8Asians.com | Archive

On This Day: BoA, PostSecret, Obama’s hapaness

The one white girl at an LA BoA show clearly wants to drive back to Malibu. [By Ernie, one year ago today]
Someone is terrified of Japanese businessmen on PostSecret. [By Moye, one year ago today]
An observation about the lack of women at a Bay Area International Secret Agents show leaves commenters pissed. [By Connie, one year ago today]
A discussion of the role of race, racial identity and then presidential-candidate Obama. [By John, two years ago today]

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[Mar 25] SOUTHERN CA: Asian Pacific Islander TV Pilot Shootout

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More details to follow. Sponsored by FOX Diversity. The winner will receive the opporunity to pitch an executive at FOX.

Shopping With GASP!

Comedian Joe Wong at the Annual Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner

By John | Monday, March 22, 2010

This past week, Comedian Joe Wong, whom I’ve blogged about before and met, performed at the Annual Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner. Originally, President Obama was supposed to attend, but Vice-President Joe Biden was there instead. Joe had a lot of new original material for the crowd, which you can catch on CSPAN and is worth your 15 minutes. If you’re in the Bay Area between April 1st & 3rd, you can watch him live at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco.

| Posted in Comedy, Current Events, Entertainment, TV | 11 Comments

Asian-Americans join other Minority Real Estate Groups to make Housing Crisis Recommendations

By Jeff | Monday, March 22, 2010

When you hear about high end/high income Asian American neighborhoods and Asian-American influences on real estate markets, it can be easy to forget that Asian-Americans have incomes that vary greatly. The Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) joined with the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals and National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) to issue a plan for addressing the housing crisis in minority communities. The plan‘s five points focus on expanding the Community Reinvestment act, educating and empowering homebuyers (especially first time homebuyers), reducing foreclosures, reinvigorating the mortgage market, and protecting consumers.

areeaanahrepleg2010em 04MAR10 003 600x400 Asian Americans join other Minority Real Estate Groups to make Housing Crisis Recommendations

The press release announcing the plan says that Asian-Americans are 1.3 more likely than whites to be in foreclosure. Asian-Americans have had the biggest percentage drop in home ownership during the recession compared to other ethnic groups. I asked my Brother-in-Law the Realtor who lives with me (BIL for short) whether he has noticed a lot of foreclosures in the Asian-American community. BIL said that Asian-Americans are definitely not immune. As with academics and health, the effects of economic stress on Asian-Americans are diverse.

One of the five points emphasizes protecting consumers. A consequence of the current housing problems is that there are people ready to take advantage of those in desperate situations. Indian-Americans have been affected by this, and in Los Angeles, a law firm has been accused of taking advantage of Korean-Americans who are having trouble keeping their homes.

h/t: Joanna Wu

| Posted in Business, Real Estate | No Comments

[Mar 24] NORTHERN CA: Information Session for Artists Interested in Applying to the Art in Storefronts: Chinatown Pilot Program

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After a successful first round of installations in Central Market, Tenderloin, Bayview and Mission Districts, Art in Storefronts, will expand into San Francisco’s Chinatown in June.

Artists interested in participating in this pilot program are encouraged to attend an informational workshop where Arts Commission staff will review the guidelines and eligibility requirements, as well as what will make a proposal competitive. Chinese translation will be available.

The guidelines and application are now available on the San Francisco Arts Commission’s website at http://www.sfartscommission.org/storefronts. The deadline is Friday, April 16, 2010.

ABOUT ART IN STOREFRONTS
Art in Storefronts temporarily places original art installations and murals by San Francisco-based artists into vacant and under-utilized storefront windows and one wall in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This inventive citywide project engages local artists and reinvigorates neighborhoods that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn. It also provides artists, who have also been affected by the economy, with a unique opportunity to showcase their creativity in transforming vacant storefronts into free exhibition spaces and to garner public recognition for their work.

The Daily Show: Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke

By John | Sunday, March 21, 2010

This past week, former governor of Washington state and current Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke was on The Daily Show to encourage viewers to fill out the census form. Locke did try to address privacy concerns after Jon Stewart suggested that his census data would be used against him to be placed in a Japanese internment camp. You can catch part 2 of Locke’s interview here or check out Stephen Colbert’s interesting take on the public’s concerns about the census.

| Posted in Comedy, Current Events, Entertainment, Politics | No Comments

Chinese and Doughnuts: A California Mystery

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In California, you see a lot of doughnut shops that double as Chinese food restaurants – there is one down the block from my house in San Francisco, and I can think of at least three other restaurants in the city. The answer seems to be a practical one: doughnuts are popular in the morning, Chinese food at night. There’s a great article in The Atlantic that discusses this, along with an explanation of why so many California doughnut shops are Cambodian owned and operated; it’s a fascinating article.

[Apr 1] EVERYWHERE: US Census Forms Due

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The deadline for turning in your US Census form is April 1st, 2010. Read more about why it’s important to turn in your census form here.

Joe & Heidi Wang Eliminated from The Amazing Race

By John | Friday, March 19, 2010

In the most recent episode of The Amazing Race, husband and wife team, Joe and Heidi Wang were eliminated after being “U-turned” by the police detective duo Louie and Michael, who felt that the couple were a strong team that needed to be eliminated. As soon as I saw the alternative task that Joe and Heidi had to do, which was to decode a Morse code message under noisy conditions in a mock World War I trench warfare environment, I knew that they might possibly be eliminated. No other team tried to decode the Morse code, instead choosing to crawl through the battlefield task. Joe and Heidi were a competitive team, and it’s too bad that they did not make it further in the race like past Asian American teams, such as the winning siblings, Tammy and Victor Jih, and the runner-up father and daughter team, Ronald & Christina.

| Posted in Entertainment, TV | 4 Comments

Ke$ha Parody Music Video Features Asian Dude as Leia

By Ernie | Friday, March 19, 2010

Happy Friday, kids. Happy Friday.

(Note: The Asian Dude is Eddie King of Teddie Films and the video was done for Ke$ha’s Tik Tok video contest.)

| Posted in Comedy, Entertainment, Music, WTF | 4 Comments

Wanted: Asian Americans 18-25 for a Research Project

By Guest Writer | Thursday, March 18, 2010

From an 8Asians reader:

We are inviting you to participate in a research project to examine cultural experiences and parent-child relationships among Asian Americans. We hope that the findings from this project will help us identify how to strengthen Asian American parent-child relationships.

To qualify for this project, you need to be Asian/Asian American, between 18 – 25 years old, have lived in the United States for at least 5 years, and have both parents who are alive. Your participation involves responding to an online survey that will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. The survey includes questions about your cultural experiences and your parents. For example, you will be asked to indicate the extent you agree with statements such as “I think it is fine for an unmarried woman to have a child.” To thank you for your participation, you will be given the opportunity to enter a draw for one of four $15 AMAZON GIFT CARDS after completing the survey.

To enter the survey, click on the following weblink:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SFDB5XB

This project has been approved by the Indiana University Human Subjects Committee. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact the investigators of this project, Minkyeong Shin ([email protected]) or Joel Wong, Ph.D. ([email protected]).

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Minkyeong Shin, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Indiana University Bloomington

Joel Wong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Indiana University Bloomington

| Posted in Announcements, Family, Lifestyles | No Comments

Belldandy, Genghis, and other Fabulous Filipino First Names

By Jeff | Thursday, March 18, 2010

Belldandy as Power Rangers Operation Overdrive Drivemax Megazord

We received a link from a reader who thought that Ernie was kidding in this conversation with Rosemary about Filipino names but realized he wasn’t when she saw this link featuring a Filipina girl named Belldandy whose parents dress her up in cosplay outfits. What kind of parent names their kid Belldandy?” A Filipino parent of course! (And also a manga fan, as Belldandy is a character in the manga Oh My Goddess!). Filipino parents are famed for creating all kinds of crazy first names and nicknames. I have a first cousin named “Ludwig” and another named “Lyndon Johnson.” One Filipino who wrote for 8Asians is named “Genghis.”

So how did this name craziness start? It started when the Philippines’ Spanish colonial masters converted Filipinos to Catholicism. Filipinos took up religious names, but in a rather random kind of way. “They arbitrarily adopted the names of saints and this practice has resulted in the existence of thousands of individuals having the same name,” complained Spanish Governor-General Narciso Claveria. “I saw the resultant confusion with regard to the administration of justice, government, finance and public order, as well as the far-reaching moral, civil and religious consequences to which this might lead.” In 1849, he sent out a catalog of acceptable names for Filipinos to use. Some lazy local administrators simply named every person in a village with the same last name. Other administrators had everyone in a village have the last name starting with the same letter. As a result, many Filipinos have the same last name. If you have the same name as a criminal (a common occurrence), you have to go through a lengthy process and carry with you a note from the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation saying that you are not the criminal with the same name.

To avoid this problem and to grant their kids have at least some individuality, Filipino parents have no qualms about coming up with, well, “atypical” first names. This story from the Wall Street Journal talks about a man named Hitler Manila who has sons named Himmler and Hess. Apparently the names didn’t go over well with some Germans. A favorite is technique is to combine names, mentioned in this article from the BBC, resulting in names like Luzviminda (from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao – major regions of the Philippines) or “Jejomar” (combining Jesus, Joseph, and Mary). I had a friend with the name of “Alvi”, from her father “Al” and her mother “Violeta.”

Does this tradition live on in Filipino-Americans? Well, yes and no. Yes, as my brother named his daughter “Kira Nichelle” after Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhuru in the original Star Trek series. No, as I suggested naming my son Valen Kosh (from the Babylon 5 TV series), but The Wife vetoed that idea.
h/t: Catherine for the Belldandy Pointer