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A business acquaintance of mine was kind enough to extend an invitation to a special screening of Chadni Chowk to China on the WB lot tomorrow. I can’t wait to see it.
To be frank, until I received the invitation, I had not even heard of this movie, and it is being released in select markets on January 16. So of course, I had to do a little reading up and (at least) watch the trailer.
Chadni Chowk to China (also known as “Made in China” or “C.C.2.C.”) stars Akshay Kumar (an Indian actor well-known as a Bollywood action hero) and Deepika Padukone (an Indian supermodel turned Bollywood actress) in the lead roles, with Hindi cinema veteran Mithun Chakraborty and Hong Kong veteran Gordon Liu (of Kill Bill 1 & 2) playing other important roles.
The story is about a chef (actually, a halwai) who is mistaken to be a martial arts expert. CC2C is the first Hindi film to be shot in China and is said to be loosely based on Akshay Kumar’s life (he studied martial arts in Bangkok and worked as a chef).
I’ll be interested in seeing how the elements of two of my favorite genres: Bollywood and Kung Fu are fused together in this movie. Bollywood movies are usually musicals with catchy song-and-dance numbers throughout. Some people have called this movie Kung Fu Hustle for Indians, but that doesn’t really sound completely accurate, considering all the comic book elements of KFH.
I’m totally fascinated about Akshay Kumar, who has had a pretty amazing Bollywood career. I found this interview by Anupama Chopra (Consulting Editor, Movies, NDTV) which talks about how the movie came about…
Akshay Kumar: Before Warner Brothers came in, Rohan Sippy (Indian film director) got me a design of me standing like in [a martial arts] pose. The film was called ‘Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu’. He said, “Akshay I want to make a film.” I said, “Okay, what’s the story?” “I don’t have a story.” “Okay do you have an idea?” I don’t have an idea.” “Alright, you have a producer?” “I don’t have a producer.” Sso what do you have?” “I just have this poster, this is the main poster.” His idea was this poster he had made in front of me. This is the first film I’ve done without listening to anything. I told him I wanted to do this film.
Anupama Chopra: Purely on the poster?
Akshay Kumar: On the poster. You know, sometimes it’s your instinct. I don’t know whether it’s going to be right or wrong. That we will come to know later, when the movie releases. This guy is a chef who goes to learn martial art. Bas yehi idea tha (That’s all the idea there was). Let’s make it on my life and let’s do it. Rohan said,”…give me about three months and I’ll come back. He didn’t come back to me in three months. When he did come he told me that he has a small idea and that he has got Warner Brothers to produce it. And from there it took off.
I love that they produced a real Hollywood-distributed movie… all based on a poster!
PS - Deepika Padukone is HOT!
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The Washington Post broke the news today that Dr. Sanjay Gupta (CNN medical correspondent) is considering the position of surgeon general position in the upcoming Obama administration. As a practicing neurosurgeon and faculty at a medical school, Dr. Sanjay’s background in journalism just promises us that we will finally have a surgeon general that 1) says things that are interesting and understandable to the general public, 2) communicates well, and is 3) memorable.
I love how Obama really thought outside the box; this is definitely a great example of identifying someone who “normal” politicians may not think of as a good candidate for surgeon general — but obviously is qualified as a practicing neurosurgeon from a good medical school with a unique background in journalism. Those communication skills will definitely come in handy as surgeon general. And having an Asian in such a prominent role in the administration is a delightful bonus as well.
And note to the other 8Asian writers: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is NOT to be confused with Sanjaya Malakar of American Idol fame. Or infamy.
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For those in the Los Angeles area, Gallery 1988 will be showcasing a new exhibit, Under The Influence: An Official Tribute To Beastie Boys, that’s starting this week. Artist and friend Martin Hsu will have a new original piece, Intergalactic Elementary, a take on the Beastie Boy’s popular song that is now stuck in my head.
The show opens this Thursday, January 8th with 100 artists, which I definitely want to check out. I’ve always enjoyed The Beastie Boy’s tribute to Japanese monster movies and the Shibuya train station with their Intergalactic video (ugh, there it goes, stuck in my head again).
Speaking of popular music and Asian American artists collaborating, I can’t be the only one to notice that Luke Chueh designed the latest album cover for Fall Out Boy, right? I don’t know how I feel about that, though. Fall Out Boy, really??
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When I came across this recent headline from the Mercury News — Success gap: High grades, high stress for Asian-American students in Bay Area — my first reaction was that this was going to be a somewhat biased commentary like the Wall Street Journal’s infamous “New White Flight,” or maybe an alarmist article as I had blogged concerned about in the past. But it was a fairly well-balanced looked at the environment in the San Francisco Bay Area about the concerns of parental and societal pressure of Asian American students and high academic expectations:
“Asian grade scale”: A = Average; B = Bad; C = Catastrophe; D = Disowned; F = Forever Forgotten… Many Asian parents, especially well-educated immigrants, set sky-high expectations for their children. And while that drive to achieve has put Asian students as a group at the top of the class, it’s also forcing some uncomfortable conversations within the Asian community about the damage those demands may cause.”
Also, this statement: At Mission in the Fremont Unified School District, where 75 percent of the student body is Asian, a majority of students think their parents’ expectations are too high, according to a survey conducted a year ago. 75% of the student body is Asian American!? Growing up in Western Massachusetts, I could count the number of Asian Americans on two hands out of a class of 273 students. Overall, Asian Americans make up less than 5% of the overall U.S. population, and any Asian American having been born-and-raised in California should seriously spend at least sometime living outside of the West Coast to try to understand what the rest of America is like.
Video: Mission San Jose High School student “video investigation” on the implications of bias, stereotypes and intense expectations in high school.
To be honest, I mostly only saw the “positives” of the “Model Minority” myth growing up. But living in California the past nine years, I’ve come to become much more aware of the negative consequences of the stereotype: the pressure on Asian American women, and Asian Americans having the highest rate of suicide. I hadn’t known that before, but then again, that statistic doesn’t necessarily surprise me either.
No wonder this reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine with a very young daughter: she grew up in the Bay Area and she and her husband were thinking of possibly buying a home in the near future, but didn’t want to buy in Cupertino or Palo Alto — cities with predominately competitive Asian-American High Schools — because she didn’t want her daughter being totally stressed out in school. For high school students and parents everywhere, are you stressed out about your grades and coursework or have the same parental concerns?
5 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Discrimination, Education, Observations |
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By Phil
When people talk about basketball in the U.S., it’s rare to hear any Asian players. And if they happen to mention an Asian player in the NBA, most likely it’s going to be Yao Ming.
With the success of Yao Ming, the popularity of basketball has greatly increased in China. Commissioner David Stern and the NBA also has plans for an NBA-affiliated league in China and envisions up to eight to twelve arenas in China.
But are there any other Asians that have played basketball in the NBA? Who was the first player of Asian descent to play basketball in the NBA, Yao Ming? Nope. The first player was actually 5′7″ Japanese-American Wat Misaka, the NBA’s first minority player. A first round draft pick by the New York Knicks, he is credited for playing three games, the same year when Jackie Robinson became the first African-American baseball player in 1947.
Forward it to the present day, 2009: there are actually more players of Asian descent, besides Yao Ming, in the NBA. They aren’t achieving the same amount of success or have the same impact on their team that Yao Ming does, but they are in the NBA, so that should count for at least something.
The first one that comes to mind is Yi Jianlian, sixth pick in the 2007 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, later traded to the New Jersey Nets. Yi Jianlian seems be a new wave of Asian players coming from China with more talent; listed at 7′0 feet tall, he’s more athletic and faster than Yao Ming and can shoot the ball all the way from the three point line.
At this point, Yi Jianlian mostly does offense. If he can have this summer off from having to compete with the Chinese National Team, perhaps he can improve on his skills to have a more significant impact in the NBA. Also like other athletes from China, there has been controversy over his real age. My opinion? Whether he was born in 1987 [what he's listed as] or 1984 [where there are new reports surfacing], age isn’t a greater factor on whether you can compete in the NBA. Yi Jianlian was a superstar in the Chinese Basketball Association; that’s not really saying much, but he does have expectations being a lottery pick and having so many fans hoping he has great success in the NBA.
Speaking of fans, there’s more controversy revolving Yi Jianlian: this isn’t necessarily his fault, but NBA fans are paying attention. The NBA allows its fans from around the world to vote for the All-Star game starters. Just as Yao has been receiving many votes for the All-Star game ensuring his spot as a West starter, Yi Jianlian is currently ranked third for forwards with 959,324 votes. Third is not good enough to win a spot as a starter, but if he ranks at least second then Yi will start at the 2009 NBA All-star game. Personally, I don’t care much about the All-star game because it’s a exhibition spectacular for the fans, but there certainly will be more controversy if Yi becomes a starter in the All-Star game this season.
Another player from China currently in the NBA is 6′9″ guard Sun Yue. He was drafted the same year as Yi as the 40th pick by the LA Lakers, appearing in three games. He wasn’t always on the active twelve man roster, but with backup PG Jordan Farmar going down with injury, Sun Yue can be seen with other active Lakers players, usually sitting next to assistant coach Brian Shaw. His story is a little different than other Chinese players, previously playing with his Chinese team the Beijing Aoshen Olympians. The Beijing Aoshen Olympians were banned from the CBA after refusing to release Sun Yue to play for the Chinese National Team, and the Olympians transferred to a minor U.S. league known as the ABA.
Here’s a video of Sun Yue, with other Lakers players being interviewed. Also just like many other names, people seem to also mispronounce Sun Yue’s name as the reporter refers to him as “Sun Yi”:
Now people may question if this player is Asian or not, but there is also another player on a NBA roster: 7′2 Hamed Haddadi from Iran, who is with the Memphis Grizzlies. Haddai was on the Iran Team that won the 2007 FIBA Asia Basketball Tournament, leading Iran to qualify for a spot in the 2008 Olympics. Joe Alexander is neither ethnic Chinese nor a Chinese citizen, but was born in Taiwan and also went to school and played in China for a few years. He also speaks Mandarin and has said that he considers Beijing his hometown. He was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks as the eighth pick in 2008 and is a candidate for the Slam Dunk contest at the next All-Star Game.
Other past players of Asian descent that have played in the NBA are Raymond Townsend (half-Filipino), Rex Walters (Half Japanese), Wang Zhi Zhi (Chinese), Mengke Bateer (Mongolian-Chinese-member of 2003 Champion Spurs), Yuta Tabuse (Japaese), and Ha Seung Jin (Korean). There’s also been other players who were either just drafted, appeared in the NBA D-League/summer league/training camp rosters/, or worked out for NBA Teams but never appeard in a NBA regular season game. Some examples are Yasutaka Okayama (Japanese - listed between 7′8-7′10), Liu Wei (Chinese), Sean Chen (Taiwan) and Sun Ming Ming (Chinese - 7′9). Then there’s the current head coach of the Miami heat, Erik Spoelstra. Eri’s Spoelstra’s mother is Filipino.
There’s also more players of Asian descent currently on NCAA/College basketball teams. If I have time, I will try to make a blog pertaining to those players.
GUEST AUTHOR BIO: My name is Phil. I’m from Southern California, just trying to survive everyday life here working and doing whatever I can. I’m a fan of basketball and other various forms of entertainment. Even though So Cal has a lot of Asians, surprisingly I didn’t grow up around many Asians/Asian-Americans but thanks to the internet we can all benefit from this form of communication.
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I blogged a few months ago about Yo-Yo Ma and his appearance on The Colbert Report. Tonight, I watched on NBC Nightly News a nice profile of Yo-Yo Ma and Ma’s ten year involvement in The Silk Road Project. The segment shows an old black & white video clip of Ma at age seven, when he performed for President John Kennedy - a very precocious child prodigy just a bit taller than his cello.
While doing some more research on Ma, I came across this interview with Ma on All Things Considered on Christmas Eve, where Ma is held a contest on the Internet where you can collaborate with him by adding your own counter-melody or record an entirely new set of variations to Ma’s performance of “Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace)” and upload it to the web site. The winner of the contest will get to meet and play his music in person with Yo-Yo Ma!
And if you hadn’t had enough of Yo-Yo Ma, on January 20th, he’ll be performing at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.
I’m always impressed when I hear Yo-Yo Ma speak. He’s always very well composed (no pun intended, honestly), eloquent, distinguished, charming and dare I say, handsome. People Magazine even once honored Ma as Sexiest Classical Musician! I don’t know if Ma reinforces the Asian American stereotype that we all play a classical stringed instrument well, but I can’t think of a finer musician to do so if he does.
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Stan and Jan Berenstain are children books illustrators of an older time and place — Jan Berenstain is 85, Stan passed away in 2005 — but have created the Berestain Bears; a family of rural walking, talking clothes-wearing bears, and through a media empire of books, television shows and terrible video games, teach children important lessons about life and sharing. Kind of like the bible, with less God and more animal anthropomorphism.
The books have been around since I was a kid, and lessons are universal to 4 to 8 year olds: Don’t watch too much TV! Don’t eat too much junk food! Be grateful for what you have! But this link from the 10 most Awkward Berenstain Bear Books pointed out one book that missed my radar growing up, probably because it came out in 1994: Don’t be afraid of your Chinese neighbors.
Okay, technically the neighbors in The Berenstain Bears’ New Neighbors
brandishing a shotgun when gangbangers come to town and generally resistant of his new neighbors.
But thankfully this a children’s book and not an Oscar platform and in a couple of easy to digest pages, and a glass of bamboo juice, “all learn a valuable lesson in acceptance and the dangers of bigotry.” But wait until Papa Bear finds out that pandas aren’t a part of the bear family; Papa Bear might be brandishing that shotgun after all. Feel lucky, panda? Do you?
(Hat tip: Mike)
8 Comments | Posted in: Entertainment, Family |
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Well, not exactly — CNN released a list of the most anticipated movies in 2009 earlier this week and surprisingly there are many Asian actors and actresses that are apart of many of these movies. Now, I’ll ignore the fact that these movies are apparently most anticipated by geeks — because you know us Asians get our panties all knotted up the wrong way when Asian and geek is mentioned in the same sentence — but the fact that there are Asians that proliferate this list is somewhat profound, especially in the “Asians-cannot-star-in-movies-unless-they-do-kungfu-or-get-saved-by-white-man” mentality that exist in Hollywood today. I’ll just point out a few notable people:
Gianna Jun - The list starts off with Ji-Hyun Jeon or Gianna Jun as she likes to be known who is the star of the Blood: The Last Vampire, which is at #3 on the list. Whether or not she actually speaks in this role or she is just regulated to slicing up vampires is yet to be known. (Here is a Japanese Shampoo commercial she was in where she speaks in English; hopefully her English has improved a bit more in the two years since) Nor am I confident in the artistic integrity of this movie; but more times than not these kind of movies that have a cult following tend to be at the very least, decent, so I’ll reserve judgment on that.
Many people will find her character extremely one dimensional and shallow. True. And although slaying vampires is not far removed from high-kicks and karate-chops, Gianna Jun is extremely talented and beautiful, and beautiful in the “Asian standards of beauty” sense, and not the Western idea of big tits and ass sense, so anytime an Asian women like that can star in a movie its a positive in my book.
Daniel Henney - The second person I am putting as “most to gain” would be Korean-American actor Daniel Henney. His new movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a sure-fire blockbuster hit, not only having the target reach of geeks but the average moviegoer as well. Henney in the official Movie trailer has significant face time, although he only says one line (watch trailer below). With the “guaranteed-hit” nature of this film combined with the fact he is actually fluent in English being raised in America and his God given good looks, Daniel Henney may be the next big thing depending on the significance of his role in the movie. Again, the self-proclaimed Asian-American activists will complain that Daniel Henney is in fact only half Asian and he cannot even speak Korean fluently AND the the fact that his very western facial features that make him attractive to Hollywood. Although those facts are true, don’t mistake Henney for being white-washed; he started his acting career in Korea, starred in Korean dramas and movies and is very aware, respectful, and knowledgeable about Korean culture — a positive in my book. Baby steps, people, baby steps.
Kristin Kreuk — Ill keep it short and sweet: video game adaptations to movies SUCK ASS 9 out of 10 times. And Kristen Kreuk will be the lead in the film Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. What are some notable video game to movie adaptations?
Street Fighter: SUCKED
Mortal Combat: SUCKED, although this did relatively well at the box-office
BloodRayne: did not see, but im guessing it SUCKED
DOA: Dead or Alive: NO COMMENT
Super Mario Bros: *BARFS*
Double Dragon: …you get the point.
Keep Kreuk’s future career in your prayers.
John Cho - Lower down on the list at #7 is Star Trek XI, which stars (should I use that term loosely?) John Cho. Not to say this role is not significant but Cho is already an established actor in Hollywood, but important to note that he is playing Hikaru Sulu, a role that George Takei made famous. Being that Takei was the first major Asian American to have a role in a non-stereotypical role in Hollywood its seems also fitting that John Cho, who is somewhat of a Hollywood stereotype-breaker himself, plays the exact same character. I’m just relieved they didn’t decide last minute to change Sulu’s ethnicity to a white guy, not that stuff like that ever happens in good old Hollywood.
On a lighter note: as a Star Wars geek, I want to have prejudice against this movie, but the fact the J.J. Abrams produced this film I shall reserve judgment once again.
Byung-Hun Lee - the Korean James Dean, Byung-Hun Lee will be playing Storm Shadow in G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Now that you know that fact, lets play a game: it’s called, “Find-The-Korean-In-The-Movie-Poster:”
Can’t find him? He’s the white guy in the poster. No seriously, he’s the white guy. I mean the REALLY white guy. The guy with the white mask and ninja swords. Yup.
I think this poster may be a metaphor for his role in the movie, unfortunately.
Joon-hyung Park - Joon Park will play Yamcha in Dragonball Evolution Apparently, it’s a pretty significant role but I do not see much potential in it. If you dont know who Joon Park, is you probably saw him in Speed Racer as a Yakuza Driver; You had to have watched it very carefully cause he was only in it for about 15 seconds. Oh wait, you didn’t watch Speed Racer? Oh. Sorry.
All in all, I think all the movies in this list have their faults, but I will be rooting for all of them. Even though CNN lists these movies as most anticipated by “geeks”, we all know the famous Genghis Khan quote: “First you conquer the geeks, then the WORLD!” (Actually, I think it was Napoleon who said that; or was it Pinky from Pinky and the Brain?)
Anywho, let us all hope they are successful this year.
11 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Entertainment, Movies |
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