Harold and Kumar – Escape From Guantanamo Bay opens tomorrow, Friday, April 25th. The original, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, opened almost 4 years ago on July 30, 2004. I remember reluctantly going to see this movie with my brother, who was interested in seeing the film.Personally, from the trailers, I thought this movie was going to be really bad – but much to my surprise, I found it hilarious.
Although the original only did about $18 million in the theaters, the DVD became a cult classic which grossed over $60 million over time, and led to the production of the sequel.
I saw Harold and Kumar 2 during this year’s San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival. I won’t spoil it for you, but definitely let me know what you thought of the movie if you catch it.
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Getting rice for free has always been a given in nearly all the Asian restaurants I’ve been to (except, of course, for the ones that cater more towards white people who had the gall to charge, and meant that I would never go back).
Now, it looks like that’s going to fall by the wayside now that there’s a global shortage of rice and other foods with imported Asian rice prices shooting up by 300%, and Asian countries limiting rice imports in order to feed their own populations. The impact in American cities is already being felt, as noted in a San Jose Mercury News article, as local Costco stores are beginning to ration the number of 50 pound bags of imported Asian rice customers can buy. Domestically grown rice, obviously, isn’t as affected, which explains why it hasn’t affected other groups as hard.
Considering that there are really high rates of diabetes, coronary artery disease, and other food-related chronic diseases in Filipino Americans, this might actually be a blessing in disguise and force people to limit their rice (and calorie) intake. Unless, of course, we start turning to domestically grown rice because it’s cheaper.
Shopping With GASP!
The Chicago Sun-Times reports on “The spin on Chinese laundries,” profiling John Jung, professor emeritus at California State University Long Beach:
“In China, women traditionally did the laundry. But as Chinese men immigrated, they were only allowed to own laundries and, later, restaurants.”
Jung grew up in Macon, Georgia, where his father owned the local laundry and was the only Chinese family in town. Jung recently published “Southern Fried Rice: Life in a Chinese Laundry in the Deep South” and “Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain.” The article reminded me of a recent book I read, “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food” and how the Chinese in America in the
Jung was recently in Chicago speaking at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago in conjunction with the exhibit “From the Great Wall to the Great Lakes.” The exhibit looks looks at occupations open to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century – which you can imagine, were quite limited. Chinese-Americans and Asian-Americans have certainly come a long way from those days!
When I saw this “lucky Dragon” phone. I about dropped my jaw. First three words that came out were: “Are you serious?”
In hindsight, I probably should have gone with “Are you silly-us?” but all jokes aside, this mobile phone was just too outrageous. And anyone that bought this phone based on the fact that it did have anything to do with feng shui would have another thing coming.
The problem I had with this device, is that the designer was trying to tie a Chinese practice, with a technological device and throw in some Chinese cultural items (like the “8″ charm) in there to boot just to make it look fantastic. Except the fact that I don’t see how a bling dragon was actually going to make the phone sit flat, and how it would exactly “activate good chi every time you make or receive a phone call.” Maybe I was on vacation the day the industry was taught how to activate good chi through a cellular device.
In any case, the red phone itself seemed pretty basic, but I’ll take Crave’s word for it since I haven’t actually touched one. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea that it’s only being released as an exclusive item in Malaysia. Maybe it’s just me, but all this red wouldn’t really make me smell any green.
Photo Credit: (Crave Asia)
I have heard and read this many times before – there is not enough experienced managerial talent (and experienced talent in general) for China’s needs. This past weekend’s New York Times article again confirms this in, “China Needs Old Boys With M.B.A.’s:”
“In the West — not to mention Japan and South Korea — management skills are a given. Graduate schools of management churn out M.B.A.’s, while instilling the basic processes and systems that virtually all multinational companies rely on. People who rise to the top of companies are the ones who have mastered the art of management. But there are also many first-rate managers who populate the middle ranks of companies. They are the lifeblood of most big companies. Not so in China. “The shortage of managerial talent is huge,” said Zheng Yu-sheng, the associate dean at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. In the course of my two weeks in China, I heard this refrain constantly — and not just from business school professors… Xiang Bing, dean of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, said: “We Chinese are so willing to work hard for money. We are intelligent. We have the drive and the passion. But we put too much attention on technology and not enough on institution-building. And our soft skills are a real weakness.”"
The irony of this (in my opinion), is that although China regards Taiwan as a renegade province seeking independence, without Taiwanese managerial and technical expertise, and investment, in the 1980′s and 1990′s, China would not be where it is today…
I had sent the New York Times article to a friend of mine, who happens now to be the Director of Global Immersion Programs at The Wharton School of Business (Graduate Division), and she had commented that:
“I remember this same conversation from 2000-2004 when I was visiting Beijing and Shanghai for admissions. So many advertisements on English TV reflecting the extreme shortage of managerial talent and great need for MBA and executive MBA programs. I’m sharing this with a couple of my colleagues who are planning and accompanying an upcoming program in Beijing & Shanghai, as well as HK and Taipei.”
A friend of mine founded ORIENTED.COM, which I have written about in the past. ORIENTED.COM is sort of a “LinkedIn for Asia,” and they try to match opportunties for BMW’s – Bi-lingual, Mid-career, Western-educated/western-trained professionals. For those who have the freedom and interest to work overseas in Asia, I do think there are a lot of opportunities for Asian-Americans who are bi-lingual to truly be limitless. Have any of you found this to be the case – or this is just more media hype?
Tila Tequila’s A Shot At Love 2 debuts tonight on MTV. Discuss. We sure did:
Bo: I think we should become A Shot at Love 2 Headquarters – weekly updates etc… This will surely help drive traffic here.
Efren: But do any of us really care about the show to watch it every week without causing undue harm to ourselves or loved ones?
Bo: I was kinda addicted to the last show… but I think mostly because I thought the lesbian who ended in the final 2 was sort of hot.
Andy: Who’s Tila Tequila? (I keed, I keed…)
Efren: Heh, the final dyke was kinda hot for a butch. But really, were the people who are on the show now really that clueless and seriously think that they’d be able to date her? Or as one person stated on her blog, are they just bigger media whores than Tila? Personally, I’d love to see her with an Asian butch myself, just to see if Tila could handle her…
So, after the Asian American showcase that was America’s Next Dance Crew, a question from Efren: Should we be upset that there’s only one Asian on the show, or just really, really relieved?
Apologies to all the Ken Lees out there… but this was too good not to share.
According to VidJar:
A contestant in the second season of the Bulgarian show “Music Idol” performs Mariah Carey’s song “Without you” in fake English. The contestant’s name is Valentina Hasan, 29 years old. She’s from the village of Zvezdelina, in the Kardzhali Province. Valentina’s married and “Hasan” is her husband’s surname. She currently lives in Spain. This video is not intended for any ethnic tensions or historical debates. It’s just a laugh, so I implore everyone to ignore any irrelevant comments and not to engage in pointless discussions. Go to http://kenleeworld.com/ the international Ken Lee community’s site….
Um, HELLO! Did you know there is a Ken Lee World?!
Valentina later returned to Bulgarian Idol to sing her world-famous song “Ken Lee”… and her English was much improved in that performance.
UPDATE: Thanks to Tony Pierce, this post got linky love from the LA Times blog!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/funny_pages_20/2008/04/move-over-willi.html
Check it out… in addition to the original video, they’ve got one showing Mariah Carey herself on French Idol being forced to watch Valentina’s performance of Ken Lee…
Seen at Joelle’s
I had written earlier in the month on “The [MIT] Tech: Movie ‘21′ Discriminatory Casting Unjustified,” and had some additional thoughts on the movie ’21′ given my recent travels and experiences.
My brother and I were in Boston two weekends ago for my cousin’s wedding. After my cousin’s bowling party on Saturday night in Cambridge, my brother and I dropped by Harvard Square briefly and then headed to MIT, where my brother went (MIT’95, ’97, Course 2/Mechanical Engineering). We saw a poster while walking around the student union and Infinite Corridor advertising: “”Bringing Down “Next House”" – From the original MIT Blackjack Team That inspired Bringing Down the House and 21. NEXT HOUSE DINING HALL Saturday, April 12, 10PM-12AM.”
Next House is my brother’s undergraduate dorm – so we decided to drop by. We wound up going to Next House around 11PM, and the person at the front desk let us in. They weren’t letting anyone into the Next House cafeteria because it was packed to the fire code capacity. But after the “official” talk, they had the presenters at different “blackjack” tables to do some blackjack demos and discussion.
There have been a lot of demonstrations in London, Paris, San Francisco and in other places in the world as the Olympic Torch relay makes its way to its eventual destination in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. As part of the protest against China, specifically for the events regarding Tibet in March, French Prime Minisiter Nicolas Sarkozy will not be attending the Olympic opening ceremonies. As a consequence, The New York Times reported recently that:
“On Friday and Saturday, protesters gathered in front of a half-dozen outlets of the French retailer Carrefour, including a demonstration in the central city of Wuhan that reportedly drew several thousand people, according to Agence France-Presse. On Saturday, about 50 demonstrators carrying banners held a brief rally at the French Embassy here before the police shooed them away… In the past, the government has encouraged nationalistic outbursts and then quashed them when passions grew too inflamed — or when the protests had achieved the political purpose officials envisioned.”
I was just thinking while reading the article, when the Chinese government becomes a bit concerned about nationalistic feelings going a bit overboard, that this reminded me of what happened with the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. Of course, we are nowhere near that situation but thought I’d mentioned it to get your attention. In a country where where not all speech is welcomed, it’s refreshing to see Chinese protesting and expressing their opinions publicly. Though I am wondering why the protests took so long to take place, given that the torch relay in Paris was April 9th… Maybe there will be protests against British and American retailers soon as well?
In today’s Sunday San Jose Mercury News reports, “The China connection – Stanford’s Pan-Asian Festival Focuses Spotlight on Best of Chinese Music, Dance, and Arts.” Artists from the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as ethnic Chinese artists from the Bay Area will be performing. For more information: panasianmusicfestival.stanford.edu
Yesterday in Los Angeles, over 1,000 Chinese/Chinese-Americans protested in front of CNN’s Los Angeles office (as reported in The Los Angeles Times). Why do you ask? Well, if you haven’t been following this brewing “controversy,” CNN’s Jack Cafferty commented on April 9th during the airing of “The Situation Room”:
“We continue to import their [China's] junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export . . . jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
CNN later said Cafferty’s comments were directed at the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. To be honest, being called “goons and thugs” I don’t think is all that constructive, but I don’t think it is as horrible as the protesters have made it seem (China and the Chinese have been called much worse…) But, I do understand the growing concern of the demonization of China. I’ve written before about how this reminds me of the criticisms raised during Japan’s “rise” in the mid-to-late 1980′s.
Certainly, there are many valid concerns regarding a variety of China-related issues, including most recently, Tibet. Obviously, with the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching rapidly, bringing up any China-related issues makes sense to those groups trying to bring visibility to their cause.
If the United States were hosting the Olympics this summer, I am sure there would be plenty of protests of our continued involvement in Iraq, as well as a host of other issues by many different countries, including our many allies. I’m all for free speech and certainly was glad to see other countries and its citizens protesting America’s foreign policy and war mongering prior to Bush’s decision for a preemptive war into Iraq (I’ve *always* been against the war).
| World record breaking Sport Stacker |
A high school friend of mine sent me this link about a local boy in my old hometown. Steven J. Purugganan, 10, of Longmeadow, became the World Record Breaker in Sports Stacking. What the hell is Sports Stacking – take a look!
According to The Springfield Republican article “Cup-stacker, 10, beats all“:
“”Sport Stacking – it really is an international sport – uses 12 special cups that look like ordinary plastic drinking cups. It is what participants do with them that is extraordinary. Competitors stack and unstack the cups in predetermined sequences at speeds so fast that to blink is to miss a large part of the action.”… When Steven and his brothers, Andrew, 16, and Brian, 12, first saw Sport Stacking on ESPN in 2006, they could not get enough of it. “They taped the event, and watched it over and over again,” said their mother, Vicki Purugganan, yesterday. “They tried using plastic cups we had in the house, but they kept sticking together. So, I finally went out and bought them one official set to share.”"
At the World Championship this past month, Steven beat the world’s record. So essentially, Steven started at age 8 as a novice to become a world champion and world record holder in less than two years!
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