I read one YouTube comment that claimed that the driver of the car was ok (I hope that’s true) and I wish I knew the original source of this Taiwanese video, but I’ve seen it circulating all over YouTube with headlines in a bunch of different languages. The best thing about the video is the inadvertent soundtrack created by the driver’s radio– immediately after the car crashes, the music abruptly changes to a Taiwanese Backstreet Boys-esque song– making it sound like it cut to the ending credits ala Asian-soap opera.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn7XNwFzbgw
I was at the movie theater the other night waiting to watch Inception, when I saw this trailer ad for ABC’s new television documentary style (NOT reality TV) scripted drama titled My Generation:
What a difference ten years can make. In 2000, a documentary crew follows a disparate group of high schoolers from Greenbelt High School in Austin, TX as they prepare for graduation, then revisits these former classmates ten years later as they return home to rediscover that just because they’re not where they planned doesn’t mean they’re not right where they need to be.
I was happy to see an Asian American in the cast, 32-year-old Korean Canadian actress Anne Son. Son plays Caroline Chung, characterized in the trailer as “The Wallflower,” who apparently slept with her prom date and had a kid – without his knowledge for 9 years. I am really curious as to how the show interweaves current events into the fictional lives of the Generation Y high school classmates. When I saw the trailer, there has been a lot that has happened in the past 10 years, from the 2000 Bush-Gore election fiasco, 9/11, Afghanistan & Iraq to the Great Recession and Obama getting elected.
Shopping With GASP!
- The Polyandry Tradition — where a woman marries two brothers — are ending in India.
- Filipino Films are showcased in the 33rd Asian American Film Festival IN NYC.
- RIP: Major General John Fugh – Military Asian American Advocate.
- RIP: Peter Fernandez, the voice of Speed Racer. (Ok, he’s not Asian, but every Asian kid knows Speed Racer, amiright?)
- “Indian-Americans make up a mere 1% of the population, [but] they have come to dominate the American spelling-bee circuit. Eight of the past 12 Scripps champions have been of Indian descent—including the last three in a row.”
For those of you in Los Angeles, there is a very special event that you cannot miss on Saturday, July 31st.
It’s the 12th annual benefit party for Tuesday Night Project! (For those of you who don’t know what Tuesday Night Project is, please check out my earlier post about them).
It’s taking place July 31st Saturday 5-11pm at the JACCC Plaza in Little Tokyo. For this party, there’s a tremendous lineup of performers, guest emcees, artisan vendors, live painters, as well as food from The Park’s Finest and Good Girl Dinette, music, dancing, and a whole lot of fun. You can buy your tickets here in advance for $15 Presale/Students/Seniors (presale ends Tuesday, July 27th at 11:59pm, so get your tickets early!), $20 General Admission at the door, and for all the young folks who are 12 and under, admission is free!
Find out more about the line-up and more after the cut.
Looking to do some online shopping for a friend, a parent or yourself? Don’t forget to check out our new spin-off shopping site, GASP! Here’s a sample of some of the products we featured this past week:
- Pho King Delicious T-shirt from 3 Stripes Clothing
- Engraved wooden brooch by Audrey Kawasaki
- I Love Yous Are For White People by Lac Su
- Character magnets from artist Boey
We’ve got even more stuff lined up this week, so check back often. And if you’ve got a store of your own or have a friend who should be featured, send us an email!
Back in June, Harvard graduate and basketball player and Palo Alto, California native Jeremy Lin didn’t make the NBA during the draft. But he did get invited to play for the Dallas Mavericks during the NBA’s summer league. Well, Lin is starting to turn heads. In his 4th summer league game last week where the Dallas Mavericks took on the Washington Wizards, Lin went toe-to-toe with the #1 NBA draft pick this year, John Wall, and more than held his own. I’ve been seeing this video online posted everywhere – you can really hear the crowd supporting him after some pretty awesome attacks to the basket as well as the commentary lauding Lin’s performance. ESPN Dallas is reporting that due to Lin’s performance, he might be signed soon:
Lin is on the verge of signing an NBA contract, and it could be with the Mavericks, who view him as an intriguing developmental point guard and a strong candidate to run the club’s new D-League affiliate that begins play this fall in Frisco. “We’re in discussions as we speak,” Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said Friday afternoon. “We are extremely interested in him as a young player.” Suddenly, the player deemed too flawed in most major areas to survive in the NBA is in contract discussions with three teams, according to league sources. The Los Angeles Lakers are believed to be one, with an Eastern Conference team the other.
(Note: Frisco is NOT San Francisco but Frisco, Texas located30 miles outside of Dallas.) ESPN radio has a terrific interview with Lin the day after his performance while another blogger has a great video interview with him right after the game. With his performance, you can imagine that Lin is getting a lot more press, like this NBA.com piece where I learned that the basketball player was no dumb jock at Harvard:
The most important accolades he left Harvard with were a 4.2 GPA and a degree in Economics. In his what seems like his non-existent spare time, Lin also was editor of the school newspaper and interned for a California senator.
On a 4.0 grade point scale, a 4.3 is an A+, which means Lin must have gotten a lot of straight A’s. That’s pretty crazy when you think about it, even if you take into account grade inflation. Maybe Lin will start a new stereotype: the Model Minority Athlete ?!? We’re already “blessed” with an Asian American Jersey Shore.
(c) The Nanny Business: Used by PermissionEdelyn Pineda holds a picture of her daughter
On our post discussing the documentary “The Nanny Business” about the plight of Filipina Nannies in Canada, we got the following comment:
We have been trying for months now to find a Nanny in Canada, with no luck. So we had heard about amazing Filipina nannies that people have, and realized that this would be wonderful for our family, as we are 2 working parents, with 3 busy boys…We realized having a live in LOYAL, loving person in our home for the same price we pay for daycare was unimaginable until we talked with all of these people that had nothing but fabulous things to say about their nannies. So the research started, we’ve hit nothing but dead ends, but refuse to go through an agency, because the costs are atrocous … we don’t mind paying to bring someone over to Canada, but to pay thousands of dollars to find somone and do the paperwork, and then pay them to come??? We could never afford that!!!! If there are Nannies that were brought over to Canada, and don’t have work yet…WHERE ARE THEY?? Does anyone know???
What happened? Changes were made to Immigration Canada’s Foreign Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) in response to the some of the abuses mentioned in the documentary and Susan McClelland’s article. The travel and recruitment costs of caregivers are now paid for by the employers and not by the caregivers. Employers must also pay for health insurance for their caregivers, who must have work hours defined. While these changes would seem to protect caregivers, the Association of Caregiver & Nanny Agencies Canada (ACNA) says that the drastically increased costs and risks now put on hiring families have caused a 70-90% drop in placements.
I can understand the commenter’s frustration. With a third child, the challenges of raising kids goes up dramatically. In basketball terms – with three kids you can’t play man to man but have to play zone. After our third was born, The Wife and I hired a nanny (in the US though), and the paperwork was such that we had to also hire an agency to deal with just the paperwork. I asked Susan McClelland, the journalist who wrote about the subject and who was in the documentary, about the change in law. She mentioned that there had been a schism between caregiver groups, between those who wanted the LCP abolished and those who wanted it amended (such as this person). She also feels that the bigger picture needs to be looked at:
As for the LCP, my position has always been that there be no live-in requirement, that women be paid a salary that allows them to live in the community, bring their own families with them, and work hours that are within our labour laws, ie. over-time paid and the nanny can say no, without feeling that her job or immigration is in peril if she doesn’t comply to her employers demands. I think Canadian society needs to really look at how we view children and child-rearing, as well. Any profession dealing with child-rearing, from day-care to nannies, etc., is among the lowest paid in our society.
McClelland also wrote an additional article on the nannies “other family” which is available here.
Back to the commenter’s predicament. I think his choices are limited to the following: pay the fees to get a nanny, having one spouse quit working full time to spend more time with the children, or deal with the situation as it is. My family ended up doing some of each – we had a nanny for a while, and then The Wife stopped working until the youngest got into kindergarten, when she started working part time and is now pretty much full time now. Staying at home with the kids is not easy and is like a full time job, as I found out when I was at home full time for while. It’s not an easy choice.
We’ve been pleased by their portrayal of Tiger Woods domestic conflict. We’ve reacted to their reenactment of Al Gore’s alleged sexual harrassment. And now, delight in the depictment of the Internet turning on Justin Bieber, as animated by the Taiwanese (pointed out by the Huffington Post, – thanks John). I don’t understand a word of this, nor do I understand why Taiwanese would care about Justin Bieber, but I love how they cover when pranksters on 4chan made “Justin Bieber Syphillis” a “hot search” on Google Trends and when an Internet vote on Justin’s next performance tried to send him to North Korea. I can’t wait for who they will do next – Mel Gibson perhaps?
I was lucky enough to attend an early screening of Inception at the Arclight in Hollywood on Wednesday night. Like Dino-Ray, I enjoyed how thought-provoking the film was, and truth be told—two days later, I’m still reeling at how mind-blown I was by this film.
You really have to see the film for yourself to appreciate the brilliance of Christopher Nolan’s writing and direction, but without strong characters and actors to take the audience through the emotional journey, I think the story driving Inception might have easily lost in the amazing visuals as well as the overwhelming amount of chasing, shooting, fighting, and other action and suspense sequences. So for me, it was the strength of Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance, balanced with those of all the supporting characters– in particular the characters played by Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, and of course, Ken Watanabe that made the film so compelling.
Last Friday, Ken Watanabe was good enough to spare a few minutes on the phone with me for a quick chat about Inception, his own reaction after seeing the film, his thoughts about different audiences worldwide, and what he’ll be doing next.
Joz: You’ve had a long and notable career in Japan prior to your exposure to American audiences in ‘The Last Samurai’ and other English-language films. What are the main differences and similarities you find when you’re doing a film for an American (and international) audience, versus that of a Japanese audience?
Ken Watanabe: I couldn’t find [any] different perspective. To make a film just, I need to connect one audience, not [different] people. All people have the same feeling and same mind — a little bit different custom and culture and background and language, but same feelings, I think. I’m [an] Asian and Japanese actor so I want to try always [to balance]. [Like a] Japanese brush painting is [just] black and white [watercolor] — not oil — but still really sensitive [and shades in between]. Not yes or no, but just between good or bad, happy or sad… sensitive… between-gray area.
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Movies like Donnie Darko, Primer and even The Matrix trilogy have challenged my intellect (or lack thereof). Inception falls into that category of mind-bending cinema that may or may not make a “WTF” hover above your head.
Lucky for me, I only felt kind of stupid after watching this movie.
As the auteur of indie darling, Memento and the reinvigorated noir-ish Batman franchise, Inception director and writer Christopher Nolan may have created one of the most amazing movies of the summer – nay – the year.
Besides having a really cool cast, the story has so many layers that, if placed in the hands of any other director, may have been a big ol’ clusterf*ck – but Nolan handles it effortlessly.
But what hell is it about? Well, I’m glad you asked.
June is the month of graduations, and this year I had 3 close relatives graduating from college. One of my cousins, Eric, was graduating from UC Irvine. I’ve known Eric since he was a six month old baby, so it was no surprise that I chose to attend his graduation. On the day of celebration, I took an early flight (waking up at 4:30AM) to get down to Orange County. Eric picked me up at the airport, which was a surprise since his parents had offered to come get me.
When we got to Eric’s apartment, it was explained to me that my aunt was at 85C, Irvine’s new Taiwanese bakery (recently reviewed and highlighted by the LA Times). The reason for my aunt’s delay is that it’s always packed, and it seems there’s always a line at 85C. The LA Times describes it as:
It’s always a wild scene at 85C, a coffee shop, bakery and patisserie in Irvine. From morning through evening, hundreds of customers of every age and walk of life pour through its doors heaping their trays high with a fantastical array of baked goods and the sea salt lattes that helped to popularize this Taiwanese cafe.
That day was of course no exception for lines at 85C and my aunt eventually made it back to Eric’s apartment with bags of baked treasures. Most of her selections were typical of what you’d expect from a Chinese bakery. Pastries that included a mix of sweet and salty tastes, the expected concoctions including nut pastes, pudding, taro root, and even some with meat fillings. I only got to sample the pastries that my aunt brought and they were really good, but I’m not sure how often I’d want to stand in a long line to get one.
In addition to the pastries, apparently the other hit at 85C are the drinks. The LA Times article describes their salted latte and where their name comes from:
To get the full effect of 85C’s salted latte, newcomers discover it’s important to sip directly from the cup, not through a straw. The salt isn’t present throughout the subtly sweet coffee; it’s in the milky foam. Unique as it is, 85C isn’t gimmicky. (Its name is a reference to the ideal temperature — in degrees Celsius — at which to serve coffee). For the lattes and other espresso-based drinks, the shop uses premium Antigua Arabica, the Guatemalan beans reserved for high-end coffee vendors.
The LA Times also credits 85C with helping to bring Asian bakeries into the mainstream, at a time that Asian food is gaining popularity in the U.S. Getting to read the article made my mouth water remembering those treats my aunt picked up. Now all I have to do is wait for an 85C to open up in Northern California.
An American-style fast-food restaurant with Filipino-influenced dishes specializing in burgers, spaghetti, chicken and some local Filipino dishes, Jollibee is a popular and successful fast-food restaurant chain based in the Philippines. Its profitability in the Philipplines has allowed its stores to expand to locations in the United States, Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
I’ll be honest– except for their pies, I’m not a huge fan of Jollibee food myself. But I am a sucker for dancing mascots, especially one that tells you that if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it… oh, oh, oh…
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