This is BREAKING NEWS, people. We’ve heard all about how hard Asians work–sometimes to the death–but no one has bothered to figure out how we do it!
Wait, how do we do it? Easy.
TWINS.
See, it works like this: you basically rope your identical twin into working the same exact job as you without telling anyone, share opposite hours and voila, the whole world thinks you’re a work-a-holic robot. It also helps if you and your twin are married to a pair of identical twins, too. Alright, so most of us don’t have the luxury of being a twin but a pair of twin couples in China made this work.
Customers dubbed the pair the “robot couple” because of their marathon hours, which involved opening the restaurant at 6am and apparently still being there to close it up at 3am.
But it has now emerged that the restaurant in the city of Yiwu in eastern China is actually run by two couples – and both the men and the women are identical twins.
Read more here.
Now that’s what I call a brilliant work ethic. So who wants to be my twin right now so I can go home and nap?
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While walking through Chinatown last weekend, my friend stopped at a poster and said, “Look, the Beijing Olympic mascots.” She pointed at each one and said its name– “Bei, Jing, Huan, Ying, Ni–” and explained that when you read their names together, they make the phrase “Beijing Welcomes You.”
“That one’s the best,” I said, pointing at the panda.
So I was embarrassed to learn from a Wall Street Journal article that Han Meilin, the designer of the mascots, likes Jing the Panda the least. He originally wanted the mascots to simply represent the traditional Chinese elements of fire, wood, water, gold and earth. Then the Olympics committee made him turn them into animals, one of which had to be a panda.
The article about the 2008 Olympics mascots says that the Fuwa (the collective name for the five mascots) might be the next in a long line of unpopular mascots. Much of the criticism seems to be around the ambiguity of the mascots, because they look like they could be animals, aliens, or children- or some mix thereof. The author of the article quotes a sports blogger who said, “Why do the Olympic mascots have to look like some mutant Pokemon / Telletubbie thing? What’s wrong with a bull dog or a cougar or a sweat shop worker for a mascot?”
What’s wrong with that is that those are American sensibilities (and the sweatshop comment is obviously offensive and incendiary). If you look at the slideshow history of Olympic mascots, you can see that there is a different aesthetic going on, depending on the host country. And next to their hilariously deficient precedents, the Fuwa are really not that bad.
Their name, Fuwa, means “good luck dolls.” The alternative would have been to call them “The Friendlies.” In English. As for their individual names, if you know how to say Welcome to Beijing in Chinese, then you will remember them. Or if you learn their names, you will learn how to say Welcome to Beijing in Chinese. How cool is that?
The panda is a cliché and overused, but for a world event it’s okay and even advisable to include something globally recognized and loved. Apparently one of them might have been “an anthropomorphic rattle drum” (i.e., a human-looking drum). And they aren’t aliens– they have Asian eyes. Two of them do, anyway. Okay, they kind of look like aliens. It’s because they have dark beady eyes and pale faces. This is probably because they had to match the panda, to make them look like a set. Damn panda. But at any rate, why do they have to be something? We never knew what Goofy was and we liked him anyway. They can just be creatures, they don’t have to be anything in particular. They can be a melange of things.
In fact they do a good job of balancing and incorporating many aesthetics and symbolic elements at once. Note, in order: Bei, Jing, Huan, Ying, and Ni. A fish, a panda, the Olympic flame, a Tibetan antelope, and a swallow. Sea, forest, fire, earth and sky. Swimmer, all around athlete, ball games player, runner, and gymnast. And last but not least, the Olympic colors: blue, black, red, yellow, and green.
So you can pick your favorite sport/ color/ earth element/ animal. Hopefully those intersect in one of the Fuwu. Except, of course, those favorites aren’t going to line up so you have to prioritize. What’s more important, your favorite color or your favorite animal? It’s typical modern day multiple choice madness. Better just get the panda.
Shopping With GASP!
Carlos Garcia, second from right, is president of the Asia Club at Lincoln High School. He is with his Cabinet members during a lunch-hour meeting. Source: LA Times.
“Why do Asian students generally get higher marks than Latinos?” – this is a question that a Los Angeles Times reporter asks a group of eight Asian and Latino students, some teachers, administrators and parents of students of a Lincoln High School in Los Angeles (Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Chinatown.) Lincoln High has about 2,500 students, where both the neighborhood and student body are about 15% Asian. But “as stereotypically usual,” Asians make up 50% of students taking Advanced Placement classes, 90% of the Academic Decathlon team is Asian.
Based on census data, the academic differences don’t appear to be due to economic differences – 84% of the Asian and Latino families in the Lincoln High area have median annual household incomes below $50,000. Basically, the primary reason that is distilled from this informal conversation was unsurprisingly (at least to me), parental expectations as well as peer expectations:
“Many factors influence academic performance: class size, poverty, and school and neighborhood resources. But as the discussions at Lincoln show, expectations loom large… Frank D. Bean, a professor of sociology at UC Irvine’s Center for Research on Immigration, Population and Public Policy, has studied the Mexican work ethic and found that work and education occupy the same pedestal, and in some cases, work is even more valued. “Latino and Asian families in Lincoln Heights were essentially in the same socioeconomic boat, she [UCLA sociology professor Min Zhou] said, but Asian immigrants were more likely to have been more affluent and had better education opportunities in their native countries.”
Now this makes a lot of sense to me, since historically, education has been highly valued in Asian societies. Sadly, especially living in California in Silicon Valley, I really do not know really any Latinos or much about Latino culture. So I don’t know if the comments regarding work vs. education’s value in the Latino community are true.
The article goes on about how teachers give Asian students the benefit-of-the-doubt in a lot of cases, from things like not being as strict with Asian students without hall passes versus Latinos – as well as teachers not necessarily encouraging Latinos to take Advanced Placement courses.
I had read about potential controversy that the animated film (which I have yet to see), Kung Fu Panda, might have in China, taking a Chinese cultural icon and commercializing it into an American film. Well, Kung Fu Panda was released in China recently – and guess what? it’s a hit. Now some Chinese are asking themselves, “Why can’t we make such popular films?” as reported in The New York Times’ “The Panda That Roared“:
“A few weeks ago, when the movie opened in China, there was already a call for a boycott — on the grounds that foreigners had lifted one of China’s most precious symbols, the panda, and were using it for their own profit. The boycott never got off the ground, and “Kung Fu Panda” was an immediate box office hit. In the last few weeks the movie has provoked a deeper discussion, even a degree of soul-searching and critical self-examination of the sort that China, which has an amazing mix of ambition, self-confidence and insecurity, goes through from time to time. The main question being asked is: How could Western filmmakers have used Chinese themes to create such a brilliant animated movie with such widespread appeal to the Chinese themselves? Why, in other words, doesn’t China itself seem to be able to use its rich traditions to such brilliant cinematic and commercial effect?”"
Some of the reasons are that China doesn’t have as big or historically strong animation market and industry like the United States. However, the broader questions brought up by some Chinese is the constrictive atmosphere of cultural and artistic freedom that China doesn’t enjoy. That’s not necessarily a surprise. I’m sure that in America, we take for granted our freedom of speech which leads to quite an atmosphere of freedom of expression and creativity.
About the author: KG Lew is a half Chinese, half French entrepreneur from Montreal, Canada. If you would like to learn more about him and how he makes a living online, feel free to check out his Internet Marketing blog at www.oneyearmillionaire.net.
“All Asians are Good at Math!”, “All African-Americans are Good at Basketball!”, “All Irish people like to get Drunk!”. Does this bother anyone? These kind of statements are stereotypes and while it may seem harmless; it does effect the way people think. Let’s take a look at a prime example.
I must admit that it does seem like a lot of Asian Americans/Canadians do excel at Mathematics and Science; however, it doesn’t mean that every single person of Asian descent should fall under that category.
Let me zoom back to my 9th grade math class. Anyone who has gotten through College or University will know that the whole concept of High School is a joke! The way I look at it… it’s just a way to kill some time while kids learn for themselves how to finally be mature. The funny part is that most of them will never finish that task. The teacher I had that year did nothing but ramble and had a pretty thick accent. It was frequently hard to understand what he was saying. Eventually, you don’t even bother paying attention anymore because you know that it won’t make a difference. That moment is when he called on me.. “What is the answer to this problem young man?” I looked up from my desk that I was practically sleeping on. “I don’t know.” The next few words that slipped out of my teacher’s mouth should have gotten him fired. He replied.. “I thought Asians are supposed to be good at Math.”
This kind of thinking will bring us back to the stone ages. You would think that western culture is moving forward, but there is always a few people who ruin it for the rest of us. My solution to that complex equation is to just ignore them and live my own life.
My relationship with numbers is very simple. I have a pair of hands (Yes, two of them!) and a calculator. Any addition or subtraction that needs to be done can be queued up on a handy electronic device! I am obviously capable of doing small mental calculations in my head, but when you start adding two Decimal Places, Compound Fractions, a little bit of Trigonometry and Algebraic Formulas – I might not be able to string together a logical answer in under 20 seconds!
It all comes back to a silly argument that I must have heard a thousand times. “Am I really going to use this in the future?” A question from an annoyed student aimed at a teacher who couldn’t care less about the future of the kids in his/her classroom. When it really comes down to it, does my lack of mathematic abilities really change my life that much? Not really. Today, I consider myself successful. I have a great career in Internet Marketing; spending less than 10 hours a week doing work, while I have all the time in the world to do the things I enjoy most!
At the end of the day: a Stereotype is a Stereotype. A little thing that bothers me shouldn’t become a road block. Meanwhile, I’ll just whip out my trusty calculator and add up my weekly earnings! 
Do you Asian Americans suffer from stereotypes in the business world? Of course we do. I think so, even if it is subtle. After attending business school, I joined a Silicon Valley software company as a product manager and attended a lot of trade shows during my first year (just as the tech boom became a bust). Inevitably, people would ask me at the show booth or in meetings, if I was an engineer on the product and I would have to correct their presumption that I was in fact, a product manager (though I did used to be a mechanical design engineer in the aerospace industry.) I found this an odd question, since most companies did not bring any engineers to any of the trade shows (business travel was something new to me prior to becoming a product manager). Quiet, non-confrontational, back office software engineers is what I think most Silicon Valley folks perceive Asian Americans to be. But we can and are much more – but may be brainwashed to think otherwise. I’ve blogged before about the an Asian glass ceiling.
I came across this interesting study last week in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, “The White standard: Racial bias in leader categorization” as announced in this Duke University News release: Study: Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White:
“The participants consistently assumed the leaders to be white when the race was not disclosed, even when the racial composition of the existing leaders in the organizations were described as 80 percent African American, 80 percent Hispanic American or 80 percent Asian American. Yet, this same presumption of “whiteness” was not observed when the participants assessed non-leaders…The researchers found no relation between the study participants’ race and their impressions of the leaders’ race. Participants who identified themselves as racial minorities assumed the leader to be white as often as the white participants. In experiments where the leader’s race was identified, white leaders were evaluated to be a better match with traditional leader expectations, such as successful performances, than were racial minorities. Participants who were told that a leader was responsible for the organization’s success and then asked to rate that leader’s effectiveness judged white leaders to be more effective than minority leaders who had achieved the same level of success. “Our results challenge a common explanation for racial bias –- that people who are white give preferential treatment to other people who are white,” Leonardelli said. “Our finding that Americans of all races associate successful leadership with being white demonstrates just how embedded this bias can be.”"
Even minorities assumed that leaders were white and judged them to perform better than non-white leaders.
Released in the US under the name Cyber Wars
Written by a Star Trek: The Next Generation writer and producer, this film has a Matrix quality about it but the acting reminds you a little of a better version of those late-night television movies and there are some holes in the plot line that makes you wonder if it’ll ever be resolved. Most of it was pretty predictable, but it was still enjoyable. So if you’re bored a Sunday afternoon and was looking for one of those sci-fi futuristic 1984 type scenarios, then Avatar might suit that desire nicely.
You know a good comedy when you laugh right through it —and afterwards when someone asks, “What it was about?” you say, “Oh I don’t know. It was just about this guy. He was trying to play ping pong.”
Just go see it.
Okay, fine. This guy- his name is Christopher Wang. He calls himself “C-dub.” Other people pronounce his last name with a twang. And he corrects them, “Wahh-ng. Wong.” He’s into basketball, but he isn’t good at it. His older brother is perfect, and his parents are focused on making their living- as proprietors of the local ping pong store. Everyone has a role in this- Mr. Wang runs the store, Mrs. Wang teaches a ping pong class at Chinese school that brings in business, and first-born Michael brings it in by being the dashing model son– handsome, smiling, agreeable to all- and a doctor, of course. And most importantly, a local celebrity as the area ping pong champion.
Chris, meanwhile, is in his own world, full of ideas and low on reality. He’s a slacker, talker, and dreamer. When his mother and brother are injured in an accident, he must rise to fill the roles of both ping pong teacher and champion. Can he elevate ping pong in the name of his family, for Chinese people, and most of all, himself?
Also involved are kids from Chinese school, a girl to impress, and short shorts.
Ping Pong Playa screened last weekend at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, and will be playing in selected theaters starting in Los Angeles on September 5th.
Director: Jessica Yu
Cast: Jimmy Tsai, Roger Fang
Source: New York Times. Arnold Kim, founder and senior editor of MacRumors.com.
When I first began to read this New York Times article, “My Son, the Blogger: An M.D. Trades Medicine for Apple Rumors” about Arnold Kim’s site, MacRumors.com, I thought, “Wow, this has got to be Arnold’s parents worst nightmare.”:
“For eight years, Arnold Kim has been trading gossip, rumor and facts about Apple, the notoriously secretive computer company, on his Web site, MacRumors.com. It had been a hobby — albeit a time-consuming one — while Dr. Kim earned his medical degree. He kept at it as he completed his medical training and began diagnosing patients’ kidney problems. Dr. Kim’s Web site now attracts more than 4.4 million people and 40 million page views a month, according to Quantcast, making it one of the most popular technology Web sites. It is enough to make Dr. Kim hang up his stethoscope. This month he stopped practicing medicine and started blogging full time.”
Kim makes a six figure income blogging, with advertising with Google AdSense and by major advertisers like Verizon, Audible.com and CDW. Kim decided to give up his medical career because he thought he could make more money blogging. Kim also recently became a father, so being a stay-at-home dad had a lot of appeal. I am sure that Dr. Kim could always eventually go back to practicing medicine, right?
As for what do his parents think of him giving up his medical career? I was surprised to read that:
“When he told his father, also a doctor, about the decision, Dr. Kim was pleased that “he was very supportive of it, which was sort of surprising to me.”"
Wow, that is pretty amazing IMHO, especially for an Asian parent who is a doctor as well. What would your parents think about you giving up your day job to blog? I guess if you are already making a good six figure income by blogging, there is less worry. 8Asians needs to only increase its web traffic about 1,000X more to match Dr. Kim . Then we would have to split the revenues amongst the bloggers…
For those who need the subtitles, he says it’s, “August in Kansas City, is hotter than two rats in a fu&$*ng wool sock.”
I thought Ichiro was cute before I saw this video, but now I think I’m smitten.
It’s a classic part of the Asian American experience — a cliché, really — to be considered un-American while in America. Since we’re not white, we must not be American, and therefore the color of our skin invites the question: “So where are you from?” or the comment: “Your English is very, very good!” And for better or worse, I don’t get bent out of shape over it anymore. For better or worse, I don’t expect the typical white folk to know any better.
However, to encounter the same question and comment in China from the local Chinese absolutely perplexes me. While I speak fluent Mandarin, it’s clear I’m not a native speaker. Thus every single time — not once or twice; I’m talking about a 100% phenomenon here — I talk to a stranger in China, I get asked the question, “Where are you from?” If I say America or refer to myself as American, the stranger looks at me like I’m lying through my teeth and I get asked again, “No, where are you really from?” In the event that I insist I’m American by virtue of being born and raised there, the stranger then asks me, “Well then where are your parents from?” When I say Taiwan, they smile and remark, “Ah, so you’re Chinese.” No I’m not, but better to not get into a political debate over Taiwan’s independence in mainland China … or you might end up somewhere horrible.
I get a kick out of the way the local Chinese think they know my heritage better than me. They tell me that my homeland is China, not America, not Taiwan, but China. They won’t let the issue rest if I consider America my home or even refer to Taiwan as a place of origin. It’s China. You’re Chinese. Your homeland is China. You’re not coming to China; you’re coming back to China. The locals I talk to never fail to correct my grammar on that point — I’m not coming “to” Zhong Guo, I’m coming “back to” or “returning to” Zhong Guo. If I bother to argue that I have no relatives at all in China, they point out, “Yes you do. You have relatives in Taiwan. That’s China. So you’re Chinese!”
Maybe it’s because neither Yoshi nor I are of Korean descent and therefore immune to this awful, awful way of suffocating, being poisoned, or dying of hypothermia during our sleep, but right now I am counting my blessings.
I confess… I didn’t realize that we had been engaging in something so life threatening… sleeping with a fan on in an enclosed room. That’s right… all these years, we’ve been at risk of South Korean Fan Death!
Did you know that an electric fan can create a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from an enclosed and sealed room and create a partial vacuum inside? An electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe. You might say, “Oh no, Joz. That violates conservation of matter, since indoor fans are not powerful enough to change the air pressure by any significant amount.” But CONSERVATION OF MATTER BE DAMNED! This is scary shit, yo! And the Koreans have brilliantly found a way to prevent Fan Death… a timing mechanism to turn fans off automatically before this happens.
Now, before we go any further, I remember sleeping in my enclosed room as a kid with a Taiwanese fan with a timer. My parents always told me to use the timer function so the fan would shut off at night. I always thought it was because they wanted to conserve energy and because they didn’t want to have to get up in the middle of the night to turn the fan off in my room, but maybe the Taiwanese were less informed about the dangers of Fan Death. Or maybe my parents didn’t want to scare me.
Regardless, I always loved the timer of my because I remember I would indeed get cold if I left it on all night. So maybe the Koreans know something I didn’t know then about how fans contribute to hypothermia (abnormally low body temperature). They say that a fan is left on all night in a sealed and enclosed room, it will lower the temperature of the room to the point that it can cause hypothermia. Maybe that’s because South Korean government cares more about its people than does ours; I’ve never heard of any U.S. government-issued warnings about this!
The Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB), a South Korean government-funded public agency, issued a consumer safety alert in 2006 warning that “asphyxiation from electric fans and air conditioners” was among South Korea’s five most common seasonal summer accidents or injuries, according to data they collected. According to the KCPB:
“If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes bodies to lose water and [causes] hypothermia. If directly in contact with [air current from] a fan, this could lead to death from [the] increase of carbon dioxide saturation concentration and decrease of oxygen concentration. The risks are higher for the elderly and patients with respiratory problems. From 2003 [to] 2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated and doors should be left open.”
SEE?!?!?! They warn their consumers that using a fan in a sealed room could also contribute to prolonged asphyxiation due to environmental oxygen displacement or carbon dioxide intoxication!
Damn those electric fans are tricky! So many different ways it could kill us in our sleep!
“Oh, but Joz…” you say. “This is ridiculous. I’ve never heard of anything like this every being reported.”
Well, maybe that’s because your sources of information might be too limited and excludes South Korean mainstream news. Fan death is accepted by many Korean medical professionals and in summer, mainstream Korean news sources regularly report on cases of fan death.
For instance, the July 28, 1997 edition of the Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper reported:
The heat wave which has encompassed Korea for about a week, has generated various heat-related accidents and deaths. At least 10 people died from the effects of electric fans which can remove oxygen from the air and lower body temperatures…
On Friday in eastern Seoul, a 16-year-old girl died from suffocation after she fell asleep in her room with an electric fan in motion. The death toll from fan-related incidents reached 10 during the past week. Medical experts say that this type of death occurs when one is exposed to electric fan breezes for long hours in a sealed area. “Excessive exposure to such a condition lowers one’s temperature and hampers blood circulation. And it eventually leads to the paralysis of heart and lungs,” says a medical expert.
“To prevent such an accident, one should keep the windows open and not expose oneself directly to fan air,” he advised.
Now, to be fair, this phenomenon is virtually unheard of outside of Korea. Locals claim Koreans are uniquely vulnerable due to a peculiarity either of their own physiology or of Korean fans. Maybe that’s why only Korean fans come with this warning:
Lucky for us, we have cheated death in a several of ways… not only are we not Korean and none of our fans are made in Korea (yay for Made in China, for once!), we also now have a window fan which blows outside air in!
Now I can say that blogging has officially (potentially) saved our lives since my friend Chris posted about this, warning me about the dangers of Fan Death. In his words, “God only knows how many times I have very narrowly escaped those hungry jaws of death that circulate air through my hot bedroom on summer nights. Just think, if I had closed my window before going to sleep, I wouldn’t be here posting this today! I count myself blessed. Shudder to think of the horrible deaths others have endured when their friendly household fan ‘chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe’–how horrible!”
Yes, indeed, Chris. I feel what you’re feeling right now.
So in the spirit of paying it forward, I’d like to take this moment to remind you, BEWARE OF THE DEATH FAN!
And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.*
*Hmm, inappropriate to reference GI Joe? Oh well.
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