Figure skating is my favorite Winter Olympic sport. Sadly, the figure skating world in the U.S. lately doesn’t have the Kristi Yamaguchis and Nancy Kerrigans I’ve loved in the past. But I will be watching this year’s women’s competition closely to support Kim Yu-Na who has become a star in Korea and in figure skating–the first star female figure skater in South Korea ever.
With a whole nation’s hopes and expectations on those slim shoulders, the current world champion Kim Yu-Na is favored heavily for the gold medal in this year’s figure skating Winter Olympics competition. Her technical abilities in landing those triple jump combos with ease is coupled with aesthetic beauty in brilliant footwork and artistry with an air of happiness and excitement on the ice. She is truly beautiful to watch. While she has had occasionally stumbles, she is quite a joy to watch, and I hope she wins this for Korea — a first for the small country.
What makes this more interesting is that her two latest rivals are Japanese skater Mao Asada, who landed her first triple axel at age 14 and landed two triple axels in 2008-2009 and seriously has the most beautiful triple axel I’ve ever seen. Miki Ando is also the serious contender to the gold medal in this year’s Olympics and a very strong athletic skater.
Besides the whole Japanese-Korean competition thing that just ups the excitement in watching the women’s figure skating competition this year — all three women are beautiful skaters who have the utmost highest athletic ability ever seen from Japan and Korea, so this will be a great event.
For upcoming figure skating champions — I’d put my money on Chinese-American U.S. figure skater Christina Gao, who skates beautifully at only age 15. I fully expect her to be at the next Olympics!
Who will you be routing for?
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I’m not ashamed to admit that I get pretty stoked and giddy each time the Olympics come around. Summer or Winter, I love them all. I’m always amazed and inspired at what each athlete is trying to accomplish. I can only imagine the training, the sweat, and determination they pour in to just make it to the Olympics. Like most, I have my favorite events and favorites athletes.
Top on my list for the Winter Olympics are Short Track and Figure Skating. A definite draw for short track is Apolo Ohno. To put it simply, he’s adorable. As sad as I am that this is his last skate at the Olympics, there is another cutie taking his place, J.R. Celski. I watched with great anticipation and nerves Saturday night when the two skated for gold in the Men’s 1500m Short Track. I was a little disappointed that U.S. did not get gold, but it was nice to have three Asian athletes medal.
Enough about short track. Check out all the other Asians representing (USA) in this year’s Winter Olympics.
Shopping With GASP!
“The President wishes peace, prosperity and good health to Americans and people across the world who are celebrating the Lunar New Year and welcoming the Chinese Year of the Tiger.”
For the first time ever, a contingent of LGBT Vietnamese Americans will be marching today, February 13, in the Tet Parade in Westminster, CA in Orange County, which is also known as Little Saigon and one of the epicenters of the Vietnamese American community. Unfortunately, they have come under fire from many Vietnamese American religious right groups, with many of them threatening to boycott the event.
According to Thanh Do, co-chair for Gay Vietnamese Alliance, one of the four LGBT groups marching in a collective group, he explains that while LGBTs have always played a huge role in Vietnamese and Vietnamese American culture, the four groups wanted to demonstrate visibility and positivity for this segment of the community. “We want to show that we have always been part of the Vietnamese culture, and we respect and maintain that culture through our contributions, performances and art,” in a phone interview I had with him yesterday. “We felt that the community was ready to accept us.”
Thanh also notes that these groups are also marching to demonstrate against the homophobia that also exists within the Vietnamese American community. “Most importantly,” he states, “we are marching for all the queer youth and other LGBT folks to show that they are not alone and for all the LGBT people in the Vietnamese community who were killed or committed suicide because of their orientation.” He personally also thanked the City of Westminster and Greg Johnson, the city services director, for accepting and encouraging the groups to march in the Tet Parade.
Want to tell the world about your Asian-American stories and experiences? Jonathan Yi, who is working on a mini-documentary for Asian American Heritage month, is looking for you! He’s seeking a wide variety of stories about the Asian American. They could be about your grandparents, your favorite food, or your life growing up. “As long as it’s real and as long as it’s uniquely you,” says Jonathan.
Some stories so far:
As an example, we currently have a story of a Korean kid who was adopted into an Italian family in Pennsylvania. He grew up 100% culturally Italian while looking very Korean to his peers. He won the outstanding Italian American scholarship for college and accepted the award in front of a room full of confused old Italians. Hilarity ensues and lessons are learned.
We also have a story of a grandfather who came to America from China. He couldn’t read the menu at McDonalds but was hungry as hell. All he could read were the words “Happy” and “Meal” so that’s what he ordered. He still cherishes the toy he received on that day.
If your story is selected, you have the opportunity to tell it on HBO in May, and you get paid too! For more information, see this flyer or contact [email protected].
h/t: Madley
It’s tough being a little kid, let alone growing up with different cultures. So when you actually look at this preschool title of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: New Year’s Celebration for the Nintendo DSi, you have to smile. And guess what: the Year of the Tiger is only a couple days away.
Graphics: The colors are pretty vibrant on my Nintendo DSi and it seems that Nickelodeon made an effort to make it into very distinct color schemes due to the fact that there are some color and shape mini-games in the story mode. No special cell-shading here, but let’s be honest now, it’s perfect for the target audience.
Sound: Not much to say here. Not like I play early childhood video games games as a habit, but I assume they used the same voice actors as the cartoon and had them do sound bytes. This was pretty cute, as an educational type game but I wouldn’t want to hear it over and over again as an adult. But the game is for pre-schoolers, and for them, it’s fantastic.
Dynamics: My favorite section of reviews: I thought the overall gameplay to be very linear — not a bad thing for younger minds. The mini-games go from one to the next and don’t really stop for anything. Also interesting is that neither the directional pad or A,B,X,Y keys work. And I’m pretty sure that this was by design; you figure that as a young child, you’ll probably be using the stylus more than anything, so all of the controls are built into the touchpad. From that perspective, I think that it was a brilliant move, although I’m curious as to what age group does actually start to tinker with the keys.
My one single black mark — only like a semi-gray one, really — is probably when Kai-Lan asks you to say something. At first I was trying to say the words but on a offhand thought, I decided to blow in the microphone instead. What’s strange is that it also worked and took it. Now, this isn’t necessarily something that 2K Play can control, but I don’t know how sensitive a DSi can detect actual word patterns. It’d be curious to do some testing in this fashion, but that’s for another day.
Overall: 2K Play is the division of 2K that creates games for this age group. So if you have a little one, love this game, and am looking for similar titles, go there first to find more information. Kai-Lan is a cute series that delves into the Chinese culture and I think that it’s great that we’re starting to see this beginning to pop up even in mainstream gaming.
Winter is hard! There are blizzards storming across the East coast and it rained really hard for a day here in Los Angeles. Temperatures have been dropping below freezing (which is like 50 degrees, according to So Cal standards) but despite the cold season, technology must go on! Nothing can stop you from Tweeting, updating your Facebook status and constantly checking your email!
Well, until you realize that the iPhone doesn’t quite work with mittens. What to do!?
You can always buy these adorable gloves or you can do as the South Koreans are doing: use a sausage stick!
Wired.com is reporting that people in South Korea have picked up the mini sausage as an edible and cheap stylus to scroll through their iPhone during the winter months, boosting sales of the convenience store snack. Something tells me that this probably won’t work with a Slim Jim.
Yeah, WTF? I’m hungry now.
Asians are offended by a recent decision by MARTA — Atlanta’s rail system — to name its line from Atlanta’s Airport to Doraville “the Yellow Line.” And by “Asians are offended,” I mean, “some Asians are offended, and the rest are looking for people to be offended so we can blog about how offended they are.”
A quick trip to Wikipedia reveals that MARTA had lines called the Northeast-South Line, the North-South Line, the Proctor Creek line. But what’s easier to say, the Northeast-South Line, or the Yellow line? Exactly. And there’s plenty of other municipal transit systems that use colors: Chicago has a yellow line. San Francisco’s Millbrae to Bay Point line is yellow. The groups seeking to have a conversation with a mayor practically acknowledges this and how the Director didn’t mean to offend, but counters with an race issues more troubling: “If a line going to the south side of the city was named the black line, I think you’d have a different outcome. The sensitivity to Asian issues is not there yet.” That’s going to require a lot more mediation meetings than what you name a transportation line, if you ask me.
UPDATE: MARTA has now renamed the Yellow Line to the Gold Line.
The new season of The Amazing Race starts this Sunday and has yet another Asian American team in married couple Joe & Heidi Wang from El Segundo, California. Last season, professional poker player Maria Ho was on with a friend and fellow poker professional, and the previous season brother & sister team Victor & Tammy won The Amazing Race. Joe is a sales executive for Microsoft and Heidi is a stay-at-home mom of two. You can see a quick video overview of all the teams here. Infamous former Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 is also a contestant and something to prove. I’m a big fan of the show, so I’ll be watching quite intently. Good luck to Joe & Heidi!
It can’t be a post on 8Asians if we can’t inevitably write about the season’s token contestant. Anoop Desai and Ramiele Malubay? Eh, they were alright. How about Paul Kim or AJ Talbado? Who? Exactly.
So now that we’ve cycled through “the season with the Pacific Islander contestant” and “the season with the South Asian contestant,” we’re at a new Paula Abdul-less season of American Idol, and with it, John Park who — OMG STOP READING IF YOU HATE SPOILERS OMG — becomes this season’s token Asian contestant, if you can trust the American Idol spoiler websites. From the YouTube clip, he wins over Shania Twain and — OH SNAP — sings in a baritone, breaking the barrier that all Asian males must sing like Wanya Morris from Boyz II Men. But how far with he go to become THE American Idol, dear 8Asians readers: will he be our first Asian American Idol, or will he sing something awkward like Careless Whisper and get eliminated?
(Hat tip: Dino)
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