Finishing the Game

I'm really surprised more people didn't like Finishing the Game. The comic timing by the actors and director was hilarious. The mockumentary does a pretty good job of critiquing Hollywood without being too preachy. in fact, it's quite funny. I think some people just didn't get this film, because:

1) They didn't grow up in the 1970's watching Bruce Lee films and cheesy knock-offs

2) Most people just don't the see the racism in Hollywood casting, so most viewers will wonder "What the hell is this movie alluding too?" I think you'll enjoy this if you're an Asian American dude who grew up in the 1970's, watched Kung Fu theater and took Asian American Studies in college. This is a VERY niche film.

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There's a little (or a lot of) Asian in all of us

I once knew a police cadet with an Italian last name. I won't mention his name here, but suffice it to say, it was a hard core Italian name because it rhymed with multiple strains of pastas: tortellini, linguini, fettucine. Anyway he was an American like myself, born and raised in the US. He related his ethnic background to be that of Northern Italian. I didn't know there was a difference between Northern Italians and Southern Italians, but when I looked at him I got a sense of what some of that difference might be. He was tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed and pink-skinned like a pig. He was far from the stereotypical dark-haired mobster guido image.

The funny thing was although his eyes were blue, they had a distinct Asiatic look to them. He related that he was teased in the past for having these Asian eyes and was called all sorts of derogatory names. But as far as he knew, he didn't have any Asian blood in him. He joked that if he did have some Asiatic blood, it was probably because the Mongols had invaded Eastern Europe and fucked the crap out of everybody.

But I had hung around enough Hapas (I dated a Hapa for many years) to sense that there might be some Asiatic blood in him. I'm no geneticist, but from what I can tell, Asian DNA is very dominant. You can usually tell from the eyes if someone has some Asian blood in them. And that trait is so dominant, that it will stay in your family tree for generations.

I mean look at the Gosselin kids. Jon Gosselin is hapa. His kids are a quarter Asian. I know, I know, you smartasses: you can't divide a person into halves or quarters by race. But I just want to illustrate a point: if you look at his kids, ALL OF THEM look Asian. Some of them don't even look Hapa, they just look 100% Asian.

I think everybody has got a little (or a lot) of Asian in them. I mean look at the celebrities below. I betcha someone in their family past had a bad case of yellow fever:


Leann Rimes




Leonardo DiCaprio




Captain Picard?




Colonel Sanders?!




And back to the lovely Leann Rimes




Anyway, back to dude with the last name that sounds like pasta. He could very well have Asiatic blood in him originating somewhere far back in his family tree. I read a book by Gavin Menzies called 1434:

"Two years ago, a Chinese Canadian scholar, Tai Peng Wang, discovered Chinese and Italian records showing beyond a doubt that Chinese delegations had reached Italy during the reigns of Zhu Di (1403 – 1425) and the Xuande Emperor (1426 – 1435)."

What's interesting is that Admiral Zheng He sailed a large fleet into the Mediterranean and met with the Italians and the Papacy. Zheng He served as ambassador for China, and he and his crew would exchange gifts and knowledge with the various Italian city-states. One of these unfortunate "gifts" were slaves. Hundreds of slaves were given as gifts to the Italian elite. I think there were enough of these slaves to have added some Asian DNA into the Northern Italian mix.

One other thing to mention is that sailors will be sailors. Once they're in port, they go out and explore the local "sights." Who knows? They might have infused a little bit of spice into the mix as well.

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Epic Wedding Announcement

These 2 have way too much time on their hands. If this is the preview, then their wedding must be a multi-million production.

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The Forgotten History of the Asiatic Fathers of America

So there was an interesting segment on the Coast to Coast radio broadcast. Host George Noory interviewed Charlotte Harris Rees, author of the book The Secret Maps of the Ancient World. Her father, Hendon Harris Jr., wrote the 1972 book The Asiatic Fathers of America. Both assert that the ancient Chinese had traveled back and forth from China to the Americas since 2250 BC. Much of their evidence is based ancient Chinese records and on maps that they've procured as well as ancient Chinese maps kept in museums and private collections all over the world.











Rees and her father are not the only ones to claim that the Chinese made regular trips between China and America. Many other researchers from the fields of archaelogy, anthropology, genetics, history and linguistics have come to the conclusion that the Chinese established a physical presence and a cultural influence in the Americas, long before Zheng He sailed with his fleet in 1421. Aside from genetic similarities, there are cultural similarities between the ancient Chinese and Native American/Meso-American cultures in their language, pottery, crafts, architecture and religious practices. Take a look at the facial characteristics of these jade masks and figurines from the Olmec civilization:










Chinese junks and ships have been found all over the Americas and not just on the West Coast. The most bizarre instance was when a Chinese junk was found when Washington D.C. was being dredged of its swampland prior to its founding as the capital:

A Chinese junk was found by early settlers buried in Great Dismal Swamp (L A R Clark); This story, we have found out, appeared in Coronet Magazine, p. 34, January, 1945: "…When the government took over the Swamp and dredged some of the ditches, strange looking hulks of ships were found sunk in her marshes. One, a large Chinese craft, had to be cut through. Sunk in her quagmires are the skeletons of other ships that now belong to the ages – all bearing silent testimony that Old Dismal’s rule stretches far down the corridors of time…"

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Three Keys to a Fulfilling Life

Since my wife and I are going to have a baby soon, I've been thinking a lot about what makes a fulfilling life. What makes one's life complete? How can my daughter have a fulfilling life? And how can I not screw it up?

Asian parents tend to be extreme in their parenting. They either are extremely strict and controlling or relaxed and laisez faire in their approach. Strict Asian parents stress education and good grades and track their child's educational and career path. Career decisions are based on stability and earnings. A child's feelings about the career are irrelevant.

So many aspects of the child's life are determined by the parents that the child grows up not ever really knowing what he or she wants out of life. It's as if your desire was stunted, because it's been supplanted by your parents' desire ever since you were a child. Here's an observation from Sun Yunxiao, author of the book Save the Boys (thanks to MaSir for the reference):

According to "Save the Boys," the traditional Chinese method of 'caged breeding' raises a child like a little emperor and doesn't encourage independence. Furthermore, “the frequent absence of a father figure and the overprotection of the mother is another factor that makes Chinese boys more feminine.”


On the other extreme are Asian parents who are hardly around, and the kids are free to do whatever they want, much like the movie Better Luck Tomorrow. My wife works for the San Mateo School District and works with a number of parachute kids:

"Parachute kids” are children of rich Asian families sent to live in U.S. suburbs known for good schools and safe streets. Typically, mothers try to split their time between their husbands in Asia and their children in America, often leaving housekeepers in their stead. Parents may feel guilty about spending too little time with their kids and shower them with money and gifts...


Whereas children of strict parents grow up with no sense of independence and self-reliance following their parents' direction, parachute kids grow up with no guidance and no discipline, adrift in life with no sense of focus. Neither really knows what they want out of life.

There are 3 keys to leading a fulfilling life. These are the things that matter in the end when you see the proverbial white light at the end of the tunnel:


1) Experiences and memories. Part of what makes life fulfilling are diverse and memorable experiences. A lot of people just follow the beaten path that everybody else follows. They don't ever develop memories worthy of remembrance. Experiencing different things and seeing different places and cultures is what helps you develop as a person.


In the movie Blade Runner, one of the problems the Tyrell Corporation had with its replicants was that although the androids were intellectually and physically superior to humans, they were deficient because they lacked the emotional resiliency to deal with life. To overcome this deficiency in its replicants, the Tyrell Corporation infused artificial memories into its replicants to imbue them with an emotional foundation.

Memories are what makes you... YOU! Without memories, then you really wouldn't have any experiences from which to learn new lessons, from which you derive wisdom. So experience different things and deal with different types of people. Travel and take up a hobby or two.


2) Accomplishments and achievements. Although each experience is a lesson, an experience is not necessarily the same thing as an accomplishment or achievement. Going to Paris may be on your "to do" list, but it is not an achievement. Experiencing things is like going on a ride. But accomplishing something is very different. YOU have to build the ride.

Accomplishments and achievements are things that you build, that you create and give to the world. I used to meet up with a Yahoo social group, and every week we'd do a different activity: go to Yosemite, go kayaking, skydiving, food festivals, etc. Even though it was a different experience every week, after awhile I thought to myself, "Is this really all there is to life? Dinner, drinks and road trips?"

That's when I decided I should write a book. Hanging out with friends and experiencing new things every week is certainly fun. But I didn't feel like there was any meaning to my life doing that every week. Achieving something and tapping into your creative juices is what gives your life purpose.


3) Friends and family. There is no point in experiencing life alone or achieving accomplishments and sharing the rewards with nobody else. The connections you make with people and the relationships you forge are what matter to you the most at the end of the day and at the end of your journey called life.

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Apathy by Celtic

GT talks about apathy in the community.

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John Park on American Idol

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Valor With Honor by Celtic

A new documentary about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team by Burt Takeuchi. The last surviving members tell their stories of what they experienced.

Website: Valor With Honor

Keep a watch out for the DVD release in 2010.

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Three AAM Sites for You to Check Out

So any day now I'm going to be a dad. It's been one long waiting game for the past week, and I have no idea how much longer it's going to take. I'm looking forward to this next chapter in my life, that of fatherhood and being a family man. I've resolved myself to the fact that everything I do and plan from here on out will revolve around my child.

To say that raising a child will dominate your life is an understatement. When a coworker of mine found out my wife were having our first child, he said to me, "You can forget about working out ever again."

I don't plan to withdraw completely from my interests and hobbies, but I do plan to pull back a bit. In my bodybuilding book Neo-Classical Bodybuilding there is a training strategy called "body part specialization."

Body part specialization is a strategy where you devote most of your training to one or two muscle groups and put the training of all other muscle groups on maintenance mode. Your body has limited recuperative abilities, so body part specialization allows you to focus your energies on developing a muscle group lagging in size or strength without losing size or strength on other muscle groups.

Specialization is something you can apply to your life outside the gym as well. For me the next 3 months it's about all the baby. Everything else (training, blogging, writing) is on maintenance mode. This means I'm pulling back somewhat from my involvement on the Alpha Asian blog. I'm not pulling back completely, mind you. But I feel like I've built this blog to a point where it can sustain itself, thanks to my co-bloggers.

The bottom line is that the message is more important than the messenger. The message of this blog has always been respect for the Asian American male image. Respect, however, is not simply given. It is earned, and the way you earn it is to put yourself out there and be damn good at something. Talent and expertise earns you respect. The Alpha Asian blog showcases the stories and the talents of Asian Americans and Asians all over the world. It showcases how we've been creating our own images and how we're closing the gap between perception and reality.

The common goal of respect for the Asian American male image is more important than the individual methods that everyone employs. So although I'm pulling back in my involvement in the Alpha Asian blog, there are many sites that will fill the void. The following are sites that promote respect for the AA male:

1) Ask Asian Men: This is a lifestyle channel for the Asian American man which includes restaurant, arts and nightlife reviews as well articles about dating, sex, health and fitness.

2) AM Revolutions: The principal reason we started AMR was to address the social and political needs of an acutely under-serviced segment of the American population: the Asian-American Man... We believe that the primary reason for this void in awareness (and the oudated, 'binary' black-white thinking in racial matters) is a colossal failure by the American Media to treat Asian-American men as equals to white and black men. That they systematically ignore Asian-American men while trumpeting the equality of black and white men as a major social achievement smacks of blatant and absurd hypocrisy.

3) AZN Lover: A social networking site for Asian men and women of all ethnicities. Here's a blurb from a Jeff Yang's Asian Pop column on AZN Lover:

The site is no recent novelty; it's been around since 2004, and, having expanded dramatically from blog to forum to full-fledged social networking community, now has over 6,000 active registered members and a constant flow of lurkers. According to Tom C., the site's owner, about 60 percent of the site's 30,000 unique visitors per month are Asian males, with the rest being "females who admire them." The site isn't unique — Tom admits that there is a surprisingly large number of online communities dedicated to similar interests — but AznLover is among the oldest and largest, and distinguishes itself, its members assert, by not being focused on making romantic connections.

"It goes without saying that relationships happen here," says Tom. "But AznLover's real mission is to help debunk the common stereotypes associated with Asian males, to provide community between people with similar issues, questions and curiosities, and to foster interaction between females of all races and Asian males, so that they realize that, yes, they too are 'sought after items.'"

Some who sign up for the site are women already part of AM/XF couples, seeking to become more informed on the cultural and social issues that they're confronting, and to connect with females in a similar situation. Kristina Nicholas of Santa Cruz joined AznLover hoping to better understand her Japanese American fiance: "We'd just become engaged, and I was looking for other women in my situation to gain insight and even support for the challenges that might arise from marrying into a different culture," she says.

Others, like San Francisco resident Elizabeth M., joined the site hoping to make new friends (and more). "I joined the site to find like-minded individuals who understood my love of Asian men," says Elizabeth. "In the process, I feel like I've grown a lot as a person — I've learned from many people's experiences in travel and relationships, I've learned more about different cultures. And I feel like I've made a difference in helping people cross boundaries that most people don't discuss and aren't even aware of."

That includes psychological boundaries, like the ones faced by Melissa Palmer, an AznLover from Detroit, MI who calls herself a "white chick from the whitest-white background imaginable." "My vast knowledge of the Asian male was based on John Hughes movies and influenced by the regional racism toward Japanese at the time, so I'd already made my decision regarding Asian men; I just wasn't attracted to them," she says. "But fast forward to the near present: What started as a friendship with a Chinese male grew into love. One day, it all came flooding out — we admitted to each other that the pull was there. God, I love that day!"

For Asian American men, AznLover feels like a kind of parallel dimension, where their status is inverted: Rather than being exiled to the margins, Asian males are at the center of this particular universe; not just "accepted," but revered. "I love the fact that people on the site acknowledge the beauty in Asian men," says Harry Li, a Malaysian American member living in Texas. "Society still makes women feel self-conscious about saying they like Asian features, or particularly, Asian guys, so even if they do, they won't let their attraction out in public. At AznLover, we all know why we're there — we share a common bond, in that one group has the qualities, physical and otherwise, that the other appreciates."

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AZO

Absolutely amazing!

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The New Monkey King by Celtic

"Monkey: Journey to the West"

Collaboration by Chen Shi-Zheng, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn.



"Monkey Bee: A Short Film by Jamie Hewlett"

Made to feature the first single from the "Monkey: Journey to the West" soundtrack.



The YouTube channel with more video clips is here.

The website is here.

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Paradorn Srichaphan hints at retirement

Damn! I wish my parents got me a tennis coach when I was a kid.
You'll see why at 0:36.

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Billie Jean by Sungha

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Chinese Immersion Schools

More evidence of transculturation.

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Interview with Rick Lee

Source: Online Education

What I find interesting is the pie chart: the top 3 horny countries are China, South Korea and Japan. Anyway, here's an interview awhile back with Rick Lee of Asian-Man.com, a website detailing his sexual escapades:


Q: What's your background? Born in the US or overseas? Where did you grow up? How was your upbringing? How were your early sexual encounters prior to the site?

A: I am Chinese not born in Asia. I would say I come from a traditional background and like most Chinese from my generation, I went to school, got a career, made good money and always looked for entrepreneurial opportunities to become self reliant. As far as how my sex life developed, I had my first girlfriend when I was 12 years old and by then I already had a good idea of what was sex. But I didn't lose my virginity until I was 15. I had numerous crushes and "hook ups" throughout my teens and my early 20's and had always been sexually active. As time progressed and after being in couple of serious relationships, I started exploring some clubs in California and I started to find out there were people who were basically as sexual as I was. And it was at one of these clubs that I met someone who introduced me to the swinger's scene. By the time the internet came, I already knew what I was looking for so I started to meet a lot of women online. Some were regular women and some were swingers. One thing led to another and I then started to organize sex parties and became known for it, in fact Playboy TV did a show on it was back in the days. I started to coordinate events for women who had websites to provide them with men to perform with them and it was just a matter of time before I started showing up having sex with women on camera. My first time ever on camera was with a girl from Mississippi who pulled me aside at a webgirl party and started giving me a blowjob for fun. The cameraman was nearby so he took some pictures and those became my first published pics ever online. That was December 1998.

Q: How did you get the idea to do this? What motivated you to do this?

A: I originally kept a handwritten sex journal to keep track of how many women I had been with and the experiences I had with each of them. When the internet came, I switched to keeping this journal online primarily for my own convenience and not necessarily so that people would read it. And with time, that journal became Asian-man.com. But the primary reason for the site was the fact that I rarely saw any straight Asian men in the adult scene, being videos, swinging scene, or at the clubs they I used to go to. So I thought since I already led a sexual lifestyle that I should put some pictures online to at least show something that other Asian guys could relate to. That way I thought the majority of Asian men (straight) would at least have some representation of their sexuality.

Q: What did you want to accomplish with the site?

A: I wanted to show straight Asian men having sex since all the Asian men online or on video at that point were gay, pretty much without exception. I also wanted to show something straight Asian men could relate to, not just the videos but the lifestyle itself.

Q: How did you get started? What sort research, planning and logistics did you have to do?

A: No research was done, as the site was never really meant to be a commercial enterprise. I did it as a hobby and always treated as such.

Q: Did you have ties in the porn industry when you started your site? If not, then how did you develop them?

A: Technically I did. I used to organize sex parties on the weekends for women and couples and one of the guys that I met was very experienced in the amateur video industry.

Q: You say wanted to film your sex life, not necessarily promote a porn site. Are all of these women paid performers?

A: Yes, I've enjoyed recording some of my encounters. In fact, the first time I got a camera was when I was 17 and I started recording my girlfriends back then. However, none of my more private videos are published anywhere. The women that are published need to sign model releases and as such they get compensated for allowing me to post their videos or we trade rights for the content so they can use it on their sites as well. There are a few that don't show their faces where no model releases were necessary.

Q: How do these women feel about what you’re doing and the direction of the site?

A: Models like the exposure, non-models prefer I keep things private or not have content published for long.


Q: How does one meet these women?

A: I am sure there might be a few who are willing to meet random guys, but the great majority of these women are not prostitutes so no one is supposed to be "meeting them". One of the things I get annoyed with the most is people offering me money in order for me to introduce them to women.

Q: What sort of responses have you gotten?

A: Overall, the great majority of Asian men and women that write me are very supportive of what I've done.

Q: How did Asian-man.com change your life?

A: My original intention was not to become well known. So over the years as popularity of the site grew, I started finding myself uncomfortable about revealing too much of my real self to the public.

Q: Do your friends and family know, and if so, how have they responded?

A: Some of them do, some don't. The ones that do know have been supportive to point. They know who I am as a person and they would not like to see me get involved long term.

Q: What direction are you headed with the site?

A: What I wanted to accomplish with the site has been done already, so I really don't have any major plans. I've never been interested in commercializing the site too much so things like making DVDs, shirts, etc. will never happen. I do want to have an Asian performer do the videos to keep it updated. But in a way is not important anymore since there are other Asian men performing now and no longer are we Asian men exclusively gay when it comes to adult videos. Also, I must admit that although I have tried to emphasize my lifestyle so other Asian men will perhaps emulate it, it seems that this point gets lost. Most people see the site as a porn site and omit the fact that Asian-man has always been about a lifestyle, so that is not very encouraging to me. Most people think I started the site to get laid and make money, in fact I get hate mail from Asian guys if you can believe that.

Q: You said you’ve retired. Who is the person that’s the “lead” in your films now?

A: An old friend of mine and one of the original guys who use to help me with sex parties.

Q: If one wanted to follow in your footsteps, what’s it take to start, grow and maintain a site like yours?

A: I think in order to start a site like this, one has to be already living a sexual lifestyle first and foremost. Guys that start sites to have sex seem to fail all the time. And in our case (Asians), it should be an Asian guy that already gets laid and has sex appeal as I think people having sex on camera need to be have sexual chemistry. If a site shows a guy that looks like he is paying to have sex with a hot girl, then it will defy the purpose. Aside from that they should learn the basics about programming and e-commerce.

Q: You were a guest speaker at Darrell Hamamoto’s Asian American Studies course. Could you tell us more about that experience? How did the students respond?

A: Students responded very well and they understood the reason that I was there and the point of Darrell Hamamoto's quest to portray Asian Americans in a sexual way.

Q: You also participated in a documentary. Could you tell us more about that?

A: The documentary was about the quest of Darrell Hamamoto to make a sex film with Asian Americans. I helped find the female performer for the actual sex film and I spoke about the Asian Americans in the adult industry and about some of the challenges Asian men face in the Western world due to stereotypes.



Q: What do you think is the state of the Asian male image these days? Is it getting better? How do you think the Asian male image can be improved?

A: Well, at least in adult videos we have a few guys that perform so that is very positive as it defies stereotypes. However, as a whole, Asian men still have a long road ahead to reach parity with other minorities. We are still considered the least sexual of all men by the majority of women (including some Asian women) and the stereotypes persists.

Q: Any advice you want to give other Asian men?

A: Do the best you can to improve yourself as a man. And as a byproduct you will be helping the image of other Asian men. Also, don't let other people define what you are, we are the ones that should be doing that.

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Ruby Li Long by Celtic

Images may be NSFW.

As a follow up to my post on Long Tack Sam, I wanted to add something about his granddaughter – Ruby Li Long – a fine artist. Her mother is Japanese-English and her father is Chinese-Austrian. Her work focuses quite often on the feminine form.

You can locate her personal website here.

And this is a short bio she created for YouTube:

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Forgotten Magic by Celtic

Official history has a funny way of neglecting to tell large chapters of our collective human story. If we only take enough time to read the text we are issued in whichever schools we fall into, and only enough interest to be able to leap through whatever hoop gets us a piece of paper that says ‘graduate’, we inevitably miss out on most of the best parts – and the most illuminating tracts. Finding real history requires more. Real history is akin to the gems buried deep in the dirt and rock of passing time, and we must dig for them. And dig with passion!

One of these nearly lost treasures is the story of Long Tack Sam, an internationally celebrated vaudeville star that you’ve probably never heard of. His story, fortunately for us, is collected by his great-granddaughter – Ann Marie Fleming. She has taken the time to dig through her family history and create a documentary called “The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam” which allows us to travel with him as he leaves China, marries an Austrian woman (Leopoldine) and eventually brings his art to North America. His contemporaries and colleagues included Laurel and Hardy, Houdini and the Marx Brothers among others.

You can purchase copies of the DVD at National Film Board of Canada website. A direct link to the page is here.

The official website for this story is located here.

An illustrated companion book is located here.

And finally, a small sample of the DVD located on YouTube:

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The Great Migration by Celtic

One of the problems that I believe may be hindering Asians in the West is that there aren’t enough established communities in every corner of each country. I recognize that migrating to areas where there is less Asian representation, at least for those on the front edge of any big movement, can be stressful and yes – even frightening. But I feel that one of the reasons that the media has so much power to influence stereotypical impressions of any group is rooted in the fact that communities without living, breathing people representing themselves have nothing else to go on.

Beyond the fact that Asians are a minority in North America is the reality that they tend to build large communities in only a few areas of the continent. Areas such as San Francisco, or Vancouver or Toronto. But the Southeast of the United States, for example, mostly only sees transient students who stay for a couple of years on university campuses and then move on. There are very small communities dotted here and there, but nothing on the scale of the Chinatowns, Coreatowns or Japantowns in other places.

Humans are hard wired from prehistory to experience an instinct I call ‘Us and They’. At one point in our evolution, it was an important survival tool. When resources were hard won and certainly never guaranteed – food, water, shelter, etc. – small bands had no room to be generous if they wanted to live. They had to quickly surmise who was ‘us’ – meaning their own group members – those with whom they could afford to share resources. All of those that were determined to be ‘they’ – meaning those outside the group – must be rejected. And in fact – with survival on the line – they might even need to be rejected with force.

I believe it is very easy for humans in modern societies to still twitch to this instinctive hard wiring, in big ways and small. And we seem to have various levels of ‘us’. There is the ‘us’ that consists of the family unit and much of the time these are the strongest bonds. Then there is the ‘us’ of friends. The ‘us’ of co-workers. The ‘us’ of neighbors. The ‘us’ of the greater community. We are so hard wired to build groups that we consider ‘us’ that we find all sorts of ways to do it. Sports teams and clubs and online websites…

Members of the Asian community that I have spoken with over the years often talk about their experiences of feeling as if they are always outsiders – the eternal foreigner – even if they were born and raised in North America. I can understand that this must create intense feelings of disconnect, something that runs counter to our nature as a species. We all prefer to belong somewhere.

So what are some of the answers to change this? In simplest terms – Asians have to become more ‘us’ and less ‘they’. As with most problems in the world, identifying the answer seems easy enough – but accomplishing the goal of making the answer a reality is potentially a long hard slog. I do believe that by expanding average Asian families into the greater American (or any other Western) communities, over time and with exposure, Asians become more familiar.

Asian based traditions and cultures become normalized. With every Dragon Boat Festival, Bon, Tet, Chuseok, Water Festival, Songkran Day and so on that is held in a local community that has never had them before – the less alien that community’s Asian neighbors seem. With every invitation to join in on these festivals, much as I have invited my Asian friends to attend a Highland Games Festival with me – is the possibility of opening a door to closer ties and greater understanding for non-Asians.

To elaborate a bit on my earlier post about names, when children bearing Asian names enter kindergarten with their age mates in the non-Asian community – those non-Asian children hear those sounds early on and it becomes a normal part of their perception of community. These children who grow up with Asian friends in the school system, and by this I don’t mean one or two per class, but a substantial number, stand a greater chance of viewing Asian traditions as normal. They begin seeing Asian faces as just other members of their neighborhood. An expected sight. Not strangers. Not alien. Not ‘they’. But ‘us’.

But further, once Asian families begin to move into areas of Western countries that have thus far not enjoyed as much Asian exposure in the past, they need to make every effort to place themselves in leadership and authority positions. On the smaller scale, that would include seeing local Asians become cops, firemen, paramedics, soldiers etc. Those members of the community that people seek out in a crisis, those that they come to depend on during their times of greatest need. And also teachers – who the children of a community grow up seeing as their earliest authority figures outside of their own families. This builds community trust for those with Asian features. Maybe not so easily from the older generations of non-Asians, but over time, from the children who grow up in these places.

On the grander scale, local communities need more Asian politicians, school board members, respected business leaders, college professors and deans, etc. And I say this, although there is often resistance to this concept, when it comes to politicians – I would want to see politicians that represent the full scale of political philosophy. Not just Democrats but Republicans and Libertarians as well. There’s no reason that every group of people shouldn’t have the chance to vote for an Asian that represents their beliefs as well (and I know that there are those in the Asian community who do).

So these are some of the inroads that will begin, I believe, much of the process of normalizing Asians in the wider society of Western cultures. Over time, over the generations, with concerted efforts in these areas, I think that new generations of Westerners will grow up thinking that hearing Asian words added to their everyday conversations or seeing Asian neighbors decorating their homes for some traditional festival or trusting an Asian firefighter to rescue them from their burning home is unremarkable.

In the case of Asian words, I’ve already experienced how adopting them into English can happen. I was telling a relative of mine over the holidays about an old Mifune movie I had seen called “Samurai” (I believe it also goes by the title “Samurai Assassin”). My relative asked, “What is the Japanese title?” I asked him what he meant. He asked again, “What is it called in Japanese?” I had to laugh a bit, because I realized then that the word ‘samurai’ has become so much a common word now in the English language that many English speakers no longer recognize it at first as being part of the Japanese language.

Having said all of this, one can only ask, how does it get started? I recognize that it is difficult for people to pull up roots in those big cities with established Asian communities and set out for the unknown to build the seeds of new communities. A young student from mainland China gave me her thoughts recently. She studies languages and in her opinion, one of the reasons that people cling to these large encampments that have long been established is because older people aren’t forced to learn English (or any other Western language) as long as they stay put. They can live out their entire lives speaking the language of their birth. And because the family structure is so important, the younger generations will tend to remain in place as well, until they are also no longer young and daring.

I don’t know what would start the outflow of Asian citizens from the old cities into new Western territory. I feel like it would help a great deal if the majority Western societies could interact regularly with Asian people in the flesh. Because if they don’t meet and grow to empathize with real people, they will fall back on all that they have left to understand ‘Asian’. They will return to the popular media. I don’t think that has been working out too well so far.

So…getting started. This is probably only a question that Asians can answer for themselves.

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What San Francisco Chinatown Tourists Won’t See

Thanks to Bitter Sweet Asian for this one.

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Language Abuse

I'm sure many have discovered the website called Engrish.com by now, which focuses on photo examples of mistakes made in non-English speaking countries when using the language on signage and other materials such as t-shirts. It's easy to create what turns out to be humorous sounding gaffes when subtext such as slang or cultural double entendres comes into play. An example would be the t-shirt with "I want to ride on that" printed on the back.



But - seeing all of the kanji and hanzi on various products here in the West - I have often wondered if someone was putting together something that featured similar unfortunate errors on our own shores. After all, most of us can't read a lick of it...and I doubt the printers or creators of these products can either. I suspect they are, much of the time, just choosing the characters that they find the most aesthetically pleasing and putting those together. Which would result, of course, in your basic gibberish.



Tattoo fans are especially prone to getting burned by dabbling in a language that they are unable to read or in which they have no cultural understanding. Imagine my surprise when I found out that many tattoo artists are using a bogus "translation tool" for writing things (most often names) for their customers. This chart basically just assigns a random character for each letter and number of the English alphabet.



Oh - I understand the impetus...I imagine that there can be very few people who would not admit that it is a beautiful, elegant style of written communication. It is difficult to resist something so lovely. But add the 'cool' factor that has been ramping up in the last dozen years or so and the number of bad tattoo victims will assuredly increase (speaking of which - there are similar sites on the web that feature these kinds of inked regrets which are amazing in their scope).



When it comes to languages that use characters such as hanzi or kanji, I have often suggested to people hoping to get their names translated that perhaps they should find out what their name means and get that translated instead of the actual sounds. After all, Western names have ancient meanings just as Eastern names do. My own given name in two parts (first and middle names) means: 'Priceless Freedom'. I have family members with names that mean - 'Mountain Ruler', 'Defender Reborn' and 'Ireland's Freedom'.



Knowing that there had to be a twin site featuring the opposite side of the language faux pas game, I went looking - and finally found this:



Hanzi Smatter



It is every dire warning against playing with linguistic fire that I thought it would be. So for all of those who might be tempted to visit their local tattoo shop for an impulse bit of ink, make sure you know what you are getting. If you don't understand the language very well - perhaps refraining would be the wiser course. If you insist on it - maybe you should find a friend who is fluent to help you choose something. And make sure that they actually like you.

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