Sketches include:

• TORTURE!
• ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS!
• KOREAN BBQ!
• And more!

The Contemporary Asian Theater Scene presents The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors at The 9th Annual Asian Comedy Night!

Friday, November 20, 8pm (with cast reception)
Saturday, November 21, 7pm and 10pm

San Jose Woman’s Club
75 South 11th Street, San Jose 95112-2018

TICKETS:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/84600
Friday show and reception with cast: $25
Saturday shows: $20

What you could win from 18MMW and CATS: two tickets to either performance on Saturday, November 21.

That’s right! The lucky winner wins a pair of tickets to see 18MMW Saturday night!

How do you enter?
Simply leave a short comment stating why you should win. (Be sure to use the email address you’d like to be contacted at if you’re the winner.)

Hurry, the deadline to enter is: Wednesday, November 18 at 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) One lucky winner will be selected and contacted on Thursday.

Rules for entering:

1. Please be in the San Jose area (or willing to travel to SJ on your own dime) and serious about using these tickets; if you’re too busy to use these, please don’t take them away from someone who will!
2. Tickets are non-transferrable; they are good for you and a guest.
3. Contributors to 8Asians and their immediate family members are not eligible to win.

Prizes courtesy of: 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CATS).

I miss the days when my mom would get that twinkle in her eye and say we’re going out for breakfast, and we’d end up in Cupertino, at either a diner-like Chinese restaurant (A&J) or at Marina Foods, where she’d order hot soy milk (豆漿 dòu jiāng) and “shao bing yóu tiáo” and insist we eat it the way you’re supposed to, one wrapped inside the other. She’d order the sweetened soy milk, as would I, but my dad always got the salty soy milk (the choice of purists).

For me, it’s the mix of textures, the crunchy yóu tiáo with the soft shao bing that makes this breakfast dish an attraction, and one I haven’t had recently. The blog article is a good reminder that it’s time to make another weekend morning trip to Cupertino.

(EDITORS NOTE: Mabel Teng was acting mayor of San Francisco in 1995. Thanks to Jim at SFCitizen for the hat tip.)

You can see the film trailer here for a preview. The movie will be followed by a student-led discussion encompassing the friction between cultural and LGBT values. The movie will begin promptly at 6:15 p.m., so please arrive early. Refreshments will be provided.

“Saving Face” Film Screening, Thursday, October 29, 2009
Conference Room B @ 6:00 p.m., De Anza Community College Campus

For more information, please see the Facebook event invitation here. Please feel free to invite your friends and loved ones — this is a free and open event where everyone is welcome!

Even with our entire nuclear family in the U.S., my parents still planned on moving back to Taiwan after my dad’s studies were completed. But months turned into years, and at some point it became easier to stay than to go back, so my parents became U.S. citizens and made America their home. For most coming to the U.S. in the past few decades, the idea of returning home was a less common one, instead most immigrants came to the U.S. to find a better a life here for their families. With the recent downturn in the economy in last few years, there’s been a dramatic change in this attitude according to the Tech Crunch which is reporting a reverse brain drain to India and China.

Tech Crunch found in a recent survey of recent arrivals from India, over three-fourths indicated they were planning on returning to India. In a separate study of foreign students, a majority stated they did not think the U.S. was the best place for professional development and they planned on returning to their homes. Some of you reading this may think there’s little wrong with immigrants returning to their homes. The reality is, there is a price to pay if highly skilled workers go back to their home countries. As Tech Crunch states:

… A growing body of evidence indicates that skilled foreign immigrants create jobs for Americans and boost our national competitiveness. More than 52% of Silicon Valley’s startups during the recent tech boom were started by foreign-born entrepreneurs. Foreign-national researchers have contributed to more than 25% of our global patents, developed some of our break-through technologies, and they helped make Silicon Valley the world’s leading tech center. Foreign-born workers comprise almost a quarter of all the U.S. science and engineering workforce and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. It is very possible that some of the smart Indians who sat in the room with me holding their hand up on Columbus Day will start the next Google or Apple. Many of them will build companies which employ thousands. But the jobs will be in Hyderbad or Pune, not Silicon Valley.

Perhaps many of those planning on returning home will end up staying like my parents, but in this economy there’s definitely a higher chance of these immigrants going home. In my particular case, I’m happy my parents stayed, as I’ve definitely had more opportunities than my cousins who grew up in Taiwan. The question for these new arrivals is whether they and their children will do better in the U.S. or back in their home countries.

A mother called up the admissions officer of a local private high school.
“How can I best position my daughter to get into your high school?” she asked.
“What grade is she in?” replied the admissions officer.
“Fourth grade,” said the mother.
“Too late,” said the admissions officer.

That admissions officer recounting this story at a high school information night said with a grin that the mother went nuts.  We knew that he was joking, but in the same room were an Asian family who dragged along what looked to be a fourth grade girl and fifth grade boy. Why were the Wife and I were at the high school information night?  Number One Son will be applying to the local private high schools in about a year, and some of the best known private high schools in Silicon Valley were giving presentations and other information.

It may seem both extreme and crazy, but that Asian family might have the right idea.  According to this US News and World Report article, Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade calculated that for students with similar grades, test scores, athletic ability, and family background, whites were three times as likely as Asian students to get in an elite college.  When I first read that, I got pretty angry.  Do I have to push my kids three times harder than white kids just to keep up?  I calmed down when I realized that there are a number of caveats to this study.  The study did not factor in extracurricular activities other than athletics.  Mitchell Chang, a professor of higher education at UCLA, says in the article that Asian students might be less likely to participate in certain kinds of extracurricular activities and that Asian parents push their children to apply to big name schools.  Also, Espenshade’s data from the 80’s and 90’s deals with elite colleges – what about the next tier of schools?  I wish there was data about those.

Still, I have to admit that I am a bit spooked by all of this.  I don’t think that those mitigating factors I mentioned explain away all of that three to one advantage.  The Daughter will be applying to colleges next year, and I feel pangs of guilt that I let her drop out of Kumon a couple of years ago and didn’t make her to do club sports back when she was younger.  Remembering her experience applying to the local private high schools (there are entrance exams and of course, test prep courses for that exam), it’s going to be a stressful time next year for Number One Son.  On top of that, The Daughter will be going to waiting for college acceptance letters at the same time.  Spring of 2011 will not be a happy time.  Before then, I’ll probably end up reading Espenade’s forthcoming book Not Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, that has more details from his study.
(Hat tip to John)

I may have been disappointed after watching Kimbo Slice fight on The Ultimate Fighter, but I didn’t have to wait long to watch another fight — this news segment on a fight between an Asian and Black woman on a MUNI bus in San Francisco. [EDITORS NOTE: This is a censored version of the YouTube fight -- the original version is here.]

Apparently, the Chinese lady tells people on the bus that all she wanted to do was sit down, but the other lady refuses to move her bag from the other seat and does not let the Chinese lady sit down. (Ironically, the first thing I thought of was Rosa Parks.) An argument breaks out, with the Black woman woman throwing the first punch and the Asian woman retaliating — unleashing fists pounding on the head and drop kicks! All this over a seat? I’ve had to use public transportation on a everyday basis before, and I can understand that it can be uncomfortable sitting next to strangers, but if I ever felt like I didn’t want to have to sit next to anyone, I would of have simply stood up and gave my seat away.

I don’t know what’s worse –the fight or other people actually not reporting the fight. It had to take another Asian lady to break up the two women, while another man yells to the Chinese lady in the fight, “BEAT HER! BEAT HER!” According to the news and other people who have commented about this video, there’s already been numerous fights on the bus including fights that involved the bus drivers; even the man who uploaded the video mentions that he was previously attacked on the bus as well.

For those who just want to laugh at all this, there’s been several video responses by Youtubers that you can check out:  Chonny portraying the Chinese lady and responding to the fight, Peter Chao warning people not to mess with old Chinese ladies, Yahsoldier1’s video explaining how people of color use slang, and AdrienChen625’s response featuring “hitmanbreakeroftheye” singing to BOOM BOOM POW.  

Manny Pacquiao isn’t the only Filipino boxing champion.  On September 12, Ana “The Hurricane” Julaton won the IBA Super Bantamweight championship (122 lbs) by defeating Kelsey “the Road Warrior” Jeffries.   We have written before about female Asian boxers defying stereotypes, but “The Hurricane” not only defies stereotypes but proves that she can be the best at what is typically thought of as a male sport. Her match at the HP Arena in San Jose is said to be the first time a female bout was featured as an IBA main event.

Julaton lives in the Filipino American enclave of Daly City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this article, she cites the influence of Bruce Lee as an inspiration:

“I wasn’t sure where I fit in; I didn’t know who I was.  I found some kind of purpose I guess, in seeing a successful Chinese American like Bruce Lee.”

His influence lead her not only to learn Taekwondo and become a boxer, but also to embrace her own Filipino-American heritage.

Another thing she has in common with Manny Pacquiao is the hall of fame trainer Freddie Roach.  With excellent people like Roach behind her, Ana “the Hurricane” Julaton will be making an impact for some time to come.