Because I love geeks and because I love geek humor even more, one of my favorite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory on CBS. Last night, Season 3 started with our scientist heroes (Sheldon, Leonard, Wolowitz, and Koothrappali) returning from a research expedition to the North Pole.
I’m really not writing about the storyline so much as I am about a specific line that was uttered by the character of Sheldon’s mother, played by funny lady Laurie Metcalf. I would have shared a link to the clip except CBS doesn’t put full episodes online and the scene isn’t one of the featured clips. At the risk of ruining the line for people who haven’t seen the episode, the episode progresses so that Sheldon and his mom are at the dinner table and Sheldon thanks his mom for carving a smiley face into his grilled cheese sandwich. Sheldon’s mom replies, “His eyes came out a little thin, but you can just pretend he’s Chinese.” The line, delivered perfectly by Laurie Metcalf, made me LOL and pause the TiVo so I could stop laughing before moving on. Seeing as the show is produced by Chuck Lorre & gang, I know that the humor is written specifically to push the envelope as far as possible. (Lorre’s vanity cards routinely refers to things which the CBS censors made them change or take out.)
Did you see the episode and catch this line? What did you think?
(Note: The video above is from an old episode from where Sheldon is learning Mandarin. Especially hilarious if you understand Mandarin, I think! Special props for the final scene where Sheldon uses his mangled Chinese on the guy in the Chinese restaurant, played by veteran actor James Hong, who I met last week! Mr. Hong told me he’s been working on “Kung Fu Panda (2): The Kaboom of Doom!“)
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Giju John, who has previously fused Indian music and Salsa dancing, was watching my salsa class just the other day. He was my salsa teacher’s teacher, and I hope my dancing didn’t embarrass them both. After the class, my teacher forwarded me a note saying that Giju has released some more videos to go with his music. An interesting one is the one I have included below. In this video, he fuses Indian music with Latin cha-cha-cha.
Various cultures collide here in Silicon Valley, and Giju, who is also a Silicon Valley engineer, melds elements of different cultures in a fascinating, unique way. I am also amazed at how the dancing in this video is just head and shoulders above the simple cha-cha that I learned in my youth along with the other Filipino-Americans of my generation (anyone else remember that cha-cha?). As an added bonus, the video has the Asian guy getting the white girl by winning her away from a white guy. Don’t see that very often either!
Shopping With GASP!
We brought you the news of dangerous Panda attacks in China, but this weekend we learned that Japan faces their own threat from four legged barbarian of their own.
Nine tourists at a rest stop in Nyukawa, a small mountain town, were seriously injured by a hungry black bear yesterday. The animal terrorized visitors on a bus until a hunter managed to shoot it dead in a souvenir shop.
No one suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack, which lasted about an hour, reports said.
A photograph from the scene showed the bear mauling a prone person in a parking lot while a man attempted to scare it off.
Thanks to the advancement of 21st century technology, footage of the BEAR ATTACK (caps required) were soon found online (posted above). And yes, the bear was only 4 feet tall. Cue jokes about how short Asian people are….here.
Though bear attacks are rare, we hope that future tourists will understand the importance of being prepared for crazy animal onslaughts when traveling to the Land of the Rising Sun. With ninjas all over the place, it’s scary to think how quickly and dangerously these deadly animals approach to their enemies.
When Sgt. Michael Ferschke died in Iraq, the U.S. Marines recognized that Hotaru Ferschke was his wife. But because she was married to him by proxy when he was in Iraq and since he died before they could meet again, a 1950s US legal standard intended to root out fraud says that their marriage is not valid since it was not consummated. This standard is held even though they have a child together and even though the US military recognizes their marriage. Hotaru Ferschke just wants to raise her 8-month-old son, Michael “Mikey” Ferschke III, in his grandparents’ Tennessee home, surrounded by photos and memories of the father he’ll never meet. She and her son are there on a temporary visa after her request for permanent residency was denied.
From the article describing this sad story:
Historian Nancy Cott, who wrote a book called “Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation,” said proxy marriages have been commonly used by Japanese and Korean immigrants to America. But Cott said U.S immigration authorities have never liked this type of marriage “because it is inconsistent with Western Christian ideas of how marriage takes place.”
Efforts are underway to get a private bill passed in Congress to allow Hotaru Ferschke and her son to say, but it is unknown if it can be passed before they are required to leave in January 2010.
This week, popular food blog Serious Eats put up a Flickr photo of a popular Taiwanese dessert hongdoubing, or shaved ice with condensed milk, red beans and flan. It was meant to be taken as food porn, but to a couple of the commenters it was anything but: “That looks terrible to me,” said one. “Looks like someone had a bad bowel movement … if that ever came out of my [ass], I’d head straight to the emergency room,” said another.
I didn’t grow up on sweet red beans and shaved ice, so the dessert looks a little intense to even me, but at what point does someone’s objections to food start getting offensive? Another commenter put it best: “There’s an interesting dichotomy in the comments. This stuff is delicious, but I kind of feel like I do when they use ‘weird and crazy’ Asian food on Fear Factor after reading [these] comments.” Balut, anyone?
Kylie, the adorable Asian American kid using Microsoft products is at it again, and this time around she’s pitching Windows 7 – the latest version of Windows to be released in late October.
That said, I think this new commercial with Kylie is a bit less genuine; in her debut commercial, I could genuinely believe that Kylie was using her Windows PC to edit and share her digital photos with her family and friends. In this commercial, Kyle points to all the great reviews for Windows 7 and creates a slideshow to the tune of Europe’s The Final Countdown? She kinda comes across as a Microsoft puppet if you ask me — give me flying humans to the tune of Ray of Light to launch a new operating system any day.
This article on fashion schools receiving a influx of Asian American students is an interesting one – not so much because of the rise of Asian Americans and Canadians in fashion – I’ve always known that – but mainly because that despite everything, they had to be true to themselves. I think that’s really the center of most artists because they essentially couldn’t fight who they were inside and just had to pursue so they could live without regret.
It’s kinda funny this article comes around now because I’m also essentially “forced” into the fashion business launching my own line of graphic and custom designed T-shirts next month, hopefully. I’ve done it for years previously as a hobby for friends and family, but never thought of pursing it as a career. But shortly before I got laid off, things started to falling into my lap – essential pieces in launching my own T-shirt line. It was one of those things that was in the back of my head, that I couldn’t ignore anymore, so when I got laid off, everything else kinda snowballed in my favour.
I have been following Taiwanese-American Vlogger Frank Hwang for the past year after being fed up with seeing all these videos on YouTube degrading Asian men. It was actually nice for me to see an Asian-American male giving relationship and dating advice as opposed to being the one having problems approaching the opposite sex. What sets Frank Hwang apart from all the other Asians on YouTube is his words of wisdom to his viewers, especially to the younger audience. In the video provided above, Frank talks about heartbreak mistakes focusing on the problems of listening for both men and women. I actually wish there was someone like Frank Hwang around when I was younger so I wouldn’t make some heartbreak mistakes or mistakes in general.
With all the Asians making it big on YouTube like Happyslip, Kevjumba and Nigahiga, why has Hollywood not paid attention to these talented Asian-Americans? If Justin Timberlake was able to sign on Youtube star Esmee Denter to his label or Journey inviting Arnel Pineda to be their lead singer, then why can’t studios sign on these Asian talents? It makes me wonder if it’s due to the fact that these Asians on YouTube defy the stereotypes of Asians shown in Hollywood films (i.e. Long Duck Dong).
To see more of Frank Hwang and parts 1 & 2 of Heartbreak Mistakes, please visit his YouTube channel, ice1cube.
About Kristian: Chicago Fil-Am Kristian is the creator and blogger of Fil-Am Ako.
The expected reasoning behind adoption in China is to rescue the thousands of babies (mostly girls) from a harsh country where strict population control often leads to acts of desperation–in this case, abandoning unwanted babies. Some, though, are saying the reality is quite different: the LA Times reports that government officials often confiscate babies from impoverished families for orphanages to profit from the high adoption fee paid by adoptee parents.
“In the beginning, I think, adoption from China was a very good thing because there were so many abandoned girls. But then it became a supply-and-demand-driven market and a lot of people at the local level were making too much money,” said Ina Hut, who last month resigned as the head of the Netherlands’ largest adoption agency out of concern about baby trafficking.
The stories come as no surprise in a complex situation like foreign adoption in America, where issues of culture, racial identity and misplaced intentions always come to play. Could life get even more complicated for these adopted children?
MMA fighter and registered nurse Phillipe “The Filipino Assassin” Nover, who we wrote about in the past, has run into some bad luck. After losing in The Ultimate Fighter 8 finals, many people felt that he was counted out early in his next UFC match against Kyle Bradley. Then, after taking a fight against Sam Stout on four weeks notice, he was set to fight at UFC‘s Fight Night 19 when hours before his match he had a seizure which caused the fight to be cancelled. The cause of his seizure was said to be a “a syncopal episode and hyperglycemia.” In his blog, he mentions that he needs to see a neurologist for an EEG and to see his primary care doctor about diabetes.
Get more pictures like this at SHERDOG.COM
Could this guy have diabetes? Just look at him – he is fit and really cut. As he said in his blog,
“Even though I view myself as this super healthy athlete who eats right and exercises all day long, there is something wrong with me which I have no control of.”
It is possible that he had hyperglycemia from eating a lot after making his weight cut. It also possible too that getting hit repeatedly, an occupational hazard of being a professional fighter, has started taking its toll. He was labeled “fainting Phillipe” by UFC president Dana White because he passed out at the start of the Ultimate Fighter 8. Then again, he really might have diabetes. Since he grew up in the US, studies have shown that he is more likely to have diabetes than if he had grown up in Asia. A occupational hazard of being Asian-American.
He says he feels fine now, but he has resolved to find out what is wrong with him so he can get back into the cage. The UFC graciously paid him any way despite the fact that he didn’t fight. I think one additional factor is that he has been under tremendous pressure as after being hyped as “the next Anderson Silva” or “a young GSP”. In any case, best of luck, Phillipe!
From left to right: John C. Liu, Margaret S. Chin, Yen S. Chou, Kevin D. Kim. Photo sources: NYC 2009 Primary Election Voter Guide
It looks like New York City is becoming more like the San Francisco Bay Area when it comes to getting more Asian Americans getting involved in local politics. This past week, New York City had its primaries and Asian American candidates made a terrific showing in a city that is approximately 12% Asian American.
“Asian-American candidates won Democratic primaries in three City Council districts on Tuesday. And John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat who was the first Asian-American to be elected to the Council, received the most votes for city comptroller, though not enough to reach the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff… Chinatown itself is likely to be represented by an Asian-American for the first time, with the victory of Margaret S. Chin … a community activist, over Councilman Alan J. Gerson, a two-term incumbent. In Flushing, Queens, Yen S. Chou, a Chinese immigrant who owns a tutoring center, won a closely fought five-way primary, which included three other Asian-American candidates, for the nomination to replace Mr. Liu. And in a traditionally conservative district in northeast Queens, Kevin D. Kim, an aide to Representative Gary L. Ackerman, won the primary for a seat being vacated by Councilman Tony Avella. Mr. Kim — who will face a Republican opponent, Dan Halloran, in November — would become the first Korean-American on the Council if he wins.”
If Margaret Chin wins in the general election in November, she will be — ironically – the first Chinese American to represent New York’s Chinatown, within one year of San Francisco’s David Chiu of being the first Asian American to represent ANY Chinatown in the United States.
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