This event is FREE!

Visit their website HERE to sample their original music.

FEATURING
Esther Ku: one of the top ten best comedians in NBC’s Stand-up for Diversity Showcase and a finalist on “Last Comic Standing” Season 6.
Philip Galinsky: co-creator of the Manhattan Monologue Slam and a performer on Comedy Central, MTV, A&E, & USA networks.
The Hsu-nami: an internationally renowned progressive rock band with a song featured during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.
Tora Brava: electronica pop/rock singer who has toured and performed across Europe, Asia, and North America.
and a Runway Fashion Show by Lucullen: a one of a kind, high-end fashion brand that has successfully launched various collections around the world.

SPONSORS: Bennett Media Studio, Brooklyn Fashion Festival, China1 Antique Restaurant and Lounge, Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans, Culture Catch, Ivy Bakery, Kallisti Jewelry, Lucullen, Maggie’s Meals, MX2 Design Force, Noyu Teas, ORIENTED, YehYehClub, and 247Feature.com.

Date: Feb 20th Saturday
Time: 7~10pm (please arrive early)
Address: 725 Washington Street, New York
RSVP: must sign up before midnight Feb. 19th for $10 admission
Visit: www.AsianinNY.com for more information.

Sat Feb 20, 10am-2pm

Mina Dresden Gallery
312 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Spend a Saturday learning how to reuse, reimagine and repurpose found objects with artist Truong Tran. The workshop will start at Mina Dresden Gallery, where students will see Truong’s work and he will describe his artistic process. After inspiring myriad of creative ideas, he will lead students on a treasure hunt through the streets and thrift stores of the Mission.

Registration fee: $40

February 20, 8pm at House of Blues Sunset Strip in the VooDoo Lounge.

$10 at the door

Volkswagen’s latest entertaining ad campaign is their “Sign Then Drive” event where you can get a Jetta, CC, or Tiguan for “practically just your signature.” I’ve actually test driven a Lexus with an Asian American car saleswoman before, so I was happy to see this commercial. [EDITORS NOTE: If this was an inappropriate blog, I would clearly make a crass comment about being grateful that the Asian women are selling the cars and not driving them. But that would be inappropriate. Hey-yo!]

Contrast this to this other Volkswagen ad, the woman appears to be a cute, quiet, demure trophy girlfriend as her boyfriend is checking out the car. You can view the ad after the jump: What do you think?

One day a reality or just Photoshop?

The New York Times just did a story about “Before Obama, There Was Bill Cosby,” which I found quite coincidental, since I was contemplating recently with all the Obama election victory coverage about his historic win about what brought us to this moment in time, and how I thought that there would be no President Elect Obama without The Cosby Show (also coined as The Huxtable Effect by a blogger). As the Times put it:

“But one idea seems to be gaining traction, and improbably it has Bill Cosby and Karl Rove in agreement: “The Cosby Show,” which began on NBC in 1984 and depicted the Huxtables, an upwardly mobile black family — a departure from the dysfunction and bickering that had characterized some previous shows about black families — had succeeded in changing racial attitudes enough to make an Obama candidacy possible. On election night Mr. Rove, the former Bush strategist, said on Fox News: “We’ve had an African-American first family for many years in different forms. When ‘The Cosby Show’ was on, that was America’s family. It wasn’t a black family. It was America’s family.” “

That is what I thought when I saw the Obama family on stage in Grant Park as they all were waving their hands into America’s living rooms and why I used that family photo on my blog post about Asian Americans overwhelmingly supporting Obama. Before, if you saw a black president portrayed on television, like Dennis Haysbert‘s portrayal of David Palmer as the President of the United States or Morgan Freeman as president in Deep Impact, you knew that you were watching fiction. Who would have ever thought that the United States would ever elect a black man as president? In the final episode of the final season of The West Wing, Jimmy Smits portrays Matthew Santos, a Hispanic Democratic candidate and Senator that becomes President Elect.

Some have argued that ABC’s 2005 failed “Commander in Chief” television series portraying Geena Davis as female President Mackenzie Allen was a liberal conspiracy to get the country comfortable for a President Hillary Clinton… In the upcoming new season 7 of Fox’s ’24,’ actress Cherry Jones will be portraying the president.

I ask you – has there ever been an Asian American portrayed as a president or presidential candidate on American television or film? If not, more now than ever, is the time to have one! If we cannot even imagine having an Asian American president fictionally, how will America ever have an Asian American in reality?

I think the first viable Asian American to run for president will be Republican Governor Bobby Jindall of Louisiana. He was already rumored to be on John McCain’s vice-presidential short list. I expect Jindall to run in 2010 and/or 2014. Jindall is currently 37, so he has plenty of time to get more experience. A future contender may be John Chiang, currently California’s state controller. But first, I believe Chiang has ambitions to be the governor of California. There are rumors that America’s first Asian American governor (of the mainland, or as Sarah Palin would put it, “in the lower 48″), former governor of the state of Washington, Gary Locke, may be appointed to an Obama cabinet position.

I missed this 3-part series in AsianWeek earlier this summer titled, “The First Asian Pacific American President: With an African American on the path to the White House, when is it our turn?” I think it will probably not be in my lifetime. But at the very least, I would hope to see an Asian American president in a television series or major American film prior to an Asian American being elected President of the United States (POTUS).

China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the popular period novel, Anne of Green Gables, written by my personal heroine and Canadian author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. If you’ve never heard of this book, then you’re either male or a very confused female. Just kidding about confused. I really meant that you’ll never be my friend in real life.

Written as a newspaper serial and published in 1908, Anne illustrated the life of a young red-haired orphan who was mistakenly adopted by Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, two siblings looking for help on their farm on Prince Edward Island. She arrives and chaos ensues, but Anne ends up capturing the hearts of the Avonlea townsfolk and then (in the next eight or nine books–depending on whether you count the shorts stories that Montgomery wrote up later in life) she becomes a teacher, earns a Bachelors degree (which was pretty unique at the time), falls in love, has A LOT of kids and basically leads the best live EVER.

Let me tell you. Anne of Green Gables has got to be one of my favorite books–I’ve read it about 13 billion times, I can probably tell you exactly what happens in each chapter, what the characters wore, why Ruby Gillis was such an airhead and how Anne got her bosom chum, Diane, accidentally drunk on raspberry cordial one time when they had tea. I know. Lame, right? This book led to my obsession with all things related to L. M. Montgomery (yes, including writing my diary entries to her–how’s that for embarrassing?) and wishing I could be a published author just like she was.

It makes me sad that her popularity has died away quite a bit in the young adult world; in place, we’ve got the younger “chick lit” novels (the 21st century version of our Sweet Valley High series) for girls that focus on the Gossip Girl-esque lives of the wealthy and superficial. I still always look for Montgomery’s novels in the bookstore to make sure their still there, but it’s clear that they aren’t flying off the shelves.

What does this all have to do with being Asian? No really, I have a point about this.

At first I thought I was weird for being such a die-hard fan of Anne and all of the companion books. I mean, does a Japanese American girl have anything in common with the life of a red-haired Caucasian-Canadian girl growing up in the 1800′s? Not really. I remember being a little shocked by one of Montgomery’s short stories, in which one of her old characters refers to the Chinese immigrants (working in the harsh settlements in British Columbia) in a derogatory manner. Wait, what did she just say? She’s talking about one of my (kinda sorta) people, here! But then I forgave her because issues of race never came up in Montgomery’s work (because she probably never knew any non-white people) and if anything, she was merely writing what a cranky old housekeeper would say.

Then I learned that the Japanese were one of Anne’s biggest supporters–and honestly, I did not enjoy this at ALL. This was supposed to be MY THING. I’m not even Japanese-Japanese. I’m AMERICAN. This was my North American identity coming to play. Why do these Japanese people have to be all up in my grill over this?

It was an infamous fact that hordes of Japanese tourists would visit Montgomery’s home province, Prince Edward Island, and as Newsweek stated in their commemorative article,

The Japanese are among the most ardent Anne-maniacs—they even plan weddings in the room where Montgomery was married

(Wait, what?? NO. That was MY ORIGINAL IDEA. But it’s alright. It’s cool. I can share.)

So here I wonder–and I know I’m not the first–where does Japan’s fascination over Anne of Green Gables come from? It’s suffice to point out that Anne’s popularity is global, but why specifically Japan, a country with a culture and race so presumably different from 1800′s Canada?

Even a New York Times article from 2003 describes the Japanese phenomenon, albeit with a bit of condescension:

As adults, they come by the thousands every year, a few with their hair dyed red and tied in pigtails just like Anne Shirley, the heroine of ”Anne of Green Gables,” Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel about the irrepressible orphan from the fictional town of Avonlea.

Many of these pilgrims break into tears of joy when they visit the house in Clifton, the town where Montgomery was born. They often seem to make no distinction between the author and her creation.

Listen, folks. Japanese people aren’t stupid. We invented the Walkman, for chrissakes. Of course we can tell the difference between a fictional character and the author. But the article brings up a good point:

Anne’s love of nature, they say, and Montgomery’s vivid descriptions of the island’s pastoral beauty appeal to an increasingly crowded, urban nation. But Anne has also served as a model for teenage girls seeking to break out of traditional roles.

I think all of that is true. You can’t help notice Montgomery’s passages that focus on nature and life. Yuka Kajihara writes an interesting essay about the relationship between post-World War II Japan and Anne’s character. And perhaps it’s even Anne’s enthusiasm, sensitivity to beauty and cheerful outlook on life that finds a place in Japan’s kawaii culture. You can’t deny that in Japan, anything breathtakingly cute has a huge hold over the culture, from girly mangas, Gothic Lolitas, Pikachu, Totoro, Ayumi and so on. Anne of Green Gables acts in the same way, but through literature. Plus, they must have marketed the novel in the most ingenious way to target their Japanese fans.

Islanders began to hype the Anne connection in Japan five years ago; since then, Japanese tourism to PEI has increased 1,400 percent. The island, about 200 miles and two ferry rides northeast of Maine, ranked 16th in a Japanese poll of desirable destinations, ahead of such meccas as Hong Kong and San Francisco. (link)

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if all this notice is only just the media’s fascination with Japan’s fascination over a published heroine. In other words–what’s the big deal? Perhaps the mere fact that a group of Anne’s most ardent fans are racially different makes others notice them more. It would be confusing and jarring to some to see a group of Asian tourists fawning over the Green Gables museum, or gleefully taking photographs with red wigs, though it’s clear that other, non-Asian tourists do the same. Why is there this huge distinction between normal Anne fans and the Japanese tourists? Does this media focus on Japan’s fandom stem on our fascination with the unusual tastes and traditions in Asian cultures? You know, Japanese people sell used panties in vending machines and have the weirdest game shows ever. Not only that, but they’re obsessed with Anne of Green Gables. Crazy culture, right?

But why can’t Japan just enjoy something without it being pointed out as unique or weird? Or am I just over-thinking this?