Frank Jang at the Chinatown Photographic Society in San Francisco. As a visitor walks down the steps to the gallery space, he’s greeted by the buzz of people discussing photography. Bright lighting illuminates dozens of great photographs mounted, framed and arranged on the walls. Photographers are looking through their portfolios of work, giving each other advice. In a separate...
“Confucius Says” is an engaging novel about Cary, a Chinese American woman who takes in her aging parents largely because of the ancient cultural values and traditions expressed by Confucius, about filial piety and respect for elders. She has siblings who live far from northern Virginia where she lives, so she becomes the primary caregiver as the novel follows her parents’...
Jennifer 8 Lee, a NYT reporter who wrote a wonderful book about the origins of Chinese food (specifically the fortune cookie, which is Japanese, not Chinese) called "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles," wrote a HuffingtonPost piece about the way Asian cuisines fuse with American tastes. The essay is worth a read, and the 16-minute video about Chinese food is definitely worth...
UPDATE: THIS EVENT IS NOW FREE! (Ticketmaster processing charges still apply)
It probably irks Chinese people to no end that their centuries of culture is often crammed into just a couple of off-hand images: Bruce Lee and martial arts, Chairman Mao holding up his Little Red Book, Jackie Chan and martial arts, the traditionalist flash of a Beijing Opera performer in full makeup and drag, Jet Li and martial arts. Oh, and martial arts of any kind, whether or not it's from China. The mainstream American consciousness seems to be oblivious to the depth and richness of Chinese culture, and to its vast variety.
But Chinese culture spans a huge area and a long timeline. Remember, China is so big and diverse that it even has seven separate groups of language dialects. A Chinese person from Beijing may not be able to understand someone from Hong Kong, because Mandarin is spoken in Beijing and Cantonese in Hong Kong.
The country's government has been on an international campaign since before last year's Beijing Olympics to educate the world about all of China. Because the country's taking over the world stage as a economic power (by most accounts, it'll eclipse Japan as the world's second-largest economy in 2010, second only to the U.S.), it's been keen to promote cultural exchanges and send performers halfway around the world. You can expect this public-relations campaign to continue through at least next year's 2010 World Expo, which will be held in Shanghai.
The ongoing effort to showcase China's riches is great for those of us who are interested in the breadth of its culture.
Here in Denver we have a rare opportunity to catch a spectacle of an event, "Carnival China Style," that will bring 70 performers and support staff from all over China to the U.S. and Canada starting after the new year. A Denver stop's been announced for Wed. Jan. 13 at 7 pm at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, the classy auditorium at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Other stops on the tour include Toronto, Ottawa, Chicago, St. Paul, Denver, San Francisco, Sacramento, Reno, Seattle and other cities. President Obama enjoyed some of the performers traveling in this troupe during his recent visit to China.
The evening of entertainment is based on a Chinese traditional festival format and it'll highlight the long history, grace, beauty, populism, diversity and folk nature of Chinese culture. The evening won't just be traditional dance and music, either.
There's a segment featuring Wang Feng, a popular rock star in China, and even the woman who hold the Guinness World Record for twirling the most hula hoops at once. Who knew that's a Chinese cultural heritage?
Here are some descriptions from the event's press release:
The Asian American community is a diverse world, and not just along purely ethnic lines. There are mixed-race Asian Americans, generations that all have different views on culture and identity, and also a thriving Asian American adoptee community. But adopted kids aren't always connected to their root heritage.
The New York Times last week ran a well-written story interviewing Korean adoptees about the challenges of finding their identity. The article was based on a report on trans-racial adoptions by the Evan E. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which concentrated on adult adoptees who were adopted as children from South Korea. Focusing on Korean adoptees makes sense because, as the report states, "South Koreans comprise the largest group of internationally adopted persons in the U.S., and adoption from South Korea into the U.S. has a longer history than from any other nation; indeed, 1 in 10 of all Korean American citizens came to this country through adoption."
Angry Asian Man and Linda of 8Asians both posted thoughtful reactions informed by their Korean American perspective.
Most notably, the report found that a staggering 78% of respondents considered themselves white or wanted to be white when they were children, and also that:
Racial/ethnic identity was of central importance to the Korean respondents at all ages, and continued to increase in significance into young adulthood. Sixty percent of them indicated their racial/ethnic identity was important by middle school, and that number grew during high school (67%), college (76%) and young adulthood (81%). Based on their overall scores on the Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure, Korean adoptees had a stronger sense of ethnic identity than did White respondents, but with caveats. While being equal to Whites in agreeing that they were happy about being a member of their ethnic group and feeling good about their ethnic background, they were less likely to have a strong sense of belonging to their ethnic group, despite identifying more strongly with it. They also were less likely than Whites to feel welcomed by others of their own race.There are a lot of fascinating data points to mull over in the report, and whether you're interested in adoption, Asian American identity or trans-racial issues, it might be worth downloading and reading the 111-page PDF file, "Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption." The "Culture Camp" reference caught my attention.
Really? Unfortunately, yeah. Sure, maybe the guy was just describing Yi's nationality, like calling a player "the Russian," But you would never call the Russian player "the Russkie" (I'm pretty sure Russkie is still a pejorative in the post-Cold war era). If he wanted to describe the nationality of Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets, a veteran of the...