Colorful History

I finally got to see Abominable, though I missed the opening minutes, having misjudged how many ads and trailers would be shown in front of the movie. It was cute, funny, and had lovely visuals during the magic sequences. The glowing flowers and trees reminded me of parts of Kung Fu Panda where Master Oogway died. Really nice, and I'll probably see it again to catch what I missed. The violin music was good, but didn't use the same music as in the trailer.

Meanwhile the new TV season has started to premiere. My TV antenna didn't cooperate, though, so my Tivo recordings came out messed up and I missed a couple of shows I wanted to see. I have to try to get by on recaps until I can find repeat airings. Or maybe I'll have to see if the websites will let me stream the episodes I missed.

Also I've read some new books lately with some Asian representation in them. The Downstairs Girl is historical fiction about a Chinese-American girl working as a maid in post-Reconstruction Atlanta. The book points out that a lot of Southern planters imported Chinese labor to replace slaves after Emancipation. While Jo Kuan secretly lives in a former Underground Railroad cellar, she decides to anonymously write an advice column for the newspaper upstairs. There are also some mysteries about the parents who abandoned her, and other people in town, but it's not a murder-mystery like other period books I read. I enjoyed it a lot, though, as a love story and coming of age drama. The race and class issues are tackled well, along with the white feminists discriminating against women of color who want the same things.

Another unusual book I read was Murder on Millionaires' Row, set in Gilded Age New York. The protagonist is an Irish maid who decides to investigate the disappearance of her British employer. This fantasy mystery is brimming with Victorian cliches like Freemasons, Pinkertons, ghosts, alchemy, etc. It's all blended with the author's special mythology about magic, witches, and "luck", special powers that some families inherit, enabling them to accumulate wealth and power as the Astors and Rockefellers of the world. I usually don't venture that far into fantasy realms, but this one was pretty enjoyable, and the story also features a black cook and a Chinese friend whose father owns a shop of exotic potions and more. It is nice seeing more period tales where the characters aren't all white, especially since immigrants of all races have been blending into America's melting pot for hundreds of years. They were there in history, and they should be there in our fiction too.