Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | asian american
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November 30, 2009

Sho Kosugi, who plays the masochistic master in Ninja Assassin, played ninjas in movies through the Ninja Assassin is an entertaining film full of bloody action.The new movie "Ninja Assassin" just might spark a new wave of fascination with Asian martial arts, but instead of kung fu, the fad will be for ninjutsu, the art of the ninja warrior. The film updates the image of the silent, stealthy assassins from Japanese history, and suggests that ninja clans still exist, sending out mercenaries all over the world to kill off targets for gold. It's an enticing concept, and one that's in line with the tradition of the ninja in both Japanese history and Japanese pop-culture mythology. During my childhood, I didn't really fantasize about being a cowboy. Oh sure, I had the requisite cowboy outfit -- western hat perched cockily to one side like a young John Wayne, a real leather holster belt with a pair of shiny Mattel cap pistols hanging down my side (I tied them to my thighs with strips of leather) and a silver sheriff's star on my chest. I played cowboys and Indians like American boys did back then. But not all the time. In Japan, there was another, more romantic character that boys could play -- the ninja. They were lots cooler than cowboys. They were able to leap incredible heights over palace walls, walk silently through a sleeping castle, and noiselessly kill their prey with their samurai swords (which they wore across their backs instead of hanging on their sides) or shuriken, razor-sharp steel stars like many-sided daggers that ninja could throw with deadly accuracy. Ninjas even looked cool -- instead of fancy, bulky, multi-layered samurai outfits (or battered and sweaty cowboy hats), ninjas were clad in a simple outfit of midnight-black fabric (better to skulk around in the dark) just loose enough to allow freedom of movement in martial arts hand-to-hand combat. They covered their heads with a black hood, and only their eyes were visible through the veil. Although the ninjas were, like the cowboys of America, a romanticized icon of an earlier, "frontier-era" spirit, they also made sense for the early 1960s. They were precursors of spies in a modern world deeply divided by the Cold War. With James Bond and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. looming just around the pop-culture corner, I was ready-made for sneaking around my small yard in Tokyo, fantasizing about being a ninja.
November 25, 2009

Rufus, our black and white mutt cat, when he was younger a triple Maneki Neko, for triple the good fortune On our recent trip to LA, and a previous trip to San Francisco, I've been obsessed with buying various versions of the Maneki Neko, the iconic Japanese cat statues with upraised paw, holding on to a gold coin with the other paw. "Maneki Neko" translates literally to "welcoming cat," and its paw beckons to people in the Asian style, palm out and fingers moving down to say "yo! come here!" I grew up seeing these cat statuettes everywhere in Japan, so they're a part of my childhood memories. I always liked seeing them in Japaneses businesses here in the U.S. But in recent years, the Maneki Neko, which is supposed to bring good fortune, wealth (if the right paw's raised) or more customers (if the left paw's raised), has become a familiar site at all sorts of Asian businesses from Korean restaurants to Asian gift stores and souvenir shops. There are a dizzying array of neko styles, shaoes and sizes. I keep buying tiny porcelain ones, but this time in LA, I had to have a silly plastic one that's solar-powered with three cats -- one large one and two kittens -- whose heads bob back and forth. Some solar powered ones wave their paws, but something about the bobbing heads makes me smile, so I have it on my cube wall at the office.
November 22, 2009

Gil & Erin with our new "daughters," Emily & Suzanne of AbsolutelyFobulous.com @ Banana Erin and I just spent a great weekend in LA, and all day yesterday was the main event: We attended BANANA, the first-ever gathering of Asian American Pacific Islander bloggers from across the country, and from Canada. It was kind of an ad-hoc event, organized in just two months and a little ragged on the execution side, but it was also exhilarating in many ways, and a pure pleasure to meet so many great people who make up the growing chorus of AAPI voices on the Internet. It felt at times like much more than just a conference or a get-together. It felt like the foundation of something that has a future, as if this event was ground zero where the spark was lit for a fire that could burn strong and bright for a long time. The event was organized by San Diego-based Lac Su, author of "I Love Yous Are for White People" (shown in the photo above) and LA-based filmmaker Steve Nguyen (third photo, below). Ironically, neither are bloggers, but as regular visitors of many AAPI blogs, they recognized that we've been building up momentum, and more and more Asian Americans (and Canadians!) are expressing ourselves online. They thought if we could all meet and share our passion and knowledge and learn more about each other and our areas of expertise, that we could harness our combined energy and make all our blogs better. I applaud their vision and the effort the two of them made, with help from friends at the University of Southern California, where BANANA was held, to pull off the event in such a short time. I bet they didn't expect that they'd have more than 20 panelists on stage, representing all different views and perspectives on the AAPI experience, along with 30 or so audience members -- some who were also bloggers -- who wanted to learn and ask questions and share their stories.
November 21, 2009

MAY 2011 UPDATE: After a year and a half of hard work, revisions and improvements, East West Players has opened a finished production of "Krunk Fu Battle Battle" which runs through June 26, 2011. If you're in LA or gonna be in LA, don't miss this musical -- we wish we could fly from Denver to see it! Here's a video trailer: Now, back to the original post: It's not often that we get the chance to see the embryonic stage of a theatrical project, and see how a play is developed. So we were fortunate that our visit to LA to attend the BANANA conference of Asian American bloggers coincided with a free "workshop" performance of a new project being developed by East West Players. "Krunk Fu Battle Battle," is a hip-hop musical, which features hip-hop music and b-boy dancing, woven around familiar but tried-and-true plots of a boy who falls in love with a girl from the other side, and has a mentor who helps him overcome his obstacles. Think "Romeo and Juliet" meets "West Side Story" meets "Karate Kid." East West Players produced a reading of the play, which is in very early stages, by rehearsing a partial script, several songs and dance numbers, and performing a 35-minute excerpt for anyone who showed up, then asked audience members for their opinions and reactions. The preview was hosted by the Japanese American National Museum (the EW Players' home, the David Henry Hwang Theatre around the block in Little Tokyo, was busy with performances of its latest play, "Po Boy Tango").
November 19, 2009

Here's why I like this new Comcast commercial: It's part of the new trend of showing Asian Americans in ads who are just, well, American, and not so much Asian. They don't speak with accents and they're not doing stereotypical stuff like martial arts and tech geekery. Instead, this kid and his dad are watching TV. The Target commercial I included in a post back in October has a mom who's hip-hop dancing and playing tether ball with her kid. And of course, there's Kylie, the adorable Asian American girl who's pushing Windows 7 like nobody's business (see her latest commercial below). Also, I like this commercial because Shaquille O'Neal is in it. He's been a spokesman for Comcast this year along with mopey-faced actor (and Republican speechwriter/commentator) Ben Stein in a series of silly commercials. But this one has Shaq alone. To me, this is significant for two reasons: First, it's all too rare to see Asians and African Americans together in a light-hearted repartee, in a warm relationship, in mainstream American culture. I'm really glad to see this, even though it's in an artificial environment of a TV commercial. Second, Shaq made racist comments towards Yao Ming, then a rising rookie in the NBA, in a radio interview back in 2002, and I wrote about it in a column:
November 19, 2009

"The Goods" is now available on DVD, with an offensive racial scene intact."Before the Paramount comedy "The Goods: Live hard, Sell Hard" was released in August, the Asian American blogosphere was abuzz over the extended online trailer for the movie, which showed a disturbing scene with Ken Jeong being beaten up by fellow car salesmen just for being Asian, when star Jeremy Piven gets them all worked up over the memory of Pearl Harbor. The bloggers, including Angry Asian Man and 8Asians as well as Nikkei View, covered the issue enough that it led to protests and meetings between AAPI groups with Paramount studio execs. Those meetings led to a public apology from Adam Goodman, President and CEO of Paramount. The timing was terrible, because the trailer was airing just before the anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin, who had been beaten to death in 1982 by laid-off auto workers who blamed Japanese cars for losing their jobs. The racist scene was edited out of the trailer. However, the scene, which includes Jeong getting beaten up and then Piven joking about covering up the hate crime, remained in the theatrical release because it was too late to pull from the movie. The leaders of AAPI organizations who met with Paramount also believed that the offensive scene would be edited like the studio was able to do with the trailer (the revised preview takes out the most obnoxious elements, including the use of the word "Jap," even though it keeps Jeong's beating intact). But the DVD was released this week and is available in stores nationwide with the offensive scene still in the movie. The studio claims the production of the DVD was too far along to change the scene.
November 19, 2009

San Jose Police shoulder patchThe San Jose Mercury News, which broke the story several weeks ago of a video that shows San Jose police may have used unnecessary force when officers arrested a San Jose State University student, is now under a darkening cloud of questions about the batons and Taser used to subdue Phuong Ho. The Mercury News today published a follow-up article with an enhanced version of the cell-phone video that had been shot by a roommate with clearer sound, which shows Ho compliant, crying and repeatedly asking for his glasses, which had been knocked off by an officer. The Mercury News article says:
All four officers on the scene were placed on administrative leave last month on the day the grainy video, provided to the Mercury News by Ho's lawyer, first was posted on the newspaper's Web site. The department has completed an investigation into the incident and turned over its results to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, which is deciding whether to file criminal charges against the officers. Charges that the office brought against Ho in September, for brandishing a weapon at another roommate and resisting arrest, are pending. Meanwhile on Wednesday, Mayor Chuck Reed called on a City Council committee to step up outside review of the department's use of force. The mayor's recommendation comes after continuing controversy over the issue. The Mercury News reported Nov. 1 that a study of more than 200 criminal prosecutions of resisting arrest last year showed that the police use of force in such instances often developed from minor infractions, including jaywalking and missing bike head lamps. Most of those cases involve people of color, the newspaper review found.
I'll let the legal system and City Council review run its course, but I agree with the Mercury News' editorials, which called for, and now applaud the review of the cops' use of force. Just listening to the audio and reading the transcripts gave me a queasy feeling in my gut, not just because Ho is Asian, but also because for most of my life, I was virtually blind without my glasses, and I know the feeling of desperation and panic that I can hear clearly in Ho's voice when he keeps asking for his glasses. You can read the full transcript of the enhanced video. Here's an excerpt:
November 18, 2009

Martha Stewart needs some etiquette lessons in how to speak to Asian Americans.A reader named Robin, who is Japanese American and born in Iowa and bakes apple pies, sent me this email: "I was wincing yesterday when Martha Stewart asked an asian american woman in the audience (Sumi somethingorother, who baked an apple pie for Martha's contest) "Where are you from?" and the woman said with no accent "Oh I'm from here...New York City.". Martha continued with the (stereo)typical line of questioning something like 'where are you really from because if you are from Asia it's unusual to make an apple pie'. I don't have it verbatim but it was painful. Just another "What ARE you?" type of conversation. I really don't think Martha is a bigot but as she is the standard bearer of suburban white women I think it was totally disappointing for her to go down that path as if it were totally fine to question someone with Asian features about where they really come from." She sent a link to Martha Stewart's page for the pie show, but there isn't a video of the entire program, at least not yet. It looks like they only upload excerpts instead of entire shows, but I'll keep an eye out for YouTube postings of this segment. UPDATED: Today, Robin commented below on this blog post with a clarification: "The video is up, check at the 2:00 minute mark: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/meet-the-pie-bakers "Verbatim it's : 'Where do you come from?' (answer Here NYC) 'Oh you do, oh, okay, because if you came from Asia this would not a typical pie, right?' (answer 'right...right...' you can kind of hear the 'what the heck!?' in her tone) "So it's not as blatant as it struck me the first time but still the question and that type of follow up would be seen as really bizarre if she asked it of someone with a German name." It may not be as obnoxious as it could have been (I agree with Robin that Martha's probably not a racist), but it still betrayed Stewart's expectation that the audience member with an Asian face was a foreigner. She even sounded disappointed when the woman said she's from New York, because Stewart wanted so badly to make her point about Asians not baking pies.