You’ve heard of Grace Lee, right? Sure you have. From The Grace Lee Project, her wonderfully hillarious film about people named Grace Lee.
(And I totally know how she feels. One of these days, I’m going to do a Mike Lee Project.)
Grace Lee just screened her latest effort, American Zombie at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival this past Saturday. It’s a documentary – sorry, a mockumentary – about an ethnic race of zombies living in Los Angeles (“We’re here! We’re dead! Get used to it!”).
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I was at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco yesterday where I was swallowed up in two cavernous exhibition halls of food. Happy to say that Asian foods had a huge presence, whether they were “yumberries” (kind of like rambutan) from China or Indian food (huuuge) or chocolates from Korea. According to signs up in the hall, 57% of specialty food consumers purchase Asian foods.
Shopping With GASP!
Aaah, Asians and alcohol. As carefully documented by dozens of Asian-themed college parties, some Asians can drink to their hearts content. My father is one of those people, and his stories involving his Naval career and bottles of whiskey are legendary.
For some other people, me included… alcohol is, well, an issue. Half a beer will turn me bright red and itchy. A full one gets me nauseous. Three shots of the hard stuff will have me vomiting in potted plants the entire night.
Over the years, I have shrugged it off as an allergy, but this message thread from echeng.com reveals that it’s not an allergy, but rather a “defective” copy of the gene for aldehyde dehydrogenase. The thread is especially interesting for those into all that science stuff that makes my eyes glaze over. The gene isn’t even defective, per say: it seems that everyone elses genes are the defective ones and just conveniently give them the ability to drink people under the table.
Ok, get this. Chinese American Hip Hop rapper Jin tha MC disses hard on Rosie O’ Donnell, calling her a fatty and saying, “You ain’t funny.” After the Ching Chong debacle and sampling The Donald “You’re Fired” tis nice.
Nice.
Rapping in Cantonese and … well, I can only understand the phrase “taco gut” in there.
It’s better than feeling dirty over agreeing with Michelle Malkin, yo.
So those who know me and have been victim to my sassy shenanigans will note that I frequently point to Korean Romantic Comedy classic “My Sassy Girl” as an explanation for my propensity to pass out drinking (kidding – maybe) and punching of people.
Because – after all, it’s cute! RIGHT?!
And I’m *NOT* the only crazy Korean girl out there. *RIGHT?!*
So imagine my dismay at discovering that the English remake is in production.
I mean, the classic opening scene where our leading actress pukes on top of the head of an old man and our leading actor has to mop up a puke ridden toupee off his head?
Now really. Can Jesse Bradford and Elisa Cuthbert do that justice?
Elisa Cuthbert’s pretty hot. True. But it sucks out all the “girl next door” goofy charm if she’s already a hottie.
Yeah?
No?
Maybe Hollywood is all out of good ideas already and the Koreans are already in full force on TV these days that they feel they gotta take a little back.
Hmmmm.
Jjoogooleh?! You wanna die?! Hollywood?! DAMN YOU!
Once: I was running low on potstickers (I used to them dumplings on the East Coast, but everyone on the West Coast calls them potstickers; why?) and needed a refill at 99 Ranch.
This gave me pause. Because I like my car. I really do. I change it’s oil regularly, keep it washed & waxed, etc.
99 Ranch is not a place you go if you like your car. If you like dumplings – I mean potstickers – then sure. But if you like your car…
Now I’m not one for stereotypes, especially those that disparage my own ethnicity. Stereotypes hurt. They hurt you, me, and little baby Jesus. So I’m not going to say anything disparaging. I’ll just let my experience speak for itself:
- I pulled into the parking lot. The driver behind me probably didn’t see me slow down as I entered the packed parking lot. My brake lights probably weren’t clearly visible in the daylight. So I can understand why he nearly collided with me and screeched to a halt.
- As I slowly made my way down the aisle, that SUV driver probably didn’t see me in front of her. That’s probably why she shot out of her parking spot and yelled at me for being in her way. I can understand that. An SUV is tall and she probably looked right over my car, saw no obstructions, and decided it was fine to pull out.
- Oh, and I totally understand why, as I was waiting for the SUV driver to completely vacate her spot, that Civic driver shot into the spot first. My blinkers probably weren’t easy to see. Daylight problems again. I thought I was close enough to the space and didn’t expect him to race down the aisle to park here. He almost hit my car too because I was slowly pulling into the spot. My bad.
So okay, I guess I was wrong. There’s no stereotype fulfillment here.
I’m going to check on my blinker and brake lights now. Then I’m going to head over to Trader Joe’s. I hear they have potstickers too.
I just read this interesting article in The New York Times on “Class Divide in Chinese-Americans’ Charity” where the premise of the story is that “Rich Chinese-Americans are more likely to donate to mainstream institutions than to the poor, nonprofits say.” If you read a little bit more into the article though, it discusses that there are differences amongst Taiwanese-Americans, Hong Kong-Americans, and mainland-Chinese Americans. I definitely agree on this point, and it does matter. One of my favorite speeches I have ever heard in-person and live given by Kristie Wang was that of “How I Became a Taiwanese-American and why It Matters”
HOWEVER, I do think that all Chinese-Americans, no matter what our origin is from, should embrace what we have in common, because at the end-of-the-day, in America (especially if you live outside of California – especially outside of the San Francisco Bay Area & L.A.), if you look Chinese (or Asian in general), your average American will just mentally assume you are “all the same.” So let’s of course celebrate what we have in common that is great, rather than concentrate on our differences!
This is my first blog posting ever! I have the great honor of being invited by Ernie to blog for this site! So I will start off about writing about one of my favorite TV shows – The Daily Show. Jon Stewart, in this clip, shows Congressman David Wu. Jon Stewart is sort of mocking David Wu, but I think Congressman Wu sort of dug his own hole making an analogy between the Vulcans & the Klingons. Leonard Nimoy & George Takei make a “guest” appearance via a telephone call.
Why do I care about David Wu? Because David Wu is the *only* Chinese American in Congress. There are other Asian Americans in the House & the Senate, but as far as I know, he’s the only Chinese American one – representing the first Congressional district of Oregon. I’m glad that there are Asian Americans in the legislative branch, but in general, there are not too many Asian Americans actively involved in politics. Last year in 2006, The Democratic Party held it’s first National Asian American and Pacific Islander Democratic Leadership Summit. Whenever I go to political fundraisers or gatherings, it’s always rare to see an Asian American involved – and I live in California! Get involved – it’s your country!
A friend recently asked me: “What would you do if you had Hiro’s powers?”
Hmmm. The power to stop time, go time-traveling, and teleportation. Hot damn!
Well, right off the bat, I thought: Would I use my powers for good? Or for evil? And would I have to wear tights? I hate tights. They’re so… constricting. Plus you have all those unslightly buldges. But I digress.
Using my powers for good means making society better for everyone, including my Mom and Dad. That makes me happy.
I could save kittens out of trees, get toodlers off the highways, and teleport tons of Big Macs to third-world countries. I could even rescue people from NYC subways, since it’s apparently a trend now.
Using my powers for evil means spending eternity in Hell. With thieves and hookers. Potentially really hot hookers (no pun intended).
Evil means stopping time to rob banks and wander into girls’ dressing rooms. Or going back in time to buy lots of Internet stocks and placing bets on Super Bowl games. Hells yea. (Then I could build a casino hotel and call it Mike’s Pleasure Palace.)
But using my powers for evil would be bad. And being bad would make me a sad panda.
So maybe I’ll use them for good. Like, if there was a cheerleader in trouble somewhere, I’d go and save her. Because, you know, save the cheerleader, save the… eh, you know what I mean.
What would you do if you had Hiro’s powers?
Actually, you know that kind of blogpost title should yield *all sorts* of really fun kind of spam and search results. Right? Right?!!!
But seriously folks, the hottest shaved head woman that we know, Jenny Shimizu, has outed Angelina Jolie & Madonna, seduced the love object of Lloyd Dobbler (oh come on! you gotta know the Say Anything reference) Ione Skye who dumped Beastie Boy hubby Adam Horowitz for her, and could tenderly still kick your ass with those amazing tattooed arms of hers.
Can you just imagine how that conversation went down between Ione Skye & Adam Horowitz when she dumped him to date Shimizu?
Adam: “Say whatcha whatcha whatcha want, whatcha want”
Ione: “Pussy.”
Shimizu’s got a tell all book. Woo. Should be good masturbation fodder.
Sure, there are Asian vegetarians that exist in the world somewhere - the Bay Area Buddhist temples that serve vegetarian food on weekends come to mind. But for the most part, us Asian-American kids pride ourselves in eating every part of an animal that doesn’t try to run away from us at the table.
Apparently, New York chef David Chang, owner of the Momofuku Noodle Bar, agrees.
David Chang has nothing against vegetarians. He just doesn’t like to cook for them.
That much is made clear on the menu of his East Village restaurant Momofuku Noodle Bar, which offers exactly one vegetarian dish—ginger-scallion noodles. OUR ONLY VEGETARIAN OPTION, it reads in boldface type, as if to say, “Hey, you can take it or leave it.” A further examination of the menu, with its exuberance of pig tails, pork necks, Berkshire bellies, and boutique bacon, might lead you to speculate as to whether Chang was kidnapped by a gang of vegan hippies at a young age and then force-fed wheatgrass and raw parsnips and this is his revenge.
The article goes into detail about his newest project, an Asian burrito bar, and some of the difficulties he’s encountered on the way.
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