Category Archives: japan & asia

Anime this week in Denver – “Fullmetal Alchemist: The Star of Milos”

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Denver fans of cutting-edge Japanese manga and anime can immerse themselves this week in the alternate steampunk European world of “Fullmetal Alchemy,” a popular series of comic and animated TV series and feature films that have captivated audiences on both sides of the Pacific since 2001, when the series launched in Japan as a serial comic.

The latest output of the franchise, “Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos,” continues the compelling tale of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who are famous alchemists — scientists who can use their powers to change the molecular structure of objects and materials. Edward lost a leg and then an arm, and Alphonse his entire body when they tried unsuccessfully to use alchemy to bring back their mother to life after she died of an illness. Alphonse’s soul is contained in an armor.

In the new film, the Elric brothers track down a fugitive alchemist with unknown powers to a city where the Milos, a downtrodden people, are rebelling against their oppressors. The Elrics are drawn into the battle, and befriend a young woman who wants to lead the Milos even if it means using the Philosopher’s Stone, the powerful catalyst that could restore Edward and Alphonse’s bodies.

The film is a thrill ride of cutting-edge animation and action, and even if you’re not familiar with anime in general of the “Full Metal Alchemist” franchise, you’ll be immediately drawn into the sci-fi reality and soon forget you’re watching an animated movie.
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Tebow-mania gets Denver Filipinos attention in Philippines press

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The Broncos' Tim Tebow (Photo by Jeffrey Beall)The glow of Tebow-mania will fade as the Broncos head into the off-season, but the quarterback’s remarkable run with the team put the spotlight light on Denver’s Filipino community before the season’s end.

Tebow has a deep connection to the Philippines: he was born there to missionary parents, and he funds healthcare organizations there with his Tebow Foundation. NBC Sports ran a blog post the day of the New England game about how no one in his hometown of Makati City had heard of the NFL star. But the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a national daily paper, ran a story the same morning, “Colorado Fil-Ams enthralled by Tebow time” that noted Tebow’s roots and tracked down members of Denver’s thriving Filipino community to get their take on the Tebow phenom.

Two members of the Filipino American Community of Colorado were among the Broncos fans quoted in the story:

‘Kuya Tim’s a source of pride for Colorado Filipinos,’ says Fran Campbell, past president of the Filipino American Community of Colorado now headed by her father, Silvino Simsiman from Cabugao, Ilocos Sur.

Fran said Broncos fans come up and talk to her and other Fil-Am leaders about Tebow and his Philippine connection. ‘We have the opportunity to share our culture in a way that we’ve not been able to before,’ she exulted.

‘His (Tebow’s) ability to inspire not only his team, but the communities surrounding the Broncos has given us all something to strive for,’ said Bernadette Niblo, spokeswoman for the FACC. ‘His faith is strong. As Filipinos in Colorado, we connect with that and are honored to consider him one of our own.’

Maybe Tebow will visit the FACC, which has its headquarters in Edgewater, at its annual Philippines Festival this June and cement a local link to his Filipino roots…

(This is a cross-post from HuffingtonPost Denver.)

Ron Paul supporter posts online ad attacking Jon Huntsman for “Chinese values”

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This is a disgusting bit of race-baiting. Someone claiming to support Ron Paul’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination has posted an attack ad against Jon Huntsman — who frankly isn’t one of the top contenders — that plays up Huntsman’s connections to China.

It begins with an ominous challenge asking whether the candidate represents “American values or Chinese?” Then it show him speaking Mandarin and asks “Weak on China? Wonder why?” before showing Huntsman with his adopted Chinese daughter.

That’s a stupid stretch for even an ignorant person, that a presidential candidate would secretly support the People’s Republic of China because he has an adopted Chinese daughter. The next clip shows Huntsman, a Mormon businessman and former governor of Utah as well as Barack Obama’s ambassador to China (he quit the post in April to run for president), holding his other adopted daughter, who is from India.

The video ends with an icky Photoshopped image of Huntsman’s face superimposed on a portrait of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

The video preys on peoples’ irrational and race-based fears of the Chinese (and, by projection, all Asians), a theme that’s unforunately been a part of American culture since the earliest days of Chinese immigration and the rise of enduring stereotypes such as the evil Fu Manchu and “Dragon Lady,” to the widely parodied 2010 TV ad featuring an evil Chinese Professor chortling about the fall of the United States because of wasteful government spending.

The Huffington Post has Huntsman’s response:
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Cooking Japanese food with my mom: Okara and Tempura

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Mom cooking kakiage tempura

My mom doesn’t cook as much as she used to. She used to cook everything — mostly Japanese food of course. She even used to make her own tofu. After my dad passed away in the early ’90s she cooked for herself for years, making large portions of dishes to freeze and re-heat as meals for days. But lately she finds cooking “mendokusai,” which translates to “bothersome but I like “pain in the butt.”

She was always a great cook and of the three boys in the family, I was the one who absorbed a lot of her cooking by watching and noticing how everything tasted. I miss a lot of the dishes she used to make when I was a kid — many of them, like steamed egg custard (Chawan Mushi), which is a rarity even in many Japanese restaurants. So Erin and I have been concerned since she stopped cooking a lot of her signature dishes, and figured we better get some lessons now while we can.

Food is the one immutable bridge back to root cultures for any descendants of immigrants in this country — which means most of us. And even though it might be easier to go to a Japanese restaurant to chow down on traditional foods, I’m glad we’re holding onto our culinary heritage by learning to cook Japanese dishes too.

The two dishes we wanted to cook with my mom last week were Okara and Tempura, done the way she’s always made them.
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Seriously? Controversy about Obama kids getting “Asian” food including teriyaki chicken on Dec. 7?

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Obama Family Portrait

This about takes the cake for lame-ass non-issues. WUSA9, Gannett’s DC affiliate (and sister station to Denver’s KUSA 9News, the top-rated station in Denver and home to Adele Arakawa, the Japanese American top-rated anchor), posted this video and text followup about the Obama girls’ private school serving Asian food on Dec. 7: “Sidwell Friends School, Sasha and Malia Obama’s School, Opts For Asian, including Japanese Food On Pearl Harbor Day.”

If you watch the video, it criticizes the yahoos who turned the lunch menu into political commentary about dishonoring those who died at Pearl Harbor 70 years ago. But the text is much more ambivalent and invites readers to get worked up into a frenzy, even with its headline spotlighting “Japanese Food.” Come one, teriyaki chicken? Yeah, it’s Japanese but it’s hardly un-American. Nothing to convene a new HUAC investigation over.

OMG — no one should have any Japanese food on Dec. 7. For that matter, we should have any German or Italian food in addition to Japanese food, on Memorial Day or Veterans’ Day. And don’t forget Korean and Vietnamese food… oh wait, there were Koreans and Vietnamese who were on our side. God forbid, if anyone gulped down any sushi yesterday, they’re traitor bastards.

This kind of crap is why I grew up dreading Dec. 7 every year.
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