8 Asians

The New York Times does a nice 6 minute video overview of Koreatown in Los Angeles, even highlighting the Wi Spa that Conan O’Brien and Steve Yeun recently visited. BY Fritzie Andrade, Max Cantor, Jessey Dearing, Louie Alfaro and Will Lloyd As the most densely packed part of Los Angeles, Koreatown is also one of the city’s most strollable, with Art Deco buildings, palm-lined streets and East-meets-West restaurants.

I guess Aaron Takahashi is becoming the next Randall Park for commercials. The last commercial I saw him in was for Kmart. Here, Takahashi portrays a customer at Staples asking how does he know he’ll get the best prices at Staples? Apparently Staples has a price match guarantee.

As far as daily evening news programs go, PBS’s News Hour tends to be a bit more serious and have a lot less fluff stories. So I was happy to see this News Hour segment this past weekend on ‘Fresh Off The Boat.’ The News Hour story provides some good context regarding ‘Fresh Off The Boat’, which also includes an interview with Wall Street columnist Jeff Yang, father of childhood actor Hudson Yang. Image courtesy […] Continue »

Happy Lunar New Year! I had heard this NPR piece recently, and thought it was very educational – because I have heard many Happy Chinese / Lunar New Year celebration and exclaiming Happy Year of the Goat, Sheep or Ram. And I’m like, WTF? What year is it? Well: “You may have seen goat, sheep or ram as the English translation for this year’s animal according to the Chinese zodiac — yang, in Mandarin. All […] Continue »

Just like ‘Fresh Off The Boat,’ it’s always nice to see an Asian American family being viewed on television. In this particular case, a young couple with a recent newborn looking to purchase a new Windows-based 2-in-1 laptop. We see in the commercial all the usefulness of a 2-in-1 flexible laptop / tablet convertible for busy parents raising a child. I really like these family commercials because any Asian American family is able to convey […] Continue »

I was surprised to learn that Randall Park has never been on any late night talk show thing before, since Park has been acting for quite a while.  I guess with the whole The Interview film being pulled then being made available to the public on the Internet and in limited theatrical release, Park never went on a publicity tour on any of the shows. I’m really happy that Park is getting his due notice with […] Continue »

I first saw this Conan O’Brien video posted by a friend on Facebook and immediately re-shared it, and saw a few other friends quickly re-share it. Conan and actor Steve Yeun for some reason decide to go to a Korean Spa in Koreantown in LA. I’ve personally never been to Korea or to a Korean Spa, so I was curious about the video. The video is hilarious. No doubt, Yeun is making the media rounds […] Continue »

As we’ve all heard by now, Fresh Off the Boat, is the first American television series staring an Asian American family in over twenty years (since Margaret Cho’s All American Girl in 1994) is coming to ABC, with the first two episodes premiering this upcoming Wednesday, February 4th – before settling into its regularly scheduled Tuesday evening time slot. The comedy series is based on the memoirs of NYC-based chef and restauranteur Eddie Huang’s memoir […] Continue »

While watching my local evening news, I came across this Progresso Soup commercial for their Creamy Potato with Bacon & Cheese soup. I kind of like these Progresso Soup commercials with their childhood nostalgic use of empty soup cans used as play phone toys. In this particular commercial, a Progresso Soup customer ‘calls’ a Progressive Soup chef about how much she likes the soup, loves her sister (but hates her hideous bridesmaid dress).

It’s January 2015 already and we’re well into the NFL playoffs, but I had just caught this Buffalo Wild Wings’s commercial that apparently has been hosted on YouTube since the beginning of the latest season – August 2014, where two buddies are watching the end of a football game in regulation time. Of course I love it when I see Asian Americans in any television commercial, but I’m especially happy to see Asian Americans in […] Continue »

After hearing that one of my closest friends and his wife are big fans of ABC’s Shark Tank, I’ve begun to watch repeats of the show on CNBC, and new episodes. If you’re not familiar with Shark Tank, it’s an American reality competition television series that premiered August 9, 2009 and has aspiring entrepreneur-contestants make business presentations to a panel of “shark” investors to invest in (or not). In the episode aired on Friday, January […] Continue »

This Vicks television commercial is a two-parter advertising both NyQuil and DayQuil, the first part portraying the dilemma for dad’s and the other for mom’s. When I saw the the adult white male asking for a sick day, one imagines he’s in an office setting asking his boss for a sick day, the same when we see the adult Asian American female asking for a day off from her daughter. Although I’m not a parent, I’m […] Continue »