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I feel to give myself the title of a feminist belittles the word. Don’t get me wrong I very much aspire to be a feminist and I am working on it. However, I don’t know if I am aware of the subconscious sexism programmed into my behaviour. Up to this point I feel I haven’t exploited my privalage as a male and I’ve been reassured I’m a fairly good person. But, I don’t feel educated enough on the subject to say whether I am behaving fairly between genders.

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Tyranical males are of course not only a thing of the past. Enter Harvey Weinstein, accused by dozens upon dozens of actors and other film proffesionals of sexual assualt and 14 counts of rape. If the allegations do turn out to be true as they overwhelmingly seem to be then we definetley have a case of a man exerting his power. 

Now I must say that there is a rather large difference between Harvey Weinstein and my grandfather and although they have both been unjust I feel I should cut my grandfather some slack. I think there’s a difference to how males exert their power in the workforce in particular and I think defining the difference is necessary to this project.

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For a while I have wanted to indulge in anime because of the hype surrounding it in pop culture and how the people I admire talk about it. The first time I saw anime was at one of my Chinese cousin’s house in Malaysia. We bought the DVD of spirited away from the shop down the road where it was obviously illegally pirated. I think I may use this project to continue exploring the genre by looking at stories about ‘male tyrants.’

A TV show I grew up watching was Avatar the Legend of Aang (animated not real life version). The four elements in the show are all controlled by 4 different real martial art forms which links it back into my current infatuation in Wing Chun.

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I am worried about the implications on my mental health of having to research the effects of my grand father’s tyrannical behaviour. Therefore, I think I shall vent this interest by looking at different tyrants throughout history.

From my preliminary research about Male Tyrants in Ancient China I have found one decadent character. King Zhou of Shang was the pejorative posthumous name given to Di Xin.

One tale tells of him creating a pool large enough for seven canoes filled with alcohol with meat hanging from the ceiling. The purpose being so that if him and his mates were hungry they could reach up and eat but if they were thirsty they could dive down and drink. This was what occupied the ruler whilst current affairs went unhandled.

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Recently I took up Kung Fu as a hobby. I started Wing Chun: a form of martial art which is a concept-based traditional Southern Chinese wushu. My choice of Wing Chun over other forms of martial arts is that my father once did it when he had just moved to London at my age. 

Although he is not a fan of the sparring side of Wing Chun he finds the forms beautiful. I have only fell more in love with the art. Similar to my father I love the forms and I can feel how it could influence my drawing ability. However, I find the sparring in Wing Chun is more of a dance with your sparring partner rather than a fighting style.

This love of Kung Fu has reinforced my feelings of wanting to reconnect to my Chinese heritage. I feel there is so much beauty in Southeast Asia which I have yet to discover. From the calligraphy to the factories I feel there is so much which I could explore. However, for this project I thought I could take my title of ‘The Male Tyrant’ and explore the ancient tales of tyrants throughout the Chinese dynasties

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This project could just be titled ‘The Tyrant,’ but I feel over the past academic year at Foundation I have been forced to be more ‘woke.’ Even in the past few months I have realised that overwhelmingly how everything is wrongly designed for the male gaze.

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My Grandfather, Colin from what I have gathered has not had the most luxurious or pleasant of lives. He’s never taken a holiday and never intends to despite now being financially secure. This mentality is heralded in our society, but are the practicalities of this behaviour healthy? It’s like how romanticised Alexander McQueen’s career has become, but at the root of it I don’t think people realise how troubled he was and how that emotion leaked into his work.

So from the conversations I have had with my mum over the years about my grandfathers up bringing, I have somewhat pieced together the information. So he had a brother called Don who suffered from some form of heart condition which prevented him from manual labour. Their father and my great grandfather ran his own Farm whilst they were growing up and that was the source of income. Despite grandad wanting to join the RAF his mother would not allow it and so he ended up working on the farm with his brother. As a result of Don’s heart condition he ended up running the business side of the company whilst my grandad ran the actual farm. For now all I will say what I know is that when my great grandfather died he left his assets shared unequally between the two brothers. Ever since my grandad has lived with a chip on his shoulder, and it turned him sour. How much can you blame him for what resulted with his own business? Does free will exist?

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Trying to summarise all the drama into a blog post would be impossible as I would never be able to describe the nuance of each and every interaction. To be diplomatic, I must say that this post is how the story is through the eyes of me, Eden.

If we work from Left to Right in the photo above we have: my father, mother, uncle in law, aunt, grandfather and grandmother. According to mum this photo was taken circa 1990 before some Free Masons event my grandad was attending. For the sake of this post I’m going to name everyone; so from left to right again we have: Hock, Tracey, Ian, Gail, Colin, Bridget. 

This is and has been Brader’s Fruit Farm for 20+ years, however it seems soon it shall not be. Gail and her husband Ian had been working for her Father for the majority of the history of the business. Working under him is a tough business, as a result of his own up bringing (explained in another post) he grew grumpy, ill tempered, and controlling. Eventually the pot boiled over and the business is now going into administration with all the property having to be evaluated and sold off. This of course has lead to money going down the drain from having to fund solicitors bouncing back and forth between the two parties, neither of which giving an inch. As I’m writing this I have realised that I have very much shown some bias on who is right and who is wrong, and also not covered the whole feud in anywhere near enough detail. 

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If you have ever seen the Christmas ‘rom-com’ Love Actually then you’ll probably be aware of Sarah’s character arc. If you don’t know her by name then you’ll know her by this gif.

Sarah’s scenes always go a similar way, we see trying to live her own life whilst being pinned back by her mobile phone. As a result she ends up squandering her intimate opportunity with Karl, the man that she was so obviously in love with that Alan Rickman’s character had to weigh in. The next scene we see of Sarah is her at what appears to be a hospital visiting her brother who appears to be unwell. 

Over the past few years I have likened my mother’s relationship with the landline to that of Sarah’s relationship with her phone. It seems chore like every time they both have to pick up their phones and often comes at a detriment to the development of their lives. However, my mother is talking to either her grandfather or her sister and not her brother. As a result of picking up the phone it appears to anyone that my strong and balanced mother is subject to either verbal abuse or emotional blackmail. Why does she continue to answer the calls and dial them up herself? Is it out of guilt for effectively leaving the family business when she was 18, or maybe she feels somewhat responsible for the breakdown of relationship between her sister and father? I’ve come to realise it’s nothing more complex than love and loyalty.