The San Jose Mercury News has a holiday wishbook where they talk about people in need and how people can help them. One group in the wishbook is the Yu-Ai Kai Senior Center in San Jose’s Japan Town. The senior center needs new sewing machines, as it has a sewing class for seniors that uses old discontinued sewing machines that constantly breakdown. Extras made from the sewing class are sold at an annual boutique that benefits Yu-Ai Kai. The class offers not only sewing but a chance for seniors to interact socially and prevent isolation, and it is so popular that there is a waiting list to get into it. 89 year old Fumiye Mukai gets up before dawn to catch a bus from Gilroy to San Jose (it’s a long trip) in order to attend the class. “I look forward to it because I can sit with all these people,” says Mukai. The wishbook article describes how to donate.
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By Jason
Having grown up on the East Coast in Washington D.C., which is a fairly multi-cultural community, I was shocked to hear about the assaults and beatings on about 30 Asian students at South Philadelphia High School. Fights broke out inside and outside of the school between mainly black and Asian students and many of those students had to seek medical attention for minor injuries. Up to ten students, both Asian and black, have already been suspended with intent to be expelled and prosecuted by the law.
There is commentary from the students about how a Vietnamese student was attacked by up to 14 other teens and about a lunch brawl where any Asian was targeted and punched or kicked for being Asian. Some reveal their unwanted bruises and marks from that day while describing their fear and helplessness to the situation. What surprised me most was a story from the victims of the lunch brawl. They had heard that there might be an attack in the cafeteria and when they asked an adult employee about the situation, the adult said it would be okay. Yet, it resulted in several students being attacked. It is the school’s responsibility to keep their students safe especially when there is concern about violence. The students themselves say that they do not feel safe at school even with the security guards there.
From all the stories, it is obvious that this has been escalating for a while: the school has a student population of 70% black, 18% Asian, 6% white, and 5% Latino and represents the lower socio-economic group. The school district believes that they have been trying their best possible to ease the racial tension and hold true to their claim that violence has decreased 50% from last year; from 480 to 371 reports, which to me would still make for an unsafe school.
As to why these attacks even occurred, it is likely due to the lack of cultural understanding, especially with the language barrier that many of the newly Chinese immigrants have trouble with. Also it is important to note, as another student had pointed out, that the Asian students tend to stay in their own groups and not interact with the other racially different students.
Although there had not been much violence at the high school I went to — I have never met a bully in my life — I can say from experience that Asians do tend to stay in their own cliques. I have always felt uncomfortable in those tight-knit groups and sought instead to expand my cultural horizons to not just one group.
The school district does have high hopes to finally make their school a safe learning center and have since been working with the community to alleviate this issue.
ABOUT JASON: I grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C., but I have recently moved to L.A., for school and not for fame. I am making my way up in medicine not because I am Asian, but because I want to make a difference.
Shopping With GASP!
There’s one thing to love ramen, but it’s a whole separately issue when it comes to wanting to bathe in it. We’ve posted about the exclusive noodle bath at Yunessun Spa in Japan, but here’s an actual video of it. Makes you…kind of not want to ever eat ramen again.
Who in their right mind would think that a hot, oily and salty pork broth is actually good for your skin? If that’s true, then bathing myself with Tom Yuan soup or slathering my face with Si Racha should also do the trick. Maybe even the orange chicken from Panda Express to sooth puffy eyes?
Oh, Japan. Please don’t ever change. XOXO, Moye.
Edit: Actually, it seems like the bath water just smells/tastes like ramen broth and is not actually real broth. Japan, you disappoint me. Please change. XOXO, Moye.
Wall Street Journal has the incredible story of 52-year-old Japanese American Terrance Watanabe, believed to have the biggest losing streak in Las Vegas history – losing an estimated overall total of $127 million in gambling, of which $112 million dollars in ONE year in 2007. $112. Million. Dollars.
Terrance built his personal fortune from a growing his Omaha, Nebraska business, Oriental Trading Company, importing and selling party-favors – a business he took over and grew from the age of 20 from his father who founded the company in 1932, shortly after immigrating to the United States from Japan. Annual revenues exceeded $300 million dollars before Terrance sold the business in 2000.
Being a workaholic, Terrance no idea what to do with his free time and appears to have become addicted to alcohol and gambling to fill his time; he is currently fighting a law suit against Harrah’s Entertainment from them claiming $14.7 million that the casino says it extended to him as credit and subsequently lost, and contends that the casino offered him cash back on some loses and is counter-suing on predator grounds:
“Several former and current Harrah’s employees say their managers told them to let Mr. Watanabe continue betting while he was visibly intoxicated, even though casino rules and state law stipulate that anyone who is clearly drunk shouldn’t be allowed to gamble. These employees say they were afraid they would be fired if they did anything to discourage Mr. Watanabe from gambling at the casinos… Mr. Watanabe alleges that during this period Harrah’s not only didn’t make him leave when he was drunk, but it plied him with alcohol and prescription drugs to encourage him to stay and gamble. Several Caesars employees say there was no policy to keep Mr. Watanabe drugged or drunk. But, they say, staff knew the company wanted to keep one of the Strip’s most lucrative customers, and so looked the other way. A picture of him was hung in employee back rooms, they say.”
What I find disturbing — yet fascinating — is that Terrance initially gambled at the Wynn casino, but CEO Steve Wynn quickly concluded that Terrance was a compulsive gambler and alcoholic and banned him from his casino.
Obviously, Terrance is responsible for his own behavior, and he admits his faults. But from the reporting, it appears that Harrah’s actively encouraged Terrance’s behavior and preyed on him, ignoring not only their legal obligation, but a moral one. (Then again, we are talking about a casino company here; we might as well be talking about Wall Street morals.)
I’ve blogged about Asian Americans and gambling before, so it is really sad to read about one of the worst, if not the worst, examples of gambling addiction in Terrance Watanabe.
One of Terrance’s goal after selling his business was to become more active in his non-profit foundation and philanthropic work. Imagine what $127 million dollars could have done to numerous good causes instead of going into the pockets of Las Vegas casinos?
(Image Source: The Wall Street Journal / The Omaha World-Herald)
My mom told me that when I was younger, she worried that I would be the one child who didn’t get to travel, didn’t get to see the world. Both my sisters had already done Europe before they graduated from college, while I hadn’t left the continent by the time I graduated. But to her surprise and perhaps mine, I became quite a world traveler soon after. By the time I was 25 I had not only traveled internationally, but had been lucky enough to have flown first class to Europe, that once coveted location that my mom thought I’d never get to. But I was a road warrior, meaning I was traveling for business, taking 26 or more business trips a year. I learned quickly to pack light, and that meant a lightweight laptop as well. The company I worked for could afford it, and I made sure I always had the smallest, lightest laptop available. In the 1990′s that meant Toshiba Portege models and IBM X-series. Fast forward to today, and companies are trying to save money, so I don’t travel as much as I used to, and I’m lugging around a heavy 6 pound laptop.
As soon as I heard about the netbook, I knew it was for me. It was low cost, ultra-light weight, and capable of doing practically everything I needed it to when I was on the road. Asus is generally credited with producing the first netbook, and Jonney Shih, the chairman of Asustek is considered the man behind the netbook craze.
Shih is also the largest shareholder of Asustek, the $21-billion-a-year Taiwan-based technology firm that introduced the first netbook three years ago, starting a revolution in the PC industry. When it hit stores in the fall of 2007, Shih’s low cost EeePC (priced initially at $399) was considered a toy by competitors. But Asustek, or Asus for short, went on to sell millions of the mini-notebooks and grew to No. 5 in worldwide PC market share.
Today almost every PC manufacturer, including Dell, Hewlett- Packard, and Toshiba, offers its own version of a netbook. But the biggest netbook maker, with 38% of the market, is another Taiwanese tech company, Acer. Asus, which had the market all to itself for about eight months, is now in second place, with a 30% share.
My own netbook is an Asus EeePC, and I’m grateful for the light weight, the utility, and the long battery life of the device when I’m on the road. It’s also great for keeping my daughter occupied when we’re on family trips. I’m certainly never taking the 6 pound monster work laptop on the road again. But be warned, if you’ve never seen one before, the first time you get your hands on one, may be a shock. They are deceptively small, a plus in my opinion!
In the first move of its kind since the early 1970s, the University of California at San Francisco has given honorary degrees to 68 Japanese American students who were forced to leave the campus because of the internment of West Coast-based Japanese Americans during World War II after the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The UC system had originally imposed a moratorium since 1972 on giving honorary degrees, and considering that many of these former students have now passed away, this is long overdue. It’s sobering and maddening to think how these 68 students were unfairly forced to leave one of the top health science universities in the country all because of unfounded racist policies, and to imagine what they could’ve done in their chosen fields had they been allowed to stay and complete their degrees.
As a current 1st year student pharmacist at UCSF, it is heartening to see that UCSF is encouraging diversity, from having the first Filipina American in the US be the head of an academic department at a university (Kathleen Giacomini in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences), to seeing other people of color take prominent leadership roles at the campus. Even though what UCSF is doing is mostly symbolic, such gestures show that UC is at least trying to make amends with the past (even if they are forcing all their current students to pay huge fee increases–sigh).
The 8Asians tumblr highlights Asians [& uber talented non-Asians] who draw, dance, build, film, sing, write, invent, paint, teleport, and of course, tumble. It’s curated by Jun, Moye and Ernie.
Volkswagen’s latest entertaining ad campaign is their “Sign Then Drive” event where you can get a Jetta, CC, or Tiguan for “practically just your signature.” I’ve actually test driven a Lexus with an Asian American car saleswoman before, so I was happy to see this commercial. [EDITORS NOTE: If this was an inappropriate blog, I would clearly make a crass comment about being grateful that the Asian women are selling the cars and not driving them. But that would be inappropriate. Hey-yo!]
Contrast this to this other Volkswagen ad, the woman appears to be a cute, quiet, demure trophy girlfriend as her boyfriend is checking out the car. You can view the ad after the jump: What do you think?
In its second year, ART ASIA Miami (December 2-6, 2009) is taking place at the renowned SOHO STUDIOS in the gallery district of Wynwood. With a new curatorial and educational focus that culminates in the landmark exhibition titled Truly Truthful, ART ASIA features participating galleries and artists from over 15 countries such as Korea, China, Japan, India, Cambodia, Thailand, Lebanon, Pakistan, Taiwan, Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Switzerland, France, and the US. ART ASIA and the exhibition Truly Truthful are open to the public from Thursday, December 3 to Sunday, December 5 with a sneak preview for VIPs and Press on Wednesday, December 2.
I’m no history buff, but I do know that mankind has made some awesome advancements in telling time. We’ve gone from sun dial clocks to big-hand, little-hand clocks, to digital clocks. The wonderful world of fashion has done a lot for the standard time-telling-contraptions and we can bling it up as much as we want. We are free to accessorize and make a statement with something so simple and so basic as a time-telling-device.
Well, mankind has made another advancement – the Kawaii Klock. Inspired and developed by Ernie in a conversation we had about Asian poses at a Yogurtland after the BANANA conference in about fifteen minutes, you too will be overcome with all the kawaii that takes place in this one simple, uhm, klock.
Wow, maybe December is “National Get Elected to a Civic Post if You’re a Gaysian” Month: only a day after Campbell, California officially elected Evan Low as the country’s youngest Asian-American and gay mayor, Alex Wan has become the first Asian-American and openly gay man elected to District 6 of the Atlanta City Council, a council post traditionally known as “the gay seat.” The director of Atlanta’s Jerusalem House during the day, he had been previously named one of the “25 Most Influential Asian Americans in Georgia.” To which we say: “There are more than 25 Asian Americans in Georgia?” (Yeah, we’re assholes. Sorry. Hat tip: jbrotherlove, via Twitter)
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