The Fighting 44s

Welcome to the first blog post from my brand new MacBook Pro. Man, I should’ve read my own blog post about Macrumors.com–Apple computers seriously rock! They’re faster, better with graphics, better with video, easier to configure, more stable, more secure, and they look a lot cooler. I can’t believe I was on the PC bandwagon for so long. I can’t believe I didn’t start Macrumors.com.

Anyway, there was another interesting article in the New York Times about another blogger going full time. Heather Armstrong runs Dooce.com, where she blogs about being a mother. According to the article, she has 850,000 readers, and according to her site, she has been blogging since February of 2001. J.C. Penney, Crate & Barrel, and Walgreens all pay top dollar to advertise their brands on her site, and she has been so successful that both she and her husband have been able to quit their full-time jobs.

I looked around her site, and though it’s well written, irreverent, and personal, I can’t believe that there are 850,000 readers. 850k? I think that’s half the population of Portland…it’s insane! But again, we’re probably seeing a niche which is underserved–how often do people get that close and personal about motherhood, a subject in which people have traditionally needed lots of support?

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

By far the greatest commercial I have seen for these Olympics. Truly, it is the new golden age of Cybertron, I mean China.

Posted in Entertainment & Media, Video | | Permalink

By Andrew Cawthorne

BEIJING (Reuters) - A handsome but anonymous guardian of the Olympics torch on its troubled world tour has won legions of Chinese female fans — and plenty of marriage proposals.

Known only as “Second Brother on the Right” because of his customary position by the flame, the young man with boyish looks and cropped hair is an Internet sensation and nationalist hero.

Pictures of him in regulation blue-and-white Olympics uniform abound on websites and Chinese media, with some fans likening him to Lei Feng, an idolized soldier of the Mao Zedong era.

“We love him not only because he is so handsome but because he represents the pride of China,” one female blogger wrote.

The nameless hero’s popularity soared as he was seen defending the torch from pro-free Tibet protests on its international tour before reaching China for the Games.

“Take your hands away from my dearest brother, you cop!” wrote another female fan, “Rabbit,” next to a photo of a British policeman pushing the guard as he wrestled with a protester in a London street during the British leg of the tour.

Posted in Entertainment & Media, Opinion, Social Issues | | Permalink

I’ve been getting flamed recently. It’s nothing new, of course, I get flamed all the time, but this time is perhaps a bit different because the issue happens to be one which we likely won’t solve entirely over the web, plus it happens to be flaming by people whom I actually like. In this case, my flaming is over what some regard as my endorsement of Pick Up Artists on my first PUA podcast here, my second podcast here, and my endorsement of a site that one poster described as a “sausage fest.” I’m getting flamed because of sexism on some of these sites (though I’ve never posted on any of these sites), and also because I didn’t condemn some sexist language (which I didn’t notice) used on the 44s. One member said that I was promoting “sexism” to prop up Asian men. Another called out my “ignorance.” I’ve been called other things as well. Though I don’t intend to get people angry, I know that it sometimes happens.

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

This is a crime drama. Like CSI: Miami or those dozens of other piece of shit shows we watch on TV. It comes from the story of a hardened criminal who never saw trial, but was probably guilty of his crime, wanting to love and raise his two sons. Wanting to live with his wife. The system, our system does not suffer criminals or family values gladly.

Names We Must Never Forget

Emmett Till. Anne Frank. Wong Shee.
Born in the wrong place. Born the wrong color.

Hiu Lui Ng age 17, bright-eyed the New York Skyline.
Jason Ng. Studied. Graduated. Worked. Married. Loved. Fathered.

We must remember our promises:
We welcome those who come and follow our laws.
Respect the legal process.
Our mistake. Your court summon was sent to the wrong address.

We must remember this date:
July 19, 2007
Five years of agonizing waiting from their wedding day
Finally honored by the green card interview.
Dragged from the room.

We must remember these concentrations:
Wyatt; The House of Corrections, Greenfield, Mass.; St. Albans’ Franklin County Jail

St. Albans, I cannot sleep.
Unrelenting pain in my back
My skin itching and burning
Where is the doctor, the nurse?

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

Thanks to T-Tocs who first posted this in our forum.  There’s already a huge discussion taking place about the story.  The Spanish basketball team was photographed doing the slant eye pose that so many of us know from grade school, and they’re not apologizing for it.  To make things worse, as minorTruths points out in the forum, there is a Chinese sponsor who is exonerating them by saying it’s not offensive.

I’ve already blogged somewhat about the topic of European racism.   I don’t know what else can change a culture other than an internal movement.  Love or hate the U.S., we’re still ahead of much of the rest of the world when it comes to understanding race relations.

MinorTruths referenced an excellent article here, which makes good points about the double standard that Americans face and also makes some good points about how the money spins and who works for whom.

Posted in News | | Permalink

The real singer 

I just saw this story on CNN.com– Olympic Girl Seen But Not Heard.

Apparently, the cute little girl who was “singing” during the Olympic ceremony wasn’t really singing.  She was lip-synching because the girl with the nice voice wasn’t cute enough.

Games organizers confirm that Lin Miaoke, who performed “Ode to the Motherland” as China’s flag was paraded Friday into Beijing’s National Stadium, was not singing at all.

Lin was lip-syncing to the sound of another girl, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was heard but not seen, apparently because she was deemed not cute enough.

As you can see from my title post, I reversed the wording of the title article.  I’m more concerned about the girl who didn’t get to be on camera because her image supposedly wasn’t up to par.  Sure, the stand-in girl probably does have greater beauty according to common accepted standards:

The cute “singer” 

But they’re both cute.  And if it’s the original girl’s voice, they should give the original girl credit by letting her perform on stage.  I can’t believe anyone would deny a young child the chance to be in the spotlight, especially when it’s her voice coming over the loudspeakers.  What kind of lesson does this teach our kids?  It’s not right.

Posted in News, Opinion | | Permalink

I was poking around the web today, and William’s betterasianman.com blog linked to a new site: 108 Spirits. It’s focused solely on Asian American men, but of all the other “competitor” sites I’ve seen, it’s very similar to ours. Like reappropriate, it’s hard-hitting, well-written, and progressive, and so far, the discussions lack the nauseating wholesomeness that we sometimes see on other sites. It’s like a young 44s or young reappropriate for men. In fact, the dialog reminds me a lot of the early days of the 44s with Seoulbrother’s Palchisan Realm and the discussions about old Chinese epics like the Three Kingdoms. I think it’s great that people are digging deep into our cultural history in order to find wisdom that so many of us either don’t know or have forgotten.

The vision/explanation of the name is cool too:

108 Spirits is a reference to the 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly Fiends that originated from Chinese mythology and later on influenced various Asian works of literature. Among those is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature: “Shui Hu”, aka “Water Margin”, “Outlaws of the Marsh” or “All Men Are Brothers”, in which the 108 Spirits reincarnated as the 108 Outlaws.

Posted in Opinion | | Permalink

I started in judo fifteen years ago during my freshman year of college (I know this reveals my age). Back in the day, I competed often, and when the 96 Olympics came, I was excited to follow the athletes whom my sensei had talked up. Unfortunately those were long before the days when NBC had tons of different channels and feeds, and so I was stuck checking the results in the NY Post. My sensei told me that judo was a huge sport in Europe and Asia, and that the US was one of the few countries where most people had no idea what judo was. We bitched and complained about television coverage, and we wondered why they didn’t diversify their offerings to show the less popular sports. We asked how judo could ever be popular if they never showed it.

In 2000, four years later, I was working the night shift at an internet company, and while I was able to get more instantaneous results, I was still unable to watch. I checked out the athlete bios, and I compared the written descriptions of the wins and losses of the star atheletes that I knew. Even though I still couldn’t see what was going on, it was still exciting. In 2004, it was the same thing, though I had lost track of who was who.

Posted in News | | Permalink

Today is 8-8-08, but half a world away in China, the Beijing Olympics has already begun.

From the AP wire:

China opens its long-sought Olympics spectacularly
By DAVID CRARY
Associated Press Writer

China didn’t just walk onto the world stage. It soared over it. At last playing its long-sought role as Olympic host, China opened the Summer Games in spectacular fashion Friday with an extravaganza of fireworks and pageantry dramatizing its ascendance as a global power.

Disasters, environmental problems and human-rights disputes preceded the games, and questions abound about how they will unfold. But for an evening, at least for the 91,000 people packed into the new National Stadium, it was an interlude of fervor and magic - capped by the spellbinding sight of a skywalking, torchbearing gymnast floating around the stadium’s top rim before sending a torrent of fire upward to light the Olympic flame.

Scores of world leaders were on hand, and the potential TV audience was 4 billion worldwide for what was certainly the costliest and probably the largest opening ceremony in Olympic history.

Posted in News, Opinion | | Permalink