“Avenue Q” Musical Scuttled in San Jose

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Tim

annharada

After the American Musical Theater of San Jose declared bankruptcy in early December, there remained some hope that Avenue Q would still make it’s Northern California Bay Area debut in San Jose. But this week’s news declared that the touring production of the musical has been scuttled for the Bay Area.

If you don’t know much about Avenue Q, you should know it’s a Tony award winning musical based on Sesame Street-like puppet characters interacting with human characters, for an adult audience. The musical covers adult topics like racism, pornography and homosexuality, so it’s really not a kid friendly show. The cast features one Asian character named “Christmas Eve” who is a Japanese immigrant trying to find work in Koreatown, but speaks no Korean. She’s engaged to the character Brian, an out-of-work Jewish comedian. Christmas Eve was played by Ann Harada, using a heavy Japanese accent in the original production.

The musical also features songs like “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist“, and uses not only the character of Christmas Eve to discuss racism, but uses racism against Monsters (e.g. Cookie Monster, parodied in Avenue Q by the character Trekkie Monster) as well.

It’s a major disappointment the Bay Area won’t be graced with this production. Those of us looking forward to the musical will have to wait a little longer or travel to Sacramento, the nearest venue that will have the touring production.

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Entertainment, LGBT, Lifestyles, Music, The Arts, WTF | Tagged | 4 Comments

City Councilor Sam Yoon Running for Mayor of Boston

Posted on February 12, 2009 by John

sam_yoonBoston’s very first Asian-American city councilor Sam Yoon, elected just four years ago, has made it official and is running for mayor of Boston. I had the chance to meet Yoon for the first time back in April 2006 at the first AAPI Democratic Leadership Summit as well as a Bay Area fund raising dinner. Yoon had been making the rounds around the country raising money and discussing the possibility of being mayor, but made it official this past weekend as reported by The Boston Globe:

Yoon’s candidacy will face significant obstacles, not least of which is fund-raising. Yoon had $140,000 on hand at the end of January, campaign finance reports show while [current] Menino commands a war chest of about $1.4 million … But the ground-breaking potential for his run is likely to give more attention to his campaign than would normally be afforded to a two-term councilor seeking the job. Yoon would be the city’s first non-white mayor. Several black candidates have run unsuccessfully for the office.”

As far as I know, if Yoon is elected he will be the first Asian American mayor of a major U.S. city in the continental United States (former Governor of Washington state Gary Locke was never a mayor of a city.) Just by running, Yoon will be making history as he did when he was the first Asian American to run for Boston city council and later winning. Best of luck to Yoon – he’ll need it, given the current mayor’s war chest. If you’d like to support Yoon’s bid, please visit his campaign site. (Disclaimer: I’ve contributed to Yoon’s campaigns in the past.)

Posted in Current Events, Politics | 2 Comments

Is a Tall Geeky White Man My Ideal Mate?

Posted on February 11, 2009 by jee

Like most of the girls around me, I spent a good number of my youthful years daydreaming about my wedding day. It was filled with beautiful things and loved ones. It involved a wonderful dress and yummy food. And of course, it involved the man of my dreams. In those daydreams, the MOMD — man of my dreams — was a tall, burly Asian man with dark hair and almond shaped eyes; he would look at me with love in his eyes as I would look at him. I was surrounded by Asians, and I always thought I’d marry an Asian guy.

But fast-forward many years and insert influences of American TV with the rise in popularity of the geeky, nice guy with characters like Ed from Ed, Ben from Knocked-Up, Jim from The Office, and Chuck from Chuck. This is not an exhaustive list, but it sure helped catapult geeky guys from the geeky pool into the hottie pool.

Needless to say, those nice and geeky characters I enjoyed on screen have turned this gal, who always thought she’d marry Asian, into a gal who desires a tall, geeky, white man to replace the tall, burly Asian man of her daydreams. But it makes me wonder… does this make me a traitor?

Posted in Lifestyles, Observations | 31 Comments

New UC Admissions Policy Could Exclude More Asian Americans

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Efren

As the University of California attempts to increase the diversity of its undergraduate student body by including more Latinos and blacks without violating the terms laid out in Proposition 209 that eliminated affirmative action in California public institutions, a novel solution has been proposed: eliminate the SAT subject exams as an admissions requirement. Considering that UC has also attempted in the past to eliminate the more popular SAT reasoning test to much controversy, on the surface it appears to be an easy compromise since fewer students take the SAT subject exams anyway, saving them and their families time and money in preparing and studying for these exams.

However, the Journal of Higher Education reports that this would have an unintentional effect: significantly decreasing the numbers of Asian Americans admitted, increasing the number of white students, while making virtually no difference in the number of black and Latino admits.  In a statement used to justify this shift in policy, UCSF epidemiologist Mary Croughan does a backhanded compliment to Asian Americans, essentially stating that if Asian American students hadn’t done so well in these exams, they wouldn’t be affected so much.

As someone who actually did benefit from UC’s affirmative action policy when I went to college in the early 1990s (at the time, Filipino Americans were the only Asian Americans to be considered for affirmative action in the UC system), I saw the immediate effects of what happened after 209 passed. At my school, UC Riverside, there was always a sizable cohort of Filipinos in my classes, but by the time I went to grad school at UC Santa Barbara, the numbers of Filipino undergraduates across all UCs decreased substantially.  I wasn’t alone in this observation: a report noted that UC Berkeley’s law school admitted no Filipinos the year after Prop 209 passed.  Also, applications to UC’s graduate and professional schools from blacks, Latinos and Filipinos also decreased significantly, and even now, this has not yet recovered to pre-209 levels.

At the same time, I believe that the affirmative action policy pre-209 was flawed.  If the University of California had the time, resources and money, they would do better to take a look at socioeconomic status along with race and ethnicity, gender, etc., if they really wanted a more diverse student body, rather than just looking at test scores.

(Flickr photo credit: Bernt Rostad)

Posted in Current Events, Education | 10 Comments

John Chiang: California’s Tough-Guy Controller

Posted on February 11, 2009 by John

john_chiangNot only is the US and world economy in the crapper, but the state of California is in a real financial mess. California State Controller John Chiang has taken on Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger before, but now Chiang has a lot of tough decisions to make with the current fiscal crises going on:

“The 46-year-old Mr. Chiang (pronounced CHUNG), a Democrat elected in 2006 to a four-year term, oversees the state’s nearly depleted reserves, which need an infusion of money through a revamped budget. Gov. Schwarzenegger and state legislators have missed a self-imposed Feb. 1 deadline to balance the budget, which is expected to have a $42 billion shortfall by mid-2010. … Mr. Chiang’s profile has risen as lawmakers haggle. Last week he delayed, for 30 days, more than $3 billion in tax refunds, welfare checks and other payments to keep the state from running out of cash this month.”

The state legislature and  Governor helped create California’s budget crises by signing in the state budget 85 days late in October, putting the state $15 billion in the red; tax revenue shortfalls surely helped contribute to the rest of the projected $42+ billion in debt. Hopefully, Chiang can manage through this financial crisis for all of Californians’ sake.

Posted in Current Events, Politics | 5 Comments

Wicked, with Deedee Magno, Returns to San Francisco

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Tim

DeeDee MagnoWicked, the smash Broadway musical, which started life in a pre-production run in San Francisco in 2003 at the Curran theater, is finally back in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theater. The return to San Francisco brings with it a nice surprise, and that’s Deedee Magno (who is of Filipino descent), playing Nessarose. If you watch any mainstream media you’re already aware of how few parts Asians (and most minorities) get in movies, musicals and plays.

It’s especially a nice touch when a role that doesn’t call for an Asian actor gets filled with an Asian actor, especially since roles that are written for Asians quite often get filled with Caucasian mainstream actors, as witnessed by the controversy surrounding Miss Saigon, when the role of the Engineer (Tran Van Dinh) went to Jonathan Pryce.

I was lucky enough to see the production of Wicked on the first of February, and it met and exceeded all of my expectations. I will admit that I have been a fan of musicals ever since I saw Yul Brenner in the 1979 production of The King and I on Broadway.

Since I’m on the discussion of Broadway musicals, I also want to give a special kudos to Phylicia Rashad who starred on Broadway as the witch in the production of Into the Woods in 1988. She had the tenacity to convince the producers to cast an African American woman not only in the role of the witch, but as one of the step-sisters as well. It made for a memorable show, and one I was proud to have seen live on stage.

So if you get a chance, go see Wicked, it’s worth it if you have an affinity for musicals.

Posted in Current Events, Entertainment, Reviews, The Arts | Tagged | 5 Comments

An Interview with Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO Nvidia

Posted on February 10, 2009 by John

Charlie Rose’s interviews are low key, insightful, deep and lengthy; not your usual Hollywood elite trying to pitch their latest movie in five minutes or less (although I do enjoy that as well.) This past week, Rose interviewed Taiwanese American Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO and co-founder of Nvidia. Depending on what you do for a living, you may not have heard of Nvidia – they’re a Silicon Valley-based company that develops computer graphics chips.

I had the chance to hear Huang speak at Stanford a few years back; he’s down-to-earth and approachable.  I asked Huang about the perceived glass ceiling in corporate America for Asian Americans and what we could do to break the ceiling. His advice: to be authentic, be true to yourself and be yourself. I wasn’t too sure if I was totally convinced at what he said, but his advice was emphasized by a column by former GE CEO Jack Welch, emphasizing that “the critical component of success is authenticity.”

You can see Huang being authentic and true to himself and true to the mission he sees Nvidia’s role in the future of  computing in this video. Last fall, The New York Times also did a great profile on Huang as well as Nvidia, their new efforts around Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), and the coming war for the soul of the computer with Intel.

Posted in Current Events, Observations | 3 Comments

POP 88 #28 – Welcome Soompi Radio Club

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Xxxtine

POP 88 @ Popcast88.comBIG NEWS — I’m now syndicated with Soompi Radio Club! You can now listen and chat along with other listeners over at the IRC @ Rizon Network channel #soompi.radio. I’ll update this post once I know the time slot.

In this episode, the latest from Gackt, T and a “Then and Now” set featuring Jewelry.

You can still enter to win tickets for yourself and a guest to attend Kollaboration 9 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Newly added to the contest is an exclusive POP 88 T-shirt.

Also, join the POP 88 community at Ning to enter for our monthly member giveaway.

Continue reading →

Posted in Entertainment, Music, POP 88 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BoA Performing at Kollaboration 9; Win Tickets!

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Ernie

So what’s been up with BoA, anyway? Our favorite Korean Pop Star that speaks fluent Japanese is now living in Los Angeles, watching Gossip Girl and doing some local interviews in an attempt to cross-over into the American music industry and, well, to become American as quickly as goddamn possible. Does she have a noticeable accent? Sure. But so does Shakira and Tokio Hotel, and somehow the ground hasn’t opened up and swallowed them whole, so hopefully the media — and god help us, the American public — can look beyond that. Maybe.

But besides a performance the side stage at KIIS-FM’s Jingle Ball, we haven’t heard much from her. This might change however, as it’s just been announced that BoA will perform at the previously blogged about Kollaboration 9 event in Los Angeles. (Have we mentioned that we have FREE passes to give away until Valentines day? No? Well, there you go.)

Don’t get me wrong, folks, I’m a big fan BoA. But all fans of Asian pop music have their reasons why Asian music hasn’t crossed over successfully, and people e-mail me from time to time with their armchair-A&R-guy suggestions. Take this e-mail from Autumn Reign, a music producer from Vancouver, for example:

I gotta agree with you that if I were apart of BoA’s promo team.. I def would not remix her with an AutoTune flo rida track! I really didn’t get that whole trance techno remix either..

I think personally, in order for her to reach a level of success in America, she really has to hit the mixtape scene… Get her music in the hands of real music lovers first.. Then hit mainstream America.

Or you can promote her through the gay market; there’s nothing gays love more than an ass-kicking, hip-hop dancing Asian girl. (Unbelievably, I type that sentence without a trace of sarcasm. DEAR SM ENTERTAINMENT: DON’T LET THE GAYS SCARE YOU. GAYS ARE YOUR INDUSTRY GOLDMINE. Also, anime attendees. <3, Ernie.)

Posted in Entertainment, Music, Promotions | 11 Comments

Mixed Couples Divorce In Droves

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Tim

arguingIf you grow up in the United States you’re pretty familiar with the fact the divorce rate in the U.S. is close to 50% (meaning 50% of all couples that get married typically end in divorce). So when I came across an article this week that said mixed couples divorce in droves, it got me wondering if mixed race couples divorce more than non-mixed race couples, and if the actual races involved make a difference.

At first blush, it would make sense that mixed couples divorce more, since there’s more going against the couple, different culture, background, family pressure, etc. I did some light research and found it difficult to find actual statistics around mixed race divorces. It was much easier to find statistics that Asian-Asian couples divorce far less than white-white couples, but not much on mixed race couples in the U.S., other than generalities that seemed to indicate mixed couples divorce more often.

I did find one study in China that showed mixed couples (specifically from different countries) divorce more.

Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Family, Lifestyles, Movies, Observations | Tagged | 27 Comments

Miley Cyrus Does the Stupid Slant-Eye Thing

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Jeff

If the Spanish Basketball Team doing it wasn’t enough, now teen/tween star Miley Cyrus of Hannah Montana fame has done it too (pointed out by TMZ):

She got called out on this by the Organization of Chinese Americans, and she certainly didn’t win herself some Asian fans, as witnessed by this conversation I overhead from The Daughter and her friend (also Asian) when they were looking at this picture:

“Oh my God.”
“I hate her.  She is such a slut.”
“Yeah, and the only ones at school who like her are sluts.”

Ah, teenagers!

Miley has apologized, saying:

I’ve also been told there are some people upset about some pictures taken of me with friends making goofy faces! Well, I’m sorry if those people looked at those pics and took them wrong and out of context!  In NO way was I making fun of any ethnicity!

Yeah, right Miley.  If that’s true, then why isn’t the one Asian guy in the picture doing the same thing?

But I am not mad at you, Miley.  You probably didn’t realize that the stupid eye thing you are doing has been used to mock Asians for generations.   You are only sixteen, and like many teens about your age like my daughter, your judgment is not very good.   I hope your teen and tween fans or their parents don’t  mind seeing you out drinking.  That’s probably as equally if not more troubling about this picture.

As for teen stars, I think that some of the stars of the Canadian teen show Instant Star are much better, particularly Alexz Johnson and Asian-Canadian Cory Lee.  Too bad the show ended – The Daughter really liked it, and even this old guy thought that it was pretty good.

Posted in Current Events, Entertainment | Tagged , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

Ninjafy Attacks Webpages With Deadly Ninjas

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Ernie

If you’re a heavy web-surfer or you work in the Internet Industry you may already know about Cornify – a bookmarklet for web browsers that pastes images rainbows and unicorns on your web browser; mostly good if you’ve just been subjected to watching or reading something graphically disturbing, hence the term Unicorn Chaser.

Enter Ninjafy. Which is really the exact same thing as Cornify, if unicorns were to enter highly specialized ancient schools of assassination and espionage. If you have to cornify a photo gallery of leprosy patients, you ninjafy the Facebook page of your ex-boyfriends shady ass new girlfriend.

So why is this relevant on 8Asians? Because it’s a Friday, and they’re fucking ninjas, for godssake. And for all the cliched imagery that Asian Americans hate, we will eagerly embrace anything that can walk on water, turn invisible in a puff of smoke or kill with two blinks of an eye with a deadly katana blade. Can pirates do that? Fuck no, they just take over weapons tankers.

Posted in WTF | 2 Comments