“You’ll me miss when I am gone!”
shouted The Daughter at her brothers. “No we won’t!” they replied in chorus. The Daughter, currently a junior in high school, was looking ahead at moving away to go to college. This exchange made me wonder if after completing college, she’ll move back as a boomerang kid. According to this report from the Pew Research Center, the economy, the housing crisis, and demographic shifts are causing a shift toward multi-generational households, with Asian-Americans leading the way.
Immigrants, particularly from Latin American and Asia, who are from cultures where extended families are not unusual, are cited as one reason for the increase. I have written about my brother-in-law who lives with my family and occasionally makes our furniture disappear (interestingly, that arrangement does not meet the study’s definition of multi-generational) . Before my brother-in-law, the Wife’s parents lived with us. When The Wife and I got married, my mother invited us to live with them (not so unusual for Filipinos), but The Wife didn’t think so highly of that idea, to put it mildly. Often a multi-generational household happens because of the need to care for elderly parents. Indeed, the study points to data that says that older people living with others are generally healthier and happier than those living alone.
How would I feel about The Daughter boomeranging her way back home? To be fair, I lived with my parents for a few years after graduating from college, mainly to save money. Her cousins did the same before moving out. My feelings are mixed. Especially after years of dealing with teenage craziness, I hope she can make it on her own, but I know how the rough the economy can be.
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Grab Your Glowsticks!
This was at the request of Cassandra who wanted to hear a para-trance/ eurobeat show. Since there are so many forms of trance music and everyone has their own opinion on it, I came up with this non-stop mix. Personally, I’m more of a house and club beat girl.
Course, just hours after I finished the mix down, I got inundated with remixes for After School’s new track Bang! (You must check out the drumline – seriously hot!) I’m still waiting around for a decent SNSD, Run Devil Run remix to also be released.
Most of the remixes played can be found via YouTube, so you’ll have to do some legwork, but I will have the playlist after the jump.
My next episode, #41, I’ll be talking to Ellie Lee, from AATheory.com and Seoulbeats about her new project on racism. Stay tuned!
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Shopping With GASP!
Our internal e-mail lists have us discussing all kinds of stuff: Asian American identity, representation in the media, the experiences of activism in an academia setting and its progression as we transition to the working, adult world. And sometimes, we talk about sleeping Asians. That’s right, folks: ASIANS. THAT ARE SLEEPING.
Jen: “Asian-Americans slept the best of all, with five of every six saying they got a good night’s sleep at least a few nights a week. They were also less likely than members of other groups to watch television or drink alcohol before going to bed, and less likely to share a bed with a spouse or partner.” A sleep expert is quoted: “what we do in the hour before bedtime is important.” My question: What do Asian Americans do an hour before bed that makes us more likely to sleep well?
Efren: They probably have sex with their partner, and then kick them out of bed.
Ernie: Study for their LSATs. THANK YOU FOLKS I’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK
So, what do you do the hour before you go to bed? I play forty games of Bejeweled Blitz in a row, but hey, I’m a fucking rebel.
(Flickr photo credit: Half Chinese)
American’s Failure to Protect Human Rights in Taiwan (Past, Present, and Future)
Presentation by Michael Richardson
Date: March 28, 2010 (Sunday) 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: Taiwanese American Center-Northern California
4413 Fortran Court, San Jose, CA 95134
Sponsor: Taiwanese American Center-NC
Admission: Free
Information Contacts: John Hsieh (510) 784-7341; Taiwanese American Center-NC (408) 263-7188
Introduction
Michael Richardson is a freelance journalist and independent political consultant. Richardson writes about progressive issues, politics, and election law. He is a recognized authority on United States election law and has served as a top advisor to independent U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
He is a former member of the Human Rights Authority and investigated human rights violations in the state of Illinois. Richardson turned to journalism following a 20-year career in public interest law firms serving people with low income and disabilities. He is currently the Taiwan policy expert for the internet newspaper Examiner.com.
Richardson’s interest in Taiwan began with his study of the Roger Lin vs. United States lawsuit in 2008, and has become a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy that has left Taiwanese people, ruled under Kuomingtang or the Nationalist, without a state for over 60 years. Since January 2009, Richardson has written 130 articles concerning Taiwan’s current status. As a U.S. citizen, Richardson feels responsible for his government’s continuing failure to support and protect residents of Taiwan who are struggling to secure international recognition of their country, Taiwan.
Richardson came to the Bay Area in June 2009 and gave a speech entitled “America’s Unfinished Business in Taiwan.” He has scheduled a visit to Taiwan from March 17 to 27, 2010. Right after his return to the U.S., Richardson will be in the Bay Area to share his experience and interviews of some prominent political figures in Taiwan during his recent visit. His speech will include a review of the impacts of present and past U.S. presidents’ actions on Taiwan, the role of CIA, and a strategy for the future.
I highly recommend all you folks in Seattle and its nearby vicinities to check out this production of Ching Chong Chinaman at the Richard Hugo House, running from March 26 to April 24. I won two tickets to watch this play, written by San Francisco native Lauren Yee, back in 2008. At first, I was a little bit leery about going to see a play with the words “ching chong” in the title, but through satire and mockery, Ching Chong Chinaman left me with more than a few thoughts about Asian American culture and identity.
[Warning: Spoiler Alert after the cut!]
A lawyer representing a 54-year-old Japanese man who was charged Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a Pasadena art college instructor said his client had become upset after hearing his wife subjected to “a racial and sexual slur.” The charged man himself was severely beaten in the incident and was in critical condition at a local hospital.
South by Southwest is one of the most prominent indie music extravaganza in the nation – maybe even the world. Actually, Austin is considered “The Live Music Capital of the World” so the latter is probably more accurate.
Having lived there before, I do miss the easy access to live music, so going back to delve into SXSW was quite exciting – but it’s like a bombardment of live music. It’s overwhelming – stressful even.
Nonetheless, one night after an evening of listening to Talib Kweli, Estelle, and watching rhythmless drunken girls dance on a bar that reeked of vomit, we ended the night at Spill, a bar on the celebrated street of college co-ed debauchery called 6th Street.
Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde at SXSW. Please forgive the badly taken pictures
I was starting to lose steam realizing that I was not 21 years old anymore, but then I heard some music that gave me a little bounce. The last act of the evening in Spill was Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde, two Asian American hip-hop and soul artists from the Bay Area.
Now that I claim the San Francisco Bay Area I was pumping my fist in the air in a non-douchelike manner and jammin’ out with the crowd – and it was the first time I heard of them. I wondered why it took me so damn long to even hear of this group. I felt so unhip and a disgrace to my Asian American brethren.
I really need to brush up on my Fil-Am and Asian pop. I used to be such a groupie when it came to that stuff. I think it’s time to reincarnate my dormant groupie.
As most of you have noticed by now, I’m always interested in posting stuff about Asian American (straight) men’s issues and the rather annoying paradox of representation in American media: Asian American men bitch about not being represented in the media, but when they’re called out to actively participate, they’d rather not put themselves out there, thus exacerbating the problem.
Jeff Yang in his regular sfgate.com column today does a great job talking about this in terms of straight porn and the absolute lack of Asian American straight male porn stars, and the collective insecurity that many straight Asian men have about their bodies and their dicks. Yang interviews Keni Styles (warning: this link is NSFW–and I’ve talked about him before) and his rise to being one of the most sought after straight porn stars in the business–and his opinion on why straight Asian American men appear to be, well, all talk and no action.
1946. Seattle, Washington. A Japanese American draft resister is released from prison and returns home to find nothing is as it once was. He struggles to piece together his war torn world.
Ken Narasaki’s stage adaptation of John Okada’s ground breaking novel No-No Boy is scheduled for its world premiere March 27, 2010. Originally published in 1957, the novel was re-discovered and republished in 1976 and has since become a staple of Asian American studies programs in universities across the country. “No-no boy” refers to draft-age Japanese American men who refused to sign a loyalty oath administered in the internment camps; many of these men were ostracized after the war ended. Set after World War II as Japanese Americans return to the West Coast, the play follows draft resister Ichiro Yamada after he is released from prison and struggles to come to terms with the consequences of his choices, while the rest of the community tries to get back on its feet after a war that has uprooted them all
The same artistic team produced Innocent When You Dream (Critic’s Choice LA Times, Pick of the Week LA Weekly), which had a successful run at Electric Lodge in Venice and was later invited to perform at the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC) in 2008. for more information please visit: www.timescapearts.com.
Funding for this production of No-No Boy was provided by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a program of the California State Library.
Timescape Arts Group is a (non-profit 501 (c) (3)).
Contact us: nonoboy2010@gmail.com
channelAPA.com talks with Andrea Lwin from the Slanted web series, which offer a satirical look at an Asian American female trying to break into acting. It’s never easy to get that “big break” when it seems everything is against you from parents to casting agents. Andrea tells us about the difficulty of getting roles in Hollywood while offering an unique perspective about getting cast as a prostitute vs white collar roles.
I normally ignore 99% of electronics ads on TV, not only because I have no use for most of its products, but I can’t afford them and most of the technology goes right over my head.
It’s hard to ignore the latest commercial from Sharp Electronics, which stars George Takei of Star Trek fame. He plays a Sharp engineer introducing the latest technology for television called Quattron, which adds a fourth pixel color, yellow, to the standard RGB (red, green and blue) color system. No, I don’t have a clue what that all means.
What I do know is how confused I was by the end of the commercial. George Takei, an Asian American actor, is introducing a yellow pixel. Is this supposed to be tongue-in-cheek? Should I be mildly offended–I’m not sure I am–or should I laugh it off because if George Takei thinks it’s funny, then it’s okay? The ad is actually quite humorous and George is great in it.
What do you guys think?
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