INSTANT YANG v. 42: FIVE YEARS OF BLT; SUNDANCE KIDS; CAN ASIAN AMERICAN FILM MAKE MONEY?; RICE DADDYVERSARY

Hi all:

An anniversary is a wonderful and tragic thing. Wonderful, because it's an opportunity to reflect and celebrate, to dwell on the deep lessons and bright moments that we all too often forget in our mad rush into the future. Tragic, because, well, it's kind of a shame that we need arbitrary markers to tell us to slow down, be mindful, consider where we've been and where we're going.

For this week's SFGate column, filmmaker Justin Lin, speaking from Park City, reflected on the fact that it's been five years since he brought Better Luck Tomorrow to Sundance--five years, during which Asian American cinema has grown and evolved, and wonderful new talents have emerged, like Michael Kang and Alice Wu, whose films The Motel and Saving Face were at Sundance two years ago, or So Yong Kim (In Between Days), Ham Tran (Journey from the Fall), and Tanuj Chopra (Punching at the Sun) last year.

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ASIAN POP: INDIE JONES
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, February 1, 2007

Sundance has set; Slamdance has settled. Jeff Yang catches up on some of the hot tickets of this year's Utah circuit and talks with the Park City scene's leading Asian American lights, including American Zombie's Grace Lee, Dark Matter and Year of the Fish's Janet Yang and Finishing the Game's Justin Lin.

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But for all of the progress we've seen on the festival circuit, a question remains to be asked: How much ground has Asian American film really gained inside the smoke-filled rooms of Hollywood?

"The talent's growing; the opportunities are starting to happen," says Lin. "But you know what? Before Sundance, I had pre-meetings with all of the studios. And the only Asian American indie film they were willing to point to--the only film they acknowledge as having shown a profit, by their standards--is Better Luck Tomorrow. That's in the entire history of Asian American independent cinema. I'm like, 'oh sh*t--you've had five years, and you still can't get of that?' But the studios aren't looking at reviews, they're not looking at prestige. They're looking at numbers. And that's what they're ultimately measuring our whole filmmaking community against."

Lin isn't trying to boast. Here are the numbers, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com: BLT cost $250,000 to make, and grossed $3.8 million domestically. Runner-up Saving Face grossed $1.2 million, production budget unknown. Setting aside Ang Lee's Taiwanese co-production The Wedding Banquet ($6.9 million on a budget of $1 million), I can't think of another Asian American indie film that's come close to BLT's box office, or its 15:1 return on production costs. Which is a troubling thing for the viability of Asian American cinema, at least within the Hollywood machine.

That's why Lin's bottom line with his self-financed latest pic, the Bruce Lee mockumentary Finishing the Game, is control of marketing and distribution. Or at least significant input. He wants to learn how it's done; figure out how to build a network for exhibition and distribution of Asian American indie film on his own, if necessary. "That's the next step," he says. "It's all about distribution and exhibition and marketing--figuring out how to do that right. That's what the growth of the Asian American cinema is going to hinge on. I'm not worried about the talent...I'm not even worried about the money. It's about getting people to watch these films, and proving there's an audience."

Smart words. Smart guy. And he's putting his film where his mouth is--shrugging off the pleas of potential distributors, and offering it up to the Asian American film festival circuit for screening--"It bugs me that when an Asian American film gets into a big festival, like the L.A. Film Festival, they pull it from the Asian American festivals. I told the guys at Visual Communications and the Center for Asian American Media, I'm offering you first look at this one--you want it, you have it. Sundance is great, but these are great festivals too, and it's time for us to value them as such."

It looks like Finishing the Game will open the 2007 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (March 15 to 25)--which, speaking of anniversaries, is going to be the fest's 25th. And hey, that's not even the oldest Asian American film fest in the country--Asian CineVision's Asian American International Film Festival here in New York is commemorating its 30th year in 2007 (July 19 to 28)...another big anniversary. With all of these nice, round anniversary years happening, let's hope it's a banner one for Asian American cinema.

There's another anniversary, a little closer to home for me, that I also want to highlight--and it's one with a much smaller, but equally significant number: Rice Daddies, the Asian American daddyblog I contribute to, is celebrating its first anniversary tomorrow--that's Tuesday, February 6, 2007. Twelve whole months of paternal angst and fatherly fun zipped by at lightspeed, woo hoo!

Some of Asian America's most prominent and interesting writers (and no, I'm not talking about myself) are part of the Rice Daddy fraternity, albeit in a more anonymous fashion than I am, which is why it's such a damn good read--even if you're not Asian, or, for that matter, not a dad. Here are some of my personal faves from the past year, plucked from the RD archives.

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Poppa Large: "Baby Macks"

"So I'm walking past this local boutique that sells 'hip' baby wear and I see this onesie from the Urban Smalls people at reads: PIMPIN' AIN'T EASY..."

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Daddy In a Strange Land: "Scenes from the Home Front"

"Setting: Home, Working Momma's day off.
Stay At Home Dad is in kitchen, prepping dinner.

Working Momma (from baby's room across house): Honey, can you come here? The diaper thingy's full!

SAHD (chopping garlic): Sweetie, remind me, I gotta show you how to change the bags in the diaper thingy.

WM (smiling sweetly): But honey, that's a daddy job. I'm the mommy...."

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Mr. Maestro: "Daddy Status"

"I've moved from impregnator to actual daddy. I wasn't what I expected but a miracle nevertheless. Perhaps cursed by a very uneventful and smooth pregnancy, delivery was a bitch and although I didn't endure any of the pain, I was at the risk of invoking a bad Denzel movie, ready to go John Q. Public...."

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iDaddy: "iDaddy in the house!"

"I'm obsessed with Apple. I guess it stems from my early childhood in the early 80's typing away on my Apple IIe, playing games like parachute, and coding in BASIC. It was so easy back then:

10 Home
20 Print 'Welcome to Rice Daddies'
30 Goto 20
40 End

Fast forward a little to the Apple IIGS, and then our Apples were replaced by the PC. Only within the past three years did I make the switch back to Apple, and then my obsession began with the G5. One iPod turned to two, and then to three..."

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F-Bomb: "Stick It!"

"I’m not a fan of needles. Ever since I was a kid, I’d scream every time my parents even drove NEAR my pediatrician’s office. It didn’t help that my doctor had the bedside manner of a malevolent robot, and the nurses administering my shots were terrifying, white-clad monsters encased like sausages in support hose. (Plus, no post-shot lollipops.) My parents would try to console me as best they could, and actually managed to convince me that shots administered in my buttocks wouldn’t hurt if I didn’t struggle, because my booty was nothing more than nerve-free padding...."

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Instant Yang (yeah, me): "Soloing..."

"So Dear Wife is at a medical conference (read: road trip with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Scrubs) and I've got The Hudster for a solid four-day daddy-only roadblock--weekend through Tuesday....For what it's worth, I was actually primary caregiver for Hudson for several early months due to a career transition (insert euphemism of choice), and Hudson's still experiencing an estimated 5:4 ratio of daddycare to mommycare, due to my more flexible work arrangement. (To be fair, the real ratio is probably more like 5 parts daddy, 4 parts mommy, 3 parts daycare, 2 parts grandma, and 1 part Bob the Builder.)..."

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thisislarry: "Chopsticks, reinvented by...IKEA?"

"A tool at the heart of the Asian Pacific American experience: chopsticks. Do you remember learning how to use them? Do you remember teaching a childhood buddy how to use them? How about teaching a co-worker? What improvements could one think to make on this most elegant of kitchen tools? Fork, tongs, and skewers condensed down into a diptych of forms so simple that they are barely even objects? Who would attempt such a daunting reinvention? Well, IKEA, that's who!..."

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Metrodad "Just in case there was any doubt..."

"It's funny. Despite my Asian exterior, I've always been an All-American kind of guy. I love baseball, apple pie, hot dogs and Chevrolet....[But] I think yesterday pretty much confirmed for me that you can never truly escape your past. As I sat on my couch watching the Mets game, eating some dried octopus and drinking a glass of scotch, I realized that not only was I wearing a Korean soccer jersey and flip flops but also that my breath totally reeked of kimchi and I smelled like a Korean taxi cab driver. Furthermore, I found myself yelling at the television while cutting my toenails at the same time. Holy crap, I'm turning into my father!!!"

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Charlie: "Proud Moment"

"In eight short months there have been moments when I've proudly stood by and watched my son do something for the first time. There will be many more. Today, as a son, I stood by in a proud moment and watched my dad get some recognition for a discovery he made yesterday...."

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Soccer Dad: "Vacay Torpedoed by Sore Bunghole"

"Ah, the wonder of kids. It's easy to get caught up in 'every day is a miracle' type of groove. But nothing shines a klieg light of reality to a glowing parent than a stomach bug...."

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Dr. Lo Siento: "Soon to Be Dad"

"Hey guys, wow, this is the first time I have ever blogged, so I am sort of nervous and shaky. Sweating in my palms as we speak. Daddy in a Strange Land was nice enough to invite me since I am a soon to be dad....We actually found out several weeks ago about the pregnancy, but did not tell anyone until last week when she made it through the first trimester. It still feels unreal, and it probably won't hit me till she starts getting a little pooch in her belly and feels the baby moving. In the meantime, I have been talking to her belly and calling him or her 'baby.'..."

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The Newbie Dad: "Televisions vs. Rice Cookers"

"A recent report said that the average U.S. household has 2.55 people and 2.73 TV's. What this means is that in the U.S. there are more TV's than people in the average household....In this regard my own family is way below average since we only have one television....But when it comes to other essential household appliances, I know there is one area where I've definitely got the average U.S. household beat: Rice cookers....So how many rice cookers do we own? We currently have five. One main one for everyday use, a larger one for when we have guests, and three that are in storage as keepsakes. That's even more than the number of iPods that my wife and I own combined...."

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Henri: "Can We Talk About Anything Other Than Race?"

"Ancient Asian Secrets: The secret world of a secret race....

'Why are Asians so smart?' Asians are not smart. Asians get good grades. Big difference. How do they get such good grades? That’s like asking someone how come their kids are so good at not robbing stores. 'Hey Jim, you know I really got to compliment you on your kids. Man I’ve known them since they were still in diapers. Tell me a secret. How did you raise them to not rob liquor stores? I really got to know your secret. Is it genetic?'

...

'Karate.' Yes it’s true all Asians know karate. Except for the ones that know Kung-Fu. Or Hapkido. Or Jeet Kun What. Or Aikido. Or Ryukyo Kempo. Or SF2Turbo Fighting Edition.

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'Asian Men aren’t sexy.' How the hell would I know?

'Asian women are HOT.' YES!

'Asian women are subservient.' Um look at my shirt. You know why it looks like crap? Because I ironed it myself. Any other questions?

...

'Asian men make good dads.' That’s right ladies. Asian men make great dads! Hahahahaha MY ASS! I work too hard. And I’m narcissistic. Here I am on a Dad forum just posting random crap as usual. Where the hell is the parenting content in this post? I’m so gonna be the first dad kicked off the island. Son I love you! I love you son! Study hard boy!

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And one from Papa Law in February of last year, expertly timed for the season:

Papa Law: "What Day is It?"

"Today the guilt starts: what should I have done for Valentine's Day? I say 'should' because most men know that if you haven't planned something by now, it's too late. Fortunately for me, my wife is incredibly tolerant of my annual ineptitude. In our eight years together, I've only managed two truly romantic Valentine's Days. The first one was our first date and the second one was when I proposed to her. But since then, there's been nothing memorable and, thankfully, I've survived each Valentines unscathed (no high-pitched screaming, no tantrums, no evil eye, and no frosty silence). This year though, it seems I reached a new level of pathetic. So far, I've only bought my wife a card ... yesterday, at Target, while my wife and daughter were present!"

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So that's a cross-section of a year of rice-fueled daddy creativity, with plenty more where that came from, and plenty more to come. Peace out to the Daddies--Charlie, Daddy In a Strange Land, Dr. Lo Siento, F-Bomb, Henri, iDaddy, MetroDad, Mr. Maestro, Newbie Dad, Papa Law, Poppa Large, Soccer Dad, ThisIsLarry. And for the twelve of you who've read this far, head for RiceDaddies.com if you want to check out a special anniversary contest in honor of our year of blogtastic popfoolery...thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

INSTANT YANG v. 41: HALLELUJAH, RAMEN; PUTTIN' THE "FAT" IN GUNG HEY FAT CHOY; ROSIE, PRINCETON, AND THE RULES OF RACE AND FUNNY

Hi all,

So temperatures in New York have gone back to something approaching normal; there was even a light frosting of white stuff on the ground this morning, although it was mostly gone before I had the chance to grab a shovel from the garage. Still, memories of last year's back-to-back blizzards seem faint and fictional and vaguely magical, like a chapter from Harry Potter and the Whole Bunch of Snow; the weirdness of this winter still hangs there, smirking.

The return of cold weather does put one in the mood for bowls of steaming hot soup, however. Preferably with noodles in it. Which is why this week's SFGate column is about that most steaming hot and noodly of Japanese innovations, ramen--in the wake of the passing of Nissin chairman Momofuku Ando, the inventor of the instant variety:

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ASIAN POP: FOREVER AND EVER, RAMEN
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, January 18, 2007

In memory of the late instant-noodle king, Momofuku Ando, Jeff Yang speaks to notable ramen authorities about the meal-in-a-bowl's awesome cultural impact

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One of the factoids that came out of my ramenological research was that the concept of just-add-water instant noodles is originally Chinese (then again, we Chinese basically lay claim to every innovation under the sun, from the cotton gin to gangsta rap). As Wikipedia notes, during the Qing Dynasty, "yimian noodles were deep-fried to allow them to be stored for long periods and then prepared quickly." Ando's flash-frying process is similar, but better preserves the texture and aroma of the noodles (within reason; there's a reason why up to six separate "flavor packets" are needed to amp up the yum and turn a sodden mass of tangled dough into, well, food).

What it doesn't do is make the dish particularly good for you. We're talking a high-carb, low-fiber, pretty much vitamin and mineral free dish here. Because the noodles are fried to evaporate their moisture content, they're also high in saturated fats (and even the Great Food Satan, trans fats). And those little flavor packets? Mostly sodium and MSG.

The single largest consumer market for instant ramen is the nation that's becoming the single largest consumer market for anything: China, whose residents eat 44.3 billion packs a year. (Indonesia's second at 12.4 billion packs, then Japan at 5.4 billion. But South Koreans eat the most per capita, at 69 packs per person per year. Yikes!) It's interesting to note that China's, er, yen for instant ramen is running parallel to its embrace of lots of other not so healthy phenomena. A colleague of mine at work brought to my attention the fact that McDonald's has opened its first drive-through location in Beijing. (From WaPo, free reg required)

Three thoughts:

1. This is just another example of how successful we've been in exporting our ultraconsumerist lifestyle throughout the developing world. It ain't just China--India has seen skyrocketing levels of personal debt due to a boom in plastic; in Brazil, formerly celebrants of bodily lushness, women are experiencing rising levels of anorexia...the list goes on. It's like the worst lessons we have to teach are the ones being absorbed by rapt aspirationalists all around the globe, while the best ones fall on mostly deaf ears...

2. The success of drive-through fast food (this is the 16th Mickey D's has built in China, with 30 more to come in the next year or so) means two things: Lots of cars. And lots of demand for grease-laden, high-calorie fare. In short, China is getting fat. And polluted. The social and health implications of this in a nation of 1.3 billion are staggering to consider.

3. Finally, these drive-throughs are a joint venture with Sinopec, China's
giant petroleum combine, and are thus being installed at filling stations everywhere. Does that old joke "EAT HERE--GET GAS" translate into Chinese?

Okay, dumb gag. But dumb--and in many cases, patently offensive--gags have been much in the news lately. Hot on the heels of that whole Rosie mess, some of you may have heard of the flap over the Daily Princetonian's publication of a parody op-ed, supposedly from a student named "Lian Ji," in their annual "joke edition" of the student paper. An excerpt from "Princeton University is racist against me, I mean, non-whites":

"Hi Princeton! Remember me? I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400 SAT score. Ring bells? Just in cases, let me refresh your memories. I the super smart Asian. Princeton the super dumb college, not accept me. I get angry and file a federal civil rights complaint against Princeton for rejecting my application for admission."

And yeah, the spelling and broken English goes on. And on. And on. Along with references to doing laundry, working railroads, dog eating, etc. But it wasn't the op-ed alone that got my goose in a gander. Faced with a firestorm of controversy over the supposed satire, the Daily Princetonian's Managing Board (who collaboratively wrote the op-ed) responded with this editor's note:

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"Since publishing Wednesday's joke issue, we have learned that some of our readers were offended by a column satirizing Asian stereotypes. The response surprised us: We did not seek to offend, and we sincerely regret having upset some of our readers.

Many criticisms of the column, however, do not recognize its purpose. Using hyperbole and an unbelievable string of stereotypes, we hoped to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous. We embraced racist language in order to strangle it. At its worst, the column was a bad joke; at its best, it provoked serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity.

The column in question was penned by a diverse group of students — including several Asians on our senior editorial staff — who had no malicious intent. Given our purpose, we are deeply troubled by and reject the allegation of racism.

We welcome debate about our column, especially in the pages of this newspaper. We hope our readers will see the column for what it is.

Chanakya Sethi '07, editor-in-chief; Christian Burset '07, Neir Eshel '07, Anna Huang '07, Nancy Khov '07, Alex Maugeri '07, Tom Senn '07 and Ellen Young '07, Editors, 130th Managing Board"

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Now, okay, these are kids. They have room to grow and learn. Most of them will go into fields that have little to do with media or entertainment or journalism. But regardless of what industry they decide to join, they've got to learn that this kind of post facto rationalization will never fly.

"We have learned...the response surprised us"? Uh...guys, you don't think you could have guessed that some of your readers would be offended? How tone-deaf can you possibly be? Sure, Dave Chappelle and Sasha Baron Cohen can be offensive (though arguably, that's in service of a larger message they're trying to convey); they are, however, absolutely aware that some, if not all, of their viewers will be offended. That's their job as humorists--to get people uncomfortable, so that they have an emotional reaction (and if they learn something, cool--but at least they won't walk out with the same blank sheet of paper they walked in with).

These dudes at DP didn't even think it through that far--they just assumed that everyone would get it, because, you know, Princetonians are *funny*. Like Bill Bradley, he's hilarious. And Brooke Shields. My sides hurt.

And then there's their creative nonapology: "Many criticisms of the column, however, do not recognize its purpose...we hoped to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous. We embraced racist language in order to strangle it. At its worst, the column was a bad joke; at its best, it provoked serious thought about issues of race, fairness and diversity."

Reading this made me snort my ramen noodles out of my nose. "You didn't laugh, because you didn't understand/have no sense of humor/are dumb and ugly and should die." That's the Rosie Carolla defense all over again. Why is it always the least subtle, least inventive, most humor-challenged "comedians" who accuse other people of not having a sense of funny? Worse yet, they didn't just see this as thigh-slappin' high-larious. It was also supposed to "provoke serious thought"...good grief.

The editorial continues with some figleafing (noting that there are several Asians on the senior edit staff, including, presumably, the editor in chief) and then this kicker: "Given our purpose, we are deeply troubled by and reject the allegation of racism."

They use highfalutin' SAT words, but again, this is exactly the same tone and
structure as the spin put out by Rosie Carolla. First, they apologize for hurting your feelings. Then they imply that if your feelings are hurt, it's because you suck. Then they say THEIR feelings were hurt because you called them on their crap. Then they reject your argument out of hand, because, you know, it's not what they said, it's what they meant.

Or, to put it another way: "I didn't mean to crush your head with this two-by-four. I meant to tickle you with it, even though I swung it with both hands as hard as I could and aimed at your temple. The reason you didn't laugh is because you have a thin skull. And I reject your allegation that you were hurt, because it was not my intent to cause you multiple fractures and brain damage. Finally, by accusing me of hurting you, you hurt my feelings, so really, I'm the victim here--beeyotch!"

The note's conclusion, referring to the board's "regrettable mistake" (e.g., thinking that other people had a sense of humor) and requesting a "constructive debate on race and race-related issues" is, like most Rosie Carolla non-apologies, too little and too late.

See, we threw a grenade into an outhouse, and now we want to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" in the flying fecal matter that has erupted. This guy Jian Li has submitted a suit against the college with the Department of Education. People are already pissed off in 15 directions, at all levels of the administration and faculty and student body. Some Asians think Li has a point. Some think he's a cancer. Lots of white people think exactly what the op-ed piece seemed to suggest--that Asians like Li don't belong, because they get good grades but have no soul, or something. And as the Managing Board of the official daily newspaper of the Princeton campus, we've decided that the best way to create an "opportunity...for constructive debate" is to run this joke op-ed...? Tiger pride, yo!

After the Michael Richards N-bomb flap, Malcolm Gladwell, of "Blink" and "Tipping Point" fame, suggested on his blog (www.malcolmgladwell.com) a framework for determining if a statement is genuinely racist (I smell a book coming on, Mal). He brings it down to three factors:

--Content: "What is said clearly makes a difference. I think, for example, that hate speech is more hateful the more specific it is. To call someone a n----r is not as a bad as arguing that black people have lower intelligence than whites."
--Intention: "Was the remark intended to wound, or intended to perpetuate some social wrong? Was it malicious?"
--Conviction: "Does the statement represent the individual's considered opinion?"

By these standards, the DP Managing Board gets a pass, right? I think Gladwell's being reductive, which is, of course, his stock in trade: Simple, universalist answers to highly complex questions. What he doesn't take into account is that racism isn't solely the province of the speaker; it is shaped by context and colored by the nature of the audience. Assuming that our goal is a civil society, we have a responsibility to understand the reason why others might take harm from our actions or statements; the harm may not be intended, but if, as the DP Managing Board suggests, flaps such as this are an opportunity for advancing the dialogue around race and stereotype--well, a dialogue is by definition a two-way street. You can't outright "reject" one party's opinion, then call for an open debate, can you?

For future Rosie Carollas, here's my personal set of metrics around race and humor--your mileage may vary. Quantifying what's funny and what's offensive is always tricky and sometimes dangerous, as one of my friends pointed out--for instance, most definitions of pornography tend to fall on "you know it when you see it," not, uh, that I've ever seen it. But I submit the following as thought starters, if not rules of conduct--at the least, these are things people should consider before busting out with a potentially inflammatory statement:

1. If you're using humor as a way of pushing people to think about a situation, by illuminating foibles or disconnects between and within racial groups, you should get leeway (if not a blank check). I would put a lot of Dave Chappelle's stuff in here, especially things like his "Racial Draft" sketch and his "black Ku Klux Klan member" skit. It's uncomfortable to watch some of it, there're things going on that some people might take offense at, but you get the point of the parody--there's a message beyond "look how stupid/cheap/crude/lame etc. [insert ethnic group] is! HAW!"

2. As a kind of addendum to point 1, if you are a member of the racial group you're satirizing, you are in a better position to illuminate said foibles or disconnects--it's at the least a more defensible position, and probably a more informed one. Arguably, it's a position of privilege (I would say that the latter is probably true if you're a member of an ethnic group satirizing that ethnic group in front of a private audience of fellow members of that ethnic group--the room for misinterpretation or unfortunate repurposing is narrowed). Not everyone would agree with this, but it's a practical issue on some level, not a political one.

3. Being funny helps. Again, it's not a blank check, but at the least, if diverse audiences find what you're doing hilarious, at least there's some kind of utility to your shtick, right?

4. If it's a novel take on a topic or situation, well, again, no "get out of jail free," but at least you can stake a claim to breaking new ground. For instance, if someone were to do a sketch about how all Asian men are sexual dynamos, capable of incredible feats of sensual prowess--hey, I haven't seen that before. It's a caricature, but it's a new caricature. I personally would not be that offended.

5. Power matters. Sorry. It just does. It's not the same thing when a white, educated, upper-class person makes fun of a nonwhite, less educated, working class person as vice versa.

By these standards, where does the DP's "joke op-ed" stand?

On point 1., I'd give them a thumbs down. I can't for the life of me see what the larger point of the piece was, or how it's meant to interrogate or satirize stereotypes--I think most readers of any race would assume that the piece is if anything satirizing, you know, Asian people, and in particular, Jian Li, the Yale student who's suing Princeton for reverse discrimination. The broken English is a big, red X, for one. This dude Jian Li got a perfect score on his SATs, and he's going to frickin' Yale. Now, say what you will about Yale's quality of education, but no one's going there who doesn't have basic command of, like, articles and prepositions.

Point 2., also a fail. Sure, there are Asians who are part of the ed board, but that doesn't absolve the non-Asians, and if anything, it makes you kind of wonder what Anna Huang and Chanakya Sethi (and maybe Tom Senn and Ellen Young, who knows) were thinking. This is a piece that was going out under the banner of the Princetonian, and from there, the world. It should have been read from that perspective before publication--that's the responsibility of an editorial board. When we print this, how, objectively, will it be read and interpreted? What is our message? Is it getting across? If they wanted to satirize the Jian Li issue (and the larger notion of Asian "whiz kid" stereotypes), why not write a fake op-ed written by, say, a doped-out slacker Asian American dude who's spent the last four years smoking pot and surfing, got straight Ds and 800 on his SATs, but still claims to have been rejected from both Princeton and La Jolla Community College because of "reverse discrimination"? (Though naturally, Yale accepted him. Rimshot!)

Point 3. and 4., two more thumbs down. The gags they use are unfunny. Old as rice. And ultimately, at least from my perspective, lame.

Point 5. Well, Jian Li is far from a poor, uneducated, unable-to-defend-himself individual, but the way the piece is written, it has a distinctly anti-immigrant note to it. The bad fake accent, the "My mom from same province as General Tso. My dad from Kung Pao province" lines, Ugh. Who knew that Adam Carolla and Rosie O'Donnell went to Princeton?

As the puppets in Avenue Q say, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." But if you're smart and you put a foot in it, you admit it, you apologize, you learn something, you move on--you don't jump on a high horse and accuse others of being dense. And if you're not smart, and apparently there's a lot of dumb on Ivy League campuses, you do the Rosie Carolla thing, and turn a tempest in a teapot into Katrina 2.0.

Okay, enough of that...would love to hear your opinions and feedback.

INSTANT YANG v. 40: MORE CLIMATE CHAOS; WORST AND WEIRDEST OF 2006; TOYS 'R' "USA, USA"; HISTORICALLY ASIAN COLLEGES?

Strange weather. It may seem like I'm obsessing about this, since I started off last ish of this mailblog with a discussion of the freakily warm temps we've had here in New York--but as I write this, the thermometer says the outside temperature is 75 degrees, 12 degrees over the historical high for early January. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues out West have experienced creepy, Act-of-God type extreme meteorology: torrential storms and flooding in Seattle; multi-foot blizzards in Denver; crazily intense wind gusts in Los Angeles that knocked out power and telephone lines.

And it's not just happening in the U.S.: Indonesia's suffering under raging storms that have sent 12 to 15 foot waves crashing against coastlines, in one case sinking a passenger ferry with hundreds of probable casualties. Australia is experiencing its worst drought on record, while in central China and India, unexpectedly icy temperatures have led to dozens of deaths.

It's hard to escape a feeling of impending...something. Some kind of fundamental, seismic shift in the way we live and interact with the world around us. At the very least, things are becoming less predictable. At the worst, we're moving into an era where we can no longer consider nature a benign or even neutral party. Already, scientists are calling 2006 one of the ten hottest years on record, with 2007 likely to be number one with a bullet.

Which is why I'm wearing the same outfit today as I have for most of this past week: A t-shirt, shorts, and a vague sense of foreboding.

Okay. On to this week's Asian Pop, which is a complement to last column's look back at the best of 2006:

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ASIAN POP: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, January 4, 2007

In part 2 of his year in review, Jeff Yang looks at the tragedies, travesties and absurdities that made Asian Pop lovers gasp and flinch in 2006 -- and offers some New Year's resolutions for the individuals and institutions behind them.

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This roundup of 2006's worst and weirdest is full of craziness: Redneck wrestlers. Gwen Stefani. Rosie O'Donnell. Flying People Fatigue. Lame remakes. The return of yellowface. Toys that suck. The Sony deathwatch. Connie croons goodbye, Desi guys gone wild, yellow fever redux, jerky senators and subway jerk-offs, and lastly, sad passings and farewells.

Not making it in under the wire were a couple of stories I caught in today's New York Times. The first is one of those tiny stories with a huge and savage tail. At the end of last year, Toys 'R' Us announced a heavily hyped contest to bestow a $25,000 savings bond on the first American baby born in 2007. Doctors and hospitals were encouraged to submit candidates (with the winning hospital getting a $10,000 grant to be used for prenatal education programs). But when Yuki Lin, the midnight daughter of two restaurant workers from Brooklyn, NY, won a draw to break a three-way tie, contest officials declared her entry invalid--because her mother is not currently a legal resident of the U.S:

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First-Baby Sweepstakes Fuels Immigration Debate
Published: January 6, 2007

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The stipulation of legal residency was made in the fine print of the contest rules, and of course, Toys 'R' Us is perfectly within its rights to enforce it; most contests, though not, it seems, state lotteries, have similar legal residency requirements, though the argument has been made here that the winner wasn't Mrs. Lin, but her daughter, who is undeniably a U.S. citizen. (Except to the woman whose baby ultimately was awarded the prize, who declared herself and her child "100% American" and stated that "the baby of an illegal alien is an illegal alien," even if the law says otherwise. (Heck, Mexican American U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admits that he himself may be the grandson of undocumented immigrants.)

Coming on the heels of last year's dramatic protests and abortive reform debates, one wonders how much more frequently we'll be seeing this kind of issue rear its head. Well, one doesn't wonder; one is absolutely sure that--like 60-degree days in the dead of winter--we'll be seeing a lot more of these issues arising.

Which brings us to the other interesting Times story today: "The Asian Campus," the cover feature of this week's Education Life supplement. It explores something that Californians have been aware of for almost half a decade now--in the wake of the repeal of affirmative action laws, Asian Americans have become an increasingly dominant force at U.S. elite colleges.

UC-Berkeley, considered by many to be the best public university in the nation, and perhaps the world, is currenlty 41 percent Asian, a proportion that's over three times higher than the percentage of Asian Americans in the California population, and almost 10 times higher than the percentage of Asians in the U.S. And Berkeley is just one example among many; along the bottom of the article runs a ticker-style strip recounting the Asian American percentage on top college campuses across the nation, from 13 percent at Princeton to 27 percent at Wellesley, 17 percent at University of Texas - Austin, and 27 percent at M.I.T.

This poses a dramatic challenge for the redress of historical discrimination: Black and Latino top-university enrollment has suffered significantly over the past five years. But it should be noted as well that the net effect on white enrollment has essentially been zero--suggesting that the elimination of race-based affirmative action has been exacerbated by the preservation of other kinds of questionable preference (such as preferences for athletes and the children of alumni, who are said to have a "thumb on the scale" giving them a 20 percent greater chance of admission at most schools).

And this is ultimately unfair to Asian Americans as well. If college admissions are to be a true meritocracy, why protect certain classes of applicants who are mostly white and mostly privileged? Legacies make up an average of 10 to 20 percent of admissions; at Ivy League colleges, legacy applicant pools range from 75 percent to 90 percent white.

But even eliminating legacy preferences won't resolve this situation on its own. Nor are there easy and good solutions that don't penalize groups or individuals in fundamentally life-changing ways. But there aren't easy, good solutions to anything, really; other than on late night infomercials, "good" almost always goes hand in hand with "difficult and painful."

That said, I'm intrigued with what's happening at these, uh, Historically Asian Colleges. Critics have said that Asian grads of places like UC Irvine (majority Asian American), Berkeley, and UCLA (the "University of Caucasians Lost among Asians") are not being prepared for the real world. They also say that Asian American students spend all their time in libraries, don't contribute to "student culture," and tend to seclude themselves into ethnic clusters, refusing even to interact across ethnic lines, much less racial ones.

Based on my own experiences visiting these campuses, I pretty much wholeheartedly disagree: That depiction of Asian Americans is at best a generalization and at worst a rationale for outright discrimination.

I also think that spending four (or so) years in an environment where you're part of the "mainstream"--as opposed to an outsider, an exception, an alien--is incredibly empowering to this generation of Asian Americans. And when I say generation, I mean generation: 8 in 10 Asian Americans attend college, meaning that for Asian American Millennials, this four-year period of normality is essentially the norm.

I predict that this will be the most important generation in Asian American history--with more leaders, more outstanding achievement, and more social progress for our community than any preceding it, including my own (which I'm largely writing off; all in all, we've been like a lull between the pioneering generation of the 60s and 70s and the emerging one of the 00s and beyond).

I'd love to hear from those of you who attended or are attending heavily Asian American colleges, to get your opinions on the experience. In fact, I'd love to hear from all of you, just to get your thoughts on this topic.

Until then, Happy New Year--and talk to you in two weeks!

INSTANT YANG V.39: WEIRD WEATHER; THE BEST OF 2006; YUL-TIDE CHEER; GIVING--AND GIVING BACK

So it's around 55 degrees here in balmy New York, while my pals in Colorado are under about 12 feet of snow. The PacNorWest has been hit with blackouts due to hurricane-force winds knocking down power lines, and this after a month of record, deluge-like precipitation. I call shenanigans on anyone who's still doggedly rejecting the fact that normal weather patterns have shifted, and disastrously so. Even the most churlish global warming denialists have long since moved their bets from the "it ain't happening" line to "it's not our fault" (blame volcanoes, solar flares, wild animal flatulence, or, in a pinch, Hilary Clinton).

But that's an aside, albeit a scary one. This week's installment of IY--and this week's SFGate column--are about the good things that happened in 2006, from an Asian and Asian American perspective. And there were good things aplenty. (Bad and ugly things, too, but that's the subject of my next column. Don't go anywhere, Rosie.)

Here's the link:

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ASIAN POP: Holiday Cheers
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Thursday, December 21, 2006
In the first installment of his annual two-part year in review, Jeff
Yang looks at some reasons why 2006 was worth celebrating and catches
up with some of the brightest lights on the Asian Pop landscape --
including San Mateo's own Survivor superhero, Yul Kwon.

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From the exceptional individuals who wowed us to the independent thinkers and doers that empowered us to the community-minded heroes who inspired us, 2006 was filled with people worth celebrating. But in a year full of terrific interviews and awesome encounters, I have to say that the discussion I was fortunate enough to have with hero-of-the-moment Yul stood out--not just because of his articulateness and sincere honesty, which anyone watching the show probably would have picked up, but because he has a genuine and palpable passion for using his new fame to give back to the Asian American community.

How often have we seen Asian American performers, artists, and athletes give no more than a nominal nod to the community which gave them life? We're pretty used to hearing that line, "I'm an Asian American and a ________, but I don't consider myself an Asian American ________...I'm just a ________ who happens to be Asian American." And we understand it, and accept it, because you gots to put food on the table, and no one wants to be typecast. (Even I, Asian Dude On Demand For Life, occasionally think about, you know, other stuff. But it's just a minor flirtation! Totally meaningless I'm a-comin' home, sweetheart!)

Still, it says something that someone who's drawn the laserlike attention of 16 million individuals across the nation, and probably tens of millions more via post-show publicity, is not only willing to own and embrace his Asian American identity, but has vowed to turn the power of his platform toward advancing Asian American goals and interests.

That's not shocking when we hear about it from Latino or black personalities--it's actually more common than not for high-profile peeps from those communities to squarely own their heritage and their roots, and to dedicate some large percentage of their time and money toward publicly sticking a hand out to those behind them. The key word here being publicly. Because while many Asian American celebs do their part to participate in the community down low, few of them put it out on the front line, telling the world about how much they care and where they stand. Few of them make that part of themselves the core of who they are to the rest of the world--because, you know, it ties you down. Cuts you off. Pushes you into a box.

But how are we going to blow the lid off that box unless people get inside and push back?

So Yul's forthright and frank embrace of community causes is meaningful. Symbolically, but also directly. I think he's going to be going places. Far places. You heard it hear first.

Oh, and for what it's worth: Yul's not alone. He says that part of what bonded him with his Puka Puka teammates Brad and Becky is their common interest in the community, and in raising the profile of Asian America. Becky, for one, is founding an organization providing legal assistance to battered women, particularly immigrant battered women. Yul has already told her, like the good oppa he is, that he's ready to lend his skills and voice to the cause as well.

Not a bad holiday message, all 'round. Let's each of us figure out some ways to take action, to do something, big or small, to own a stake in the community that we belong to. Little things, like volunteering or charitable donations, mean a lot. Even providing our artists, our organizations, our institutions, with verbal and moral support--that's meaningful too. (And here's a pitch for filmmaker Eric Byler's Asian American TV pilot project on PBS, "My Life Disoriented"--it needs your support to go beyond pilot and into a full-on series! Check out the show's site for samples and deets: www.mylifedisoriented.com...Tamlyn Tomita, Karin Anna Cheung, Dennis Dun, and Di Quon, yay!)

So if you're looking for a gift to give, think about a donation in your loved one's name to a worthy cause. If you need to buy something, think about something created by one of our community's artists or entrepreneurs. A DVD from Alice Wu or Georgia Lee or Mike Kang or Greg Pak, a t-shirt from Blacklava, a copy of Gene Yang's American Born Chinese, a season ticket to East West Players all good.

And that's it for this week. Happy holidays, and all best for the rest of the year--we'll be back, same Yang-time, same Yang-channel, in 2007!

Yours,

Jeff

INSTANT YANG V. 38: GO GO UNIQLO!; ASIAN POP GIFT GUIDE; THE GREATEST GIFT; ASIAN POP 2006 BEST, WORST WEIRDEST--SEND ME YOUR TAKE

Hi all,

Super-late this issue, and for good reason--I've been ripping around the country on work-related travel and the few minutes I've had to breathe have been spent trying to remind my son what my name is. Oh well.

Anyway, the holidays are just about upon us, and that was as good an excuse as any to take a look at a fresh new face on the retail block--Japan's uber-apparel brand UNIQLO, which has been making its enigmatic presence known with "pop-up" stores and big red logo banners all around Manhattan over the past few months. Well, all of that was just a tease for the big unveiling of their global flagship store last month--three levels chock-a-block with garments that basically kick ass, on a very basic level.

The chain prides itself on its low-cost, logo-free functional designs, which are made to be mixed, matched, and combined with the more idiosyncratic elements of your wardrobe, as a kind of base layer for your own personal style. Since I have no style, personal or otherwise, the store is a perfect way for me to outfit myself in preferred fashion: Brandless and utilitarian. (If I could get away with wearing a grey jumpsuit every day for the rest of my life, I'd do it. Not wanting to look like a mental patient or a Devo tribute bandmember, I'm fine with rocking the solid-color t-shirt and black jeans look. It's like a corporate uniform for my category of quasi-professional anyway.)

Then again, UNIQLO's more eccentric fare is hard to pass up--particularly their Artist T-Shirts, which offer designs by some of the most prominent (and some of the cultiest) graphic talent in Japan on limited edition tees for just $16. Gaah...okay, I'm loading up.

Want more? Here's this week's column:

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ASIAN POP: Asian Pop Shopping
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Wednesday, December 6, 2006

The opening of Japanese uber-retailer UNIQLO's flagship store in New York leads Jeff Yang to think about shopping from an Asian Pop perspective -- and to offer some Asian Pop suggestions on choice stocking-stuffers for your lucky loved ones.

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And, because I know a bunch of you don't actually read all the way down to the bottom of these things, here's this week's extra bonus feature in full:

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ASIAN POP'S HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
Here in the U-Need-It States of America -- hey, you can't spell "consumer" without "U" and "S"! -- -the arrival of December coincides with one of the more torturous rituals of the winter season, which is to say, last-minute Chrismukkwanzaa shopping. In our conversation, Nobuo Domae noted that while holiday gift giving is catching on in Japan, there's no real parallel to the frenzied orgy of purchasing, wrapping and shipping that we engage in. "Here in the U.S., people are giving many, many gifts to many, many people," he says. "In Japan, maybe wives and husbands, families, they give each other presents, but friend to friend? Very rare. Maybe zero. You just give gifts to a very limited group of very important people."

In part, this is because Christmas in Japan is a popular Western novelty but not an embedded "tradition" per se. This is a society that is, after all, almost universally Buddhist and Shinto. But here's the other reason: Gift giving in Japan is such an omnipresent part of social convention that it almost makes no sense to have a whole new holiday tied to the exchange of presents.

People in Japan give formal gifts to one another when they get their twice-a-year work bonuses (oseibo in December and ochugen in June), when they return from vacation trips (omiyage), when they move into new neighborhoods (hikkoshi aisatsu) and when a friend or colleague is leaving (osenbetsu) -- not to mention all of the usual occasions (birthdays, weddings, childbirth, etc.).

It doesn't matter what the gift is, although it generally has to be bought in a store, wrapped in elaborate packaging and, if possible, edible. Gifts are the tangible currency that both lubricates and fuels the concept known as giri, or, loosely translated, "duty." By giving gifts, you acknowledge your social obligations to those around you. By accepting a gift, after refusing it half a dozen times, then making a great show of praise and delight if forced to open it, you return this acknowledgment. The smooth operation of Japanese civil society is inordinately dependent on this regular exchange of canned hams and $50 cantaloupes.

For Americans, gift giving isn't just a show of social etiquette. What you give matters -- sometimes, a whole heckuva lot. The other night, my wife and I were watching TV, and one of those Staples "Department of Unexpected Gifts" commercials came on, leading her to muse that a paper shredder really would be kind of useful. A less canny husband would take this as a cue that she wants one for Christmas. I, on the other hand, understand that a paper shredder from Staples is an "unexpected gift" for a reason. A cow turd would also be an "unexpected gift" and, probably, equally welcome.

But hey, I'm not here to dump on Staples. There are probably dozens of people who would love to unwrap office supplies on Christmas Day. More power to them. I am, however, ready to suggest some Asian Pop alternatives:

UNIQLO ARTIST T-SHIRTS...WITH PACK IN TOY!: T-shirt designed by cool Japanese artist? Good. Same T-shirt with bubble-wrapped transforming robot? Better! UNIQLO has brilliantly paired funky mechas, Tamagotchis and other amusements with like-themed T-shirts, and is selling them in one hot bundle -- in New York City, that is. If you've got a friend who lives in Gotham and is willing to ship on your behalf, here's your ticket to Asian Pop gifting glory.

ASIA EXTREME DVDs: Green and red are Christmas colors, right? So why not a gift that'll have your friends turning green in the face due to all of the blood being spattered across their flat-screen TVs? OK, so many of Tartan's Asia Extreme flicks lean toward atmosphere and dread rather than gore and ultraviolence. But then you've got Chan-Wook Park's pathologically brilliant "Vengeance" trilogy -- Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. Give it to someone you love. Or hate.

"SONG OF THE TRAVELING DAUGHTER": Abigail Washburn's a banjo-pickin', bluegrass-singin' folkie who just happened to spend a few post-collegiate years in China. Which explains why she's wont to write and perform Appalachian mountain music in Mandarin, a language that's surprisingly suited for the genre. "It's actually harder to put English words to music than Chinese," she says. "Chinese is all one- or two-syllable words, and most have open vowels at the end of the word, so the language almost sings by itself. ... If you listen closely to 'Song of the Traveling Daughter,' you can hear how easy it is to put them to music." Take her advice. Listen to it, and then share the buzz by giving this phenomenal disc to a music lover in your life.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE: San Francisco native Gene Yang's moving, hilarious and all-around brilliant graphic novel ultimately didn't win the National Book Award, but that just shows the judges have no taste, or no cojones. It definitely wins my pick for best read of the year, however, so put it at the top of your lit-gift list, stat.

BUILD YOUR OWN ACTION FIGURE: So you want to get a cool Asian American action fig for your son, daughter, niece or nephew but are not a fan of Quick Kick, Yellow Power Ranger or Apu from "The Simpsons"? Why not roll your own posable plastic plaything, courtesy of the Vicale Corporation's online "action figure on demand" tool? They actually have an "Asian" head option, even though it has white hair and looks, like all the other heads, fairly creepy. Still, for under a hundred bucks, where else are you going to get a semi-customized, sort-of-Asian-looking doll with a body and pubic region that only a massive steroid overdose could produce?

NINTENDO WII: Or you could cut out the middleman and just give your loved one the kidney it'll cost to acquire one of these sold-out-everywhere bad boys.

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And, because the gift of giving is a gift in itself, here's another suggestion: Donate to a charity of your choice. One I'd personally like to see supported is Curtis Chin's Shui Kuen and Allen Chin Foundation, which offers scholarships to college-bound kids who've worked in an Asian restaurant or had at least one parent who's worked in an Asian restaurant.

Unfortunately, I missed announcing this year's $1000 scholarship deadline, which was December 1--but if you or someone you know is eligible, keep an eye on this for next year. Curtis launched the foundation in honor of his mom and dad, owners of one of Detroit's best-loved Chinese restaurants; a tragic car accident took his dad's life, and injured his mom (who's thankfully recovered); the unique terms of the scholarship are intended to celebrate the profound role that the restaurant trade has played in the development and survival of our communities.

One last little thing: My next column is a roundup of Asian Pop's best, worst, and weirdest of 2006, from the perspective of many of those who've appeared in Asian Pop over the past year. But I'd like to open it up to all of you as well--so please feel free to send me your thoughts on the highlights, lowlights, and inexplicable-lights of 2006, in Asia and Asian America. I've got some thoughts of my own, of course...

Thanks for a great year.

INSTANT YANG V. 37: LIST CLEANUP; HOT OR NOT?; IT PAYS TO LOOK GOOD

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Or rather, happy day after Thanksgiving--otherwise known as Black Friday, the “official” beginning of the winter shopping season. That’s what the retailers want you to think, anyway; your mileage may vary. (Though a cursory trip to the mall today did, in fact, confirm the busy presence of lords a leapin', ladies dancin', and PARTRIDGES 50% OFF, WITH FREE PEAR TREE!)

And now, a small reminder: If you don’t want to be on this list, *unsubscribing is easy*--scroll down towards the bottom of this message and look for a link that says, natch, unsubscribe. If you’re on this list, as I’ve noted before, it’s because you’ve either subscribed to the list yourself; are a friend/acquaintance/contact whom I want to keep in touch with, and hope the feeling’s mutual; or, and this is the ringer, your email was sent to asianpopculture@gmail.com, either directly, or as part of someone’s cc: list. Why did I add the last rule to my “newsletter add” script?

Because the emails arriving at this address are usually responding to one of my SFGate columns, or are part of a mass email broadcasting a press release or other communication. And it’s easier for me to address/respond to many of these things via my newsletter than via individual replies to such emails.

That said, I do try to keep up with the hundreds of emails I get to this address each day, and am trying to prioritize those from addresses that are in the Instant Yang database. So if you don’t know me personally and need to/want to get my attention now or in the future, being on this list is a kind of “filter” that lets me know that you’re someone I should be paying attention to. But if you opt out, you’re out; you go on a list that should prevent you from being auto-added again.

I’m repeating all this because my ISP has received a few complaints from people who have accused me of spamming (which I honestly am not trying to do--I don’t “harvest” emails to add to this list from other sources, for instance). But I suspect that I may be forced to shut this list down or find another way to manage it if this continues. So, if you don’t want to be on this list, please, please, please just unsubscribe, and don’t take the whole newsletter down with you in a fit of pique. In this season of thanksgiving, I thank you in advance for that.

And now some actual content. This week’s SFGate column was occasioned by the release of the annual "Sexiest Man Alive" issue of People magazine, which included the usual suspects (e.g. George Clooney, who was dubbed the year's most delicious living dude for the second time, joining Brad Pitt and Richard Gere as the only such double dippers).

ASIAN POP: DO YA THINK WE’RE SEXY?

By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, November 22, 2006

As George Clooney celebrates his second time around as People's "Sexiest Man Alive," Jeff Yang looks at the status of Asian men in American culture. From Gedde Watanabe in "16 Candles" to Daniel Dae Kim in "Lost," it seems like the image of the Asian male has come a long way, baby. Or ... has it?

Here's the thing: In 21 years of crowning kings of schwing, there's been just one nonwhite honoree: Denzel Washington. Is this something that should bug us? Or is this even a question we need to be asking at this point in our collective cultural lives?

One of my brethren at the Asian poppa blog Rice Daddies, Daddy in a Strange Land, shared his opinion to me that even raising the discussion essentially buys into the troubling notion that worth is related to attractiveness: "I'm not naive and I'm not living in a cave somewhere, I know that that's the real world, but as an anti-racist, feminist father of color married to a woman of color and raising a daughter of color, I have to ask, are we asking the right questions, challenging the right definitions?"

Which I certainly agree with. But as much as I want to reframe attractiveness according to a different set of criteria (like, it wouldn't suck if "slightly chubby 38-year-old men with glasses, goofy hair, and mediocre fashion sense" became the new gold standard for masculinity), we deal with this kind of thing every day.

There are real implications—as Ingrid Olson of the University of Pennsylvania found in a gloom-inducing experiment earlier this year, attractive people get associated with positive traits that lead to better treatment. And this was born out in a study by a team from Harvard and Wesleyan: good-looking people are perceived to be more productive and better hires. (Why top-tier liberal arts colleges are spending so much time and money researching hotness is a whole 'nother question...)

Which explains in part why, consciously or not, we pride in having our boys, girls, and babies dubbed cute by others—there are real utilitarian consequences to cuteness. My son is billions of times cuter than I am (or was at his age), and I light up every time I hear someone compliment him on his cute-osity. People can come up to me and say, "Dude, you reek, but your son is gorgeous," and I'll flash a huge grin and thank them (and credit Hudson's mom with the hottie genes, of course).

Is it icky to think this way? Kind of. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm feeling all of those cliche, suffocating Asian parent academic agenda items starting to float into my forebrain—Is he hitting all of his developmental milestones? When should we start him on violin? SATs—study now, or wait until he's four?—but I also find myself wanting him to be the suave, athletic, toe-curlingly good-looking guy that I never was, or aspired to be.

And yeah, I hope we get to a point in our reality where attractiveness isn't just a set of washboard abs or a sculpted set of cheekbones. (Thus, my campaign to push Masi Oka to the top of People's "hottest Heroes castmember" poll (little victories still count for something.)

But the reality of what physical appeal means in our society is still out there. Which means there is meaning, however shallow it seems, in getting society to recognize our particular looks, features, and distinguishing characteristics as part of its benchmark for beauty.

And that’s it for this week. Enjoy the seasonal torrent of crass commercialism!

INSTANT YANG V. 36: MEA CULPA FOR THE MIS-SEND; ACEING THE MIDTERMS; IN WITH THE NEW; "HEROES" ROCKS; DNA CHIC

Well, the elections are over, and the message has been heard and received: America is mad as heck and isn't going to take it anymore. People have proposed all kinds of theories to explain the run-the-table victory of the Democratic Party--suggesting that the Dems ran harder, were more organized, did a better job of mobilizing their base, or simply, in the wise words of Jon Stewart, "followed the time-tested strategy of backing slowly out of the room as your brother gets yelled at for burning down the garage."

The reality is that this election was a return to, well, reality--voters on the left, in the middle, and even a significant portion of the right collectively stood up to demand accountability, competence, and an end to rampant corruption and hypocrisy. Arguing about whether it was a "partisan victory" or not is besides the point: Politicans of all stripes now have a mandate to get their houses in order and America's agenda back on track, double-time, because the newly empowered electorate has a short fuse--and the era of the invincible incumbent is over. I think that going forward, voters will have no problem repeatedly tossing pols out on their cushy cushions if they don't deliver.

And now, a quick hat-tip to the new rookie Asian Americans in the national legislature. A number of readers pointed out that I mistakenly forgot that there was, in fact, one sitting Asian American woman in Congress as of last year--that would be Doris Matsui, who was tapped to finish her husband Robert Matsui's term after his untimely passing; she was re-elected handily to the seat this week, and is being joined by Mazie Hirano of Hawaii--so now there are two.

Unfortunately, Tammy Duckworth couldn't overcome her district's tough electoral profile to make it three--but here's hoping this is just the beginning of Major Duckworth's political career. A nice piece in which she puts her narrow loss in perspective appeared in the Chicago Trib--check it out here: "Duckworth keeps it in perspective"

But meanwhile, Senator Jim Webb--with active support of Asian Americans in his district and out--squeaked past incumbent George Allen in one of the most critical and controversial races of the electoral cycle. Filmmaker Eric Byler (Americanese, Charlotte Sometimes) was a dynamo on the Virginia scene, organizing, shooting pro bono commercials and mini-docs, and rallying his peers in entertainment and media to join him. His blog sums up the exhausted exhilaration he felt at the hairsbreadth victory.

I've written a lot about heroes recently, mostly of the capes 'n' cowls variety. It's nice to see proof that you don't need x-ray vision or adamantium bones to change the world. Kudos to Eric, and to all the other Asian Americans who made a difference in this election--one in which our community showed a glimpse of its superheroic secret identity, as this L.A. Times piece aptly recounts: "Asian American voters flex muscles"

And now, back to heroes of the super-powered variety. I've been dying to write about Heroes--NBC's incredible new series about ordinary humans who've discovered that they possess awesome paranormal abilities, as well as, perhaps, a destiny to use them to save our species from destruction. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the right peg to hang a piece on, until recently, when a weird harmonic convergence occurred: Two friends shared with me the fact that they'd recently bought DNA ancestry tests--the kind offered by sites like DNATribes.com and DNAPrint.com--just as the fabulous and talented Jodi Long kicked off her one-woman show at East West Players, Surfing DNA (running through November 19--so if you're in L.A. or L.A.-bound, check it out!).

Thus, the topic of this week's column--America's resurgent chemical romance with the double helix known as deoxyribonucleic acid.

ASIAN POP: Get Your Genes On
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, November 9, 2006

These days, DNA is the hippest double helix on the pop culture landscape. Jeff Yang explores the brave new world of chromosome chic.

The teeny-tiny cocktail twist that divides man from beast, boy from girl, Yao Ming from Vern Troyer has been on the pop culture radar for years—playing key supporting roles in big-budget blockbusters like X-Men and its sequels and forensic crime procedurals like Cold Case and the many-headed hydra known as CSI.

But it's the arrival of Heroes that has really highlighted DNA's status as the rock star of the biochemical world. I honestly believe we're seeing the early wavefront of a DNA explosion, as the molecule of life moves deeper into the social and consumer mainstream: People no longer glaze over when the term is introduced into conversation, and the arrival of ultracheap DNA testing--the lab cost of an assay has dropped below $50, making "retail" testing at a hundred bucks a pop a reality--may prove to be a turning point.

Will couples start asking for DNA tests before marriage? Will employers or sports team owners start utilizing them to assess candidates? Will the manifold privacy issues related to DNA testing be trumped by the intriguing possibilities it offers for health, science, and identity? I think the questions not only need to be asked, they're going to start being answered--and in the very near future.

INSTANT YANG Special PSA: VOTE. OR LOSE.

Dear all,

This isn't your regular weekly INSTANT YANG installment--that will come Thursday, days after the critical juncture in the future of this nation represented by today's election has passed. Given the importance of today's election, I wanted to send out a reminder to all of you that you literally wield the power to change the course of this country--and it is a power, and a right, that Americans have fought for, died for, and in the case of many of us who are immigrants or children of immigrants, traveled thousands of miles to live for.

There are dozens of elections where a handful of votes, or even a single vote, might make all the difference.

Illinois, where Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth is running as a Democrat to become the first Thai American (and second Asian American woman) in congress.

Virginia, where Jim Webb is running for Senate against George Allen, an entrenched GOP political player who made national headlines by calling Indian American S.R. Sidarth "macaca," a term meaning "monkey," and reportedly, a common slur used against dark-skinned people in Tunisia, where Allen's mother was born and raised. Filmmaker Eric Byler has been in Virginia for the past month, shooting and uploading terrific mini-docs to YouTube, including a powerful commentary by Lost's Daniel Dae Kim and a profile of Jim Webb's very cool wife, Hong Le Webb. Check them out here.

But Illinois and Virginia are just the tip of the iceberg. California. Texas. Florida. Maryland. All are places with key races frozen in the margin of error. All are places with high concentrations of Asian Americans--places where our too-often-overlooked community can make our voice heard, our impact felt.

Wherever you are, whatever your background, whatever your political affiliation--please remember to vote. And if you're reading this and you're in one of the states and districts in the electoral hot zone--or if you know people who are--email them, and remind them to take advantage of the most important liberty and greatest responsibility we have as Americans.

For some great additional info on critical races and progressive Asian American involvement in them, let me point you to terrific AsiansVote blog; and, because protecting your vote is as important as casting it, I turn you to the nonpartisan national APIAVote organization, led by one of my fave D.C. peeps, Christine Chen. If you see or experience any irregularities in your voting experience today, let them know--they have a voting issues complaint form on the front page of their site.

Thanks for your time, and the dozen kilobytes of inbox space this extra email takes up. Forward it on if you like, delete it if you choose. But do it after you vote!

INSTANT YANG v.35: HEROES, SUPERHEROES, AND "SECRET IDENTITIES"; GENE YANG AND "ABC"; MO' MONKEY KING; NO WANNABE; JODI GOES SURFING

Hi all,

Well, for a change, both the column and this newsletter are early.at least in a relative sense. It's been a nice couple of weeks for Asian Pop, at least defined as the intersection between Asian, Asian American, and Asian-inspired phenomena with the mainstream of American, or even global, society. Lost is back, for all of you who've been experiencing withdrawal. The Asian American contestants on Survivor (anyone still watching that?) are methodically kicking ass and taking numbers, though they unsurprisingly booted eccentric Vietnamese American hippie Cao Boi off the island last week.

And the NBC program Heroes has established itself as a going-away hit, with Japanese American actor Masa Oki's time-stopping sarariman emerging as a breakout character--though some people, such as reader Sharline Chiang, express concerns about the fact that the Asian characters in the show all are depicted speaking with accents; obviously, that relates to the fact that they're not American natives, so it's not something I have a real issue with--so long as the accents aren't a source of "velly funny"-type humor. Still, it wouldn't suck to have, say, a fourth-generation Chinese American skater kid in the mix, now, would it? Just as a curveball?

Maybe that's a nice segue to give y'all an update on a project that had its roots right here in this column is starting to move toward reality. That project, you may remember, was the idea of an Asian American superhero anthology -- a graphic novel exploring the modern mythology of mutants, marvels and masked mystery men from the Asian American perspective.

Well, comics education specialist Keith Chow, indie comics artist Jerry Ma and I have been working on the idea ever since and have come out of stealth (sort of) with a MySpace site, www.myspace.com/secretidentities. Not much up there yet (other than a totally cool cover mockup), but we've gotten some interest from a few publishers and hope to have some announcements soon. Still, visit the site, give us ideas or contacts, if you're a comics artist or writer or just think the project's interesting, and give us some "friend" love. (Those of you who've already expressed interest, don't worry, we haven't forgotten you, we're just trying to get our capes untangled before we leap out of the phone booth officially, so to speak.)

But the big Asian American comic-book news is the subject of this week's column: The nomination of Gene Yang (no relation! as far as we know!) and his incredible graphic novel American Born Chinese for the National Book Award, making it the first comic book ever so honored in the prize's 57-year history.

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ASIAN POP
SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAGES

By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

It may come as a surprise to you that one of the most powerful and entertaining works of literature to be published this year is a comic book. But it shouldn't. Jeff Yang talks to Gene Yang, creator of "American Born Chinese," the first comic book to be nominated for the greatest honor in American literature.

----

I realize I didn't talk much about Gene Yang's background or his personal life in this piece, which is all to the good, because one of my Chron colleagues did a nice profile-oriented piece on Monday:

National Book Award finalist fills in the blanks with identity-driven graphic novel
By Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 23, 2006

(But, hey, guys, stay out of my sandbox! Just kidding -- the more coverage we can get on people like Yang in this publication, the better.)

I also didn't go into details about the book's story. That's because it's so neatly constructed that telling too much blows the wonderful twists that roll out in the book's conclusion. What I'm basically saying is, read it for yourself -- you won't regret it.

One thing I can say is that Yang winds in an interesting revisionist version of the Monkey King legend into the mix. It's true to the spirit of the myth but has a different set of players. I'll leave it to you to sort out the details of what he's doing.

On the topic of the spirit of the Monkey King: During our convo, Yang and I realized that there's kind of a Monkey King mania afoot right now. A musical adaptation of "Journey to the West" was staged as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in September of this year. Steven Spielberg was at one point attached to a cinematic adaptation of the legend (different from The Lost Empire, the made-for-TV Monkey King tale written by David Henry Hwang back in 2001); while that project lingers in development hell, the long-rumored pair-up between Jet Li and Jackie Chan, set for release in 2008, is apparently going to incorporate the Monkey King into its plot. "Plus, the Gorillaz, you know, their next big deal is a pop opera production of the Monkey King featuring Chinese acrobats, that sort of thing," adds Yang. "It's crazy. He's everywhere."

Interestingly, Yang envisions the Monkey King as more than just a classic Chinese character -- he sees him as the patron spirit of Asian America, which is a thought I've had myself. After all, his epic is a tale of a journey westward, and the character of Monkey, plus his quest for identity and wisdom (and, yeah, maybe a little humility), all feel somehow familiar, like a half-remembered childhood song. Plus, the year some people name as the date of the first public usage of the term "Asian American," 1968, was the Year of the Monkey. I know, because that also happens to be the year I was born. (Okay, so I've got some skin in the game here.)

Now, over in the mea culpa department, I want to clarify something I wrote a while back, which -- due to multiple rewrites -- ended up inadvertently upsetting the family of a talented veteran of martial arts cinema. Here's a quote from my August 31, 2006, column, "A Hero Gets the Call":

"As I vaguely recall, the film was The Three Avengers, a better-forgotten swatch of celluloid featuring one of the more interesting Bruce Lee clones, Taiwanese actor Ho Chung-tao (a.k.a. Bruce Li), alongside Jackie Chan wannabe Chin Yuet Sang and token white dude Michael Winston."

Ho Chung-tao wouldn't deny his status as a Bruce Lee clone, and Michael Winston in "Three Avengers" is unquestionably as token a white dude as ever tokened. But calling Chin Yuet Sang a "Jackie Chan wannabe" was glib and unfair. Though, in this particular film, he sported a Jackie Chan-style 'do and was tasked with performing eminently Jackie-esque stunts, comic mugging and martial arts pratfalls, that description hardly sums up his long and stalwart career in the Hong Kong movie industry, which includes graduating from Madame Fan Fok-Fa's opera school, directing the films "Hocus Pocus" and "The Spooky Family," and serving as action director on or actor in dozens of other productions.

So, apologies to Chin and his family. If you believe in karma, I guess this pretty much dooms me to someday be called a "Gene Yang wannabe." Hey, I'll cop to that!

And, speaking of genes, for those of you traveling down South in the next few weeks, the illustrious Jodi Long's one-woman show, "Surfing DNA," is going into previews Saturday, Oct. 28 at L.A.'s East West Players and then running Nov. 1-19 at the company's David Henry Hwang Theater. Jodi takes a look at her parents' life in show biz -- both were early vaudeville-circuit vets -- to explore just how much her own stardust dreams are rooted in heredity. It promises to be, like its creator, fun and interesting and witty. (Call 213/625-7000 for tickets, or visit Seatadvisor.com. More info here.) I hope to get more on Jodi's new joint to you next column...

And that's it for this week! Added to the Blogroll below are a whole bevy of Asian American/Asian Canadian indie comics creators...check 'em out, they rock...

INSTANT YANG v. 34: ONE WAY OR ANOTHER'S ART ATTACK; UCLASIANS?; BEING COUNTED; DESIS: VOTE DUCKWORTH!; MTV DESI'S VJ FOR A DAY

Hi all,

So, delayed again this week--my SFGate column got pushed back by a few days due to unavoidable scheduling conflicts, and this mailblog installment got pushed back a few days after I contracted some kind of roving gastrointestinal illness, of which details I'll generously omit. Leaving behind the state of my innards, two big topics to discuss with you this week, both controversial in some quarters. No, not sex and violence (let's save those for fall sweeps).

I'm talking Art and Politics.

First up, art. My column this week is a look at an epochal new exhibition of Asian American contemporary art at New York's Asia Society, titled "ONE WAY OR ANOTHER: Asian American Arts Now." Why epochal? Well, it comes 12 years after the last exhibition of Asian American contemporary art at New York's Asia Society, which traveled the country and essentially ended up becoming the benchmark for the genre. Given that the exhibition was called "ASIA/AMERICA," and focused heavily on immigrant artists and themes of dislocation, identity crisis, and alienation, some critics in the community suggested it offered a somewhat one-sided view of Asian Americans, and one that could be misinterpreted as framing us as perpetual foreigners or exotic outsiders. As much as anything else, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER is a response to that show--and a kind of "wh-wh-wh-wha?" double-take on the very nature of Asian American identity.

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ASIAN POP: ART BREAKERS
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Monday, October 16, 2006

A new generation of Asian American artists challenges outmoded expectations of what it means to be Asian, American and, for that matter, a "new generation."

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ASIA/AMERICA took as its reference point the divided soul, the doubled tongue, the infinitely split infinitive of the immigrant. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER takes as its reference point...well, nothing, really. Which is the point. It's a riotous collection of artists that don't really look at first glance as if they were meant to shown together--any more than any other collection of contemporary artists, that is. Questions of race and ethnicity identity hover over or peek out from behind some of the works, but in fashions that tend to be whimsical and reflective rather than dogmatic. It's not that the art, or the messages behind it, are in any way muted--but as far as identity is concerned, it comes from a place that feel more sophisticated, mature, and generally comfortable than the one occupied by artists of the previous generation.

The curators suggest that that's because younger Asian Americans are more at peace with themselves, more immersed in and thus less conscious of both their Asianness and their Americanness. It's only natural. Though we're still just 4.5 percent of the U.S., we make up a considerable plurality of certain parts of the country--a majority of Hawaii, over a quarter of the Bay Area, a good chunk of Southern California, and, of course, more than a third of all students in the University of California college system, making us the UC's largest single demographic--just ahead of whites.

For kids growing up in an environment where Asianness is the norm--and being born in an era when Asian American is more or less a household term--the experience of being Asian American is qualitatively different.

By way of example, here's something that reader Jenn Ma sent me--a recent editorial from UCLA's newspaper, the Daily Bruin. It's meant to be a joke, writer Jed Levine maintains, but it taps into anxieties that are genuinely being felt by some white (and nonwhite, for that matter) students on campuses like UCLA, which he dubs "UCLAsian."

Sample quote: "As a[n] underrepresented minority at UCLA...it's hard to find other white people I can identify with on a campus that feels more like Taipei than L.A. Yes, white people are an underrepresented minority here at UCLA; while they make up 44 percent of the California population, white students only constitute 34 percent of UCLA's student population. Asian-Americans, on the other hand, make up only 12 percent of the state of California and 38 percent of UCLA students. That's 300 percent over-representation."

(He should spend some time at UC-Irvine, where Asians shot past 50 percent of the student body years ago and haven't looked back since.)

The point of Levine's essay is probably to illustrate the silliness of Proposition 209, which struck down Affirmative Action as a tool to socially balance the UC system's admissions policies (or possibly the silliness of people protesting Proposition 209--the piece isn't sharply focused enough to make this clear, despite basing itself on that satiric marvel, Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal).

But in a larger sense, he's pointing to the fact that the Asian presence in the U.S. is being felt--and not always comfortably, either.

There's a reason that Asians in the U.S. are all too easily reframed as an "invasion" of strangers of dubious belonging, and it's one that the Japanese American community quickly learned after World War II, and the Korean American community after the L.A. riots. Pursuing personal success without civic engagement is a recipe for disaster; cultural expression, community involvement, and above all, political activity are key to any immigrant or post-immigrant community's integration into the social fabric of America.

And so even as younger Asian Americans are getting more comfortable in their own skin, here's hoping they aren't doing so at the expense of passion, heart, and will.

This upcoming election is arguably one of the most important in modern American history--not despite, but because it's not a Presidential election year. Presidential politics is largely theater, with the biggest decisions being made in back rooms by establishment manipulators. But congressional elections are as close to representative democracy on a national scale as this country offers. You vote for "your" local representative, but that rep will make decisions daily that affect the fate of the nation, and, as we've seen, the world. A few hundred votes can make the difference, and this year, there will likely be more tight races, decided by thousands or hundreds of votes, than in any election in our lifetimes.

Our votes count in a congressional race like no other. So I want to urge you to get out there and register to vote if you haven't registered, and to use your vote if you have. One place where Asian Americans aren't overrepresented is Congress--we have lost a number of statesmen and -women in recent years, and are still waiting for young leaders to step up and into their shoes.

A race that could make a tremendous difference is Illinois's 6th Congressional District, where Major Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War vet who lost both of her legs after the helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, is running to replace Representative Henry Hyde. She's a soldier, a hero, an author and educator, and an inspiration in each of those roles--and she's Asian American, her mother, Lamai, being of Thai and Chinese descent. Consider supporting her, either with a campaign contribution (these last few weeks are critical) or even as a volunteer. More info on how to do both can be found at her site.

But if you happen to live in Illinois's 6th District, the path to action is even simpler. There are approximately 200,000 registered voters in the district, and the race is just about evenly split right now. The swing vote? Asian Americans. South Asian Americans in particular make up the single biggest nonwhite segment of the District's voting population, so if you're a Desi in the 6th, your vote could be the one that decides this election. (Chinese are the second largest Asian group, but well behind.) One vote. A handful. A few hundred. It's rare that Asian Americans have the opportunity to literally determine an election of national import on the mainland--this is one such rare opportunity. We should make it count.

INSTANT YANG v.33: SURIVOR INTEGRATES; MIDDLE-AGED BLUES; ANNOUNCING "SECRET IDENTITIES": THE ASIAN AMERICAN SUPERHERO ANTHOLOGY

Hi all,

So, after all the shock, awe, debate, and declamation, Survivor: Cook Island's "grand experiment" with segregation has ended, with a whimper, not a bang. In three episodes of racially divided tribal competition, what did we learn? Mostly that the ability to bore and annoy knows no color. Now that the tribes have been integrated by court order, it's become startlingly apparent how uninteresting the actual players and game are relative to the hoopla of its season premiere. Really, the only question left is whether Korean American ubermensch Yul Kwon is simply going to win the game, or actually wrest control of the Cook Islands from its natives and use it as a staging ground to conquer New Zealand.

On to this week's Asian Pop, a digression and consideration of middle age, which I've apparently unknowingly collided with. Those of you who read the profusion of articles marveling at the longevity of Asian American women in Bergen County, NJ (with an average lifespan of 91!) may also have noted that the normal life expectancy of the average American is 77.5, which means those of us in 38-year-old-land are on the wrong side of the mountain and sliding.

---

ASIAN POP: THE MIDDLE (AGED) KINGDOM
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Friday, September 29, 2006
What do action icon Jet Li and indie filmmaker Georgia Lee have in common? No, not their last names. They've both just released compelling films about Chinese men of a certain age...and the challenges (and opportunities) offered by the passage of time.

---

Watching Red Doors (now playing SF and LA, peeps!) and Fearless, and talking to their creators, actually helped to bail out my psychic rowboat. Though the films seem an unlikely pairing, they confront some surprisingly similar themes--at least in the larger context of trying to make sense of existence when one has forsaken the comfortable certainty of youth.

Of course, youth is all in the mind--and my mind still has plenty of youthiness in it, even if my body's not as cooperative these days. To that end, I wanted to share word that a project I spoke about quite a while ago seems to be moving towards reality.

The dream project in question is the creation of an Asian American superhero comics anthology--a gathering of stories about costumed crimefighters, caped crusaders, masked mystery men and femmes fatale of the Asian American persuasion. Since my column "Look! Up in the Sky, It's Asian Man!", I've been talking about the idea with comics-in-education specialist Keith Chow and artist Jerry Ma (Burn; The 8th Dragon), and we've finally decided on a plan to make it happen.

The official name of the project? Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Though we hope that most of it will be superhero stories in the traditional sense, we also intend to include satires and parodies, essays and reflections, and interviews with notable Asian American
.personalities (both within and outside the comics industry)--sharing the common topic of Asian Americans with superhuman abilities, but all-too-human lives.

Our goal is to put together a self-published "preview" comic in time for May 2007 (APA Heritage Month, natch) and use that to find a publisher for a full-length trade paperback anthology to be published by May 2008.

If you're interested in this project, email me and let us know. It's a labor of love, but we think it might turn into something really cool.

INSTANT YANG v.32: SURVIVOR EPISODE TWO; DOORS OPEN, JET LI KICKS IN

Well, it's between weeks, but I had a few announcements to share, and a followup recap of SURVIVOR: RACE WAR to point to, so I thought I'd shoot you guys a midsession shoutout. If I decide to do recaps of SURVIVOR weekly, I'll drop word of a permanent home for them in next week's regular installment.

In the meantime, Carmen and Jen at MixedMediaWatch.com agreed to host this week's capper; if they don't read it and run screaming, it should be up by Monday--assuming their site redesign launch goes off without a hitch. Edit: The site has a new name! Check it out at Racialicious.com. Here's a sample:

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SURVIVOR: COOK ISLAND, EPISODE 2
The first taste is always free, right? Then comes the downward spiral of shame and self-destruction. That's what was running through my mind as I flipped through the recordings on my ever-faithful TiVo toward the second episode of Survivor: Cook Island. I watched the first installment rationalizing that it was for work, every penny goes to my son Hudson's college fund, yessiree, but episode two? Lurid fascination, no excuses.

It struck me that it felt very much like sneaking a peek at, say, Playboy's "Girls of the Ivy League" issue. One might reason that you're just, uh, checking to see if there's anyone you know in there-- HOLY CRAP, THAT'S MY SECOND COUSIN!--but it's mostly just prurience, isn't it?

And this season's Survivor is essentially pornography--the pornography of race. Fetishized situations, featuring idealized, archetypal and stereotypical performers, coupling and decoupling, and, well, people screwing each other. Figuratively. But probably, given the humpity-humpity flashes we've seen of the Caucasian Team, literally as well...

---

And now on to the announcements. First off, Red Doors opened this weekend in San Francisco and L.A., so those of you who haven't caught it, catch it. It's eminently catchable--thoughtful, funny, and richly drawn, with a truly awesome ensemble of performances supporting a polished and assured directorial debut by Georgia Lee.

Also opening this weekend, to somewhat bigger ad budgets: Jet Li's Fearless, billed as his last "martial arts epic." Bullshit! But Jet actually means something a little different from what the marketing--and most of the media--has been saying. And the film's his best and most innovatively choreographed one in years.

You can find out the deets on both Lee and Li, and the similarities between their two films in my column next week...yes, I said similarities.

INSTANT YANG v.31: LIVEBLOGGING SURVIVOR; SEGREGATED SITCOMS; "DOORS" GO WEST, AND "FEARLESS" UNFURLS; NEW KIDS ON THE PRIMETIME BLOCK

Hi all,

So the first episode of SURVIVOR: COOK ISLAND has come and gone, and the Earth continues to revolve, pestilence has not descended upon the land, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is not wreaking delicious, gooey destruction through the streets of Gotham. On the other hand, lots of people remain enraged at Mark Burnett's transparently manipulative decision to segregate this season's teams by race.

I'll admit that when I first heard of the plan, I was horrified; wasn't this just a ripe opportunity for the depiction very worst racial stereotypes?

A quick ping around the ol' social network garnered similar reactions.

"The whole idea of races competing for survival in the jungle is very Bell Curve, and promises to play on the worst of stereotypes…speaking of competing for survival, always interesting to see how low networks will stoop."

"Rather than the model of a melting pot, this follows the logic of the baking pan. When you bake a cake, you have to beat all the wet and the dry ingredients separately, before you can put them together."

And, from Carmen Van Kerckhove of the excellent podcast "Addicted to Race": "I think this is horrendous. They're obviously trying to manufacture a situation where people's racist attitudes come out. I'm sure they'll encourage the use of racial slurs all 'in the spirit of competition.'"

But then there were other--and admittedly, equally resonant--voices, saying that while the concept was admittedly exploitative, it was also intriguing...if only because it offered that rare opportunity of seeing a group of Asian Americans, representing as Asian Americans, in a network-televised event. As some people pointed out, when was the last time you saw five Asian Americans, collaborating as a unit, on prime time? And I'm not counting Chinatown gangster brawls on LAW & ORDER, either. The question was whether the inherent cynicism and crassness of the setup would overwhelm any possible entertainment value--or thought-provoking elements--in the program.

Thus, this week's SFGate column--a liveblogging, or plausibly-liveblogging (yay for TiVo timeshifting!) of SURVIVOR: RACE WAR!'s first episode:

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN

We were all prepared for the show to be a horrible nightmare, and parts of it were--but the general conclusion seemed to be that the program is both more, and much less, than it was cracked up to be.

Were possible stereotypes invoked? Sure, but they were invoked by contestants about their own tribes, and the producers carefully gave individuals context to discuss and in some cases dispell or contextualize them. There didn't seem to be any attempt to frame those stereotypes as "anchored in truth." Arguably, the most stereotypical tribe ended up being the so-called Caucasian tribe (more on the awkward issue of racial labels later), who seem poised to be framed as the show's "common enemy"--potentially, a flashpoint that could lead the show to explode.

In some ways, the race-first format actually generated dialogue about issues that otherwise never get discussed on prime time TV. Take, for example, Asian American stereotypes; usually, they're simply presented as part of television reality--they're never commented upon, and certainly never by Asians themselves. It certainly forced that dialogue among those of us watching, though we admittedly also found ourselves falling under the spell of rooting for the "home team." But then again, it was pointed out, people do that anyway. When the Yankees play the Mariners, I want Ichiro to get four hits and the Mariners to lose in a four-hit shutout. I root for Michelle Kwan and Yao Ming and Michelle Wie and I forced myself to watch HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE, even though it looked like butt, just to support John and Kal. Is that wrong? How is it different from this? Perhaps because race is portrayed as a zero-sum circumstance here? Or because race, rather than college affiliation, national origin, region of residence, or all the other ways we blithely divide ourselves for competitive purposes, is forefronted?

One of the biggest problems, it seemed to me, lay in the simplistic nature of the show's racial categories--what defines "Caucasian," for instance? Is a person whose ancestry stems from Spain Caucasian or Latino? How about a black person whose ancestry is Dominican or Puerto Rican? Where do mixed races fall into the mix? Why were three of the largest Asian American ethnicities (Chinese, Japanese, Indian/South Asian) not represented at all on the Asian tribe?

And of course, there's the issue of what the reaction to the show is going to be among those who unironically embrace Rush Limbaugh's enlightened view of race:

From MediaMatters.org:
Regarding the new Survivor series, Limbaugh also stated that there "are many characteristics ... that you would think would give [the African-American tribe] the lead, and the heads up in terms of skill and athleticism and so forth." He also stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders" and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do."

Limbaugh also asserted that "the Asian-American tribe" -- whom he called "the brainiacs of the bunch" -- "probably will outsmart everybody," but while "intelligence is one thing ... raw, native understanding of the land -- this is probably why the Native Americans were excluded, because they were at one with the land and they would probably have an unfair advantage."

He added that "the white tribe," "if it behaves as it historically has," will "bring along vials of diseases" and "will wind up oppressing" the other tribes by "deny[ing] them benefits" and "property," but will later "try to put [the other tribes] on some kind of benefit program." He further asserted that if CBS "allows ... cheating" and "oppression," "then of course the white tribe is going to win."For what it's worth, though Limbaugh has proven time and again that he really does have bigoted and repellent views, he's clearly being as tongue-in-cheek here as we were in our Cook Island klatsch. The problem is that his listeners, the accurately labeled "Dittoheads," are more likely than not to take his words at face value.

But are racists going to become more racist because of SURVIVOR: COOK ISLAND? Doubtful. I don't think they'll become more enlightened, either. Still, the show has forced people who otherwise would ignore the issue of media representation and depiction of people of color to at least enter the dialogue. And somehow, that seems like a net positive.

I ultimately found SURVIVOR: COOK ISLAND far less degrading and racially problematic than, say, VH1's stomach-churning FLAVOR OF LOVE, and less annoying than the fact that comedies like THE CLASS--despite being set in Philadelphia, which, as TV critic Doug Elfman aptly notes, is 46 percent white, 44 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic--have uniformly melanin-free ensemble casts. (The show is created by David Crane of FRIENDS and Jeffrey Klarik of MAD ABOUT YOU, if that explains anything.) You mean you can't find a single performer of color talented enough to cast?

It's even more distressing when you note that TV's most popular dramas tend to be fully integrated. There's just no reasonable or plausible explanation, other than low-grade, blanket racism, expressed, excuse the phrase, as the soft bigotry of low expectations. Producers think that their target white, middle-American audiences won't relate to people of color in a sophisticated metropolitan comedy. They may be afraid that romantic subplots could lead to distressingly provocative miscegenation (the kind involving a black or Asian man and a white woman, for instance). Or maybe they just don't figure they can whimsically yet credibly depict friendships between whites and nonwhites. To which I can only say: SCRUBS, beeyotch!

Anyway, enough said about SURVIVOR. There's plenty happening out in popland beyond Mark Burnett's wildly lucrative island fantasies. For instance, RED DOORS, Georgia Lee's quite terrific family dramedy about a man coming to terms with the passage of years, and his family's coming to terms with the ways that relationships evolve over time, is opening in Los Angeles and SF on September 22. I saw it at its New York premiere, and was blown away. Here're the deets if you're in L.A. or the Bay:

LOS ANGELES AREA
Laemmle Music Hall - 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 90211
Fri, Mon-Thu: 5:00, 7:25, 9:55
Sat & Sun: 12:15, 2:35, 5:00, 7:25 & 9:55

Laemmle Playhouse - 673 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, 91101
Daily 12:00, 2:20, 4:45, 7:20 & 9:55

Laemmle Town Center - 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino, 91316
Daily at 12:00, 2:20, 4:50, 7:20 & 9:55

SAN FRANCISCO AREA
Landmark Clay Theatre - 2261 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94115
Daily 12:25, 2:30, 4:35, 7:00 & 9:10 (no 7:00 show on Tues. Sept. 26th)

Also opening the same day, nationwide: Jet Li's last wushu film, FEARLESS--which he sees as the culmination of his efforts to express the true meaning of martial arts, begun in HERO and continued in UNLEASHED. Don't worry, he assures, he'll still kick ass on screen...he just won't be doing it with a message in mind.

More about RED DOORS and FEARLESS next column, which will feature interviews with both Georgia Lee and Jet Li. The two films have some surprising commonalities--you read it here first...

And keep an eye peeled for the premiere of HEROES on September 25; sharp-eyed watchers of Asian Americans on primetime will also note that Ming-Na is one of the two leads in the 24-esque kidnap drama VANISHED on Fox. Suzy Nakamura, soon to be seen in Grace Lee's AMERICAN ZOMBIE, is a regular on the Ted Danson vehicle HELP ME HELP YOU. It ain't all about SURVIVOR, after all.

INSTANT YANG v.30: TONY THE TIGER; "DOORS" OPENING; MEET MIA, MAYBE; DEE DUEL DEETS; KIMS JUST SAY NO; "SIDES" SPLITTING FOR L.A.

Hey all,

Happy Labor Day weekend! This installment is surely going to provoke a torrent of "Out of the Office" responses, so I'll try to keep this short. This week's SFGate column is about martial arts cinema, why it's in its direst straits in a decade, and how a humble and unexpected hero will save it, using his own unique and unprecedented techniques. Sounds like the plot of a kung fu film, huh? Indeed.

ASIAN POP - A Hero Gets The Call
08/31/2006
With the heavyweights beginning to fade, it's time for a new contender to step into the ring. Jeff Yang explains why THE PROTECTOR's Tony Jaa is preserving martial arts cinema for a new generation.

The question some might ask is, why's martial arts cinema worth saving at all? Genres come and go; the Western, for instance, has essentially passed on from relevance, despite latter-day attempts at revival, from THE UNFORGIVEN to DEADWOOD. My argument is that there's something quintessentially important about martial arts films as metaphor. Firstly, martial arts cinema brings the art of war back down to the level of man-on-man and hand-to-hand, in all of its grim reality; sure, the fighting is fleshed out with acrobatics and cast as entertainment, but it's still one on one, flesh to flesh, and in a world of pushbutton genocide, it's good to be reminded that there are real consequences to combat.

More importantly, however, martial arts films show incredibly talented athletes pushing the limits of the human form--demonstrating the awesome abilities that we're capable of, with enough training, discipline, and will. They highlight the superhuman within the human--hopefully, inspiring us to be better. Or even, to be the best.

Those of you who saw Tony Jaa's starring debut in ONG BAK know he's a true prodigy, a physical specimen of frightening speed, power, and agility whose finest moments evoke and even challenge the greatest highlights of the icons he calls his spiritual masters: Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li. His sophomore film, THE PROTECTOR, is being released by The Weinstein Co. on September 8; while it won't win awards for acting, dialogue, or narrative coherence, it's wallpapered with sensational action sequences--some of which defy description. Check it out.

In a very different genre, September 8 is also the New York premiere of RED DOORS, Georgia Lee's acclaimed freshman outing. It's a family comedy/drama that evokes a little EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN and a little SAVING FACE, but manages to carve out a unique space all of its own, drawing accolades like "charming" from Entertainment Weekly and "heartwarming...unique, and universal" from the New York Times.

Plus, if you act fast, you still have the chance to win a date with RED DOORS producer/actress (and noted hottie) Mia Riverton to the movie's premiere--today until 11:59 pm, purchase tickets online at the RED DOORS website: www.reddoorsthemovie.com or at the Angelika Film Center or ImaginAsian Theater New York; email your ticket purchase confirmation code to: michaelb@reddoorsthemovie.com with "Date Mia" in the subject line; pick out an outfit and cross your fingers. Given the storyline of the film (and Mia's part in it), one must assume that both boys and girls can play--so if you're feeling up to it, check out Ms. Riverton's pics at www.MiaRiverton.com and get your RED on...

Speaking of doors opening, boxer Dee Hamaguchi (from my column Warrior Women) sent me more info about her September 21 title bout: She'll be challenging minimumweight champion Hollie Dunaway for the WIBA title, at the Ameristar Casino in St. Charles, MO. If you happen to be in St. Louis, pop on over and see her go up against a 15-4 boxer who's successfully defended her title twice already. Scary stuff--but underdog or not, we have faith that the Dee Train will punch Dunaway a one-way ticket to the mat...

Also, Angelenos: Comedian Steve Byrne and his Seoul brothers, the Kims of Comedy will be headlining a benefit for the Asian American Drug Abuse Program on Saturday, September 9th in Little Tokyo, LA. (visit AADAPINC.org for ticket information.) Says Byrne: "The show is special, not only for the fact that its for a wonderful cause, but because its the first time The Kims of Comedy will be performing in Los Angeles together! You can see Bobby Lee of Mad TV, Dr. Ken of NBC's The Office and HBO's Entourage and Kevin Shea from Jimmy Kimmel and The Late Late Show and yours truly all in one night!" Byrne's Comedy Central Presents showcase is also airing the following Wednesday, September 13, at 5 pm EST. That's two chances to feel the Byrne...

And you haven't laughed your ass off by then, you can chuckle away any buttock you have remaining by snagging tix to the hilarious stage satire SIDES: THE FEAR IS REAL--fresh from its acclaimed, sold-out run in the Apple, and launching its Los Angeles invasion from a beachhead at East West Players' David Henry Hwang Theater, September 20 thru October 1, with previews September 15 and 16 (East West Players at 213-625-7000 or visit www.eastwestplayers.org). Sekiya Billman, Cindy Cheung, Paul H. Juh, Peter Kim, Hoon Lee, and Rodney To unite their individual parodic powers to create a giant fighting robot of unlimited comic destruction--don't miss it! By all that's holy and sacred, don't miss it!

Okay, time to sign off and extract whatever pathetic shreds of R&R I can from this lazy Monday.

INSTANT YANG v.29: FOODOLOGY; DEE'S NEXT DUEL; DESI COLA; FIGHTOLOGY

Short one this time out, because I’m trying to get over a horrendous summer cold—the kind that makes your head feel like it’s filled with egg custard, and causes similar-looking fluids to emit from your nose and mouth—yuck. And now that I’ve whetted your appetites with that image, this week’s SFGate column is all about food—or more precisely, cooking.

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ASIAN POP
The Formula For Yum
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Jeff Yang explores the question: Does the road to deliciousness go through the head or the heart?

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The piece is, more or less, an exploration of whether cooking is art or science--or more precisely, a look at how new technologies and scientific methods are invading a discipline that people have historically associated with passion, tradition, and sentiment. One of the most interesting interviews I conducted for the column was with Bryan Zupon, a bright and talented young chef who has embraced the techniques and sensibilities of the "hypermodern" school of cooking. Also known as "molecular gastronomy," hypermodern cuisine uses industrial chemistry and laboratory technology to achieve startling, and sometimes bizarre effects: A typical dessert that Zupon might prepare is the Earl Grey Tea Orb, a confection consisting of a sphere of liquid tea encased in a ball of solid tea jelly, thanks to the magic of modern hydrocolloid gelling agents.

What's unique about Zupon isn't just his age--he's 20 years old and a junior in college--but his entrepreneurial drive: This semester, he's announced that he'll be setting up an eatery in his dorm room on campus, which will serve hypermodern meals for parties of four and up, in exchange for a cash donation. (He's quick to note that he's NOT opening a restaurant or catering facility, which might well be against school regulations, not to mention state tax, housing, and health authority codes.) Zupon's venue is called Z Kitchen (ZKitchen.net); I'm hoping that I'll have the chance to drop by the next time my wife is visiting her alma mater in the lovely state of North Carolina.

Other quick hits:

Dee Hamaguchi, whom I wrote about in "Warrior Women", shot me a line to say that she's secured another shot at a world title--the WIBA 102 lbs. crown, against Hollie Dunaway in St. Louis, on Sept. 21 at the Ameristar Casino. Dee, who's currently training at New York's famed Gleason's Gym, is inviting the local Asian American community--and anyone else who might be in the St. Louis, MO area--to come watch the fight. "She's a known steroid user, so this should be interesting," she says. Yikes!

More powerful women in the news: Props up to Indra Nooyi, whose ascension to the position of CEO of PepsiCo makes her the first Indian American to head a U.S. company of this scale ($33 billion in annual revenues), and the second most prominent female executive in the Fortune 500, after Patricia Woertz, CEO of agrogiant Archer Daniels Midland. Nooyi was a leader in the company's non-soda growth--one of the brightest spots at the company, whose strategy of diversifying away from cola products has led it to consistent growth over the past five years, and for the first time last December, led to it beating longtime competitor Coke in market cap for the first time in their 108-year rivalry.

Ironically, her appointment comes at a time when cola products are getting slammed in India itself, as a New Delhi-based environmental group and South Indian politicians have barraged Coke and Pepsi with allegations of high levels of pesticides in their products, barring their Indian subsidiaries from making or selling their beverages. Nooyi's appointment has at the least changed the perceptual climate towards Pepsico in one of its biggest opportunity markets, while also impressing analysts on the Street. "Indra Nooyi is truly a star and has been working side by side with Mr. Reinemund over the past several years," Citigroup analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote. "She has been very involved with every major decision PepsiCo has made over the past five-plus years and therefore we expect this transition to be very smooth." Bank of America analyst Brian Spillane added: "One question investors have consistently had the last few years was whether there would be enough to keep Ms. Nooyi interested at Pepsi....This promotion would seem to suggest that there is."

A glass of Pepsi Twist to you, Indra Nooyi--and good luck on the front lines of the global cola wars.

That's it for this installment. Drink lots of fluids, and try to avoid getting infected with late-summar custarditis...

Jeff

P.S.: Got cable? Don't miss FIGHT SCIENCE on National Geographic Channel, premiering tonight--a documentary on the scientific facts behind the incredible feats of martial arts. "They can crush a stack of concrete slabs with a bare fist, walk with catlike balance on a bamboo pole, and generate deadly kicks and punches at lightning-fast speeds." SWEET! More on it next column...which also catches up with the modern-day heir to the martial arts cinema crown, TONY JAA!

INSTANT YANG v.28: AIR GUITAR GURUS; KID ROCK AND ELDER ROCK; ADRIENNE LAU POPS UP; IN MEMORY OF MAKO

Apologies for this week's installment being late to the gate again; it's been an uncommonly hectic week, full of last-minute travel, triple-stacked deadlines, and general household disasters, although these days, that's pretty much par for the course. I actually did all the research for my "Asian Pop" column a week early, then ended up getting so choked that I got my column in late anyway. Schedule challenges aside, the column was a huge kick to write--especially given the, uh, colorful nature of the individuals I had the pleasure of interviewing for it:

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ASIAN POP: UNSTRUNG HEROES
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, August 3, 2006

Jeff Yang talks to the reigning rulers of mock-rock to find out why Asian Americans dominate the rising sport of championship air guitar

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That's right, *air guitar*--a sport that joins women's golf and competitive eating as one of the few competitive physical activities in which Asians totally own--to the point where air-guitar impresario, and regular second-place finisher Dan "Bjorn Turoque" Crane has been overheard saying "*Never* go up against an Asian in an air guitar competition." We're hardcore! Or at least, we're able to present an incredible facsimile thereof! (On that note, maybe I can convince my editor that I didn't blow my deadline--I "air filed." Doon doon doon.)

The topic of Asians and rocking out--in re: whether we can, and why most people think we can't--is a controversial one, at least if you go by the reader mail I've gotten on this column so far. A number of Asians who play real guitars in actual bands emailed me to underscore the fact that our community is capable of rocking out for real; rest assured that I agree wholeheartedly with that thought, and am not suggesting that Asian American air guitar prowess constitutes the limit of our rocktitude. Far from it, in fact: I think it shows we're so rocktabulous we don't even need instruments to rock out with. And for that, C-Diddy, Sonyk-ROK, Rockness Monster--I salute you.

But there's a whole wide world of Asian American emerging rock talent out there--and though most of it remains relentlessly outside the commercial mainstream, it's only a matter of time before the stereotype of Asians as rock-deficient is beaten unconscious and shoved off a cliff. To that end, I'd like to point to two sterling examples of Asian American rocknicity.

The first is a young guitar prodigy named Kenny Luu, student of Paul Green's School of Rock (yeah, the one that "apparently" inspired the Jack Black movie). 17-year-old Luu is currently on tour with the School of Rock All-Stars (through August 13, check here for cities and dates), and he shreds with the speed and power of a John Deere harvester, wringing sounds out of his axe that cause grown men to weep, and young women to moan. The only online example of his skillz I could find was this YouTube clip, shot at the annual Zappanale Fest; he cuts a solo at about 3 minutes, 58 seconds in that showcases impressive handiwork.

I also got an email from Sheldon Wong, who's of another generation entirely; I don't want to guess his age, but he says he thinks he was something of a pioneer in the San Francisco rock jungle, back in the Sixties and early Seventies. Now relocated to Portland, OR he continues to drop the hammer as the lead guitarist and vocalist for the hard-working and justifiably acclaimed honky-tonk band Bad Motor Scooter; check out their website here.

So we have plenty of empirical evidence that Asian Americans can thrash; the other question is when we'll see a real Asian American rock or pop star. (If we haven't already: quite arguably, Norah Jones, Michelle Branch, Mike Shinoda, Kirk Hammett, Hoku Ho, Allen "Apl.de.Ap" Pineda Lindo, Inga "Foxy Brown" Marchand, Doug Robb, Debelah Morgan, Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Kelis Rogers, Sean Lennon, and, um, Eddie and Alex Van Halen all make the grade as Americans of Asian heritage, though they don't identify themselves primarily as Asian American.)

Comes now a rather nuttily worded press release touting a young woman named Adrienne Lau, who has quite shockingly scored a Top 20 tune on the Billboard singles chart with the song "Wanna Be Happy." charting at #16 is incredibly impressive, especially for a song that I must honestly admit causes fountains of blood to gush from my eardrums. The apparent engine of Hong Kong-born Lau's popularity: Over one million MySpace friends, including such notables as Yao Ming and Beyonce Knowles. (Her page also shows pictures of her hanging out with, or at least standing next to, Kanye, Nelly, John Legend, and Quentin Tarantino.)

Adrienne's first single, "Hypnotic Love," was a duet with Jin, formerly known as The Emcee, formerly known as Jin Tha MC. You know the one. The video also has Mike Tyson in it, for some inexplicable reason. I find this Asian American team-up quite fascinating, if only because I'm not sure it's happened before. Plus he gets to put the mack on her a little. It's a strange but transfixing experience to see the now-standard rap/R&B video narrative (pimp daddy + bootylicious hotness) cast out with Asian playas. And Mike Tyson.

Anyway, more power to her. It's not my style of music, but I don't hang out on MySpace either, except for journalistic purposes, particularly if my wife is reading this. One can only hope that Miss Lau's success inches the door a little further open for other Asian American musicians to follow.

And speaking of someone who was the quintessential example of someone who pushed open the door for his fellow Asian American artists, I want to belatedly memorialize the passing of one of the true greats of our community--a brilliant performer, a leader, and a role model. Mako, born Makoto Iwamatsu, died on July 21 of esophageal cancer, at the age of 72. He was the cofounder and first artistic director of East West Players, the nation's oldest professional Asian American theater company, and had a career as an actor of stage, screen, and television spanning four decades. His accolades include nominations for the Tony Awards (Pacific Overtures) and the Oscars (The Sand Pebbles); he leaves behind a wife and two daughters, as well as a legacy of pride, courage, and honor that anyone might envy. He will be missed.

Which leads me to sign off with this thought: Support Asian American arts. And Asian American artists. They're laying the foundation upon which our future generations will build their identity, their self esteem, their sense of passion and purpose. It's not just about entertainment--it's about culture, the force that makes us who we are, and what we appear to be to others. Buy a CD, see a show, subscribe to a magazine, purchase a book. Donate. Art doesn't make itself.

INSTANT YANG v. 27: APOCALYPSE NOW; VIRGIN COMICS; POND-STRADDLING; UP AND ATOM, RYAN CHOI; (MIKE) KANG'S KASTING KALL; THE DRAGON RETURNS

Well, it’s been a fun two weeks since the last edition of this humble mailblog.

In my little corner of the universe (the slightly ghetto North side of Park Slope, Brooklyn), Al Gore’s intimations of imminent climate catastrophe have never seemed more true. First we had a series of three days of torrential downpour—water falling in sheets from the sky, really biblical-feeling weather (and not in that forgive thine enemies sort of way, either). Then an unabated heatwave that lasted another three days—triple digits each day, the kind of sticky, brain-fusing temperature that even air conditioning can only dull. Not that people didn’t try to refrigerate their way to relief…walking around my little cul de sac, you could hear the collective humming of dozens of maxed-out ACs, a sound like a swarm of angry bees.

Which is why it wasn’t entirely a surprise when Con Ed’s overtaxed transformers strained and then blew. First there were rolling brownouts, with appliances flickering madly, clocks resetting themselves every five minutes, lights dimming themselves to a nasty orange glow. By nighttime, a smell like a runaway tire fire was belching forth from the bowels of the subway system, and an armada of fire trucks, repair vans, and bulldozers had descended on our nabe, which was mired in pitch blackness. There were literally six blocks of outage, centered around my house: A patch of power failure too big to easily escape, but not big enough to allow easy looting. (Damn you, Circuit City, and your oh so tempting flat-panel displays!)

Despite the apocalyptic conditions, I still managed to squeeze out an SFGate column this week--one that helps rectify a glaring omission in my previous piece on Asian heroes in comics, namely, coverage of South Asian supers:

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ASIAN POP: KARMIC BOOKS

Watch out, DC and Marvel: A new line of comics, backed by the world’s wealthiest maverick, is bringing the heroes of India’s vivid heritage of myth and mysticism into the 21st century.

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The new comics publisher I write about, Virgin Comics, is the brainchild of Gotham Chopra and Sharad Devarajan, who serve as the enterprise's chief creative officer and CEO respectively. Gotham's eclectic resume includes work as a war correspondent for Channel One, authoring the books CHILD OF THE DAWN and FAMILIAR STRANGERS, co-creating the indie comic title BULLETPROOF MONK, and serving as creative consultant for Current TV, Al Gore's cable startup. (Look, Al: Between reinventing television, running a global investment firm, advising Google, and saving the world from carbon-emissions disaster, you've clearly shown you're still willing to take on ambitious projects; stop being so damn coy and just throw your hat back into the presidential ring. Odds are you'll get elected. Again.)

Chopra also happens to be the son of bestselling lifestyle guru and inspirational speaker Deepak Chopra, which explains, as Gotham himself is quick to say, why his father is one of a trinity of "chief visionaries" associated with the company. (The other two are celebrated filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and the bankroller of the company, Sir Richard Branson, which you probably guessed already, given the venture's name.)

Gotham's partner in Virgin, Sharad Devarajan, is also incredibly interesting: He's a New York-born, Syracuse U. educated desi who started his professional career as an intern for DC Comics. The experience led him to a brainstorm: There are a billion people in India; a huge percentage of them are under the age of 20. Why not bring the iconic heroes of U.S. comics to the subcontinent? Founding Gotham Entertainment (total coincidence, apparently), he cut his first deal with Marvel, and soon released the "transcreated" Spider-Man: India--featuring a dhoti-wearing, mystically powered webslinger named Pavitr Prabhakar. Tie-ups with DC, Mad Magazine, and Warner Bros. soon followed--leading to 13 titles in all, drawing over 1.5 million readers per month throughout South Asia.

"Spider-Man being introduced to India is mostly about trying to take advantage of a business opportunity," says Abhi Tripathi of SepiaMutiny.com (one of the most lucid, interesting, and wittiest groupblogs out there; desi or not, you should check it out). "If you can get even a small percentage of a population of a billion people hooked on your comic, then it's worth it."

Abhi's got a point...and it's the same one people have been making around China for a decade. The market opportunity in India and China is so huge and open for so many products we take for granted here that those who enter first and lock up brand awareness fast are virtually guaranteed a certain level of success.

While established brands are all trying to figure out how to mate with the Elephant and the Dragon, Virgin Comics is an interesting example of a "pond-straddler" startup--one of the first of what I suspect will be many in the near future. Its entire business plan rests on the idea of riding growth on two sides of the Pacific: Surging consumer power in Asia, and soaring interest in Asian stuff here in the West. The two trends are related, of course--but few companies, particularly new ones, has yet leveraged them successfully.

Pratik M. of the blog Nerve Endings Firing Away (iPatrix.com) and confounder of the other big desi groupblog, DesiPundit.com, makes the point that the world is moving towards cultural convergence: "The world is fast becoming a melting pot of material that qualifies as entertainment," he says. "The 'Long Tail,' as Wired Editor Chris Anderson mentions, makes even niches marketable now, so homogeneity is out, and we can look forward to more 'remixed' choices than ever before."

Businesses would do well to consider the implications.

Anyway, Virgin's first books are out now--DEVI and SNAKE WOMAN, and RAMAYAN REVISITED and THE SADHU are arriving soon. The last is penned by Gotham himself, and from what I've seen of its previews, shares honors with the still-mysterious SEVEN BROTHERS (from Garth Ennis and John Woo!) as the title I'm most hotly anticipating.

But let's not leave the big two out of the picture entirely yet. I received the first issue of the all-new ATOM from DC Comics, and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. Early solicitations described Ryan Choi, the new Mighty Mite, as a "young hotshot professor who's filling the extra spot on Ivy University's teaching staff... and who inadvertently ends up filling the old Atom's super-heroic shoes." Sounded a bit cheesy, to tell the truth (whoa, he's hunky AND smart), but writer Gail Simone pulls it off--Choi comes off as witty, earnest, a bit nerdy, yet as capable of thinking with his fists as his head...think an Asian Peter Parker. Peter Park, maybe. (Well, okay, he's Chinese, so maybe not.)

I think it has promise, especially since DC editor Dan DiDio says he's going to be around for the long haul. I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

Elsewhere in pop, Mike Kang shared the fact that even as THE MOTEL hits L.A. (premiere's next Friday, kids), he's gearing up to start shooting his next feature in August--a "Korean American gangster flick" set in Flushing, NY, to be produced by Teddy Zee (who also backed Alice Wu's SAVING FACE). John Cho's attached, as is Han Yeo Rum from the Korean chiller SAMARITAN GIRL). He's looking for more cast (older Korean actors/actresses and teens) and crew--particularly, a DGA/DGA eligible 1st assistant director based in New York. If you're interested or no anybody who might be, ping his line producer, Sabine Schenk, at rschenk@aol.com.

Meanwhile, Angry Asian Man (angryasianman.com, though if you aren't bookmarking him already, you oughta be) has some intriguing news about how Bruce Lee's family--specifically, his brothers Robert and Peter and his sisters Phoebe and Agnes--have authorized and are co-producing a movie about him, hoping to dispel the bad craziness that came out of the woodwork after his passing on July 20, 1973. The film is targeted for 2008, his 35th memorial anniversary. One hopes the results will do justice to the man, his life, and his message, though the involvement of family doesn't necessarily guarantee that; even the best of the previous attempts, Rob Cohen's DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY, based on a book by Bruce's wife Linda Lee Cadwell, leaned on conspiracy theories, superstitious curses, and the like in "explaining" Lee's death.

For now, the upcoming Bruce Lee tribute film I'm putting my money on is Justin Lin's FINISHING THE GAME, in production now. Casting notices pulled the tarp off the storyline a few weeks ago: It's a comedy about the posthumous attempts to complete Lee's final film, GAME OF DEATH, which Bruce shot just 12 minutes of before his untimely passing. A director assigned the project is tasked with casting a "Bruce Lee clone" from an eccentric pool of auditioners--which, we assume, will include all of our favorites from BETTER LUCK TOMORROW. It's a setup that offers fantastic potential for dark hilarity with a scalpel-sharp message behind it, and I think Justin can pull it off. Can't hardly wait.

And that's it for this week. Stay out of the blistering heat. Or torrential rain. Depending on which day it is, of course.

INSTANT YANG v.26: ALOHA HAWAII, AND MAHALO, AAJA; VEGANOMICS; CALLING ALL RICE DADS AND MOMS; INDIE STUNTPEOPLE; MO' HENRY CHO; PUFFY AMIYUMI; CONNIE CHAN PO CHU

Aloha, yo. For those of you who had the chance to take four-day vacays, welcome back. I myself am still wringing out my brain from a fab, week-long trip to the Asian American mothership, Hawaii, which hostCed this year's Asian American Journalists Association National Convention.

There's nothing quite like the AAJACon--it's probably your best chance to see your favorite news personalities and ink-stained wretches out of corporate drag, having fun, and generally behaving like goofballs. And of course, putting a whole bunch of print journalists and broadcast journalists in the same place at the same time is an interesting way of observing the effects of culture shock firsthand, S.E. Hinton style ("It doesn't *matter*! Greasers will still be greasers and socs will still be socs!").

Though parenting and job constraints prevented me from hitting the past two conventions, this one was a must--not only because of its locale (Hawaii doesn't suck) but also because on a whim, I'd submitted my SFGate column for the AAJA National Journalism Awards, and accidentally won in the category of Best Online Article (Unlimited Subject Matter), for my August 25, 2005 column "Robot Nation: Why Japan, and not America, is likely to be the world's first cyborg society." Which basically means, "Hey! I beat the other guy that entered!", but it's still an honor to be recognized by your peers, etc., etc.

Anyway, four days of madcap Networking and Professional Development in Honolulu, it was time to ditch Oahu and head for the Garden Island, Kauai. It was there that I stumbled onto the subject of this week's SFGate column:

ASIAN POP: Viva Las Vegans
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Friday, July 6, 2006

On holiday in Hawaii, confirmed carnivore Jeff Yang visits Kauai's world-famous Blossoming Lotus vegan restaurant and meditates on diet, culture and the joys of vegan cuisine. Who knew there were joys?

Eating really delicious vegan food was something of a revelation to me. I know there are other popular veggie places--heck, I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where you can't throw a soy cracker without hitting an organic smoothie bar, macrobiotic grocery, or Yoga/Pilates salon.

But my experiences with vegan cookery in the past have generally been fair at best; I can't get my taste buds to suspend disbelief in the unusual consistency and dubious flavor of fake steak, shamburgers and faux fowl, and I'm just too committed to nasty junky ways of preparing food to get behind the whole raw cuisine thing. (In fact, I’ve spent much of my life on a secret quest for the evil-food Holy Grail: an entrée that’s both French-fried and hickory-smoked. With gravy. Something like chicken-fried ribs might fit the bill--ah, if only a forward-thinking Southern chef would take up the challenge...)

Blossoming Lotus? I'd eat there again in a second. Not to "convert," not even for health or ethical or moral reasons--just because it's a welcome new culinary experience. And for what it's worth, no more than four percent of Americans are vegetarian, and as few as 0.2 percent are vegan; if the 200-odd million of us who are omnivores could be convinced to eat vegan just one day out of the week, that would be functionally equivalent to getting 14 percent of the population--28 million--to go vegan full-time, an increase of some 7000 percent.

Americans eat an average of 68 pounds of meat per capita each year. If my math is correct (and hey, it's been a long time since the SATs), this translates to a savings of 1.9 billion pounds of beef a year, or--given the average "yield" of 500 pounds of beef per cow--about 3.8 million cows. That's a hell of a lot of cows. And that's just cows. Americans eat 87 pounds of chicken per capita, 51 pounds of pork...the list goes on and on.

Something to think about.

Anyway, it's time to move on from meat to rice...Rice Daddies, that is, which, as you know, is the daddyblog I contribute to, along with a bunch of shockingly funny, talented, and wise dads. Head Daddy Herder Jason "Daddy in a Strange Land" Sperber has kicked a little bloggerbutt and gotten the posting flow steady and strong; if you haven't been reading, it's time to dig back in. My most recent contribution is a bit on the recent discovery by Eminent Scientists that fatherhood chemically changes your brain:

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON FATHERHOOD.
Published Friday, June 30, 2006 by InstantYang.

So apparently, a team of behavioral scientists at Randolph-Macon College have done some research involving multiple sets of male deer mice that seems to indicate that exposure to children creates fundamental chemical changes to your brain. For one thing, this seems to provide the first scientific support of the age-old t-shirt slogan "INSANITY IS HEREDITARY--YOU GET IT FROM YOUR KIDS." (Is there anything t-shirts can't teach us?)

Jason's also let loose a viral quizzo, the "APA Parenting Meme," which the Rice Dads and their mommy counterparts have been responding to in turn--I'll be taking an at bat soon enough. But if any of you want to share as well, here's the meme in full. Kick it to me with your name, email, and nom de blog (or post it to your own blog and send me a link) and I'll gladly crosspost it to Rice Daddies:

THE APA PARENTING MEME
Published by daddy in a strange land.

Mombloggers and dadbloggers who happen to be Asian Pacific American (APA) have been sharing their unique experiences at the intersection of race, culture, family and parenting with the blogosphere for a while now. We [we being Eliaday of the Kimchi Mamas and daddy in a strange land of the Rice Daddies] thought an APA Parenting Meme would be a fun way to open up dialogue and get ideas flowing (for those of us afflicted with writer's block or blog fatigue). We're not experts, and in no way are we trying to be definitive or essentialist—-we just hope that these questions will get us started talking about experiences we have in common as APA parents, things we don't talk about and share enough. We're posting our answers to this meme on both our solo and group blogs and tagging 3 of our blogging brothas and sistas to represent and then tag some more. The questions are short, but, like everything, are open to interpretation—-as is this meme, so hapas, transracial adoptees, non-Asians who married in, immigrants to 6th-generation, parents of teens or folks still planning their first, you're all game.

1. I am:

2. My kids are:

3. I first realized I was APA when:

4. People think my name is:

5. The family tradition I most want to pass on is:

6. The family tradition I least want to pass on is:

7. My child's first word in English was:

8. My child's first non-English word was:

9. The non-English word/phrase most used in my home is:

10. One thing I love about being an APA parent is:

11. One thing I hate about being an APA parent is:

12. The best thing about being part of an APA family is:

13. The worst thing about being part of an APA family is:

14. To me, being Asian Pacific American means:

And heck, if any of you APA daddy types out there is interested in joining the Rice Daddy crack commando blogsquad, shoot me a message with some info about yourself and (if you have one) your current blog--I'll pass it on to Jason, as the roster has started to grow.

Some quick announcements:

Ed Kahana shot me a release about the premiere of the indie, feature-length martial arts action comedy CONTOUR (countourmovie.com), presented by a collective of self-made martial-arts stunt studs (and one studette) known as the Stunt People (thestuntpeople.com). The movie looks a little homemade, but some of the choreography and definitely the overall vibe of what they do channels old school Jackie Chan and the Yuen Brothers shiznit. All I've seen is the trailer, but color me impressed so far. Watch this space for more. The July 13 premiere at San Francisco's Four Star Theatre is sold out; there are two more screenings, on July 27 and August 11, so if you're in the Bay Area, check 'em out.

More comic antics: Comedian HENRY CHO--the funniest Dixie-fried Korean American standup I've had the pleasure to watch--has a one-hour special debuting on Comedy Central on July 14; his first-ever DVD/CD, WHAT'S THAT CLICKIN' NOISE? drops four days later, on July 18. Check out his website for more deets.

And for those of you who are fans of PUFFY--the J-pop girl duo flava, that is--Ami and Yumi are currently on their 2006 Splurge Splurge Splurge Tour of the U.S. I've seen 'em in concert, and they're legit bubblegum fun. These days, given their 'toon success with THE PUFFY AMIYUMI SHOW, you may have to wade through a sea of tweens to get in the door...

Puffy AmiYumi 'Splurge Splurge Splurge' 2006 US Tour
July 8 Theater of the Living Arts, Philadelphia PA
July 9 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
July 11 River to River Festival @ The World Financial Center, New York, NY
July 12 Avalon Ballroom, Boston, MA
July 14 Bogart's, Cincinnati, OH
July 15 Vic Theatre, Chicago, IL
July 18 St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit, MI
July 19 House of Blues Cleveland, Cleveland, OH

Meanwhile, after reading my column "WARRIOR WOMEN," David Wells of the National Film Preservation Foundation wrote in to share his impressive fansite dedicated to classic Hong Kong superstar CONNIE CHAN PO CHU. Chan, one of the "Seven Cantonese Princesses" whose cinematic exploits enchanted folks throughout Asia during the Sixties, acted in her share of woman-warrior epics--but was notable for frequently playing a *boy*, in romantic roles opposite femme fellow Princess Josephine Siao Fong Fong. Unfortunately, Chan is mostly unknown here in the U.S., where the mad, mod flicks of Hong Kong's teenybopper canon never saw release (and where Chan's other, Cantonese Opera-inspired works would draw little more than puzzled stares). If you're sufficiently bilingual, however, you can find many of these films for bargain prices at your local Chinatown...

And that's it for this post-Independence Day edition of Instant Yang!

INSTANT YANG v.25: RICE, RICE DADDIES; STRONG ASIAN WOMEN; KING KANG; HEY MTV K

So another Father's Day has come and gone, and I just wanted to send out belated props to all of my fellow dads, especially the members of the group daddyblog I contribute to, Rice Daddies. If you haven't checked it out, please do; in addition to being one of the sharpest and funkiest parenting communities on the net (if I do say so on behalf of the RD boyz), it's also a second home/support group to some of the Asian American community's most interesting and talented authors and cultural critics, writing under blogonyms of the paternal persuasion. Plus me.

But none of us Rice Daddies would be daddies at all without the moms and grandmas and wives of our lives. This week's SFGate column is a contemplation of strong Asian women, and how they've exploded tired old stereotypes of geisha-like meekness and passivity:

ASIAN POP: Warrior Women
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Friday, June 23, 2006

Passive? Submissive? Ha! Jeff Yang talks to two hard-hitting Asian American femmes: pro boxer Dee Hamaguchi and actor (and black belt) Brenda Song, star of the new Disney Channel original movie, "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior."

I count myself fortunate to have grown up surrounded by women whose force of will can bend spoons and send ripples through the fabric of reality--women who are smart, independent, confident, competent, capable. Women who can do just about anything I can do but pee standing up.

The only liability, if there is one, is the occasional feeling I get when I'm around my wife, my sister, my mom, and my mother-in-law that I'm more of a luxury than a necessity. It's not a conscious thing on their part (at least I don't think it is), but, you know, I've had to travel a lot recently, and every time I return home, things seem to have run like Swiss-crafted clockwork in my absence. I'm always tempted to find specious ways to appear useful: "The TiVo is almost at max capacity--it's a good thing I'm here to erase redundant reruns, or we might miss a vital episode of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. Stand back, people--*I'll* take care of this!"

The one member of our family who provides constant validation of my continued existence is our son Hudson, who remains curiously (and, I'll admit, gratifyingly) fixated on daddy as the center of the universe. At day care, he "wrote" a poem as a special gift for Mommy. The title? "My Daddy Beautiful." Heather's response--after hugging and kissing him thanks: "How, exactly, is this a Mother's Day present?"

Couldn't hide a smirk at that. Make room for Daddy!

Anyway, I'll keep it short this week. Just a couple of quick reminders: The first is that tomorrow, June 24, at the L.A. Film Fest, Sung Kang stars alongside Kelly Hu and Russell Wong in Chris Chan lee's UNDOING. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm a big fan of Lee's debut feature YELLOW, and y'all know about my giant man-crush on Sung Kang. (Just kidding. Well, sorta.)

For those of you in the New York area, June 28 is, of course, the debut of THE MOTEL--directed by Michael Kang and starring Sung Kang, it offers double the Kangtastic action. Check it out at the Film Forum--and if you're not in NYC, keep an eye on the film's official site for when and where you can get your dose of Kangeriffic goodness.

One last reminder: MTVK, the third channel in MTV World's trifecta of channels targeting young Asian Americans, debuts June 27 on DirecTV as part of the Korean Direct package. They're holding an online contest to pick the very first video to be broadcast on the new network. It'd be great if we could give a Korean American indie artist props here...and while there are a number of good choices (Far East Movement, Heather Park, Mike Park), I'm throwing down for the beautiful and talented Maggie Kim and her video for "Obvious (Want You)." Vote early and vote often, but cast your vote, peeps.

INSTANT YANG v.24: BURNING RUBBER; THE MASHED AND THE FURIOUS; PLACES TO GO

Keepin' it kinda tight, because this installment of INSTANT YANG comes hot on the heels of last week's installment of INSTANT YANG--and for those of you who feel like that's a bit too much of a good thing, I apologize. Hell, I prefer two weeks' worth of recharge between these things myself--but summer schedules don't always accomodate. Sorry.

So, I spent the past weekend in way-too-sunny L.A., courtesy of Universal Pictures. The occasion? The unveiling of the most recent of their boyz-wit-carz series THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. I'll have to admit that I'm not much of a racing flick fan--probably due to survivor trauma from having to review DAYS OF THUNDER while still a young and budding cultural critic.

(For those of you who still retain your cinematic innocence, THUNDER featured Nicole Kidman as a "beautiful but brilliant" brain surgeon and Tom Cruise as smirky, hot-headed NASCAR driver named--wait for it--Cole Trickle. Oddly enough, the movie came out one year before the rookie debut of *real-world* NASCAR driver *Dick* Trickle, which has led my thetan-riddled brain to associate Cruise with the phrase "Dick Trickle" ever since.)

(Whoops, my bad--I was actually associating Tom Cruise with the phrase "Dick Trickle" long before DAYS OF THUNDER even came out. And now that I've used the terms "Tom Cruise" and "came out" in the same sentence--twice--I fully expect to be hearing from lawyers sometime between now and the next edition of this blog. Watch this space.)

Anyway, FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT is no DAYS OF THUNDER. For one thing, it doesn't suck ass. It's not Shakespeare, but then again, when was the last time Shakespeare really opened a movie? What it is is two hours of sleek, joyriding fun, with cars pulling tricks like motorized Michelle Kwans, and lots of shots of Japanese girls with 3:1 leg-to-torso ratios and miniskirts the approximate size of one of those Lance Armstrong "LIVE STRONG" bracelets. I have no complaints.

More about FATF: TD in this week's column:

ASIAN POP: SWITCHING GEARS
Thursday, June 8, 2006

Justin Lin broke onto Hollywood's radar with the blackly comic model-minority-gone-bad flick "Better Luck Tomorrow." On June 16, his latest film, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," hits thousands of theaters across America. Lin talks with Jeff Yang about the art of the controlled slide, the reason why gongs are lame and his long, strange road from indie stardom to summer popcorn cinema

With Justin at the helm, you knew TOKYO DRIFT was going to have some fun subversive stuff going on, and you won't be disappointed. I laughed out loud when Sung Kang's character Han disses the film's protagonist Sean (Lucas Black) for hitting on an Aussie/Peruvian hottie (model Nathalie Keeley) who just happens to be the squeeze of their nemesis, Takashi the Drift King (Brian Tee): "Dude...why don't you just find yourself a nice Japanese girl, like all the other white guys do when they come over here?"

It's also replete with nifty Asian-pop easter eggs. The trailer's iconic "start the damn race already" sequence features two extremely foine Asian girls, whom I'll call "Ready" and "Setto," followed by a cool-looking Asian dude pointing at the camera and shouting "GO!"

"Ready" is none other than Kaila Yu, whom some of you may know from her fledgling music career, but more of you may know from her somewhat more established nekkid pinup model career. "Setto" is Aiko Tanaka, SOUL TRAIN dancer turned import scene queen, who's also been known to get nekkid given the right motivation, such the presence of a loaded camera. (Note: Neither is in fact nekkid in this movie, a fact that shows great restraint on the part of both Yu and Tanaka, not to mention Lin.)

As for the cool-looking Asian dude? He's played by Satoshi Tsumabuki, a red-hot Japanese actor whose star has risen steadily since his debut in the hilarious male-synchronized-swimming romp THE WATERBOYS. And, lest I forget, TOKYO DRIFT also features Sonny "THE STREET FIGHTER" Chiba as a badass shadowy yakuza overlord. It's a somewhat cliché role, but if you simply must have a badass shadowy yakuza overlord, all I ask is that you cast Sonny Chiba. Thank you.

Admittedly, as fun as TOKYO DRIFT is, I'm far more excited by Lin's next project: A spiritual sequel of sorts to his debut BLT, entitled FINISHING THE GAME. I say "spiritual sequel" because even though FTG brings back the whole crew from BLT, it's an entirely different kind of movie, a straight-up period comedy set in the Seventies. Still, it'll be good to see the guys back together in roles that put them square in the spotlight. Parry Shen played a character named "Shrimp Boy" (sort of the basic-cable equivalent of "Dick Trickle") on FX's THIEF; Roger Fan had a supporting role in Justin's previous film, ANNAPOLIS; in addition to appearing in TOKYO DRIFT, Jason Tobin had a bit part in last year's HK martial-arts comedy hit, HOUSE OF FURY. John Cho--is he even going to be in FINISHING THE GAME?--well, you know what John Cho's been up to.

And then there's Sung Kang. Sung has quietly emerged as one of the best Asian American actors you've never heard of, building on his breakout performance in BLT with his turn here as Han, the enigmatic mentor of Lucas Black's fish-out-of-water expat Sean Boswell. It's a role that's ironically similar to the one he plays in Michael Kang's THE MOTEL, which has its commercial opening on June 28 at New York's Film Forum (209 West Houston Street, 212.727.8110, http://www.filmforum.org). The similarities are uncanny enough, in fact, that someone Mike Kang has created a brilliant parody mashup of the two flicks called THE MOTEL AND THE FURIOUS, which you can check out here.

Dude...I kind of want to see this movie!

(Here's a mashup that I'd really like to see: A fusion of the trailers for Quentin Lee's DRIFT and Justin Lin's FATF: TOKYO DRIFT. It'd be like our own BROKEBACK TO THE FUTURE, yo. In case you didn't know, Quentin and Justin are pals and codirected the cool indie oddity SHOPPING FOR FANGS before Lin made BLT--and Lin's production company, Trailing Johnson Productions, produced Quentin's recent ETHAN MAO.)

Anyway, that's it for this week, Welcome to the summer. It's all beginning now, so get your motor running, head out on the highway...

Ready! Setto!

Go!

INSTANT YANG v. 23: POW! ZAP! ASIANS IN COMIC BOOKS; APA SUPERHEROES ONSCREEN; VIRGIN, WHAT GIVES?

One thing I've never shied away from is admitting that I'm a not-very-reformed Asian nerd-boy--I mean, I have that full blown gadget lust, I grew up reading SF (that's "speculative fiction" to you, buster), I was a mathlete and a debate squad dork and wear glasses and let's just say I don't excel on the noble field of sport. (That, and my legendarily poor driving skills, are my two nods to Asian stereotype.)

So what? Say it strong and say it loud: I'm a geek and I'm proud. These days, the hobbies that once turned geeks into social pariahs are increasingly mainstream; hell, they're not just mainstream, they're aspirational.

This week's column looks at one of the four pillars of geek culture (the others being computers, science fiction/fantasy, and video games). I'm talking about the classics, the GEEK MYTHS, baby. I'm talkin' comic books.

ASIAN POP: LOOK! UP IN THE SKY...IT'S ASIAN MAN!

By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, June 1, 2006

Once as rare as gold kryptonite, Asian American superheroes are busting out all over -- and joining the fight for truth, justice and the Asian American way.

As I note in my PopMail this week, Asian American superheroes have been coming out of the woodwork recently--not just in the comic books, but on screen as well.

In theaters now, you have "X-Men 3: The Last Stand," which features Kea Wong as ever-lovin' Chinese American fire-starter Jubilee, Mei Melancon as "psychic ninja" Psylocke and Ken Leung as the villainous, thorn-skinned Kid Omega. "Superman Returns" doesn't feature our Asian dream pairing of Dean Cain as Supes and Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang, but it does have the increasingly ubiquitous Kal Penn as one of Lex Luthor's main minions.

On the small screen, the Disney Channel -- already the home of animated ass-kicker "Jake Long, American Dragon" -- has a new original movie, "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior," debuting June 16 and starring Brenda Song as reincarnated warrior-slash-would-be-homecoming queen Wendy Wu, with Shin Koyamada as the teenaged "undercover Buddhist monk" assigned to train her to fight the evil being known as Yan Lo. Our very own real-life superhero, Angry Asian Man, thinks the whole thing is a guaranteed disaster, but it looks to me like a tweenified "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" redub, which couldn't be all bad. (I've been wrong before.) I'll wait to watch it before coming to any conclusions.

The real joy, however, may come in the fall, when NBC debuts its new sci-fi-esque thriller "Heroes," about a bunch of normal folk who discover that they have paranormal powers. Japanese office worker Hiro Nakamura, played by Masi Oka, is a member of the super-ized select, while Sendhil Ramamurthy plays Mohinder Suresh, the researcher who uncovers the secret of the hidden talents among us. Wow, two Asian American males in a 10-person ensemble cast -- the success of "Lost" is really revamping the television landscape.

All of this makes me really want to revisit my own comic book dreams--after our formal interview, I chatted with Keith Chow, of Diamond Comic Distributors, about the idea of doing an Asian American superhero anthology. A truly cool project...if only we could find some artists with the requisite skills to collaborate with. (If you're one of said artists, give me a ping, let's talk.)

In other news, I'm quite disenchanted with Virgin Airlines. (Note to self: Couldn't you have come up with some better way of bridging "geek" and "virgin"?)

Not because of their service--never flown them, actually. But a well-traveled colleague of mine forwarded me the following email:

---
From: Virgin Atlantic Airways
Subject: Yutaka in the Big Smoke

London Calling by Virgin Atlantic

Yutaka Loves London!

Hi, my name is Yutaka and I have been asked by the guys and dolls at Virgin Atlantic to look after London Calling this month. That way cool because I fly their planes all the time. Not like a pilot though, because Yutaka not qualified.

You might know me from www.yutakaloveslondon.com and if you don't perhaps you should check me out. Is the best guide to London on the web - bars, souvenirs, clubs, everywhere hipsters, flipsters and quipsters like to hang out. And no touristy stuff.

So now I have to tell you about all the special offers for you if you fly to London this summer. You can save $100 on your trip with Virgin Vacations, get two people over the drawbridge of an ancient castle for the price of one, and wear 3D glasses at the really, really big screen at the Science Museum IMAX 3D Cinema. There are also cool deals with major London hotels, a top class Indian restaurant and a cup of tea near the Queen's place.

One thing for sure, with all these exclusive offers, visit London this summer and you'll love it even more than Yutaka.

---

My first reaction was kind of like…what the hell? Actually, that was also my second reaction. What's with the retardo broken English (WHICH ISN’T EVEN CONSISTENT) and tired Japanese tourist stereotypes?

Visit yutakaloveslondon.com, and it's a (technologically) pretty cool Flash site with travel guide info about London and some neat games. But it's also riddled with the same broken (or, well, dented) English, and cheesy "Yutaka speak in third person!" dialogue.

A quick WHOIS identifies the entity that's behind our friend Yutaka: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad agency behind the annoying Burger King ads and VW’s new series of in-your-face, youth-targeted commercials...so the vague obnoxiousness of the promo is not really surprising. What's surprising is that it's so...cliche and lame.

Am I being too touchy here? They could have done the same thing and simply had it in fluent English, and frankly, they lose nothing--other than the cultural insensitivity, of course.

Anyway, so, Virgin Atlantic? You're dead to me. DEAD TO ME.

Not that I ever flew you anyway.

INSTANT YANG v. 22: "ASIAN"--SO WHAT'S THE DEAL?; 18 MIGHTY MOUNTAIN WARRIORS; GHOST FLEET; SHOOT QUICK; POV BORDERS; PROVING I HAVE THE FACE FOR RADIO

Here we are, knee-deep in May, and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month feels like it’s entered with a whimper, not a bang. I’m certainly still waiting for the burst of pride, warmth, and community spirit that’s supposed to be coursing through my veins with the arrival of our federally designated enclave of celebration.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve been traveling a lot recently, and have missed out on some of my usual APA Heritage activities--the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans’ annual Heritage Festival here in New York, where literally thousands of Asians and non-Asians alike get their AZN on with food, t-shirts, cultural performances, and oh yes, food; the various college conferences and workshops and galas that begin in March and April, displaced backwards by the practical constraints of finals and graduation.

Or maybe it’s just that APA Heritage Month is the Jan Brady of commemoratives -- overlooked, underappreciated, misunderstood, and generally greeted with a middle-child shrug: Which is what inspired this week’s SFGate column (hitting the web a few days late--how Asian of it), exploring the meaning of the term Asian, its relevance to the American (and global) discourse on identity, and its future in an era where the nature of identity in general is beginning to grow increasingly hazy and complex:

ASIAN POP:
AN ASIAN OCCASION
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is here ... not that you’d notice. The sounds of crickets chirping lead Jeff Yang to reflect on the term "Asian" -- what it means and where it’s going ... with a little help from his readers.

Constant readers will remember that just a week or so ago, I sent out a call for your thoughts regarding the meaning of the term Asian to this very list; I wanted to give a shout out to all of you who responded with feedback--all of which was interesting, all of which was incorporated in one way or another (even if it was merely as data in the wildly unscientific charts that I Excel’ed up for the piece’s graphics), some of which was bizarre, and some of which was brilliant. Much love also to intrepid bloggers amongst you who reposted the request to your own blogs and websites, including Angry Asian Man, Amy Lee, Jenn Yee, and Meliza, among others. Because I wasn’t able to use all the great quotes I wanted to, here’s a selection of some of the more interesting things that people said in reaction to my request:

“I think that the whole emphasis on such things as the terminology ("Asian", "Oriental", etc.) is something that is specific to the USA, and is certainly not universal…I could react with the usual derision at the fact that we are now over 30 years into the designation of ‘Asian’ as a term replacing ‘Oriental’ (one immediate response: ‘Oh, get over it already!’) and still we’re asking these same inane questions. But I’ll be quick and I’d like to make one point: we in America are often very shortsighted. Even though we have our ‘heritage,’ it’s usually something that most of us don’t really know.” -- Daryl Chin

“Here in New Zealand, it was white people who first started calling us ‘Asian’ in the 1990s, because a lot of East Asian migrants started arriving, and white people couldn’t tell Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans apart. Those of us who have embraced the term in a political sense extend that umbrella to South and Southeast Asians….Is ‘Asian’ identity something that can only happen outside of Asia, in the West? I don’t think so…shifting geopolitical and global trade alignments are changing the picture--and the space is opening up for something interesting.” -- Tze Ming Mok

“I didn’t know I was Chinese/Asian until I was eight years old. No joke. I never ate dinner at a friend;s house before, so I thought everyone ate rice…My two best friends were white and black. My white friend told me I was white too, because my skin was closer in color to hers. So sad.” -- Charlene Li, business reporter and writer for Seattle’s NW Asian Weekly

“Will we still use the word Asian in 40 years? Maybe not, words change....it was Oriental, now it’s Asian, it was maid, now it’s housekeeper....it was masseuse, now it’s massage therapist. so maybe we’ll be called ‘Eastern culture-therapists,’ or something silly like that.” -- Odessa Chen, musician, jewelry designer, artist

“My friend Kayo from Japan is the most Asian person I know. She lives in Los Angeles but you wouldn’t know it...her whole apartment is Japanese. She only shops at the Japanese supermarket, works for a Japanese company. She mixes up American catchphrases in funny ways: For example--she eats a ton but is super skinny. Once, a friend of mine said to her, ‘Dang, you eat a lot...you must have a hollow leg!’ She then started telling everyone, ‘I have an empty leg!!’ That’s Kayo.” -- Freelance writer Claire Midori Kleinerer in Los Angeles

“Fake Asians are weird! I saw what appeared to be an African American woman wearing a kimono on campus the other day. I was very confused. Boys that are into anime are weird. On one hand, I think they might know more about some aspects of Asian culture than I do, so maybe that’s why it’s weird, but I also am suspicious of their interest. I want to know why.” -- Robyn Tasaka, graduate student, Ann Arbor, MI

“One time I was in a random church crying, looking for refuge. I was a low-point in my life. I ended up talking to the pastor who was a white male. The pastor kept making suggestions that were TOTALLY culturally insensitive. After I told him his suggestions weren’t realistic for my family situation, he briefly excused himself. He came back and introduced this white lady to me: ‘Amy, this is ____. She might be able to help us out. ____ has been working at the Asian Art Museum for 10 years. She knows a lot about Asian culture.’ Despite the fact that I was crying so hard that I had hiccups, snot all over my face, and my eyes were swollen, I had to stop and laugh. Usually, I just laugh.” --Amy Lee

I really dug the insights--and I hope to turn to you guys more often, though not at a frequency that becomes annoying. And now, on to other stuff…

--Holy cats! The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors are winners of the hotly contested 2006 International Sketch Comedy Championships! And they’ve been named the Best Sketch Comedy Troupe in San Francisco by the SF Bay Guardian! They’re FUNNY! And they’re ASIAN! I love that Asian Funny! If you’re not in the Bay, do the next best thing and check ‘em out on iFilm and YouTube:

"Charlie Chan/Chang Apana"
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2709019
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Equ-6FZHNnI

"Memoirs of a Chinese Geisha!"
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2706337

--Veteran NatGeo photog Mike Yamashita has a new feature-length documentary out, GHOST FLEET, THE EPIC VOYAGE OF ZHENG HE, based on the incredible journey he took to document the explorations of the great but forgotten navigator, Zheng He. The Chinese admiral led seven epic voyages that took him to over 30 countries, from Sri Lanka and Vietnam to Kenya and Tanzania. Yet he and his “Treasure Fleet” have been lost in time, and forgotten by China and the rest of the world for over six centuries. To commemorate the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s first voyage, Mike traveled over 10,000 miles, from Yunnan in China to Africa’s Swahili coast, taking pictures all the way. I haven’t yet seen the film, but I saw the feature in the July 2005 edition of National Geographic, and the photos are amazing. Word has it that it’ll be in the Los Angeles Film Festival (June 22 – July 02; full line-up of films will be announced June 1) so L.A. readers, keep an eye peeled.

--If you’ve got a brilliant idea for a short film and a coercive hold on enough friends, relatives, and acquaintances to pull together a guerrilla cast and crew, why not put your digicam where your mouth is, pal? Register for ACV/MTV WORLD/THE FILM LAB’s 3RD ANNUAL 72 HOUR FILM SHOOTOUT, taking place June 9-12, 2006. You get three days to write, shoot, edit, and produce up to six minutes worth of undistilled brilliance, which will then be judged by a panel of critics, filmmakers, and other worthies (I judged it last year, though don’t let that stop you from entering). Because the underlying intent of the shootout is to hook Asian Americans on the cracklike thrill of moviemaking, at least one key production member and a principal actor from each team must be of Asian descent.

More info:
http://www.asiancinevision.org/screenings.html#72hour
http://www.aafilmlab.com

--And for a set of good reasons why it’s important for Asians to be involved in controlling our own media image, Bay Area readers should definitely check out Jeff Adachi’s The Slanted Screen, playing at the Roxie, May 19-25th. It's a documentary that shows how Hollywood has twisted and caricatured the image of Asian males--creating images that haunt us to this day (“Sexy American GIIIIRRRLfriend…”)

--My thoughts are included in a set of far more worthy individuals, commenting over at P.O.V.’s fascinating “Borders” online discourse project, on the nature of identity in general and American identity in particular. Check it out--the project and its participants are interesting, and the results are worth reading

--And one last self-pimpatory note: This Wednesday, May 17, I'm going to guest-host "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC, New York's flagship NPR station. The show runs from noon to 2 p.m. Eastern time, and you can tune in to it via streaming audio on the Web (or download it as a podcast after the fact). It's a live show, with phone-in segments, and it'll be the first time I've done an entire radio program from that side of the mike. I'll be interviewing Peter Hessler, author of the truly engrossing book Oracle Bones; doing a segment on the "packaging" of college applicants that touches on the competitive stress faced by kids of immigrants; and welcoming back to the program father-son home-improvement gurus Alvin and Larry Ubell. If you're interested in hearing what I sound like in person, check it out. I'm going to try hard not to suck.

Until next time, enjoy the non-stop merriment of APA Heritage Month!

INSTANT YANG: Need your help! WHAT DOES "ASIAN" MEAN TO YOU?

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

I'm posting this rare in-between-weeks post because I need your help.

In honor of this month's federally allotted slot for celebration of our community's vast and varied heritage of history, culture and tradition, I'm writing a column examining the meaning of the term "Asian."

As recently as 40 years ago, it was an almost nonsensical word--at least when applied to identity rather than geography. After all, people in the continent of Asia didn't consider themselves "Asian"--they were Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai and so forth. And people of Asian ethnic heritage in the U.S. didn't consider themselves "Asian" either; when considered as a group at all, they were referred to collectively as "Oriental," with all the baggage that that term implies.

Over time, however, the term Asian has acquired meaning. Asian Americans have given it political, civic, and social meaning. The currents of pop culture, as they've sloshed across national and ethnic boundaries in Asia, have given it meaning--you can start to see traces of a hybrid sensibility, a common tribal identity, emerging among Asia's next generation.

So what I want to know is: What does Asian mean to *you*?

I'll incorporate some of the most interesting, most insightful, funniest, or most unique responses in the column--fully cited, of course (so please include your name and physical location, and a brief description of yourself--ethnicity, profession, and relevant interests would help).

I'm including some questions below, but think of them as guidelines--feel free to be freeform. (I may also follow up with emailed questions if you say something interesting and I want more detail or explanation from you.)

You can also point me to posts you write on your own blogs or sites, if you want to answer that way--I'll quote from and link to you. (Traffic good!) And please do feel free to forward and repost this wherever you like...just direct people to respond to asianpopculture@gmail.com no later than Tuesday, May 9, or to post comments here as a reply to this post.

Thanks so much in advance...I look forward to reading your replies!

Jeff

QUESTION: WHAT DOES ASIAN MEAN TO YOU?

NAME:
LOCATION:
DESCRIBE YOURSELF:

Some questions--please answer as many or as few as you like, but answer as fully and as personally as you can!

1. Do you think of yourself as Asian? Why or why not? Do your parents? When was the first time you referred to yourself as "Asian"?
2. Stream of consciousness: What ideas immediately come to mind when you think of the word Asian?
3. What does Asian taste like?
4. What does Asian look like?
5. What is Asian good at and bad at?
6. What's the most Asian thing you've ever done? Who's the most Asian person you know? Why?
7. Do you think you need to be born Asian to be Asian? If you're Asian, how do you feel when you see someone who's not Asian aspiring to be Asian--flattered, or embarrassed, both, or neither? If you're not Asian, are there times when you wish you were? Why?
8. Forty years from now, do you think people will be using the term Asian? Why or why not?

Please email your thoughts to asianpopculture@gmail.com by no later than Tuesday, May 9 or post them in comments here...column will be published Thursday, May 11!

INSTANT YANG v. 21: JUST DESSERTS; HOW KAAVYA VISWANATHAN GOT A BOOK CONTRACT, GOT SLOPPY, AND GOT CAUGHT; IS "ii" THE NEW "i"?

There are certain benefits to being a cultural critic, and one of them is getting paid to watch, listen to, and eat stuff. This week's column falls into the "eat stuff" category:

ASIAN POP: Dessert Storm
By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Sago and mango a-go-go, oh my! Ever since the bubble-tea bubble popped a few years ago, fanatical dessertistas have been looking for the next big Asian sweet-treat phenomenon. In this week's Asian Pop, Jeff Yang looks at why Asian dessert fads have been few and far between--and considers some contenders for the boba crown.

Fun column to research, as you might guess! SF-based readers, I urge you to check out Creations in Richmond District--you won't be disappointed; NYC peeps, try the dan tat at Egg Custard King--it'll make you happy. And all you lucky residents of New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Boston, and soon enough, San Francisco...check out the Bearded One, posthaste. (I still maintain that they should have called the chain "Puff Daddy." Guess they didn't want Sean Combs to bring the legal pain...)

***

And now, I wanted to just say a few words about Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore who went from celebrated teen author to pariah seemingly overnight. Not that plenty of words haven't been said about her already. But most of them haven't been particularly nice, and even the nice ones (Rachel Pine's "Is Kaavya Viswanathan an Innocent Bystander?" from comes to mind) aren't particularly empathetic.

Empathy? For someone clearly caught red-handed as a plagiarist? Well, yeah. A little. Read between the lines:

"Ms. Viswanathan began writing the novel while still at the Bergen County Academy at Hackensack. She’s the only child of her Indian-born parents, Viswanathan Rajaraman, a neurosurgeon, and Mary Sundaram, a gynecologist.

'Everybody in my family, including my parents, won science prizes,' Ms. Viswanathan said. 'I was the one with the writing gene--and I've no idea where that came from. My parents are still in a state of shock. When I've gone home on some weekends, they look at me working at my computer and surely wonder, 'Who is that strange person?''"

(That's from the New York Sun--pre-Megan McCafferty revelations. Via the esteemed folks at Sepia Mutiny, because the Sun only gives it up for subscribers.)

And then there's the fact that her parents hired a "college preparation consultant" named Katherine Cohen to help Kaavya with her application essays--at the cost of some $15,000 for TWO FRICKIN' YEARS of private counseling.

Viswanathan claims that her parents "never pressured her" and that she adores them. I think she's lying about the former and telling the truth about the latter. Which is probably the reason she's lying about the former: She's taking this whole thing on her own. Doesn't want the blame to land on anyone else, least of all her beloved parents. I'd feel the same way.

But high expectations cause pressure in their own right, and Kaavya's parents--both physicians, science prize winners, who saw their little girl embrace scribbling over scalpels..."Kaavya, what kind of a career is writing? After we've sacrificed so much for you, prepared you so well, raised you in such a good environment...?"

If you're an Asian American, you can finish that conversation on your own.

I'm not excusing plagiarism. I'm not saying I fully believe Viswanathan's claim to have inadvertently channeled her writerly idol McCafferty, either. I do think that somewhere, consciously or unconsciously, Kaavya saw the opportunity to finally impress her parents, to prove to them that she could be a success without having to wear a white coat and stethoscope...and as the stakes got higher, and her parents smiles grew brighter, and the demands got harsher, she slipped and fell.

Consciously or unconsciously.

Anyway, people have been coming out of the woodwork now and piling on, and it's going to suck for her for a long time. Myself, I kind of hope this doesn't end her career before it should even have started. I hope she learns a lesson, but that the lesson isn't "I never should have tried." I hope she can make amends somehow, and pick up the pieces, and lower people's expectations to something reasonable for a sophomore at college and first-time novelist. We'll see.

***

On a lighter note, for all you game boys and game girls out there... BREAKING NEWS! Nintendo just announced the official branding for their next-gen gaming platform, which has been going by the snazzy codename "Revolution" since its original announcement. The spankin' new name they’ve chosen:

"Wii."

Pronounced "wee." Or "oui," for Francophones.

Now the question everyone seems to be asking is: Wyy?

Given that Intel recently unveiled "Viiv" as the name for their hot new Media Center platform, maybe the double-i thing is tech's new brandwagon. It does sort of one-up the whole iThing naming paradigm (double the "i"...double the diigiital grooviiness!). So is "ii" the next biig thiing?

Or is this actually a sign that Nintendo is secretly planning to pull an Apple and make the Big Switch from IBM's PowerPC chips? Maybe Nintendo's even in the midst of pulling of a shocking merger! Prep yourselves, guys, because the tech world could be on the verge of getting rocked by a new, bunny-suited plumber-pimping giant: Niinteldo!

Or not!

INSTANT YANG v.20: SHONEN KNIFE TURNS 25!; THINK PINK; MEN IN BOXES, GIRLZ WITH MIKES; REV. MOON, SUSHI KING?

So the Rolling Stones played their first-ever concert in China. Big deal. Chinese audience members were reportedly less impressed by the Stones' electric showmanship than by the fact that they could, like, walk unassisted. More indie-minded music fans were tuning into another set of remarkably well-preserved rockers: The incredible, incomparable sisters Yamano, who've formed the creative core of the band known as Shonen Knife for the past 25 years. This week's column is all about the Knife:

KNIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
It's hard to believe that a quarter-century has passed since the Yamano sisters formed the pioneering Japanese alt-rock trio Shonen Knife. But the band that made believers out of Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore turns 25 this year -- riding a wave of early-album reissues, and with their all-new indie disc GENKI SHOCK hitting boutiques this week.

Yep, that's right--this week, Knife released GENKI SHOCK, its first U.S. album since 2003's brilliant but overlooked HEAVY SONGS. It's pure, classic Knife--13 eclectic, whimsical, addictive tracks about things like email spam, cats, broccoli, and getting rid of pesky spiders. There's also a must-listen cut, "The Queen of Darkness," in which Naoko channels her inner goth-metal chick, to hilarious effect (don't worry, she's not taking it seriously either).

The Knife will be touring to support GENKI SHOCK later this year. Until then, this CD's a must-buy--get it for a loved one for Shonen Knife Day, which the initiated will know is July 12. (Why 7/12? Because 7-1-2, in Japanese, is nana-ichi-futatsu -- e.g., na-i-fu, or "knife.") More about the Knife at the Shonen Knife Nexus.

Shonen Knife's been around for a long time, but though they flirted with mainstream success back in the Nineties, they never quite broke through. That prompted me to think about a very different Japanese music act, which disbanded in 1981--the very year that Knife first formed. I'm talking about the Pink, kids--Pink Lady, the first Japanese pop group to try to break into the U.S. mainstream since Kyu Sakamoto (of "Sukiyaki" fame) back in the early Sixties.

Pretty, charming, and not entirely untalented, the pair of girls who made up Pink Lady--Mie and Kei--were colossal star in Japan before their abortive attempt to cross over. Their lone Billboard hit, a disco number called "Kiss in the Dark," is mostly forgotten; what Americans usually remember, sadly, is the duo'incredibly misguided TV variety show, PINK LADY AND JEFF. The show was so stupid, racist, and embarassing that it lasted just six episodes--taking down NBC chief Fred Silverman, who'd envisioned the midseason replacement as a kind of cross-cultural DONNY AND MARIE, with it. It also led to the dissolution of Pink Lady, who lost traction in Japan while they were trying to crack the U.S. market.

2006 is Pink Lady's 30th Anniversary, and there's a huge, nostalgic Pink Revival going on over in Japan--they're even releasing a massive Platinum Box set featuring 22 DVDs and CDs of Pink Lady's performances and music. For an awesome overview of Pink Lady's short but magnificent career, check out Jeffrey Branch's shrine to the duo, Pink Lady America. You'll be amazed.

Now some quick announcements:

--Artist Scott Tsuchitani--you may know him from his scathingly funny guerrilla parodies of the billboard ads for Asian Art Museum's summer exhibition, "Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile," me a line about a new exhibit he's in, called THE MAN BOX AND BEYOND: AN EXHIBIT ABOUT MASCULINITY AND MALE IDENTITY, at Mission District gallery The LAB (www.thelab.org; 2948 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415.864.8855). Curated by Allegra Fortunati, it features Scott and 14 other artists exploring the nature of manhood, "oftentimes through humor and pathos...[revealing] memories of their experiences of pain, humiliation, abuse, lack of love, acceptance, and powerlessness." Sounds fascinating, and it runs through May 6.

--Girls think out of the box at the 8th Annual FUNNY GIRLZ showcase, Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 8pm (the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco; box office 415-392-4400; info 415-522-3737; http://www.koshercomedy.com). Lisa Geduldig's celebration of women's comedy features a "hysterical and diverse line-up of internationally, nationally and locally known funny female comedians"--including this year's headliner, British Pakistani Muslim comic SHAZIA MIRZA (www.shaziamirza.org). She's sharp, hilarious, and pisses off all the right people--worth the $22.50 ticket all by herself. But you get so much more, and besides, part of the proceeds goes to fund a comedy class for inner city girls.

--Finally, a tip of the hat to Chicago Trib reporter Monica Eng, who with Delroy Alexander and David Jackson wrote a mesmerizing investigative report about how the Reverend Sun Myung Moon effectively controls a vast and growing segment of the U.S. seafood industry--including one of the biggest distributors of sushi-fresh fish, True World Group, whose "fleets of boats...[and] dozens of distribution centers...supplies most of the nation's estimated 9,000 sushi restaurants." So...eat sushi, support the Unification Church, pretty much. Moon saw fish as an opportunity early on, apparently. In 1980, he gave a speech called "The Way of Tuna," in which he was quoted as saying: "I have the entire system worked out, starting with boat building....After we build the boats, we catch the fish and process them for the market, and then have a distribution network. This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it...[I will be] King of the Ocean!" Check out the piece here.

Note that Moon's business empire also includes a complimentary asset, the creepy conservative fishwrap known as THE WASHINGTON TIMES.

For a while, Rev. Moon was overshadowed by other scary religious figures like Pat Robertson and Tom Cruise; he's seemingly reemerged bigger than ever. So has his family: This past March, the WB's ghastly reality prog SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST featured one of the Rev's daughters, “Kat” Moon. The estimated net worth of her family, according to the show? $989 million.

Guess a little fish goes a long way.

INSTANT YANG v. 19: DOUBLE HAPA-NESS; HEY JUDE (NARITA); CYNEMATIK'S JULIA KWAN PODCAST; MORE SFIAAFF; TAKEI ON TOUR; ASIAN POPPA; TREND OR FAUX?; MORE BLOGROLL

Sorry for the one-day delay in getting Instant Yang off the blocks. Access to my server was temporarily interrupted due to my being a jackass. The problem has been fixed (the computer problem, not the me-being-a-jackass problem—that, I have to live with, unfortunately).

I had a great time penning this week’s column, which looks at Kip Fulbeck’s new book PART ASIAN, 100% HAPA, and the issues that are invoked by mixed-race identity:

The Pursuit of Hapa-ness

A growing percentage of the Asian American population can trace their lineage to two or more races. In his new book, "Part Asian, 100% Hapa," artist and author Kip Fulbeck explores multiracial Asian America through hundreds of hapa quotes and portraits. What does hapa identity mean for the future of Asian America?

Why'd I have a great time? Because Kip is smart, funny, and has put together a book that's both pleasurable and provocative--a celebration of hapa identity that should also make non-mixed individuals think twice before glibly asking their multiracial friends to explain the secret genetic recipe behind their Oh So Exotic Hybrid Features. That's not to say that the question "What are you?" will always provoke annoyance--some multiracial individuals are happy to answer that question, if asked respectfully.

But if you're Asian, think of how the question "Where are you from--no, where are you REALLY from?" makes you feel. Yeah. It's kind of like that. People want to be treated as people, not cultural experiences or interesting ethnographic samples. I could invoke Immanuel Kant here, but instead I think I'll invoke the far more interesting duo behind Mixed Media Watch and the addictive podcast Addicted to Race--Jen Chau and Carmen Van Kerckhove: "Ultimately, by forcing you to explain your identity, that whole 'what are you?' phenomenon essentially forces you to defend it. It pushes into questions of loyalty--'what are you, really?'--and authenticity--'you're not really [black, Asian, white]', which mixed people have to deal with all the time."

I dig it.

Plenty of other stuff going on this week--which I'll go through in express fashion:

--Performance artist JUDE NARITA, whose COMING INTO PASSION: Song for a Sansei was one of the most insightful and powerful portraits of Asian womanhood I've ever seen on stage or screen, wrote me to say she has a new show out (directed by her daughter, Darling!). It's called WALK THE MOUNTAIN, and it explores the long shadow of the Vietnam War. After an acclaimed run in L.A., it's now in New York, through April 9:

WALK THE MOUNTAIN
written and performed by JUDE NARITA
directed by DARLING NARITA

Walk The Mountain powerfully affirms the humanity and spirit of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people while examining the lingering effects of the war in Vietnam, and its legacy of misinformation that exists in the United States. In war, the enemy is purposely kept faceless. In Walk The Mountain we meet some of the "faceless enemy". Among them are a doctor working in the jungle hospitals, a freedom fighter imprisoned in a tiger cage, a mother searching for her sons, and an immigrant in America who dreams of flying. Narita takes you into their lives--their joys and sorrows, their courage, and their dreams for the future.

WED. MARCH 15 - SUN APRIL 9
TUE - SAT 8:15; SUNDAY 3:15

59 EAST 59TH STREET THEATERS (between PARK & MADISON)

TICKETS $30 (59E59 MEMBERS $21, $15 STUDENT RUSH; SENIORS $20 with code SENR (ID required at box office); GROUP DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE; 5% of all ticket sales donated to The Smile Train (www.smiletrain.org)

For more info please go to www.judenarita.com

--Also, Cyndi Greening alerted me to the fact that her podcast interview with director Julia Kwan and producer Erik Paulsson of the heart-sweet Chinese Canadian reverie EVE AND THE FIRE HORSE is up at Cynematik; it's worth listening to, and the film is definitely worth watching. I caught it via screener while at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival last week...

--And on that note, the SFIAAFF this year was bigger, better, and brighter than ever--so big, in fact, that my time at the fest was like an amuse bouche, compared to the movable movie feast the good folks at the Center for Asian American Media assembled. Besides EVE, I saw AMERICANESE on the big screen with a big audience, and enjoyed it even more thoroughly the second time around...nuances and details I'd missed in my initial viewing emerged with startling vividness. Kudos to Eric Byler and his awesome cast; note, however, that I left the screening awash with guilt for finding Joan Chen, like, incredibly hot. I mean, she *is*. But it still feels somehow wrong, in a "Stacy's Mom" kind of way. Other primo peeps: Saw Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest luminous yet, er, glacial feature, CAFÉ LUMIERE; the guy sitting next to me was out like a light snoring within minutes of the screening's start. It was the guy sitting next to me. Yeah....and Jeff Adachi's years-in-the-making doc on representations of Asian men in Hollywood, THE SLANTED SCREEN; it's the yang to SLAYING THE DRAGON's yin, crisp, insightful, and mesmerizing--flush with terrific quotes from a cross-section of Asian America's finest male actors. Even more impressively, CfAAM rolled out three of them live (Jason Scott Lee, Daniel Dae Kim, and Chris Tashima) for a discussion on the issues, mediated by UC-Davis prof Darrell Hamamoto. My only thought: Damn, I wish George Takei were interviewed for the doc!

--But that's not to say that there aren't other ways of getting your George Takei fix: George's partner Brad emailed me to share the news that he's going to be going on a nationwide speaking tour on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign called "Equality Trek," to promote dialogue on GLBT issues. Here are the dates:

April 10th – University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
April 11th – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
April 17th – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN
April 18th – University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI
Two additional dates in Phoenix and Denver will be announced shortly.

Plus, you may have caught George on WILL & GRACE the other day--woo hoo! Love that show, and it'll be missed, but at least it got some George on before its finale.

--Another cool thang: I asked with a "pretty please," and hapadad Jason Sperber (whose rockin' blog "Daddy in a Strange Land" can be read here) extended me an invite to join the rotating roundel of Asian pops who make the daddyblog "Rice Daddies" such required reading. That I fully intend to do, when my son isn't throwing oatmeal at my laptop. Everyone's a critic.

--And, with April Fool's Day approaching, I collaborated with some of my colleagues from my day job at Iconoculture to create a little test of trend knowledge, titled TREND OR FAUX?, which as of 5 pm today Eastern time should be visible on our website at Iconoculture.com. Think you can tell real trends, fads, and phenomena from fake ones? Check it out for yourself.

--Last but not least, a couple of updates to the blogroll:

Under ASIA AND OVERSEAS:
--Gen Kanai's weblog a smart look at tech and culture from a transplanted New Yorker in Tokyo

Under MEDIA AND CULTURE:
--Mixed Media Watch blogging mixed-race representation in Hollywood and on Madison Ave., from the keen creators of the podcast Addicted to Race

INSTANT YANG v. 18: ASIAN AMERICAN MANHOOD; ERIC BYLER AND AMERICANESE; THE SFIAFF BEGINS; BLOGROLL BETA

It’s been a big week on the Instant Ranch, with both my wife and I turning 38 three days apart, then welcoming the newest member of our family, my sister’s lovely new daughter Sienna Kauh. Props to Sienna, who’s going to have to be a rough-and-tumble gal, growing up in a sea of male cousins, and to her proud parents Chris and Austin!

Adding another year to a swift-rising stack always puts one in a contemplative mood. This week’s column catches up with Eric Byler, whose impressive debut CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES explored a tangled tango of sexual longing and frustration among a quartet of young Asian American twentysomethings. Byler’s sophomore outing, AMERICANese, refracts Shawn Wong’s groundbreaking Asian American novel AMERICAN KNEES through the prism of his unique sensibility. One of the questions it explores is the nature of manhood, and how this nature is shaped by race and age--a subject I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently myself

ASIAN POP - THE MAN SHOW
Hot on the heels of its award-winning premiere at Austin's South by Southwest Festival, Eric Byler's latest exploration of tainted love, "Americanese," is tonight's opening film at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Jeff Yang talked with Byler about some of his favorite topics -- love, sex, masculinity and the plight of the Asian American male

As it turns out, manhood and its representation is the theme of one of the special programming tracks at this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Fest--brought to you by the great folks at the Center for Asian American Media. The fest begins tonight with AMERICANese, but the cinematic buffet creaks with other fab offerings as well. More on the fest and a schedule of programs here.

Meanwhile, last ish, I promised the institution of the first-ever Instant Yang blogroll; there's a rundown of what I'm looking at now in the sidebar to the right. A caveat: this roster is currently composed of blogs penned or significantly contributed to by Asians and Asian Americans, both in the U.S. and abroad. This is chiefly for reasons of space, but also because I don't think I've seen a list like this elsewhere. More suggestions always welcome...

INSTANT YANG v. 17: LAUGH RIOTS; THE RETURN OF ALL-AMERICAN GIRL; ARRANGED MARRIAGE

139 dead and 823 injured. That's the global toll so far as a result of the publication of a dozen cartoons depicting (and in some cases, disparaging) the prophet Muhammad in Denmark's oldest and largest newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. All of a sudden, that old saw--laugh, and the whole world laughs with you--has never seemed less true.

The cartoons are pretty readily available online (many of the more rabid right-wing rabble-rousers--paging Michelle Malkin!--are posting them in a childish nose-thumbing campaign aimed at radical Islamists. (Have these guys forgotten that they're the ones who were up in arms a few months ago about the 'War on Christmas'???)

I don't want to say that rioting and arson are ever acceptable reactions to parodic provocation. As Riyadh-based "Arab chick" Farah writes on her very funny (and feminist!) blog, "Death-threats do not exactly do Islam's 'image' any real good. My good people of the Muslim world, do we have to keep reminding the rest of the planet that we live in the year 2006 B.C?...I agree with the lot who said an incident like this one should have been used to prove just how tolerant Islam is. Which translates into: please do not have a cow."

Then again, even progressive, pro-free-speech Muslim voices like Farah note that the right-leaning Jyllands-Posten has a long history of publishing inflammatory, anti-immigrant commentary, and that it's hard to defend the cliche and pointless alignment of a revered holy figure with hateful stereotypes as a productive means of exercising the rights of a democratic press.

Anyway, all this led me to explore in this week's column the nature of humor and culture--why gaps in The Funny exist between cultures, and why one man's joke is another man's jihad:

LAUGHING MATTERS
There's a universal slang among stand-up comics for when a joke has the audience rolling in the aisles: "Man, that joke killed." It's a phrase that recently got smacked with the irony stick...

The coolest thing about doing this column is getting the chance to talk to some of the brightest Asian American talents in standup comedy. Anyone who still thinks Asians don't have a sense of humor should think again--these guys had me ROTFLMAO, as my 12-year-old cousins might say. Here's a lineup of the comics I spoke with:

--ROSIE TRAN: One of L.A.'s hottest young comics, she describes her decision to get into standup as being something similar to Elle Woods in LEGALLY BLONDE: "It seems like she just woke up one day and decided to go to Harvard Law School!" But Tran's no dilettante: At the tender age of 22, she's been on the circuit for five years already. Watch this girl. Carefully. Never know what she's going to do next. Website: rosietran.com

--KEVIN SHEA: His laid-back delivery tees up some devastatingly funny shit. Shea on being a Korean adoptee: "My parents adopted a whole bunch of us. They got us in twos. It was like they were collecting Star Wars figurines. Which kind of sucks for my brother, because they kept him in the box. They had to...he came with the helmet and the backpack--he was limited edition....I could never talk back to my dad, because he always said, 'Watch your mouth boy, I still have the receipt.'" His site kevinshea.tv is under construction (where's the little digging dude, dude?), but you can check out some of his PREMIUM BLEND gig here.

--TINA KIM: She's got to be one of the hardest working comedians in the biz: Not only does she roll her own one-woman shows, four-walls-style, she promotes them herself...and sells out the house. A comic juggernaut. Seattleites can catch her March 10 and 11 at 9 pm at Christoff's Gallery (6004 12th Ave. South, 206.767-0280). You can buy tickets at her website: tinakim.com.

--STEVE BYRNE: Sharp, polished, funny as hell, and on the cusp of something huge. Steve's got his first COMEDY CENTRAL PRESENTS special happening this Friday (March 3 at 9 pm); not only that, but MTV's doc series TRUE LIFE followed him around making preparations for the show (and getting drunk off his ass afterwards)--check your local listings for details. Steve and Kevin are half of the Original Kims of Comedy, along with MAD TV's Bobby Lee and physician/funnyman Dr. Ken. Check out their concert DVD, out April 25, 2006! Website: stevebyrnelive.com

--REX NAVARRETE: What can brown do for you? I'm totally down with Rex's unapologetically Pinoy take on standup, and think he's one of the smartest and most consistently hilarious dudes on the circuit. He doesn't do "Maritess vs. the Superfriends" anymore (my personal fave) but you can (and should) still catch it in the Flash cartoon version. His new DVD, BADASS MADAPAKA, is just out now...and if you're lucky enough to be in New York, he's headlining at the Laugh Lounge on March 7 and 9, 8:30 pm (151 Essex St, 212-614-2500). Website: rexnavarrete.com

I also caught up with Jami Gong, proprietor of the pioneering TAKE-OUT COMEDY showcase (takeoutcomedy.com)--now serving Singapore and Hong Kong, four tours yearly!--and Piyush Dinker Pandya, filmmaker (AMERICAN DESI) and the impresario behind the GURUS OF COMEDY Tour. Jami says he's organizing the first-ever Hong Kong International Comedy Fest for later this year, more on that as it develops, and Piyush is just about to announce the 15 tourdates for this year's Gurus tour--including Caroline's Comedy Club here in New York. Watch his site filmiyana.com for details...

Last but not least, Steve Byrne also hooked me up with his side-splitting bud AHMED AHMED, who's Egyptian American, Muslim, and a featured player in Vince Vaugn's WILD WEST COMEDY SHOW, as well as his own AXIS OF EVIL Comedy Tour with Iranian American comic Maz Jobrani and half-Palestinian Aron Kader. Ahmed points out that all they need is a North Korean to complete the set, so head's up, guys, opportunity's knocking...

In other comedy-related news, I just wanted to note that ALL-AMERICAN GIRL, Margaret Cho's pioneering yet critically savaged sitcom series, has finally hit DVD. I'm one of the critics who knocked it--something that, shall we say, strained relations between me and Margaret for a long time after the show was canceled, although she was cool enough to reach out and connect when she went through her rehab and reinvention period. I think she's funnier than ever (and she's also become a hardcore, must-read progressive blogger--margaretcho.com).

I was hoping to hit her up for a profile when her much-anticipated new series reached the air, but sadly, it looks like it's currently in development hell. The interesting thing is that it would have had Margaret playing her mom--hopefully, without filters or censors, because I'm not havin' any Margaret Cho show that can't say the word ASS MASTER.

For nostalgia lovers, an Amazon link to AAG: The DVD.

Also, I got an email from comics Foo Nguyen and Mary Sohn (members of Chicago's all-powerful Asian American laugh machine Stir Friday Night) reminding Chicago-based peeps that their new sketch comedy duet ARRANGED MARRIAGE is walking down the aisle this Saturday, March 4 at Second City's cabaret space, Donny's Skybox, at 10:30 pm and running every Saturday through March 25. Catch it if you can--sounds like it one-ups TONY ‘N' TINA'S WEDDING in the connubial comedy category.

Finally--I'm thinking of adding a blogroll here, so if you have an Asian American or Asian-related blog you'd like me to take a look at and consider adding, shoot me an email at asianpopculture@gmail.com.

INSTANT YANG v. 16: LOVE, ASIAN STYLE; YANGSAPOPPIN; TATTOOS, FOOD, HELLO KITTY, AND COMEDY

Hi all,

And here we go again with another installment of Instant Yang, which seems to have hit a fever pitch recently; if the hits to your inbox have seemed rather more frequent than once every two weeks, chock it up to coincidence and a burst of time-sensitive column ideas.

This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, Asian Pop explores Asian depictions of romance:

TEENAGERS IN LOVE:
Late-starters in the field, Asians take romantic love to a new level

My editor tells me that as of this col we're now back on a biweekly schedule, so rest assured that your inbox will be Yang-free for a fortnight...

Meanwhile, my inbox has had a surplus of Yangs--responding a little late to the party for last week's column on names and namesakes (which is here, if you missed it: BY ANY OTHER NAME). Jeff Yang, the student at Iolani School in Hawaii, expressed interest in talking to me through one of his teachers. Unfortunately, my deadline and the five-hour time difference prevented us from ever making a Yang to Yang connection, but I hope he enjoys the rest of his senior year.

I also got an email from Jeff S. Yang (husband of Natalie and father of Lucas), who, as it turns out, I'd corresponded with many years ago, because he'd mistakenly been getting mail intended for me. He's a proud Jeff Yang ("I am very happy with my name. My name has been with me my whole life. And I will never change it"), who works in New York as CTO of a company called ValetNoir. Interestingly, not only do we share the same last name, but so do our wives--my wife Heather noticed that his wife Natalie's maiden name in Chinese is the same as hers, even though she anglicizes it as "Yan" while Heather's family went with "Ying." (The proper Mandarin pronunciation would be "Yin"--yeah, Yin & Yang times two.)

Meanwhile, Jeff Yang the Bay Area guidance counselor contacted me after the column ran to tell me that his wife's name also happens to be Natalie. Pretty freaky, right? If there are any other Jeff Yangs hiding out there in the woodwork with wives named Natalie or Yin or some combination thereof, reveal yourselves: It is time for us clones to rise and crush our oppressors.

Now for some quick updates outside of the JeffYangiverse:

--If you haven't seen it yet, give HanziSmatter.com a read--it's a jaw-droppingly hilarious blog about the misuse of Chinese characters in design, graphics, but especially in tattoos. Why people don't get a Chinese-literate friend to prep them before they permanently scrawl something inane or incomprehensible on their butt meat is truly a mystery to me. But hey, it's not like Asians aren't guilty, too, as Hanzi Smatter's gaijin counterpart Engrish.com amply points out.

--I was hoping to wait until she posted her podcast with Julia Kwan, whose sweetly nostalgic EVE AND THE FIRE HORSE won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, but rather than wait another two weeks, let me point you in the direction of Cyndi Greening's Cynematik blog (www.cyndigreening.com), which is partly about indie film, and partly about, you know, stuff, but which hosts an extensive collection of her video and audio podcasts from Sundance and other festivals. Check it out.

--Also worth checking out: a new book called NEW ASIAN CUISINE, developed by Wendy Chan and Grace Niwa--I had the pleasure of working with Wendy for nearly three years, and have known Grace for, well, let's just say a long time; as Savory Productions, they've gathered together an eyecatching collection of Asian celebrity chefs offering over 100 of their favorite nouveau Asian food and bev recipes. The book's hot off the presses now--visit newasiancuisine.com for more info. (Meanwhile, on the topic of food, I'd also like to escort you to your table at The Girl Who Ate Everything, a knockout foodblog penned by my, uh, second cousin? First cousin once removed? Anyway, her name's Robyn, and I've been enjoying her ongoing quest for "superior deliciousness.")

--Gil Cheah in Singapore sent me some incredible pics of Eva Air's "Hello Kitty" themed Taipei-to-Beijing flight, which I've posted to a special page here, just out of sheer awe; I feel I have no choice but to fly on this plane sometime in the very near future. My assumption is that EVA Air explains what they were thinking on this page, though you kinda have to be able to read Chinese or Japanese to tell.

--Lastly, a pitch for Flushing Town Hall's MAIN STREET: Next Generation Asian American Arts festival, which focuses this year on humor. Check out Asian American performance trio SLANT, a special cabaret-style performance by Jami Gong's TAKE OUT COMEDY gang, and a mini-film-showcase and panel discussion moderated by yours truly:

The Color of Funny: Screen Comedy, Asian American Style
Sunday, Feb. 26th beginning at 2 PM

Screenings: SAVING FACE (Alice Wu); AMERICAN DESI (Piyush Dinker
Pandya); THE MOTEL (Mike Kang)

Panel (8 p.m.–9:30 p.m.)

Author Jeff Yang (Eastern Standard Time; Once Upon a Time in China)
moderates a panel discussion on humor, culture, and the generation
gap, as seen in Asian American cinema, with AMERICAN DESI's Piyush Dinker Pandya (impresario behind THE GURUS OF COMEDY standup tour), and stars Jade Wong of SAVING FACE and Hoon Lee of THE MOTEL (cofounder of the comedy troupe Mr. Miyagi's Theatre Company and the hit off-off-Broadway show SIDES: THE FEAR IS REAL).

Tickets: $15/$12 members/$10 students/$8 student members

INSTANT YANG v. 15: WHAT'S IN A NAME?...GOLDEN GIRLS AND BOYS…BROKEBACK MORPHIN'...A LAST SALUTE

I've been doing Asian Pop now for about a year now, and in that time I've written a few columns that have unexpectedly touched a nerve, unleashing a welcome torrent of reader mail. (Which is always welcome--even the posts that criticize, dismiss, or correct. It’s better than suffering through "Is this mike on?" syndrome, anyway.) This week's column looks like it may hit a feedback record, and understandably so, given its subject: The nature of names.

ASIAN POP: BY ANY OTHER NAME
In her hilarious and insightful documentary THE GRACE LEE PROJECT, filmmaker Lee went on a quest to connect with some of the tens of thousands of other women who share her moniker—prompting Jeff Yang to muse on the nature of naming and identity, and to seek out some of his namesakes as well

People of all backgrounds have now emailed me to talk about how they got their names, how they’ve been confused with people with similar names, and how their namesakes have gotten them in and out of trouble…dozens, within the first day of the column’s posting.

"I have a very unsual last name (Lozar, rhymes with 'crozier') and a fairly uncommon first name (Paula), so I figured that the odds of running into someone else with the same name were about a zillion to one," wrote one reader. "A few years ago I discovered that there IS another Paula Lozar somewhere in the Midwest…they pronounce their name [like] 'Tsar,' but it’s still pretty spooky."

Meanwhile, Peri Drucker wrote in to say she does have a "unique name (at least according to Zabasearch)" but is "a little jealous of anyone who has such an easy way to find a connection to someone else!"

Maybe she wouldn't be envious if she'd heard another reader's story as "one of at least 18 David Lims in the Bay Area alone, last time I checked. The most infamous 'David Lim' I never met was some gentleman who opened credit accounts like you or I drink water." It took an unlisted number to stop the three-times-a-week calls from angry creditors who thought he was Bad David.

My favorite anecdote so far, however, is also one that I personally empathize with. "Growing up Chinese American in San Francisco had its perks and not so perky moments…I have an uncommon and I guess unusual Chinese surname: Man. That wasn't a sigh of displeasure, but my last name….And my first name? Karen…[and] I have an older sister named Karena and a younger sister named Katrina--don't know what my folks were thinking. I experienced my share of taunts and jokes for kids at school (hey Man, what's up Man, Karen Wo-Man, or the emphasized Karen MAN)…as I got older I've been asked if I'm part German (Thomas Mann) and was once mistakenly identified as Irish Catholic by a coworker in another office during a conference call." Man! And I mean that in the "Oh, wow!" sense, Karen.

I'm sure many, many more name stories will come my way, or at least I hope they do, and I’ll gladly share the best of them with y'all. I also kinda hope the Secret Sharer meme goes viral--those of you who’ve encountered and corresponded with your namesakes, let me know how it went. And of course, if you're in the Bay Area, try to check out THE GRACE LEE PROJECT on February 11 at 7:40pm at the Coppola Theater at San Francisco State University, as a part of this year's San Francisco Korean American Film Festival. You'll be glad you did. Plus, if you have any Grace Lees in your life, have them add their data to the Statistically Average Grace Lee!

Elsewhere in the entertainment world, full props to Sandra Oh, for adding a SAG Best Actress Award to her Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress (Emmy in 2006, we bet), and to Daniel Dae Kim, Yujin Kim, and Naveen Andrews of Lost for doing the same. If this bumper harvest of awards doesn't get more producers thinking Asians can represent on the teevee, I don't know what will. Meanwhile, Ang Lee is continuing his own juggernaut conquest of the awards landscape. He'll get his best director Oscar this year, mark my words. More importantly, though, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has clearly taken that cultural quantum leap into iconography--becoming fodder for editorial cartoonists, talk-show monologues, and satirical remixes of all kinds.

My favorite find in that category: A growing series of Brokeback Mash-Ups, in which the hidden gayness in popular movies is revealed through creative re-edits of their trailers. (Or the not-so-hidden gayness, in the case of BROKEBACK SQUADRON, a mash-up of TOP GUN.) The best of the lot so far is BROKEBACK TO THE FUTURE, which blends trailers from all three BACK TO THE FUTURE flicks to expose a more...intimate side of Doc Brown and Marty's relationship. Given that potential for accidental incest is one of the running jokes in BttF, this might actually make the movie more family friendly, not less…

BROKEBACK SQUADRON

BROKEBACK TO THE FUTURE

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN's soaring mountain landscape, eye-friendly cast, repeatable cue-lines (“I shore do wish I could find a way to quit you”), and instantly recognizable swelling orchestral theme have allowed it to escape the confines of genre to invde the mainstream of popular consciousness. It’s the gay Star Wars.

Then again...maybe Star Wars is the gay Star Wars?:

GAY STAR WARS

I want to sign off with one last memento mori—brought to my attention by the always-alert David L. Kim: Last December 29 saw the passing away of Colonel Young Oak Kim, a true hero in every sense of the word, at the age of 86 from complications related to cancer.

Born in Los Angeles to immigrant Korean parents, he was one of the few non-Japanese American members of the fighting 100th Infantry Battalion, and fought for our nation with a fervor and bravery that led to his being decorated with over 20 medals, including a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, three Purple Hearts, a French Legion of Honor and Italian Military Valor Cross

After World War II, he lent his courage and passion to the fight for recognition of his comrades at arms, as well as their civilian families who were unjustly incarcerated during the war--it was due to his advocacy that the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles was made possible. He also helped to found the Go For Broke Educational Foundation, which preserves the legacy of Japanese American WWII vets, the Korean American Museum, and more recently, was one of the founding fathers of the Committee for the Centennial of Korean Immigration to the United States, helping to make the celebration of Korean America’s 100th birthday possible.

A solemn salute for a great man.

That's it for this week. See you in two--when, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, I’ll be looking at love and romance, Asian-style…

INSTANT YANG v.14: Dog In, Chicken Out Edition; And Speaking of Dogs: AIBO, R.I.P.

It's Lunar New Year time again! Upside: Dragon dances and explosions and banquet spreads that would choke an army. Downside: Stressful extended family gatherings; shelling out "red envelope" cash to ungrateful little beggars; indigestion. I'm not yet cranky enough for the downsides to outweigh the upsides, so here's a hearty "gong xi fa cai" for all of you as the Year of the Dog approaches.

Speaking of upsides and downsides, this week's SFGate column is a look back at the past year's best, brightest, worst, and weirdest--ending with a bowed head for some of the luminaries who passed from us in 2005:

ASIAN POP
Chickening Out
As the Year of the Rooster crosses the road into history, we take a look back at Asian Pop highlights and lowlights of the past 12 months and offer up a prognosis of the year to come.

Congressional leader Rep. Bob Matsui; civil rights icon Fred Korematsu; Esther Wong, the "Godmother of Punk"; funnyman Pat Morita; activist, attorney, and balladeer Chris Iijima--just a few of the individuals whom we lost last year, but whose achievements and legacy will stretch on, forwards through the generations. (A sharp-eyed reader noted that I'd missed one more key figure in the fight for Japanese American redress--Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima, the godmother of San Francisco's Japantown, and a vocal spokesperson for the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations. She passed away on December 29, of an apparent heart attack, at the age of 89.) I'm sure there were many others whom I overlooked, but I'd like to offer a moment of respectful silence for all of them now:

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...And before I sign off, one last sad hat-tip--this one to Sony's robo-pet AIBO, which the beleaguered consumer electronics giant end-of-lifed this week (along with his humanoid counterpart QRIO) due to "insufficient sales volume."

There's gotta be some bad karma involved in killing a canine just as the Year of the Dog commences, but whatever. Although this is a setback for those of us who've always dreamed of having a cool robotic buddy, the revolution ain't over by a long shot: Crazy droid concepts continue to beep and whirr their way out of Asian cybernetics labs like nobody's business, whether there's a business case for them or not.

That's it for this week--see you in a few. And remember to toe the line on those modern Lunar New Year traditions...

LUNAR NEW YEAR 2.0: After 47 centuries, isn't it time for some updates?

INSTANT YANG v.13: A Brand New Year; Trippin'; A Brand New Gig

Happy New Year, all--piping hot and fresh from the oven, 2006 has arrived, and with it, a month-and-a-half-long interlude of whimsically clean-cut behavior. Daily exercise. Fiber loading. Quitting sundry vices. Spending time with in-laws. Statistics show that February 15 is the standard expiration date for the goody-two-shoes routine, so don't toss the fat pants just yet--what January dieting taketh away, February bingeing usually gives back in spades.

Not that I'm saying New Year's vows are an entirely lost cause--in fact, this week's column offers up a handy guide to keeping some of the most common resolutions the Asian Pop way. Lose weight! Be a better parent! Save money! Kick a disgusting habit! It's all here, kids--neatly illustrated with examples yanked from 2005's Asian Pop headlines:

BETTER LIVING THROUGH A-POP
Looking back at 2005's headlines, Jeff Yang suggests handy Asian Pop solutions for four of your most common New Year's resolutions

As you might guess, this week's col is also a stealthy part one to our annual Asian Pop Year in Review--with our Best and Worst installment scheduled next. There's still time to pimp your favorite ride, if you've got one--your picks for notably bad/good/weird movies, music, software, books, events, people, gadgets, and phenomena are all welcome, though I can't promise I'll do more than peep 'em; the larder's already pretty full with goodies, as well as, uh, lard...

On the home front: Thanks to all of you who wished me well after that rather personal post last time out, describing my painful and somewhat disgusting bout with oral surgery. I'm glad to say that I've pretty much recovered (except for what you might call a minor drinking problem--part of the fun has been relearning how to swallow liquids without accidentally dribbling from my nostrils).

I'm also breathing at night, which means I'm no longer dependent on massive doses of caffeine to stay awake during the day. Plus, the snoring thing? Gone. Of course, this factors in my having lost about 17 pounds after two weeks of dinner-through-a-straw--seven of which I've since regained, as I've spent the past week and a half on a rest and recuperation jaunt split between the Caribbean (St. Maarten/St. Martin) and Spain (Barcelona/Madrid).

A few words on the Antillean island of St. Maarten/St. Martin. It's the smallest island in the world to be partitioned between two different nations, the Netherlands and France respectivel; the difference between the two sides is palpable. For one thing, the French side is really quite Frenchy. You hear and read French everywhere, because a reasonable percentage of the population--both permanent and transient--is actually from France. By contrast, Dutch people are far and few between on the Dutch side. Dutch St. Maarten is less concerned with presenting tourists with a seamless cultural environment than gently but firmly parting them from their money. Which means that the French side is all cafes au lait, baguettes, and nude beaches, while the Dutch side is all souvenir stands, casinos, and timeshare hucksters.

Topless sunbathers and slot junkies aside, the island is a remarkably fun and relaxing place for a family vacation--with a surfeit of lovely beaches and a reasonably large number of kid-friendly activities. Our two-year-old son Hudson has discovered the verb "to need," so all we've been getting recently is sentences beginning with "I need." We satisfied Hudson's need for fish by taking a reef ride on a semi-submersible. We quelled his need for monkeys by visiting St. Maarten Park, a tatty but simpatico zoo with free-ranging peacocks, more lizards and snakes and parrots than you can shake a stick at, and, yes, plenty of monkeys.

After a week of Franco-Dutch fun in the sun, we returned to New York to drop Hudson off at home in time for the start of his next semester of preschool (with Heather's mom doing childcare duty); the following day, we left for Barcelona, where we spent a terrific three days exploring the city's Modernist architecture (Gaudi rules) and eating several pigs' worth of Serrano ham. I'm writing this now from Madrid--the disapproving older brother of fun-loving Barca--where we've just returned from an evening of not enough flamenco and too much sangria.

Just so you don't think I'm doing the verbal equivalent of boring the hell out of you with holiday slides, I'll just note that our travels have provided us with an interesting illustration of the way that the rest of the world sees Asians. There's a standard triptych of archetypes, and we were exposed to all three:

In St. Maarten and elsewhere in the Caribbean, Asians are the mercantile class, retailers and restaurateurs. Every corner grocery we passed had a Chinese name and proprietor. Every souvenir stand and department store was owned and run by South Asians. And scattered liberally across the island were dozens of curry houses and chop suey takeaways, making Asian fare oddly more plentiful than the creole cuisine the island counts as its own.

In Barcelona, adventuring beyond demarked tourist routes, we satisfied our curiosity by strolling briskly through the "Barri Chino"--the city's queasy underbelly, so named not because of a preponderance of Chinese residents (the neighborhood is largely Arab and South Asian), but because a visiting American writer back in the 1920s associated the area's random thuggery and flagrant, wall to wall prostitution with Chinatown back home.

And in Madrid, heading out for an evening of tapas and flamenco, we found ourselves accidentally whirled into the gravitational field of a huge group of Japanese tourists, who clapped dutifully in unison at the performance, then left en masse during intermission--emptying the theater, to the dismay of the dancers and proprietor.

The common thread in these three archetypes is crime. Barcelona's Barri Chino is a reminder of how Asian communities are associated in the Western imagination with vice and decadence, particularly of the sexual variety. Cross the boundary into Chinatown, and the rule of law evaporates. "It's Chinatown," Jake Gittes is told, in Roman Polanski's movie of the same name--explaining the film's lurid sexual denouement. A (doomed) Chinese cop says much the same thing to Mickey Rourke's character in Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon: "This isn't New York! This isn't even America, It's Chinatown!" Somehow, this casual criminality is associated not with rampant poverty or anti-immigrant prejudice (which, in the case of the U.S., led to policies that barred Chinese men from bringing their wives over, encouraging the rise of prostitution in those communities). Instead, it's suggested that it's endemic and instinctive--part of the enigmatic, exotic quality of the Asian personality.

Of course, Asians aren't just seen as the perpetrators of crime--we're also perceived as its easiest victims. In St. Maarten, burly rent-a-cops glower in front of even the smallest Asian-owned establishments, attesting to the frequency with which they're burglarized--because, as one Maartenite said candidly, the thieves "go where the money is." That's also the theory that has led the popular travel guide Frommer's to warn Madrid-bound readers that "Asian Americans seem to be particularly at risk...of muggings and violent attacks."

Throughout the world, Asian tourists are seen as naive and wealthy, low-hanging fruit for scammers and snatch-and-grab artists. The travel guide's warning has sharpened my wife's suspicion of even the friendliest strangers; she wears her purse underneath her jacket, compulsively pats herself down to make sure she hasn't been pickpocketed. At first, I laughed it off--until we were accosted by three young women, claiming in broken English to be "Italian tourists" looking for help with directions. As two of them spread out a map to distract us, the third stood quietly behind us. Heather muttered to me in Chinese that something was wrong, and we pulled away from them over their protests. A block away, Heather discovered that the zipper on her purse had been surreptitiously pulled open.

Nothing was missing, thanks to Heather's Spidey-sense. But now we're both wearing our bags inside our jackets.

One last bit of news: When we get back from Europe, I'll be heading out almost immediately to Minneapolis, to meet for the first time the colleagues at my new job--working as a consumer strategist for a company called Iconoculture. They're a pioneering firm in the now-burgeoning trendspotting industry, with an extensive field force of experts dedicated to identifying and analyzing emerging changes in the consumer landscape. I've joined Iconoculture to serve as a set of eyes and ears on the Asian American market, and tune in to new fads and phenomena crossing over from Asia's vibrant cultural cornucopia.

Thankfully, they've agreed to let me continue writing my col on the Gate, so I'll be able to continue to blather at you on a biweekly basis, with your permission...

INSTANT YANG v.12: Cutting My Throat; Ang Lee Goes for Brokeback; Geisha Goes to Japan

Here's wishing you a very happy holiday of your choice as we approach the tail end of 2005...

I'm not in a particularly festive mood just yet myself, given that I've been dealing with a literal pain in the neck: Since last ish, I finally gave in to pressure from physicians and family alike to undergo mouth and throat surgery, to relieve a staggeringly bad (and increasingly worse) case of sleep apnea.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, sleep apnea is when your body rather unproductively stops breathing as you head off into deep slumber. If you're lucky, this makes you reflexively wake up enough to start breathing again--only to repeat the same process again and again throughout the night. The not so lucky don't wake up at all. Two weeks ago, on December 5, the Philadelphia Eagles retired all-time-great defensive end Reggie White's number 92, in a ceremony aired on Monday Night Football. White died last year from complications related to sleep apnea; an estimated 14 percent of all pro football linemen also share his condition, as do 4 percent of Americans in general.

Though I'm hardly built like a lineman, I do come from high-risk genes--my dad to this day suffers from apnea, and has to use a complicated pressure device to control his breathing while he sleeps. I put off dealing with it until my wife started throwing me out of bed with near-daily regularity (a side effect of apnea is snoring measurable on a Richter scale), and a sleep disorder study revealed that my blood-oxygen content was dropping as low as 65 percent during the night. To put this in perspective, if you're in a hospital and your blood-ox saturation goes down to 85 percent, they intubate you...

Anyway, I took the plunge, and essentially had everything soft and loose in the back of my mouth surgically whacked--my tonsils, soft palate, even that dangly thing called the uvula. Now when I look into a mirror, I see a kiddie-cartoon mouth--an evenly curved arc of pink fading into the darkness of my throat.

The pain, while not the worst I've felt in my life, is doggedly persistent. All sorts of things I took for granted, like talking, swallowing, laughing, even breathing deeply, now provoke acute, flinch-inducing ouches. On the other hand, as far as sleep is concerned--once a little (okay, a lot of) Vicodin gets me over the wall--it's a totally new experience. I no longer need a bucket-sized mug of coffee to get me ignited in the morning. Plus, the snoring is gone, like a switch has been flipped. And as a side effect of not being able to eat anything but minute quantities of Jell-O and yogurt, I suspect I'll probably lose a couple of pounds, too. It's all good, at least until the Vicky wears off.

On to the content: I promised you more Ang Lee goodness last time out, and here it is--this weeks' SFGate column is a a profile of the man himself:

KING OF MASKS
Ang Lee has built a brilliant career out of depicting characters with secret identities and closeted passions. So what lies beneath the surface of Hollywood's quietest genius?

I first met Ang back in my days at Asian CineVision, interviewing him for the Village Voice right around when his first feature, PUSHING HANDS, was hitting the festival circuit. I thought he was brilliant, but possibly faced an uphill battle due to his sheer niceness and humility. And now, here he is, 15 years later, and he's assembled the kind of career that most filmmakers don't even dare to dream about--one marked by incredible diversity of subject and genre, and studded with critical and commercial success.

I said last time out, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN may well be the apex of Lee's canon to date--possibly even the one that gives him a much-belated best director Oscar. Meanwhile, as Focus Films' James Schamus said during our interview, "The budget on this was so low that if your mom comes to see it, we'll make money." Jury's still out on whether Mom will check this one out--she's never approved of cowboys--but BROKEBACK still rode into the B.O. top ten this weekend, racking up $3.5 million from the take at just 69 theaters. No other film playing in fewer than 100 theaters has broken into the top ten over the past four years.

Meanwhile, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, the film that's been repeatedly and implausibly paired up with BROKEBACK, because of a similar rollout schedule, and the fact that Ang directed two of the film's divas in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, broke at number 14 on the b.o. charts, making $2.3 million in 52 theaters; it's set to spread out to 1400 on Friday.

I think it's going to tank when it goes wide--most respectable critics have rolled their eyes at the film's kitschy excess, and even fans of the already heavily lathered-up book are finding Marshall's buffet of exotic bombast a bit heavy on the wasabi.

Interestingly, Sony "yeah, we're a Japanese company, go figure" Pictures Entertainment has put a unique marketing spin on the movie for its domestic release--pitching it as a tool to better understand the West's delusional fun-park image of Japanese culture and tradition! It opened at number 4, and is expected to gross something like $21 million in the land whose heritage it apes. Brilliant! They could release it as part of a "Goofy American Visions of Japan" boxed set, along with THE LAST SAMURAI and LOST IN TRANSLATION.

Anyway, the Vicodin blur is getting thin, so it's time to sign off and medicate. Until next time, Merry Chrismukzaawali, and to all a good night...

INSTANT YANG v.11: AZN, R.I.P.; Hello MTV Chi; Holiday Movies a Go Go; Support Your Local Asian American Superhero

...And we're back! Holiday schedules and turkey-induced comas all around led to a brief IY-less interlude, which I hope has cleansed your palate, like an icy sherbet, for this week's news-packed edition.

First of all, the bombshell: the much-heralded 24-hour Asian American cable net, AZN TV, has undergone what Comcast is calling a "restructuring." That's a gentle euphemism for saying that 70 percent of its staff, including all of its senior programming, promotions, acquisitions, and marketing execs (and all senior Asian American managers!) are being laid off, and the channel's ambitious plans to create an unprecedented volume of original programming by, for, and about Asian Americans are no more. Instead, what you see now is what you'll get--newsfeeds, films, soaps, and cartoons from China, Korea, and Japan--at least as long as the company decides to keep the channel alive. Comcast claims that the restructuring was the only way to keep the channel alive at all, but insiders believe the company wants what's left of AZN (now being run by about 15 or so staffers, mostly junior) to "die on the vine." There's much more in this week's exclusive look behind the scenes of the fall of AZN, in my column on SFGate.com:

ASIAN POP: AZN, R.I.P.
A 24-hour channel featuring unique original programming for Asian Americans, backed by the biggest and most powerful entity in the cable business? It seemed too good to be true. And apparently it was.

But even as AZN fades gently into history, its peers seem to be partying on. The day after AZN's massive layoffs, MTV announced the launch of its second MTV World channel, the Chinese American-oriented MTV Chi (www.mtvchi.com). MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA star (and universal hottie) Zhang Ziyi spoke charmingly halting words of welcome, followed by the channel's historic first video--fittingly, "Learn Chinese," by the rapper-formerly-known-as-Jin.

Scrappy indie ImaginAsian continues to prove early cynics wrong, too, with word that their early distribution challenges may soon be a thing of the past. CEO Mike Hong targets 50 to 70 million homes within three years. Oh, and they'll be unveiling another five ImaginAsian Theaters across the country, joining the one on New York's Upper East Side. Uh, wow.

Of course, it wouldn't be the holidays without popcorn and bloated Hollywood box office behemoths, would it? Here's my quick take on some of the films in multiplexes now (the ones with Asian flava, anyway):

--HARRY POTTER AND THE WHATEVER IT IS THIS TIME: Saw this one as the back end of a double bill. With my wife, who hasn't actually read any of the books, and could have cared less about the previous flicks. She found it totally incomprehensible, and even I had a hard time following, though I've managed to keep up with the little bugger's increasingly voluminous adventures. (Short of cutting each book into two back-to-back films, I don't know what they're going to do with the next few. As it is, this movie must set a record for the highest page-to-screen-minute ratio ever--entire backstories of the book are gone, characters and important magical devices get at best nominal introduction ("Hi, I'm Solumetrica Spandex, Ministress of Magical Masochism, and welcome to my plot point. CONDENSUS INCOMPREHENSIBILIS!"). This, by the way, is the volume where all the boys get their very own Asian girls to date. Not that there's anything wrong with that--but it'd be nice if the second-banana Patil Twins or Harry's crushmuffin Cho Chang had more to do than stand around being, you know, Asian love interests.

--MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA: Thud. That's the sound of a narrative toppling over under the weight of its own exotic melodrama. The book, which I will candidly say I did not read, was accused by the real-life woman who inspired it of being an exercise in exploitative orientalism. The movie, directed by CHICAGO helmer Rob Marshall, has the added burden of putting all that ornate hoopla on screen. What starts out as being, at least, eye candy, ends up quickly going to inadvertent camp. If only Marshall had embraced the movie's inherent kitsch and made a musical! As I note in this week's PopMail, you can imagine the production numbers: "All That Enka," "When You're Good to Mama-san"...yeah baby!)

--BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: I'll go on the record as saying that this is quite probably the best movie that Ang Lee has ever done, and one of the most honest-feeling love stories of any type I've seen. Luscious cinematography, a starkly luminous script from Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx--plus letter-perfect casting from top to bottom, if you'll excuse the pun. Aussie-turned-Brooklynite Heath Ledger is eye-opening as a cowboy trapped in a closet as big as all outdoors, and Jake Gyllenhaal matches up marvelously as his rodeo romeo. Lee should get more than just an nod for this one--it's time enough he walked home with a statuette, don't you think? My guess: nominations for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Heath, Best Supporting Actress (Ledger's new missus Michelle Wiliams), Best Cinematography, and oh yeah, Best Picture. Should win at least three, and I won't guess which, if there's no money riding on it.

--THE GRACE LEE PROJECT: Grace Lee's clever/hilarious doc was picked up by Women Make Movies after a triumphant run at the fests, and it's making it slow rounds in major cities, beginning here in New York at the Film Forum (209 W. Houston St., December 14-27). Gothamites: Here's your chance to see the film that's becoming an underground phenomenon--and bring the Grace of your choice along! (You can see trailers and read more at Grace's own site, gracelee.net...)

And now, a pitch for peace, justice, and the Asian American way: If you love comics, or even if you don't love them but love the idea of Asians getting their hero on, head to a local comic shop and pick up Marvel's "Amazing Fantasy" No. 15, which features a brand-new story by director-slash-comic-book-auteur Greg Pak. Pak's entry in the graphical jam session is titled "Mastermind Excello" and features as its protagonist a teenage Asian American supergenius named Amadeus Cho. Plus, manga-style art from Takeshi Miyazawa. How can you resist? (A word to the wise: Even if you're too cheap to spring the four bucks, visit the Marvel.com Web site and drop a vote on Pak for free -- the winner of the online poll gets a full miniseries for his character. Hey, it's the holidays.)

Finally, I need your feedback. In January, I'll be doing another roundup of the year's best, worst and weirdest in Asian Pop...your thoughts, suggestions, or snarky comments are welcome, so pile it on and send it in.

INSTANT YANG v.10: George Takei comes out and speaks out; twisted sex and robot violence; SAVING FACE on DVD; and a whiff of politics

A brief reintroduction to those of you getting this for the first time: The email you're reading is an installment of a biweekly mailblog intended to share nuggets of important, helpful, or just plain unusual news that's somehow relevant to Asians or those interested in Asian ideas, culture, technology, and entertainment. If you're reading this, you either opted in through my SFGate.com column, "Asian Pop"; are someone whom I want to stay in touch with; or perhaps simply wandered too close--I recently synched my email inbox with this application, so some of you are acquaintances and friends of friends, as well as Nigerian 419 spammers and V1aGr4 pitchmen. Regardless of how you ended up here, welcome aboard--and remember, if you find this annoying, you can unsubscribe instantly by clicking the link at the bottom of this message.

But if you stick around, every two weeks, you'll get a freshly baked basket of newslets chock full of Asiany goodness. And if you have something to share with the other 1600+ people on this list, well, if you're a member of this list, your info goes to the head of the class. (Events, job listings, and media alerts with some kind of Asian content only, please--I'm not gonna rent out your apartment or sell your old George Foreman grill.)

On to the content. This week's Asian Pop column is something special. Well, I'd like to think all of them are special, but this one's a bit special-er: George Takei, whom many of you probably know as Mr. Sulu from Star Trek, took time out from his busy schedule to talk to me at length about the reasons behind his decision to publicly embrace his identity as a gay man:

OUT, BEYOND THE STARS
As Lt. Hikaru Sulu on the beloved original Star Trek series, George Takei ventured beyond the farthest reaches of our galaxy, landed on alien planets and explored improbable parallel dimensions. Today, he has fans in the millions and is arguably Asian America's most famous living icon. Yet, as those closest to him know, one aspect of his life has long been hidden behind a cloaking device: his sexual orientation. Which makes it all the more bold that recently, at the age of 68, he made the decision to go where few Asian American celebrities have gone before, informing the world of his 18-year relationship with manager and life partner Brad Altman.

George is more than just one of Asian America's most visible celebrities; he's also a genuine leader in our community, a sincere, funny, and remarkably humble guy, and yeah, he acts a little too; currently, he's getting raves for his turn as the conflicted psychiatrist Martin Dysart in East West Players' adaptation of Peter Shaffer's EQUUS. It's playing now through December 4, so if you're in L.A., go see it, and if you aren't, consider dipping into those frequent flier miles.

San Francisco is experiencing its share of on-stage psychosexual fireworks as well this Friday and Saturday, as the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts presents the last weekend of its One4All Asian American Theatre Festival--featuring Christopher Chen's MISHIMA SPEAKS TO BEAUTY, about the novelist/samurai/would-be rebel's last hours, and Viet Nguyen's IN THE DARK, a thriller about two lesbians, madness, and murder....check it out here, or call 415.554.0402 for reservations.

Meanwhile, those looking for lesbians in a somewhat less lethal mode would do well to check out Alice Wu's delicious screwball-romantic comedy SAVING FACE, now out from Sony Classics on DVD--complete with embarrassing featurettes that Alice doesn't want you to see! Go. Buy. Enjoy.

Screws are also set to come loose in SF's Fort Mason Festival Pavilion this weekend, when the rude mechanicals of the ComBots Robot Fighting League hit the Bay Area...hopefully not literally. The ROBOT FIGHTING LEAGUE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP features over 200 machines getting neolithic on one another for a $10,000 top prize. If you dig hot bot on bot action, these might be the droids you're looking for. And look...kids under six get in free!

November 12-13, 2005, 12am - 10pm
Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, San Francisco, CA
Cost: $20/adult, $15/kids 17-7, six and under free

And now, a turn to the political. The failed policies and endemic corruption of the GOP was soundly slapped down this year, with the Dems winning the statehouses in New Jersey and Virginia, terminating Arnold's special election slate of propositions in Cali, and winning countless smaller races across the country. One that I'd like to draw your attention to in particular is the successful bid by Democratic challenger JUN CHOI--excuse me, Mayor Jun Choi!--to win the top executive position of Edison, New Jersey. Keep an eye on this guy: Jun's a good man, and a rising star in both his party and his community.

Also fitting that description: SUBODH CHANDRA, who's running for Attorney General of the state of Ohio in 2006. The former federal prosecutor is promising to take a new broom to the creepy, festering pit of cronyism and scandal that is the Buckeye State, where worker's comp funds are invested in (now missing) coin collections, with Republican blessings. Check him out at www.ChandraForOhio.com, and consider giving him your support.

Lastly, if you're honest, hard-working, brilliant, committed to civic service, you, too may have a place in government. CHUNG SETO, former exec director of the New York State Democratic Committee, is looking for Asian Americans interested in public-sector positions in city, state, or national government in order to build a standing pool of candidates for potential hires and appointments. Feeling up to the challenge? Email your resume with a cover that details your interests to Asians4jobs@yahoo.com; you can also email her at that address with any questions.

And that's it for this installment. I'd like to sign off with a solemn moment for those who've fought our country's battles on this Veteran's Day weekend. Soldiers deserve our deepest respect. Seems to me the best way we can show our respect is to not risk their lives in misguided conflicts, founded on lies. Not that I'm naming names or anything. I'm just sayin'.

Instant Yang v.9: Why Asians rule poker; eating dogs redux; the Cantoboyz; support the SKA Foundation

Back again, with more biweekly info-nuggets for your approval.

As you may remember (or not) from the last episode of this splog, I was headed to Vegas for some, uh, research on the fast and loose world of high-stakes poker. Well, the funds I'd set aside for first-person research vaporized within 15 minutes of my arrival in Sin City, so I'm afraid I can't offer a thrilling account of my adventures as a gamblin' man. I can, however, attest to the splendor of the Wynn Hotel & Casino buffet, which I partook of twice. The roast lamb is particularly excellent.

On the other hand, I did get to take in quite a bit of local color--not to mention soak up some reflected glory from the high rollers who were in town to play in the Bellagio Festa al Lago poker tournament.

This week's SFGate col looks at the startling dominance of Asian players on the pro poker circuit--something which might not be surprising to anyone who's visited the so-called "Asian Rooms" of any big casino, but which has been surprisingly underreported by mainstream media. Put it this way: Poker and women's golf are the two games that we *own*.

ASIAN POP: All In
by Jeff Yang, special to SF Gate
If you're a poker buff, you know that some of the biggest names on the money tour are Asians--like legendary two-time World Series of Poker champ Johnny Chan and refugee-turned-rounder Scotty "The Prince" Nguyen. Meanwhile, a new generation of Asian American card sharks are beginning to deal themselves into the game. Jeff Yang checks in with some of the reigning Asian kings and queens of the pro poker circuit.

Now, I don't want to minimize the problem of gambling in Asian communities--fortunes have been lost, and families have been broken by gaming addictions. But poker has become such an incredible, all-encompassing phenomenon--as a sport, not just a leisure pursuit--that there's something to be said for the fact that we have a stake in the action. So to speak.

I might add that it was a real kick speaking to Johnny Chan and Scotty Nguyen, two of the reigning heroes of the game--and real, true characters. Those passionate about poker should also definitely check out Joe Sebok's writings on the subject; he's not just a serious, up-and-coming player, but an avid blogger and essayist, a Berkeley grad, and the survivor of five or so dot-com implosions. You'll probably learn more about the poker life by browsing his stuff for an hour than reading two or three books.

Lastly, Liz Lieu rocks. She's not just a rising star, she's also an unusually sweet person, given her ability to crush you like a bug at the tables. She says she'll be playing in the Foxwoods tournament in a few weeks, so East Coasties might want to go up and cheer her on...

And now, some responses to the last column on dogs in Asia: Noted film critic and all around sage David Chute pointed out a few Chinese movies that explicitly depict dog-eating:

"I notice that in older Chinese movies, like some of Li Han-hsiang's, eating dog stew is used as a male bonding ritual and as a sign of salt of the earth lack of pretension, proof positive that the person has not lost touch with his peasant roots. I also recall that in an HK gangster films a few years back there was a scene set in an underground dog meat restaurant: the experience begins when the still squirming puppy is brought to the table for the diner's approval...Isn't there also a dog meat gag in the opening scene of Once Upon a Time in China 2?"

And also, as David points out, a lengthy dog-eating scene in Jet Li's classic debut, SHAOLIN TEMPLE. It's odd--those scenes had skipped my memory, or perhaps I've unconsciously blocked them out...

On the "Next Big Viral Email Craze" front, catch this set of dubiously talented (but certainly hilarious) lipsyncers on videosharing site YouTube.com:

VIA BOINGBOING and SFGATE.COM's CultureBlog:
A pair of Chinese guys wearing Yao Ming jerseys (they look like college kids in a dorm room) lip-synch strenuously to hits like the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way"

Not sure what I think yet--is this the next William Hung or is the joke on America for having such cheesy, generic pop music? More viral lipsyncing, only in reverse: A friend pointed me to www.cheerioke.com, which allows you to record your version of cheesy, generic pop hits and get a virtual avatar to sing it for you. Pretty fun--though I'm not sure what it has to do with Yogurt Burst Cheerios.

And finally, a serious and important note.

Those of you who know Curtis Chin know that he's a great guy, a talented writer, and an important leader and pioneer in the Asian American community. Among other things, he founded the Asian American Writers Workshop, and has been instrumental in organizing Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (and remains a director-at-large of that important political outreach group).

He was also my roommate years back when he lived in New York, and my coworker for a time at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, as well as a founding editor of aMagazine: Inside Asian America.

Last week, he experienced a sudden personal tragedy. His parents were in a car accident that seriously injured his mother Shui Kuen and killed his father Allen.

Curtis' family, who were among the first Asians in Michigan, opened Chung's Restaurant in 1940, and their family business served as the center of the Chinese American community there for many years--even being included in a small part of the documentary "Who Killed Vincent Chin?." Curtis' father was picking up supplies with his wife to start a typical day at the restaurant when the accident occurred.

In memorial of their father, the Chin family, working with Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, a national nonprofit based in San Francisco, has established the Shui Kuen and Allen Chin Foundation to offer a $1,000 scholarship each year to an Asian American college freshman whose family comes from the food service industry.

Here's a quote from Curtis: "We felt this was not only part of our own identity, but also a statement about the Asian American community....My father always stressed three things: education, hard work and good food."

I urge you to make a tax-deductible donation to the fund or suggest other ways that you might help. Donations, which should be made out to AAPIP/The Shui Kuen and Allen Chin Foundation, can be sent c/o Curtis Chin at 215 S. Santa Fe Ave., #3, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

You can also e-mail Curtis at SKAFoundation@aol.com.

Instant Yang v.8: Dogs--Pets or Meat; driving on Diwali; last chance to bid

Hi all,

Back again, just seven days after last week's special alert issue of this newsletter thing (which I recently referred to as a "splog"--the bastard child of spam and a blog)...I wanted to reiterate that I appreciate your continued willingness to read this stuff, and promise to make intra-biweekly editions a rare thing, for those of you overwhelmed by sundry inbox invasions. Really.

Anyway...this week explores the evolving status of dogs in Asia--and yes, it "goes there":

PUTTING ON THE DOG
Tired of jokes about how Asians are more likely to have a hound on the table than under it, proud pooch-owner Jeff Yang explores the state of canine companionship in Asia, to find a continent that's increasingly going to the dogs.

Meanwhile, the Hindu New Year, Diwali, is approaching fast--and this year, the holiday has brought a spate of controversy to the Big Apple. Few things are as precious to the inhabitants of New York as parking spaces, which is why the ultimate designation of a Real New York Holiday is the suspension of the city's despotic alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations. These rules force Gothamites to haul their cars to the other side of the road on certain days of the week, to make way for Zamboni-like cleaning machines that spray garbage off the street, and onto the sidewalk where it belongs.

Except, of course, on "Real New York Holidays," of which there are about 40. All federal off-days, of course. Every prominent Jewish holy day, including Shemini Atzereth and Simchat Torah. The first two days of Idul Fitr during the month of Ramadan. Most major Catholic sacred dates, from Ash Wednesday to the Immaculate Conception. And Lunar New Year (which the city oddly calls "Asian Lunar New Year").

Yet despite the presence of some 250,000 Asian Indians in the city, the vast majority of them Hindu, Mayor Bloomberg and his Sanitation Department are adamantly opposed to adding Hinduism's holiest day to the calendar (the third day of Diwali, known as Lakshmi Puja, which falls this year on November 1). Yeah, on some level it's symbolic, but symbols are important--and how can you deny the city's fastest-growing Asian community one day of parking for its own? More info and upudates here.

And finally, I sign off with a note that the Asian American Writers Workshop's charity fundraising auction is scheduled to end October 14, which means you have just hours to get your bid in for prizes ranging from cream puffs with author/academic Edmund White to a comlete $12,000 library of Asian American fiction and nonfiction books. More info and bidding instructions here.

See you in two weeks--am headed to Las Vegas this weekend for a little first-person research for an upcoming column on the dark goddess that is No-Limit Texas Hold'em, and its rising young Asian American stars...

Instant Yang v7.5: Asian American Writers Workshop--Do Good, Get Goodies; D.C. APA Film Fest; NAPALC's name change

Just wanted to drop you a quick between-the-weeks line to alert you to a couple of cool things I've been alerted to since my call for Interesting Stuff went out last ish. First up is an ongoing online fundraising auction being held by the Asian American Writers Workshop, one of the nation's most important Asian American literary institutions (I'm proud to say I was a member of their inaugural workshop session back in 1991, and even prouder to see that they're still going strong, nearly 15 years later).

Anyway, the auction is a little weird--you have to email them or phone in your closed bid and they'll allow just the three highest bidders to make a final, "top this" bid at the end--but they've got some of the more interesting and unusual items I've seen at one of these things available.

Let's just say that between the drinks with a rock-slash-porn star, the week vacation in a Barcelona penthouse, the short story critique by writer Rick Moody, and the complete Asian American library ($12,000 worth of absolutely new fiction and nonfiction books), many if not most of may find something worth bidding on. It runs through October 14--check it out here...

The Asian American Writers Workshop's
PERSON PLACE THING
September 15 - October 14, 2005
An eclectic cyber benefit auction - items from $100 - $12,000

What does my bid support?
In summer 2006, the Workshop will be organizing “Where I’m Calling From: Youth At Home,” a creative writing and solo performance workshop for Asian American, African American, Caucasian and Latino youths between ages 13-19. Your bid dollar supports artists fees, youth stipends, writing workshops and a public performance.

Also, the 6th Annual DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival has kicked off in Washington, DC, presenting over 80 films, spanning the full range of feature films, documentaries, short programs, and music programs. Mike Kang's goofy/brilliant paean to adolescence, THE MOTEL, was last night's opening night program; highlights that you can, uh, still actually go see include the hit Hong Kong adaptation of the even bigger hit Japanese manga INITIAL D (the car comic that invented drifting); Bertha Pan's urban romance FACE (Bertha and actress Kristy Wu will be attending); and Filipino indie thriller CAVITE, whose ripped-from-the-headlines plot closes out the festival. If you're in the Beltway region, check it out. More info here:

DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival

And lastly, a bit of Asian American history-in-the-making for you: At their annual American Courage Awards last night, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium adopted a brand new name, to better fit this critical organization's expanding mission and purpose. They're now the ASIAN AMERICAN JUSTICE CENTER--and you can find out more and why here.

AAJC advocates for social justice, advances the cause of equal representation and treatment for Asian Americans, and helps to raise awareness of the critical issues facing our community at all levels of the socioeconomic scale. Among many other things, they perform the annual inventory of Asian American representation on primetime TV. Check their website out, and congratulate them on their new name!

Instant Yang v.7: The Asians of Reality TV; APIA Katrina RELIEF benefit; the National Budget Simulator!

Update time again, and a number of you who are reading this are probably getting this for the first time. That’s in an effort to filter the tide of inbound emails I’ve been getting, I’m trying to consolidate my contact lists. What that means is that I’ve set it up so that email to asianpopculture@gmail.com from people who are receiving this newsletter is being tagged so that I know it’s coming from this list. I intend to prioritize those emails when going through stuff for possible inclusion here, in the “POPMail” section of the SFGate.com column, and, of course, in the column itself.

What does this mean? It means that if you’re on this list, you’re welcome--no, URGED--to send me info about what you’re doing, and things you’ve seen, heard, experienced, or, I suppose, tasted or smelled, if you feel that they’re worthy of bringing to the attention of a larger group of potential readers. There are currently well over a thousand individuals on this list, and more are always welcome--so please also feel free to pass the subscribe link on to anyone you think might benefit or enjoy. I’ve also just added the public email addresses of some entities that I think are doing interesting or relevant things to this list, hoping that you’ll also share what you’re doing with me as well. Remember, if you want to unsubscribe at any time, the link is at the bottom of this email, and you won’t get this again (unless you resubscribe, of course).

Just as a reminder, the SFGate column focuses on Asian and Asian American popular culture, from my slightly self-absorbed perspective; there’s definitely room for more diversity of subject matter. I’d love to hear more about South and Southeast Asian, women’s, hapa, queer, Asian diasporic issues, or issues relating to Asians outside of New York, and particularly, between the coasts.

If you simply have feedback, an opinion, or an alert that you’d like to pass on, it’ll probably land in either the occasionally appended POPMail part of the column, or posted to this list. Of course, I can’t get to everything, so sorry if I miss stuff! Note: This isn’t a calendar listing or asianamerica.craigslist.org; only occasional events will be highlighted, and I won’t help you sell your used car or buy a house. (Choice jobs or casting calls are more likely to be passed along, however; hard to imagine people complaining about getting those in their inbox.)

Back to regularly scheduled programming: This week’s Asian Pop column looks at Asian Americans on reality TV—catching up with Diane Mizota (now an “angel” on NBC’s THREE WISHES), and Carrie Ann Inaba (one of the judges on ABC’s summer breakout hit DANCING WITH THE STARS), as well as Survivor survivor Shii-Ann Huang. It’s obvious that reality TV is opening the door for more Asian faces on primetime…the question is, does this reflect real progress, or just a passing fancy?

REALITY BITES
Asian Americans have struggled to break into prime time since the dawn of television. Now, in the age of reality television, opportunity finally seems to be knocking. Or is it?

Constant readers may note my recent obsession with SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE?, the other big toe-tapping tournament on TV. Well, the elimination of insano stunt-break king Ryan Conferido a few weeks back blunted the show's appeal for me a little bit, but the last remaining Asian American contestant, Melody Lacayanga, has been simply bangin', and is in the Final Four heading into next week's finals. Will she pull one out for the team, or will she be overwhelmed by grinning dance machine Nick Lazzerini? (I don't think Ashle "Jan Brady" Dawson or the overmatched Jamile McGee really have a chance here, but we shall see.)

Event stuff: If you're in New York and free tonight, head to RELIEF, an APIA benefit for Hurricane Katrina survivors, being coordinated by lovely 'n' talented spoken word diva Emily Chang (formerly of I WAS BORN WITH TWO TONGUES and now Mango Tribe). Show starts at 7:30 at the ImaginAsian Theater, 239 E. 59th St. (b/w 2nd & 3rd Ave.); admission is $7 to $30, based on what you can do. Highlights include: DJs Kuttin Kandi and Rekha, spoken word standouts Regie Cabico and Ishle Park (as well as Chang herself), and singer songwriter Kevin So.

There's a flyer here.

For more information on relief organizations.

For more about the situation facing immigrants down South.

Also, for those who are curious, IMDiversity.com's Asian American Village posted my complete commentary on the Katrina aftermath.

Finally, to follow on that political vein, I wanted to point people to an interesting website, the National Budget Simulation.

The NBS allows you to try balancing the budget yourself--by adjusting line-items for both expenses and taxation, according to your personal priorities. Ever wondered what our deficit would look like if you killed off environmental regulatory bodies, cut back on support for disaster relief, launched a few expensive wars, and gave huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy? Whoops, guess we already know what THAT looks like...

The simulation offers some extremely educational insights on where your money is actually going, and what we can do to address the massive and growing federal budget gap. Here's a hint: If you want to balance the budget without effectively destroying the government, tax cuts for everyone but the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers have got to go. By rolling back the 2001/2003 tax cuts and eliminating tax loopholes for corporations, I managed to get us to a $6 billion surplus--while actually increasing spending on our troops and investing in education, and preserving just about everything else (a few areas did get 10 percent cuts, which I'm going to say reflects "elimination of government waste and inefficiency," like every other pol does)...

Check it out, and let me know what you ended up with, and why--I'm curious to see your results.

Instant Yang v.6: Rockin' the Rising Sun; Why It's Important to Stay Angry Over New Orleans; Odds and Ends

A little late with the alert this week, but the latest Asian Pop column is up on SFGate.com...this installment looks at a new book by Josephine Yun, J.ROCK, INK., and the phenomenon that it so delightfully introduces--the outrageous landscape of Japanese "visual style" rock:

HELLO KITTY! ROCK! ROCK!
If you thought Japanese music was nothing but taiko drums and bubblegum pop, think again. Josephine Yun's new book "JRock, Ink.," from Berkeley's Stonebridge Press, showcases 40 of the biggest, hardest and wildest rock bands ever to roar out of the Rising Sun, from Dir en Grey and Glay to the pillows and Psycho le Cemu.

On a more serious note, I don't think I've ever been as angry at the government as I have this past week (and believe me, this particular administration has tested the limits any number of times). I wrote an essay on why it's important to be angry and stay angry after the complete mismanagement of the New Orleans disaster, which I hope will be put up somewhere soon. A brief sample:

"ANGER MANAGEMENT
After nearly a week of chaos, mismanagement, and bureaucratic incompetence, critically needed resources have finally been brought to the shattered remains of the great city of New Orleans. Pumping has begun. The floodwaters are receding. Offers of assistance have poured in from across the nation and around the world, showing once more the generosity that human beings are capable of in the wake of tragedy. People have opened their homes, their wallets, and their hearts to those who have lost everything to the winds and the waters of the storm.

These acts of grace should give us hope and inspiration; but as heartwarming as they might be, we can't afford to let soft emotions overcome us. With September 11's fourth anniversary approaching, it is time for us to remember that this was not the first catastrophe to strike our shores, and to reflect on the fact that it will not be the last. We can't allow ourselves to forget that, after 9/11, those who currently lead this country made a promise to protect us from future disasters. They were reelected to office as a direct result of that promise.

We have every right to be angry that they failed.

They failed not because they tried to make a difference and did not succeed. They failed because they chose not to act, despite multiple warnings about the possible scope of the destruction. Despite immediate evidence, from witnesses on the scene, from the mainstream media, that the worst fears had been realized. Despite the desperate pleas of those who had been grotesquely abandoned to their fates--individuals who almost to a soul were poor and members of minority populations."

The short of it: The response to Katrina wasn't an exception--it mirrored every other leadership failure that this administration has been responsible for, and we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled or distracted this time--if we want to prevent another tragedy from occurring. "A" stands for Anger, but "A" also stands for Accountability--and that should be our buzzword from now on out.

Meanwhile...our friends at Asian CineVision remind us that the New York Film Festival begins September 23, and there are a number of standout Asian films being screened there--so if you're in the New York area, look out below. My picks: SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE, the followup to Park Chanwook's SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (he also did the brilliantly gritty OLDBOY); Shinya Tsukamoto's HAZE; and the latest from Taiwanese maestro Hou Hsiao-hsien, THREE TIMES.

ASIAN FILMS AT THE 43RD NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
September 23 – October 9, 2005

SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE | Park Chanwook | South Korea | 2005
Fri. Sept. 30, 6:00 pm; Sun. Oct. 2, 8:30 pm *Director present (Alice Tully Hall)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/films/ladyvengeance.htm

TALE OF CINEMA | Hong Sang-soo | South Korea/France | 2005
Sat. Oct. 1, 6:15 pm; Sun. Oct. 2, 3:15 pm *Director present (Alice Tully Hall)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/films/taleofcinema.htm

HAZE | Shinya Tsukamoto | Japan | 2005
Sat. Oct. 1, 12:00 midnight. *Director present (Walter Reade Theater)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyffse/haze.htm

THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG | Im Sang-soo | South Korea | 2005
Mon. Oct. 3, 6:00 pm; Tue. Oct. 4, 9:00 pm *Director present (Alice Tully Hall)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/films/presidents.htm

WHO’S CAMUS ANYWAY? | Mitsuo Yanagimachi | Japan | 2005
Mon. Oct. 3, 9:00 pm; Tue. Oct. 4, 6:00 pm *Director present (Alice Tully Hall)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/films/whoscamus.htm

THREE TIMES | Hou Hsiao-hsien | Taiwan | 2005
Wed. Oct. 5, 6:00 pm; Thu. Oct. 6, 9:00 pm (Alice Tully Hall)
http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/films/threetimes.htm

Tickets will go on sale for the above programs starting Sunday, Sept 11 at 12pm at:
— Box Office: Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway at 65th Street, NYC
— By Phone: Centercharge 212 721 6500 ($5.50 surcharge per ticket)
— Online starting Monday Sept 12, 12 noon: www.lincolncenter.org <http://www.lincolncenter.org/>; ($3.50 surcharge per ticket)

Box Office Information: 212 875 5050
Program Information: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff.htm

SPECIAL PRESENTATION
THE BEAUTY OF THE EVERYDAY: JAPAN’S SHOCHIKU COMPANY AT 110
September 24 – October 20, 2005

This 44-film retrospective celebrates Japan’s Shochiku Company on the occasion of its 110th anniversary. Films by Yasujiro Ozu, Heinosuke Gosho, Yasujiru Shimazu, Hiroshi Shimizu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Nagisa Oshima, Masahiro Shinoda, Kiju Yoshida, Yoji Yamada, Hou Hsiao-hsien and others, from the 1921 silent SOULS ON THE ROAD, to the US premiere of Yamada’s THE HIDDEN BLADE (2005).
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/showing/shochiku.htm

Tickets for SHOCHIKU AT 110 on sale through www.filmlinc.com <http://www.filmlinc.com/>; and at the Walter Reade Theater Box Office (165 West 65th Street, NYC, 212.875.5600)

Finally, a little anxiety for Ryan and Melody, the two Fil-Am contestants on my shameful new addiction, SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE? Both are currently in danger of elimination, after big guy Allan was dumped last week. We'll see what happens next episode...

Instant Yang v.5: Aibo vs. Roomba; So You Think You Can Dance...; Casting Call

So here we are with another installment of Instant Yang, and as promised in the last ish of this newsmail, this week's SFGate column topic is...robots.

Now, let me go on the record as saying that I'm a little disappointed in the 21st century. Here we are in an era that science fiction writers everywhere predicted would be a technological wonderland, so, like, where are the flying cars? And why don't I have a robot buddy? Wasn't the future supposed to be all about flying cars and robot buddies? Then again, we're not fending off mutants in the blast-scarred craters of a nuclear wasteland, either; nor are we the abject slaves of a race of superintelligent space chimps. Guess I'll just count my blessings...

ROBOT NATION
Why Japan, and not America, is likely to be the world's first cyborg society

And now for the e-mail only stuff...

I don't know about you guys, but my current guilty pleasure is SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE?, the reality prog featuring a bevy of toe-tapping, jazz-dancing, head-spinning wunderkind, twinkling their toes for a quartet of American Idol-lite judges. (Yes, there's an obnoxious Brit on the panel. The show's produced by AI's creative team, which is proceeding on the assumption that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

The answer to the show's rhetorical question, in my case, is "No." Unless sufficiently lubricated, I'm self-conscious and basically spastic on the disco 'round (after a few drinks, of course, I no longer give a damn). But in the case of the two and a half Asian American contestants on the show, the answer is Yes! Yes. and Half a Yes. The enthusiastic Yes! goes to Ryan Conferido, the self-taught street dancer who wowed audition judges with his insane break moves and equally insane Yu-Gi-Oh hairdo, and who has shown since then that he's got serious groove in the heart--picking up ballroom styles like Mambo and Salsa like a Pinoy Arthur Murray. A somewhat more muted Yes goes to his Pinay sister Melody Lacayanga, who has exquisite technique but needs to get down and funky, or downer and funkier; she's in danger of elimination this week. And the half-a-yes goes to big guy Allan Frias, who came back from almost being zapped last week because America likes to see a heavy dude cuttin' the rug like no tomorrow. Word on the e-streets has it that he's half-Filipino, making this show truly a props-up to the Fil-Am community. (Extra credit for dancer Jonnis Tannis using one of Black Eyed Peas' Tagalog-chorus tunes for his solo number. Didn't stop him from getting the boot, though.)

And finally, an Asia-based production company I'm acquainted with is looking for a male or female host for an international travel series set in China; the program will appear on international cable and broadcast TV, and they'd love to cast an Asian American. Mandarin-speaking ability is a plus but not a mandate. Info and contact details below the fold...see y'all in two weeks...

-------------

"Presenter for International Travel series"
Asian based TV production company is seeking male or female presenters for new travelogue series within China. Series is set for international channel and broadcast.

Requirements:

1) Well Spoken
2) Must be able to project both a sophisticated or down to earth, casual vibe
3) Able to talk about cuisine, design and people
4) Well travelled- Having been to China is an added plus
5) Able to speak Mandarin a plus
6) Possess either an American/ British accent
7) Not too flamboyant - able to blend in with the subject.
8) Between ages 25 to 38
9) Able to relocate for filming for at least 2 months
10) All races welcome

Interested applicants can send resume and photo to stephanie@movingvisuals.com. Please note that mails without photo will not be entertained.

Instant Yang (was JY "Hey Guys") v.4: Special SF Asian Film Fest Edition; Speaking at the Smithsonian's MADE IN HONG KONG fest in DC; "Four Brothers"

Constant readers may note that I've changed the subject line of this mostly biweekly post. Why? Well, change is good. But also, the old subject line was beginning to annoy me. It made this update look like spam. (Hopefully, it's not. If this list feels and tastes like spam, feel free to flee via the link in this email's footer...)

And so, the spankin' new moniker. Why "Instant"? Because this lite 'n' tasty email update arrives mysteriously in your inbox every two weeks, without the slightest of effort required on your part. The "Yang" part should be self-explanatory.

Instant Yang also reminds me of a deliciously refreshing and nutritious space-age beverage from my childhood--and just as the powdered goodness of Instant Tang builds strong bodies, Instant Yang builds...uh...I don't know. Pop culture savvy. Resistance to irony. Something.

On to some real content:
Though my biweekly SFGate column isn't actually due 'til next Thursday (giving me until 5 pm next Wednesday to write it--if my editor's reading this, I'm kidding), I filed a supplementary column of sorts yesterday, in celebration of the opening of the 9th annual San Francisco Asian Film Festival:

Mayhem, Melodrama and a Fistful of Pocky
The SF Asian Film Festival keeps the Golden Age of Chinatown double features alive...for now

The SFAFF offers 32 films from seven countries this year, from classics to ffresh-baked hits from the marquees of China, Korea, Japan, and, for the first time, India and the Philippines. My picks: ELECTRIC SHADOWS, tonight's festival opening film--a charmingly unaffected romantic comedy from Mainland China; the slapstick flying-people actioner ARAHAN; MAREBITO, a deeply disturbing chiller from Takeshi Shimizu, director of THE GRUDGE; Shinya Tsukamoto's lushly erotic A SNAKE OF JUNE; and the grrrl-powered rave-up KAMIKAZE GIRLS, which gets a theatrical run beginning September 9, courtesy of Viz Media. Detailed reviews are in the column.

The fest begins tonight at the Presidio Theater:

2340 Chestnut Street
Box Office: 415.776.2988
Information Line: 415.776.2388

and then moves on to the 4Star Theater, through August 21:

2200 Clement Street at 23rd Ave.
Box Office: 415.666.3488

If you're in the Bay Area, check it out.

D.C. Area readers:
I'll be speaking on a panel about the past, present, and future of Hong Kong cinema as part of the Smith's 10th annual MADE IN HONG KONG festival, along with Philip Lee of Hong Kong City University and noted critic and author David Chute. If you're around, please come--looks like tickets are free (and you get to watch IRON MONKEY, too!). Call 202.633.4880 for details.

The Freer film series has some terrific stuff in it--the Hui Brothers' SECURITY UNLIMITED, the Korean romantic comedy SOMEONE SPECIAL, the highly effective K-horror creepfest A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (allegedly being remade with U.S.A.-based creepies Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen), the wacko SAVE THE GREEN PLANET, and Curtis Choy's WHAT'S WRONG WITH FRANK CHIN?, among many others. And yeah, tickets cost zip. Can't get Freer than that. More on the website.

One last non-Asian related thing:
Caught the premiere this week of John Singleton's FOUR BROTHERS, starring Mark "Don't call me Marky" Wahlberg, Tyrese, and Andre Benjamin (better known as Andre 3000), among others. Someone told me it was like MYSTIC RIVER meets BOYZ N THE HOOD. Uh....nope. What it is is a vendetta flick with a staggering body count (inner Detroit is effectively depopulated by movie's end). Marky channels his inner Southie thug here--his character's fascination with dousing people with gasoline makes him resemble a grown-up Beavis, or perhaps Butthead; despite playing a role that involves pounding on a lot of black people (ironically recalling his real-life juvenile record of racial violence), he still manages to radiate a bit of Diggleresque charm. Tyrese, on the other hand, is effortlessly charismatic, making you wonder why he got stuck with the sidekick role; perhaps by way of apology, Singleton assigns him maximum babe Sophie Vergara as a love interest. (Anyone remember her publicist-scripted pre-Katie"affair" with the Cruisemeister? No? Guess VeraCruise didn't scan as well as TomKat...) My rating: two and half out of five PopTarts--I'd have gone to three for a scene with Marky rolling out to 8 Mile and rockin' the trailer witih Eminem's mom...

JY "Hey Guys" List v.3: "The Motel" and memories of puberty, dressing down Paul Newman

How two weeks zipped by so quickly is a complete mystery to me, but here we are with another SFGate.com column, plus a quick note on Newman's Own "Kinda Racist!" salad dressing.

First the column: This week, I spend a few hours with Michael Kang, director of the skankin' new feature film THE MOTEL, reminiscing about how much adolescence sucked and how we were total geek-boy losers. Back then! Now, of course, we rule. Ha ha. Ha....

Anyway, click here to read:

GIVE ME PUBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH
Unblocking repressed adolescent memories with Michael Kang, director of "The Motel"

Now about that salad dressing...all you card-carrying members of Costco out there know that Paul Newman is the proud proprietor of a line of tasty comestibles known as Newman's Own. (I believe that at one time he may also have been an actor--gotta google that.)

Newman's Own actually makes pretty good products. They use natural ingredients, eschew preservatives, and best of all, Paul Newman donates all profits from his produce to charity--over $150 million at last count. However. As grocery junkies know, a distinctive part of Newman's Own packaging is the presence of Paul Newman's grinning blue-eyed mug, generally decked out in some kind of wacky regional or ethnic outfit, e.g., a toga for Caesar dressing, a cowboy hat for Ranch, etc.

Well, on the label of Newman's Own lowfat sesame ginger dressing, Paul sports none other than a conical Chinese coolie hat, a fu manchu moustache, and get this, slanty eyes. Is it my imagination, or has his skin complexion also been tinted yellow? Hard to believe that a straight-shootin' progressive entrepreneur (and yes, celebrated showbiz legend) would allow his image to be draped in the trappings of anti-Chinaman caricature, but there you have it. Read this week's SFGate column for more, with pictures. And after you do, visit and drop Butch a line to politely let him know that while his sauces are yummy, he really needs to change that label. Because, you know, it's kinda racist.

(And yeah, I know the low-fat dressing line is called "Lighten Up!" Whatever, man. I'll live with the irony.)

JY "Hey Guys" List v.2: Maggie!, last call for AAIFF, and Michael Bay's blockbuster clonefest

Well, it’s that time of biweek again, and another column is up at SFGate.com--a day late, but not, my editor assures me, a dollar short. This week’s col is about Maggie Cheung, arguably the most versatile--and certainly the most enduring--star in Hong Kong’s cinematic constellation. Though she’s shuttered back her output to one or two films a year (down from her late-‘80s peak of, er, 10), the quality of her work has risen proportionately. Maggie-maniacs will get a brief glimpse of her in Wong Kar Wai’s forthcoming 2046 (out on August 5 in New York and L.A.) and a healthier dose this fall, when Palm Pictures releases CLEAN, for which she won her first Palme D’Or. Though, we think, not her last. Here’s the link.

You could also head over to Asian CineVision’s annual Asian American International Film Festival, which goes on through this weekend at Manhattan’s Asia Society, and then heads out to Long Island’s Cinema Arts Centre:

The Asia Society and Museum
July 15-28
725 Park Avenue at 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
Box Office: 212-517-ASIA

Cinema Arts Centre
July 29-31
423 Park Avenue
Huntington, Long Island 11743
Box Office:
631-423-FILM (3456)
631-423-BOXO (2696)

The “Final Cut” party’s Saturday night--though you won’t see me there, as my nightlife now consists of warm milk and repeated recitals of “The Big Red Barn”…

Elsewhere:

This isn’t Asian pop related, but I had the chance this week to see a preview Michael Bay’s new excuse to break stuff, THE ISLAND, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansen.

First impression: Noisy. Expensive. Scarlett Johansen is unusually hot.

Second impression: What do you get when you take The Matrix, Coma, Minority Report, Blade Runner, and Logan’s Run, slog in a few gallons of testosterone and enough product placements to fill an aisle at Target, blend, and serve?

Third impression: This has gotta be the most expensive Right to Life movie I’ve ever seen.

Final impression: If you should see it, and you’re welcome to do so, tell me that it doesn’t feel like it begins with a Calvin Klein perfume ad and ends with a Coke commercial.

I give it two Popstars out of five, one for the whizbang wanton destruction (and you know how much we love destroying those wantons!) and one for Scarlett Johansen’s unusual hotness.

JY "Hey Guys" List v.1: Otak-who?, NYT on the Chinese Film Market, and AAIFF

Sent July 7th, 2005 6:40:19 pm

Well, it's that time of biweek again, so here's a quick note about my latest column for SFGate.com--on why anime fans may just be the future of the global marketplace. Yeah, you heard that right.

No, really.

GENERATION O
Meet the otaku -- a global network of anime fans and manga maniacs whose unique tastes and burgeoning consumer clout are reshaping the cultural landscape

The column also features a little personal note on babies and PDAs and dogs and skunks, not necessarily in that odor. Is it really true that tomato juice eliminates skunk odor, or is that just an old wives' tale? Nothing against old wives, by the way--I'll take de-skunking advice from anyone at this point...

Couple of quick asides here too--interesting article in the NY Times about how Hollywood is looking to invade the Chinese film market (Snow White and the Seven Shaolin Monks? Yeah, okay).

HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STUDIOS SEE CHINESE MARKET AS NEXT RISING STAR

And for those of you who are in NYC, don't miss ACV's Asian American International Film Festival, starting next week...I wrote a little overview of the career of ever-awesome Maggie Cheung for the Festival edition of CINEVUE. Unfortunately, the Fest's one-on-one with Maggie herself is sold out, or I'd tell y'all to check that out too. (But hey, you can catch CENTRE STAGE and HEROIC TRIO and her Cannes-winning performance in CLEAN, not to mention my fave, COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY. Also, do see Mike Kang's THE MOTEL if you can--I'm planning to, and I hear it rocks. Wanna give a quick plug for Francisco Aliwalas's thriller THE BLUE HOUR, too. You will NOT believe that he made it for, like, 50 bucks.)

05 ASIAN AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
announces dates: July 15-31, 2005 | Manhattan & Long Island

(and yes, you can buy tix online)

The 28th Asian American International Film Festival, presented by Asian CineVision (ACV), will take place July 15-31, 2005 in New York City & Long Island. Films, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, workshops, receptions and special events will be held in association with the Asia Society at their state-of-the-art facilities on Park Avenue in NYC. Additionally, the Festival trots out its first-ever late-night program NightVisions, at IFC Center, serving up fare that will set your heart pounding and pulse racing. Screenings will also be held at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Long Island.