By John “Johnny C” Chuidian
One of the things anybody in New Media will say about this modern day entertainment industry equivalent of the Wild West–completely new, full of opportunities, and barely tapped to its complete potential–is that the people who define it best are its fans. For that very reason, on Friday, December 16th in Monterey Park’s AMC Atlantic Times Square 14 theater was where Wong Fu Productions held a special year end screening of their 2011 shorts.
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If there’s one thing people assume Asians are, its a ninja. Take back the stereotype with one of these Classic Black Men’s Tee ($18) by MyNinja! About the company, they say:
MyNinja! will never be a design, nor a shirt, but a statement that allows individuals to connect along the constant cultural blending our generation faces.
How can you argue with a message like that? The shirts are available in other colors, and women’s styles are available as well.
Special offer: Enter the code 8NINJAS at checkout for 20% off your order!
Shopping With GASP!
UPDATE: Congrats to our winner: Theo Feng!
This is part of 8Asians’ 2011 “8Days of Giveaways” Celebration.
Mree is an indie folk singer/songwriter from NJ. Currently a senior in high school, she is quickly gaining fans worldwide. Her musical performances on YouTube have generated over five million views and over thirty thousand dedicated subscribers, garnering press coverage and prompting the Courier News to proclaim her a “web sensation.” The video for her first single “Against the Current” was featured on the home page of YouTube, selected by YouTube personality David Choi, as part of a singer/songwriter showcase, and the song has appeared on the iTunes Music Chart in eleven countries.
Musically trained from a young age, Mree is a multi-instrumentalist who began performing and writing her own songs at the age of fourteen. Her melodies are infectious and her voice has been described as “brilliant” and “angelic” while her lyrics “portray a depth not typically found in artists her age.”
Mree’s self-produced debut album Grow released on October 8, 2011 debuted at #18 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter Chart.
If you want to check out this album, Mree is giving lucky 8Asians readers a chance to win an autographed CD!
Ok, ok, so you you’re ready to enter? Read on!
Continue Reading »
There are some who argue that becoming American means giving abandoning the culture from you come. Caroline B. Brettell and Deborah Reed-Danahay, say otherwise, based on their study of immigrant communities in Texas. How then do these communities become American? When does the idea of a pan Asian American identity ever form, if at all? These questions and others are examined in their book Civic Engagements, the Citizenship Practices of Indian and Vietnamese Immigrants, which is summarized here by Science Codex.
So what do you do if your recent prime-time NBC sitcom Outsourced has been cancelled? If you’re Parvesh Cheena, that’s easy – make the fake commercial that Lowe’s removed from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim after press from far-right sources with your buddy Rizwan Manji. (Watch it until the end for the comedic payoff, which made me lulz.)
Apparently this has been a thing for awhile, but it’s back in the news with the story of Jae Lee, a U.S. citizen originally from South Korea who owns Georgia Chopsticks, a factory that creates four million sets of chopsticks each week and exports them all to China. Part of the success is the abundant resources present in Georgia that China and Japan are currently lacking. And importantly for the U.S. economy, the article notes “Lee’s success stands in stark contrast to the general perception that U.S. factories have fallen silent, while American stores are glutted with products made in China.” Surprising quote of the article: The mayor of the town where Lee set up tries to explain the high demand for chopsticks: “You and I use a fork and put it in the dishwasher, but I guess if you use chopsticks one time, you dispose of them.” Yea…not quite the whole picture there.
Iris Chang’s book The Chinese in America is one of the very few books that chronicles a major Asian American community, the Chinese Americans. Of course, no one book could fully capture the incredible diversity of the Chinese American category and all the people who populate (or are made to populate) it, but this book definitely does a great job of covering most of that diversity as well as filling a gaping hole in American history and collective consciousness.
Nevertheless, I was a little surprised to find how unrepresented I was in this book. Let me explain. I’m Taiwanese American, which means I’m of “ethnic” Chinese heritage (whatever that means), and my ancestors have been born in Taiwan for about six generations back. A quick glance of the table of contents of the book shows that Chang has all of Chapter 16 dedicated to the Taiwanese Americans, so it would seem that my little nook of Chinese America is nicely explored in the book. Unfortunately, it is not.
Nobody wants to see an air freshener lying around. There’s an entire industry dedicated to hiding them. This Sabo Kappa Cactus Plushie Air Freshener ($19.75) takes a new route: it is plainly visible, but so confusing that people will never guess its true purpose. Even its appearance is confusing: is it a heart? A weird amoeba with arms? Only 5 inches tall, your guests will spend their time debating its shape (is it really a cactus? In what world?) instead of figuring out where that lovely Almond Breeze Lavender Latte is coming from.
Kim Jong-Il may have passed away but the Internet lols have continued, especially with Presidential hopeful Rick Perry sending out an official statement on the North Korean dictator’s death with a glaring mistake: “Rick Perry mistakenly referred to the despot as Kim Jong the Second. The email titled, “Gov. Rick Perry on the Death of Kim Jong II,” incorrectly referenced the dictator’s name three separate times; it was correctly spelled once in the second paragraph.” And thanks to the Internet, this error will live on forever.
UPDATE: Congrats to our winners: Stiricide, Danyal Kim, and Keis!
This is part of 8Asians’ 2011 “8Days of Giveaways” Celebration.
From a “5 Under 35″ winner, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space-time: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.
Over at GASP!, we warned you that you “might just get sucked into this novel.”
Charles Yu is giving lucky 8Asians readers a chance to win a copy so you can get sucked in, too!
Ok, ok, so you you’re ready to enter? Read on!
Continue Reading »
I found the latest Sports Illustrated on my bed open to the article “How To Become An American,” presumably left by my husband, who keeps an eye out for stories that might be compelling. This one caught my eye, namely because of the title. Admittedly, I was looking for something stereotypical and cliche (i.e. Asian players fit into the American mold or Asian players try but don’t succeed in satisfying their coaches’ expectations).
I was thrown a little that this was set in small-town Magazine somewhere in western Arkansas. Apparently, the town has a Hmong diaspora that relocated there after the Vietnam war because of the promise of land and work. The local high school plays Class 2A football where the star players are 4’11″ – 125 pounds and 5’2″ – 115 pounds among the six Hmong that are on the team.
Asian American Metalhead? Yeah, not too many of those around…but then again, you’d be surprised. Even 8Asians has had an article by Mike on How to be a Bad Asian: I’m a Metalhead. I admit, I occasionally head bang to Pantera with my cats.
Even if you don’t know anything about metal, you’ve probably heard of a little band called Metallica. When I first attended one of their concerts, I was literally dumbstruck by how this group of musicians had the power to not only fill the LA Coliseum to the brim with fans but also to inspire everyone there to pump their fists in the air in an unearthly unison. Needless to say, there weren’t that many Asian Americans in the crowd, but this Asian American metalhead couple recently did more than enough to represent all of us metalhead APIs.
Continue Reading »
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