Asian America

Guess the Asian!

I'm not positive if this is the case with every Asian immigrant parent, but I won't be surprised if it is. My parents have the habit of trying to "guess" what type of Asian a person is whenever they see one in public, on TV, or in a restaurant. They would ask ...

Racial Over Sensitivity vs. Under Sensitivity

A few weeks ago, during a trip to Maine, I was browsing through some small shops at Bar Harbor. Before going into one of these shops, I held a door open for an old man to step through. He was a tall man with white hair and a cowboy hat. ...

Asian American Film - “Ping Pong Playa”

According to the Youtube description: "Christopher "C-Dub" Wang is a suburban guy who waxes political on all things Asian American and clings to pro basketball pipe dreams. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and his worldly older brother, to run his ...

Asian American Film: “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers”

This film, directed by Wayne Wang, is set for limited release on September 2008. According to the imdb description: "A Chinese man travels to America to visit his estranged daughter after her recent divorce. Though his trip starts off as a mission to see his daughter remarry, he sparks to an Iranian woman who, despite ...

The Olympic Spirit at Its Best: Foreign Coaches Coaching Other Teams

As I was watching the Olympics the other day, I noticed that many of the Olympic teams were coached by coaches who originated from countries other than their own (e.g. American Women’s volleyball has a coach from China, etc.). It was seeing this that I realized that the international unity ...

Spanish Olympic Ad: Come On Spain!

In the recent news, buzz has been coming up regarding a Spanish Olympics ad for a courier company. All in all, the picture that came with it speaks for itself. Spain may and probably has made the excuse that they were just kidding and that they didn't mean to offend people. But for ...

The 2008 Beijing Games – The Spirit and The Paradox

With the 2008 Beijing Games in full swing and political issues a fly, it’s just way too easy to feel that inevitable sensation of paradox—the feeling that things may be right on some level, but not right on all levels. At one end, there’s inspiration and aspiration for the athletes ...

Bruce Lee Is a Quarter German – Now What?

I recently find out, through some research, that Bruce Lee’s actually a quarter German through his mother. Many people might have known this already, but for me, this is news and this inevitably brings up some issues that Asian Americans need to address. Overall, Bruce Lee’s iconic, not just in the ...

Asian American Film: “Year of the Fish”

Thanks to the input of a viewer (ximena), I just discovered this interesting little Asian American movie entitled, "Year of the Fish." According to the imdb description, "Year of the Fish" is "A rotoscope-animated modern-day Cinderella story set in the underbelly of New York's Chinatown." It's directed and written by David Kaplan ...

2008 U.S. Olympic Ads: Subtle Propaganda or Poor Commercial Setup

I've been keeping up with some of these 2008 Olympic commercial ads and I ran into this commercial where they advertise the upcoming movie, Mummy 3, with the Beijing Olympics. In addition to this commercial, there was another Olympics commercial (I believe for abc) featuring a majestic shot ...