(Every so often, we here at 8Asians get e-mails asking for advice. Here is someone — let’s call her “M” — asking for advice on how to deal with her intruding grandmother-in-law.)
Could you and your fellow 8Asians contributors help me out? I have a question about Korean culture. First, a little background…
I am Canadian-born-and-raised Chinese, married to a Canadian-born-and-raised Korean.
Last Thursday, I was home alone with our two kids, eating lunch downstairs in the basement. I heard the front door open and close upstairs, and then some thumping sounds, like someone taking off their shoes. I thought my husband had come home to get something and then head off to work again so I didn’t pay any attention. But then the noises continued and I wondered if someone had broken in to rob my house.
I went upstairs to the main floor to investigate and saw some pairs of unfamiliar shoes in the front foyer. I heard some voices upstairs on the second floor so I climbed the stairs to find that my husband’s grandmother had not only let herself in, but she’d brought a couple of friends and were giving them a tour of our house. They were poking around the bedrooms when I found them and they were surprised and embarrassed that I discovered them. I was completely shocked but, being Asian, greeted them politely and let them finish showing themselves around. After they got their fill of our house, they all left together.
I later learned that my grandmother-in-law had called our house but nobody answered (I hadn’t heard the phone ring because I was in the basement). She was visiting (from Toronto, which is 1 hour away from where we live) and staying with her daughter (my husband’s aunt) who lives 2 streets away from us and who has a key to our house in case of emergency. Anyway, thinking no one was home at our house, my grandmother-in-law decided to help herself to the emergency key and let herself and her two friends in for a look-see.
The house was a complete disaster, by the way, because I have two little preschool-aged kids and zero time to clean. I was completely humiliated that these strangers were looking at my dirty/messy house and absolutely infuriated at my grandmother-in-law.
Needless to say, my husband got an earful when he got home. He did tell his grandmother that what she did was wrong, but then he tried to explain to me that it’s normal for her to do what she did because it’s normal in Korean culture to do stuff like that. He said that Korean grandmothers go into their children’s and grandchildren’s homes all the time and that I need to be more understanding.
Now, I have witnessed and heard about my grandmother-in-law violating boundaries in MANY cases. It seems a habit for her. This was the third time she violated a boundary involving me, but I let the first two incidents slide. This was the biggest violation and pissed me off the most. I think she’s just an individual who behaves badly and her relatives excuse her behaviour, using Korean culture as the excuse.
My husband has told me at least four or five times that this issue of her coming into our house without permission is not really an issue because it’s normal in Korean culture. I disagree (like I said before, I think she just plain old misbehaves), but don’t know enough Korean people (who aren’t related to my husband) to ask, “Hey, does your grandmother make unauthorized visits to your house and show her friends around while she’s there?”
So, sorry for this long email, but can you help me? I would very much like to know if what my husband’s grandmother did is normal for Korean culture, or if she is just a good example of bad behaviour.
So yeah, rummaging through the stuff and property of your offspring: cultural thing or is she batshit insane?
(Flickr photo credit – and apologies — to Sukanto Debnath)
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“I learned English by listening to slang,” Se7en announces over a lunch of upscale pizza and soda. “I learned the curse words first from the stage hands and then later on I learned what they meant.”
Everyone in the room erupts laughing. “Isn’t that the way it always is?” his hip publicist muses.
We dine on the 40th floor of the Viacom building in Times Square with glorious windows under which laid all of midtown. When asked why his camera sat pointed out the window all morning, Se7en’s personal friend replied that he was taping the view. The view is immediately forgotten however as Se7en magnificently sweeps into the room wearing his signature fedora, fresh from a visit to MTV.
When asked if he will do the interview first or have lunch, Se7en smiles, eyes the unopened pizza boxes, and after much prodding from his gang, finally decides that lunch will come before the interview. “Have a slice of pizza,” he offers me.
So here I am, having lunch with a man who had won nine Korean Grammys at an age when most kids were getting ready to graduate college. Only four years later, in 2007, he would overtake Japan selling out arenas and being honored at the Japanese MTV awards. Now, two years later, he is ready to conquer the United States.
He recently partnered with Lil’Kim in making his transition to the states. Their video “Girls” has already received substantial buzz in the hip-hop community. About Lil’Kim he says “she is very tough on the outside but sweet inside.”
A true showman, Se7en radiates the easy confidence and charm of a man who had been on the stage since the age of fifteen. As he eats, he casually makes chit chat with me. I chat back although I do my best not to stare. It is difficult as his hat and sunglasses highlight his strong handsome jawline. He speaks with animation. He asks me where I am from and I tell him Queens, then wondering if he was familiar with the five boroughs immediately correct myself, and say Shanghai.
“I know some Mandarin,” he confesses shyly. “Ni hao ma?”
“Wo hen hao,” I reply reflexively. I am very well.
He smiles. “I know that and ‘Wo ai nimen’!” I love you all. He waves to an imaginary audience with his free hand and then takes another bite of pizza.
“What would you say is better, your English or your Japanese?” his friend asks.
“I haven’t spoken my Japanese in years,” Se7en laughs and then remarks incredulously, “I had to learn it all in two weeks.”
When I later ask him about the trials and tribulations of learning the English language, he tells me that he practices up to 2-3 hours a day with a tutor. Then he thinks for a moment and nervously fiddles with a remote control as though he’s unsure of how to make the endeavor sound harder. Indeed, although his vocabulary is not yet broad, his pronunciation is flawless. Finally, he tells me that he also has a place in LA where he is currently living that has been a great help.
When I ask him what he thinks of New York, he tells me that he loves New York City and the nightlife here. His entire demeanor changes as the topic goes from language to leisure. He breaks down into helpless laughter when the New York night scene is mentioned. Apparently at some point during the prior night he had coerced his entourage into doing quite a few shots.
“I had to call him at nine this morning to make sure he woke up,” one of his friends adds.
“He just kept pouring and pouring. It’s all his fault,” another says.
So the question of whether Se7en is really a nightclub ringmaster as his music video advertises has been answered. He is as wild on his own time as during camera time. Although his full American album has not yet been titled or given a set release date, I find myself welcoming a true “bad boy” Asian superstar. Although Se7en had been set to debut in 2007, he tells me there was no delay. In 2007 they had intended to release a single but later decided to make it into a full album. Now, it appears his American audience has much more Se7en to look forward to than ever.
As I close up the interview, I wish him well and tell him I’ll see him later that night. He agrees and shakes my hand in a firm grip. I ask him if he’s nervous and he looks confused. I tell him that the invitation said that he was giving a concert that night.
“Maybe I’ll sing a song or two,” he says haphazardly, as though he gave out award-winning songs as easily as tic tacs. “But it’s mostly a party.”
Credits: Chang Yu for photos, Christine Miguel for research and background information.
Shopping With GASP!
Thanks to the people who entered the giveaway for the TOKYO! tickets. Sorry we didn’t have more tickets to giveaway, but if you’re in a city where it’s playing, you can probably still BUY tickets to see the movie when it opens this weekend!
I can’t wait for people to see it and let me know what they think!
Anyway, congratulations to RandyF, who won the pair of tickets to TOKYO! in SF. (I encourage folks to keep trying because if there doesn’t seem to be interest in ticket giveaways and freebies, we won’t do them anymore since they’re more work for us to coordinate anyway.)
Thanks again to the folks at Landmark Theatres for providing us the free tix to give away.
And for those of you who made it down this far, ANOTHER giveaway is coming up soon… for tickets to TOKYO SONATA! Stay tuned!
A friend of mine updated his status message on Facebook with the following:
Hmm. On second thought, I guess that’s really “How to get targeted for ads on ‘How to Meet Asian Women’ on Facebook.”
Either way, I filed this under “Tips on How to Find Guys Trying to Meet Asian Women.”
So after all the hype, two videos, media interviews in English and performances in smaller venues as an iterative experiment on how to properly market a Korean pop star in the United States, BoA has finally released her self-titled English album this week on Amazon
Somewhere in South Korea, a bunch of executives had just finished going through a PowerPoint presentation where a marketer just explained in his politest Korean possible that to dominate the US music market you have to use S&M costumes, a vocoder Auto Tune, a token black guy and a lot of pouting.
But here’s the thing — the album is really good. Other Asian pop stars trying to conquer the US market had image problems; Coco Lee’s 1991 Just No Other Way was too adult contemporary, Utada’s 2004 Exodus was deemed too experimental. BoA management team seems to have a better idea of the image she’s trying to convey; the fact that she’s a spokesperson for Forever 21 – a store marketed for 15-30 year old women — gives you an idea of BoA’s marketing team. Singles like I Did it For Love are clearly meant to be for the R&B crossover market, while other singles like Did Ya and Touched is Brittneyesque in both its production and PG-13 sexiness. (And I’ll just come out and say it: the high production value and the use of Auto Tune plays down any concerns that people may have with her accent.) The only clear miss on her album is her English cover of Girls on Top; the clumsy lyrics translate poorly and lacks the intensity of her previous Korean hit.
All of that said, BoA’s latest album is a carefully constructed piece of American pop machinery full of heavy beats and synth tracks; hardcore BoA fans are going to love this album no matter what, and fans of pop music (Teenage girls! Gay men!) will find something to like as well. Whether BoA really becomes the first solidified Asian-born US popstar remains to be seen.
When I began reading this article on a student who is getting suspended for refusing to take a “racist” test, I could feel my blood boil — I’m mad for this young woman who was treated in such a severe matter for taking a good and right stance, and I’m mad at myself for not having even an ounce of her gumption when I was approached in the same manner during my senior year of High School.
I moved to California from Seoul with my family in 1986. I was put in a regular fourth grade class, but had the blessing of a one-on-one English tutor hired by the school. Being put in regular class and having a tutor only helped the cause and I learned English fairly quickly. I went to middle school to later be put in an ESL/remedial English class, but by the middle of my fifth grade year my teachers were impressed with my English skills and by the time seventh grade came I was put in the accelerated language arts cluster for those who excelled in English. Thanks to my eighth grade English teacher, I received raving recommendations for the Honors English road at my high school and did my APs and Honors classes.
Let’s fast-forward to senior year: I get called into the ESL program counselor’s office. She mutters something to me about how I’m in the wrong classes. She is wondering why I’m not in the ESL cluster. She informs me that I’m listed as a student who needs can’t be instructed in English and that I won’t be eligible for graduation if I’m not transferred to the list where it says I can be in classes that are taught in English without needing translation. Asking her to clarify since I’ve been in honors classes from my middle school days, she explains that I should have been removed from the ESL student list, but because I was never removed, there was always a notation on my file that I am ESL; all ESL kids need to be tested before they can get their diploma. I once again point out the list of classes, my GPA, and the mere fact that I was speaking to her in fluid English should have made her back down.
But she goes on and on about needing to pass the test to graduate. “Which, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble passing” she adds, to try to soften the blow.
I think the shock of what was happening silenced me and it took me a few moments to reply to her pressing. In my head I was having my feisty monologue about this incredibly ridiculous situation — I honestly wanted to say no, and unlike what Lori, wasn’t smart enough to tell the counselor that I didn’t want to take this demeaning test.
The counselor opened the test materials up and I sat in disbelief. The test was a joke. I’m not sure if the counselor realized how ridiculous she looked and sounded testing me and asking lame questions that I was able to answer in my first year in America. There were story-boards that had questions that tested my English comprehension skills. I wanted to shout at her, Lady, I read a twenty page book to my fourth grade Show and Tell my fifth month here.
I admire Lori Phanachone for taking a stance against the system. Having been the fool to take a test of similar nature, albeit very different in content, I agree with her. Tests of this nature are demeaning and racist, and I’m still boiling from within at what Lori has to put on the line to do what is right. Lori’s current road is so different than the one they had me take when I was in high school, but demeaning is still demeaning, and racist is still racist.
(Flickr photo credit: The Library of Virginia)
Readers of 8asians may not realize this, but writing for this blog doesn’t pay the rent, so most of the writers here have day jobs. I’m no exception. My day job is in marketing for a high technology company in Silicon Valley. In this slowing economy that we’re in, I’m fairly lucky in that I work for a company that’s still making money, and in a field that’s still growing. My company also happens to be fairly diverse in their hiring practices, as my coworkers span every racial and ethnic group. The company has also grown quite a bit since I started almost two years ago, and I’ve never really felt there was a glass ceiling at this company until today. (Glass ceilings for Asians has been a recent topic this month with the appointment of Jim Yong Kim as the President of Dartmouth, and L. Ling-Chi Wang’s comment that he could count the number of Asian presidents of universities in the U.S. on his hand.)
My company held a meeting of upper management over these last two days. We have close to 1400 employees, and a select group of 65 top level executives ranging from C-level, president, vice presidents and directors met to discuss corporate strategy for the next year. As I sat in the meeting today it slowly dawned on me, that out of the 65 assembled, the minority count included only one Latino in the group (and I didn’t think he really counted since he was the VP of Sales for Latin America), and four Asians. The other three Asians all worked in engineering. For a company as diverse as mine, I found it strange I was the only Asian not in engineering, and with my ranking as a director, I was the lowest titled management at the assembly.
8asians has of course covered this topic of Asians and the glass ceiling in a previous posting, noting that Asians hold only 12 percent of managerial positions, but are 30% of the population in Silicon Valley. This study looked at all managerial positions, and if you compare it with my company, you’d find it’s probably accurate, as there are a fair number of Asian managers in my company, just none at the director level and above, outside of engineering (myself excepted). It makes me wonder, if you took out mid-level managers, what the percentage of Asians you’d find would be at the executive level at companies in Silicon Valley.
The lack of minorities at my company was just never obvious to me before, because all the prior managerial meetings included mid-level managers and above. We’ve gotten too large to include mid-level managers in strategy sessions, and I was just surprised to realize the glass ceiling seems to exist in my own backyard.
Reuters came out with an article about how China’s officials are worried too few foreigners are learning Chinese.
There has been a big rise in the number of foreigners learning Chinese, but still too few are studying the language, officials said on Thursday, worried this may affect efforts to soften China’s global image…
“At present, the basis for the studying or teaching of Chinese is very weak, unlike for English, French or Spanish, which have been popularized for hundreds of years,” said Xu Lin, director of the Confucius Institute Headquarters.
Xu, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, said that in the United States more students studied Latin at middle school than Chinese.
“Though the desire to learn Chinese is very high, there is a lack of teachers and teaching materials,” she added, referring specifically to the Confucius Institute.
I guess I have a bit of background in this —- my mother runs her own Chinese school and I have been a veteran of several Chinese programs both domestically and abroad. From my view, the majority of people who learn Chinese are mostly interested in doing business in China or perceive the political and economic importance of China. In the minority are those actually fascinated enough by the culture to seek out classes. Chinese is the only major language left that does not rely on an alphabet system. This, coupled with its reputation as a difficult language, greatly deter many interested in studying it.
Cultural differences greatly enhance the problem; because there is still a dearth of Chinese teachers in America, many American schools and organizations have had to import teachers and professors from China. My old high school’s Chinese program had a visiting teacher from China who had no experience teaching Chinese at all; he taught English in his native country. Just because you speak the language doesn’t mean you can teach it.
With these imports also come Chinese teaching techniques that often don’t fly over well with American students. The teaching style in China is more lecture-based, fast-paced, and strict — it can be very dry and dull for the unaccustomed. Chinese is still a new foreign language to English-speakers and teaching techniques have not caught up to demand yet.
This problem is prevalent in China as well, where many English programs have minimal qualifications for English teachers and give little, if any, training. From what I’ve seen, to become an English teacher in China you have to be white and have a college degree. When I applied for a teaching post in China, they rejected me because my Chinese was too good. They did however, take the French guy. He was white.
China’s problem with not being able to attract as many foreign Chinese learners as they would like brings up China’s lack of soft power and global political image. But that’s for another time.
(Flickr photo credit: peiqianlong)
Giant Robot Silverlake is closing March 28th so now is the time to check out their closing sale if you haven’t done so already.
The sale began on March 10 — originally 20% off and an additional 5% on already marked down items — but Giant Robot has announced that their sale is now 30% off storewide, with an additional 10% on sale merchandise.
4017 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles 90029
310 662 GRLA
Tue-Fri 11-7 pm
Sat-Sun 12-8 pm
I knew my blood pressure was a problem, but I never took my Body Mass Index (BMI), a measure of body fat, very seriously. I showed my reading, which indicated that I was overweight, to my doctor. “You can’t use that reading,” he said. “You have to use the Asian BMI.” He looked up my BMI on the Asian BMI scale. “You are obese,” he declared.
Amazing! In the span of 10 seconds, I moved from overweight to obese. I felt tremendously frustrated. I have tried hard not be a sedentary overweight Filipino, putting in mileage, lifting weights, stretching, playing volleyball, even dancing salsa. I could accept that my genes have given me high blood pressure despite a focus on exercise, but being labeled “obese” was hard to take.
My doctor, a thin Vietnamese guy with a slight build, calmed me down. He said that these are goals, not hard guidelines for everyone. He said that if in his own personal case he went by the white standards for BMI, it would catch overweight and obese states far too late. This study showed how for the ethnic groups in Singapore, for a given body fat percentage, South East Asians have a lower BMI than whites.
There has been some controversy over the practice of race specific medicine. This commentary asks whether race is now being commercialized, with BiDil (targetted at African-Americans), being just the start. I personally look at these as targetting people with a certain genetic disposition and that it doesn’t have to be race based. Probably more of my frustration is with the BMI measure itself. Arnold Scharzenegger at his Mr. Universe peak would be considered obese under current BMI standards. Body fat percentage seems to be a better measure, and not just because I am normal using that measure. I just hope that I suddenly don’t become obese again through some new Asian body fat percentage scale!
My parents each had their own religion. My mom was a practicing Buddhist and my dad would profess to anyone who would listen that he was Catholic. As for attending church or temple, as a family we rarely did either. My dad made a few attempts when we were really young, but we never asked to go, and he never really pushed it. On the other hand, my mom made a yearly pilgrimage to the temple in Chinatown (a good 2-3 hour drive away), and took us with her, but even then, a yearly visit doesn’t instill much religious belief in a child.
Fast forward 35 plus years and I’ve got a child of my own. While I grew up with little religion in my life, I know it’s not something I want for my own daughter. As it happens, this week I was reading a surprising article in the Mercury News saying that more Americans say they have no religion. Another statistic from this same study also piqued my interest:
The number of adherents of Eastern Religions, which more than doubled in the 1990s, has declined slightly, from just over two million to just under. Asian Americans are substantially more likely to indicate no religious identity than other racial or ethnic groups.
If more Asian Americans are growing up in mixed religion households, I can understand the lack of religious identity among Asian Americans. For myself I wish I had a better religious self-identification. I also think it’s important that my daughter understands that there are different religions and learns to respect others views, but I want to make sure she isn’t trying to assimilate different religious views, and get left with no belief of her own; like I was as a child. As naive as it sounds, I want religion and faith to be there to comfort her in her difficult times.
The question then is how to balance those desires. With my mother’s passing this last year, we’ve been to Buddhist temple quite a bit, and we’ve also started going to a United Church of Christ. As a family I know we’ll continue to go to UCC for services, but how much do I expose her to Buddhism, without adversely affecting her developing faith in Christ? I certainly don’t want her to lose out on her culture and heritage, of which Buddhism plays an important part, yet I want to make sure religion is there for her when she needs it.
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