Geisha School Dropout

Signs Daenerys Targaryen is Actually Asian

Tim and I are huge Game of Thrones fans, and the final scenes of this week's episode sent us into fits of fanboy glee.  Without giving too much away, Daenerys Targaryen, tiny little Mother of Dragons, kicked major ass.

In the series, the character is played by British actress Emilia Clarke and the UK's entire supply of lip-plumping gloss, but I think she just might be Asian, at least on the inside.  I present my evidence below:

1. Daenerys has silver-blonde hair, violet eyes, and dark eyebrows.  You know who also had blonde hair, violet contact lenses, and dark eyebrows?  Any Asian girl in her early college years.

Those eyebrows don't lie: total bottle blonde.

2. Daenerys married a foreign man who was much more sexually experienced than she was.  When confronted by her own sexual ignorance, what did she do? SHE GOT A TUTOR.  I totally would have too, and my mom would have paid for it.

There's a cram school for everything these days.

3. Girlfriend is not afraid to eat blood and organ meat.  She once ate a raw horse heart with an enthusiasm that would make any tiger mom proud.  

And she did this while pregnant with a son! Bonus tiger mom points.

4. She can spend the night inside a bonfire like it's no big deal (thus earning her the title The Unburnt).  At the Korean sauna, there is one especially hot room called the bulgama which is usually set to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and little grandmas hang out in there like that's no big deal.  (True story: one time, Tim braved the bulgama but forgot to take off his glasses beforehand.  When he came out, he noticed odd things with his vision...it turned out his LENSES MELTED.)

Dany awaits her scrub-down at the jjimjilbang.

5. She has a tendency to fall in love with and adopt everything she runs into: dragon eggs, the Dothraki horde, slave armies, etc.  But sometimes, she has trouble taking care of them all.  I also have a problem with this, although I don't know if this is a generalized Asian tendency.  Let's discuss.

Dragons bring her luck, just like any good Asian!

6. (WARNING: this one is spoiler-ish) In this last episode, Daenarys totally pulled the Asian trick where people were talking shit about her in Valyrian, thinking she wouldn't understand, and she went along with it until the time came for her to make her move.  Then she busts out with fluent Valyrian, and rubs their ignorance in their faces with savoir flare, heh heh heh.  I've totally done that with both English and Spanish before.  Sometimes you gotta let the stereotypes work for you, you know?

How do you say "You're so fucked" in YOUR language?

Beyond the Bad and the Ugly, and On Birthday Suits and Birth Rights

We interrupt this stagnating front page to bring you some news!

I was honored to speak at a panel a couple weekends ago at Beyond the Bad and the Ugly: the first-ever summit on Asian American stereotypes, organized by Jeff Yang of the Wall Street Journal, hosted by the Japanese American National Museum.  Our session was called "Taming Tigers: Stereotypes in Parenting and Education," and  it was such a life-affirming experience.  My fellow panelists spoke with such heart and wisdom, and the whole room felt like one family.

I also have an essay up on the front page of BlogHer today titled "On Birthday Suits and Birth Rights," a response to Margaret Cho's recent experience at a Korean spa in Los Angeles.  It's my first piece that was thoroughly editted by a real-live editor, and I am so floored by how she made me sound like a real writer.  Please check it out!

 

Stranger in a Strange Land

The kids and I sat down at our local teriyaki place, next to a couple in their 50s with their buddy. They were very conspicuously complaining about all the taxes they have to pay this year, including a THOUSAND dollars to THAT OBAMA (I assume they make the check straight out to him?), and how they're not taking it anymore and they're going to just not pay it because that money is going directly to welfare queens and aborting babies and death panels and Muslims and...

...so I told the kids to pack up their stuff because we're moving to another table.

I tried to give them my best Korean Mom Death Stare along the way. They quieted down after they realized that they were out of their usual bubble.

This happened in Long Beach, California, a diverse city compared to most of the country.  And yet, it is apparently not diverse enough, since people like them still feel like they can proclaim their misinformed, bigoted thoughts without repercussion.  Obviously, people are entitled to their own opinions, but it's the pure vitriol in which these opinions are uttered that disturbs me.  And of course, if they were the first people I encountered bad-mouthing the poor, the disabled, or the race, nationality, supposed religion, or character of our president, I wouldn't have bothered writing about it.  But attitudes like these are prevalent here.

Even my next door neighbor, whom my children adore and who has many times helped us settle into our home, holds frightening views on Latin Americans and other  immigrants.  He doesn't know that I, like many other permanent residents and naturalized citizens, was at one point an illegal immigrant.  

A family who lives a few houses down sent their two young girls canvassing the neighborhood in support of Proposition 8.  When I tried to explain to these girls how I aligned myself with the gay community and believed in marriage equality for all, they looked sincerely frightened of me.

Across the street from them, another lady runs a daycare in her home, and she told Tim to watch out for other daycares in the neighborhood who hire minorities and illegals, when he called her to enquire whether she had room for Emi when we first moved here.  Since the conversation was over the phone, she did not know she was talking to a minority family.  Since then, we have seen her take her charges for walks around the neighborhood, always 6-8 beautiful blonde children in a red wagon.  I do not think it's pure coincidence that the children are always white.

And so, after almost five years here, this corner of Long Beach doesn't quite feel like home.  I feel like a tourist, an alien, and I worry my motley little family will always feel that way, no matter where we settle.

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

A Kimchi Mamas reader expressed some concern regarding my statement about being an illegal immigrant at some point in my life.  Here is my clarification (although honestly, I don't know the whole story, since I was a young child when this all went down):

My family and I did not COME here illegally, my father was sponsored through his employer and he did everything by the book. However, there was a very, very long waiting period between applying for a green card and receiving it, where technically our status was up in the air (or maybe his status was still okay, but my mom and I were not? I'm not clear on the details). We couldn't go visit relatives in Korea, for example, because we would have trouble coming back into the US.

During that waiting period, which I believe took about 10 years, I grew up as a normal Korean American kid in southern California. There was no way you could line up other typical Korean American kids and point out those of us who were technically visaless, or social security number-less, and those who were born here, even if you opened a window into our brains.Once we received permanent residency status, things were hunky-dory, and it didn't take long for us to become naturalized citizens after that. This was a pretty typical immigrant story for the time period, although I do not know what the process is like now.

 

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas.

Uncle, Gangnam Style

Earlier today, my cousin Jenny posted the following status update on Facebook:

Someone just mistook my dad for PSY. SMH.

They made it a point to honk like crazy and when he looked, they did the dance.

At first, my racism hackles went up. After news of horrifically racist tweets, I was mentally prepared for all the fame to take a bad turn for our community.

However, when I thought about it for a second, the following things came to mind: My uncle is Korean (obviously), stocky, has similar hair, wears tailored Italian suits as casual wear, and was also wearing sunglasses while driving a white S-class Mercedes Benz at the time.  (He rolls like a true player because he is the proud owner of the Todai restaurant at the Village at Orange, also known as the best-tasting Todai in southern California.)

So maybe, actually, it was a completely honest mistake.  

This is what he looked like:

My uncle.  He's high-class, if you ain't rollin', bypass.

I asked my cousin how my jageun appa (younger brother of my father) reacted:

He was like, "Crazy kids honking! Why are they all of a sudden doing the gangnam style dance?" And I was like maybe you look like him. And he was like "Mee? I look like him? Ohh I guess I could look like him" and he laughed.

He's obviously a good sport with a great sense of humor, so no harm done.  But I'm curious to know: what do you think?  Was it racist?

Fight Night: Kids Edition

 

 

 

Last night, while waiting for a table at Islands, I witnessed a bout of sibling rivalry so extreme, it haunted my dreams and is still weighing on my psyche.

Another family was sitting across from me, also waiting for a table: a dad and his two kids, a girl who looked about 9 and a boy around 6 or 7.  Everything seemed normal at first, the dad was on his phone talking to what was obviously a business contact, and the boy and girl just sat in their chairs, the boy occasionally kicking his sister's feet out of boredom.

Then the boy walked up to the dispenser of free hand sanitizer and poured a large amount onto his hands.  He started rubbing the sanitizer in while walking back to his sister.  Then he started gleefully flinging his hands in his sister's face.

It took her a few seconds to realize that the liquid on her face was not water, but actually rubbing alcohol, and she looked moderately annoyed...until some splashed into her eyes.  She winced and pressed her fingers into her eyelids to relieve the pain.  Then her brother, still wearing a smile, grabbed her hands to prevent her from rubbing her eyes.  The sister then pulled her hands away and pressed her thumbs into her brother's jugular, so hard that he gagged and threw up in his mouth.  That's when he motioned to his dad, pointing urgently at his mouth.  The dad, to his slight credit, definitely looked concerned and got right up to take him to the restroom.

This whole incident took about 10 seconds, not enough time for me to butt in and say something (although even if I did have the opportunity, I think it would be inappropriately nosy of me to intervene).  But it really got me thinking about all the things our kids experience, all the small and large cruelties they inflict on each other, that we parents have no idea about.  Specifically, I remember one day last year when Isaac pulled his eyes back and asked me what that meant.  I feigned ignorance at first, to see if he'd tell me more of the context in which he saw that.  He said some kids at school, not friends of his, were doing that to each other.  I told him it might be that they were teasing someone, so to let me know if it ever happened again, especially if someone did that at him.  I didn't want to bring in the racial element then, especially when the context was unclear, and he hasn't mentioned it since, but I definitely am on the lookout whenever I'm on campus for other signs of racial insensitivity.

The not-knowing really sucks, and it's not always the parents' fault because most incidents happen at school or what-have-you, but as open as I urge my own kids to be with me, they only rarely tell me any details about what goes on in the playground, or any specific things people have said to them.  In the past, I had hoped it was because those things didn't affect them and they had since forgotten, but now I really wonder.  What if Isaac and Emi really are getting hurt and I am just not picking up on the cues?

That would make me absolutely no better than the father of those two kids.

Crystal Renn: "Absolutely not"

Crystal Renn gave an enlightening interview to Jezebel yesterday, specifically responding to the controversy over her taping her eyes back.  Here's some choice clips:

Crystal: I've had moles painted on my face. I've had freckles painted on. I've been made lighter, I've been made tanner with makeup. It's exciting to me...It's not who I am, standing in front of the camera — something happens. I become something else. That's part of why this is a job, it's a performance. There's a whole team and tons of work that goes into 8-10 images that you see in an editorial...As a model, I have made it a big point to learn fashion references, which include different types of brows. And because I don't want to shave my brows off and have the makeup artist, or whoever, draw 'em on, we use things such as tape and makeup to fake it, basically. And to bring the look. Which might be a '20s brow. Or to take 'em away. I did a shoot with Tushmagazine and we bleached my brows away. I didn't go home like that, we dyed them back. But tape is very much the same thing.

Jenna: But just to be clear: when you say it's about "transformation," you're not talking about specific racial transformation. This wasn't about making you look Asian?

Crystal: Oh, absolutely not. We didn't even think about that on the shoot. I'm the one who suggested it, and it didn't even cross my mind. It's something that I regularly ask makeup artists, you know, if it will bring something more to the character. Offer a different face.

Jenna: But not an Asian face.

Crystal: No.

My initial response was surprise and a bit of awe to discover that Ms. Renn has that much creative control over her image; good for her.  She should get more credits to her name.

I still feel uneasy about the whole thing, though, because instead of some boneheaded attempt at racial irony, this whole thing is now smack-dab in the middle of the racial "uncanny valley," where white privilege blinds a person to the potential insensitivity of their actions (ref: "I'm the one who suggested it, and it didn't even cross my mind.").   This is where internet discussions tend to devolve into shit-flinging the most because white privilege is a difficult concept to debate rationally, but other Jezebel readers touched upon it:

Ferrette: Ok, so she's not intentionally racist. But she was pretty damn insensitive 

yfunk: Welcome to the world of the "chinky eye". It's always wonderful for Asians everywhere whenever an athlete (or entire sports team) does it, especially during a match against an Asian athlete or team. 

One gets desenstitized to the ridiculousness, but the outrage always manages to manifest for at least a few seconds. Then, the crushing feeling of defeat. 

RaisinGirl: I've also become increasingly uncomfortable at how while most people seem to understand that blackface is an offensive and outdated practice, yellowface seems to get a pass as "not really racist". 

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the matter.  No one's minds are changing, and we can chalk it up to another brick in the wall that separates me and those like me from other Americans.

Meanwhile, check this shit out.  A lot more obvious, so easier to swallow:

Second Grade Playground Racism Called, and It Wants Its Joke Back

I have long been a fan of formerly-plus-size model Crystal Renn.  She was such a luscious bastion of perfection without being a size 0:

 

Although I will admit that I was a little let down at first by her steady metamorphosis towards the mainstream standard of beauty, I am still a staunch admirer.  This is what she looks like now:

Still gorgeous, yes; just a little less to love!

But now this:

From: http://www.refinery29.com/is-taping-your-eyes-to-look-asian-the-new-blackface

How was this allowed to happen?  And in the moment, how could this have been stopped?  Obviously someone amongst the team of stylists, editors, photographers, and make-up artists came up with and pushed for the eye-slanting for none other than Vogue Japan.   I personally can't see how Ms. Renn could have protested amidst all the other primping and prodding, so no blame lies with her, but I am angered by whoever associated her with the oldest Asian joke in the book. 

Was this somehow some clumsy and tone-deaf-as-fuck attempt at ingratiating Ms. Renn and Dolce & Gabbana to an Asian audience?  Because if anything, this just distracts from the clothes and her beauty.  First of all, the taping was done unevenly, so she looks odd.  But most importantly, she doesn't look more Asian at all because obviously, the rest of her face isn't Asian, and for the millionth time in my life, not all of us Asian people have "chink eyes"!!!  Argh!  If you knew Asian people at all, you'd know that 1. Dolce & Gabbana doesn't have to resort to racist editorial spreads to garner attention...Asia LOOOOOOVES them already and 2. If anything, we actually prefer BIG eyes.

I would love to hear other people's points of view on this.  Meanwhile, me and my round-eyed Asian ass will sit huddled in the nearest corner.  :(

Isaac at the End of First Grade

 

And just like that, it's over.  Isaac is now a second-grader!  In his own words:

"All About Me!"

I'm seven years old.  I have one sister and zero brothers.  I'm happiest when I play Lego Harry Potter on the Xbox.

My Favorites:
Pet: Korgi
Food: chocolate
Sport: archery
Hobby: feeding dog
Color: blue
Holiday: Christmas
Book: Magic Tree House Dragon of the Red Dawn
TV Show: Sponge-Bob Square Pants [editor: I have no idea why he wrote that down, since he doesn't even watch it!]
Ice-cream Flavor: chocolate

When I grow up I want to be a firefighter because I like using hoses and climbing ladders.  

If I had a wish it would be playing Lego Harry Potter every day.

The thing I like most about school was painting the elves.  The thing I most dislike about school is running four laps.  

Most people don't know that I was overgrown and it took three people and a vaccum to suck me out of my mom.  

My proudest moment was when I won the $10 prize at the book fair for estimating how many pages were in a stack of books.  There was 2,128 pages and I estimated 2, 127. 

I'm special because I am unique, that means I'm one of a kind.

Oh Bu, you don't even know just how one of a kind you are!  So proud of you!

As a side note, check this kid out:

Isaac has probably spent 1 month total out of his 7.5 years of existence in Asia, and he's got the Asian squat down pat.  Huge argument for nature vs. nurture right there.

Now all together now: School's out for summer!  School's out forever!

My Hero! *Swoon*

This Memorial Day weekend, I, along with many other parents, took my kids to see "Kung Fu Panda 2."  It feels strange to say this, but I really enjoyed seeing what all the characters were up to, as if I were revisiting old friends.  The movie delved deeper into Po the panda's personal history, and although the expected visual and verbal gags kept the audience giggling, the film also touches on some real-life themes in surprisingly thoughtful ways: adoption, "man" vs. machine, reconciling the past with the present and future, and redemption.

As the movie ended, I was very curious to see who intertwined the childish comedy with the deeper, more sober issues with such a light, masterful touch.  And when the director's name appeared on the screen, my mouth dropped.  First of all, she was a woman.  Second of all, she could very well be Korean!

Both turned out to be true: Jennifer Yuh Nelson is the first woman to singlehandedly direct a big-budget major animated feature.  BOOYAH!!!

From this LA times article, I learned that Jennifer Yuh Nelson actually grew up in Lakewood, CA, minutes away from where I grew up, and not surprisingly, received encouragement and guidance from her own Kimchi Mama from a very young age:

As a young girl, she would sit at the kitchen table for hours and watch her mother draw, copying her every stroke. Nelson traces the lineage of her career to those formative family experiences.

I also really enjoyed reading how she learned to come into her own as a naturally soft-spoken person in a position that usually is defined by auteur angst:

"I'm a very soft-spoken person. I don't throw furniture. I don't throw tantrums," Nelson said. "As a director, your job is to protect this movie with your life. Protect it against anything that would take it off its course and turn it beige. You have to be very, very ferocious and that was the hardest part for me because I'm not used to yelling."

And perhaps the most glowing testimonial comes from the CEO of Dreamworks himself, Jeffrey Katzenberg:

"What I always find so amazing about Jennifer is that inside this beautiful, soulful, soft-spoken, elegant lady is this macho, kung fu-loving action dynamo," Katzenberg said. "It's the opposite of what we're all used to dealing with in the world, the macho exterior and marshmallow center. There is very much a cult following that she has among our artists. They all want to work with her."

Well, I'm not an artist, but definitely count me in as a cult member. I'm so inspired!  Ms. Yuh Nelson, you rock!!!

Cross-posted at Kimchi Mamas!

Some Reactions to "Paper Tigers"

Wesley Yang's recent essay, "Paper Tigers," was published as the cover story of New York Magazine yesterday.  Have you read it yet?  I just did, and my head is reeling.  Much like Manny Pacquiao delivering blow after blow in the ring, Wesley Yang overloads the senses with vivid imagery, damning statistics, compelling interviews and profiles, and the occasional "fuck you" thrown in for good measure.  It is a long article, and I write short blog posts, so I'm only going to talk about a couple points here, but please bring up other points of discussion in the comments if you wish.

Okay, first assertion by the author I wish to talk about: Asian Americans, although we have fantastic college acceptance and graduation rates, meet a "Bamboo Ceiling" in the corporate world, evidenced by some anecdotes and the fact that only 1.8% of Fortune 500 companies have Asian CEOs.  Therefore, all the math drills and cram schools we force our kids to attend do not guarantee success in life after school.

First off, I agree that this Bamboo Ceiling phenomenon exists; I just don't think the statistics he has chosen to use even begin to prove his point.  If we go by the Fortune 500 measure, everyone in America besides these 500 CEOs hasn't succeeded, and I'm sure many of them beg to differ.  And I'm not talking from the "money doesn't guarantee happiness" point of view either...fine, you want to judge success by Benjamins, I can talk Benjamins.  

How about the thousands of Asian Americans who can say: "I may not have made $37 million dollars last year as CEO of PepsiCo (ironically CEOed by a woman of South Asian descent), but as a boring-ass middle-tier lawyer I did make $300,000."  I dunno about you, but that still seems like success to me.  And don't forget all the Asian Americans who knowingly opt out of the rat race either by becoming public servants, activists, artists and designers, church leaders (I wonder what the combined net worth of all the Korean churches in America is...I bet it's not too shabby), and self-employed.

It's tough to become a Fortune 500 CEO, or any kind of CEO that necessitates moving up the corporate ladder.  The reason why so many of them are tall white men is because their predecessors were tall white men.  The Old Boy Network has been around for what, 12 generations now, and that club is hard to get into, and it usually involves multiple generations of inherited money, power, and connections to people like governors and board members, so they're not bound to look kindly on some fresh-faced 2nd generation ethnic-American whose family's net worth cannot buy a congressional district.  I think it's amazing that even 9 Asian Americans managed to pierce through that veil.  Go them!

Which brings me to my second point: you think Asian Americans have it bad?  Talk to a Latino or African American.  Their "success" numbers drop off in high school, let alone college.  Or how about women of all races?  Injustice comes in many flavors.

My second cause of dismay was the uncomfortably long portion dedicated to learning pick up artist tricks in order to bone white girls.  After all this compelling talk about real Asian American issues, with no segue at all, suddenly I'm thrust into a world I don't think I'm meant to witness with a motley crew of alpha-males-in-training.  Their mission statement: "What is good in life?"  “To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women—in my bed!”

Work and life success equated with contrived sexual conquests?  Really?  Who invited me to the sausage fest?

However, this bombastic tone screeches to a halt near the end when he starts talking about Amy Chua's Tiger Mom book.  In fact, his review is the most nuanced and intriguing I've read on the topic, and it actually made me want to finally read the book.  Which brings me to my final reaction: despite the gut-wrenching, angry ways he describes his own and the world's shortcomings, Wesley Yang strikes me a pinnacle of his definition of success.  He has a semi-naked picture of himself published in his barely-edited cover story for New York Magazine, for goodness' sake!  And dare I say, despite his first few paragraphs, he accomplished this as an Asian American.

PS: While I was writing this, Ask a Korean's response came into my feed reader.  It's some good shit.

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas!