Remember that hardcore two year old baby from Indonesia who shocked the world with his two-packs-a-day smoking habit? You can lay off on those phone calls to Child Welfare Services because National Commission for Child Protection Secretary-General Arist Merdeka Sirait has announced that Ardi Rizal has officially kicked the habit. Through “intensive specialist care,” child welfare officers have managed to “divert his addiction from cigarettes to playing.” And by playing, they mean food and Nicorette gum. Actually, it sounds more along the lines of hobbies and friends.
“He received psychosocial therapy for one month, during which therapists kept him busy with activities and encouraged him to play with kids of the same age,” Sirait said…[He] said the government had given financial support to Ardi’s parents, who were ignorant of smoking’s dangers and used cigarettes to keep the toddler happy as they worked long hours at a street market.
Now, little Ardi can face a childhood of anxiety attacks, weight gain, teeth grinding, mild depression and the shakes. Congrats, Ardi and here’s to a healthy third year of your little life.
We here at 8Asians are also accepting wagers on whether this baby will relapse in 2011. Email us if you’re in on the betting pool.
Shopping With GASP!
APA Spotlight is a bi-monthly interview of Asian Pacific Islander Americans (APAI) community leaders. It is a spotlight on individuals who have dedicated their careers to issues surrounding the APAI community with the goal of bringing much deserved recognition to their work and cause(s).
Honored by San Diego Magazine as one of the Top 50 People to Watch in 2009, Lee Ann Kim is the founding executive director of the San Diego Asian Film Foundation, which serves more than 30,000 people each year. Lee Ann worked for nearly 12 years as a news anchor/reporter for KGTV Channel 10 where she earned numerous awards for her journalism including a regional Emmy for investigative reporting.
She was recently honored by KGTV as a 10News Leader, as well as the KPBS Hero of the Month for May 2010, San Diego Metropolitan Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2007, as well as Director of Excellence from the 2008 International Film Festival Summit.
Lee Ann also serves on the San Diego County Television Cable Commission, and on the boards of Orchestra Nova, Korean American Coalition in San Diego, and the Korean American Foundation for Educators.
The mission of the San Diego Asian Film Foundation is to connect audiences with the human experience through the Pan Asian media arts. Learn more about Lee Ann Kim’s work on the foundation, after the cut.
CNN, along with a number of other news organizations, has reported that James Jay Lee has been arrested at Discovery Channel’s headquarters near Washington, DC after taking hostages and demanding that the discovery take a more “enviromentalist and anti-capitalist agenda.”
Lee has had a beef with the channel for years, as CNN has reported that he has been trying to encourage the channel to have game shows promoting an environmentalist agenda — although his rants quickly devolved into him accusing the channel of promoting “the birth of any more parasitic human infants.” While I’m personally all for Asian Americans pushing a more environmentally friendly agenda, I don’t think environmentalism has anything to do with calling civilization filth, like he does, or the birthing of children parasitic.
On This Day...
- Dragon Ball Z - The Movie 2 years ago
- [Lee Kuan Yew] Modern Singapore's Creator Is Alert to Perils 3 years ago
- Yakuza daughter sheds light on gangster life 3 years ago
- A Comment on Asian Christians 3 years ago
Earlier this year, I had reviewed the documentary film, Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy. The film had its national broadcast premiere this past week on PBS’s POV series. For a limited time, from September 1, 2010 through November 30, 2010, you can catch the film streamed online for free here! The film follows the journey of a young Sui Yong and her adoptive family from China to New Jersey and the challenges and joys of raising a child from a foreign land, culture and language in the United States. Even if you are now interested in adoption, I think you will find this film both gut wrenching and heartwarming at the same time.
So, this was unexpected: YouTube Comic KevJumba and his father — the source of a lot of KevJumba’s comedic bits — have been cast on the latest season of The Amazing Race, albeit with the normal names of Michael and Kevin. For a reality show that has been criticized lately of being stale, the casting of Team KevJumba is an interesting choice by producers: not only do they cast the token Asian Team(tm), but they also reach for the younger YouTube demographic — high schoolers to young adults — that watch Internet shows instead of television. Smart move, although KevJumba might want to be concerned that the person that will be doing the show editing won’t be KevJumba himself, but some random white guy.
First saw this on Slashdot and thought I’d share the story here: a Japanese resort is now catering to men with Virtual girlfriends from the game Love Plus (a trailer of the game is above). Love Plus is a simulation game that lets you develop a “relationship’ with a virtual anime girlfriend, and apparently it has been a hit for its maker Konami. One guy even “married” his Love Plus girlfriend.
One recent sweltering summer’s day, a tour bus from Tokyo pulled up at a sun-kissed beach at Atami, a Pacific coast resort southwest of the metropolis, and disgorged more than a dozen excited, iPhone-clutching young men.
The determined youngsters, paying scant attention to the bikini-clad girls frolicking on the sand, instead headed straight for a bronze statue that depicts Kanichi and Omiya, a couple from an old love story set in Atami.
The focus of the men’s attention — and of their smartphone cameras — was a tiny black and white square, a two-dimensional barcode that, thanks to “augmented reality” (AR) software, brought to life the object of their desire.
“Look, it’s like I’m in a snapshot with her,” said Shu Watanabe, 23, as he showed off his iPhone display, featuring himself next to the image of a doe-eyed cartoon character named Rinko, a smiling high school girl.
Atami has outfitted some romantic locations where virtual girlfriends can appear (via AR software), dressed in casual summer wear. Local souvenir shops sell “Love Plus” themed items. Apparently, the resort town has seen its business decline, and catering to these guys with a virtual girlfriend has helped the local economy.
If I hadn’t been hosting the Q&A for the L.A. theatrical opening of The People I’ve Slept With on Friday night, then I definitely would have been at Kollaboration Acoustic 4.
Luckily, there’s YouTube and fan-uploaded videos of the show, for those of us who couldn’t make it! Dawen, who has performed with Macy Gray and covered songs by Maxwell, won the night’s competition (and a cool $1,000) with an original song called “Shoes.” Congrats to Dawen and to all the performers!
Thanks to HypnoticAsia for the video!
You know how your Chinese parents were like, “Carnegie Mellon? What is Mellon? GO TO UC DAVIS. CHEAPER AND MORE FAMOUS.” (What? Just my parents? Alright, then.)
Well, don’t expect that mindset to go away any time soon: according to a list compiled by the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Harvard and UC Berkeley were ranked as the two best colleges in the world. The factor used to determine “the best” in this Chinese study? The number of staff or alumni to receive Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals, among other factors. “Our view is – since we have really outstanding humanities here – that if there was a way of including humanities into the ranking, that our relative ranking might even have risen,” said the UC Berkeley chancellor. To which the Chinese respond: “HUMANITIES? HA HA HA THE CHINESE LAUGH AT YOUR HUMANITIES. DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE CALL THAT SHIT? ELECTIVES.”
(Flickr photo credit: Charlie Nguyen)
- Indonesian Smoking Baby Calls It Quits
- APA Spotlight: Lee Ann Kim, San Diego Asian Film Foundation
- Asians Behaving Badly: Hostage Taker Arrested at Discovery Channel HQ
- Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy Now Available Online for Free
- YouTube Entertainer KevJumba and his Dad on The Amazing Race 17
- DUDE WTF ASIA: Japanese Resort Attracts Men with Virtual Girlfriends
- Dawen Wins Kollaboration Acoustic 4
- Why Asian Girls Go For White Guys
- The Jon Gosselin Story: Asian Men and Penis Size
- Asian guys with white girls: Redux
- Tattoos in China Become Popular (or: Exoticizing Stupid in Any Language)
- Southern California's Nom Nom Truck Featured on The Great Food Truck Race
- YouTube Entertainer KevJumba and his Dad on The Amazing Race 17
- Yakuza daughter sheds light on gangster life
- APA Spotlight: Lee Ann Kim, San Diego Asian Film Foundation
- Anonymous: Fuckin’ AYE! Lee Ann Kim is awesome! Beat Street! Breakin’? Rappin? And she’s down with the AA community. HELLZ YEAH!
- Asian American Fraternity Hazing Profiled in the Media
- Anonymous: Commenters either paint this picture that Lambda Phi Epsilon (aka LPhiE) as either a saintly or devilish organization. It is neither. This Asian Interest Fraternity welcomes all men of all races and actually does do good for...
- Asians Behaving Badly: Hostage Taker Arrested at Discovery Channel HQ
- eggrollstan: How coincidental that season 4 of “Bones” also had a APA environmentalist in episode 19, who of course was also a physicist?
- Kurly Kolly: this brotha is pyscho. smh.
- Indonesian Smoking Baby Calls It Quits
- ErnieAtLYD: “He’s just a baby, a giant baby.” A giant baby. Who loves the delicious, non-filtered taste of Marlboro Reds(tm).
- Anonymous: “We here at 8Asians are also accepting wagers on whether this baby will relapse in 2011.” *dead*
- Efren Bose: I am SO in the betting pool…
- ErnieAtLYD: “He’s just a baby, a giant baby.” A giant baby. Who loves the delicious, non-filtered taste of Marlboro Reds(tm).
- DUDE WTF ASIA: Japanese Resort Attracts Men with Virtual Girlfriends
- Blipblopblapbloobybloo: DS users are losers. Real gamers play a psp. It has actual games.
