Tsai’s films feature in slowness, which serves as the resistance to the drastic change of the capitalistic world. Lim Song-hwee composed the monograph Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness on the issue of slowness in Tsai’s films, published before Tsai’s Stray Dogs was released. Even though the Chinese translation of this book was published after Stray Dogs came out, in the afterword Lim still states that he prefers to leave the theory of slowness in his monograph without analysis about Stray Dogs. Despite this decision, the slowness he analyzes can still be applied to and compared with Stray Dogs. As always, Tsai’s films are full of slow motions. In Stray Dogs, the slow motions are in line with the slow/futile life of the homeless father. The slowness originally for Tsai is to withstand the trend of the commercial movies, which change the scenes rapidly within seconds. The commercial films exactly present the feature of the capitalistic world. Lim also contends:
slowness, for Europe, is at once temporal and material luxury that it can aspire to and attain. On the other hand, a turn to slowness in rapidly developing regions such as East Asia may arise from an anxiety toward wholesale modernization and industrialization and thus a desire to hold on to a less hectic pace associated with an agricultural past. (41)
With the definition of the luxury of slowness for the modern hustle and bustle capitalistic society, in fact, Stray Dogs further illustrates the two sides of slowness for the rich and the poor. On the one hand, as Lim contends, enjoying the slow pace in life is luxurious for people in cities, since they are under the attack of capitalistic fast-paced lifestyle. On the other hand, the homeless have no entertainment such as mobile games or cannot afford outdoor activities.
Therefore, the luxury of slowness, or boredom, is actually their daily life. The definition of luxury was reversed here with the introduction of the homeless life. Slowness is no longer a luxury, but combined with the inferno-like boredom, which can be unbearable. The capitalistic citizens have no choice but to be busy, while the homeless have no choice but to be bored.
In Stray Dogs, the playing of the words marks the satirical discrepancy between the wealthy and the homeless life. Lee Kang-sheng holds the signboard named “Fareast Glory Real Estate located in the Ministry District.” Afterwards, he encounters a sign thrown at the roadside, with the message left in chalk saying “I’m done with my sign. Signed, Wang.” On the sign shows another real estate named Shenlin-yu (深林裕) in Chinese and “Your Green Home” in English. Shenlin is the mimic of the word “forest” in Chinese which is pronounced as “senlin”
(森林). Adapted to “Shenlin,” the meaning is doubled as “deep forest” for “shen” means “deep”
in Chinese. The character yu is also doubly played in the film. Originally “senlin-yu” (森林浴) means “forest bathing” in Chinese. However, here the yu (浴) becomes another character also pronounced as yu (裕) which means richness. All in all, the sign Shenlin-yu stands for “forest bathing” and “being rich in the deep forest.” The wordplay of the name becomes an irony for the homeless Lee Kang-sheng. The places where Lee Kang-sheng and his family wander are at the margin of the city. For instance, the second scene of the film depicts the two children wandering at the forest with thick trunks of trees in the background. If not standing on the safety island holding the sign, Lee Kang-sheng wanders mostly to the swamps with high reeds, the black-sanded beach, or the construction sites at the margin of the city. Namely, the living environments of Lee are already the wildlands, the nature, coincidentally the longing for the capitalistic busy citizens. This part therefore shows the ironic allusion to the ideology of capitalism.
The reversed relationship between wild nature and civilized society also exists in real life examples, such as the camping trend in Taiwan. Recently, the camping service goes viral in Taiwan. The service teams declare that they will provide the customers with full camping tools and service, including the recreational vehicles and the barbecue materials. Some teams even roast for the customers. The customers do not need to barbecue themselves. All they need to do is relax and eat. Ironically, the camping service teams advertise that in this way, the customers can escape from the busy life and enjoy the Mother Nature in the resorts. However,
this kind of nature is commercialized. The camping experience loses its original meaning of adventure and primitive way of life under the manipulative marketing. In comparison, Lee Kang-sheng’s wandering along the half-natural swamps and riverbanks, and living in the cave-like abandoned building can be viewed as natural life, the kind that will be looked down upon by the capitalistic citizens. Here the paradoxical definition of “nature” is revealed. Lee as a homeless victim of capitalism might not beware of this philosophical discourse. His “natural”
life is definitely not the romantic imagination of the urbanites. The cognitive fissure between the capitalism consisting of monstrous enterprises entwined with the governmental power and the victims at the lower orders, including the homeless, might be complemented by actions taken by some of the artists and intellectuals. By representing the neglected social margins, the artists raise the issues and bring them forth to the potential witnesses. Additionally, the artists can also play the role of the intellectuals who criticize the social and political issues through movements, such as walking into homeless people’s lives, holding activities for them and becoming one of their partners. Today, the elites no longer play the dominating roles to
“enlighten” the undereducated. Rather, the intellectuals who are conscious of the social issues tend to cooperate with the grassroots power to lead the life of action to display their discontent at some social status quos.
Kao Jun-honn, who analyzes the antinomy of nature and unnature in his Multitude: Art Squats in East Asia, is one of the artists that possess the social consciousness. Kao uses his artistic strategy as the rebellion against the dominance of capitalism and commercialism.
Through Kao’s introduction, readers learn that the Japanese artist, Misako Ichimura takes the actions against the neoliberalist position that the Japanese government holds: In 2004, Ichimura already squatted in Yoyogi Park with other rough sleepers. Against the housing policy which aimed at expelling the homeless from the park, Ichimura started the Painting Meeting and the Tea Party for Woman. In the events, to avoid the governments’ restriction of unregistered commercial activities, and to boost the interactions among the participants, the meeting only
accepted the exchange of goods. Ichimura focused on women as the opposition to the patriarchal violence the city Tokyo alludes and the overwhelming number of the male homeless (30-33). In 2007, the Shibuya District Office aimed to expel the rough sleepers from the underpass of Japan National Route 246 (Aoyama Dori) with the excuse of cleansing and beautifying the environment. Under this policy, the residents and the students sent to beautify the underpass were in conflict with the rough sleepers. One day, the underpass was set on fire by the unknown, and the rough sleepers were scared and escaped from the spot. Seeing this, Ichimura bravely went back to the underpass as a rough sleeper, and decorated the burnt black wall of the underground with stars. Social activists and artists were attracted by Ichimura’s movements. Ichimura even launched the meetings to discuss the issue of homelessness, and set a kitchen, inviting residents and the homeless to cook and eat together (37-42).
With Ichimura’s example, Kao brings up the issue of nature. He criticizes the exploiting capitalistic economy which creates the lower orders of the rough sleepers or the homeless.
Foucault, in his argument, refutes Kantian concept of nature to put the nature at the position equal to reason or law. Instead, he asserts that not only juridical law but also commercial relationships constitute the nature. In the commercial logic, Kantian perpetual peace cannot merely be regarded as the constitutional republicanism, in which the executive belongs to the government and the legislature belongs to the citizens (Chou 638-43). Instead, “[p]erpetual peace is guaranteed by nature and this guarantee is manifested in the population of the entire world and in the commercial relationships stretching across the whole world. The guarantee of perpetual peace is therefore actually commercial globalization” (Foucault 58). Citing Foucault’s analysis, Kao questions the paradoxical definition of nature. In the monetary logic and within a society whose governments are kidnapped by the capital of international enterprises, the natural rough sleepers become the unnatural, while the anti-natural commercial activities in boutiques become the natural (Kao 64-66). As Lee Kang-sheng presents in Stray Dogs, without a settled residence to stay in or a stable source of tap water to keep clean, the
life style is considered inhuman and thus unnatural. On the contrary, intentionally driving to the mountains and having a fake camping activity with all the equipment prepared become
“natural” under capitalistic definition. It should also be clarified that the adjective “natural”
does not indicate “good” or “bad;” instead, the issue of commercialized nature creates a dialectical space for people to reflect upon the humanity and inhumanity that the modernized, globalized, and materialized world might bring about.
In light of Kao’s and Foucault’s analysis of nature in commercial relationships, I would connect the concept of nature to the free trade under the discourse of neoliberalism. In fact, under the banner of capitalism, for the workers, “free” trade is impossible to achieve. In the manipulation of free trade, workers are exploited by capital holders, striving for being free from the stranglehold of the highly pressured and rapidly developing society. Jon Solomon argues that the logistics of international business is parasitic on the national sovereignty. The Taiwanese government approves, or is forced to approve the international free trade to start their business in Taiwan with an eye to developing the economy. After the international enterprises get the power in the field of business, the sovereignty of Taiwan will be hollowed out by the logistics of free trade. In other words, the government loses the sovereignty and fails to preserve the completeness and the well-being of a state in the operation of international business. In this way the labor rights or even democracy will be sacrificed (Solomon 84-86).
Paul Hirst also contends that the multinational companies operate with the state power of the Triad (Europe, Japan, and North America). In this situation, the labor rights, especially those
“at the bottom of the income distribution scale”, should be protected with social welfare to maintain the social stability (425). In this sense, the phrase “being rich in the deep forest,” on the one hand the impossible dream for the homeless, one the other also becomes the curse for the salaried, who are trapped in the game of capitalism in order to live in the nature. The salaried earn from hand to mouth, just longing for a trip in the Mother Nature that advertised by fashionable magazines or TV variety shows. In comparison, Lee Kang-sheng, as a homeless
father, lives at the half-wild margin of the city. He falls out of the rat race of the capitalistic society, but reversely gets access to the nature at hand. One scene in which Lee Kang-sheng carries the sign of Shenlin Yu or “Your Green Home” may strengthen the image of Lee’s weird freedom. Lee traipses through the construction site without any barrier and goes into the sample house which might symbolize “Your Green Home.” He lies in the white bed and sleeps tight.
No one wakes him up or routs him out. From the design of these scenes, instead of merely speaking for the homeless, the film intends to reveal the essence of life, or life per se. In addition, the other elements in the film, such as a number of motorcycles on the roads and the construction sites in the background, to some degree represent the absurd reality of capitalism:
The hustle and bustle citizens crave tranquility in the nature, so they have to immerse themselves in the highly competitive society in order to earn enough to enjoy the commercialized nature. On the contrary, the sordid homeless, probably despicable to the city folks, already get the tranquility by having nothing to do.
As Tsai mentioned in the talk of Hong Kong Book Fair in 2014, his movies are the representation of life. In addition to speaking for the homeless, the life per se is the core argument for Tsai. He talked about one quotation from the Diamond Sutra or Jingang Jing in Chinese, “huan zhi ben chu” (還至本處) or “going back to the original place.” The phrase means that “the buddha, or the monk, goes out to beg for alms every day, and then comes back to the house to lead a tranquil life.” For people in the highly-pressured and competitive games of capitalistic accumulation, reflecting on the meaning of life becomes an essential lesson. Tsai admitted that his movies were not market-oriented and he did not consider the market important inasmuch as he survived and the sponsors from France kept supporting him. From Tsai’s perspective, I argue that the time flow of Lee Kang-sheng’s homeless life and this movie forces the audience to tolerate each second in life that might be neglected before, which splits a time span for pondering. In such fissure created by the intolerable slowness, three folds of rebellions are revealed. First, the slowness of Stray Dogs represents the rebellions against the production
and consumption of commercial movies. Second, the slow movie challenges the audience’s fast pace in the rat-race-like capitalistic society. Third, also the most critical, Lee’s simple yet miserable life can be regarded as the rebellion against the capitalistic and consumerist modern society, disguised under the false imagination that the world is peaceful and prosperous. All in all, the slowness and the homelessness reveal the paradoxical entity of the capitalistic society.