Asian American Commercial Watch: BlackBerry Torch 9800 “Love What You Do”

I happened to catch this commercial recently for the new BlackBerry Torch. At first, I couldn’t really tell with the guy’s helmet whether or not the courier was Asian since the commercial doesn’t focus on the his face for too long. But through some Internet sleuthing, I discovered the biker is Asian. In fact, Japanese American Fergus Tanaka is not only not an actor and a bike messenger, but he’s also the current president of the San Francisco Bike Messenger association!

You know, if I hadn’t been living in the Bay Area for the past 11 years, I would have been surprised to see an Asian American as a bike messenger and would have experienced what I have termed, the Californian Asian American Culture Shock.

What I love about this commercial is that it takes place in San Francisco. I recognized a lot of the streets, hills, buildings and neighborhoods of the city, including Chinatown. The last time I noticed a commercial that featured San Francisco was a Sony Bravia HDTV LCD commercial that ironically never aired in the U.S. (I’m told it aired only in Europe).

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About John

I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
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