8 Asians

In one of my earliest 8Asian blog postings, I asked Taiwanese Americans if they knew the significance February 28th; to raise awareness of 2/28 in a very web 2.0 way, the Formosan Association for Public Affairs Young Professional Group (FAPA-YPG), San Francisco chapter (full disclosure: which I am technically a member of), is sponsoring a Facebook 2/28 awareness campaign.

What FAPA-YPG SF is encouraging for all those who are interested in raising awareness about 2/28 is to do the following on Facebook:

1) Change your profile picture to feature the 228 logo, this Facebook event’s pic

2) Change your status message to the suggested one-liner: (Your Name) is commemorating the Taiwanese massacre of 1947: http://www.uta.edu/accounting/faculty/tsay/feb28hd.htm.

3) Post on your wall a brief summary description of the massacre.

Our internal e-mail lists have us discussing all kinds of stuff: Asian American identity, representation in the media, the experiences of activism in an academia setting and its progression as we transition to the working, adult world. And sometimes, we talk about Taiwanese presidential gay sex scandals involving a guy named DJ Chocolate who has syphilis. I swear to God we’re not making this up.

Ernie: Inside Taiwan’s Brewing Presidential Gay Sex Scandal. From Brian: “Seems more of a gossip item or for a gay site like queerty, but I just wanted to give a heads up in case anyone was interested.”
Joz: Oh, Taiwan. Not just legislative fistfights!
Efren: Well, considering they came very close to being the first Asian country to allow domestic partnerships, it’s very curious…
Moye: now it’s all about gay fistfights!!!
Ernie: Wow. I don’t care how much of a fallacy this is; I’m going to blog this for the reference to “Taiwanese presidential gay sex scandals involving a guy named DJ Chocolate who has syphilis” alone. Fuck, I might may t-shirts out of it because we’ll never get an opportunity to ever say those words in combination with each other again.

Or just ask yourself “WTF?”

Either way, enjoy.

h/t: buzzfeed

(Flickr photo credit: The Library of Congress)

If you have been following the latest season of The Amazing Race, you’ve noticed the Asian American brother-sister team, Tammy & Victor Jih. The last time I recall The Amazing Race having an Asian American team was when father-daughter team Ronald & Christina made it to the finale, but ultimately didn’t win in the end, coming in second. This past Sunday in the second episode, Tammy & Victor came in first in the latest leg of The Amazing Race. In a sneak peak, the third episode shows some sibling rivalry and friction between Tammy & Victor.

But when reality television shows cast Asian Americans, are they now trying to typecast and perpetuate the “Model Minority” myth? The previous season of The Amazing Race had Christina going to Duke and Princeton and working for the State Department. Survivor’s Yul Kwon went to Stanford and Yale Law and had worked at McKinsey & Google prior to going on the show. And now, Tammy & Victor, they both went to Stanford undergrad and Harvard Law School (a decade apart – HLS ‘06 and HLS’96 respectively). Victor is a 35-year-old partner at the Los Angeles-based law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Tammy is an associate at the law firm Quinn Emanuel.

Is this better than how typically Asian Americans are portrayed in television and film, like Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles?

I do think that it is great that Yul Kwon and Victor Jih have come across as totally down-to-earth and photogenic, giving Asian Amerian males a much needed image boost to the steroetypical “geek” image that has been portrayed in the past. And yes, I *totally* have a crush on Tammy; she’s super cute and maybe I’ll be lucky and get to meet her in person one of these days like I have with Yul.

SFGate.com just announced that the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco could possibly be closing soon as the hotel considers converting much of its space into condos (which in this economy doesn’t make much sense, but I digress).

While on the surface this may not have much to do with Asian Americans, the Tonga Room is one of the last vestiges of an era gone by for Asian American nightclub performers in San Francisco.  From the 1930s to the 70s, Chinatown in San Francisco was known as having nightly entertainment featuring “exotic” performers from the Orient, even though the vast majority of them were actually 2nd generation Chinese and Japanese American singers and dancers born in both the mainland and Hawaii.  This is probably best personified in the movie Flower Drum Song, which featured performers from Forbidden City, the best well known nightclub in Chinatown SF at the time. Arthur Dong did a critically acclaimed documentary on this nightclub called Forbidden City, USA and should definitely be watched if you’re truly interested in seeing how the stuff that Asian American performers dealt with back then hasn’t changed for those trying to make it into showbiz today.  A woman who performed during that era tries to bring that time back with her group of performers from those days called Grant Avenue Follies.

When I went to the Tonga Room a few years ago to celebrate a friend’s birthday, it featured a predominantly Asian American band playing covers of cheesy pop songs from the 50s to the 80s and portrayed a romanticized American version of the “Tropics” featuring supposedly  Asian fusion cuisine (which ended up being more like lots of deep fried wontons filled with cheese and crab and other deep fried monstrosities), strong and enormous cocktails, and decor from random Pacific Islands, which would horrify most people who have a basic sense of fashion design.  Think of Trader Vic’s on steroids.  What did strike me about the place (aside from the cocktails that gave me a nasty hangover the next day) was the fact that almost everyone working there was Asian American and that all of the performers knew that this was totally inauthentic cheese, but had fun with it and played it to the hilt.

Given that the opportunities for most Asian American performers during that time was virtually nil outside of doing these clubs, I did come away with a sense of appreciation that despite their exoticizing Asian and Pacific Island cultures, it allowed Asian American performers back in the day to practice their trade, so it is sad that with the Tonga Room closing, this era will come to an end.

I was happy that a film like Slumdog Millionaire swept the Academy Awards last Sunday night with 8 Oscars, including Best Picture which is probably the highest award any filmmaker could achieve in his/her career (except for James Cameron because I absolutely hated Titanic). Even more endearing was to see the entire cast from India walking down the famous red carpet, enjoying the glitz and glamor that any hard working actor should experience.

We also saw the backlash against the film, where Indians and Indian Americans claimed offense to the depiction of their culture and country in such a gritty story, and even more so when reporters discovered that the child actors cast in the leading roles were still living in squalor with their families.

Fortunately, today it was announced that Danny Boyle had promised the two youngest actors, Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail would be moving out of the slums and into new apartments with their families. Better yet, the producers have promised to pay a rickshaw driver to chauffeur the two children to school every day for the next 8 years to make sure they don’t drop out. (I’m sorry, but something about that is so hilariously wrong.)

So this is where you enjoy that warm and fuzzy feeling in your belly because the two cutest Indian child actors will be given a new life.

Except for some reason, I can’t feel happy about this. There’s this gut feeling where I keep asking myself, what about the rest of them? You know, the thousands of children living in slums across Bombay–or even India itself? How much money can you throw at two families and what’s going to happen when the fickle Hollywood spotlight gets tired of them?

I won’t say that Slumdog Millionaire is a bad film. I enjoyed it and I’m glad that a popular director like Danny Boyle has highlighted the harsh living conditions of such a city, as well as extending his own personal wealth to help his young cast–but I can’t NOT raise my eyebrows at this news. Just as Jeff questioned the “authenticity” of the film because it was written and directed by non-Indians (doesn’t this ring a bell when Memoirs of a Geisha came out?), I have to question how much good this film has done for the Asian community.

I got the same feeling while watching the Slumdog filmmakers gather each of their 8 Oscars; the film celebrated India’s Bollywood culture, but almost every person (except for A.R. Rahman, who picked up the Best Song award for Jai Ho) who went on stage was white. Yay for an Indian movie, but who is really benefitting from these wins and box office numbers? Clearly, the slumdogs of India aren’t.

There’s just something so ironic about the whole story: a British director films a movie in a former colony, takes it to Hollywood where it becomes an award-winning box office hit, makes millions, finds backlash when people discover that the actors are still technically slumdogs and now, tries to help out those who he left behind (including a trip to Disneyland).

But I’m going to stay positive. As the LA Times wrote, it’s always a time to celebrate when a country like India is being nationally recognized in Hollywood.

President Barack Obama has had a hell of a time trying to fill in the Secretary of Commerce seat, with his first two nominees, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Republican Senator Judd Gregg, withdrawing their names prior to confirmation hearings. According to the Washington Post, this opens up the nomination to former Governor of Washington, Gary Locke:

“Locke, a Democrat, spent eight years as the governor of Washington State — from 1996 until 2004 — and before that served stints as the chief executive in King County (Seattle) and in the Washington state House. When he was elected in 1995 Locke became the first — and to date the only — Chinese American to serve as the governor of a state. Locke’s appeal to the White House was threefold, according to those briefed on the decision. First, he built a solid record as governor — including overseeing the rapid growth of the Washington economy. Second, he is well known as a strait-laced politician who has never been weighed down with ethical baggage. Third, he furthers Obama’s commitment to diversity as the third Asian American in the Cabinet.”

If Governor Locke is nominated and confirmed as Secretary of Commerce, he will indeed be the third Asian American in Obama’s cabinent level administration, after General Shinseki of Veteran Affairs and Secretary of Eneergy Steve Chu – which I believe would be a record number of Asian Americans for any presidential cabinet; I’m sure The Daily Show’s news correspondent Aasif Mandvi is disappointed that an Indian wasn’t nominated.

(Flickr photo credit: SCGators7)