Author Archives: Ben

About Ben

Ben Hwang is involved in a number of online publications and also writes at his personal blog, LUX.ET.UMBRA. When he's not in the middle of starting companies and dreaming up new ventures, he is heavily involved in local community efforts. Currently resides in North Carolina.

Being half

Learned a brand new spanking word yesterday. Hapa. Yeah, I know… I’ve been sheltered. But after an interview with Kina Grannis, I realized that I had no clue what this word meant and asked. When you got right down to … Continue reading

Posted in Observations | Tagged , , | 26 Comments

Cowardly assault at WSU a reminder of racial intolerance

As the years pass, you would have imagined that racial tolerance would be progressing. Yet an incident that occurred at my alma mater, Washington State University, spoke of regression. Why is this problematic? When I first read about this particular … Continue reading

Posted in Discrimination, Observations, WTF | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Chinese espionage on the rise

…at least that’s what the media is saying. And unfortunately, the only thing this type of negative news reporting does is create fear where it should not exist. Think about it. If the Chinese have sent their spies here to … Continue reading

Posted in Discrimination, Observations, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The origin of ethnic slurs

If you’re easily offended by racial slurs, do not read this. The intent of this post is to look at words targeting a certain populace is later on applied to a general population. I was reading my daily dose of … Continue reading

Posted in Current Events, Observations, Politics | Tagged , | 17 Comments

Nankai students standing together

Tiananmen Square all over again? Not quite. But after a bicyclist going the same direction as a vehicle collided, the driver demanded not only an apology but also payment including insulting the bicyclist. After having a few choice words and … Continue reading

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Help Kina! – Part Deux

Remember how Kina Grannis was looking to cross the semi-finals? Well she has and it’s now down to three. So until January 27th, each day, there’s a vote. While you might be voting already, she’s got the look and voice … Continue reading

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Help Kina Grannis get to the Super Bowl

Kina Grannis is a beautiful half Japanese musician/songwriter based out of Austin, Texas. I only just heard of her today and I’m already madly in love with her voice. A little late to the game, hopefully the last umph move … Continue reading

Posted in Entertainment | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Electric bicycles on the rise in China

With gas prices on the rise, even with the car manufacturing boom in China, most people still cannot afford to own a automobile. Thus, they’re moving to the next best thing. Electric bicycles. Truthfully, anyone that has ever ridden in … Continue reading

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Let’s scare people: Guangzhou markets and SARS

You know it’s a slow news day when the media, let alone an organization like Reuters throws out a report like such. Let’s create a scare! Yes, the world isn’t screwed up enough that we need to make everyone freaked … Continue reading

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Taiwanese trucker runs over journalists

Sometimes I really wonder about how crazy politics has become. Funny thing, but I’ve always believed that politics has been two sides of the same coin. But things like this happen and you wonder what exactly goes through people’s minds. … Continue reading

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Asian guys with white girls: Redux

Funny thing happened this last weekend. See, the whole Asian guy, white girl thing? It’s even more uncommon in the South. But yet, in the last couple of years, gradually the number of couples where the male is Asian, and … Continue reading

Posted in Observations | Tagged , , , , , | 44 Comments

Should Asian Americans support English as the only language?

It’s interesting that this topic is coming up left and right in the political realm right now due to the amount of immigrants that have migrated to the United States. While the current topic seems to surround the Latino community … Continue reading

Posted in Current Events, Observations, Politics | Tagged , , , | 34 Comments