Since the official music video is out, and I figured with yesterday’s look at his album release, it was at least worthwhile to show the talent off. Again, I am amazed at the production quality of this music video. This is something that I’d expect on Fuze or MTV (do they even play music anymore?) and less so from a Youtube channel. Major props, guys… props.
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Slant Film Festival turns 10! Hosted by the Aurora Picture Show in Houston, this annual festival showcases an eclectic mix of the best short films made by emerging and mid-career Asian American artists. With rich characters and visions that give voice to the fantastical as well as the every day, these short films are as varied as they are compelling. Curated by Melissa Hung, the founding editor of Hyphen, Slant provides a fresh perspective on the Asian American experience. This proram includes films by Greg Pak, J.P. Chan, Prithi Gowda, Adele Pham, Mio Adilman, Wendy J.N. Lee and more! Tickets are $7. Visit our website for more information about the films, and to buy tickets.
Shopping With GASP!
WHAT: Chinatown will come alive for the Art in Storefronts launch celebration, featuring an art walk, live music by Diskarte Namin and light refreshments provided by local restaurants Z&Y, Four Seas, and Charles Phan of the Slanted Door (who grew up in Chinatown), as well as tea tasting provided by Vital Tealeaf. The community celebration will kick off with Supervisor David Chiu unveiling the four storefront windows and two murals designed by San Francisco artists.
*Special media tours and interviews with participating artists will be scheduled throughout the afternoon upon request.
WHO: Art in Storefronts is a pilot program in collaboration with the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and community partners: Kearny Street Workshop, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, and Chinatown Community Development Center.
WHEN: Friday, June 11, 2010 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Formal remarks will begin at 5:30 p.m. followed by an unveiling of the window installations and art walk with the artists.
WHERE: Storefronts and walls within three blocks bordered by Grant Avenue and Sacramento, Kearny, and Jackson streets. Reception and remarks in Wentworth alley (between Kearny and Grant, Jackson and Washington).
COST: FREE
INFORMATION: Visit www.sfartscommission.org/storefronts
ABOUT ART IN STOREFRONTS
Art in Storefronts temporarily places original art installations and murals by San Francisco-based artists into a total of four vacant storefront windows and two walls located in 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 downturn 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.
I admit, before I was even told that David Choi has released By My Side — his second album — I haven’t listened to any of his stuff since he made that cute single with Kina Grannis, My Time With You. But something about his unedited thank you to his fans just draws you in; it’s dorky, but he knows it and comments about it, and you just have to chuckle and keep watching.
What’s interesting is that despite that last video, the guy has a voice. A really dang good voice. Like a “holy motha-, why couldn’t I had been blessed with that” type of voice. No, it’s not a Justin Bieber voice (sorry, David, but I think yours is better.) Don’t believe me? Don’t make your judgment from his thank you video and instead check out his Youtube channel — after watching a few of the videos, I have to say that I’ll probably buy it just because of those great productions.
It also doesn’t hurt to have done quite a few things with production company WongFu either, another one of my West Coast faves. In any case, go grab your copy of By My Side, Out today.
Oh and on the off-chance that you’re still reading this and wondering why I mention giving birth in the title: I direct your attention to his blog post explaining his process in making the album.
h/t: Sam
At 8Asians, we’ve blogged about Where Are the Asian CEOs? , how Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White, as well as the “bamboo ceiling.” I recently read that now Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) has an Advanced Leadership Program for Asian American Executives offered for the Summer 2010 from August 15 to 20th.
“[The] new executive program is the first of its kind to address the apparent gap in effective executive training for high-achieving Asian executives – a gap substantiated by the surprising disparity between Asians in the corporate workforce and those in executive positions. The program participants will include mostly high level Asians, but the program is open to any person who holds a position representing the highest 3-4% of the employee workforce, typically with job titles such as functional director, vice-president, or partner”
The course was organized with the help of leaders of the Asian American business society Ascend, the Asia Society as well as Stanford University. Buck Gee, who retired from Cisco Systems in 2008 as a VP, co-authored the study “The Failure of Asian Success in the Bay Area: Asians as Corporate Executive Leaders” and helped put this program together. In that study, Gee had focused on the disparity between highly educated Asian Americans in Silicon Valley and Bay Area firms and their disproportionate under-representation in leadership positions.
I believe there are certain cultural aspects while growing up Asian American that might influence the lack of achievement in mainstream American business culture – but that is just one aspect of the issue. I think creating awareness of the issue can help – much like the very high profile article recently in The New York Times regarding how women were underrepresented in Silicon Valley, despite the fact outnumbering men at elite colleges, law schools, medical schools and in the overall work force. With Asian Americans demographically making up 20% to 30% of the residential population and sometimes as high as 50% of some companies, especially in the Bay Area, at some point in time there has to be cognitive dissonance of an Asian American leadership gap within the walls of American boardroom.
While in New York, I had the chance to sit down and catch up with Choz Belen, the visionary director behind Far East Movement’s “I Party” and Deep Foundation’s “Sleep”. Some of the key points that we touched on during the interview revolved around how he got his start in the industry, his advice for all aspiring artists, as well as his favorite project to date. For those of you that aren’t familiar with his work, I encourage you to watch his videos and see what you’re missing out on! Also, be on the look out for a potential collaboration with Choz and I.
To learn more about the man behind the digital paintbrush, you should also read Kimle’s interview on Aznraps.com which goes more into depth about his passions, influences, and creative process.
- 2 plead not guilty in an Oakland fatal beating of an Asian Man. (SF Chron)
- Japanese American UCLA students interned in 1940s to receive honorary degrees. (UCLA)
- Guest-Teaching Chinese, and Learning America. (NYT)
- Goodbye, Hiro Nakamura? Heroes may be dropped without a series finale. (TV Guide)
- Sassy Asian guy lip syncs to Ke$ha. Check out the chest popping! (YouTube, h/t: Jason R)
Celebrate APA Heritage month with us at RAMA’s monthly APA music and art show: GO!OHANA. Hosted by Ryan Takemiya, GO!OHANA showcases local APA art on a one-of-a-kind stage at La Pena Cultural Center. Check out our YouTube channel for videos of previous performances http://www.youtube.com/gostudiorama.
Growing up, there were times when I absolutely hated my name, and other moments I thanked my parents for bestowing a one-of-a-kind handle on my head. Today, I feel somewhere in the middle: ordering a drink at Starbucks still gives me anxiety over how the barista will butcher my name for my nonfat iced vanilla latte but other times, I feel good knowing that I’m the only Moye (as a first name) that I’ve met so far… at least, in the United States. Please don’t tell me you know another Moye. It’ll make me sad.
I like to think my name represents my identity as an Asian American: foreign at home, common across the Pacific yet ultimately a hybrid of the two, thanks to the weird spelling my parents invented so they wouldn’t have a girl named Moe. Since its actual pronunciation is hard to say in English, I go by a bastardized version of 萌 that somehow came together in elementary school when my teachers wouldn’t know what to call me (other than “Moya”), and I answer to the proper name with my family members and anyone who speaks Japanese. In Japan, it was my mother’s favorite growing up (or so she told me), it was recently a popular baby name, it’s always included in those racks of personalized key chains at souvenir shops and also a type of anime/manga character – though that kind of creeps me out. In America, my name never fits in: it’s weird, it’s hard to say, it means nothing but the uniqueness sets me apart from the crowd.
All of our names tell a story, whether signifying our personal identities as Asian Americans, ethnic culture, family history, a pop culture reference of the time or even a memorable story of our parent’s relationships, struggles and goals. The other 8Asians writers shared the story behind their names:
The story is that my G-Poppa named me. I was expected to be a boy and they had narrowed it down to two boy names with good meaning. And then I was born a girl, and my G-Poppa gave me the one I have, Jee Won. (My younger boy cousin got the other name.)
My full Korean name is Jee Won Suh. The “Won” is a family tradition that all of the Suh kids get (e.g., my sister is Hee Won, brother was Seung Won). My Dad’s generation had one and our generation is “Won,” which means to be the best or something like that. It goes in order of generation so the Suh kids in my generation will get the next one. Supposedly the record is kept in Korea of what is next in line.
The “Jee” of my name means wisdom or wise one. It’s a boy name. Well, rather, Jee Won is a boy’s name. I only discovered it was a boy’s name when I was a teenager and read an article in a Korean magazine about an actress with my same name who was telling the story of how she was given a boy’s name.
My Dad has recently tried to claim he named me, but when I was a kid, I was told my G-Poppa named me and since I respected and loved him so, I would rather consider my Dad having a real bad memory.
I know everyone is DYING to know where Dino-Ray came from. Of course, I got taunted as a child and well into my high school years of sharing the same name with the lovable purple pet dinosaur from “The Flintstones” — but there is, in fact, history when it comes to the origin of my name.
My late grandfather’s name was “Segundino” — and since Filipinos love to cobble up names using parts of people’s names, my mom and dad decided to go with the “Dino” portion. So that’s the first part. My dad’s name is “Froilan”, but when he was in the Air Force, his buddies couldn’t pronounce it correctly — or maybe they felt awkward calling him that. It is strikingly similar to Fraulein Maria a la “Sound of Music.” Perhaps a singing nun isn’t what they wanted to think of when they saw my dad. Nonetheless, they shortened his last name, “Ramos” (my last name) and started to call him “Ray.”
Put the two names together and what do you get? “Dino Ray.”
The hyphen wasn’t added the hyphen until 1988. I thought it would give my name some flair.
Last weekend, two-time Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan was a commencement speaker at Southern Vermont College and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. She noted that she’s probably the only current student (at Tufts) who is also giving a graduation speech. Kwan has already achieved so much as a skater, but when she “retired” at age 28, she had to rethink what she wanted to do for the rest of her life after focusing so much on skating.
I thought her words of wisdom were truly that:
“I suppose this is a common mistake. Whether it’s winning a competition, finishing a degree, getting the right job, paying off a loan, or finding the perfect partner — we always imagine that at some point all the waiting, worrying and striving will finally be over. We expect some magic moment of arrival, when all the pieces settle permanently into place, and life can finally begin. But I’m starting to realize, and maybe you are too, that things usually don’t turn out that way. Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, and everything right where we want it, there’s always some new challenge to contend with. So even while we pursue our goals, we shouldn’t put off enjoying life, thinking happiness waits for us at some far-off destination. We should take life on its own terms, and look for happiness in the here and now.”
Given everything Kwan has accomplished, she’s still figuring out what to do with her life. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that even from those who “have it all” from the outside, there are struggles that we all have to deal with in each of our own ways. As I start to approach “middle age,” I found it always easy to look retrospectively what one should have or could have done – as well as deal with things you had no control over. Today, Asian Americans, especially those raised by immigrant parents, are especially “goal driven” and in the process, miss enjoying the journey.
When I graduated from business school, Ted Turner was our commencement speaker. One of his pieces of advice was to set a goal so high so that it was unattainable, so that (as I interpreted it) you could always enjoy the journey. He spoke of how his father framed his entire life on becoming rich and making $1 million a year. When he reached that goal, he had no idea what to do next, was miserable and eventually killed himself but putting a gun to his head. So when you think everyone has everything figured out, don’t be too surprised when you learn that even the most successful could be in the same boat as you.
Say what you will about the Miss USA pageants, but when I learned today that the winner of the beauty pageant competition was Rima Fakih (who won Miss Michigan on September 19th, 2009), I whooped at my computer screen and jumped for joy. Why the enthusiastic burst of excessive expression?
With the crowning of the Miss USA title, Rima Fakih, of Lebanese descent, is the first Muslim and Arab American to ever hold that distinction. That, my friends, deserves some serious recognition. As a Michigan person myself, I am proud of Rima Fakih, who with her victory, provides a strong testament of breaking out of the conventional “American” beauty standard. It is significant because being beautiful does not mean you need to be white or have blonde hair. While some may bring up concerns that this will objectify Arab American women in the mainstream media spotlight, this is a victory worth celebrating.
As long as the majority of roles designated for Arabs and Muslims involve being terrorist #1 or #2,Muslim women constantly being seen as victims of oppression, this Miss USA victory provides another perspective on the closer pursuit of seeing Muslim and Arab women as normal individuals. Until those things and perceptions change, being an Arab-American beauty queen is a big frakkin’ deal. At the end of the day feminism is about the individual’s choices and that is something that must be acknowledged. Being Arab-American also means being an American who happens to be just as proud as anyone of their heritage. When post-racial and post-feminist America exists, we can then discuss how degrading beauty competitions are supposed to be to women. In reality, for women who don’t have mommy and daddy to pay for their aspirations, Miss America remains the largest accessible scholarship contest and Miss USA is not far behind.
Rima Fakih, you are beautiful, smart, funny, and absolutely gorgeous. Your victory is a celebration to women of color all over the nation. Alhamdulillah (Praise to God!)
(Flickr photo credit: tobyleah)
One of the ways that San Jose is dealing with an upcoming budget deficit is Proposition K. Proposition K proposes to the voters that the two card clubs in San Jose, Bay 101 (pictured) and Garden City, expand the number of card tables from 40 to 49, eliminate a $200 betting limit, and pay 15% tax instead of 13%. The increase in city income is projected to be from $3.6 to $5.3 million.
On the face of it, it seems to be a relatively painless way to increase revenue. Although I drive by Bay 101 all time, I never go in. One research scientist that I worked with told me that lotteries were taxes on people who were bad at math, and this tax seems to be similar. I am good at math and I don’t gamble, so why shouldn”t I vote for this?
But as this article in the San Jose Mercury News points out, Prop K has potentially negative effects on the Asian-American community. We have talked about Asian-Americans and gambling before and how it can be addictive, and so does this article. Filipina Chris Mata says she has lost $50,000 over the years. “It has destroyed a lot of families, especially during the downturn of the economy when people are distressed and want to make quick money,” said H.G. Nguyen, president and founder of the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce. She tells the story of a friend who often called her crying after her husband beat her because she had no more money to give him for gambling at the card clubs.
Other Asian-Americans say the casinos are just a fun diversion. “I come here to chill out. It’s fun; I’m not betting my house or anything,” says 25-year-old San Jose student Raj Patel. “Everybody has to control their gambling. Being in control is the first thing to be.”
The city fire department and the mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, are said to be for the measure. The police chief is reported to be neutral, while San Jose Police Officers Association President George Beattie is against the measure, citing a potential increase in crime.
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