8 Asians

We love it when Asians behave badly. It gives us something to gossip about and also, it makes us feel pretty badass. It’s true. It’s like a slap in the face to that annoying stereotype about being submissive model minorities. You want high SAT scores? How about a dumb lawsuit?

Of course, this doesn’t mean we condone any sort of bad behavior. No, you shouldn’t lie about getting job offers and you shouldn’t try to steal money from cute boys. Actually, what am I even saying? These people make us look bad. Maybe I shouldn’t write about this.

So I’ll just say that I’ve been enjoying the case of 19 year old Rachel Lee and her burglary “bling ring”. If you’ve ever needed proof that paparazzi sites like TMZ are bad for society, then here you go: thanks to the proliferation of Hollywood gossip blogs like TMZ (and probably Google Maps), Lee and her friends were able to track down and rob the homes of Paris Hilton, Rachel Bilson, Lindsay Lohan, Audrina Patridge and other famous people who probably deserved it.

(I mean, let’s be real. They didn’t even have to break in: these people never locked their doors. Plus, like Paris Hilton ever wears the same outfit twice? Rachel probably put good use to those diamond watches.)

Conclusion: Rachel needs a book deal so she can tell us what exactly is inside Lindsay Lohan’s house. Cocaine? Discarded hair extensions? What’s left of her career?

Rachel. You’re Asian. You should be smart enough to get yourself out of this mess. Make us look good!

As blogged earlier in September, Asian American candidates in the New York City primaries did well.  CNN just did an excellent profile of Margaret Chin, who is on the verge of being elected to the city council and being the first Chinese American ever to represent New York City’s Chinatown:

“For Chin, a 56-year-old Hong Kong immigrant, the long road to political victory has not been easy. As she closes in on a probable November victory, though, she’s confident the lessons learned along the way will serve her — and her constituents — well. Chin’s American story began almost a half century ago, during the Kennedy administration. Her father, seeking new opportunities, left China for Colombia. A few months later, he became an undocumented U.S. worker, scratching out a living as a waiter in the Bronx section of New York. When the family’s immigration papers came through in 1963, he borrowed money to bring them to America. Margaret, the third of five children, remembers her dad’s exhaustion and pain after spending long days on his feet.”

Maybe I’m ignorant, but I think these kind of stories can only be made in America: Chin has run for city council three times before, but lost in the Democratic primaries. Because of greater Chinese-American involvement and through experience, Chin was able to win in her primary. Since New York City is predominantly Democratic, the chances of her losing to her Republican candidate is slim (must be frustrating to be the token opposition). Best of luck to Chin – I look forward to reading about her victory!

Windows 7 launched worldwide this past Thursday, but in what has to be one of the strangest, most bizarre cross promotions I think I have ever come across, Microsoft teamed up with Burger King in Japan to promote Windows 7 by offering the 7 layer Whopper – that’s seven beef patties. The whole burger is about 2,000 calories, all for about 777 Yen, or about US$8.50. But what does a Whopper have to do with Windows 7? I s Burger King is going to be selling copies of Windows 7 at their stores? And it’s not like I’m more interested in upgrading to Windows 7 because Burger King is running this promotion; I guess the only value for Microsoft is that it gets some free press. [EDITORS NOTE: Like, you know, this blog post.]

Earlier in the year I blogged about How Bruce Lee Changed the World.  And now Shannon Lee — Bruce Lee’s daughter — is trying to expand and profit more from his legacy, as described recently in the Wall Street Journal:

“In a bid to tap into growing interest in Mr. Lee in China and to develop her father into a powerhouse global brand, Ms. Lee last year bought back the rights to his image from General Electric Co.’s Universal Studios, which had held them since the late 1980s. “They didn’t put the effort behind it I felt should be put behind it,” she says. Universal declined to comment. Then she formed Bruce Lee Enterprises, a licensing company, and LeeWay Media Group, a production company, to raise his profile. Ms. Lee also consulted with the estates of other famous people, including Elvis Presley and John Wayne, to learn more about how to successfully revive a deceased icon’s image. In recent years, the Bruce Lee brand has brought in around $1 million a year, the estate says. With the new push, Ms. Lee hopes she can squeeze $5 million to $10 million from it annually.”

It’s odd to me that the Lee family didn’t own the legacy of their patriarch. Back in September, 60 Minutes did a really interesting segment on “A Living For the Dead” describe how famous dead icons were still generating a lot of income for the family’s estate. Given the fact that Bruce Lee died at the young age of 33 back in 1973, it’s amazing that he’s lived on in his movies and television shows. His impact has directly affected in many ways how Asians and Asian Americans are perceived in the United States and the world. The good for obvious reasons, but have you ever been asked as a kid if you knew Kung Fu like Bruce Lee?

The King of Licensing also happens to be the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, who according to Forbes Magazine brought in $52 million. Actor James Dean brought in $5 million. While I think Bruce Lee is more well known than James Dean, most Chinese didn’t know about Bruce Lee as a result of the Cultural Revolution and China being fairly well closed to the rest of the world when Bruce Lee was alive. Last year, the Chinese state television company CCTV showed a 50-part series — yes, you heard that right — on his life after Shannon Lee licensed her father’s image to the company.

I’m glad Shannon Lee has controlling rights to her father’s image, but I hope she doesn’t do anything tacky to tarnish Bruce Lee’s iconic image. Lee has apparently already starred in a Nokia commercial in China, showing him play ping-pong with a nunchuck and his daughter has signed an off on a Broadway musical about her father which is to debut in the 2010-11 season. Hopefully, we won’t see him vaccuming with a Dirt Devil like Fred Astaire.

(Flickr photo credit: striatic)

For the non-technical: Yahoo! Hack Day is an event where web and software developers spend nights at the Yahoo! campuses around the world to develop anything they want using Yahoo! technologies. They try to make it fun (the US version brought in Beck one year, GirlTalk the next) and have awards the next day although it’s mostly for the camaraderie.

So when the event was held this year in Taipei, what did Yahoo! Taiwan do? They hired lapdancers. Needless to say, a lot of people formerly affiliated with Yahoo!’s developer programs — already smarting from the lack of females in technology — were pretty pissed. (Full disclosure: I also previously worked at Yahoo!.) But a quick straw poll from the Taiwanese members of 8Asians kinda shrugged it off: one commenter on Gawker even noted that “being Taiwanese, all I can say is this is considered harmless fun in Taiwan and is culturally OK.” Also, people completely up in arms about this: your outrage should have started last year.

Is this an example of Yahoo! Taiwan completely going over the line? Or is this truly just a cultural thing?

I cried. Like a little girl. It was like the moon landing for us — finally, a president is directly speaking out to me and my people — a president celebrates Diwali in The White House!

This weekend I made the trek back to The Bay Area where I grew up, to celebrate the Hindu New Year, Diwali. Diwali is a celebration of lights, and marks the triumph of good over evil, and is celebrated with great fanfare by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists, around the world.

All through the weekend I received phone calls and texts from inspired friends and families wishing me Diwali wishes, and gushing over the news that Obama was the first president ever to celebrate Diwali in The White House. (It started in the Bush era, in 2003, but President Bush never personally took part in the celebration, nor was it celebrated within the main White House walls.) The President lead a small ceremony which included an invocation by a Hindu priest, and a ceremonial lighting of the Diya (lamp, symbolizing the brightness of truth and knowledge over darkness and ignorance), and had this to say:

”This coming Saturday, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists, here in America and around the world, will celebrate this holiday by lighting Diyas, or lamps, which symbolize the victory of light over darkness, and knowledge over ignorance. And while this is a time of rejoicing, it’s also a time for reflection, when we remember those who are less fortunate and renew our commitment to reach out to those in need.”

He later went on to address the people of the fore mentioned faiths, in a special video message, and continued to wish everyone a ‘Sal Mubaraq’ which is Hindi for Happy New Year.

This, of course, is a part of the trend which President Obama has started, by being involved personally with holidays and festivals that are shared amongst the many faiths and cultures that makes up the great diversity in America; this includes his recent messages and galas for both the people of the Jewish faiths for Rosh Hashanah, and of the Muslim faith during Ramadan and Eid.

In addition, this great ceremony culminated with the joyous event of the President re-establishing the President’s advisory committee and White House initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (which was created under Clinton, but later died under Bush.)

In the end, I will never forget the faces of my family as we stood around the computer screen, and watched The President speak to us… to acknowledge us, and to let the world know that we too are just as American as any! I know I will tell my children, and hopefully children’s children, of the day when Diwali was celebrated in all of America. Thanks again Mister President, and Happy Diwali.

A recent news item that has been gaining in momentum is the story of a Louisiana justice of peace Keith Bardwell who refuses to marry interracial couples for the sake of the children as he insists that interracial marriages tend not to last as long as other marriages.

This news story has drawn nearly universal indignation as even the most knuckle dragging traditionalists among us mostly agrees that the 1967 Supreme Court decision that recognizing multiracial marriage was a good idea. Many would even consider it silly that in 2009 the nation should be debating the benefits and costs of interracial marriage.

Asian Americans have one of the lowest divorce rates – a measly 20% as compared to the 25% national rate. To top it off, being a college graduate also lowers one’s divorce rates (to 22%). Considering that the rate interracial of interracial marriage for Asians is among the highest of any group – a whopping 33%, I would say that we’re probably out forming strong interracial marriages.

It is true that interracial marriages tend to encounter more difficulties than same race marriages but so does marriages between those of different education levels, between people who marry in their early twenties and teens, and also among people who smoke. If one wishes to eliminate interracial marriage on the grounds that those marriages tend not to last then one should also deny marriage to those who haven’t received a college education, haven’t reached 25 and those who haven’t yet quit smoking. Otherwise, one would be in danger of being hypocritical.

As the couple in question themselves have stated, interracial marriage already suffers from covert discrimination, any attempt at open discrimination needs to be dealt with mercilessly. As Asian Americans, I feel evidence of covert discrimination in interracial relationships is well known to us all. From our friends who whisper “I don’t like it when I see white people dating Asians” upon seeing an interracial couple visiting a Bubble Tea house to websites — and comments from our own site –  committed to bring a greater stigma to Asians who want to explore relationships outside their own ethnicity, covert discrimination is in many cases tolerated, even encouraged. Although I do not believe that believe that such discrimination will lead to unfair laws or wanton physical harm, it is important for us to recognize and eradicate veiled discrimination in ourselves.