Model Minorities in Reality TV: The Amazing Race’s Tammy & Victor Jih

Posted on February 25, 2009 by John

If you have been following the latest season of The Amazing Race, you’ve noticed the Asian American brother-sister team, Tammy & Victor Jih. The last time I recall The Amazing Race having an Asian American team was when father-daughter team Ronald & Christina made it to the finale, but ultimately didn’t win in the end, coming in second. This past Sunday in the second episode, Tammy & Victor came in first in the latest leg of The Amazing Race. In a sneak peak, the third episode shows some sibling rivalry and friction between Tammy & Victor.

But when reality television shows cast Asian Americans, are they now trying to typecast and perpetuate the “Model Minority” myth? The previous season of The Amazing Race had Christina going to Duke and Princeton and working for the State Department. Survivor’s Yul Kwon went to Stanford and Yale Law and had worked at McKinsey & Google prior to going on the show. And now, Tammy & Victor, they both went to Stanford undergrad and Harvard Law School (a decade apart – HLS ’06 and HLS’96 respectively). Victor is a 35-year-old partner at the Los Angeles-based law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Tammy is an associate at the law firm Quinn Emanuel.

Is this better than how typically Asian Americans are portrayed in television and film, like Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles?

I do think that it is great that Yul Kwon and Victor Jih have come across as totally down-to-earth and photogenic, giving Asian Amerian males a much needed image boost to the steroetypical “geek” image that has been portrayed in the past. And yes, I *totally* have a crush on Tammy; she’s super cute and maybe I’ll be lucky and get to meet her in person one of these days like I have with Yul.

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Entertainment, Observations | 26 Comments

Tonga Room in San Francisco Possibly Closing?

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Efren

SFGate.com just announced that the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco could possibly be closing soon as the hotel considers converting much of its space into condos (which in this economy doesn’t make much sense, but I digress).

While on the surface this may not have much to do with Asian Americans, the Tonga Room is one of the last vestiges of an era gone by for Asian American nightclub performers in San Francisco.  From the 1930s to the 70s, Chinatown in San Francisco was known as having nightly entertainment featuring “exotic” performers from the Orient, even though the vast majority of them were actually 2nd generation Chinese and Japanese American singers and dancers born in both the mainland and Hawaii.  This is probably best personified in the movie Flower Drum Song, which featured performers from Forbidden City, the best well known nightclub in Chinatown SF at the time. Arthur Dong did a critically acclaimed documentary on this nightclub called Forbidden City, USA and should definitely be watched if you’re truly interested in seeing how the stuff that Asian American performers dealt with back then hasn’t changed for those trying to make it into showbiz today.  A woman who performed during that era tries to bring that time back with her group of performers from those days called Grant Avenue Follies.

When I went to the Tonga Room a few years ago to celebrate a friend’s birthday, it featured a predominantly Asian American band playing covers of cheesy pop songs from the 50s to the 80s and portrayed a romanticized American version of the “Tropics” featuring supposedly  Asian fusion cuisine (which ended up being more like lots of deep fried wontons filled with cheese and crab and other deep fried monstrosities), strong and enormous cocktails, and decor from random Pacific Islands, which would horrify most people who have a basic sense of fashion design.  Think of Trader Vic’s on steroids.  What did strike me about the place (aside from the cocktails that gave me a nasty hangover the next day) was the fact that almost everyone working there was Asian American and that all of the performers knew that this was totally inauthentic cheese, but had fun with it and played it to the hilt.

Given that the opportunities for most Asian American performers during that time was virtually nil outside of doing these clubs, I did come away with a sense of appreciation that despite their exoticizing Asian and Pacific Island cultures, it allowed Asian American performers back in the day to practice their trade, so it is sad that with the Tonga Room closing, this era will come to an end.

Posted in Entertainment, Observations | 8 Comments

From Slumdog To Millionaire: Two Child Actors Moving Out of the Slums

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Moye

Slumdog Millionaire swept the Academy Awards

I was happy that a film like Slumdog Millionaire swept the Academy Awards last Sunday night with 8 Oscars, including Best Picture which is probably the highest award any filmmaker could achieve in his/her career (except for James Cameron because I absolutely hated Titanic). Even more endearing was to see the entire cast from India walking down the famous red carpet, enjoying the glitz and glamor that any hard working actor should experience.

We also saw the backlash against the film, where Indians and Indian Americans claimed offense to the depiction of their culture and country in such a gritty story, and even more so when reporters discovered that the child actors cast in the leading roles were still living in squalor with their families.

Fortunately, today it was announced that Danny Boyle had promised the two youngest actors, Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail would be moving out of the slums and into new apartments with their families. Better yet, the producers have promised to pay a rickshaw driver to chauffeur the two children to school every day for the next 8 years to make sure they don’t drop out. (I’m sorry, but something about that is so hilariously wrong.)

So this is where you enjoy that warm and fuzzy feeling in your belly because the two cutest Indian child actors will be given a new life.

Except for some reason, I can’t feel happy about this. There’s this gut feeling where I keep asking myself, what about the rest of them? You know, the thousands of children living in slums across Bombay–or even India itself? How much money can you throw at two families and what’s going to happen when the fickle Hollywood spotlight gets tired of them?

I won’t say that Slumdog Millionaire is a bad film. I enjoyed it and I’m glad that a popular director like Danny Boyle has highlighted the harsh living conditions of such a city, as well as extending his own personal wealth to help his young cast–but I can’t NOT raise my eyebrows at this news. Just as Jeff questioned the “authenticity” of the film because it was written and directed by non-Indians (doesn’t this ring a bell when Memoirs of a Geisha came out?), I have to question how much good this film has done for the Asian community.

I got the same feeling while watching the Slumdog filmmakers gather each of their 8 Oscars; the film celebrated India’s Bollywood culture, but almost every person (except for A.R. Rahman, who picked up the Best Song award for Jai Ho) who went on stage was white. Yay for an Indian movie, but who is really benefitting from these wins and box office numbers? Clearly, the slumdogs of India aren’t.

There’s just something so ironic about the whole story: a British director films a movie in a former colony, takes it to Hollywood where it becomes an award-winning box office hit, makes millions, finds backlash when people discover that the actors are still technically slumdogs and now, tries to help out those who he left behind (including a trip to Disneyland).

But I’m going to stay positive. As the LA Times wrote, it’s always a time to celebrate when a country like India is being nationally recognized in Hollywood.

Posted in Entertainment, Movies | Leave a comment

Gary Locke Likely to Become Secretary of Commerce

Posted on February 24, 2009 by John

President Barack Obama has had a hell of a time trying to fill in the Secretary of Commerce seat, with his first two nominees, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Republican Senator Judd Gregg, withdrawing their names prior to confirmation hearings. According to the Washington Post, this opens up the nomination to former Governor of Washington, Gary Locke:

“Locke, a Democrat, spent eight years as the governor of Washington State — from 1996 until 2004 — and before that served stints as the chief executive in King County (Seattle) and in the Washington state House. When he was elected in 1995 Locke became the first — and to date the only — Chinese American to serve as the governor of a state. Locke’s appeal to the White House was threefold, according to those briefed on the decision. First, he built a solid record as governor — including overseeing the rapid growth of the Washington economy. Second, he is well known as a strait-laced politician who has never been weighed down with ethical baggage. Third, he furthers Obama’s commitment to diversity as the third Asian American in the Cabinet.”

If Governor Locke is nominated and confirmed as Secretary of Commerce, he will indeed be the third Asian American in Obama’s cabinent level administration, after General Shinseki of Veteran Affairs and Secretary of Eneergy Steve Chu – which I believe would be a record number of Asian Americans for any presidential cabinet; I’m sure The Daily Show’s news correspondent Aasif Mandvi is disappointed that an Indian wasn’t nominated.

(Flickr photo credit: SCGators7)

Posted in Current Events, Politics | 2 Comments

Jane Lui’s “Firefly”

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Ernie

So a couple of us are back from this weekend’s Kollaboration event in Los Angeles. And despite some snags, grumblings and awkward ponies — a girl behind Moye in hysterics when the VIP ticket she pre-purchased was given away, an after party described on twitter as a bad high school dance, a white boy winning the freestyle dance competition — the event was a success, primarily because of the artists and performers.

But for me, the stand-out performer of the night wasn’t BoA, but Jane Lui, a singer-songwriter from San Diego who was the runner-up of the competition, despite having a sound that was more mature than the high schoolers in the crowd. (What? I’m 32; I was feeling fucking old in that auditorium.) While the performance that won her a $1,000 check is already on YouTube and her cover of George Michael’s Faith is equal parts funny and charming, I posted a clip of her song Firefly because while there are tons of people that sing with their guitars in front of video cameras, this is the one of the few YouTube clips I keep coming back to and clicking on the play button, time and time again.

Posted in Entertainment, Music, Observations | 3 Comments

A Lack of Asian Surrogates

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Tim

Indian surrogatesSurrogacy, is when a woman agrees to carry a baby for another person or couple. When surrogacy first started, it was common for the surrogate to also be the egg donor. Recently though it’s much more common to use a biologically separate egg donor. There’s less legal issues with this method, and less risk the surrogate will want to keep the baby after birth. I was surprised to find out there’s a lack of Asian surrogates in the U.S. (although no lack of them in India or the Philippines apparently).

This issue came to light since John Griffin posted a comment on my article about creating a surrogate family. His comment was essentially an advertisement looking for an Asian woman willing to act as a surrogate for a Vietnamese couple. It surprised me because it should make no difference what race the surrogate happens to be; since biologically, the baby will be the race of the biological contributors.

I’m no stranger to surrogacy since my partner and I decided to go with surrogacy to bring our daughter into this world. It didn’t even occur to us to ask for a Caucasian or an Asian surrogate. Yes, our daughter is mixed, half Asian and half Caucasian. But, she was carried by a Latino surrogate, who we were matched with through an agency. We had no preferences stated, only that the surrogate was willing to carry for a gay couple. Our surrogate was a wonderful woman, full of life and love, and she immediately found a place in our family. We still send her pictures of our daughter and keep in touch with her and her family.

I was also recently surprised that a Caucasian woman acting as a surrogate for an Asian couple would make the news. To me this shouldn’t be shocking or newsworthy. It just reflects again, how far our society has to go before race and color isn’t an issue.

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Family | Tagged | 7 Comments

Asians Playing Non-Asian Roles: The National Asian American Theater Company

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Rob

leahs-prod13Recently my friend took me to a performance by the National Asian American Theater Company. The group puts on shows that are “not for or about Asian Americans, but realized with an all Asian American cast”. We went to see Leah’s Train, which is about three generations of Russian Jewish women dealing with intergenerational family issues. Needless to say, there were no other 24 year old males in the audience.

Because this isn’t a review, I won’t go into details about the quality of acting (somewhat mixed) or the plot (except to say that there’s kind of a twist halfway through the show that has enormous metaphysical implications and creates a number of weird time paradoxes, but the author is sadly uninterested in exploring those issues.) What I am concerned with, and what I kept thinking about during the show, is the question of why. Why put on a show about Russian Jews and cast Asian people? What value is there, either artistically or or otherwise, in doing this?

Artistically, if there was some purpose in using Asians to tell the story of Leah’s Train, I missed it. Having never seen a NAATCO performance before, I came with the expectation that the director would use the juxtaposition of “non Asian play/Asian cast” to make some sort of statement. There was a bit of that, when I caught myself thinking that one of the characters really resembled a lot of yuppie Asian people that I know, and realized that the qualities I associate with yuppie Asians are actually true of all yuppies. But somehow I don’t think that was the intended message of the show. In fact, after looking through some of their other performances (Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Our Town, Othello – one wonders how they put that one on) I don’t think they intended for this juxtaposition to send any message at all.

Even without any artistic benefit, I think there’s some social value in what NAATCO does; we always hear about how there aren’t enough Asian Americans in the media, and judging from the fact that the theater is located on the third floor of an obscure building, I’m not naive to think that an obscure and not particularly well funded theater group is going to change that. But I do think that NAATCO, by its very existence, encourages Asian people to participate in the arts. At one level I mean this literally, in that NAATCO gives Asian actors another stage to perform on.

But I’m also saying something bigger than that; when I was growing up, all the Asian adults I ever met were doctors, or scientists, or engineers. This created a belief in my head that only those career paths were open to me, and things like theater and the arts were for other people. Then I stumbled upon the Stanford Asian American Theater Project, a theater group on campus founded by David Henry Hwang that, like NAATCO, put on shows with mostly Asian cast members. It was a revelation to me because it made me realize that art is created by and for Asian Americans, and that it’s vital to the health of the Asian American community. This is a message that I think gets lost, or underappreciated, and NAATCO’s doing its part to put it back on the forefront.

Posted in Entertainment, Observations, The Arts | 13 Comments

2009 Growing Up Asian in America Arts & Essay Contest

Posted on February 22, 2009 by John

asian_pacific_fundEvery year, the Asian Pacific Fund sponsors a “Growing Up Asian in American” arts & essay contest for San Francisco Bay Area’s K-12 students. This year’s theme — which is not surprising when you think about it — is change:

“Change: If you could change one thing to make the world a better place, what would that be?”

Students compete in three grade categories: kindergarten through fifth grade, sixth through eighth grade and ninth through twelfth grade. The first place winners in each category will receive savings bond awards in the amount of $2,000, with second and third places receiving $1,500 and $1,000, respectively. Numerous honorable mention honors are also awarded gift merchandise. Check out the website for more details or download the contest guidelines and entry form here (.pdf). But hurry fast since the deadline for submission is March 5th.

Posted in Current Events, Education | Leave a comment

China Fails to Stop French Auction

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Tim

5 other bronzes in ChinaThe designer Yves Saint Laurent died last year, and the collection of art he and partner Pierre Berge amassed over their lifetime is now up for sale at a Christie’s auction in Paris next week. Among the many treasures to be auctioned are two bronzes from the old Chinese Summer Palace in Beijing. They are from a collection of 12 zodiac pieces that used to adorn a fountain in the gardens of the palace and were commissioned for Emperor Qianlong. China is demanding them back, since they were looted from China in 1860 by French and British armies during the Opium War.

Stolen artworks from war is not a new topic, nor is the attempts of various governments trying to recover art that was looted. This particular collection is significant, since 5 pieces of the zodiac collection are already on display in Beijing (displayed above). Recovering these 2 pieces would rejoin the rabbit and the rat’s head to the collection.

I wrote in a previous posting about the possible reunification of another piece of Chinese art, so it should be no surprise that I’m for getting as many pieces back together as possible. The question though is how it should be done, and should owners who weren’t part of the original looting get restitution for their loss. Yves Saint Laurent acquired these pieces legally through a Paris art broker. So is his estate due anything? These are tougher questions to answer and one left for the French court, which is expected to rule on Monday, hours before the auction opens.

Update 2/23/09: The French court threw out the case, and ordered the APACE, the Chinese firm that brought the suit to pay damages of 1,000 euro each to Pierre Berge and to the auction house. In other news, Pierre Berge has said that China would have to massively improve their civil rights record, before he would even consider handing over the pieces to China.

Posted in Current Events, The Arts | Tagged | 30 Comments

Kearny Street Workshop’s DIY Video: Cast of Thousand’s “Wicked Smile”

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Ernie

Not all music videos involving Asian Americans consist of themselves playing in front of a steady-cam to be uploaded onto YouTube. Enter San Francisco based Kearny Street Workshop, and their DIY Video Night; DIY as in “Do It Yourself,” as in their second annual DO IT YOURSELF Music Video contest.

All of the videos that premiere were made in the span of two months by teams of community filmmakers, musicians and volunteers with little or no budget. On February 20, the videos will also premiere online and viewers will be given the opportunity to vote for their favorite video at the CAAM Video Gallery and decide who will win a spot in the 2009 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival’s Music Video Asia which will be March, 14 2009.

And because this is a fucking blog and we don’t have to be without bias, we recommend you click on the “rate” button and rate Cast of Thousand’s “Wicked Smile” — posted above for your convenience — as the winner. Why Cast of Thousands? Because they competed in Live 105’s Not So Silent Night’s Local Band Competition. Also: Burt is a buddy of mine, we have a bunch of mutual friends and he’s a member of my.8Asians.com, our social network, where you can tell him how ridiculously fucking ROCK he is.

Posted in Entertainment, Music | 2 Comments

Seoul Soo the Korean Cow Wants to be Californian

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Jen

Check out the latest cow that is auditioning to be a California cow! She’s Korean, her name is Seoul Soo. (Sorta cute, no?) I’m surprised how good her Korean is (a very slight English accent but barely noticeable), at first I thought it was silly but it’s sorta endearing.

Her audition page is quite elaborate — showing first in Korean, with a “translate” button. An excerpt from Soo’s bio:

“Since my earliest childhood memories, I remember dreaming of a wonderful life lived in America….And my deepest fantasies involve me surfing the waves of opportunity along the sandy beaches of hope in California.”

Would you vote for her to become a real California cow? To be honest, none of the cows I pass by on the freeway on the Interstate 5 in middle of California look like they do in the commercial — the dairies look crowded and dirty, and they STINK — but you know, it’s just a commercial.

Posted in Entertainment, Lifestyles | 8 Comments

Chinese Treasures to be Reunited in Taiwan

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Tim

upper_river_scrollThe best collection of Chinese antiquities is found in Taiwan. This is of course no surprise to anyone familiar with 20th century Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution brought with it the destruction of much of the cultural artifacts in China, and the only major surviving collection was the art that was brought to Taiwan by the Kuomintang that fled Communism. The artwork that did survive in China, has of course been kept separate from the art in Taiwan. China has just agreed to lend 29 Qing dynasty pieces to Taiwan for the first time for an exhibition this year.

Those 29 pieces will join the 650,000 pieces of art already at the National Palace Museum in Taipei this summer after 60 years of separation.

There is discussion about the possibility of a joint exhibition in Shanghai later as well, but this prospect is difficult as there is some fear the Chinese government would not return the artworks to Taiwan after an exhibition. The interesting part of this proposed joint show is one Song dynasty painting in particular – Riverside Scene at the Pure Moon Festival, which would hang together for the first time since 1949 (part of it shown above). The Song Dynasty part of this piece has hung in Beijing and the Ming dynasty piece in Taipei all this time.

In addition to art, whole families were also split for almost as many years. Being parted from family for long periods of time is not anomalous for the Chinese people. My family was one of those families, and my father was separated from an older brother, sister and his grandparents that stayed in China. My dad did not see his older brother for 35 years. He was one of the lucky ones because he initiated a study-abroad program in the 1980’s which gave him the opportunity to visit his family before most overseas Chinese could even visit mainland China.

I think it’s difficult for most of us today to even imagine being separated from loved ones for that length of time. Many families were unfortunate and members passed away before a reunion was even possible. In a previous blog post I wrote I was worried about making sure my daughter got to meet and keep in touch with her family abroad and many of you correctly reminded me it’s certainly not as difficult in today’s Internet world, but it’s still problematic as many in China still do not have access to the Internet. I know things will improve, I just hope in time for me to keep in touch with my family for me and my daughter.

Posted in Current Events, Family, The Arts | Tagged | 1 Comment