Posts by John
I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
Asian American Commercial Watch: McDonald’s – Egg McMuffin of Boyfriends
I was watching one of my favorite shows last week, Modern Family, and came across this McDonald’s commercial for the egg McMuffin. To my absolute surprise, I see a young couple with an attractive Asian American young adult professing his love to his girlfriend. His white girlfriend. I was kind of a bit shocked. I had blogged about Randall Park in his Ally Bank commercial, but this is McDonald’s!
Family of Marine Jet Crash Victims in San Diego Awarded $17.8 million
I had blogged about this terrible accident in San Diego, California back in December of 2008, when an U.S. Marine F/A-18D Hornet crashed into a home and killed Korean immigrant Young Mi Yoon, her two daughters, and her mother; Young Mi Yoon’s husband, Dong Yoon, was at work when the crash occurred. Three years to the month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller, awarded the following damages: “Don Yoon, whose wife, Youngmi; daughters, Rachel and Grace; [...] Continue »
Yo-Yo Ma Honored in 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors
Earlier this past week, CBS aired the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors celebration, which took place earlier in December. Yo-Yo Ma was one of the six honorees, which included singer Barbara Cook, singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins, and actress Meryl Streep. I think it goes without saying that when one thinks of a great cellist, one thinks of Yo-Yo Ma. The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those [...] Continue »
CEO Clara Shih of Hearsay Social Named to Starbucks Board of Directors
A few weeks ago, CEO & Co-Founder of San Francisco-based Hearsay Social Labs (a social media enterprise company) Clara Shih was named as a director for Starbucks. Quite an accomplishment for anyone, but especially at the ripe old age of 29! Considering how few Asian Americans there are at the CEO, upper management or board of directors level, I was pleasantly surprised to hear about Shih’s news. And women are notoriously poorly represented in Silicon [...] Continue »
Kickstarter’s Co-Founder & CEO Perry Chen On NBC Rock Center
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I had heard of the crowd funding site Kickstarter before, initially from a TechCrunch article on raising money for a project to make an iPod Nano wrist watch band called the TikTok. But I didn’t know much about the company itself and caught this NBC Rock Center segment on the company. After a backgrounder on Kickstarter, co-founders Yancey Strickler and Perry Chen are [...] Continue »
Tiger Mom Reveals Herself As Laissez Faire College Mom Almost One Year Later
It’s almost been a year since the Wall Street Journal excerpted Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in an article called “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” on January 8th, 2011 – which became the most popular article ever shared on their website. I reviewed the book. Chua’s daughter Sophia got into both Harvard and Yale (and chose Harvard). Sophia gave a high school graduation speech. Sophia started a blog. The Journal interviewed [...] Continue »
Jeremy Lin Off to the New York Knicks
Well, NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin didn’t have much time to settle down at the Houston Rockets. He’s already been traded to the New York Knicks: The New York Knicks have claimed guard Jeremy Lin off waivers to fill a void at backup point guard. Lin was released Sunday by the Rockets to make roster room for Houston’s signing of Samuel Dalembert. … The Knicks, who last week claimed sharpshooter Steve Novak off waivers, needed [...] Continue »
Asian American Commercial Watch: 8Asians’ Edward Hong in StreamateParty.com
NOTE: Before you start playing this video, this probably is NSFW. We have an internal email list at 8Asians, and our very own Eddy Hong let us know that he stars in a new commercial for StreamateParty.com. I love the fact that in the commercial, Eddy is just surrounded by scantily clad enamored women of all types seeking his attention and affection – like they all had some sort of big orgy the night before. [...] Continue »
Asian American Commercial Watch: Bank of America’s Uwajimaya profile
I saw the thirty second version of this Bank of America commercial while watching cable news this past week, and was blown away. The commercial is about a small Seattle-based Asian grocery and gift store chain Uwajimaya and about how they got started. The store was started after World War II by a Japanese American, after this profiled woman’s father was able to get a loan from Bank of America. I think this is definitely [...] Continue »
Eight Soldiers Charged in Death of Private Danny Chen
I haven’t been following the case of Private Danny Chen, a 19-year-old from New York’s Chinatown neighborhood, and his suicide in Afghanistan in October too closely, but caught the recent report about his eight fellow soldiers being charged for his death due to bullying: “Chen’s fellow soldiers dragged him across the floor, threw stones at the back of his head, forced him to hold liquid in his mouth while upside down as part of an [...] Continue »
Asian American Commercial Watch: Target’s Little Drummer Girl
Here’s another very cute commercial by Target, highlighting what a little girl can do with pots and pans while Mom is preparing to make Christmas cookies for baking. But I think Target’s over-protective Mom and daughter commercial is a little funnier.
Asian American Commercial Watch: Hank Chen In Verizon’s 4G LTE Campaign
In August, as part of our post on Top 5 Gay/Lesbian Asian Channels On YouTube, 8Asians highlighted Hank Chen. Now, Chen is part of Verizon’s online campaign for 4G LTE, highlighting Verizon’s speedy next generation network. One of the interesting things is that Chen was partially selected as one of the spokespersons due to his popular YouTube presence. I had blogged in August that the New York Times had reported the obvious – that Asian [...] Continue »
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