And sometimes, the blog entries write themselves. 20-year old John Hopkins student John Pontolillo took a 3-5 foot long samurai sword that he had in his room when a burglar came into the house and pretty much Kill Bill’ed the intruder, nearly severing his left hand and giving him a “spear laceration.” (Meaning, he skewered the fucker.) It’s up to the state’s attorney’s office to determine whether he will be charged in the incident; no evidence thus far if he was inspired by the Asians Arts Museum.
Subscribe to our mailing list
Get the day's stories from 8Asians.com, delivered to your inbox every evening at 6:00pm PST.
So this is the situation: a boy from Seattle — Jay Park, AKA Jaebeom — passes an audition by one of the most respected Korean labels to train and eventually become an idol in a Korean boy band called 2pm. Things are tough for the guy over the years, having to learn and live in Korea as a high school freshman. He retreats to his MySpace to rant — like many of us do — about his thoughts and frustrations living in Korea, eventually writing “Korea is gay.” Four years later he debuts in a now very popular idol group called 2PM.
With a rise in popularity, also comes harsh criticism and resourceful, yet misguided anti-fans and netizens who dig up his MySpace blog and translate it. The phrase ‘Korea is gay’ is taken out of the body of his post and gets translated literally. A huge uproar occurs with netizens crying for his blood and in a matter of four days was eventually exiled back to his modest humble family in Seattle.
Overseas Asians
I’ll admit that I’ve never actually lived in another country, but I do understand you have to adapt to the culture of your surroundings. This takes time, a lot of time, especially if you’re a person who is very stubborn like a 16 year old teenage boy. Likewise, I don’t blame newcomers because they lack understanding, are unfamiliar with certain practices or have a tough time using broken English to communicate. I remember getting into an argument with my sister who only speaks English with a little French and Italian, believes people should learn English when they come to North America. I retorted, “Let’s see you go to China and how quickly you can pick up the language there.”
Lost In Translation and the Lazy Korean media
In the four days following his self-exile, the complete, correctly translated post emerged online. Part of the issue was the knee-jerk reaction of the Korean media not double checking facts. I honestly don’t have much respect for most Korean media. At best, it’s entertaining and shallow, at worst it’s a lynch mob always siding with bias and agenda-driven netizens. It makes me believe that the “tips” sent in are taken at face value and never get the proper investigation it requires. Gossip is fine, if delivered in an appropriate manner with a certain level of journalistic integrity. However if a media outlet feels a celeb uploading photos to their CYWorld — think MySpace in Korea — is newsworthy, I believe otherwise. They are no better than gossip blogs created by bias fans. Above all, I blame the media and its small town minded carelessness for not doing their jobs properly from the start.
Celebs and fans show their support for Jaebeom
While some of it is misguided, it comforts me that his fellow colleagues actually have demonstrated in more than one way that they both understand and support him. Many have retreated to their CYWorlds writing beautiful poems and blogs about life as an idol, while others release official statements to the public decrying that society gives too much power to faceless netizens hiding behind userIDs. Fans launched post-it campaigns in both Korea and NYC begging for his return. Korean-American Pops In Seoul host Isak, aka Ida Simmons, twittered “7=1~”, a tagline use to represent that the 7 members of 2PM = 1 group. At this point, the only thing that can save his career are the fans and his supporters.
I’m not even going to try to comprehend the complexities of the situation as several of the people responsible are now sorry. When a boy is 16 years old, going to school and training to be a pop star in a foreign country away from his family, he has to retreat back to something familiar to be able to fully express and articulate his feelings. Even though they say you should always be careful about what you say in the present because the past comes back to haunt, this is ridiculous.
Shopping With GASP!
An 8Asians reader notified us that Hollywood stuntman Steven Ho would be appearing again for the third time on The Tonight Show with Conan O’ Brien. This time around, Steve along with a colleague, choreographs another fight scene, gives Conan a good smacking and suits up Conan in a fireproof suit with safety goggles so he can jump through a window as another colleague sets off a staged explosions. Conan must really like Steve and doing stunts, since he spent over twelve minutes for this whole segment – a whole lot longer than most of his usual guests.
ABC’s Nightline did an overview on Annie Le’s homicide case earlier this week.
When I first heard of the Yale graduate student Annie Le disappearing a few days before her wedding, I assumed she just got cold feet and was most likely a “runaway bride.” But as the fears of her disappearance grew, investigators tragically discovery her body between the walls in the basement at the Yale lab where she was a graduate student – on the day that Annie was supposed to get married.
This fast moving case has also lead to a possible suspect (“person of interest”), Raymond Clark, a lab technician who had worked at the same lab, failed a polygraph test as well as was found to have had wounds on his chest, arms and back. The medical examiner released Annie’s cause of death to be strangulation; I wouldn’t be surprised if Clark is indeed found guilty.
There are a lot of murders in the United States that happen every day, so why has this garnered so much attention? There is the fact this murder was that of an Ivy League student. Annie was attractive, and was also about to get married. Add to this the grim findings that she was murdered in the place where she studied and worked.
I cannot even imagine what Annie’s fiance and parents and family must be feeling. At age 24, to be murdered just days before getting married just makes you wonder about why such horrible things happen in this world and how anybody could do such an act.
What really concerns me is that Annie could have been someone you or I would know – a friend, a friend’s sister, colleague’s wife. Annie grew up outside of Sacramento, California – not too far from the Bay Area. We all know an Annie. As an attractive and diminutive Asian American woman, Annie might be seen as an easy target. But apparently, based on Clark’s wounds, she fought back her attacker fiercely. My thoughts and prayers are with Annie, her fiance and her family; I don’t know how anybody gets over a tragedy like this.
Over at Bicoastal Bitchin, I caught the above segment and found it too useful entertaining not to share. Assuming I haven’t stayed up all night due to insomnia, I usually have a hard time waking up and getting ready for work in the morning. This Japanese guy practically has it down to a science. In five minutes, he somehow manages to get up, brush his teeth, make & have breakfast, get dressed and get out the door. Damn, that’s less than one punch of the snooze button for me. Anyway, in all fairness, I will point out that this guy doesn’t use the facilities in the 5 minutes, nor does he brush his hair. And since he’s not a girl, no make-up, either.
But another reason this post caught my eye is this line from Bicoastal Bitchin:
Although, I’ve totally already mastered the 7-second food-face-cram at 3:24. Oh, and the 2-second flash disrobing at 0:20. Except I call it the “Hellooo Daniel Liu“.
Ha. I love that my cousin has a “stripper move” named after him now. Awesome.
One night as I got home to my apartment building, some guys were hanging around outside. As I passed, one of them said something about Chinese food. It was something like, “Chinese food is the worst. It’s gross.” I might’ve thought nothing of it, but he said it right as I passed, and interrupted whomever was talking to do so. Then I looked over and saw who was talking. It was the same guy who had in two previous instances, moved to block the door, forcing me to say “excuse me” to get in. He did it moving backwards or to the side, as if he was just adjusting his position or moving naturally as part of his conversation. And yet there was something intentional about it.
Another day. I was at work, where I don’t have a desk and move from place to place. I was sitting next to a guy whom I had never talked to. I said a few words to him. He said a few words back. Nothing remarkable– just casual conversation. A few minutes later he turns and talks to the person behind him about food. And says he hates Chinese food.
Is this a coincidence? Am I being paranoid? Or overly sensitive? Derald Wing Sue, professor of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, would say no. His research identifies this behavior as a “racial microaggression.” A racial microaggression is brief, everyday exchange that sends a denigrating message to a person of color. Very often it’s a subtle insult where you might not even know what’s wrong, but can sense that something negative is being said. Because it’s not overt and it’s small, it may feel too insignificant to comment on it. And yet at the same time, it bothers you.
Here’s an easier microaggression to describe: the passing shot of the guy who yells “Go back to China!” Professor Sue would classify this as a microassault. What are you supposed to do, turn around and start an argument with him? You are forced to let a lot of it go.
This type of racism is what people experience on a daily basis. While no one instance is that bad, they may cumulatively result in feelings of anger, frustration, ostracism, mistrust, and loss of self-esteem.
The American Psychologist article Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life calls for “research that points to adaptive ways of handling microaggressions” and “to increase awareness and sensitivity of whites to microaggressions so that they accept responsibility for their behaviors.” There’s also a more reader- friendly summary of the article in APA journal (APA here stands for American Psychological Association), Unmasking Racial Microaggressions.
And here’s a table I made from the article which shows some examples of racial microaggressions most relevant to Asians: Examples of Racial Microaggressions.
It’s notable that this researcher is currently based in New York (though he’s originally from Portland way back when, and then California). New York of all places is the ideal breeding grounds for micro-anything. There’s so many people here that you have microencounters all day.
(Featured image Flickr photo credit: rollenran)
Canadian vlogger and aspiring filmmaker Peter Chao has been making Internet waves over his YouTube videos, featuring his opinions on topics from Kanye West’s outburst at the MTV VMA’s to hot women, all while donning shades and a thick Chinese accent. He boasts over 20,000 subscribers and a YouTube ban on his record (where they suspended his original account supposedly over racist content). G4′s Attack of the Show even featured Chao in their segment, Who’s Who on YouTube. So what is so appealing about this semi-anonymous Internet celeb?
Honestly, I don’t know. I have a personal vendetta against vloggers (Read about your life? Sure! Watch you ramble in front of a camera? Uh…No thanks.) so the last thing I’d want to watch is some random Chinese Canadian guy talk about things on his mind.
But I will admit: he’s pretty funny. If I was a vlog watcher, I’d subscribe to Peter Chao in an instant. He knows exactly what YouTube viewers want (aside from make-up tutorials): an angry, in-your-face, testosterone dripping voice with a spot on fobby accent. And Peter openly refers to himself as a comedian, too–meaning everything he does and says is done tongue in cheek. For those of you offended by his Engrish, calm down. It’s a joke and somehow enhances (at least to me) his loud messages about hot women, all the haters out there and crazy mudafuckas.
On the other hand, I can’t believe I’m defending a young man who earns laughs by perpetuating Asian stereotypes. Can’t Peter do the same without the accent, or are people only listening because of the way he talks? How far can he go until he realizes that his fans are enjoying his rather offensive accent more than his actual jokes?
I personally don’t know, but they’re legitimate questions that deserve legitimate answers. So what say you, 8Asian readers. Peter Chao: friend or foe?
(FYI, his videos aren’t very work friendly. You’ve been warned!)
Over the weekend Danny Pang, Asian America’s own Bernie Madoff, died unexpectedly in his home in Newport Beach, California. His autopsy did not immediately find a cause of death, but the coroner’s office said it would take two to three months before toxicology tests could be completed.
When I first read about Pang’s death, I assumed he had committed suicide. Maybe when the toxicology tests are completed, we’ll find out if he took an overdose of something. Pang was certainly no saint, but certainly if he were found guilty of his Ponzi scheme, I would have wanted him to serve time in prison rather than taking the “easy” way out of committing suicide. And if it weren’t a suicide, I guess the stress of being prosecuted was just too much on him.
GT, who is the blogger behind A-Tunes.net and guest blogs for MTV Iggy — which I don’t get because I’m Canadian — recently put up his first vlog sharing his thoughts on Asian Americans and the whole under/ misrepresented issue in media – specifically music.
In particular, he mentions a post from YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily.com about a person who was protesting the lack of misrepresentation of Asians in the media, yet had not paid to see a film directed by or starring Asian Americans. It reminded me of when a filmmaker colleague of mine spoke at an Asian university event where students were complaining of the same thing; he asked everyone in the room who was majoring in film and television, or media-arts related programme. Out of the hundreds in the seminar, only one put up there hand and she was taking journalism.
And that’s the issue at hand: because there is no vested interest in pursuing careers in the arts, there is no one in the industry to tell anyone to do it differently. After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Just before we broke for the weekend, Moye shared this NSFW video with the other 8Asians writers. “Date An Asian” is a comedic R&B song written by musician/comedian Jen Kwok.
In the style of “a mid-tempo Mariah Carey club joint”, the song has a rare message: extolling the awesomeness of “dating” an Asian guy! Jen wrote “Date an Asian” as a positive and lighthearted reaction to negative stereotypes about Asian guys. The song was originally written and performed on ukulele, and premiered at Gotham Comedy Club in 2008 to a both shocked and appreciative audience. Soon after, she recruited her friend, rapper Soce, The Elemental Wizard, to produce the song and perform a guest verse from the gay guy’s perspective. Jen and Soce have been performing the song live for New York City audiences to great laughter and acclaim.
The video features some of New York’s top male Asian stand-up and improv comedians, and the breakdance troupe Part-Time Models. And in case you didn’t get the lyrics the first time, you can read them here.
My favorite line is in the bridge: “Where my bubble tea drinkers at? (Everyone should be raising their hands for that one – it’s delicious!)”
While the reactions were mixed amongst us, Ernie summed up his opinion with: “Is that… is that a gay nerdcore rapper that just did her breakdown? OH SHIT, it totally is. Insta-win.” He then proceeded to re-watch the video another 13 times.
Hooray for bubble tea, Jen Kwok, gay nerdcore rappers, and of course, dating Asian men!
(Can we please add this to our 8Asians Glee Club song list?)
“Don’t worry, Shimada. I’m not taking you to Manzanar!”
This just one of the many gems of dialogue contained in the movie Megashark vs Giant Octopus. I recently saw it on the Syfy Channel, and with a title like that, you may wonder what the heck this has to do with Asian Americans, sex with a white pop star, and a line about Japanese internment. Megashark vs Giant Octopus is a wonderfully bad movie – bad enough to be worth seeing. The trailer generated its own viral buzz when it was released, and the version on YouTube has more than 1.5 million views.
Anyway, let’s talk about the movie. (Warning: spoilers ahead after the jump!)
The U.S. Census Bureau released this week their annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance. The numbers were probably no surprise to anyone living through this recession. Poverty was up, median household income was down. Buried in the data, included information on how the recession is affecting minorities and immigrants. It turns out the recession has hit Hispanic families the worst (income down 5.6%), followed most closely by Asians (income down 4.4%), while income was only down 2.8% for African American families and 2.6% for non-Hispanic white families. Given that data it’s probably no surprise that families with a foreign born head of household, dropped 5.3% in income compared with 3.5% for native born head of household families.
It’s obvious from this report and others, that there are few that the recession has not affected. Reading these numbers I couldn’t help but reflect about how my own parents handled the move to the United States, and the recession they had to live through in the early 1970′s. They were immigrant parents with 3 young children living on an incredibly small income. My mother found many ways to save money, and to make money last through an entire month (my dad was paid monthly). I learned a lot about budgeting, saving money, bargain hunting, and surviving on little from my mom. She was an overnight expert at it, especially surprising given she grew up in a pretty wealthy family in Taiwan.
There’s one thing I remember most from that period in time, and that’s how we used to go fishing for snappers off the Long Island coast, and how we’d bring home the snappers and my mother would spend days making rou-song from the fish, and how that smell would permeate through the house. It usually took four days to finish making the rou-song and it would last us for weeks. I’d get teased by other kids at school since often it was a main component of my lunch, and to them my fish rou-song looked like little ants, but I knew it was a necessary part of keeping our family going.
In addition to the numbers released from the Census Bureau, this week brought the recession to little kids, like my own 4-year old daughter. On Wednesday night my daughter and I watched a new episode of Sesame Street, which featured the recession and its affect on families and kids. Sesame Street also put together a resource page for any parents that needs to explain the recession (and its effects on the family) to their kids. If you or your family happen to be more affected adversely by this recession than most, good luck to you, and may it at least bring your family closer together.
Custom Search
Recent Posts
- What if Jeremy Lin Weren’t Asian?
- Jason Wu’s Target Collection Debuts With Super Bowl XLVI
- Jennifer Yuh Nelson Wins Annie Award for Kung Fu Panda 2
- Report Reveals APA Gay & Lesbian Organizations Only Receive 0.7% Of Available LGBT Funding
- What I Learned From Posting A Dragon Lady Personal Ad
- Hard Boiled Egg Mold for Bento Decoration
- Is Classical Music Alive For Long?
Recent Comments
- : This is stupid, after a civil war, the loser shouldnt be considered a different country. Civil war in America, Ethiopia, Lebanon etc, didn't end with... – NPR / KQED: Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse
- : @Reechard That's my point... If he weren't Asian, he wouldn't matter (as much). My question is this: Why Jeremy? What makes him special? And what... – What if Jeremy Lin Weren't Asian?
- : Also, I think your fear that if he fails it will spur stereotypes is unfounded. Those stereotypes already existed before Jeremy Lin exploded into the... – What if Jeremy Lin Weren't Asian?
- : Also, I think your fear that if he fails it will spur stereotypes is unfounded. Those stereotypes already existed before Jeremy Lin exploded into the... – What if Jeremy Lin Weren't Asian?
- : I think America pretty much DOES recognize that "LinSanity" is spurred heavily on the fact that he is "Asian-American in a league devoid of them:... – What if Jeremy Lin Weren't Asian?
APA Events
Feb 10: (Los Angeles, CA) CAUSE: Women in Power Annual Luncheon
Feb 15: (Seattle, WA) Pork Filled Players Enter The Year of the Dragon Spam*O*Rama
Feb 16: Adam WarRock and Kirby Krackle: West Cost Tour Dates!!!
Feb 16: (New York, NY) Amar Chitra Katha: Monica Ferrell, Chitra Ganesh, Keshni Kashyap, and Himanshu “Heems” Suri of Das Racist
Feb 17: (Los Angeles, CA) All My Sons
Feb 18: (Stanford, CA) Stanford’s 16th Listen to the Silence Conference- Feb 18: (San Francisco, CA) NAAAP-SF Lunar New Year Gala 2012
Feb 25: (Los Angeles, CA) Past Present I Future Imperatives: Queer Space Time
Staff and Contributors
- Editors
- Ernie Hsiung - Founder, Editor-in-Chief
- Moye Ishimoto - Co-Editor, Editorial
- Joz Wang - Co-Editor, PR & APA Outreach
