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If you didn’t know any better, you’d think 8Asians.com was a blog about Yul Kwon. Winner of Survivor this, possibly running for Government that. Between all that and his refined jaw line, is there anything Yul Kwon CAN’T do?
Open up on a frozen yogurt shop, apparently.
Accordingly to the San Francisco Chronicle, Yul and a couple of his buddies are trying to open up a Red Mango franchise (a copycat of Pinkberry, as previously discussed by John) in the trendy, picturesque North Beach district of San Francisco. Except for one thing: North Beach’s “formula retail” ordinance, which prohibits chain stores from coming into the neighborhood to preserve a “neighborhood’s unique character.”
[Marsha Garland, founder and executive director of the North Beach Chamber of Commerce] found that Red Mango had continued to add franchises in the time since Kwon’s group was granted a building permit. So by now - and even Young admits this - there are more than 11 locations across the country. Case closed, said the North Beach watchdogs.
“They got a permit and started building and then somebody came and pulled the permit,” said Ken Brownell of Blatteis & Schnur real estate, who handled the rental for Kwon’s group. “They’re shocked and I’m shocked.”
Without a permit, Kwon is stuck on Exile Island. His group can’t do any more building and the storefront sits empty, although rent is still due.
“Is this going to be tougher than ‘Survivor’?” asked Young. “Yul’s just going to bleed out all that ‘Survivor’ money.”
Ha ha, an Exile Island reference. He won Survivor. We get it.
Now most of the time, residents try to preserve a “neighborhood’s unique character” by trying to block out Starbucks, McDonalds and Wal-Marts - basically anything that would remind someone of the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area. But Red Mango is a chain that started out in South Korea in 2002, and would give the neighborhood some character, even if it is technically a chain restaurant with 11 stores. Or would it? With a lack of “Korean style” frozen yogurt chains in the Bay Area, why are they opening the chain in North Beach? Why not a similar hip-yet-gentrification-friendly neighborhood like the Mission or the Castro, or a neighborhood with high Asian Americans like the Richmond?
5 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Food & Drink
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No one can argue that India is the outsourcing capital of the world. Unfortunately, the newest “service” to be outsourced raises some pretty prickly moral and ethical issues. The first time I heard about Indian women renting out their wombs as surrogate mothers to wealthy Western couples I thought it was some sort of sick joke…but a quick google search brought me more hits then I could count. India has figured out a way to turn surrogate mothering into an assembly line commodity.
Proponents of India’s womb for hire business argue that no harm is being done because all the surrogate mothers are willing and voluntary human incubators, they receive the finest care whilst carrying the surrogate baby, and they are paid anywhere from $6000 - $10,000 for their role. Many of the women also receive education and financial advise. In a country as ravished with poverty as India, $6000 is more than many rural people can make in a lifetime.
So, if it’s voluntary and the women are treated well, what’s the problem you might ask? Judith Warner suscintly lays out the moral dilemma of the newly popular “Rent-A-Womb” service in this New York Times article.
Because what’s going on in India – where surrogacy is estimated now to be a $445-million-a-year business — feels like a step toward the kind of insane dehumanization that filled the dystopic fantasies of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.” (One “medical tourism” website, PlanetHospital.com, refers to the Indian surrogate mother as a mere “host.”) Images of pregnant women lying in rows, or sitting lined up, belly after belly, for medical exams look like industrial outsourcing pushed to a nightmarish extreme.
There is a reason commercial surrogacy is banned in countries like France and Italy and in many US states (although not all). How different is this service compared to prostitution? Ultimately, in both surrogacy and prostitution the female body is reduced down to nothing more than a gendered shell to provide an entirely physical service. The arguments made by advocates can only be made because of the abject poverty in which most of the surrogate mothers come from. It’s funny how poverty can skew people’s perspective on what is and is not ethical.
So, what do you think? Is this just another example of globalization and industrialization or is this an example of dehumanization at its best?
11 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Observations, WTF
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Tiananmen Square all over again? Not quite.
But after a bicyclist going the same direction as a vehicle collided, the driver demanded not only an apology but also payment including insulting the bicyclist. After having a few choice words and students gathering, there was an interesting commotion that strangely enough ended up with the car being overturned and the windows smashed out by the students.
While the story seems to eeriely ended on good terms for the students, I must say that it seems that the fault does lie within both parties. I also wonder if the lady was someone from the government? No one would flaunt their identification so rashly and tell people that they should be “scared to death.” And with the chancellor of the University promising that the students would not pursued for the acts of protest and that the instigator would be pursued to the extent of the law, you sort of wonder where the fault actually lies.
Good for them to stand up for their own and demand why the driver didn’t have a permit to drive upon campus. While it could have been handled in a more peaceful manner, it’s also very enlightening that the chancellor stood by the students instead of the outsider.
Photo Credit: (Matthew J. Stinson)
No Comments | Posted in: Current Events
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In today’s New York Times, the newspaper goes on to report that “Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular“:
“…Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it. Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere. “Will cellphone novels kill ‘the author’?” a famous literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked on the cover of its January issue. Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books. Critics said the dominance of cellphone novels, with their poor literary quality, would hasten the decline of Japanese literature. Whatever their literary talents, cellphone novelists are racking up the kind of sales that most more experienced, traditional novelists can only dream of.”
If you’ve ever been to Japan, you understand the important role of the cell phone that plays in the day-to-day lives of the Japanese. The ecosystem of services and content is *amazing* and makes the United States look like a 3rd world country. Since I can’t read / write / speak Japanese, I can’t really evaluate the quality of cell phone literature is, but one has to wonder if this is a sign of things to come in the U.S. - maybe we’ll be seeing novels based on Facebook status messages???
5 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Observations
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It was all over the news today that chess legend Bobby Fischer has passed away at age 64 in Iceland. Aside from his chess prowess, Fischer later became known for his anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments, even though his own mother was Jewish.
So what’s the tie to 8Asians?
Since 2000, Fischer had lived in a de facto marriage in Japan to Miyoko Watai, a Japanese women’s chess champion, and the President of the Japanese Chess Association. In 2004, Watai did an interview in an article entitled ‘We want to live together forever’ which described her relationship with Fischer and some insights into their life in Japan. Evidently, Fischer was a fan of “natto” fermented soybeans on boiled “genmai” brown rice and with miso soup.
The article gives insight not only to Bobby’s life in Japan, but also to the mindset of the woman who loved him. It’s quite a fascinating read.
In the end Fischer may be remembered as both a genius and a nut job, but his mark on the world of chess will not be soon forgotten.
RIP, Bobby.
1 Comment | Posted in: Current Events
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This research article, Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites, reports on a research study by Eszter Hargittai in Communication Studies and Sociology at Northwestern University. It finds connections between use of social network sites and a person’s gender, race and ethnicity, and parental educational background.
One difference between this research and previous studies, which allowed them to reveal these patterns, is that it disaggregated users by site. Instead of lumping all social network users together, they separated them into Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, and Friendster. They found striking differences among the sites. For example, Asians and Asian Americans are much more likely to use Xanga and Friendster than Myspace or even Facebook. Sixty-five percent of Asian American social network users are on Xanga, and 94% are on Friendster, versus 31% on Facebook and 21% on Myspace.
Another difference between this study and previous ones is that it surveyed younger people- mainly 18- and 19-year-old college students. So instead of looking at the education level of the users, they look at the education level of their parents. They found that users of Xanga, Facebook and Friendster have more highly educated parents than users of Myspace.
I think there are more interesting facts to be found here, but I’m not sure what they are. I would be curious to know if the answers to the following questions can be found in this article or elsewhere:
What percent of social network users are Asian American?
What percent of people use social networks?
What percent of Asian Americans use Xanga?
What percent of Xanga users are Asian American?
etc.
The most surprising result of this survey to me is that only 30% of Asian-American social network users are on Facebook. I would have thought it would be a lot more.
(Image credit: Crave @ CNET UK)
5 Comments | Posted in: Lifestyles, Observations, Technology
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File this under NOSE BLEED.
Definition (in case you, like Ernie, didn’t get this reference.)
Nose Bleed - characterization in anime of (generally males) getting hot and bothered … and then some.
In a continuing effort to sex up this site, I feel it’s my duty to share with you some noteworthy singers that may or may not have reached your radar. (See: Chae Yeon) Granted, I felt really compelled after listening to Justin Timberlake’s Justified album while running errands with my friend the other day when I remarked, “You know, Asian pop gets a bad rep because while a good portion of it is bad, it’s just as bad as this song.” She replies, “Yeah, I know, it’s sooo cheesy. I love it.” My friend is Greek-Canadian by the way. But, I’ve digressed.
天上智喜 (Tian Shang Zhi Xi - TSZX) aka Tenjochiki aka 천상지희 The Grace (Cheon Sang Ji Hee The Grace) is a four member a cappella group who’ve had varying degrees of success with solo and duo projects before being thrown together in 2005. Together their vocals would be hard to match even by North American standards. Think the live vocals of En Vogue and Destiny’s Child matched with the high energy complex choreography of the Pussycat Dolls.
Their gushing nose bleed of a music video for their Japanese single Piranha after the jump. They’re all over the age of 20 … if that eases your conscience a bit. (Continued)
1 Comment | Posted in: Entertainment, Music
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In Thursday’s San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper reports, on the eve of the premiere of the documentary “Nanking,”the efforts of a group of engineers who started back in 1992 and helped author Iris Chang research her book, in the article “‘Nanking’: How valley engineers raised awareness of ‘forgotten holocaust’”
“Over the years, a handful of organizations struggled to shed more light on the atrocities of Japanese invaders throughout Asia. That hunger finally found its infrastructure in Silicon Valley. More than 15 years ago, employing database software and the nascent power of the Internet, a small group of engineers came together to build a network that eventually reached around the world. “I helped HP build its first relational database,” said Ding, a computer scientist who worked first for IBM, then for Hewlett-Packard. “That’s what we used, too.” But the breakthrough moment came when Chang, a writer who had already begun researching the invasion, found the group in 1994. With their help, she went on to write her book “The Rape of Nanking,” which lingered on the New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks and lofted the tragedy back into the world’s eye…. Early Web sites, wireless communication devices and a laptop-toting membership characterized the group….“Iris used to say that ‘with 10 keyboard clicks, they can reach 345,000 of the most active, committed Chinese-Americans and tell them what was going on,’ ” said Susan Rabiner, Chang’s friend and former editor.
I thought the article did an excellent job of showcasing how individuals coming together to use their respective talents for a common goal uplifting. The article also states a fact that I didn’t really know or comprehend about the Japanese invasion of mainland China and World War II - over 35 million Chinese died (Wikipedia puts the figure at 20 million - in either case - a whole lot of people…)
No Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Entertainment, Observations
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