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.
Subscribe to our mailing list
Get the day's stories from 8Asians.com, delivered to your inbox every evening at 6:00pm PST.
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.
Shopping With GASP!
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. Continue Reading »
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…)
Ten Filipino nurses face criminal charges for quitting their jobs on grounds of conspiracy and child endangerment. Prosecutors allegedly claim the nurses jeopardized the lives of several terminally ill children they were in charge of watching. For months the nurses complained they were subject to demeaning and unfair working conditions. So on April 7th, 2006 the nurses quit their jobs without notice. Prosecutors say they left children on ventilators at the Avalon Gardens, in Smithstown, New York. However the defense claims that one of the nurses stayed on four hours longer than they were supposed to, in order to watch the children.
Thousands of Filipino immigrants work and study hard to become nurses in the United States, and most leave for the United States to earn more money. Some are doctors in the Philippines that leave to become nurses in search of better pay. There has been a nursing shortage in the US for a while now. And many Filipino nurses who come to the US help fill these important roles.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this story just yet. I understand and feel the difficulty for these nurses who came to work here, but I am somewhat perplexed at what they expected when they took the jobs. I’d probably like to learn more about their specific experiences at that hospital before I pass judgment. Being a nurse is an extremely difficult job, and I know that there are times when you have to do things beyond your pay grade or your duties, because it involves another person’s life. Is this a racial question? Were these nurses discriminated against because they were Filipino? Or is this something where the nurses expectations of a better life were diluted when they realized how difficult the actual job was. What do you think?
Last week, The Wall Street Journal wrote “In China, Grass-Roots Groups Stretch Limits on Activism,” describing the plight of Ma Chen and her autistic daughter. With much effort, Ma Chen has tried to start and expand her school for autistic children. However, there are limits to nongovernmental organizations in China:
“Independent centers of power, such as charities and advocacy groups, have begun popping up here in response to social problems. Beijing is gradually permitting nongovernmental organizations, but it restricts their scope. The country’s leadership worries that too much civil society could stir up conflict, challenge its grip and put at risk the stability that has underpinned 25 years of fast economic growth…Ms. Ma, however, began to tap into China’s new prosperity. The country’s economic rise has created tremendous wealth, but few outlets for charity. A handful of official charities exist, but are widely seen as arms of the government and excite little passion. Without a legal framework to allow private charities, philanthropy in China has been stunted…Ms. Ma’s group would like to tap more efficiently into China’s growing wealth. It hopes to set up a foundation where donations could be tax-free — an important incentive because China is starting to tax the wealthy. For now, a lack of legislation makes this impossible, although China’s parliament may take up a charities law at its annual session in March. It shelved a draft bill at the 2006 session.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s need for control to maintain its own power and its quest to maintain social stability is at odds with, I believe, the natural evolution of a growing modern economy and civil society.
The article does also a good job of describing the eventual recognition by the Chinese government that “disabilities like autism were long ignored or considered taboo.” And how “According to traditional views, birth defects were a sign that parents hadn’t lived a virtuous life. Some mentally disabled people found work in the fields, but often were shut in to spare the clan a loss of face.” But China now recognizes autism as a medical issue.
I’ll admit, I’m fairly out of the loop when it comes to North American television, however, Apprentice Series 6 runner up, James Sun recently taped what he calls an Asian Pop Culture show, K POP.
K … several things jump out at me.
1 – On his blog he says it’s an Asian Pop Culture show – it’s called K POP: The Korean Wave – A closer look into Korean pop culture. This is where I will shameless plug my podcast POP 88 which truly IS an Asian Pop Culture show inclusive of things, Japanese, Chinese AND Korean. My pronunciation may be a tad mangled, but I claim to be no expert.
2 – Apart from the title, I really have no idea what the show is about, or what I’m to expect in terms of content. Sure the trailer looks really flashy in its MTV-style camera work and upbeat track, but how many times have we been duped paying for a movie ticket only to find out the best bits were in the trailer? So far I see bits of interview segments with singers and dancers, the club scene and a shot of an actress eating – groundbreaking.
3 – The caption for girl group SeeYa went out as CIA, which tells me, whomever is putting this together, doesn’t really know much about Korean pop culture to even get that right. It was written on their album … in English.
4 – While attractive, seemingly bright with an A-type personality that hits you like a ton of bricks, James Sun, talks a really huge game. I do think he’s an excellent businessman – but as a host/ reporter? I suppose anything is better than the over explanation of Arirang Showbiz Extra.
Of course, these are the things that immediately jump out at me and I do know how hard it is to produce decent programming especially for such a niche market. I’ll wait till the third episode.
File this one under AWESOME. Researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology unveiled a robot suit designed to assist farmers reduce the effort of their backbreaking work.
Researchers hope to have the technology in use in 2 years and develop it into a product and begin selling it in four years.
The suit, which is secured with belts, consists of a resin framework with eight motors to assist the movements of the knees, elbows, lower back and shoulders, making farm work easier.
When pulling out a Japanese radish, for example, about 20 kilograms [44 lbs.] of instantaneous pressure is exerted on the knees and lower back, but when using the robot suit, only about half the force is used.
This is one ingenious way to deal with the issue of farm labor. While we in America engage in a heated, racially charged dialogue about illegal immigration, the Japanese just create robots (or at least suits) that do the work for us.
Aaah, the fortune cookie. They either have embarrassing fake Confucian quotes or lottery numbers. Along with chop suey or crab rangoons, they’re usually the dishes where I can yell at my white friends about Chinese food that isn’t really Chinese.* “Oh, you know they don’t serve fortune cookies in China, right?” I would tell my friends with an air or snobbery. “They were actually thought up in a factory in San Francisco. They’re not even served in China!” And then my friends would try to smack the smug out of me.
Looks I was wrong, folks. While fortune cookies aren’t served in restaurants in China, this New York Times article reveals that a researcher has traced the fortune cookie’s origins to Japan:
Ms. Nakamachi, who has long had an interest in the history of sweets and snacks, saw her first fortune cookie in the 1980s in a New York City Chinese restaurant. At that time she was merely impressed with Chinese ingenuity, finding the cookies an amusing and clever idea.
It was only in the late 1990s, outside Kyoto near one of the most popular Shinto shrines in Japan, that she saw that familiar shape at a family bakery called Sohonke Hogyokudo.
“These were exactly like fortune cookies,” she said. “They were shaped exactly the same and there were fortunes.”
As to how the fortune cookie made the jump from Japanese food to Chinese food, it turns out that during the 20′s and 30′s, a number of Japanese immigrants in California owned chop suey restaurants, which served Americanized Chinese cuisine. Now that a lot of Japanese restaurants in the Bay Area are owned by Taiwanese people, I wonder if they’ll start serving pearl milk teas with bento boxes. With fortunes. That end with, “… in bed.”
* Make no mistake though; I DO love me some crab rangoons. I mean, seriously, Cream cheese! Who doesn’t love cream cheese? But while delicious, it’s sure as hell not authentic.
In today’s San Francisco Examiner, the newspaper reports that San Mateo, California resident Yul Kown may run for Congressman Tom Lantos’ open this fall in “‘Survivor alum’ considers run for Lantos’ seat“:
“The 32-year-old registered Democrat said Tuesday that he is not ready to make a public statement, but he has told friends, colleagues and several elected officials he is strongly considering running. If Kwon decides to announce his candidacy, he will be facing former state Sen. Jackie Speier to represent California’s 12th Congressional District, which includes most of San Mateo and part of San Francisco counties. Longtime incumbent Tom Lantos announced earlier this month he would not seek re-election due to cancer of the esophagus. Kwon has never held office but is not without political experience. After graduating from Yale Law School and serving as a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, Kwon served as a legislative aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., drafting sections of the Homeland Security Bill and working on technology-related legislation.”
The article goes on to quote those who he has worked for or with, including Senator Lieberman, Congressman Mike Honda, and his former managers at his old law firm and McKinsey.
As I previously wrote, former State Senator Jackie Speier has incredible name recognition and backing by elected and registered Democrats in the San Francisco Bay Area, so a run by Kwon will be quite a challenge. But with so few Asian-Americans involved in politics in America, let alone in California (of all places!), I hope Kwon considers running despite the formidable odds. Kwon could be the new face of politics for Asian-Americans, and down the road, our next Barack Obama – helping to break down racial barriers (of course, Obama did start off in the Illinois state legislature before going to Washington, D.C.)…
Remember Kenneth Eng, the deranged kid who wrote the article, “Why I Hate Blacks”? (Now there’s someone who’s 24 cans short a case of beer.) I thought of him when I read this article by Robin Zhou the other day, entitled: “Latinos Lag Behind in Academics“.
Now, Zhou’s article isn’t as blatantly hateful and racist as Eng’s, but the same level of cultural stereotyping and ignorance is there. His central theme is that Latino parents are “less active” than Asian parents in “[pushing] their children to move toward academic success”. Therefore, “while few Hispanic students enter the honors track, culturally influenced lack of preparation, not prejudice, is to blame” for “the Hispanic student population as a whole [lagging] behind its Asian counterpart.”
Wow, yikes. He’s a few fries short a happy meal it seems.
A friend forwarded me this article and actually knew him back in high school, where he published this paper. (Oops: I mistakenly referred to Robin as a “she,” but I had misheard my friend and Robin’s really a “he.” My bad.) His description of Robin struck me as a revealing peek into the mind of someone who’d write an article like this.
“I’d describe him as an over-achiever,” he said. “Straight A’s, very studious.”
“Shy and introverted?” I asked.
“Nope. Very extroverted. Very involved. But I never saw him hanging around with any Latino students. I think all of his friends were Asian.”
“Was he born here?”
“Yup, an ABC. First generation. After his article was published, the LA Times picked it up and there was a huge uproar in the community, especially from Latino parents.”
“Did he apologize for what he wrote?”
“Nope. He just said that next time, he’d keep his thoughts to herself.”
“So he didn’t feel bad for what he wrote? He didn’t see anything wrong with it?”
“Nope on both.”
Stereotyping is a funny thing, isn’t it? I could argue that every one of us has exhibited some form of stereotyping before. In many ways, it’s a necessary psychological trait. Our minds are built to make generalizations of unfamiliar things, because it’s impossible to know everything out there. It’s a defense mechanism.
For instance, say you see a saber-toothed tiger bite the head off a neighbor. You’re bound to stereotype all other tigers, be they panthers or leopards or cougars, as head-biting animals after that. Rare will be the person who’ll stand there and go, “Well now, this tiger-looking creature doesn’t have orange stripes like the last one. It’s got polka-dots. Same claws though, and fangs and—” CHOMP!
Still, this holdover trait from a previous era isn’t an excuse for an Eng or a Zhou, just as genetics isn’t an excuse to not hire someone based on their ethnicity. I once had a job interview where the interviewer actually said to me, “This position will require a lot of math. But that’s no problem for you since you’re Asian.” Sir, there’s a big fat WTF on line 2 for you.
Ignorance is perhaps a better explanation for Zhou’s article. He’s obviously academically intelligent. So why the arrogance of her assumptions? Why the naivety behind publishing such an article and not realizing its social impact on her peers? Why the broad declarative statements based on purely anecdotal and biased observations of her own? Where’s the data, the socio-economic analyzes, the objective reporting? (Granted, this was high school, but still…) Sadly for him, academic intelligence does not beget social intelligence. He never bothered to look beyond the sample set he made up in her own mind.
“So where there any Latinos in the AP classes there?” I asked.
“There were,” he said.
“And were there any Asian Americans in the remedial classes?” I asked.
“A few.”
I guess those were the ones who weren’t good at math, huh?
I’m not really sure what to write. I just heard that the body found on Mount Tamalpais is indeed Veronica Ruiz’s. She died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, reports SFGate.
I’m conflicted about writing this. Not just because its such a painful subject, but because news reports of suicides can sometimes lead to copycat suicides.
I’ve known friends and acquaintances who’ve had to deal with seemingly insurmountable depression and anxiety before. I know that suicide seems like the easy way out. But there are easier alternatives. There is help; there are people and places you can turn to that will genuinely offer support—even for Asian Americans, where mental health issues and therapeutic care are suppressed.
On behalf of 8Asians.com, our heart goes out to the Ruiz family. You have our deepest condolences.
Custom Search
Recent Posts
- Asian American Commercial Watch: May Is Blooming At JCP
- Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- Winner Of The 2012 “B A Hero” Hepatitis B PSA Video Contest
- Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
- Yes, We’re Open Review & Interview From LAAPFF 2012
- President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
Recent Comments
- : The referenced article interviews and talks with Chinese citizens who say they are reconsidering jobs in the U.S., and that's actually the point of the... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I'm not sure if mr. wang's suicide has any correlation to chinese people in general being more cautious in coming to the US for jobs. wang picked his engineering... – Suicide Prompts Chinese To Reconsider Coming To U.S.
- : I usually think really hard when I decide on who to vote for at each presidential election, but this year is turning out more and... – President Obama At Asian Pacific American Institute For Congressional Studies Annual Gala
- : What about Jerry Sandusky? THAT OLD WHITE GUY IS FUCKING SICK! – Manny Pacquiao, Filipino Homophobia And Masculinity
- : Yeah I have the same feeling. However, I'll watch the first few episodes and hope I can be made into a believer. – The Mindy Project Makes Mindy Kaling Even More Hilarious
APA Events
Oct 14: (Seattle, WA) From Fields to Family: Asian Pacific Americans and Food
Mar 1: (Atlanta, GA) The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
Apr 26: (New York, NY) June 4, 1989: Media and Mobilization Beyond Tiananmen Square
Apr 26: (New York, NY) America through a Chinese Lens
Apr 27: (Seattle, WA) SEX IN SEATTLE 20: HAPPILY EVER AFTER. . . (the series finale!)
May 16: (Seattle, WA) May SpamORama
May 24: (San Jose, CA) Sake San Jose
May 24: (New York, NY) A Conversation with artists Arthur Ou, Hai Zhang, and Julie Quon in Conjunction with America through a Chinese Lens
Staff and Contributors
- Editors
Moye Ishimoto
Co-Editor, Editorial
Jocelyn "Joz" Wang
Co-Editor, PR & APA Outreach
- Founder
Ernie Hsiung
Founder
