie Chen

Off we go to Down Under again! The last Aussie I interviewed was Stephanie Lai, a writer, and now we have a completely different angle to Aussie steampunk, from Connie Chen, local steampunk photographer for the Melbourne scene! Connie does so many things, I never quite know what she's up to. I definitely know she's an artist of some sort, and also does stuff in law. (The specifics escape me; things on LJ tend to be in one ear, out the other for me these days.)


How do you do steampunk?

I used to be a lot more active in the scene, but Life has been increasingly busy so recently it's taken a backburner to my career and my other creative projects. I used to be moderately active on various Livejournal communities and the Brass Goggles forums a while back. In my local scene I'd volunteer to help out with events and projects, as well as attending and socialising at the various events that were organised. For a little while I was known as the amateur photographer since I'd always be taking a lot of photos, and that was actually a great way to start a conversation with people.

How did you come to steampunk? What were your first impressions of it?

I can't remember exactly when I stumbled across the term and the community, but at the time I was involved with a lot of DIY and crafting. I was interested in reusing discarded and scrap materials to make new, functional objects, and naturally I became really interested in steampunk and the repurposed objects/clothing people made in the subculture. Most of my initial contact was with the Maker crowd and that was all about making waist cinchers from old trousers. My wardrobe already contained a lot of goth and Victoriana elements so I felt I fit within the aesthetic very well too.

My initial impression of steampunk was about deliberate anachronism and redefining historical tropes visually. Like a lot of other people in the community I felt like I'd been "doing" steampunk for a long time. I just didn't quite have a name for it.

Steampunk POC: Stephanie Lai (Australian-Malaysian-Chinese)

I do not actually remember how I got to know Stephanie! We have, however, frequently exchanged words about being Malaysian, and being Malaysian-Chinese. We both vied for a spot in Crossed Genres' Eastern issue (she won with The Last Rickshaw!) and now we both have stories in Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories! She hails from Melbourne's SFF scene, which I know pretty much nothing about, so I will let her talk about it.

Stephanie! How did you get into steampunk?

Jaymee! I just kind of fell into it. I’ve always been into SFF, and I love alternate realities, and science and technology, and steampunk appealed to me as a way of combining all of my favourite things, so I started dabbling in it. Then I think I found your blog and it sucked me all the way in to steampunk.

What is steampunk like over there in Australia? Is it big? Is it small? Growing? Is it a literary trends, are there gatherings for me? Tell us o stranger from an arcane land!

Let me tell you, it is HARD WORK being an antipodean, way distant from everyone else, and needing to get people to proof and say whether my story is too Aussie to be understood. HARD WORK INDEED.

Steampunk is growing in Australia. There are a lot of readers and writers, and as a community we are definitely growing, if the number of panels being run  at cons (and the number of people attending) is

anything to go by. There’s nothing separate happening, mostly it’s just a handful of panels at Swancon and Continuum, but I think we’re moving towards maybe a specialised gathering or two.

I think within the SFF community it’s gaining greater traction, but I’m not super sure it’s growing at all outside the community.

However there is not a lot of Australian steampunk set in Australia, and that’s something I’d like to see change.

"On Wooden Wings" by Paolo Chikiamco

So once in a while something interesting pops into my inbox, about POC, by POC, and Paolo Chikiamco's short story from the Philippine Speculative Fiction 6 anthology happens to be one of them. Paolo runs Rocket Kapre, a spec fic imprint dedicated to Filipino speculative fiction, and edits Usok, RK's webzine.

"On Wooden Wings" is one of those interesting stories I like to read, because while it has an accessible plot, there are nuances to the story which are best appreciated by local readers. And I'm not a local reader, so there're probably things I'm not picking up, and which are inaccessible to me, and that is cool, too. 

The action takes place not in a landed city per se, but on the ships of the Fleet of Wisdom, a floating academy of sorts that moves from port to port, educating students, providing them with workshop space and allied to the Qudarat Sultanate of Jolo (which I can't suss whether it's a fictional Sultanate based off the Sulu Sultanate or actually real. It's actually a very interesting problem because if you give a shit about historical tidbits at all, you Google and Google to find out and learn other things along the way. Besides which, Chikiamco being Filipino himself has the lateral advantage of representing his people from his perspective, not from the White Gaze, which has the qualitative difference of who controls what the reader is viewing. Given the continued history of colonization the Philippines still deals which, this is pretty significant in terms of power differentials).

The main characters are Clarita Leschot Esteybar, a Moro of mixed descent and the best student in the Fleet, and Domingo Malong, a Tagalog artist. And here we see an interplay of the conflict that comes about from the history of Spanish colonization in the Philippines, made complex with issues of mixed heritage: