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A little heavy on the cheese, but awesome nonetheless...

Vent Magazine

A big, bad shoutout to our friends at UC Davis, who have penned an Asian American magazine of fantastic proportions. (I must say, we have sure copped out on a lot of work doing just a blog.)


Vent magazine was established I'm sure for largely the same reasons we were... to give underrepresented voices a platform from which to project their thoughts and viewpoints. In seeking to fulfill these goals they've come up with a beautiful, superbly well-written publication (downloadable here) as witty and irreverent as we are (and definitely more aesthetically pleasing.) Take a read - it's great stuff.

Damn, we need writers like that at Columbia working on our Blaaag. Keep it up!

'Cause it's about time. If you're into the whole Facebook thing, join it here. We'd like to see who our fans are! (And maybe Facebook-stalk you a bit... just kidding.)

... oh right, the Oriental Broadway.

Check out this new film called "East Broadway". I would not have heard about this if not for an email from our chair with the subject, "doesn't this shit piss you off". Oh yes, it does. Click on trailer and just watch this garbage.

Though it's interesting to see how our reactions change when the premise of a movie like Shanghai Kiss changes to focus on Asian American women... just food for thought.

Last weekend, one of our Blaaag staffers / NAASCon Co-Chairs told us that she's working on a complaint to send to the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board for consideration. Why? Because AAA believes that the student's mistreatment by the two NYPD officers definitely deserves "a fair investigation".

Thousands of complaints are filed to CCRB every day, so the only way to strengthen the complaint is to track down witnesses at the scene and confirm rumors that point to a racial bias.

The project is currently under way, but we have not kept in close touch with the involved student (who doesn't seem to return messages). Therefore, the project may shut down if s/he wishes it for the sake of his privacy

(Note: a court hearing was held last month; we don't know what the decision was).

At least things are still happening!

I'd hate to go against Angry Asian Man on this one.

... But let's see some of the wonderful commentary the last post has received in the last fourteen hours or so since I've written it. Two comments on this very site have advised me to "watch the show before you go calling for a protest," and that "that's actually what he does...he squints when he's about to teleport". Even Angry Asian Man himself can't seem to find fault in Kristin's offhanded remark, saying "he's squinty because, well... he squints." One anonymous commenter went far enough to say "lol you slants are such losers, lighten up"; needless to say, this one was just straight up removed.

Funny things, because I've seen every episode produced of this sometimes problematic show. Not only do I often write about Heroes on this blog, I do Heroes recaps for Racialicious through the lens of race. Hence, the claims that I don't watch the show or don't know better aren't so valid. For those who do watch the show and find the term "squinty" in line with what they see Hiro actually do, let's clear up some misconceptions. I'm not exactly a trigger-happy blogger.

If I weren't a regular watcher I would have included the few words following Kristin's "squinty" remark - calling him a "carp". However carp was clearly a reference to Adam Munroe's line about Hiro in the Primatech plant. So don't say I don't know this show.

According to the handy Merriam-Webster Online, to squint is to "to look or peer with eyes partly closed". The key point of this definition is that the act of squinting requires that you keep your eyes open. Does Hiro keep his eyes open while teleporting? No, he squeezes them shut. What he does while exercising his superpower resembles nothing close to "squinting".

A fine distinction, I know. But insignificant? Probably not. Does this flaw in word choice on the part of E!Online's Kristin point to a negligence in her writing or something more? As co-editor Marilla put it: If Masi weren't ethnically Japanese, would his "squinting" get pointed out? The analogy is to Matt Parkman, who squints and furrows his brows in order to read minds - but would he be labeled "squinty"? I wouldn't hesitate to say that calling someone of Asian descent "squinty" is actually a much bigger offense than it reasonably seems. Maybe nothing more than a word choice flaw, this still points to something greater.

Am I the only person "sensitive" enough to notice? Comment 188 on the E!Online site writes:

"Thank you David! I thought I was the only one who cared that she used the term "squinty." Most people here aren't Asian or don't care, I guess, but I'm with you. It's totally inappropriate."
Comment 202 writes:
"I do believe this is the 2nd racist comment that Kristin has made about Hiro in as many weeks. Last week she made fun of the way he talks and this week she called him "squinty." You may be his "friend" but please watch what you say about him. Maybe you don't think it was racist, but it kind of was. You could have just written " torment our favorite teleporter" and left out the "squinty" I think we would have known who you were talking about. Instead you use a word that could be construed as racist. Bad Kristin."

While I'd like to know what the first racist comment was that Kristin made about Masi Oka, I probably have more interesting things to write about. Still, if calling out someone on this insensitive remark is "making a big deal" of it, then as bloggers of color what are we really doing?

In a speculative post-finale article, E!Online series commentator Kristin writes this (warning: spoilers) about the fates of Heroes characters. She says, "our favorite squinty teleporter," referring to Masi Oka, the only main character of Asian descent.



Does this guy seem squinty to you? What are we to make of your brilliant skills of labeling people by visual characteristics, Kristin? If it's racist, then you're completely right, because calling people squinty, slitted-eyed or slanty is in fact not acceptable. If you'd like to know, last September AAA received death threats after the Minutemen incident - attacking us using exactly these terms. Therefore, it is impossible to stress the gravity of this situation.

I do believe a public apology is due, E!Online.



Meet Dr. Edmund Kwan. He has a degree from Georgetown University Medical School, is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS), and belongs to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Dr. Kwan's "expertise focuses on, but is not limited to, facial shaping and recontouring, breast augmentation, hand surgery, forehead shaping, nose surgery, double eyelid fold surgery and brow lifts."



The caption next to this happy, post-surgery woman reads: "The concept of beauty varies in different ethnic groups or communities. What Dr. Kwan and other plastic surgeons are doing is to help their patients erase perceived physical flaws while maintaining their ethnic identity."
- Dr. James Wells, President of ASPS.


Admittedly, plastic surgery is a useful option for people who go through serious accidents and don't want to remain looking like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky. I doubt, however, that Wells had the same intentions in saying "perceived physical flaws".

Reading the testimonials (which are marked by ethnic branding), I can only guess that Wells and Kwan's idea of a perceived physical flaw has something to do with a --gasp!-- ethnic look.

Here are some surgery testimonials:

“Thank you, Dr. Kwan, for always being there to respond to my surgeries with such care, respect and generosity. I hope you know how much I appreciate all that you’ve done for me over the years and more recently, and how fortunate I feel to have been blessed with such a great doctor.” - Korean female, age 35 - Eyelid Surgery

“Dr. Kwan is not only a skilled surgeon, but he has an artist’s eye when it comes to proportion and balance which gave me an absolutely natural result. Nobody commented on my eyes looking any different. They just noticed that I looked “great,” more youthful, brighter and rested, which is exactly the kind of subtle result I had hoped for.” - Korean female, age 48 – Brow Lift


Handled with care, respect, generosity, and "an artist's eye". I'm not sure what this means, but it definitely makes a woman's face sound more like a canvas than like a person's face which marks his/her identity. The praises showered on Dr. Kwan prove that he's skilled at what he does; but whereas an artist gets blank canvases that don't choose their fate, a surgeon gets patients who voluntarily make the decision to go under the knife, sometimes under false pretenses.

It concerns me more than Kwan's seeming inability to question his patients' motives that these women are finding "perceived physical flaws" in their appearance and tying it to their ethnic identities. When did there become ethnic beauty standards for features like eyelids? Is there a single perception of beauty set within an ethnicity? If these women are living (and getting operated on) in the U.S., which cultural lens do they look through to examine themselves? Most importantly, why aren't they satisfied with what they look like already?

If you're not on AAA's private listserv, you can breathe a sigh of relief from not receiving 12,931,280,918,412,098,312 e-mails a day and, consequently, feeling the urge to rip your hair out.

On the other hand, you should also cry about it, because few other Columbia groups can get the scoop on NYC happenings (a la Asian America) as quickly as AAA can.





Take the recent chain e-mails about David Henry Hwang, for instance; this dude has been playing the theatre field since 1980 and is still going strong. His new play, Yellow Face, "focuses on a man... who leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian in the Broadway musical 'Miss Saigon' in the 1990s." On the larger scale, Yellow Face is a commentary on the American theatre and cinema's approach -- both good and (mostly) bad... Charlie Chan, anyone? -- to an increasing multiculturalism in the U.S. The once appalling casting decisions and racial stereotypes that were seen on stage and screen have, fortunately, been somewhat stifled by a rise of socially conscious APIA actors, playwrights, and directors. Yet it still doesn't feel like enough.

Though none of AAA has seen Yellow Face, a Maya :) kindly wrote to tell us that she saw the play and found it "really excellent". With that said, this staffer is definitely recommending our readers to check it out too! AALDEF is offering its members $40 discount tickets for a Dec. 6 pre-showing, but who knows -- maybe our Fall 07 stickers can do better.

For more information, visit centertheatregroup.org

Tagline: More and More are Stupid Lazy-Asses

"No longer content to be thought of as successful, intelligent, hard-working and family-oriented, an ever-increasing number of second- and third-generation Asian-Americans are beginning to fail miserably."

... so that's why I'm failing school. Check it out here.

AAA becomes lost at sea with whereabouts unknown! AAA the Japanese pop group that is...

Yes, there is a JPOP group called AAA. Technically, their name is Attack All Around, but they are more commonly known as AAA. They have actually been around for a few years now and their fanbase has even spread beyond Japan. Here's the single that launched their careers "Hurricane Riri, Boston Mari."

(Note: The music actually starts at 2:45 and make sure to check out the huge AAA logo at 3:06. Plus there's an awesome AAA flag at 5:06, I sure wish we had one of those.)

Of course, by no means is AAA only a one hit wonder. They've actually released a couple hit singles by now and have even gained/lost a few group members. Here's another big hit from the Japanese charts "Q"



They've even gotten on some Japanese commercials!



As awesome as these guys are, I think this past weekend's "Karaoke Klash" held by Sounds of China has proven that this AAA has better singers and dancers. Especially better dancers.

Um YES

For your viewing pleasure: Mr. Daniel Henney.


 

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