singkek

Asian American Artists - Call For Submissions

2009-05-29T13:04:00.006-04:00

Unfortunately, I don't really have time to update this blog and keep up with my Bed-Stuy Banana blog, but I got this email recently and I wanted to spread the word:

APAture: Call for Artist Submissions

Kearny Street Workshop , the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary organization in the United States, is now accepting submissions for the 11th annual APAture festival of emerging Asian American artists. Each September, APAture showcases about 100 artists at venues throughout San Francisco, making it the Bay Area's biggest platform for Asian American art.

We are accepting submissions in five disciplines: visual arts, film & video, music, literary arts and performing arts. The deadline to submit is July 11, 2009.

Go to kearnystreet.org/apature for more info and to apply online!

Questions? Contact apature@kearnystreet.org

Durian - The Stinkiest Fruit

2008-11-02T21:04:00.000-05:00

This is a fruit I've always been intrigued by. My aunt is totally in love with it but my mom won't eat it because it smells so bad. My mother's repulsion for the fruit, has dissuaded me from trying it. Some say it smells like dirty sweat socks. In fact in South East Asian countries where durian grows, durian is prohibited in subways, malls and hotels. But for durian lovers the recent prospect of an odourless durian raised much controversy, from the International Herald Tribune:

After three decades of research, a Thai government scientist working at an orchard here near the Cambodian border says he has managed to take the stink out of durian.
The spiky Southeast Asian fruit, variously described by its detractors as smelling like garbage, moldy cheese or rotting fish, is banned from many hotels, airlines and the Singapore subway. But durian lovers, and there are many in Asia, are convinced that, like fine French cheeses, the worse the smell, the better the taste....
Durian lovers are horrified by the prospect of a no-smell durian. They complain that the fruit, which is green or sometimes yellowish and shaped like a rugby ball, is being homogenized just like the insipid tomatoes bred to look pretty behind cellophane on supermarket shelves.

A comprehensive entry on the joy of durian is in Wikipedia:

The durian, native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, has been known to the western world for about 600 years. The British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace famously described its flesh as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds" in the 19th century. The flesh can be consumed at various stages of ripeness, and is used to flavour a wide variety of savoury and sweet edibles in Southeast Asian cuisines. The seeds can also be eaten when cooked. The name durian comes from the Malay word duri (thorn) with suffix -an.

Meanwhile in Guantanamo...

2008-11-01T11:09:00.004-04:00

From today's Guardian:

No charges but US may never release Guantánamo Chinese
Seventeen Chinese prisoners who have been held for nearly seven years in Guantánamo Bay will be informed on Monday that they could spend the rest of their lives behind bars, even though they face no charges and have been told by a judge they should be freed.
No country is willing to accept them and the US justice department has now blocked moves for them to be allowed to go to the US mainland, where they had been offered a home by refugee and Christian organisations.
The men's lawyer, Sabin Willett, is flying to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to break the news to the men, who are members of the Uighur ethnic group seeking autonomy from China. In a blunt and angry letter to justice department lawyers, Willett spelled out what he thought of the way the men had been treated.
"After years of stalling and staying and appellate gamesmanship, you pleaded no contest - they are not enemy combatants," Willett has written. "You have never charged them with any crime."
Last month a federal judge ruled that the men should be freed. "They were on freedom's doorstep," said Willett. "The plane was at Gitmo. The stateside Lutheran refugee services and the Uighur families and Tallahassee clergy were ready to receive them." However, the justice department appealed against the ruling and Willett claims this will put the men into a potentially endless limbo.

Click here to read the full article. Interesting, when the American government and press get all up in arms about war crimes and injustices in other countries.

Odds and Ends

2008-10-13T21:30:00.005-04:00

Is there anything more appetizing than plastic food?

Patchwork garage door.

I can't tell if these films are old or new but they sure have intriguing imagery.

For A Good Time...

2008-09-30T20:52:00.000-04:00

Secret Chinese beer.

And Viagra.

New to Nice

2008-09-28T10:07:00.001-04:00

Usually the way I judge any ethnic restaurant is by how many native people of that restaurant's cuisine are actually eating there. Read: Sushi restaurant full of white people - go somewhere else. In Chinatown, however, I've made an exception. Not being a huge fan of Chinese food in general as I find it too greasy and don't have the palate for the high end stuff (fish eyeballs and shark fins), our favourite spot is New Green Bo. Which recently changed its name to Nice Green Bo. One rumor I'd read on the internet was that the owners said after over ten years in the business they were no longer new, but that their customers were so nice, they changed the name. Whatever, doesn't matter, thankfully the management and food didn't change along with the name. As far as I can tell, the owner is this skinny Taiwanese woman with a severe face. She used to scare me when I first came in, but now she's gotten to know us, and I really like her, even though she doesn't seem any less severe. Their food is not greasy and they have the best veggie dumplings in town. And it's chock full of whiteys.

Nice Green Bo
66 Bayard Street
New York, 10013
Phone: 212-625-2359

The Motel

2008-09-25T22:32:00.004-04:00

Okay, I know I'm two years late on this, but that's what happens when you have a kid, your life as a single person who sleeps in, gets enough sleep, sleeps, watches movies in theaters, ends. But I did finally see this fantastic film by Michael Kang. From their myspace page:

Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). Stuck at his own familys hourly-rate motel, young Ernest divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, tending to whatever miscreants the motel may attract and longing for the girl of his dreams, 15 year old Christine (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA'S Samantha Futerman). When charismatic Sam Kim (BETTER LUCK TOMORROWs Sung Kang) checks into the motel, fatherless Ernest is taken under his wing and hustled toward manhood, for better or worse. From the producers of ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW and THE GOOD GIRL, comes an unflinching portrait of adolescence as heartfelt and authentic as it is hilarious.

Well directed, written, and acted. Subtle, non-stereotypical as far as representations of Asians go, intelligent, funny. I loved it. Here's the trailer:

So if, like me, you're way behind on your movie watching, rent it or borrow it, it's worth seeing.

Sidewalk Poetry

2008-09-15T20:57:00.004-04:00

We discovered this dry erase board as part of what looked like the contents of someone's abruptly emptied apartment on a sidewalk in Greenwich Village. It seems they were learning Japanese? The words being: sea, devil, morning, mountain.

Clockwork Orange and Michel Legrand

2008-09-10T20:32:00.006-04:00

We discovered these eclectic musicians in Central Park this weekend. In addition to their great outfits - Clockwork Orange meets old lady Chinese, their music sounded like the film score to a French sixties musical. It was surreal.

Copycat

2008-09-06T19:34:00.004-04:00

A huge raid of the stalls in Chinatown that sell counterfeit goods happened in 2003 where authorities nabbed over 2 million dollars worth of fake designer purses according to the New York Times:

Last year, the International Chamber of Commerce said that counterfeiting accounted for an estimated 5 to 7 percent of global trade, and that it continues to grow. A 1994 study by the city estimated the cost of unpaid taxes on counterfeit goods to be $350 million.
Seven men and four women were detained and released yesterday in what the police described as a continuing investigation to determine whether the workers are in the country illegally and who is behind the large shipments of goods from overseas.
''I'm not saying these people are associated with terrorist organizations,'' Captain McGowan said, ''but some counterfeit rings are. It's a great way to destroy our economy.''

Those insidious yellow people. Nevermind crashing planes into office buildings, get 'em where they hurt, sell them a copy of a Kate Spade bag for a measly ten bucks. While a recent article in the Miami Herald probes to the heart of the problem:

The counterfeit trade feeds Asian mafias, steals the names and business of legitimate manufacturers, avoids millions of dollars in taxes and is conducted without any controls over child labor or use of banned chemical products.

Makes you want to reconsider that perfect copy of those Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses. Meanwhile the New York Observer reports on the most recent Chinatown raid in February of this year:

A uniformed cop manning a barricade in front of the raided stores said “eventually they will sweep the whole place," but perhaps not immediately because the NYPD needs to get individual search warrants first.
He said the mountains of merchandise inside the trucks would eventually be destroyed.

The question is why the NYPD is cracking down on Chinatown now after allowing its “counterfeit” economy to exist for decades.

“It had just gotten too out of hand,” reasoned the young officer.

Allam, a Bangladeshi vendor on Canal who shares his stall with a Chinese man who did not show up to work today, worries the raids might be the beginning of the end for what had seemed like Manhattan’s most impenetrable ethnic enclave.

“I don’t know what the mayor is thinking but yesterday they shut an entire block so I’m sure the rest of the street is next,” Allam said standing in front of the rows of NYPD and FBI hats displayed in his stall. “Chinatown has been here for a century and soon it will be gone. It really sucks.”

I seriously doubt that the disappearance of counterfeit vendors will herald the end of New York's Chinatown as we know it. But I do wonder if they really intend to shut it down completely. Considering how long people have openly sold these counterfeit goods, there must have been a payola going on somewhere.

Ugly is as Ugly Does

2008-08-30T23:40:00.008-04:00

So this afternoon my partner, Big Joe, just informed me that he mistook a flat-assed dumpy Asian mom with bad hair in the playground for me. Trying to soften the blow that by stating that he only saw her from the back and it was through the bars of the jungle gym. And then later that evening as we walked back to the subway, he passed by an ad for Ugly Betty and said "Hey, that looks like you!" Am I comforted by the fact that the actress who plays Ugly Betty on t.v. is actually Hispanic and an attractive woman? No. Absolutely not. I mean he didn't say "You look like America Ferrara." The strangest thing is that Big Joe constantly tells me that I'm beautiful. I think he needs to get his eyes examined. Maybe he was trying to keep my ego in check after the old guy behind the counter at Ben's Pizza in SoHo leered at me yesterday and encouraged me to "Come back anytime."

China from China

2008-08-29T23:56:00.002-04:00

Perms and Celebrity Lookalikes

2008-08-25T00:15:00.008-04:00

Today's Asian look. The shag.

And for those unlucky enough to be born without straight Asian hair, the "Japanese Straight Perm"

When I was a child, the only haircut that the white hairdressers my mother took me too could imagine was the Chinese bob. Bangs straight across my forehead and the rest to the chin. Of course, like everything else about myself, I despised my straight black hair. And to remedy the problem I opted for the home perm, endless hours scorching my hair with a curling iron, and painful nights sleeping on plastic rollers. I had years of frizzy funky wild hair until I finally realized upon leaving highschool that my hair was great just the way it was and actually returned to the Lousie Brooks style bob. Cultivated it. Reveled in it. Except for one unfortunate year when I had it bleached blonde. Well that was what I was going for, but the Dutch hairdresser didn't know what she was doing and after frying my scalp with chemicals for eight hours straight she managed to turn it bright orange. I came back to where I was staying with my aunt in Eindhoven and nearly gave my grandmother a heart attack as she'd just woken up from a nap and thought a stranger had broken into the house.

But back to perms. Because let's face it, perms on Asians on just bad news. Although I did see an Asian man on the train the other day with a light wave in his short hair and he was the spitting image of Jude Law in his stance, style and features. On him the perm actually worked. Which just proves there's an exception to every rule.

Me Yellow, Me Go Ha Ha

2008-08-13T00:28:00.003-04:00

So the other day at the playground in Tompkin's Square Park I saw this cute Asian baby girl toddling around wearing an improved version of this t-shirt (it actually said 'stin ki pu pu' with no 'translation' beneath it). On its own I find it kind of offensive especially with the 'translation' part. But what brilliance for a yellow mommy to put it on her baby. Now that's what I'm talking about. Reclaiming our yellowhood.

Feng Shui Garage Style

2008-08-07T23:11:00.004-04:00

I photographed this car park because I found the contrast of the plants, lamps and waterfall pictures an interesting contrast to the ugliness that a car park is, in general. I realized, however, that these elements are not just to beautify the space but are Feng Shui - designed to bring the business owner success and happiness.

The ubiquitous waterfall picture for example which can be found in every Chinese restaurant has several meanings as noted in "Powerful Feng Shui Balancing Tools" by Brigitte Gaertner and Christine M. Grimm :

The plants bring luck and positive energy, while the red lantern strengthens luck, happiness and wealth.

Ya Ya's and T n T's

2008-07-27T23:06:00.005-04:00

You know I've really had a change of heart about being Asian when I go in search of all things Asian in my hometown - the place where I rejected everything yellow about me and my family while growing up. I'd even go so far as to say I've become a sinophile. I have yellow fever, and I'm loving it. This visit to Vancouver my mom introduced me to one of the greatest chain stores on earth, Yoko Yaya 123. A Japanese dollar store. Or rather more accurately, two dollar store. All fans of Muji on a tight budget with a taste for the offbeat, run, do not walk to this fabulous store.

While the second greatest chain store is T & T Supermarket. Here you can find an enormous selection of ingredients and prepared Asian food from a variety of Asian cultures set out in attractive and easy to find wide aisles that you can even navigate both strollers and shopping carts with ease.

And just look at their selection of fish balls! Okay I don't eat the stuff, aside from the fact that I'm vegetarian, I've always found the texture a little weird, but that's what so great about this. The weirdness. The Asianess. The exoticness. I want these stores in New York!

The Cleaner

2008-07-14T10:29:00.009-04:00

Definite things spring to mind when I see this poster. Asian woman character on a show called "The Cleaner" with the tag line "She's been there before." Ah yes, it must be about a Chinese laundromat. But no. When I checked out the website, I found this:

Akani Cuesta is the exotic beauty on William’s team who is just as much one of the boys with her hardened street edge. A bit of a wild card, she enjoys her job and is good at it, but resents being monitored by William, with whom there is a hint of a past relationship. Akani doesn’t need anyone’s support, especially that of her wealthy estranged father, but sometimes it seems she longs for a more settled, domestic life.

Wow. Hollywood is clearly making great strides. Backwards. Of course she's the "exotic beauty" (the actress Grace Parks is also the "exotic beauty in space" on "Battlestar Galactica.") And I just love that her character in "The Cleaner" although good at her job, longs for a "more settled, domestic life." For is there anything better in life for a woman than being a housewife?

Custom Shopping Cart

2008-07-09T22:59:00.004-04:00

Japanese Item

2008-07-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

I adore this fantastic sign which looks like an illustrated foreign dictionary, especially the "Japanese item" on the middle far right. For the "Japanese item" has no translation in English although it appears to simply be plates and cups.

Albuquerque Asianess

2008-07-02T00:11:00.006-04:00

Orchid Thai front.

Orchid Thai side. If this restaurant looks this good on the exterior, just imagine what it looks like on the inside.

Absurdly small limbs on this sushi restaurant mural.Although only 1.3% of the population of New Mexico is Asian, they have some damn fine Asian murals, faulty perspective included.

It's good to get away from New York. But it's even better coming home. Although not for long. Technically I'm still on vacation, so I'll be blogging sporadically until our next trip in a couple of weeks. After which, I'll be back to more regular blogging. Fresher, yellower, a veritable ray of afternoon sunshine.

Sayonara, and Thanks For All The Sushi

2008-06-17T09:47:00.010-04:00

Tourists in Barcelona
Photo: Carlos Lorenzo

Well it's summer, and now that we have a kid starting preschool in the fall, we're going to have to start taking our vacations at the same time as everybody else's families. Starting now. Be back sometime in July, possibly the beginning, more likely the end. This will also be an opportunity for me to figure out the "Why Blog?" and "Who cares what I have to say?" questions that plague me daily. In which case this might also be so long and farewell. Then again, who knows, I may return with a million more ideas and images. Enjoy the sunshine.

Sex and the Oriental

2008-06-17T01:00:00.006-04:00

Published in 1965, this paperback offers, "A shocking report on modern-day morality in the mysterious East." I don't think I even need to tell you what's inside. That byline says it all. Stereotypes about Asian women's sexuality that unfortunately haven't changed much in 43 years. Not that Asian men have it much better.

Ancient Chinese Secret

2008-06-14T11:27:00.006-04:00

Racist commercial by Calgon. For more viewpoints on this ad, check out the comments on this post on Racialicious.

I'd wanted to use this blog to explore my feelings on being Asian, growing up in a largely white society. And to celebrate and examine my family history. But the thing is, Asians are secretive. In Indonesian/Chinese culture at least. One is constantly reminded that everything one does or says reflects on all one's relatives, living and dead. Outsiders in the form of therapists are unwelcome, our business is our own and should not be discussed with someone else. I'd like to be frank and honest about my version of the past, and yet I'm held back by these taboos that still have a strong influence on any action I take. It's more than will this embarrass my mother/father, but will this embarrass my entire clan? And what right do I have to do such a thing? I'm not interested in being explicit about the details, I'd like above all to be fair, but I'd also like to not feel like my feet are bound by traditional values. I'm not sure where the balance is, but I am sure that all those voices in my head are putting a serious damper on my prose.

Traditional Medicine Part 1 - Kerakan and Love

2008-06-11T09:08:00.010-04:00

Glass domes used in the Chinese healing practice of 'cupping.' From mindbodysoul.tv:

Traditionally, the cups are heated with alcohol and flame on the inside to reduce the pressure, then placed over the skin. As the cup cools down, the skin is sucked up inside.

The newest innovation in cupping does away with the dangerous flame and uses a pump action instead. This is also a much more accurate way of gauging the degree of suction and, of course, eliminates the risk of burning.

Doctors of traditional Chinese medicine and practitioners of Japanese shiatsu therapy, place the cups at various positions along the meridian lines. These are the same lines used in acupuncture. There are five meridians on the back and these are usually targeted, particularly the bladder meridian.

Lin's Sister Associates - Chinese healing herbs

I recall as a child watching my mother perform kerokan on my father's back when he had a cold. First she would rub Vick's Vaporub into his back then take a quarter and scratch his back in methodical lines until the skin turned red. My dad swore by this treatment in addition to a steaming cup of sekoteng, a drink made from ginger, mungbean flour and palm sugar. My mother often offered to do kerokan to me but it looked too painful. Instead, her rubbing the Vicks on my back and chest was soothing enough. A few years ago my mother came to visit while I was pregnant and I had a bad cough. She offered to rub tiger balm on me (which I now prefer over Vicks). The feel of her soft yet strong hands on my back and the pungent vapours made me feel like a child again, no one had done that for me since I lived at home. It nearly made me cry.

I found this funny and moving account by an Indonesian woman who now lives in Japan about her mother and kerokan, here's an excerpt:

Kerokan is rubbing/scratching your body mostly on the back, using coin or spoon with ointment/balsam as the moisture agent. It painful when it done to your body (a traditional belief said, it even more painful if done by your mother, this relate to the pain she bears when delivering you to this world), but when it is done it will give a relief feeling and heal the cold.

Traditionally, kerokan belief to give the way out for the wind/air trapped in your body that cause the cold. While some study says, even it is hardly acceptable by western medical science, kerokan stimulate your body and clear the way for blood circulation. Kerokan also give you warmth from the ointment, which give comfort, heal sore muscle and unblock the stuffy nose.

Hubby never happy when seeing my mother do this to me. He said, it is cruel. Other than my body will turned red on the path of the kerokan (leave me to have the tiger mark all over for the next three days), I usually scream and even set tears to bear the pain when my mother do kerokan on me. It look like someone under torture, only this is the torture that I want, that I need for speedy recovery from the cold.

Oh Mama, I miss you.

When I moved to New York from Canada for the third time, I lost my job, $600 in savings, was kicked out of the place I was living and ended up depending on my second cousin who lived with her husband and son in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Intending to only stay for a week or two I stayed for six months having no luck with finding a job and developing both pneumonia and asthma simultaneously. This was a big faux pas as far as my mother was concerned. Taking favours was bad enough, taking them from family was verboten. But I was determined to stay in New York and this seemed to be the only way I could. Desperate after antibiotics and an asthma inhaler left me not one iota better, I took my friend's suggestion to visit her acupuncturist on 14th Street in Manhattan. The acupuncturist was a Caucasian dyke with short cropped hair, a skinny boyish body, who spoke and wrote Chinese fluently. Aside from incredibly painful acupuncture treatments she started me on some Chinese herb teas, writing out the prescription in Chinese and sending me with that 'prescription' to Lin's Sister in Chinatown. There I collected my paper bags of mysterious herbs, brought them home to my cousin's house and boiled them for an hour. Strange smells filled their apartment, which to their credit, they never complained about. In fact they were unusually accommodating hosts and had a constant stream of long term guests. I had to drink this intense tea 3x a day for a couple of months. It didn't help. It was only once I found a job and moved out of their apartment into my own place, that all my pneumonia/asthma symptoms disappeared within a couple of days. 15 years later I still use that stainless steel thermos in which I carried my Chinese tea, and despite all the other beverages it has carried since, it still smells like those herbs.

Five years later I began treatment for my acne with a friend of a friend (also white) who'd treated his cancer with herbs and and this strange computer that you a sensor that plugged into it and it told you what herbs to take. He wasn't licensed, in fact he was a screenwriter and had nothing to do with the medical field, but he believed in this treatment so strongly, I couldn't help but believe in it and him too. And besides, once again I was desperate. He also had me go off sugar in every form (no fruit, or fruit juices, or sweet vegetables like carrots) for six months. This restricted diet and the herbs seemed to help a little, but then he moved to Los Angeles without a forwarding address or phone number. And the herbs proved to be so strong they started a strange reaction in my skin, which seemed to be eating away at itself. This prompted me to stop the treatment. I still carry a scar from it on my chin.

Yellow People on the Silver Screen

2008-06-08T18:07:00.009-04:00

A Sri Lankan friend who was born in London came to visit, and told me she's done with acting, despite some success on London's stage, because "There aren't a lot of (paid) acting jobs for Asian women. Besides there are four Asian actresses in England and they get all the work." This prompted me researching and intending to write about all the white actors in Hollywood's history in 'yellowface.' But it looks like much has been written and blogged about that subject already. So instead I'm celebrating my fellow Asian thespians from the silent film era to the early 90's.

The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916). Shown at last year's Asian American Film Festival:

In 2004, while researching a project which would become HOLLYWOOD CHINESE (making its world premiere this year as the Festival’s Centerpiece Presentation), filmmaker Arthur Dong discovered two film reels (approximately thirty-five minutes) of a little-known silent film called THE CURSE OF QUON GWON.

This discovery would make history, as THE CURSE OF QUON GWON is now acknowledged as the earliest Chinese American film ever made. Written and directed by Oakland filmmaker Marion Wong in 1916, CURSE featured Wong and many of her family members in a love story as individuals placed under the curse of a Chinese god because of their westernization. After its completion, the film did not find distribution and disappeared, never actually to be seen by audiences.

The indie documentary Hollywood Chinese just showed in New York at a small theater only 3 days ago. Unfortunately, as I only discovered its existence today, I missed it. For a list of upcoming screenings across the country and elsewhere, click on the link above.

Anna May Wong in Shanghai Express (1932).

Nancy Kwan in Roger and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (1961) - the first Hollywood movie with an all Asian cast.

The trailer for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) starring Jason Scott Lee.