Category Archives: japan & asia

Lunar New Year isn’t just for Chinese

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2010 is the year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac.As a kid in Japan, we always celebrated New Year’s Day, or Oshougatsu, on January 1, just like in the United States, but with different traditions than in America. Japanese clean the house like crazy leading up to the day, and New Year’s Eve isn’t the big party that it is in the U.S. Instead, New Year’s Day is more important, with a family feast featuring special dishes that are made just for the day (called “osechi ryori“). For days everyone visit family and friends to start the year with a fresh slate.

We never celebrated “Chinese New Year.” Looking back, the January 1 New Year is another affectation of Japan’s fascination with the West: Until 1873, Japan celebrated the New Year at the start of the lunar calendar, along with most East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. But five years after the start of the “Meiji Restoration,” when the Japan opened up to the West and began embracing Western ways, the country changed the official date of its New Year to the Roman, or Grgeorian calendar.

In the U.S., most people call the Lunar New Year “Chinese” and it’s become a popular not-quite-holiday, a mid-winter blast of Chinese culture. But it’s not just a Chinese celebration. It may have spread through the influence of China, but the Lunar New Year is celebrated with different traditions in Korea (as Seollal), Vietnam (Tet), Tibet (Losar) and Mongolia (Tsagaan Sar). It’s also celebrated in countries with large ethnic Han Chinese populations, such as Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Macau, and in Chinese communities throughout the world.

In 2010, the start of the Lunar New Year falls on Valentine’s Day — Feb. 14 — and heralds the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac.

So, to ALL my Asian brothers and sisters everywhere, HAPPY NEW YEAR OF THE TIGER (and Valentine’s Day)!

Will people in Japan be able to pronounce “iPad?”

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Japanese have trouble saying certain English consonants and vowels. Will they be able to say "iPad" and keep it different from "iPod?"

Like a lot of geeks and a lot of people in journalism, I paid close attention to the weeks of hype and rumors, and then the official announcement yesterday, of Apple’s potentially “game-changing” new tablet computer, the iPad. For weeks, the tech media have passed along rumor after rumor about the device and its features, but the most vexing of all rumors was the name. Blogs tracked down trademark filings and obscure documents and the main contenders for the name were “iSlate” and “iTablet.” At the last minute, “iPad” was proposed.

And during Apple’s hour-and-a-half media event unveiling the gadget, Steve Jobs immediately announced it would indeed be called the “iPad.”

Then I immediately thought, “Wow, I wonder how the Japanese are going to deal with this name?”

The iPod has been long-established in Japan as the premiere digital music player, as it is all over the world. I saw “i-pahd-do” everywhere in Tokyo, in shop windows and being used by music fans, with those iconic but crappy white earbuds.

Now comes the iPad. And I predict there will be some major consumer confusion stirred up in Japan. Continue reading →

Retired sumo champ Akebono on Japanese promo for “Glee!”

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I saw this on Angry Asian Man and it made me smile, both because Erin and I really enjoy the Fox series “Glee!” and because it’s good to see that Akebono, the sumo wrestler who sings “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the commercial, is still a star with drawing power in Japan.

You might notice that for a sumo wrestler, Akebono sings the Journey chestnut with nary a Japanese accent. He may not be a great singer (ahem) but his accent is American. That’s because he was born in Hawai’i, and his real name is Chad Haakeo Rowan. In 1993, he shocked Japan and the sumo establishment by becoming the first foreigner ever to win the coveted title of Yokozuna — Grand Champion.

I remember my mom, who’s addicted to watching sumo via NHK satellite here in Colorado (her schedule revolves around being home for the matches, or as a last resort videotaping them), expressing her amazement and incredulity: “Hehhhhhhhhhhh? Hahhhhhhhhhhh? He’s not Nihonjin!”

Akebono was Yokozuna for eight years and won 11 championship tournaments during his reign, and became a Japanese citizen in 1996 before retiring from sumo competition in 2001 to become a coach.

He probably relished the chance to sing a Journey hit for the commercial (the song was part of an episode of “Glee!” last season). Akebono was born in 1969 and grew up in Hawai’i — he played basketball and football in high school — so he may have been a young fan of Journey when the song was a huge hit in 1981.

The commercial is an interesting cross-cultural artifact on several levels of the ongoing give-and-take relationship between the United States and Japan. And, it made me smile. Rock on, Akebono!

UPDATE: Japanese TV viewers can expect to see more of Akebono in a series of promos for “Glee!,” which debuts its first season Feb. 11 (with subtitles), while we in the U.S. wait until April for the start of the series’ second season. Here’s another spot, with Akebono playing a salaryman:

Ninjas (Japanese) making kung fu sounds (Chinese) used for Google Nexus One commercial

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Is it just me, or is it irritating to have some white guy co-opting Asian iconography for a TV commercial and combining two different cultures? Sure, it’s a cool idea, and certainly well-executed production-wise. But this stop-action video made to pimp Google’s new Nexus One “super-phone” (their description, not mine) bugs me. The animated miniature ninjas — of non-specific, though presumably Asian origin — make the long-stereotyped high-pitched screams and yowls that Westerners imitate when they make Bruce Lee moves. To me, that’s like a TV commercial showing someone making French pastries with an Italian accent.

I love kung fu movies, and especially adore Bruce Lee. I’m old enough to have been fascinated by Kato in “Green Hornet” and seen his kung fu movies when they were first released. I also grew up loving the mythology of ninjas. And I know the difference between the two: Kung fu is a Chinese tradition (check out the documentary “The Real Shaolin” for a primer — I’ll be writing more about the film in a bit), and ninjas are Japanese (even if Hollywood had a Korean star in “Ninja Assassin“).

I mean, helloooo, ninjas don’t make any noises when they do their butt-kicking and killing stuff. They’re “silent assassins,” remember? That’s the whole deal with ninjas.

To me, it’s a sign of ignorance and disrespect to blend the two together for no purpose other than to evoke the essence of Orientalism. Maybe Patrick Boivin, the commercial’s creator, was being ironic and culturally astute when he combined the cultures. But I’ll bet dollars that more likely, he simply grew up seeing lots of kung fu and ninja movies and Power Rangers and Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV, and it’s all one undistinguishable blur of Asian-ness to him.

Culturally, that’s the same reason all Asians are taunted by “ching-chong” sounds from childhood to adulthood — non-Asians think we’re all alike and and look alike and we all sound like that. And fight like that.

Phooey on this commercial. I’m sure I’ll lust after a Google phone someday, but not because of this cheesy shill.

Denver’s Bhutanese, Burmese community need your help

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It’s amazing how many coats and jackets a family can accumulate over the years, and how many are left hanging in the closet, hardly ever worn. This week, I took a bunch of coats to the Asian Pacific Development Center to be distributed to one of Denver’s newest immigrant communities, the Burmese.

The APDC is a non-profit that offers health and social services to the local Asian communities, and Erin serves its the board of directors. The APDC conducted a food and goods drive for the Burmese over the holiday season, and is still accepting donations at its three locations: 1544 Elmira Street in Aurora, 1825 York Street in Denver and 6055 Lehman Drive, Suite 103 in Colorado Springs. Last summer, the APDC helped collect donated school supplies for students from both the Burmese and another Asian immigrant community, the Bhutanese.

Because many Asian communities have been in the U.S. for two, three or even four or more generations and we’ve assimilated into American society, it’s easy to forget that there are recent immigrants from Asia who are not as fortunate as those of us from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and other countries, whose families came here to seek better opportunities. In the case of the Burmese, and also the Bhutanese, another recent Asian immigrant group, they’ve arrived in America as refugees, like the waves of Vietnamese, Laotians and Hmong in the 1980s and ’90s.

The Bhutanese and Burmese refugees fled an oppressive regime or have been resettled from refugee camps across the globe.

But unfortunately, once here, they’re facing more oppression: In the past year, both Bhutanese and Burmese students were singled out and attacked in the Denver area. The first attacks were reported last spring; on December 11, a group of Bhutanese students were beaten and robbed after getting off a bus and one required emergency room treatment. The Denver Police Department distributed special cell phones to Bhutanese that are set to dial 911 in case of future attacks, but the community understandably would prefer the violence just stop. In the Denver Post story following the attacks, one Bhutanese refugee said:

“If they kill me and my son, what will my daughter and wife do?” said Dambar Bhujel, father of an 18-year-old victim, who is now wary of letting his son go to school.

“At first, I was happy to come to the United States. After one year, I’m feeling very bad and I don’t want to stay longer. But we can’t go back to Bhutan and we can’t go back to Nepal,” Bhujel said. “They told us America was secure.”

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