Paramount+: Official Trailer: Love in Taipei – Streaming August 10th

Posted on July 27, 2023 by John

https://youtu.be/uBGTJqYuV_w

I first met author Abigail Hing Wen at her book launch event of her Young Adult novel “Loveboat, Taipei” in Menlo Park, California. As a producer (one of many), on the documentary “Love Boat: Taiwan,” I had a great interest on the subject matter. I bought the novel to support Wen’s efforts, but to be honest, I never got around to reading it. After college, I don’t think I’ve read any work of fiction. Still, I am super excited to watch the film adaptation of the book, “Love In Taipei”:

“Based on the best-selling book “Loveboat, Taipei” by Abigail Hing Wen, LOVE IN TAIPEI tells the story of the young American Ever Wong, whose summer takes an unexpected turn when her parents surprise her with a trip to Taipei for a cultural immersion program. Ever is surprised to discover that she hasn’t signed up for homework and history lessons, but instead for a summer-long free-for-all the locals and other students call “Loveboat.” And it quickly lives up to its name when Ever finds herself trying not to fall for two attractive but wildly different boys who are vying for her attention, while at the same time finding the courage to defy her parents’ high expectations and pursue her true passion: dancing.

The film directed by Arvin Chen (Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?), which stars Ashley Liao (Physical), Ross Butler (Shazam! Fury of the Gods), Nico Hiraga (Booksmart) and Chelsea Zhang (Titans), will premiere this summer exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and Canada on Thursday, August 10, also coming to the service in the UK, Australia, Latin America, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and South Korea.”

I am excited that the film was shot on location in Taipei, not like Vancouver, where many films often are. I will try to interview Abigail in the near future and am delighted to get a sneak peak next week!

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Bay Area Singer thuy getting Radio play and Streams with “girls like me don’t cry”

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Jeff

I had heard girls like me don’t cry a number of times on the radio, but when the DJ said that the singer went to Newark Memorial High School (where I went to high school), I was immediately intrigued. After I saw that the singer was named thuy, I decided to check out who this singer was. thuy actually did go to my high school, and she is an emerging Asian American pop performer to watch and to listen to.

In many ways, her story is like a lot of Asian American performing artists.  She always had a love for music but went with her family’s desire for her to go into the medical field, majoring in Biopsychology at UC Santa Barbara.  After working a number of medical jobs, she decided to pursue her passion full time. Her parents wondered if she would go back to physician assistant school after this “phase.” I am reminded of the story of Simu Liu working as an accountant. According to Billboard, girls like me don’t cry peaked at 9 on the Vietnamese charts and 39 in New Zealand, and it is getting airplay in the US now.  A look at her Spotify numbers shows that her songs have been streamed tens of millions of times.

thuy is currently opening for singer Ella Mai on her Heart on My Sleeve Tour and will next be performing in that tour on August 19 and 20, 2023 in Sacramento.  You can see her music web site at site at thuymusic.com.

(photo credit: musiegeek licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

 

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Most Asian Americans say they don’t know Asian American History

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Jeff

I have run a number of Asian American history talks and events for an Employee Resource Group (ERG) in my company, and a common responses from my fellow employees is that they had no idea about much of the history that was being presented.  I have to confess that I often also had no idea about much that history. My fellow employees and I am not alone. A recent Pew Research Center study found that most Asian Americans admit that they are not well informed about Asian American History.

Across Asian American groups as a whole, 24% said that they had little knowledge of Asian American history, while 24% said that they were well informed. Some 37% said that they learned about Asian American history in college, and 33% learned about it from K-12 schools.  This data was part of a larger study on shared Asian American experiences and identity.

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Larry Itliong’s Son and Grandson talk about him on StoryCorps

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Jeff

While we often write about notable people, we rarely talk about their families, much less talk about them from the viewpoint of their families.  That is one reason that I found a particular StoryCorps story so interesting. We hear about Larry Itliong from the viewpoint of his son Johnny, who was remembers when Larry Itliong did notable labor work.

In many ways we are lucky to have this viewpoint. The fact that Larry Itliong had children was more an exception than the rule. Immigration and anti-miscegenation laws in the US during the majority of the 20th century tremendously diminished the chances of Filipino Farm workers of having families. Johnny’s voice cracks when he recalls the farm workers who died alone and unaccompanied by family members.

StoryCorps is a great resource for recording and preserving oral histories.  I have recorded my parents’ stories, and I encourage people to do the same.

 

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WWII Soldier Remains identified 80 years later as Wing O. Hom

Posted on July 13, 2023 by Jeff

Photo credit: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

We have talked about Asian Americans who have died for their country during military service, and the identification of the remains of Wing O. Hom adds another to that list. Hom, from Boston, was killed in action in Italy during World War II. Anthropological and DNA analyses were used to identify his body, which was buried at the Sicily-Rome American cemetary in Nettuna, Italy.

I was surprised to learn that there is an entire agency, called the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), that tries to identify missing military personnel. Here is the profile it has on Hom. The Sons of Liberty Museum also tracks Missing in Action (MIA) military personnel going back as far as WWI.  I looked around its list (time consuming as there are a lot of MIAs) and found a number of MIA Asian Americans.

Hom will bere buried in Brooklyn, New York on October 11, 2023.

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Lawsuit Targets One of Harvard’s Last Bastions of Affirmative Action – Legacies

Posted on July 7, 2023 by Jeff

After losing its affirmative action case in the US Supreme Court, Harvard is seeing one of its last bastions of affirmative action – legacy admissions – become the target of a lawsuit. Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the civil rights lawsuit on behalf of three organizations, the Chica Project, the African Community Economic Development of New England, and the Greater Boston Latino Network. These groups charge that Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Michael Kippins from Lawyers for Civil Rights says the following:

Harvard’s practice of giving a leg-up to the children of wealthy donors and alumni – who have done nothing to deserve it – must end. This preferential treatment overwhelmingly goes to white applicants and harms efforts to diversify. Particularly in light of last week’s decision from the Supreme Court, it is imperative that the federal government act now to eliminate this unfair barrier that systematically disadvantages students of color.

Interestingly enough, this is one point where the liberals and conservatives (including those from Students for Fair Admissions, who sued Harvard and won) can agree. Legacy admissions started as a way to keep down the number of Jewish students at Ivy League Colleges. The lawsuit says that almost 70% of Harvard’s donor-related and legacy applicants are white, and legacies are 6 times more likely to be admitted than regular applicants. Legacies made up 28% of Harvard’s class of 2019.

Even if legacies as a privileged category is elminated, there are a few other remaining preferred admissions categories.  These include the children of faculty and staff, those on the dean’s interest list (donors), and athletes. This paper concludes that removing various combinations of these preferences would signficantly change the racial mix at Harvard, typically to the benefit of Asian Americans.

Elite universities like Harvard say that legacy and donor admits are help with fundraising and maintain academic quality. Other selective and academically excellent schools have gotten rid of legacy admissions and still manage to raise funds. Another argument in favor of legacies is that the number of nonwhite legacies will increase over time. The numbers cited above show the disproportionate impact that legacies currently have. This article sums up a lot of the arguments that pro-legacy universities makes and debunks them.

The lawsuit asks the US Department of Education to investigate Harvard for Title VI violations. It also asks the department to declare legacy and donor practices illegal. You can read the text of the filed complaint here.

 

Posted in Current Events, Discrimination, Education | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Kimchi: Good or Bad for You?

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Jeff

In the last few months, I have seen a number of  articles about kimchi and in particular, its health benefits.  As understanding of the human microbiome has grown, articles like this one talk about the probiotic and other benefits of eating it.  Years ago, Tim wrote a post about the link to kimchi consumption to certain kinds of cancer.  Yet now, some medical organizations are recommending eating kimchi, such as this one suggesting consuming it with antibioitics.  This leads to the question – is kimchi good or bad for you?

“The dose makes the poison” – Paracelsus

After reading more articles and papers on the health effects of kimchi, I would say that kimchi’s goodness or badness really depends.  This review of eleven randomized controlled trials on the health of effects of kimchi finds that there are numerous studies that show some positive benefits such as lowering cholestrol and increased fiber intake, but more rigorous studies need to be done. In places where increased gastric cancer is associated with kimchi, kimchi consumption averages 1 to 1.5 cups per day according to this article. Taking a cue from the saying from Paracelsus says and as other articles and papers suggests, moderate consumption is likely to be not problematic (I am not a doctor though).

I personally like kimchi, and after I had a round of antibiotics, I did eat extra kimchi after that. I eat it only occasionally and definitely not in the the cup per day kind of volume, so I think that given my limited intake and my taste for it, it’s good for me.

 

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American Born Chinese: Jin & Amelia

Posted on June 29, 2023 by John

This blog post contains spoilers.

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Asian American Frozen Foods: MìLà’s “Soup Dumplings” found at Costco

Posted on June 26, 2023 by John

I saw a friend of mine post  this photo on Facebook after she went shopping at the same Costco in Silicon Valley where I shop. I’ve been aware of MìLà‘s (formerly known as Xiao Chi Jie) Xiao Long Bao (“XLB”) or also known as “soup dumpling,” having done my search for frozen ones. I’ve been a fan of soup dumplings ever since trying them at Din Tai Fung back in 2002 in Shanghai. More recently, back in 2019, I reviewed Synear’s ‘Pork Soup Dumplings’ that I found at my local Ranch 99.

Once I did a search on soup dumplings, MìLà’s social media marketing ninjas targeted me on Facebook. I would see their social media ads all the time. Back then, they did not have retail distribution that I was aware of, so unless you lived in the Seattle area (where I believe they are still headquartered), you had to order online and had them delivered (with dry ice) and that made a 50 piece bag costs $39.99 (before tax and shipping), making it $0.80 cents per dumpling. I like XLB, but not that much! Thus I was excited to see that MìLà had distribution at my local Silicon Valley Costco – for $13.99 for 32 pieces – $0.44 cents per dumpling – with no shipping. I had to make a trip the same day, as my friend said that Costco was running out of them.

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Randall Park’s UCLA 2023 Commencement Address

Posted on June 20, 2023 by John

This past week, actor, comedian, writer, director, and UCLA Alumnus Randall Park delivered the keynote speech at all three UCLA 2023 college commencements. In this speech, he walks through his career ups and downs and how they shaped himself to the person he is today – that the adversity you face may help pave the way for future success. His speech is both funny and wise – worth spending the time to listen to it. It’s also fascinating to see how his career has evolved since we interviewed him in 2011.

I first blogged about Randall Park way before I knew who he was in one of my first ever “Asian American Commercial Watch” series of blog posts, Asian Americans going on a date in a Wells Fargo commercial. In the ad, Park is portraying a man getting ready to go on a date. Since then, Park has had quite a career as you can see from his IMDB listing. That’s quite remarkable to see for an Asian American male actor (or for that matter, Asian American female actor), especially if you’ve grown up in the 1970s and 1980s seeing a paucity of Asian American faces in TV and movies.

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Asian American Medical Hazard: Hidden Fat and Hidden Diabetes

Posted on June 12, 2023 by Jeff

“Hidden fat” at first glance doesn’t look like a bad thing. Who wants to have everyone see where your fat is? But for Asian Americans Pacific Islanders and the Filipino, South Asian, and Pacific Islander subgroups in particular, fat tends to be stored around the liver and other internal organs, making these groups more vulnerable to diabetes and less likely to be diagnosed if their BMI or waistlines or A1C tests look normal and do not indicate diabetes. This is becoming an increasing concern as the number of Asian Americans with diabetes is on the rise.

These articles from NPR discuss two Asian American researchers in particular working to understand how diabetes works in their communities.  The first is Dr. Alka Kanaya who explains how hidden fat works.  Rather than ending up in the hips or thighs, fat tends to be “in all the wrong places” such as “in the liver, around the abdominal organs, in the muscle, around the heart.” We have talked before about some her work with the South Asian Americans in the MASALA project.

The second is Maria Rosario Araneta, who first noticed the problem when she heard that many Filipino American Navy men who weren’t overweight and sedentary were hospitalized with kidney damage from diabetes. This hit home for her, as she is Filipino American and has a father and grandmother who had diabetes and were thin. Another problem that Araneta has found is that the common tests for diabetes, the A1C test, does not find diabetes in many Asian Americans using the standard scale.

This article is also hits home for me as Filipino American.  My father is not overweight and is active yet has diabetes. We have done many stories on the increased vulnerability of Asian Americans to diabetes compared to the general population. I know many many Filipino Americans who are diabetic, and this study shows that many are undiagnosed. I also work with many South Asians who may be vulnerable to these same sort of problems.

The article suggests that in the long term, more studies of different Asian subgroups would be useful.  In the near team, increased monitoring is importing.  This includes checking for diabetes with Asian Americans with BMI at 23, and doing further diabetes tests for Asian Americans in the “pre-diabetes” A1C range.  Also, I have noticed that while many Filipino Americans might not be overweight, they have poor lifestyle habits that involve consuming too much sugar and not exercising sufficiently. Lifestyle changes can make a difference. The article says that for some South Asians, the South Asian Healthy Lifestyle Intervention Program (SAHELI) program has made a big difference.  The Joslin Asian American Diabetes Initiative website has many useful resources for Asian Americans concerned about diabetes.

 

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SF DocFest: How to Have an American Baby

Posted on June 9, 2023 by John

I had first heard of ‘birth tourism’ from a former co-worker/friend of mine more than a decade ago. When I heard that Chinese women were coming Southern California to give birth so that their kids could get U.S. citizenship, I was incredulous. A few months after that, I had read this in January 2013 LA Times article:

“USA Baby Care’s website makes no attempt to hide why the company’s clients travel to Southern California from China and Taiwan. It’s to give birth to an American baby.

“Congratulations! Arriving in the U.S. means you’ve already given your child a surefire ticket for winning the race,” the site says in Chinese. “We guarantee that each baby can obtain a U.S. passport and related documents.”

That passport is just the beginning of a journey that will lead some of the children back to the United States to take advantage of free public schools and low-interest student loans, as the website notes. The whole family may eventually get in on the act, since parents may be able to piggyback on the child’s citizenship and apply for a green card when the child turns 21.

USA Baby Care is one of scores, possibly hundreds, of companies operating so-called maternity hotels tucked away in residential neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and other Southern California suburbs. Pregnant women from Chinese-speaking countries pay as much as $20,000 to stay in the facilities during the final months of pregnancy, then spend an additional month recuperating and awaiting the new baby’s U.S. passport.”

When I saw that “How to Have an American Baby” documentary was coming to the 2023 San Francisco Documentary Festival (“DocFest”), I definitely wanted to see it.

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