Alpha Asian

Q:  I just finished your book (loved it by the way-- even if you gave a minor dig to dogs, my Chinese zodiac animal) and just had a few questions/comments that I felt like sharing: I totally get how Asian Americans need to let go of a lot of the guilt/shame that we put on ourselves, but how do you balance that with wanting to be a good role model/representative of our race? For example, I've always been curious about how it feels to be shit-faced drunk, but have always thought "Oh no, I wouldn't wanna be that person-- the drunken Asian dude who can't hold his liquor and is stumbling around with no control over himself". I mean, I get that in this one example, the problem is internal and I can just get over it-- but in general, I know that non-Asians will see me as some Asian dude and will stereotype our race based on my behaviors, and I'm curious what you think. Secondly, I agree that it's not good to be an Angry Asian Man (I think I...

I don't know enough about physics and every time I pick up a book, like Brian Greene's books, I just get confused and lost. I think I know what they're getting at, but I'm not sure....but the discovery of the Higgs boson "god particle". Wild stuff. I heard physicist Michio Kaku talk about the importance of it. I took some notes and he had some pretty cool stuff to say. paraphrasing, he said this: *The Higgs boson is relevant because think of a crystal, its symmetry, and we think that was what the universe was like 13.7 billion yeas ago, but it shattered and gave us what we see now---galaxies, stars, etc. But what was the spark that set it off? We think the Higgs boson may be the particle that set in motion the Big Bang * The Higgs boson is just the first in series of particles, they believe. They think it may lead to understanding dark matter. It can't be seen, but physicist believe that it makes up roughly 70% of the universe. (so t...

(photo courtesy of Jonathan Newton/Washington Post)  I've been busy with work so I haven't had a chance to post some stuff that I wanted to. But here's some good stuff on my man Kurt Suzuki, catcher for my home team the Washington Nationals. The Washington Post had an interesting piece on Kurt in their spring training coverage . An excerpt:   VIERA, Fla. — George Horton ran a college baseball powerhouse at Cal State-Fullerton, the kind of program that had no place for someone like Kurt Suzuki. Horton had never seen or heard of Suzuki before a scout pal mentioned the high schooler in Hawaii. “We didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about him,” Horton said. “We heard from our network of friends that this little catcher from Maui wanted to come and walk on at Fullerton.”   On an island with 160,000 permanent residents, Suzuki played against five or six high schools. Few scouts noticed. But Fullerton needed a catcher, and there was no risk, so Horton let Suzuki jo...