Alpha Asian

Since my wife and I are going to have a baby soon, I've been thinking a lot about what makes a fulfilling life. What makes one's life complete? How can my daughter have a fulfilling life? And how can I not screw it up? Asian parents tend to be extreme in their parenting. They either are extremely strict and controlling or relaxed and laisez faire in their approach. Strict Asian parents stress education and good grades and track their child's educational and career path. Career decisions are based on stability and earnings. A child's feelings about the career are irrelevant. So many aspects of the child's life are determined by the parents that the child grows up not ever really knowing what he or she wants out of life. It's as if your desire was stunted, because it's been supplanted by your parents' desire ever since you were a child. Here's an observation from Sun Yunxiao, author of the book Save the Boys (thanks to MaSir for the reference): ...

GT talks about apathy in the community.

Any day now I'm going to be a dad. It's been one long waiting game for the past week, and I have no idea how much longer it's going to take. I'm looking forward to this next chapter in my life, that of fatherhood and being a family man. I've resolved myself to the fact that everything I do and plan from here on out will revolve around my child. To say that raising a child will dominate your life is an understatement. When a coworker of mine found out my wife were having our first child, he said to me, "You can forget about working out ever again." I don't plan to withdraw completely from my interests and hobbies, but I do plan to pull back a bit. In my bodybuilding book Neo-Classical Bodybuilding there is a training strategy called "body part specialization." Body part specialization is a strategy where you devote most of your training to one or two muscle groups and put the training of all other muscle groups on maintenance mode. Your...

"Monkey: Journey to the West" Collaboration by Chen Shi-Zheng, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn. "Monkey Bee: A Short Film by Jamie Hewlett" Made to feature the first single from the "Monkey: Journey to the West" soundtrack. The YouTube channel with more video clips is here . The website is here .

More evidence of transculturation.

Q: I'm an avid follower of your site and had a question, since I believe you are the most recent one to have done an interview /been in contact with Rick Lee. I was wondering: is he still actively keeping up with his website?  Also I was wondering if you ever heard of the podcast DVDASA hosted by David Choe ? I'm sure you know of him or can easily find out who he is, but I wanted to know how I can contact him. I think he'd make a great guest on the show especially, because of his Asian-Man website. I believe he was the first Asian male porn star. David Choe talks about it sometimes, but he mentions Keni Styles as the first, but Rick is.  I'd love for him to be able to get on the show, set the record straight and help continue changing perceptions of Asian males.  Sorry if this is sort of random. Anyways hope to hear from you soon Thanks! -J My Answer: Are you trying to contact David Choe or are you trying to contact Rick Lee or both?  I'm s...

Official history has a funny way of neglecting to tell large chapters of our collective human story. If we only take enough time to read the text we are issued in whichever schools we fall into, and only enough interest to be able to leap through whatever hoop gets us a piece of paper that says ‘graduate’, we inevitably miss out on most of the best parts – and the most illuminating tracts. Finding real history requires more. Real history is akin to the gems buried deep in the dirt and rock of passing time, and we must dig for them. And dig with passion! One of these nearly lost treasures is the story of Long Tack Sam, an internationally celebrated vaudeville star that you’ve probably never heard of. His story, fortunately for us, is collected by his great-granddaughter – Ann Marie Fleming. She has taken the time to dig through her family history and create a documentary called “The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam” which allows us to travel with him as he leaves China, marries an Austrian...

One of the problems that I believe may be hindering Asians in the West is that there aren’t enough established communities in every corner of each country. I recognize that migrating to areas where there is less Asian representation, at least for those on the front edge of any big movement, can be stressful and yes – even frightening. But I feel that one of the reasons that the media has so much power to influence stereotypical impressions of any group is rooted in the fact that communities without living, breathing people representing themselves have nothing else to go on. Beyond the fact that Asians are a minority in North America is the reality that they tend to build large communities in only a few areas of the continent. Areas such as San Francisco, or Vancouver or Toronto. But the Southeast of the United States, for example, mostly only sees transient students who stay for a couple of years on university campuses and then move on. There are very small communities dotted here and ...

I'm sure many have discovered the website called Engrish.com by now, which focuses on photo examples of mistakes made in non-English speaking countries when using the language on signage and other materials such as t-shirts. It's easy to create what turns out to be humorous sounding gaffes when subtext such as slang or cultural double entendres comes into play. An example would be the t-shirt with "I want to ride on that" printed on the back. But - seeing all of the kanji and hanzi on various products here in the West - I have often wondered if someone was putting together something that featured similar unfortunate errors on our own shores. After all, most of us can't read a lick of it...and I doubt the printers or creators of these products can either. I suspect they are, much of the time, just choosing the characters that they find the most aesthetically pleasing and putting those together. Which would result, of course, in your basic gibberish. Tattoo f...