Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | asian american
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April 7, 2011

One of the heartwarming positive ripple effects of the tragic disaster in Japan has been the worldwide outpouring of support for the country and the earthquake and tsunami's victims. That's true locally in Colorado, where a handful of benefit events have already been held, and not just by Japanese or Japanese Americans. A couple of weeks ago Colorado's taiko groups got together to perform an evening of Japanese drumming to raise money for earthquake relief. On Saturday April 16, the Asian Pacific Development Center and 16 -- count 'em, 16 -- other local Asian community organizations who've signed on as partners are hosting "The Power of Solidarity," a pan-Asian event of epic proportions. (Click the flier for full size.) The event, which will be held from 5-8 pm at Abraham Lincoln High School, 2285 S. Federal Blvd. (Federal and Evans) in southeast Denver, will feature some of the area's best talent, starting with Mirai Daiko, the popular all-women taiko group, along with award-winning singer-songwriter Wendy Woo, killer guitarist and songwriter Jack Hadley, Chinese dance group Christina Yeh Dance Studio, Indian troupe Mudra Dance Studio, Indonesian ensemble Catur Eka Santi, the Filipino American Community of Colorado, Korean youth drumming group Dudrim, renowned classical guitarist Masakazu Ito and the United States Vietnamese Veterans Alliance. Phew, that's a very diverse lineup gathered together for one good cause.
March 24, 2011

Lynn ChenUPDATE:Due to a scheduling conflict, our conversation with Lynn Chen is now scheduled for Monday, April 11 at 7 pm PT. Lynn Chen is a woman after Erin and my own hearts... and stomachs. She's a foodie as well as a talented actress and musician, and she writes one blog, "The Actor's Diet," about "the life of a Hollywood actress. Meal by meal," and recently launched another, "Thick Dumpling Skin," about Asians' diet and body issues, with Hyphen publisher Lisa Lee. We're thrilled to announce that we'll be speaking with Lynn for our next visualizAsian show on TUESDAY, APRIL 26MONDAY APRIL 11 at 7 pm PT (10 pm for you folks on the east coast). Just register here for the free dial-in and webinar information -- if you've registered for previous visualizAsian calls, you'll already receive the info. Wow, you missed a powerful conversation with Lynn on April 11, but you can still register to hear the archived MP3 of the call for 30 days. Lynn Chen, whose "excessive beauty makes us want to rip our eyeballs out," according to the ladies of the Disgrasian blog, was born in Queens, New York in 1976 to a mother who sang at the Metropolitan Opera and a father who is an ethnomusicologist, and she was raised in New Jersey and attended Wesleyan University. As a child, Lynn sang with the Children's Choirs at the Metropolitan and NYC Opera Houses, and made her acting debut in the NY State Theatre production of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center. Television credits include "NCIS: LA," "Numbers," guest roles on almost all of the "Law and Order" shows, and recurring roles in "All My Children" and "The Singles Table," opposite John Cho and Alicia Silverstone. Of her films, Lynn's best-known as "Vivian Shing" in Sony Pictures Classic's feature film "Saving Face," a role for which she won the "Outstanding Newcomer Award" at the 2006 Asian Excellence Awards. Since then she has appeared in over a dozen films, most recently starring in "White on Rice," "Why Am I Doing This?." "The People I've Slept With," and the just-released "Surrogate Valentine," which is making the rounds of film festivals. "Surrogate Valentine" was directed by Dave Boyle, the young filmmaker who also wrote and directed "White on Rice," a terrific indie film, and it's a fictionalized story of the real-life experiences of singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura. The film was the closing night selection of the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, and just screened at SXSW Film in Austin. But Lynn isn't just limited to acting. In fact, she took some time off from acting to deal with her eating disorders, and started "The Actor's Diet" in 2009 as a way to write about food and to hold herself accountable for eating healthy (with the burgers and fried thrown in). Here's how she explains the blog:
March 21, 2011

Who's sorry now? Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, who gave a typical non-apology apology after a series of TV commercials aired during the Super Bowl set off a social media furor, especially over the one shown above which makes light of the plight of Tibetans, is changing his tune. Now, in a Bloomberg Businessweek article that suggests that Groupon severed ties with the agency, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky over the campaign's fallout, Mason admits that he trusted his ad agency too much "to be edgy, informative and entertaining, and we turned off the part of our brain where we should have made our own decisions. We learned that you can't rely on anyone else to control and maintain your own brand." I thought the agency initially got off too easy from the mess they created.
March 21, 2011

Heartbeat for Japan Taiko Concert Three local taiko drum groups, Denver Taiko, Mirai Daiko and Taiko with Toni, are hosting "Heartbeat for Japan: A Taiko Benefit," a concert to raise funds for relief efforts in Japan, on Sat March 26, 7 pm at Colorado Heights University (formerly Loretto Heights) Auditorium at 3001 S. Federal Blvd. Admission is free but donations will be accepted. This should be a terrific evening of thundering drums for a great cause.
March 18, 2011

The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported yesterday that Alexandra Wallace, the now-infamous UCLA poli-sci co-ed who posted a racist rant about Asians at her school, intended to start a blog about Asians in the library. The paper quoted her dad's Facebook account proudly stating that she was looking that morning for a URL addressing "Asians in the Library." I gave her the benefit of doubt and thought she posted "Asians in the Library" on YouTube in a fit of pique after a crappy week of mid-terms (she says "finals" in the video), but I guess I was naive. She was aiming for her 15 minutes of fame. Still, she probably didn't count on the tsunami of infamy (both puns intended, thank you) that greeted her stunt, which is why she deleted it. But it was too late, of course. The social Web doesn't allow for do-overs, and a bunch of copies of the video had already been made and re-posted. Now she's been covered by everyone from the Daily Bruin, her school paper, to the New York Times (which oddly did not get any interviews from Asian Americans in its short coverage of the flap.) I can only hope the shame and embarrassment of this incident will prevent her from coming up with any more ridiculous entrepreneurial ideas. But the disturbing part of the aftermath of the flap over her video is the level of violent commentary aimed back at her. Anger I get -- I'm pissed off every time I watch it too. Hate I get too, though I feel more disdain than hate. But she's getting death threats, which are alarming if if they're not meant seriously. This kind of response doesn't help fight her ignorance and racism.
March 15, 2011

OK, here's the first lesson of the Internet era, and especially social media: You can't it back if you say or do something stupid online. When I first saw UCLA co-ed Alexandra Wallace's hastily posted video on YouTube, I was appalled and planned to pounce on it. But after a little thought, I decided to wait. I was torn about giving her more attention than she's worth, because she could be hoping for exactly the flurry of response that would help her go viral with her video. Well, it's gone viral all right, but not in the way she intended.