8 Asians

For those of us who were not adopted, we can only begin to imagine what it would be like to be raised in a culture completely different from the one we were born into, but this may give us some insight: a new study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute finds that among first-generation [...]

It’s hard to believe that this sort of thing still happens, and yet, here it is: earlier this week in Manhattan’s Chinatown, traffic agent Twana Chapman was about to put a parking ticket on a car when the owner, Qiang Nian Zhu, tried to stop her. Zhu tried to explain that he still had a [...]

I grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown. My family speak Toisanese (or Taishanese), which is a version of the more commonly known Cantonese. As far as I knew, everyone in Chinatown spoke either Canton or Toisan, or both. But not Mandarin.
Now that elusive gaw-gnui is taking over as the language of Chinatown, thanks to parents pushing [...]

Earlier this year, a New Jersey dad fought to get his son back from Brazil from his ex-wife’s family. Now, a similarly heart-breaking scenario is playing out–this time, in Japan.
Christopher Savoie is sitting in jail right now because he went to Japan to reclaim his two children. Their mother, Noriko–a Japanese native–previously had this court-approved [...]

Tonight, after I get off work, I will be casting my vote for New York City comptroller in the runoff election between city councilmen John C. Liu and David Yassky. As previously blogged about here on 8Asians, Liu received the most votes in the primary election two weeks ago, but not enough to reach the [...]

In Pakistan and India, there is a new TV ad featuring a dark-skinned man talking to a light-skinned man. The dark-skinned man proclaims he is unlucky because of his face, and the light-skinned man says it’s not his face, it’s the color of his face. Then he gives the dark-skinned man a whitening cream called [...]

According to a new study done by Glasgow University in Scotland, East Asians and Westerners may read facial expressions completely differently — Asians might look at a face and see surprise, while Westerners would look at the same face and see fear. That’s because Asians tend to focus on the eyes, while Westerners take in [...]

I can’t wait to see the new documentary The Cove, about dolphin hunting in Taijii, Japan. Here is the description from Sundance Film Festival: “…the town has a dark, horrifying secret that it doesn’t want the rest of the world to know. There are guards patrolling the cove, where the dolphin capturing takes place, who [...]