I am a member of Generation Y, also known as the Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995, or thereabouts). By all estimates, Social Security funds will run out by 2037, a few years before I retire. Dire news, and you can bet I’m not the only one socking away the money.

According to a new study, Asian Americans are saving a bigger portion of their salary for retirement than any other group in the country. Asians put away 9.4% of their income in 2007, compared to 7.9% by whites, 6.3% by Hispanics and 6% by blacks. About three-quarters of Asians participate in their company’s 401(k) plans, same as whites, while just two-thirds of black and Hispanics take part.

When I was growing up, and even to this day, my parents urged my sister and me to save our money. My mom opened a savings account for me at a young age — when I didn’t even know the difference between savings and checking accounts. My parents, who are typical of many Chinese immigrants in that they worked at a Chinese restaurant (dad) and clothing sweatshop (mom), somehow scrimped together enough to buy a house, pay it off, and never make my sister and I feel like we lacked for anything. They set an amazing example for us.

I recently read a book, Rich Like Them by Ryan D’Agostino, in which people share their advice on how they became wealthy. One person said to start saving as early as possible. Simple, but isn’t it the truth?

ABOUT LINDA: Linda Chan is an aspiring novelist and currently works in TV research in New York City. She is interested in all issues Asian, particularly Asians in media and entertainment.

We get links to Asian American-owned clothing companies all the time — no, seriously, all the time — but it’s this splash page from San Diego based PNOY Apparel that won me over. Man, why can’t we get awesome jackets? If my dad ever gets me anything when he returns from Taiwan, it’s sportswear with the year “2003″ on it.

While there were many heartfelt speeches and performances, my attention was piqued three distinct times:

1) Al Sharpton mentions Asians!
Al said, “It was Michael Jackson who brought Blacks & Whites & Asians & Latinos together. It was Michael Jackson that made us sing We are the World.” Whoo! It’s not just about being black or white… there are other colors, too!

2) Asian-looking woman singing “We Are The World” and “Heal the World.”
Because the performers for “We Are the World” and “Heal the World” were not identified in the handouts at the Staples Center, a lot of people were wondering who this mystery singer was. Rolling Stone later revealed her identity as Judith Hill, a Pasadena, California-based vocalist who was to be one of the backup singers for Jackson’s This Is It! concerts at London’s O2 Arena. And, yes, it turns out this woman is indeed partly-Asian, her bio says: “Judith was born in Los Angeles and raised in a family of musicians. Her mother is an immigrant from Japan who met her father in a funk band in the 1970s.” (Check her myspace!) I thought she did an amazing job, especially considering that she and many of the other performers on stage were actually rehearsing with Michael just two weeks ago for the shows in London. This must have been a very emotional time for them, as well.

3) Paris Jackson’s heartfelt words of love for her Dad
Ok, so this one had no Asian connection, but having lost my father three years ago, I know how painful it is to lose someone you love like that. There is nothing quite like being Daddy’s Little Girl. And little Paris, who had the eyes of the world on her, was so very brave to speak from the heart in front of all those people like that.

Photo of Judith Hill from her website: http://judithhillmusic.com

In case you didn’t realize how big a business death is, the Minneapolis-based cemetery offers pagoda shaped granite headstone markers starting in price at $5,000 ranging up to $25,000. It’s estimated the average cost of a funeral in the United States ranges from $12,000 to $15,000.

In San Jose, CA, Oak Hill Cemetery completed building their Sunshine Chapel (referred to by their staff as the Asian Chapel) a couple of years ago. The chapel has special ventilation systems for incense burning and an attached kitchen for preparing food offerings. Oak Hill, interestingly enough is also the oldest cemetery in California and has a historical Chinese cemetery on its grounds and also features a separate Japanese garden.

Unfortunately, death and funerals is also something I’m relatively familiar with. My parents wanted made sure their death was the one thing their kids didn’t have to worry about. As immigrants to the U.S. in 1971, my parents didn’t have much money, but they still chose to buy a burial plot a few years after arriving. For 15 years, they paid $10 a month in an installment plan and eventually paid in full for a burial plot on Long Island.

In 2001, when my parents retired, they moved to California to be close to their kids. Soon after my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and I found myself with the task of having to find a new final resting place for my dad. We had settled in California and none of the family had any intention of going back to Long Island. I happened across Oak Hill Cemetery by chance, and located four burial plots with good feng shui on a slope with the hill to their back, facing a road that curves in the right direction. I purchased four plots facing the Japanese garden. My dad passed away less than a week later, and we put one of the plots to use much sooner than any of us had originally anticipated. My mom passed away 3 years later, and for her funeral we took advantage of the “Asian” chapel.

I take some comfort in knowing their final resting place has good feng shui and a view of something Asian. And being the Chinese person that I am, I also have my final burial place next to my parents, so my daughter won’t have to worry about my final resting place. Now if I can only figure out what to do with the burial plots on Long Island.

Fu-gen, Asian Canadian Theatre Company operating out of Toronto has recently produced some plays that are a bit questionable in their reproduction of East-Asian/Asian-Canadian stereotypes. Brown Balls features three Asian men complaining about their lack of luck with white women while fawning over their technogadgets. Banana Boys is a similar plot, reliant on the effeminizing gaze of white stereotypes of Asian males, the play propping itself up with homophobic jokes/innuendos and failing to speak to any Asian male sense of self-worth, or pride in the beauty of Asian women. As if there isn’t anything else for Asian-Canadians to make plays about.

The crowd around me? 50% Asian males. Howling in laughter. Cheering at the recognition of a common stereotype.

But why?

Some theories on the phenomenon of Asians’ fondness for stereotypes of themselves:

1. It’s funny. When we tell the joke, we aren’t only the butt but the comedian (too bad the joke is still on us)
2. Being funny is cool (and its not often we think of ourselves as cool)
3. Craving for recognition: as poet Ishle Park put it, “Where are our Martins? Our Malcolms? All we have are fathers with thick tongues.”  We don’t see ourselves in the popular imagination, pop culture or otherwise. No strong figures we can rally around and be proud of. So when we see something we recognize that other people recognize as Asian, we embrace it as one of our own children (only it wasn’t ours, it was the child of that white kid in the schoolyard who beat us up everyday for being Asian).
4. We don’t recognize our strong figures as strong figures, or the things that aren’t the butt of a joke that we have as Asians which we can be proud of.

This is not all bad news, however.  Because there seems to be such an absence of the Asian-American/Asian-Canadian persona in popular imagination, this gives us the room to start promoting people who we feel are deserving of this kind of recognition. Right now, we have the power to shape how Asians are seen in North America. We don’t have to take what was given to us.

This episode plays all new music from One Two, Girl’s Generation and Karen Mok. Plus listen for your chance to win a POP 88 T-Shirt in our prize giveaway contest.

Links mentioned in this episode:
Night Market – Night It Up!
J-Otic: http://j-otic.podomatic.com/

If you like what you hear, please show your support by supporting the artists and buy their CDs and DVDs using the links provided on this site.

For any requests, comments, suggests, dedications or feedback, feel free to leave a comment at Popcast88.com or send an email to christine [at] popcast88.com.

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Playlist

1. Moon River – Hirai Ken
Ken’s Bar II (2009)

7. Power Station (THE LOWBROWS Remix) – immi
Rimmix (2008)

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The Daily Show had Mike Kim, author of Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country as a guest this week; Kim discusses his experience as the founder of the non-governmental organization Crossing Borders helping North Koreans escape through China to freedom. His story of the plight of the North Koreans is pretty compelling.

Kim’s efforts are not without great danger to himself; Current.tv’s reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling were captured in their effort to report about North Korean escapees on the Chinese-North Korean border. Euna and Laura are still imprisoned after being sentenced to twelve years of hard labor after a North Korean court found them guilty of “illegally” entering the country. Unfortunately, the two reporters are diplomatic pawns being used by North Korea as the country pursues its nuclear and missile ambitions.

The article also mentions other ketchups, such as banana ketchup from the Philippines pictured here.  We have a lot of this stuff in my house, and I like the spicy version best.  It’s great with embotido and with scrambled eggs or omelettes.

I find it engaging to look at how food from Asia and other parts of the world influence and are transformed here in the United States.  What other sauces could have a similar popularity as ketchup?  While Americans, on average, are said to eat 32 ounces of ketchup a year, there has been talk that salsa is more popular than ketchup.  This article from the Wall Street Journal claims that while salsa sales revenue are larger than ketchup, ketchup still outsells salsa in terms of units.   Another Asian style sauce with potential is Sriracha, developed as a David Tran’s take on a traditional Asian sauce from Sriracha Thailand.  Sriracha is another popular condiment in my house, and I have been to cooking classes where professional chefs used it to open up flavor.  It makes me wonder what the next “hot” sauce from Asia will be!

Hat tip to John on the pointer to the Sriracha article.

OMG! I can finally sleep now that I am certain Russell, the cute kid in Disney/Pixar’s Up, is in fact Asian. I mean, just look at the colour scripts for the film — Pixar was sensitive enough to have foreseen debates  around Russell’s background and provided us confused and lost Asians with these handy colour scripts. Because we all know that those 45 degree, upward lines in place of eyes are codes for “Asian.”

All those online debates about Russell’s ethnic background can end now. After these scripts, there cannot be any more debate. The verdict is clear: Russell is one of us.

(thanks to Jun’s post on 8asian’s tumblr)