This past Tuesday, appointed interim Mayor Ed Lee became the first ever Asian American to be elected Mayor of San Francisco. Due to the sixteen candidates running to replace departed Gavin Newsom and ranked choice voting, the final results were not made official until Wednesday.
Lee, a bureaucrat and political novice when he was appointed to the mayor’s job last January, finished with 61 percent of the vote after the second- and third-place ranked-choice votes were counted, well ahead of the 38 percent for Avalos. With 16 candidates in the race, it took 11 rounds before Lee moved past the required 50 percent mark. While Lee fell short of collecting a majority of first-place votes Tuesday night, his 31 percent gave him a commanding lead over Avalos, with 18 percent, and Herrera, with 11 percent.
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Via ReadWriteWeb: “German social bookmarking service Mister Wong was, not so long ago, an ambitious, well-used, innovative project. It was also the subject of heated international controversy online. Today the service finds itself put up for sale by parent company Construktiv. In a post on the company’s German language blog, Mister Wong says its changing priorities require it to seek a new operator.”
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| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile | ||||
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Yo-Yo Ma and his musical colleagues Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile were guests last week on The Colbert Report to discuss their new album, The Goat Rodeo Sessions, featuring a combination of blue grass and classical music. You can listen to a sample of their album in their performance after the jump.
A couple weeks ago, the White House Initiative of Asians and Pacific Islanders released the “What’s Your Story?” video challenge, aiming to explore the personal stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Wouldn’t you know it – 8Asians is a website full of Asian American bloggers! Here is 8Asians’ submission to the “What’s Your Story” challenge. Now you can finally match the faces to the black and white thumbnails and gradually realize that, yes, there are actual people that write content for the website every day. Unfortunately. We’d be a lot more efficient if we were robots. Writing robots, not teeth cleaning ones.
(Special thanks to Koji and Evan Kodani for producing this video.)
From Korea Times: “Under the new agreement, Korean drivers can acquire a U.S. license by presenting a valid Korean license with proper translation to the motor vehicle authority. The deal only applies to non-commercial motorists and some states require drivers to surrender their Korean license in exchange for a U.S. equivalent. Short-term travelers and exchange students without an International Driving Permit are expected to benefit the most from the changes.” Current states include Florida, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, and Texas.
“I don’t want to go there – it’s too Asian!”
That is the last thing I wanted to hear from the Daughter. Doesn’t she know I write for a blog on Asian American issues, and now she is going all Alexandra Wallace on me? Then again, that is a sentiment that I have heard from other Asian Americans. Just how did she come up with that opinion? Did it come from some kind of Asian self hate or something else?
It’s Halloween! Which means that you need a costume, stat. If you’re short on time and low on creativity, you can always follow in Hello Kitty’s footsteps: add a mustache and call yourself a hipster. And with this Hello Kitty Mustache Coin Bag ($16.95), you can show your hipster pride the rest of the year too. The bag is made of vinyl, and measures 5.5″ x 4.25″.
The 2011 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival kicks off this week! And if you haven’t been paying attention, then you may have missed your chance to buy a bunch of screenings which have since sold out.
8Asians a proud Media Sponsor of this year’s festival, and here is your chance to win tickets to a selected screening! But first, a bit about the screening: PIERCING 1:
This remarkable debut by Chinese artist Liu Jian is a nightmarish, punk-style animation about corruption, discrimination, and disaffected youth in modern-day China. Set during the 2008 financial crisis, the story takes place in a sombre city where many factories have been forced to close their doors.
Zhang is one of many who loses his job despite having a college degree. One day, he is accused of stealing and gets beat up by a supermarket security guard. Zhang and his friend conspire to get compensation from the store’s owner who happens to be one of the wealthiest businessmen in town.
A chain of events gets the two friends entangled in a complicated conspiracy between the store owner’s competitors and the police. The battle over power and money culminates in a brilliant and unexpected showdown at a teahouse. Both serious and humourous, elegant and grotesque, Liu’s social satire highlights the absurdities in the stereotypical Chinese villager’s dream to move to a big city, find a good job, and fit into urban society.
Liu Jian’s visually striking and expressive style is influenced by his background in gaudy and conceptual art. Gaudy art emerged in China in the 1990s as a response to contemporary kitsch and commercial manipulation of aesthetics. Gaudy artists are known for using vulgarity and ugliness to break apart artificial role models, pretentious classicism, and conformity in society. Also characterized as being sarcastic and skeptical of the superficial value system, gaudy art is ultimately a criticism of the cheapening of the human experience and the pursuit of happiness.
- Heather Keung
- BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM—ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS 2010
- BEST FEATURE FILM—CINANIMA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATED FILM FESTIVAL, PORTUGAL 2010
- BEST FEATURE FILM—REANIMANIA YEREVAN INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL 2010
Ok, ok, so you just want to know how you can win some free screening tickets? Read on!
Continue Reading »
Fine, fine. Because no less than seven people messaged me about this YouTube video, here it is, a YouTube video of the happiest Senior Citizens in all of Mainland China covering Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” accompanied by miniskirted musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments.
I’m pretty sure the song is a parody and not a literal translation, only because my shitty fourth grade Chinese comprehension can understand the phrase “I’m very busy” in the song, and I’m pretty sure that line isn’t the original English version unless that’s just a Chinese way of saying “I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand.” (Hey, I’ve been wrong before.) Also, so we’re clear: they’re doing half of the Macarena for choreography. Because if you’re already covering Lady Gaga on television to an audience of a couple of billion people, fuck that, go all the way.
As someone interested in following Asian American candidates running for public office as well as elected officials, I think I had heard of Connecticut State Representative William Tong, but didn’t know much about him. Recently, his campaign reached out to us and I learned more about his run for U.S. Senate. Having been born-and-raised in Western Massachusetts in the Greater Springfield, Massachusetts area and worked in Connecticut for four years after college, I definitely know that area fairly well. It’s definitely nothing like California.
Hey everyone – you have just 1 hour left to enter our Giveaway to win ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’ DVD or Book provided by 8Asians and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment! Read this post for more information, and enter now!
By Johnny C
[EDITORS NOTE: This is a review for Almost Perfect, the Opening Night Film at this years San Diego Asian Film Festival.]
One of the unfortunate images of Asian American relationships and marriages we’ve seen in the arts is the tendency to be portrayed as unhappy and unstable. Throw in the rare occurrence when Asian American relationships is actually between Asians rather than interracial ones (especially with the common white male and Asian female) usually end up being full of conflict and tension, and you can imagine why it’s hard not to be cynical about how our relationships are portrayed—or rather, misrepresented.
Thankfully, with director Bertha Pan’s Almost Perfect, we can throw away all of those cynical expectations and assumptions about clichéd formulas. It’s a romantic comedy that doesn’t feel like one that you’d only watch when getting dragged to see it, because it’s just that good. Continue Reading »
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