Category Archives: pop culture

Photo shared by George Takei is a perfect cultural comment

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water

Oh my…. ‘Nuff said. Tip of the hat to George Takei, who shared this piece of brilliance on his Facebook page. The photo now has over 200,000 Likes… in one day.

When white people have asked me (sorry, they’ve all been white people, no Asians, Latinos or Africans) what their tattoo means, I’ve half-jokingly told them “It means ‘I’m a dumbshit.'” or something to that effect. No one I know would ask me that, because they would know that I DON’T READ KANJI.

It’s like when non-Japanese people come up to me and introduce themselves by saying something in Japanese. I know only a little conversational Japanese….

Any Japanese person could tell at a glance that I’m Japanese American, not Japanese, and would not assume I could speak the language.

But that’s another blog post….

UPDATE: A reader, Linguarum, posted a link in the comments below to a site that actually goes to the trouble of translating Kanji tattoos off photos that people have submitted. The site is Hanzi Smatter and it’s a hoot.

Sign a petition to remove racist “Make Me Asian” app from Google’s app store

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Make <Me Asian and Make Me Indian Google appsUPDATE, JAN. 17: It took longer than I thought, but Google finally removed the app from its Play Store. Now, back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

Phil Yu got pissed off about this on his Angry Asian Man blog back in November, but CNN just noticed the story is still simmering on the interwebs. So I downloaded it for posterity, to use as an example in lectures about racist stereotypes.

“Make Me Asian” (and the related “Make Me Indian,” both shown at left) is an Android mobile app that you can download for free from the Google Play app store.

Say what? Yes, it’s true.
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Japanese Americans, Chinese food and our sense of community

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Lao Wang Noodle House

Mmmmm. Chinese food. Just thinking about Lao Wang Noodle House in Denver, which I swear serves the best dumplings in the universe (it’s where the photo above was taken) gets my mouth watering. It’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall tucked into a tiny strip mall along the South Federal Asian strip of mostly Vietnamese eateries. It’s run by an elderly couple who can be cranky (“We’re closed,” we were told gruffly on one visit even though they were supposed to be open another hour) but who hand-make dumplings that are to die for. The food is authentic, and no-frills, like the service.

But we also love American Chinese food. One of our favorites is the suburban Arvada restaurant Tea Garden. There are also some terrific eateries that serve authentic Chinese cuisine, like you might get in China: China Gourmet in Boulder and the larger, fancier Spice China in Superior are operated by the same family.

Authentic or American Chinese, we love Chinese food. Takeout, eat-in, delivered.
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Why are there no Asian Santa Clauses?

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santa clausI just had an interesting phone conversation with Leo Duran, a producer at KPCC public radio in Los Angeles, about a burning issue the media must address: Why are there no Asian Santa Clauses?

Granted, the image that immediately springs to mind when you say “Santa” is a big fat white man with rosy cheeks, a bushy white beard and a twinkle in his eye, who guffaws “Ho! Ho! Ho!” at the drop of a pointy red hat with a puffy white snowball at the end. But I’ve seen black Santas, and Hispanic Santas. I’ve even seen women in Santa suits sitting in, I suppose as “Mrs. Claus.” I’ve seen Santas with real beards, fake beards, and even dark beards. I’ve seen old and impossibly young Santas. I’ve seen really fat, fake fat and too skinny Santas.

But I’ve never seen an Asian Santa.
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PSY performs on American Music Awards, and racist haters come out on Twitter

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PSY, the Korean pop sensation whose viral hit video, “Gangnam Style,” has been viewed alomst 800 million times on YouTube (that’s the official video, never mind the countless other users’ uploads and all the spoofs and tributes), closed out the American Music Awards on Nov. 18. In a savvy, surprising and ultimately, ironic, collaboration, the 35-year-old PSY (real name: Park Jae-sang) was joined for a mashup of his hit with MC Hammer’s “2 Legit 2 Quit” (above) and brought the house down, with celebs and fans (Hammer too) mimicking his horsey-cowboy dance moves.

Within minutes, blowback flew out over Twitter. Most of the messages were gut reactions to the irony of a song sung mostly in Korean being featured on the “American” Music Awards. Here’s one example: “Seriously psy is closing the show?? It’s called the AMERICAN music awards not the Korean..” and “I’m pretty sure this is called the American Music Awards #gobacktoAsia.” (Okay, the “gobacktoAsia” hashtag is pretty offensive — I’ve had that yelled at me in the past.)

The fact that the tweeters didn’t catch the awesomeness of the irony and only expressed their xenophobia and ignorance was disappointing but not surprising.

Some of the tweets, though, were flatout racist, like “Why is chink PSY at the American music awards he doesn’t make American music what is going on” and “are you kidding this chink is on the AMA’s? #sad #keywordAMERICAN.” You can see a sampling of offensive tweets at the Public Shaming Tumblr blog.
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