So I got this email, and saw the tweet:
Being Asian can prevent you from ascending the corporate ladder. Our seminar, presented with EMC Asian Circle, can tell you what to do about it.
You’ve done all the right things, top marks from perhaps a top school and top job performance. Why haven’t you reached the top as an executive? Learn from a renowned Asian exec who has been there and done that.
Business Professor David Lum will explore the fundamental reasons for why Asians/Asian-Americans have such difficulty in reaching those coveted positions. In addition to exploring the root causes, this seminar will also give clear and practical guidance on what you can do to prepare your career now for the long-term.
I read that and thought, “Wow.”
And that was the end of it. Total jaw drop. I’m not even sure what to say to this considering some facts, but more to that in a second. Let’s backtrack a little bit: I belong to a chapter of NAAAP, the National Association of Asian American Professionals. And obviously with any business organization, there is favoritism and so on, but seriously? We’re going to play the “we don’t get promoted because we’re Asian” card?
While I don’t know where this business professor came from, he apparently used to work for the same corporation as myself, and I never saw any inkling of Asians not being able to get promoted. Perhaps we didn’t work in the same division, but I never saw it within my corporate culture at least. And in my circle of friends and family, there are people that are in middle management all the way to senior management of their respective corporations; I never heard any complaints about promotions being blocked because of being Asian.
Maybe it’s just me, but this type of promotional email doesn’t exactly make me want to hear this speaker ever. Call me crazy, but I just can’t help but shake my head with this one.
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Today, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the appointment (.pdf) of Yul Kwon, (yes, Survivor & Red Mango owner Yul Kwon), as Deputy Chief, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. Yul has had past political aspirations including running for office, and was certainly active in various issues in the 2008 election, so it’s not a complete surprise that Yul moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue his interest in public service. While I’m not exactly sure what a Deputy Chief at the FCC does, I wonder if he can get me better cell phone coverage near where I live.
Shopping With GASP!
For most people, there’s little concern if our chicken meat has some pork or say some beef mixed in. But for some groups of Asians that would be an entirely different matter. Most people are already aware that Indians of the Hindu faith do not eat beef. But there’s also an entire class of Chinese Buddhists who do not eat beef as well. This appears to be a common trait especially in Buddhists of Chinese descent who live in south Asia. My own mother (and her sisters) adhered to that practice living in Taiwan. While she insisted her kids eat beef (for the protein), she herself never touched it.
So imagine my surprise when I learned this week that Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is selling Kentucky Grilled Chicken (KGC) that’s made with beef. While 8Asians has already complained about racial stereotyping in KGC commercials, this brings KFC down to a whole new level. Many unsuspecting Asians for whom eating beef is against their religion and beliefs, probably won’t realize they’re eating beef when they eat KFC’s new offering of chicken. My mother, when she was alive occasionally ate at KFC, and would be likely a victim of eating beef if she had the chance to try KGC.
For those that are concerned, KFC lists the ingredients of their products on their website. It turns out, KGC isn’t the only product with beef. The chicken pot pie also contains beef. So if you’re not eating beef, you may want to stay away from these chicken offerings at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
“I don’t know what planet you come from, but to me, you’re a perfect ten!” That would be my pathetic pick-up line if I were to stumble across Battlestar Galactica bombshell Grace Park. Gentlemen — and ladies — drop what you are doing, and run (don’t walk!) to your local news stand and pick up the November issue of Maxim! (Have you left yet?)
Glorious, glorious ‘neathage graces this months cover of Maxim, as Battlestar hotties Tricia Helfer and Grace Park show off their bodies of work.
Although both women are exceptionally hot, its great to see Grace Park — of Korean descent, born in Los Angeles and raised in Canada — scorching the cover and giving a hilarious interview revealing secrets of the new Battlestar Galactica telefilm coming to DVD and TV, and her personal life, alongside co-actress Helfer. In the interview Park went on to say… wait, forget the interview for now… you need to see these pics!
So what if Park and Helfer are playing super sexy dangerous Cylon robots, out to destroy the human race? With hotties like these, I’m beginning to question if sovereign human life is even worth it anymore. I’ll take you to my leader, any day! (Okay, so my pick-up lines need some work. I get it.)
FRIDAY BONUS! Check out this smoking video from the November cover shoot!
The curse of a great song like Jay Sean’s “Down,” the kind which hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, is that it gets played it like a million times on the radio until you don’t want to hear it anymore.
The flipside of a great song is that it might get covered by a talented artist like Dawen. So even though you’re listening to the same song, it’s really not the same song after Dawen works his magic on it.
Want more Dawen? He’s performing twice at Breaking the Bow this weekend in L.A. Check him and all the other cool artists of The 1st Annual Independent Asian Pacific Islander Performing Artists and Writers Festival out at the Miles Memorial Playhouse through Sunday.
It’s hard to believe that this sort of thing still happens, and yet, here it is: earlier this week in Manhattan’s Chinatown, traffic agent Twana Chapman was about to put a parking ticket on a car when the owner, Qiang Nian Zhu, tried to stop her. Zhu tried to explain that he still had a minute left on his meter, and that his wife was in the process of paying for another meter ticket. Witnesses report that Chapman began cursing at everyone around her: “You f—— Chinese, go back where you came from. All of you f—— Chinese.” Chapman then struck Zhu when he covered the registration sticker on his dashboard so she couldn’t scan it. Chapman then called the police, and Zhu was thrown in jail. He was released after 9 hours. Witnesses also report Chapman’s supervisor tearing up the parking ticket at the scene. So far, the NYPD says complaints about racial epithets have not been filed.
According to the newly released Hurun Rich List there are 130 billionaires in China, up from a 101 a year ago, moving China to second place behind the U.S. in the number of billionaires. And it’s believed the actual number of billionaires in China may be double the 130 number, since many Chinese try to hide their actual wealth. Unlike other billionaires in other nations, only 1% of the list inherited their wealth (compared with 25% in the UK and 35% in the US), and most on the list made their money in real estate. What’s surprising about this statistic, is the growth in numbers in a year when most other countries saw a decline. It’s a sure sign that China is gaining dominance in the world economy. What’s sad about the numbers is true for both China and the U.S. and that’s wide disparity between the top tier and the bottom tier of earners.
I grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown. My family speak Toisanese (or Taishanese), which is a version of the more commonly known Cantonese. As far as I knew, everyone in Chinatown spoke either Canton or Toisan, or both. But not Mandarin.
Now that elusive gaw-gnui is taking over as the language of Chinatown, thanks to parents pushing their kids to learn it in order to advance in the world. With China growing in influence every day, it’s only natural for our kids to speak the language, so to speak. Even the local Chinese school offers more Mandarin classes than Cantonese.
But what about the older generations who continue to speak Canton and only Canton? Apparently, they’re going to have to readjust everything from where they shop to where they eat. Mr. Wong says when he enters a store where the staff speaks only Mandarin, he must try someplace else. Another Canton speaker, Jan Lee, says he can no longer order food from East Broadway, where a lot of the newer, Mandarin-speaking immigrants are settling. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”
My family moved out of Chinatown eight years ago. Each time I go back to visit, the place evokes memories — memories I am going to have to hold onto, for my childhood home has changed in so many ways. Right down to the language I grew up with.
There was a post a week or two ago about the B Here Campaign, a quick reminder that the UC Davis event is on the 27th and the 28th… make sure you catch the last chance (in awhile) to see the likes of KevJumba and Kaba Modern all in one place! Remember, Hep B still remains as one of deadliest and complicated illnesses today, and it disproportionately targets Asian Americans. If you’re in the area,take the time to check out the art show and the performances to support the artists and the great cause!
There’s no denying Hello Kitty’s global domination. Can you name any other icon character that has graced almost every single kind of product, from stationary sets and band-aids to Paris Hilton and hospitals around the world? (Okay, yes, maybe Mickey Mouse but whatever.)
The mouth-less kitty will be celebrating her 35th anniversary this year, and Sanrio is throwing a special birthday party with a special art exhibit, Three Apples, at the Royal T cafe in Los Angeles.
The exhibit features contemporary artists like Martin Hsu, Buff Monster, Camilla d’Errico and Luke Chueh, all of whom reveal their personal take on the female cat. The show officially opens this Friday, October 23rd and will be open to the public for the next three weeks. A portion of the art sales will also be donated to LA Works, so you can be sure that even on her birthday, Hello Kitty works for the greater good.
For those of you interested in more than art, Hello Kitty has also planned a series of events at Royal T to ring in her mid-thirties: there will be karaoke nights, workshops, a special brunch and even a photo op with Hello Kitty herself (OMG I WILL TOTALLY BE THERE. WHO WANTS TO COME?).
So Happy Birthday, Hello Kitty! Thank you for providing about 98% of my beach towels, kiddie bags, functional pencil erasers and fancy pencil cases. Without you, my childhood growing up in California wouldn’t have been as cute, pink and well accessorized. Now, if I only I could find a human version of this costume, I’d be all set for Halloween.
The wonderful Broadway revival “South Pacific“, directed by the brilliant Bartlett Sher, is on tour right now in San Francisco. Written in 1949 by Rodgers and Hammerstein, most people remember this musical as a lovely romance during World War II with memorable songs such as “Some Enchanted Evening“, “There’s Nothing like a Dame” and “Wonderful Guy”.
The setting of this musical is in the islands of the South Pacific, where the Americans are stationed during wartime to protect their allies from the “Japs”. This story of war and prejudice holds such relevance today, which I found refreshing.
One of the main love stories in the musical is between Lt. Joe Cable, the American military man played by Anderson Davis, who falls in love with Liat, a Tonkinese native girl, portrayed by Sumie Maeda. Fighting racial prejudices he grew up with, he is conflicted between his love for Liat while realizing he can never really take her home to meet Mom and Dad in Philadelphia. He sings a compelling song, “You’ve got be carefully taught,” about racism. Joe Cable starts the song by saying “[Racism] isn’t born in you, it happens after you’re born!”:
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to Year
It’s got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taughtYou’ve got to be taught
To be Afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taughtYou’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
In the original production 1949, Rodgers and Hammerstein were continually advised to take this song out of the show, claiming as the song was too controversial for a show. Against pressure, the song remained. During a touring production in 1953 in Atlanta, South Pacific created a frenzy among local legislators, as they introduced a state bill banning entertainment that supports “philosophy inspired by Moscow.” During this time, Sen. David C. Jones of Georgia stated that this song justified interracial marriage, which was an implicit threat to the American way of life.
Pretty heavy stuff for a retro Broadway musical, but I highly recommend this show, with its humanity and optimism — but it makes me wonder, have we come that much further in racial relations than this 1949 musical, a show created ahead of its time? I can only hope!
PS: For those Glee fans out there; Matt Morrison (Will Schuester) played the Lt. Joe Cable in the Broadway production of South Pacific in 2008, here is a video of him singing “Younger than Springtime,” which his character sings to Liat in the show.
Now that I’m living in an actual “third world” country — instead of just studying about one — I find it important to be aware of what I’m seeing and how it connects to the ideas and “truths” I learned in college about countries like Cambodia. The country’s unemployment rate as of 2007 was at 3.5% and the poverty rate as of 2004 was at 35%. In talking about poverty reduction and economic growth, measurable figures — like employment levels and individual economic activity — is always part of the picture and influences how development policy is made. But looking at countries through such a lens obscures significant social conditions and fosters a certain kind of discourse on how those of us living in Western countries tend to talk about those in the “third world.”
Since moving to Phnom Penh in August, I’ve taken up a flat of my own. Most foreigners rent houses or flats which have someone coming to clean them, and if not, they hire someone to do housework. Khmer women, of course, are the usual domestic workers hired for this. My flat didn’t come with a cleaner and I didn’t really want to go looking for one. I figured cleaning my own flat myself wouldn’t be too hard.
Once I week, I move around furniture and attempt to sweep all the dust that’s collected the past six days. I have this short broom to use for sweeping before I mop the floor and then scrub down the bathroom. I know, sounds like a really easy thing, and yeah, it isn’t too hard. But I’ve realized that it takes about a good chunk of time to really clean everything. And bending halfway down because the broom handle is a bit short gets my back kind of disjointed after a while.
When I sweep my flat, I think of my mom and the fact that she’s cleaned a lot in her lifetime. As a teenager, I vacuumed while she would clean the kitchen, often wiping the floor on her knees. I used to wonder why she spent so much time cleaning the house. Similarly, a lot of people, particularly those who make economic development policy, do not see the importance of domestic and reproductive labor.
Cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, going shopping, and other household tasks take up the vast majority of most women’s time, but because such labor is unpaid, women are considered as economically unproductive and “unoccupied.” Figures from 1999 show that unpaid workers constituted the largest category of employment in Cambodia. 65.3% of Khmer women were unpaid workers compared to 29.1% of Khmer men. In Cambodia, the poorest households rely on unpaid labor, in which women are the majority of unpaid family workers. Because unpaid work is, well, unpaid, the labor of the majority of Khmer women is accorded no value. Such devaluation of unpaid work is a main contributor to the higher rates poverty of Khmer women and women elsewhere in the world.
In talking about women house cleaners with a couple other volunteers while flat searching, one made the point that those of us with money are doing a good service to hire someone who otherwise wouldn’t get work. We would be helping someone keep their job or give someone else an opportunity to work and get paid. Another volunteer replied that hiring a woman to do housework only maintains a gendered hierarchy that defines housework as women’s work (and thus not important and something to ignore in economic analysis). Considering this makes the issue of women’s domestic labor much more complex: women can get paid to clean someone else’s house but not their own.
I don’t think this post can handle the question of how to negotiate the market economy and social hierarchies, but it doesn’t take much reflection for us in the United States to know that a lot of our moms leave the house each day to go work in a grocery shop, the local post office, an elementary school, or a nail salon only to return to take up a second shift in raising and caring for us, their kids. That’s work too — and it’s hard. The fact is that women’s work is rarely counted, but it is work we count on in order to survive every day of our lives.
Photo is taken in Jude’s Phnom Penh flat and is the very broom he writes about in this post.
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