I'm not sure what it is about geisha that has enthralled me over the years. I mean, I'm not obsessed by any means, but I do come back to the topic now and again. Hongyun loves to read and learn about them too. Actually Memoirs of a Geisha was the first English book that Hongyun read. She did it with the help of audiobooks and it greatly boosted her confidence in reading English novels.

So now, we come to the movie. Now, mind you I'm a big fan of all things big screen, especially gret books that become great movies (Lord of the Rings, anyone?). But, I have some beefs with this movie. First, what's with Zhang Ziyi as the leading actress? I'm a big fan of hers, but she's Chinese and the book/movie is a Japanese story. To some of our midwestern friends, they may actually not know the difference, but come ON! In this day and age, we couldn't find one good Japanese actress to play a leading role? I think if this were an independent film company making this movie, it may actually be culturally sensitive and probably come out rather good. But alas, this movie is going to be made by a big studio with Steven Speilberg leading the charge nonetheless...and they didn't even have the courtesy to differentiate between two completely different cultures just because "they all look alike".

With all of the cultural sensitvity crap going around these days, you'd think that Speilberg would have tried to learn the difference between different kinds of people on the Asian continent. It's not really that hard is it? I get asked all the time, "Oh you're Thai? Do you speak Taiwanese?" Hongyun jokes that I'm a white boy, but seriously these folks need to get a life and bust open a geography text book sometime. Seriously.

See for yourself.