Newspaper sets up 2 Asian Americans on a date, massive boredom ensues

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Guest Writer

010915DatersZM0101_12.JPGby Leeland Lee

Get ready to cringe.

The New York Post recently set up two random Brooklynites on a blind date in their “This Week’s Couple” segment.

Asian Americans Chris, 30, and Vickie, 27, met up for dinner at Café Serai in the Rubin Museum of Art, then provided post-game commentary for the New York tabloid.

Needless to say, the date was not a match made in heaven. These things rarely are. But this encounter was particularly bad, providing a glimpse into the sad state of affairs for Millennials, Asian Americans, or worse, Millennial Asian Americans on the dating scene.

In her account of their meeting, Vickie doesn’t pull any punches, immediately identifying that vulnerability familiar to so many Asian men: “My first thought when I saw Chris was that he’s not my type. I’m into tall guys, and Chris is about my height.”

Insert dagger, twist.

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Posted in Dating, New York, Observations, WTF | 7 Comments

#OscarsSoWhite

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Lily

credit: Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.

credit: Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Because we live in the Internet age, by today, the Oscar nominations are almost old news. But since the Oscars themselves are still weeks away, I want to shout out this poignant and hilarious Twitter hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite, which calls out the fact that these are the whitest Oscars in SEVENTEEN YEARS in terms of the major cateogries. Most notably Selma‘s Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo were snubbed for best director and best actor, respectively.

Comedian Hari Kondabolu jumped in on the conversation early on with his ever-biting wit. And people continue to add their own 140 characters to the conversation. Recently, the Academy’s (first black) president Cheryl Boone Isaacs responded to the criticism by saying it only inspired her to push harder for the academy to be inclusive. But there’s a long way to go in the entertainment industry in both movies and television.

Reading through some of the critiques of the hashtag (as frivolous, stupid, un-meritocratic etc.) the one that caught my eye most was that in all the issues facing people of color today, this is perhaps not the “worst” or “most concerning.” And yes, that is true. But when I think about some of the comments coming out of Fresh Off the Boat‘s press panel and Eddie Huang’s comments on Hollywood’s take on his family story, the issues in the entertainment industry reverberate back and reflect bigger concerns in real ways. That’s why we keep harping on this point. Maybe we need new questions or new approaches, but for now, we’ve got hashtags and snark.

Posted in Entertainment, Movies, TV | Leave a comment

Asian American Commercial Watch: Buffalo Wild Wings – ‘Fans’

Posted on January 16, 2015 by John

http://youtu.be/UEzL9EyNzT4

It’s January 2015 already and we’re well into the NFL playoffs, but I had just caught this Buffalo Wild Wings’s commercial that apparently has been hosted on YouTube since the beginning of the latest season – August 2014, where two buddies are watching the end of a football game in regulation time.

Buffalo_Wild_Wings_FansOf course I love it when I see Asian Americans in any television commercial, but I’m especially happy to see Asian Americans in scenarios that one might not necessarily think you might see them.

I know parents knew nothing about and were not fans of any professional sports, so I was happy to see an NFL ad like the NFL’s Ticket Exchange ad, and now, this TV. In general, I find most of Buffalo Wild Wings’s commercials to be pretty entertaining, including ESPN’s SportCenter ones, including this latest one by the awesome Golden State Warrior Steph Curry.

Posted in Asian American Commercial Watch, Entertainment, Sports, TV | 1 Comment

Calling All Writers: Time Traveling Is Not For Everyone

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Koji Steven Sakai

Time_Travel_Logo_2014_v2

Those who know me know I’m a sci-fi/fantasy geek. When I was younger, I used to only read the classics. I think it was partly because I felt as though I should read those and wanted to look smart when I understood a reference that no one else got. But as I’ve gotten older, I don’t really care about any of that anymore. I pretty much read every zombie and vampire book I can get my hands on. Let’s put it this way, I read the entire Twilight series. Nuff said. (I’m on Team Jacob, if you wanted to know.)

The one part of the sci-fi/fantasy world I could never get into were books about time travelers. The thing is, I had always assumed that I had read many of the classic time traveling books—such as Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. But when I Googled the “Top Time Traveling Books” I found that I had actually read very few of them.  (If you’re interested, here is a top ten list put together by the Huffington Post.)

When I thought about it, I realized the biggest reason I have hard time getting into time traveling books is because I could never see myself in them. I mean, let’s be real for a moment. If I—a Japanese American—went to any other period in American history before let’s say… 1985, I would probably not have a very good time. In fact, if I went to the wrong time and in the wrong part of the country, I would probably end up dead.

It occurred to me that time traveling is pretty much only for those who are white, male, and heterosexual. Anyone else—everyone else—would have an incredibly hard time traveling to any other period in our history. This is not to say authors have not acknowledged the challenges. Stephen King’s 11/22/63 has a few passages where the narrator acknowledges the challenges he would have if he were African American. It is to Stephen’s credit that he even recognized and made it a point in the novel. The other book is called Spell or High Water: Magic 2.0 by Scott Meyer. It’s the second book of a series. Basically, it is about computer nerds who figure out a glitch in the system that allows them to travel to the past. Scott writes that women can’t really travel back in time to any period that is really all that great. So instead, they created Atlantis for themselves. (It should be noted that he does have an African American and Asian America in ancient England, but they are not the main characters.) And of course there was Octavia Butler’s Kindred, about an African American woman going back to the South pre-Civil War. But that’s about it.

The lack of diversity in the time traveling world is why I teamed up with New New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and friend Heidi Durrow to put together an anthology, Time Traveling is Not for Everyone, that explores the other side of time traveling.

And that’s where you come in.

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Posted in Books, Entertainment | 3 Comments

Is shame the reason why Filipino food has not gone mainstream yet?

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Jeff

foodOver the years, there have been many stories about Filipino food becoming the entering the American mainstream.  Efren wrote this one in 2007, and I wrote one in 2012 as people like chef and TV host Andrew Zimmern  were proclaiming Filipino food as the “next big thing.”   In 2015, it still hasn’t taken off in the American mainstream as predicted.  In an article that a friend shared with me, Filipino restaurant owner Nicole Ponseca says that one reason is shame.

Why shame?  

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Posted in Food & Drink, Observations | Tagged | 3 Comments

8Books Review: “Chop Suey, USA” by Yong Chen

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Lily

chopsueyReading Yong Chen’s new book Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America is an education. In some ways, it seems more like an encyclopedia or a peak into the brain of a man who has read and retained an almost overwhelming number of books. Chen’s books is filled to the brim with details about the history of Chinese American food. Beginning with a brief history of the culinary realm in China, the books delves into the rise and development of Chinese restaurants, Chinese cookbooks, and the Chinese American population generally. He places credit for the proliferation of Chinese restaurants in the US not in Chinese foods’ innate tastiness, but rather to both Chinese immigrant entrepreneurship and trends within our nation’s development. Sound complicated?

It is, a little bit. Chen’s book is not for someone looking for a nice airplane read about chop suey and egg foo young. Rather, this is a complex addition to the history of Chinese food in the United States. Chen hopes to answer the question: Why did Chinese food become so popular in America?

But in answering it, the book does not confine itself only to the history of Chinese restaurants, and also looks at this question from a national and global perspective — from the emergence of Chinese restaurants just as a developing middle class was looking for cheap options for eating out, to the first cookbooks to emerge in dynastic China. For anyone who wants to understand in depth where Chinese food fits into the large arc of American history, this one is a winner.

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Posted in 8Books, Food & Drink, History | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Shark Tank: Coffee Meets Bagel’s Kang Sisters – Turn Down $30M from Mark Cuban

Posted on January 12, 2015 by John

http://youtu.be/ci_3j89yo6k

After hearing that one of my closest friends and his wife are big fans of ABC’s Shark Tank, I’ve begun to watch repeats of the show on CNBC, and new episodes. If you’re not familiar with Shark Tank, it’s an American reality competition television series that premiered August 9, 2009 and has aspiring entrepreneur-contestants make business presentations to a panel of “shark” investors to invest in (or not).

In the episode aired on Friday, January 9th, 2015, the Internet-mobile dating startup Coffee Meets Bagel pitched to the Shark Tank, where Korean American sisters  Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang tried to convince the Sharks to make a $500,000 investment for 5% of the company – a pretty high valuation given that the revenue run rate was relatively low and not profitable.

Although Shark Mark Cuban was initially out of investing in Coffee Meets Bagel when the sister refused to nail down an exact number of users they had (they gave a range between 100,000 to 500,000), Cuban clearly liked some of the metrics, because at the end of the pitch, Cuban offered the largest amount in Shark Tank history to buy the company – and the sisters refused:

Shark_Tank_Coffee_Meets_Bagel_Kang_sisters“So why did the Kangs turn down the largest offer in Shark Tank history?

“We see this business growing as a big as Match.com,” Dawoon said. “They’re becoming a billion-dollar-revenue company, and we think this model and the product has potential to be as big as Match.”

While growing to the same size as Match.com may sound like an ambitious goal, the Kangs had already secured $2.8 million in funding from investors including Match.com co-founder Peng Ong. The sisters, all of whom are in their early 30s and emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea as teenagers, have degrees from Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, and Parsons School of Design. Each of the Kangs left a job paying six figures to found the company in 2012.

“It’s a newer, ephemeral version of Hot or Not, which is brilliant,” Cuban said. “

If you watch the episode, I think that Soo Kang was clearly in shock and looked like she wanted to take the $30 million. Hopefully Coffee Meets Bagel will be a success for the Kang sisters, or otherwise, they’ll look back and probably regret that they didn’t take the $30 million – I know I would!

Posted in Business, Entertainment, TV | Leave a comment

8$: Save Starry Kitchen Restaurant… #SaveOurBalls

Posted on January 11, 2015 by jozjozjoz

8$ is a series which occasionally highlights interesting crowdfunding projects. Every day, the 8Asians team is inundated by many worthy pitches. We are unable to highlight every one that comes our way, or even the ones we might individually support. The projects selected for 8$ are not endorsements by 8Asians. (To be considered for 8$, we highly suggest you not harass the writers or the editors of 8Asians.)

8A-2015-01-11-StarryKitchen-SaveOurBalls

WHO: Starry Kitchen, formerly an illegal/underground restaurant out of the back of out of the apartment of Nguyen Tran and his wife, executive chef/Kitchen Ninja Thi Tran. Later a downtown Los Angeles lunch spot. Now a pop-up in Chinatown seeking a permanent home.

WHAT: Kickstarter project: Starry Kitchen – #SaveOurBalls ..and our Restaurant!

From Nguyen Tran:

As I’m sure many of you can relate to, after the financial collapse of ’08 everyone was scrambling: losing jobs, money, houses, you name it, and we were no different. My wife had been laid off from her job in the Advertising industry, I was working as an independent producer/film sales agent in Hollywood scrambling to make a buck and both of us looking for a new way to survive. That’s when my (super talented) wife started cooking (A LOT) and posting her exotic creations onto to Facebook. All of our friends were super impressed by her talent and were begging for us to open a restaurant, and that is what we did… with a non-so-traditional beginning.

In May of 2009 my wife/partner/best friend/executive chef/Kitchen Ninja and I started an Illegal+Underground restaurant out of the back of our apartment that we called… STARRY KITCHEN! This “thing” that we started took off WAY, WAY faster than we had anticipated eventually making our apartment the #1 Asian Fusion restaurant listing in ALL of Los Angeles (our apartment!?!)

We MIGHT have gotten too big with people, Yelpers and eventually the press finding out about our story leading to us finally being found and shut down by the health department… even though I didn’t care and ran it for another 3 months “black ops”-style behind-closed-doors now while we were coincidentally already in the process of finally moving into a real+permitted “brick+mortar” spot.

February of 2010 marked the LEGITIMATE launch of Starry Kitchen in a legit restaurant space that we took over from friends, which was only a lunch spot, and that eventually went viral for us to crowds and businesses we couldn’t even dreamt of. Only problem, we didn’t know how to really run a restaurant correctly, and neither did the people we took over the space from which led to just as many mistakes as our successes. We had to learn on our own at a VERY fast rate.

WHEN: Deadline to contribute is Sunday, February 1, 2015 (3:05pm PT).

WHY: This is “The Go BIG, or GO HOME MOMENT!”

After 5.5 years, some of those personal mistakes eventually led to having to sell our space, becoming a pop-up, moving two more times, fending for ourselves to keeping our employees and customers with us, finally landing in Chinatown as part of this amazing revitalization that’s happening as we speak AND keeping Starry Kitchen ALIVE!

What success we HAVE had has all come from us NOT playing by the rules. Whenever we play by “the rules” we’ve always failed, but every time we break them and make our own rules: us, our staff and ultimately our customers ALL win. Not everyone will understand that, and that’s OK because we’re happy to help lead EVERYONE to greener and tastier (Asian) pastures on this journey for all that support us and not alike.

Posted in 8$, Food & Drink, Southern California | Leave a comment

Asian American Commercial Watch: Starbucks – Finding Understanding

Posted on January 7, 2015 by jozjozjoz

8A-2015-01-17-StarbucksMeetMeSherylynnThis Starbucks “Meet Me” video was filmed at the Kahala Mall in Honolulu, Hawaii and features Filipina American Sherylynn’s Starbucks story. The description: “Without knowing anyone, Sherylynn went to a deaf meet up at Starbucks, where she found a new community that changed her life.”

This isn’t exactly a “commercial” (but yeah, let’s face it, it IS) — it’s part of a “brand campaign” according to AdAge:

For the global campaign, called “Meet me at Starbucks,” the coffee giant isn’t focusing on products like it normally does in its ads. Rather, it’s focusing on the brand by chronicling a day in the life of Starbucks through a mini-documentary, shot in 59 different stores in 28 countries, using 39 local filmmakers, 10 local photographers and one director coordinating it all at 72andSunny, the agency responsible for the work. Each part of the ambitious project was shot in the same 24-hour period, producing 220 hours of footage, and features various subjects — from a hearing-impaired group meeting, to a group of women discussing scrapbooking, to elderly couples to teenage friends — going about their business at Starbucks.

Posted in Asian American Commercial Watch, Food & Drink | Leave a comment

8 Random Facts: Flower Drum Song

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Koji Steven Sakai

FLower_Drum_Song_1961_posterI’m working on a screenplay and one of the films my co-writer asked me to watch was Flower Drum Song. As my writing partner noted, it is “perhaps the only mainstream musical with all Asian American characters.” The sad thing is that he was right. The closet thing I could think of was the King & I. And that play wasn’t all Asian American.

So over the holidays I watched the 1961 Universal –International film starring James Shigeta, Nancy Kwan, Jack Soo, and others. Although I’ve seen it before (a long long time ago), it was nice to see again. Truth be told, lots of it made me cringe. Some of the jokes—okay, lots of the jokes, the stereotypes, the bad accents, made me want to hit my head against the wall… but what got me was that such a film got made in the first place—and in the 1960s. I doubt that anyone would/could make such a movie now. The closest thing that I could think of was Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club. I hope I’m wrong about this.

In honor of the movie, I thought I’d share with you eight (since we’re 8Asians and all) fun facts, trivia, and observations about the Flower Drum Song.

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Posted in Entertainment, Movies, Music | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Film Review: ‘The Search for General Tso’

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Mitchell K. Dwyer

The Search for General Tso (2014)
Written and directed by Ian Cheney

searchforgeneraltsoThere is a very small Chinese hole-in-the-wall in my neighborhood where, if you’re there at the right time, you can often see a small group of middle-aged Chinese laborers sitting down to dine. They don’t look at a menu, and as far as I can tell, they don’t even order. They greet whoever is serving, and in a few minutes their meal is brought out, usually in plain bowls. Whatever they’re eating doesn’t look like what I’m eating; it doesn’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen off a Chinese menu. But the men make it look more delicious than what I’m having, and they confirm for me what I suspected for a long time before I first saw them: that there is a real Chinese menu I never get to see, and as much as I love my lemon chicken and my beef choi sum, that menu is a lot better.

The Search for General Tso is a documentary that reminds me of my alternate menu theory, beginning with the premise that this wildly popular dish is just about everywhere in America, but nobody seems to know where it came from or who General Tso is.

Like most really good documentaries, The Search for General Tso is about more than its title suggests. Tracking the background of the general and his ubiquitous namesake gives us a quick, delicious lesson in the Chinese diaspora in the United States. The question about who the general was leads to a seemingly endless series of others. How did a dish named after him find its way to the United States? Why does Chinese cuisine in America not look like anything people in China actually eat? Why do there seem to be Chinese restaurants in every town in America, even those whose only residents of Chinese ancestry are those who run the restaurants?

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Posted in Movies, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Asian American Commercial Watch: Vicks’ Amanda – Moms Don’t Take Sick Days

Posted on January 2, 2015 by John

http://youtu.be/IOMKi49XMzs

Vicks_Mom_DayquilThis Vicks television commercial is a two-parter advertising both NyQuil and DayQuil, the first part portraying the dilemma for dad’s and the other for mom’s.

When I saw the the adult white male asking for a sick day, one imagines he’s in an office setting asking his boss for a sick day, the same when we see the adult Asian American female asking for a day off from her daughter. Although I’m not a parent, I’m sure all parents know that you never have a sick day when you have to take care of your kids (even when you are sick).

Posted in Asian American Commercial Watch, Health and Beauty | Leave a comment