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In the latest flare-up over Japan’s ongoing handling of Korean “comfort women” during World War II, Tokyo-based camera company Nikon Corp. has stirred controversy by cancelling a planned exhibit on the subject by a South Korean photographer.The Wall Street Journal blog piece also ties this in with the Japanese diplomats' efforts to get the heavily kyopo (Korean American) community of Palisades Park** to remove the memorial. (Note, below, that the memorial does not mention Koreans once, even though Korean women made up the bulk of the women forced or duped into the Ianfu (Wianbu in Korean).
The exhibit was to have been shown at the company’s Shinjuku salon from June 26 to July 9, and included photos of women who said they had been held as sexual slaves by the Japanese military in China in the 1930s and 1940s.
A spokeswoman for the photographer, Ahn Se-hong, said an official from Nikon called him last week and told him the exhibit would be cancelled, but did not give him any reason. The spokeswoman, Sadik Lee, told JRT that a Nikon official said they would like to meet Mr. Ahn in person to apologize, but he refused until he was given an explanation.
A Nikon spokesman, who declined to be named, confirmed the cancellation, and told JRT that “considering various circumstances in a comprehensive way, we have come to decide to cancel it. This is all we can say.”
The spokesman wouldn’t elaborate, but did confirm Japanese press reports of protests that Nikon received against the planned exhibit. The Asahi Shimbun reported that several complaints surfaced on the Internet, branding the exhibit a “betrayal” of Japan, and calling for protests of the exhibit.
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... there are a bunch of people there who have a horrible hate-on for her and I cannot figure out why. We the audience have seen absolutely no reason whatsoever for them to despise her with the passion they do, but they have been vicious.Well, we're starting to see how right that speculation was. When fellow Asian-American Jonas Otsuji was ousted, it was revealed in a tweet by none other than Jeff Probst himself that the castaway engineering the removal of Jonas had actually said this (it was bleeped):
What gives? She has has been friendly, she pulls her own weight around the camp, she hasn't backstabbed anyone, and she seems likable. So what gives with all that animosity?
Since it seemed to stem from that one Republican fellow who thinks he's a woman, I started to develop a theory. Colton is a gay person in Alabama and in the GOP who spews bigotry and intolerance toward others (e.g., "ghetto trash"). I mean, really? Irony much?
And since he seems to be the fountainhead of the river of vitriol reserved for Christina, I have to wonder if that, too, does not stem from, to put it bluntly, animosity toward Asians, or Koreans in particular. (Maybe he didn't get a job at the Kia factory.)
#survivor big words from tarzan and there's the quote of the day - 'cant look at that asian face anymore."Seriously, what effin' century are you living in, man? And lest you think otherwise, this guy Tarzan is not some uneducated type: he's a plastic surgeon for criminy sake!
Prior to that, he had defended Colton against the charge I'd made:I was not aware of that. (Laughs) I think that's a little -- to say "Asian face," that's a little unnecessary. Yeah. And then the fact that he completely called out Christina like, "I don't like you." That's a little shocking, yeah. Wow. (Laughs)
No, he's obviously not a racist, because if you're a racist, you single out a certain group of people. Colton hated every single person out there and he wasn't afraid to say it, so you can't say that he hates blacks or Asians. He hates everybody. (Laughs) At least that's the show that he puts on. I don't think that he really does.But would he have seen things differently if he'd known about his other tribemate's little slur? Or, if he saw something like this:
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About 15% of all new marriages in the United States in 2010 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, more than double the share in 1980 (6.7%). Among all newlyweds in 2010, 9% of whites, 17% of blacks, 26% of Hispanics and 28% of Asians married out. Looking at all married couples in 2010, regardless of when they married, the share of intermarriages reached an all-time high of 8.4%. In 1980, that share was just 3.2%.As one might expect, this is not evenly applied across genders:
About 24% of all black male newlyweds in 2010 married outside their race, compared with just 9% of black female newlyweds. Among Asians, the gender pattern runs the other way. About 36% of Asian female newlyweds married outside their race in 2010, compared with just 17% of Asian male newlyweds. Intermarriage rates among white and Hispanic newlyweds do not vary by gender.I've always thought Asian American men who were having trouble finding that special someone ought to look to Black women, and this sort of backs me up.
Some of these differences appear to reflect the overall characteristics of different groups in society at large, and some may be a result of a selection process. For example, white/Asian newlyweds of 2008 through 2010 have significantly higher median combined annual earnings ($70,952) than do any other pairing, including both white/white ($60,000) and Asian/Asian ($62,000). When it comes to educational characteristics, more than half of white newlyweds who marry Asians have a college degree, compared with roughly a third of white newlyweds who married whites. Among Hispanics and blacks, newlyweds who married whites tend to have higher educational attainment than do those who married within their own racial or ethnic group.Revenge of the stereotypical Asian nerds, I guess.
Couples formed between an Asian husband and a white wife topped the median earning list among all newlyweds in 2008-2010 ($71,800).
A quarter-century ago, 65% of Americans thought interracial marriage was unacceptable for themselves or for other people. Yet in the span of a generation, as intermarriage has become more common and the United States has grown more racially diverse, a dramatic change in attitudes has taken place. Today, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 87% of Americans say that the rise in interracial marriage has either been good for society or made no difference, while only 11% think it's a change for the worse.I do think there's merit to that argument, just as there was in the comparison of racial integration of the armed forces with ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Still, there are people whose opposition to gay marriage stems from religious convictions, something that didn't generally hold true (I think) for opponents of interracial marriage.
That's the thing about the tide of history: It tends to flow from intolerance to acceptance. The same shift that occurred in opinions about interracial marriage is happening in attitudes about same-sex marriage. Just ask folks in Washington and New Jersey.
One person was killed when a tree slammed into a car Thursday afternoon, authorities said.Commenters at the OCR site are criticizing that paper's coverage (as they often do) for only getting half the story. They point to stories in the Los Angeles Times, and at KABC, the local ABC affiliate.
Police received initial reports of a vehicle crashing into a tree, but when officers arrived at the scene, it wasn’t immediately clear how the driver was injured, Costa Mesa police Lt. Mark Manley said.
“It may have been a tree just fell onto the car,” Manley said.
Rescuers responded to the intersection of Irvine Avenue and 17th Street about 2 p.m.
A witness said that the woman was alive and talking to other witnesses at the scene while in the car under the tree.Just horrible. People buying cars often check how well they do in head-on, side, and rear-end collisions, and Hyundai vehicles seem to do well in that area, but there seems not much one can do to protect against a massive tree falling on your vehicle.
"They were talking to her, communicating with her, she was still talking back about everything," she said. "She was okay, she was alive and breathing."
But she said when firefighters tried to lift the tree off the vehicle, it dropped for a second time.
"When they went to lift it, it might have been too heavy, and it just dropped back down and crushed the car even more," she said. "It got more smaller, it was just terrible."
The witness was unsure if the driver was still alive when the tree dropped back down.
Detectives had little to go on in the case but learned one of the suspects was a black man who spoke Korean very well, Kim said.I just hope it's not one of the eleven Andrew Kims I know.
Then last month, investigators learned of a monthlong FBI undercover sting with Las Vegas Metro Police that netted five members of a Korean organized crime group from Los Angeles.
The suspects were allegedly preparing to rob what they believed was a drug stash house in Las Vegas.
When they were interviewed by Asian gang team detectives in Las Vegas, three of the five suspects allegedly implicated themselves in the Diamond Bar home invasion robbery.
They included David Chon, 28, James Han, 28, and Rene Hypolite, 26, who investigators say has African American and Korean parents and speaks fluent Korean.
Investigators also identified three other suspects in the robbery: one who drove the getaway car and two who masterminded the home invasion. The alleged driver, Andrew Kim, 26, of Los Angeles, was arrested Jan. 24 at his home in Los Angeles.
You see from other parts of the show that the young Korean mother (murder victim #2) is sort of hot. Thin—maybe too thin for someone who has had a kid—and crazy nutso. But hot. Though she's lying on her back, you can see her breasts are still standing at attention, which is nearly a sure bet that they're mercenaries. The moral of this episode is simple: never trust a Korean-born woman who gets a boob job. They're nuts. I'm not kidding. Certifiable. If you don't like 'em small and natural, move along, brother. Move along.But this post is not actually about my proclivities (hey, I've got small hands, what can I say?), not even about FEM, but about the history they are now apart of, so sayeth the Los Angeles Times. They start with the meaning of FM's success:
Prior to FM, the last group of Asian Pacific Islander descent to run the dance floor might have been the Jets, the Tongan-German, Minneapolis-based family band that had a string of dance/R&B hits, including “Curiosity” and “Crush on You.” That was back in 1985.And some of that long-term effort is rather interesting:
When I began writing about Asian American artists in the early 1990s, the common hope was for a “breakthrough” superstar that could pry open the gates of the record industry by convincing skeptical label execs that “we” were marketable. Yet although the sales of "Free Wired" could be the result of a trickle-down effect from other Asian American artists, it's more probable that FM’s success is the culmination of a long-term movement to part the doors of opportunity with a thousand nudges rather than a single magic bullet.
Behind FM’s climb to the top are at least two intersecting histories of “Asian American music” (an ill-defined term, but bear with). One history begins in the early 1970s, at the very birth of the idea of “Asian America” as a social and political term unifying disparate ethnic groups. (FM, a group whose members are of Chinese, Filipino, Korean and Japanese descent, practically stand in as a poster child for pan-ethnic Asian America). Besides rallies and newsletters, activists used music to promote this nascent, umbrella identity.Translation of that last line: Sellouts. But the multicultural assortment of women in the video are cute.
For example, arguably the first album by a self-identified Asian American group was the 1973 eponymous debut of the folk trio A Grain of Sand. In line with the political source of their creative inspirations, their songs tackled cross-ethnic unity, labor solidarity and antiwar sentiments. A lost history lies behind these groups and their now-obscure releases, be it the eclectic, jazz/spoken word stylings of the Bay Area band Yokohama, California, or “The Ballad of Chol-Soo Lee,” a 1978 single released in San Francisco to raise awareness about the case of a Korean immigrant wrongly convicted of murder. By the time my generation came of age, the musical vehicle for social and cultural outreach shifted from that of folk and jazz to hip-hop. In the first half of the 1990s, a wave of politically charged collegiate rap artists came and went, including UC Davis’ Asiatic Apostles and Rutgers University’s Yellow Peril.
Most of these groups followed the Funkadelic principle of freeing minds and hoping butts would follow, but on an album like "Free Wired," with its catchy club anthems such as “Girls on the Dancefloor” and “Like a G6,” FM has gone the other way: butts first, minds maybe. Yet the group certainly walked the same path as many of those now-forgotten, Asian American rap pioneers.
Food & Wine magazine cited Roy Choi and nine other cooks in their 20s to 30s in its annual list of best up-and-coming chefs.Well, that's cool. I like stories like this because it's an inspiration to a new generation of kyopo parents that their kids can be something other than doctors, engineers, and lawyers.
Choi, who was born in Seoul, has built a loyal following in Los Angeles with his mash-up of Mexican and American street food with Korean flavors.
Food lovers can find his Kogi BBQ trucks via Twitter, the social networking tool that other food trucks rely on.
"Roy is bringing food to the street with real passion," Food & Wine editor Dana Cowin told Reuters.
The 39-year-old Choi rolled out his food truck in late 2008 targeting young club-goers. His business has blossomed with his debut restaurant slated to open this week.
Before his food trucks, the classically-trained Choi had worked at Michelin-star Le Bernardin in New York.
The other nine chefs named by the magazine work in more traditional settings across the United States.
the real secret weapon may be a couple of women who look as if they're barely out of high school. Linda Chang, 28, and her sister Esther, 23, the Ivy League-educated daughters of Forever 21's Korean American founders Don and Jin Sook Chang, seem to have the stylish eye and marketing savvy to take the $2-billion brand into the future and make it a competitor on a global level with European fast-fashion giants H&M, Mango and Zara.Fashion isn't rocket science or a cure for cancer, but I like seeing shops that provide nice clothes at affordable prices, especially if I'm the one who might end up paying. So I'm glad the Changs stuck it out in the early years:
The Chang sisters joined the L.A.-based company a little over a year ago — Linda to run the marketing department, and Esther to spearhead visuals, including graphics, store displays and window design. Linda is the quintessential young professional in Alexander Wang boyfriend jackets and Forever 21 jeans, cooking lasagna on weekends for friends in her Hollywood apartment. Esther, the Gen Y younger sister in Forever 21 denim shorts, a TopShop flannel shirt and American Apparel knee-highs, still lives at home with mom, who is Forever 21's chief merchandising officer, and dad, who is chief executive.
Don and Jin Sook Chang, who were born in South Korea and immigrated to Los Angeles in 1981, embraced the fashion business while Don was working at a gas station and noticed the best cars were driven by clothing merchants. The couple opened the first Forever 21 store in Highland Park in 1984; initially, the merchandise was similar to the clothing you'd find in the stalls in downtown's Santee Alley: cheaply made knockoffs.Living the dream. Good on you.
There were some lean years in Koreatown while the Changs built the business, but eventually, Linda said, the family had enough money to afford private school — Buckley and Harvard Westlake — for the girls and a Beverly Hills estate.
After graduating in 2008 from the University of Wisconsin with a triple major -- journalism, history and political science -- she became one of many ethnic Koreans raised abroad who return to explore their heritage.The article also tackles the downside of the double standard that many kyopo encounter:
Some come to earn money and brush up on their Korean or to please their parents. Babe took a job teaching English to learn about her roots.
What she found was a culture quite unlike that in the United States. And though she appreciates the sense of community extended to returning ethnic Koreans, at times she still felt like a stranger.
"I think that Korean culture is beautiful in the sense that they are so strongly committed to one another, but they are also community-oriented to a fault," she said. "They don't allow people to be individuals as much as I think is necessary."
In South Korea, returnees such as Babe are known as gyopo.
The term connotes "our Koreans who happen to be living overseas in another country," said David Kang, a second-generation Korean American and director of Korean studies at USC.
He emphasized the tribal focus of the word: "It's this very atavistic view of Koreans as our blood overseas, almost."
For some ethnic Koreans who come here, the term gyopo has carried a negative connotation, singling them out. But most accept it as a practical label.
But gyopo who look Korean but behave in a "non-Korean" way may be a target of discrimination.I'm not so sure if Whites would agree that they can get away with almost anything. A kyopo male with a Korean female won't warrant a second glance, but a White male with a Korean female might invite double-takes, staring, or worse. Indeed, perhaps it's a grass-is-greener thing at work here: many Whites long for the racial transparency they enjoyed back home, while a great many kyopo see the newfound racial inclusion as a burden — a huge distraction from the benefits of racial transparency they'd find in Korea.
Kang also pointed out Koreans' tolerance for most other foreigners' behavior: "If you're white, you can get away with almost anything."
Babe acknowledged that she often misses out on some of the perks enjoyed by her non-Korean peers. South Koreans often will offer directions to confused foreigners, not presumed kinsmen.
Looking Korean has affected her employment opportunities as well.
Many English teaching positions posted on the Internet include "no gyopo" clauses. "They don't fully understand that speaking and appearance are not really related," she said of employers.
