8 Asians

Like I’ve said, there seems to have been a slew of commercials (Target, CVS) recently with Asian Americans being portrayed as normal Americans, rather than for fodder. Now, Comcast has an ad touting its HD quality compared with AT&T’s U-verse with an Asian dad & son, along with Shaq. If you haven’t noticed lately, Shaq and Ben Stein have been spokesmen for Comcast this past year or so. Anyways, the kid kind of reminds me a little of Russell from Up. [Because he's, you know, Asian. And chubby. -Editor]

First there was a bizarre Sony HDTV ad that claimed that watching their TV could improve your Chinese, and then there was the cute Asian girl Kylie pitching Microsoft Windows 7. Why not just combine those two? Here’s Kylie helping to pitch Sony VAIO Windows PCs, along with Payton Manning and Justin Timberlake. The only thing that would make this commercial more bizarre if there were a Burger King tie-in.

“Hookin’ Up with Mariko Izumi” is a show about what you see in this picture.  That’s right, that rod she is holding is a fishing rod!   Mariko Izumi hosts a fishing show on WFN, the World Fishing Network channel.   She is daughter of champion angler Wayne Izumi and the niece of angler and TV host, Bob Izumi.  I first encountered the Izumi family when trying to relax by watching guys bash each other on the Versus channel.  I noticed a show called Bob Izumi’s Real Fishing show, and the Asian name caught my eye.   Bob Izumi is a full time professional angler and in addition to being Mariko’s uncle, is an co-author of a number of books and is the chairman of of the Fish for Ever Foundation, a conservation foundation dedicated toward preserving Ontario’s fisheries.

How did these Japanese Canadians get into the fishing business?  It seems that Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians have had some influence in fishing in the US Northwest and Canada.  The fishing technique for salmon called “Mooching,” drift-fishing using only a banana-lead weight tied to a leader with a herring, described here, was said to be invented to by Japanese immigrant fisherman.  The name, according to this account, comes from these Japanese fisherman who did so well that other fisherman would “mooch” their bait to use themselves.  The Tengu fishing derby in Elliott Bay near Seattle was started by these Japanese-American fisherman in the 1930’s.  A “Tengu” is a creature from Japanese mythology whose nose, like Pinnochio’s, grew when it lied, a perfect name for a fishing contest (think “fish” stories about “the one that got away”).  The tournament was interrupted by the Japanese American internment, but has been going on ever since.  Bob Izumi’s father started one of the first fishing tournaments in Ontario.  Japanese-American and Seattle Native Mark Yuasa blogs about fishing for the Seattle Times.

Researching this post makes me want to try fishing some day.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the influence that Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians have had on fishing in North America.  Plus, Mariko Izumi’s show seems like a great and certainly easy on the eyes way to start learning about it!

Back in October, I had blogged about an awesome Target ad. Well now, I recently saw a pretty awesome CVS ad, with a charismatic Asian American mom with her adorable sons. Maybe this ad is only running in California (I hope not), but it’s great to see more and more Asian Americans being portrayed as All-American! If you didn’t grow up in the Northeast, CVS is a chain of pharmacies that has now expanded out to the West Coast with the recent acquisition of Longs Drugs.

Google helped bring attention this week to Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary by publishing Google doodles with various characters from Sesame Street. For those of us in the U.S. we saw Cookie Monster, Big Bird and other familiar muppets integrated with the iconic Google logo. But in other international markets, Google came up with special doodles that featured local Sesame Street characters, like the one shown here for India featuring Boombah and Chamki – India’s stars on Gali Gali Sim Sim (India’s Sesame Street). Boombah is a vegetarian cat who loves to dance. Chamki is an wondering schoolgirl who loves to learn and knows karate.

It turns out there are local Muppet characters developed for almost every international location that Sesame Street has a broadcast. In addition to the Indian characters, there’s the ones for the Chinese market, Hu Hu Zhu and Xiao Mei Zi, the Bangladeshi market, Shiku and Tuktuki, the Filipino market, Kiko Matsing and Pong Pagong, the Japanese market, Meg, Teena and Mojabo, among others.

With my upcoming trip to Taiwan with my daughter, and this new found discovery of local Sesame Street productions, I’m going to keep an eye out for an airing of Sesame Street in Chinese, so she can watch and I can see her reaction, especially since Elmo has always been one of her favorite Sesame Street characters. Maybe she’ll find a local Asian one to adore as well.

Of all the new shows this fall season, one of my favorites is ABC’s Modern Family which tells the story of three inter-related families in a mockumentary style – sort of The Office meets a family sitcom. One of the families is represented by a same sex couple, Mitchell and Cameron, who have adopted a Vietnamese girl, Lily. In the most recent episode, Mitchell accidentally bumps Lily’s head against the ceiling – and being concerned, Mitchell and Cameron take their daughter to see a doctor, who happens to be an Asian American woman who grew up in Denver.

Cameron, being white and feeling he needs to justify the adoption of Lily, makes some inappropriate comments and hilarity ensues.

For those who are regular listeners of my podcast, POP88 or listen to me Monday evenings on SRC at omgkpop would know I’m a regular viewer of Global Talk Show, aka ChitChat with Beautiful Ladies. It’s basically an informal round table discussion with twenty female foreigners living, working, and going to school in South Korea. Their perspectives are offset with five Korean celebrity guests. I enjoy watching it because while a bit cheesy, it’s also fun and sometimes insightful.

In this particular episode, instead of the five Korean celebrities, they invited seven foreign men to discuss topics such as: “Foreign men are considered more attractive in Korea,” “Is it easier for foreigners to get into Korean universities?” and more — more along the lines of social intricacies and preconceived notions. Be prepared for some outrageous stereotypes and a lot of fighting words back and forth. (The best part is one of the ladies defining LBH — “Loser Back Home.”)

The show is available with full English subtitles. My fave is Alberto from Italy and Poh from Malaysia (rowr) but I regularly watch the show for Dominique from Quebec, Dongling from China, Cristina from Italy and Taru from Finland.

The rest of the episode is available after the jump if you’ve got an hour or so to kill.
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