Besides seeing Chairman, CEO & President of Sybase John Chen speak last Friday night at the 2010 National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) convention in San Francisco, I had the great pleasure of watching Korean Canadian John Ki perform that evening. John provided a lot of laughs with his observations about men, women, dating, yellow fever, marriage and growing up Asian. Back in 2007, John Ki won a local contest in Toronto for Funniest Person With A Day Job (NSFW).
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Jet Li stars in the new action-thriller The Expendables, which opened in the United States this weekend to become the number one box office hit. The film took in an estimated $35 million at theaters.
Audiences loved this story about a group of mercenaries known as “The Expendables.” Paying tribute to the blockbuster action films of the 1980s and early 1990s, and stars an array of action veterans from those decades. Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, it stars Stallone, Jet Li, and Jason Statham with action stars Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, David Zayas, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke.
The only life they’ve known is war. The only loyalty they have is to each other. Leader and mastermind Barney Ross (Stallone), former SAS blade expert Lee Christmas (Statham), hand-to-hand combat specialist Yin Yang (Li), long barrel weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Crews), demolitions expert Toll Road (Couture), and precision sniper Gunner Jensen (Lundgren). Living life in the fringes of the law, these hardened mercenaries take on what appears to be a routine assignment: a covert, CIA-funded operation to infiltrate the South American country of Vilena and overthrow its ruthless dictator General Garza (David Zayas). But when their job is revealed to be a suicide mission, the men are faced with a deadly choice, one that might redeem their souls…or destroy their brotherhood forever.
The Expendables is now playing everywhere in the US.
Did you see it and what did you think?
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We mentioned how jozjozjoz was a speaker at the 2010 Asian American Journalist Association national conference along with other Asian-American bloggers such as Phil Yu of Angry Asian Man, Jen Wang and Diana Nguyen from Disgrasian, and Gil Asakawa. If you are curious as to how it went, Asian-American journalist Cody Kitaura has posted this recording of the session. You can find out just how angry the Angry Asian Man is, what the Disgrasian ladies do in their day jobs, and when 8asians received the most hate mail. Check it out!
Cody has also posted highlights and recordings of other sessions from Asian American Journalist Association 2010 Convention Thanks much Cody!
Joz asked me to do a follow up to my recent blog post, Asian Men Have the Highest Salaries, partly because it was one of the most viewed articles on 8Asians recently and partly because its one of the most referenced, even sparking an article on the Huffington Post. When I came across the original article pointing to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, my initial reaction was, “Wow, good news about Asian men for once,” and “I need to share this.” The question of how to share the news without just copying the article I found was another matter, choosing to share the news using another topic that seems to find popular attraction at 8Asians – dating Asian men.
I suppose I should have put more thought into it, because the reaction to my article has ranged anywhere from support to complete vitriolic attacks. Continue Reading »
There’s something about paying it forward. Zigen does just that from what I understand. I first heard about this nonprofit through my mother. They basically travel to very rural areas of China to build schools and provide children with the basics for education. They also have scholarship programs where they board and educate people on the basis that the person has to go back to their own village and teach.
While the Zigen Fund has since expanded from the education realm, that is still one of their major nonprofit goals that really touches people in the right place. There’s something about young children who don’t even get basic needs, let alone basic education that really drives home when we grow up in the United States where school is pretty much given to us through the taxpayers.
I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to actually travel to areas like that, but even donating to a fund that I know all of the money is going to the right place makes me feel good. It also helps to know that there are Chinese American professionals out there that give their time and money to help those in need.
Maru the Cat, arguably the cutest cat in the world, resides in Japan and was recently covered in a New York Times article talking about the popularity of dogs and cats among the American audience. Slightly chubby, Maru‘s star power comes from his penchant for jumping into boxes, tight spaces (i.e. sticking his face in a paper bag) and his adorable antics, winning him over 56 million views on Youtube. The NY Times article argues that we are so busy watching cute videos, we aren’t getting anything “done” in the U.S.
Another personal favorite of mine is Oolong the rabbit, also from Japan, with a unique talent for balancing objects on its head, such as pancakes, a waffle and a teacup.
When I had first heard that Leon Panetta — currently Central Intelligence Agency Director in the Obama administration – was going to be a keynote speaker for the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) national convention, I was wondering what exactly he was going to speak about, given that he is Italian American. Panetta talked about the mission and role of the CIA, but also discussed his role in public service that mirrored and was parallel to another past NAAAP keynote speaker: former mayor of San Jose, Congressman and Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. Panetta jokingly said that he often felt he was an honorary Asian, since he has often been confused for Mineta — whose name sounds like Panetta– and that they were both Democrats from California who served on the budget committee together. Continue Reading »
“Dear Rest of the World: We see your [INSERT COUNTRY HERE]‘S GOT TALENT show, with your Susan Boyle and ten-year old opera singers and your really sad sand paintings and your male-female drag impersonations, and we raise you A 19 YEAR OLD WHO CAN PLAY THE PIANO WITH HIS GODDAMN FEET.
THAT’S RIGHT, FUCKERS. YOU CAN MAKE FUN OF OUR HIGH SUICIDE RATES IN IPHONE FACTORIES, BUT OUR 19 YEAR OLDS CAN FUCKING PLAY CHOPIN WITH NO GODDAMN ARMS WHATSOEVER, SO EAT IT. PS, we’ll be sending those billions of dollars in goods to your Walmarts shortly, after we’re done being goddamn inspired by this guy with NO FUCKING ARMS.
<3, The Peoples Republic of China"
(Hat tip: NEAATO)
On Friday night, I had the great pleasure to hear John Chen, Chairman, CEO & President of database company Sybase, give the keynote for that evening for the 2010 NAAAP National Convention in San Francisco. John emigrated from Hong Kong, graduating from Brown University in 1978 with a BS degree in electrical engineering and in 1979 from Caltech with a Masters degree.
John started to preface his comments that discrimination does still exist in America. Discrimination is a fact of life, but there is discrimination everywhere in the world, and you can decide what to do about it. After grad school, John went on to industry. That is when he began to notice that when engineers got promoted, it was always the “caucasian“ engineers, an effect of the “bamboo ceiling.” After this happened for a while, he asked his boss about this phenomena and was straight out told that he was”not presentable.” At first, he was shocked and wondered what that meant. The more he thought about what his boss said, he got pissed; he began to understand that this not about about how to make presentations, but about ”what you say it, when you say it and how you say it.” Continue Reading »
First there was The Last Airbender, and now the live action film based on Runaways comic books? The award winning series created by Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona represented an almost too-good-to-be-true ensemble of diverse teenagers who become superheroes in order to overcome the evil done by their super villain parents. We had the African American Alex Wilder leading the team, the Japanese American Nico Minoru (complete with Goth garb) and the minority of all minorities, Karolina Dean who is not only from another world but also dealing with her sexuality. Seriously, could they have given her any more identity issues?
I was a big fan of the series until Joss Whedon took over the writing from Brian K. Vaughn, because the originality of the storyline–and the diverse cast–sparked my interest. These were angsty kids dealing with their adolescence and the shock that their esteemed parents were not who they thought they were. They banded together for survival, defying their parents’ legacy for the good of humanity. Even if Nico donned the stereotypical Gothic Lolita garb (and this was way before Tina on Glee), she was still a strong young woman determined to right the error of her family’s ways. And now they’re going to turn this into a big Hollywood movie!
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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 like to out-nerd each other, especially when someone forwards an news article about three South Bay students heading to the 2010 China Girls Math Olympiad in Shijiazhuang.
John: I’m glad I didn’t go to high school in the Bay Area…
Jeff: Really? Why not? I’ll admit that there is some ferocious competition and really brilliant types in local high schools here – I see some when I do college admissions interviewing.
Btw, math olympiad competitors are really really good. I used to think I was really good at math, and I got a scholarship to spend one summer during high school at a Georgetown University math camp. I did pretty well there and felt really confident about my math abilities until one of our instructors gave us some problems from the math olympiad that was held there this year, and I couldn’t solve a single one.
Moye: Math camp?? JEFF’S A NERD!!!!
Jeff: That’s right! I was also a proud member of the chess club!
Efren: Wow, I was on a math team in junior high too but was really bad at it.
Tim: Me too! And I didn’t even grow up on the West Coast. I was a math team co-captain!
Moye: Oh my god, we’re surrounded by nerds.
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