This week, Los Angeles is hosting the Governors’ Global Climate Summit with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger playing lead host. The Chinese delegation arrived a day early, so Schwarzenegger thought that it would be wise to entertain the visitors:
“… Lowe arranged, through ABC, to have seven high level Chinese government officials … attend a Monday morning filming of ” Brothers & Sisters” at the Standard hotel downtown … The delegates, who were given their own director’s chairs and headsets, were delighted … “They were so lovely,” said Lowe, who tried to speak Chinese to the delegates by recycling some of his lines from “Wayne’s World.” (They roared with laughter.)”
Rob Lowe was in The West Wing but that doesn’t necessarily make him the ideal diplomat for global climate change, no matter how much an activist and environmentalist he may be. I guess if you are playing host, Los Angeles is definitely most well known for Hollywood. I can’t believe Lowe also tried to speak — for jest and fun — to the delegation in Chinese. I really wonder what the Chinese delegation was thinking when Lowe was speaking to them in, you know, Hollywood Chinese.
China is obviously one of the most important countries in trying to solve global climate change; I’ve have heard repeatedly that the nation builds a new coal powered electric plant every week to meet its consumer and industrial demand. Without Chinese cooperation on global climate change, most efforts would be meager; keeping the Chinese delegation happy and entertained during their visit is a no-brainer.
But it is really odd to read about the nuts-and-bolts of entertaining diplomats. After Lowe took the Chinese delegation after the filming of Brothers & Sisters, he took them to Universal Studios where they were treated to a ride Terminator 2: 3D. Talk about truth really being stranger than fiction.
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If you’re in the Bay Area or you work in the tech industry, you may be acutely aware of Jing Wu, the lead QA Engineer from SiPort who was fired, then returned to his office later that day to shoot his CEO, Chief of Operations and the Head of HR. This story is getting a little too familiar than it should be; this isn’t the first time there has been an office shooting in the San Francisco Bay Area and neither is it a first time we’ve seen an Asian guy go on a murderous rampage. Because we live in a fucked up world, this probably won’t be the last time we see this stuff either.
What has been interesting to read though, have been the comments on Valleywag — a catty gossip blog that focuses on Silicon Valley life — and the automatic assumptions that Wu was here on an H-1B visa and being fired caused a murderous rampage, and the xenophobia that comes from hiding behind a computer screen.
LoisKnuder: Let this be lesson to employers that hire H-1B workers. Dont do it, they will kill you if you lay them off. They have much more to lose than U.S. Citizens. Dont be greedy. Give jobs to U.S. Citizens only
growhappy: When I’m CEO there won’t be any H1B workers thanks to Wu.
Wow, that’s the take-away most people are getting from this tragic story: Don’t hire immigrants? Really? We always hear about the universal plight of Asian-Americans parents — that they immigrated from Asia to work hard so that they could achieve the quintessential American Dream — so their children can live the life of an middle to upper class tax bracket consisting of public school, lowered Honda Civics and childhood obesity. My father spent 35 years at the Pacific, Gas & Electric company for that very same dream. In lieu of that American Dream, he got my sister and I. (But that’s another story.)
And this why you almost – almost – feel for the guy; because no one wants to be robbed of that said dream, taking what you’ve worked so hard to earn and to start over again in the midst of what people are calling the next Great Depression. Capital letters, even. We’re living in desperate times, and I have the sinking feeling that we won’t hear the last of stories like this; but you don’t kill people over it, fucking duh.
Hopefully I’m proven wrong.
Shopping With GASP!
I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked if I’ve ever heard of Chinesepod. In fact, I had a long time ago — John had previously blogged about Praxis Language and its predecessor, ChinesePod — but apparently the podcast is doing pretty well and going strong. I did look into learning languages via podcasts just like those old language tapes and CDs that you can buy but music or NPR sort of seeps into my daily commute instead.
Praxis’s podcasts aren’t just limited to Chinese, however. There’s Spanishpod, Frenchpod, Italianpod, and it seems like Arabic, German, Japanese and Russian are coming soon.
It’s a really cool idea and it looks like Praxis Language is actually based out of Shanghai as well as a U.S. office in Delaware. I wonder if the positions are telecommute since the entire thing is a podcast that, technically, everything can be done remotely.
In any case, this re-visit of the podcast definitely shows that there are pretty interesting business models surrounding podcasts.
Gail Kim, an Asian-Canadian who is one of the top female professional wrestlers today, recently left the TNA wrestling promotion to join the WWE. Coincidentally, (or may not so coincidentally), Lena Yada was released from WWE. While the official reason is that they didn’t think she was good enough to do more ring work, there are rumors that WWE management thought that Lena looked too much like Gail Kim. Gail is first and Lena is below. What do you think?
To be fair, I watch wrestling and I have never seen Lena Yada in a match. When she was on, she was usually doing interviews or doing something non-wrestling like being in a bikini contest. She is athletic, though, and competed in tandem surfing. Also, WWE has no shortage of white blond women in its Diva division. Prejudice (as some people claim) or just cost cutting?
I consider pro-wrestling to be a real window on what many Americans think. WWE shows like RAW and Smackdown have some of the high ratings on TV, and pro wrestling tries to play to a wide demographic. There is exoticism with characters like Sonjay “The Guru” Dutt (named to be similar to Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt), who has a guru character. “Jimmy Wang Yang” (played by James Yun, a half-Korean guy) is supposed to be the “Asian Redneck” who questions people on why he is he supposed to know where the nearest Chinese Restaurant is. His gimmick, which seems to question stereotypes, works because those stereotypes exist.
It’s also interesting to see what Asian-Americans do to make themselves more marketable. Dave Bautista, a half Filipino half Greek (he has a tatoo where a Filipino flag merges with a Greek flag) wrestler, changed his last name to Batista. Gail Kim got breast implants.
Finally, let’s note why Gail left TNA. Although she was one of their top stars, it’s rumored that she was made a contract offer less than 6 figures, and that WWE tripled that offer. It’s hard to say whether sexism, racism, or just bad business decisions lead to her lowball offer from TNA.
Face it — if your life were an indie movie, Goh Nakamura’s music would be playing in the background. You know, as you sit in a San Francisco coffee shop, getting dumped by your girlfriend while her “it’s not you it’s me” spiel would turn into a monotony of “blah blah blahs” — Goh’s song Flowers would play in the back while you take a drag of your cigarette and do whatever protagonists in indie movies do. (Depending on the movie: either move to New York or turn to heroin. I’ve been to a film festival before.)
Well, check it: you stopped smoking two days ago and you’re not even into girls, but Goh’s sophomore album Ulysses is still an album to get if you like dreamy, acoustic songs written by a guy who got, literally, a million hits on YouTube.
And how does he pay back his legions of Internet fans? With guilt-free MP3 downloads of his album. Of course, Goh is an artist, so if you enjoy the album you should most definitely purchase an actual CD with artwork and high-bitrate MP3s, but it’s refreshing that in the age of the Internet there are artists doing some really clever things in terms of music distribution; it’s a nicer bonus when the artist is good. (And yet even nicer when he’s a personal friend of yours.)
This news is pertinent to the 8Asians community because it involves an Asian baby, and as we all know, Asian babies are the cutest babies on Earth.
However, our highly-sought status from creating the world’s most cuddly sentient creatures is now at stake with this new baby from China who was BORN WITH 8 TOES ON EACH FOOT.
Yeah. I said it. EIGHT TOES. Plus, five fingers on each hand BUT NO THUMBS.
Guys, we need to do something about this baby. S/he may be threatening the one positive thing we’ve got going for our younger generation (aside from high SAT scores). Someone needs to fix this baby’s feet or hide her (him?) from the public. Can we bring back foot binding? Or someone needs to give birth to the most adorable Asian baby like NOW to steal the spotlight. Do we have a new Michelin Baby for 2008 yet?
Okay, I’m kidding. You can’t even see what this little tot looks like, anyway, but I’m sure s/he is beautiful. But still. WOW.
Given the passage of California Proposition 8 which attempts to add an amendment in the state constitution to ban marriage among same-sex couples, there’s been a lot of finger pointing at who’s to blame. Given the statistics that have been published saying that 7 out of 10 blacks voted for it, and that other people of color, including Latinos and Asians were split evenly, one of the most obvious scapegoats have been people of color. What’s been most disconcerting for me personally is seeing how many Asians who were organizing against Prop 8 have bought into this excuse, using phrases like, “Why would they vote for discrimination if they’ve been discriminated against themselves?” to using racial slurs, which don’t deserve repeating. Never mind that whites in the more conservative parts of California, such as the Central Valley, the Inland Empire and the Redwood Empire, overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8, which constitute the vast majority of the population in these areas.
The organizers of No on 8 needed to take a page from those who supported the proposition, reaching out to people of color. No on 8 focused almost exclusively in the white populations in the big California cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, while blatantly ignoring that Latinos are the majority in Los Angeles County. The Yes on 8 campaign had rented space in Asian language newspapers for weeks before the No on 8 even attempted to outreach to the Asian community. The No on 8 campaign did very little organizing in the more conservative parts of California, even failing to come to support a Catholic priest in Fresno who was under fire for both coming out and voicing his opposition to Prop 8. The only concerted effort to the black community came from the cast of Noah’s Arc who did events against Prop 8 in combination with the release of their film. It was up to small, poorly funded organizations to do the outreach to communities of color, such as Asian Equality, which should be commended for being able to do rallies and outreach in the Asian American community with extremely limited resources.
It wasn’t until yesterday that finally a press release came from the executive directors of the four main nonprofits who spearheaded the No on 8 campaign urging people to stop blaming people of color and others:
We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight. We only further divide our state if we attempt to blame people of faith, African American voters, rural communities and others for this loss. We know people of all faiths, races and backgrounds stand with us in our fight to end discrimination, and will continue to do so. Now more than ever it is critical that we work together and respect our differences that make us a diverse and unique society. Only with that understanding will we achieve justice and equality for all.
Funny how these groups didn’t even mention a single recognized group that actually catered to these constituencies — nor did they talk about how they are actively trying to do more outreach so that it doesn’t happen again.
The vast majority of the blame for passing Prop 8 rests on the executive directors of these organizations who failed to do outreach to groups, especially people of color including Asian Americans, that prove integral to the vote in California. Their laziness, complacency and lack of understanding the basic demographics of the state led to their defeat; their inability to understand the national implications of this passing and their inability to do any substantial fund raising outside of California, even as the Mormons infamously raised millions of dollars nationwide for Yes on 8, is extremely telling.
It’s time for the white LGBT community and those who are in support of same-sex marriage in the big cities to recognize that there were obviously missed opportunities to establish and create coalitions of like minded people across race and ethnicity, religion, class, and region; and that these coalitions need to be established and nurtured, NOW. As these groups support same-sex marriage and rights for LGBTs, these groups also need to show sincere support for struggles in communities of color such as immigration, worker’s rights, etc. By failing to recognize that this continues to be a nationwide struggle that crosses all these communities, any attempts to restrict the rights of LGBTs in California will be successful unless these groups get their shit together and start doing outreach to ALL of us.
(Flickr photo credit: bobster1985)
The Healthcare Economist recently wrote about a clinical study published in the Journal of Health Economics that examined whether education correlates with healthy behaviors. And it seemed to prove true; those who are educated saw their doctors more often and exercised more regularly, even though education seemed to have no effect on smoking or drinking habits, which is a bit surprising. Then we read that the study was done in Korea, studying only Korean males.
Is this a health trend that we can correlate to other populations, or are Korean males simply just more prone to drinking and smoking overall? (I’m leaning towards the latter option.)
(Flickr photo credit: WanderingSolesPhotography)
I love “chick-lit,” also known as fiction written for and targeted to young, working women in their twenties and thirties. I must say, it’s about time chick-lit is written by and for Asian American women, and Christine Son’s Off the Menu does just that. Intertwining the lives of three best friends — Hercules Huang, Whitney Lee and Audrey Henley, Son paints a picture of three very distinguished lives, careers and passions, and the friendship that glues them together.
Hercules is a top chef with her own restaurant of fine-dining and line of cookware. Whitney is a corporate lawyer with an Ivy League education and a hidden passion for singing. Audrey is a schoolteacher and adopted daughter of Texas billionaires. Over good food and laughs, the three share their stories and struggles, and over a weekend vacation, discover what they want more in life.
Highlighting themes like cultural assimilation, adoption and generational misunderstandings, Off the Menu illustrates some of the complexities and realities of being Asian American. While Hercules, Whitney and Audrey challenge their parents’ expectations, struggle to climb the corporate ladder and fall in limbo and in love, you are bound to journey with these characters as they delve into the intersections of life — friendship, family, love and happiness.
Off the Menu is a book many can relate to — building courage, pursuing passion and finding oneself. So, what are your favorite chick-lit books?
(Visit Christine’s website and visit her blog! Thanks to TLC Book Tours for asking me to be a part of my very first Blog Tour!)
Follow the rest of Christine Son’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Wednesday, November 26th: Diary of an Eccentric
Ever since my cousin in the Bay Area added this guy to her Facebook, I’ve been watching and paying attention. And if you happen to be close, wedding and portrait photographer Junshien has got to be worth every penny in my opinion.
So far, every single photograph that he’s posted on his blog is done in such a way that I just sigh and wish that it didn’t cost so much to fly a great photographer out to do a wedding. Or actually, any sort of photograph.
I guess you could say that I’ve fallen hard for his photographs. They all seem to speak the romance between two people, but with vibrant colors and amazing crispness and clarity. Each one tells a story about those that are in love. At least the wedding and engagement sessions do. The rest are the type of things you’d expect to see on the cover of Rolling Stones or some magazine where you just wish you had an inkling of the picture taking talent that he has.
In the end, it’s all about right time, and right place. And I think that if you went with this photographer, he seems to always have a knack for capturing that particular moment.
Did I mention the vibrant colors? No? See, I’m just in awe.
This lesson is courtesy of chinaSMACK.com:
“Shanzhai” (山寨) = shan1 zhai4 = literally “mountain stronghold” in reference to historical warlord holdouts that were outside of government control. A “shanzhai” edition product thus refers to products outside of government regulations that are widely reflected in the numerous fake and knockoff electronics/commodities made in China today. The term “shanzhai” can also refer to things that are improvised or home-made and are generally crude in both form and function (the closest English equivalent would be “ghetto”).
In other words: KNOCK OFFS. Like when you buy IVIKE vs NIKE or SQNY vs SONY! Did you know there was a name for them aside from “FAKE?!”
There are a bunch of good examples at chinaSMACK’s post, so check it out!
Do you know a Grace Kim? That is a very common name… I’m sure Korean American parents all over America are wondering if their daughter, Grace Kim, is indeed the Grace Kim that they’ve heard from friends and family that recently posed in Playboy Magazine. Miss November 2008 is no other than Playboy’s first ever 100% Korean American Grace Kim. Some more info about Kim: she’s 29 (“older” than the stereotypical Playboy playmate), UCLA alum who majored in English Literature and wants to be a writer.
Prior to posing in Playboy, Kim was the PR lead for Activision’s Rock Band video game. Kotaku.com has an interesting interview with Kim and her reason for leaving Activision (which I personally find odd) to pose for Playboy:
““It was difficult for me to come home from the shoot and then write a bunch of press releases for Guitar Hero,” she said. “I couldn’t tell them I was going to be in Playboy. At that point, I didn’t want anybody to know at the time. I hadn’t told anybody, not my parents or my friends or anyone.”
I guess it would be really odd that if you had a professional job one day, and the next day, all of your colleagues could see you naked in Playboy Magazine, that might be a bit odd… Kim writes a little bit more extensively on her reasons in her MySpace blog here…
Now have there been other Asian American playmates in Playboy – of course there have been – and there is even a freak’n Wikipedia entry/index on the topic! If you’re looking for more explicit photos of Ms. Kim, you won’t find them here on 8Asians.com, but you might find some on a site appropriately named Naked Gamer Girls.com…. and after taking a look at some of her photos, you might be wondering about her breasts … well, you can learn more here. I wonder how many readers & hits we’ll be getting due to search engine results for Grace… Within our own 8Asians.com “internal” email list, we had a lot of fun discussing Grace Kim… some comments:
- Heterosexual males on this mailing list; if you have no opinions about this I will be truly ashamed. That is all.
- I didn’t notice – I only read the articles in Playboy.
- I have played both Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and they both have their plusses and minus.
- …her boobs look kinda fake and her lips are also weird. Someone, send her to south korea to get some topnotch plastic surgery.
- From someone who used to go to Playboy parties in a different lifetime (as a guest of friends, not as a “girl”), Grace has definitely defied the odds in terms of getting published. Lots of pretty girls go to the mansion and lots of girls get asked for test shoots.
- Whatever happened to the 8Asians Calendar idea?
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