Tonight, I caught the very funny, touching and well produced independent film, “Falling for Grace,” written, produced, and directed (as well as starring) Asian-American actress Fay Ann Lee in her first film. Margaret Cho, Ken Leung, Christine Baranski and Lewis Black also star in the film. Here is a brief synopsis from movie postcard:
“Grace Tang, a banker from Chinatown, longs to be part of New York’s high-society. At a socialite party, she is mistaken for a Hong Kong heiress and meets her Prince Charming, the blue-blooded New York scion, Andrew Barrington, Jr. She decides to run with her new identity. Hailed by audiences as the new “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, KVMR-FM says “Falling for Grace is one of the summer’s most romantic comedies.”
Also, check out the trailer on YouTube or the movie website.
If you’ve gone to see any independent films and have met any the producers, you know there are many challenges to raising money and getting distribution. Despite starring many Asian-American actors and actresses, this is a mainstream movie and needs to reach mainstream audiences for wider distribution. Although Falling for Grace was a debut sold out hit at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, this has yet to be picked up by any major studio or distributor. If crap like “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” can get made and distributed, Falling for Grace needs to stay alive in theaters to get picked up for wider distribution.
If you get a chance to see the movie this Sunday, (August 26th), you can catch the film at The 4 Star Theater (Clement & 23rd in San Francisco) at either the 2:30 pm or 7:00 PM. Sunday may be the last showing in San Francisco if there’s not enough interest. It’s a really fun movie.
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I’m not involved in Inspire / 07, but thought I’d mentioned it on 8asians since it has quite a line-up of Asian-American speakers and describes itself as “the premier leadership conference featuring many of the who’s who in the Asian-American Community!” Guest speakers include:
So if you’re not off to Burning Man and around Labor Day Weekend, it might be worth dropping by (don’t forget to register).
Shopping With GASP!
As I have commented many times in the past on 8asians, Asian-Americans are not very politically active or involved, so it’s nice to read “Asian-American Youth Venture Into Cal Politics” (sorry for the late post on this article..):
“In recent years, several Asian Americans have risen to prominent political positions, such as U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. Californians have also elected
several Asian and Pacific Islanders to state legislative office, including Sen. Leland Yee, Assemblymen Mike Eng and Van Tran, and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. But despite increasing leadership in this community, Asian Americans make up less than 10 percent of the California legislature even though they are 13 percent of the population….Overall civic participation in the Asian-American community, including voting, has been historically low. A study conducted by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center showed that, overall, 53 percent of registered voters went to the voting booth in the 2006 primary elections, while only 43 percent of registered Asian and Pacific Islanders voted.” (New America Media, Aug 07, 2007)”
The article goes on to describe organizations trying to inspire young Asian Americans to pursue public service, including the California state legislature. One organization is the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus that organized “Internship Day at the Capitol.” This year’s event brought together about 50 young Asian Americans to meet legislators, students and staff members to get insight on working with state legislation. With more efforts like this, let’s hope that more Asian Americans across the nation get involved in public service and politics.
A few weeks ago, U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba presided over San Francisco’s Pistahan Parade. The Pistahan Parade and Festival is an annual celebration of Filipino culture (and also a clever name since “Pistahan” means fiesta or festival, and thus plays on my people’s love for repetition in naming: Festival Festival!).
Pistahan could not have chosen a better Grand Marshall to represent the best of Filipinos and Americans. Filipino-born Major General Taguba served in the United States Army for over 30 years and became one of the highest ranking Filipino-Americans in the U.S. military. Then his career came to a dead end thanks to his hard-hitting investigation of the Abu-Ghraib scandal. Remember that little gem of American military behavior? Because Taguba’s report on the torture and humiliation of prisoners at the hands of American soldiers was comprehensive, thorough and honest, he was ostracized by many of his peers, relegated to a paper-pushing job and basically forced to retire.
After his report was publicized, Taguba rarely gave interviews and only recently began to really speak out. In this June 2007 New Yorker article, Taguba sums up his feelings on Abu-Ghraib:
“From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service, and yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”
So to recap: not only did Taguba sacrifice his personal safety by serving in the military, in the end he essentially sacrificed his career in order to preserve his integrity. I wonder if his former big boss The Commander in Chief would agree that this represents just a slightly bigger sacrifice than, oh say a couple of phantom months in service and kicking a cocaine and drinking habit…? Why isn’t Taguba running for some kind of office? Oh right, probably integrity.
Antonio Taguba makes me incredibly proud to be Filipino and American. He also makes me wonder, why aren’t those leaders (not just the digital-camera-happy soldiers) being held responsible? The New Yorker piece is a worthwhile read, and you can also learn more about Taguba and his report here, here and here.
As we know, ISPs in the U.S. are generally not held accountable for individual bloggers’ content. In China, they are.
An article posted today reports the strong movement by the Communist regime “encouraging” bloggers to use their real names and register their identities. Considering the government initially proposed a complete ban on anonymous blogging, this represents… quite an extraordinary show of benevolence from the Chinese.
Even though Chinese bloggers may still post anonymously, their internet service providers are responsible for the contents of the blogs and will be punished for any materials “deemed pornographic or a threat to Communist rule.” Since no ISP wants to get in trouble with the Communists and the regulation/censorship is private with no form of due process, these ISPs will delete anything and everything that holds any chance of inciting the government’s wrath. These ISPs erring on the safe side means free speech and dissent is stifled to death. Quite literally.
China can take any measures it wants to boost its economy or fortify its military, but if its government continues to turn a blind eye on civil liberties, China will never surpass America or any other developed nation as a world power. China better wise up soon because we here at 8A are getting a little sick of talking about all the atrocities going on over there.
On that note, I’ve been told 8Asians.com is banned in China. If you ask me, that means we’re doing something right.
Today would be the first time I ever came across Ms. Tila Tequila or, more specifically, her music video “I Love You,” embedded herein for your convenient viewing, but be advised it may not be office friendly. Since “Tila Tequila” sounds a bit too porn-starry for me to repeat throughout this post, I will refer to her as Ms. Nguyen.
She’s one firecracker of a young woman with sex appeal bursting from her… um, ::clears throat:: just watch the video. Expressing verbatim the prurient thoughts running in my head right now would render this blog X-rated, or worse. I just love her! Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Muhammad Ali? No! Tila!! That phrase instantly sums up my image of Ms. Nguyen: a lethal self-possessed bombshell who has enough humor to laugh at herself and the audacity to turn a MySpace profile and a few YouTube vlogs into a potent, immensely marketable force majeure.
Since this blog’s very first post was based off a link to the TV Show Survivor, I’d be a fool not to say something – anything – about the newest season of Survivor: China, filmed in Jiangxi province, where my dad’s side of the family is originally from. (Apparently, they only filmed 24 miles away from the local capital, but if the guy on Man vs. Wild can spend the night in a posh hotel room after squeezing elephant dung into his mouth, I’m not going to judge about this Survivor’s “remoteness.”)
My thoughts about some of the Asian-American contestants and the logo, after the jump.
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I’ll get right to my point. The single most important issue our community faces today: Unity.
Ironically, where non-Asians view us as one homogenous mob of exotic, stoic, and hard-working brown and yellow people, we differentiate ourselves into countless coteries by geography, clan origins, skintone (light vs. dark), Westernized vs. Asian natives, inner-city vs. suburbanite, socioeconomic classes, and by political factions. Differences between us impress upon our attitudes so heavily that Asians discriminate against other Asians much more so than non-Asians discriminate against Asians. This leads many to throw their hands up at the idea of Asian unity and say, “It cannot be done.”
Well, it has to be done. And we can start by each taking 5 baby steps in a positive direction: (1.) Avoid disparaging one another, in jest or in rant, (2) Give one another the benefit of our doubt, (3.) Do not inherit our parents’ ethnic prejudices, (4.) Join national Asian-interest associations or networks, and (5.) Volunteer at an Asian-interest non-profit organization.
I came across an article, where a couple in China wants to name their son @. You read correctly, @, which prounounced in Mandarin is “ai ta” and translated in English means “love him”. It turns out that the deputy chief of the State Language Commission, turned down their request, saying
…the name was an extreme example of people’s increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialization and the Internet break down conventions.
I shouldn’t be one to talk. I’ve had the name Genghis all my life. It’s served me well, and most people give me compliments for being named after a Mongolian barbarian. “That’s such a strong and powerful name” except of course when it’s butchered at your local Starbucks. The barrista calls my order, “Iced Grande Vanilla latte for Gingivitis”. I flee to a corner and wait a few minutes to pick up my latte as to not draw more embarrassment. I suppose @ would have a difficult time at Starbucks too.
“Hi, I’d like to order an Iced grande vanilla latte.”
“What’s your name?”, the cashier replies.
“@.”
“How do you spell it?”
“@ like the symbol in your email address.”
A hush falls over Starbucks, the music stops. The cashier looks at @ in confusion.
“Nevermind, the name’s Ed.”
When I first read the headline from MSNBC, China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation, I shook my head in disbelief. Well disbelief because I don’t believe in Buddhism, and also China’s law bans Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. Now why the hell would China pass a law controlling reincarnation. It seems absurd and trite at first, but when you think about the law, it boils down to control.
The Dalai Lama has been Tibet’s banned spiritual leader, and at the age of 72, he will soon be departing to reincarnate into someone else. If he happens to reincarnate in Tibet without China’s permission, he’s SOL. That Chinese government is one tricky SOB.
Assuming he’s able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks.
In honor of this week being “Let’s embed YouTube video on 8Asians.com,” I bring you this video of Marié Digby.
If the song sounds familar, it’s because it’s a cover of Rhianna’s “Umbrella,” the song that’s currently played to death on every Top 40 radio station in America. If Marié Digby’s version sounds familiar, it might be because you heard it on MTV’s “The Hills.” Marié, pronounced MAR-ee-ay is part-Japanese and is one of the many people to gain notoriety producing videos on YouTube, although from her bio, she’s not a music amateur.
No other reason for posting this besides the fact that I finally found a version of “Umbrella” that I wouldn’t mind hearing in the car, like, 150 times a day.
I couldn’t resist not posting this. First, there was Why Asian Girls Go For White Guys, then there was a response.
Now, here’s the flip side: Why can’t Asian guys get white girls?
This totally awesome and totally hilarious response comes from Philip Wang and his Wong Fu Productions. Nice job guys!
So why do you think Asian guys can’t get white girls?
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