P.S. On Son Ye-Jin (Look At The Instagram) AKA I Was Dead MF Right About Han MF's And I Think I'm Dead On Here Too AKA #FREESYJNOW!

 

All I'm saying is look at the pics. 

Where is he?

Where's the food for two?

Yeah.

Just what I thought.

And no--no one wants anyone to not be happy....

I'm just saying...I knew SYJ was being held captive!!!!

#FREESYJNOW!

I'm Just Going On Record That @yejinhand Is Totally Over "What's His Name". And Yes--She's Totally Thinking Of Someone Like Me In This Picture

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 손예진 (@yejinhand)

Lucy Letby And White Woman Privilege

Glamour UK does a pretty damn good job of putting this out there, and at the same time, it's something we all know too. Hence the word Karen and its origination.

But still--that White Woman Privilege (because it is there)--it's amazing what that buys some people.

In Lucy Letby's case, it bought enought time for to murder 7 babies.

Think about that one for a while.

Knowledge Drops From Norman Chen

If you don't feel like you are safe, you don't feel like you can belong — you remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs — we cannot thrive, we cannot succeed, we cannot be respected, respected by others. And so it's fundamental that we believe, that we belong, and that we feel safe in our society.

And this really has a damaging effect on mental health for our community. Mental health is a significant problem for the AAPI community, as for other communities. But we have the terrible statistic that, among AAPI youth ages 15 to 24, suicide is the leading cause of death. And our group is unique in that, unfortunately.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/survey-of-asian-americans-paints-sobering-picture-of-fears-about-violence

Asian Americans Getting Put In The Middle Again (AKA WTF Is Going On In Florida?)

You really do have to ask the question of what is happening down in Florida. When I grew up it was simply the place old people went to retire and you visited the Disney place (I can never remember which one is there and I'm too lazy to Google it).

Now? It's just a bastion of WTF racially, where it's like anything goes.

How do you not spend money on DEI?

How do you say that Black Americans benefited from Slavery?

How can you say that modern America doesn't oppress the whole MF BIPOC community?

And now you have this wedge of putting APIA's in the middle? 

I will agree with Gregg Orton and say as well that opportunity, justice, and equity, cannot be a zero-sum game.

Dumbfoundead Goes K-Pop

K-Pop bars that nobody understood 😂 pic.twitter.com/LG5KMxBKt0

— dumbfoundead (@dumbfoundead) August 20, 2023

A Little Chloe, A Little Flower, A Whole Bunch Of Awesome

 

Recently featured on CBS last month here's a little bit of Chloe Flower.

From the NY Times

Big Break: After studying at the Manhattan School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Ms. Flower developed her Popsical style, which implements pop song structures with trap beats and strings, but she struggled to find someone willing to take a chance on her work. Around 2008, a well-connected friend brought her to a Babyface concert in Atlantic City, and Ms. Flower met the artist backstage. She later emailed him a GarageBand demo of her music. “His manager wrote me back saying, ‘He likes what he heard,’” Ms. Flower said. “I flew to L.A. with my mom to meet him and he signed me the same day.”

Stream her music.

All Hail Lilia Vu (AKA The Best MF Women's Golfer In The World)

 

And for being the best Lilia Vu gets a cool $1.3 million dollards.

Not bad if you can get it, and not bad considering that at one point she thought about quitting pro golf.

From the Wikis:

Vu turned professional in January 2019 and finished T27 at the inaugural LPGA Q-Series to earn status for the 2019 LPGA Tour, where she made one cut in nine starts.^[1]

In 2021, she won three titles on the Symetra Tour and rose into the top 250 in the Women's World Golf Rankings for the first time.^[6] In addition to winning the Garden City Charity Classic, the Twin Bridges Championship and the Four Winds Invitational, she also collected the 2021 Potawatomi Cup and bonus prize money.^[7][8] She finished the season first on the money list, winning Symetra Tour Player of the Year honors and earning her LPGA Tour card for 2022.^[9]

Vu beat Angel Yin in a playoff to win her first major at the 2023 Chevron Championship.^[2] She took her second major with a six shot victory over Charley Hull at the 2023 Women's British Open.^[10] The win moved her to number 1 in the Women's World Golf Rankings.^[11]

Peep her Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/liliavu/

Life Moves + Bloggy Time

While to me, online is in many ways the same as offline, and life is everything that someone is, there's still that aspect to "real life", or meeting IRL (because even if I met you over video/chat/facetime, etc it's still nice to meet in person).

In that way I won't say that real life has gotten in the way of my surge to blog more this year, and specifically this summer, because blogging is a part of life too--it's not just this compartmentalized space that I think of as not "real life"--but other life events have needed their own time and space and it's just needed to sit for a bit over the last few weeks.

Should be back to some more regular blog time (and seriously--I have some writeups on Warrior that just need to be done).

Loop It: Captain and Umie + Rap Việt

 

From Vie Talents Rap Việt with Captain and Umie this is a loop of their performance from a few weeks ago, and yes, this has been on my playlist.

And yes, you can thank me later (I take love in the form of hot biscuits and gravy or in gigantic bowls of phở).

 

From Simu Liu (AKA Love, Basketball, and Barbie)

some incredible shots of our charity basketball game a couple weekends ago. i was able to surprise my friend clement with a 50k donation to his nonprofit, @CCYAA, which organizes athletic camps and clinics as well as social events for the asian canadian community! pic.twitter.com/gZPFjwmCOH

— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) July 19, 2023

Somewhere in a Toys R Us you can buy Shang-Chi and Ken Simu and make them fight or kiss or team up to beat Thanos or drink tea pic.twitter.com/jUzPQY1rbv

— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) June 24, 2023

Joy Ride Was Funny As A MF (Overall) And The Asian American Cast Was AMAZING. That APIA Adoption Storyline Though Was Kind Of Problematic And Almost Tanked It (Tons Of Spoilers)

Before reading this, make sure to check out the previous post in April on "Joy Ride". 

I feel like the post title kind of sets everything up for what you need to know--as well as the previous post--so I'm just gonna get right into it.

THE AMAZING

1. I think EVERYONE UNIVERSALLY LOVED DEADEYE. The phrase "Deadeye is my favorite" could probably be a best-selling t-shirt.
2. The pussy tattoos (plural cause there's that last scene).
3. The really awesome bonding of so many different types of Asian American women and seeing them on screen together a la "Girls Trip".
4. The completely hot Asian American male buffet.
5. Bag #8 of cocaine.
6. Baron ASMR OMG YOU MF BOSS Davis.
7. Everything Lolo created.
8. DDK Cameo.
9. The Eiffel Tower.
10. Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu. Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola
11. Brownie Tuesday, Cardi B, and WAP.
12. Lori Tan Chinn.
13. Alexander Hodge.
14. Chris Pang.
15. Ronny Chieng.

I could probably list more--and there's more for sure--but pretty much you are either going to love the raunchy goodness of this, or you just won't like it at all (but I'm guessing you also like soap in your mouth for fun then too).

THE PROBLEMATIC PIECES FROM AN APIA TRANSRACIAL/INTERCOUNTY ADOPTEE PERSPECTIVE THAT ALMOST TANKED THE FILM FOR ME

Here's the thing--I know this is a comedy. I know it's not a documentary and we have to give some artistic leeway--I get that. And I'm glad the writers had some friends who had been through the adoption system and leaned on some of that--just like for other types of character development--but--when you have a big ass feature film, with something so personal, where the historical representation and voice has not been there from actual real human beings who have been adopted but everyone else (albeit changing)--and it's such a big part of our ASIAN AMERICAN HISTORY--just like when we say we have to have cultural expertise on films--I think the same argument can be made here--and I'm not just talking about your friends, but a cross section of people/academics, etc. Even with all the crazy behind Blue Bayou--they still hit up A LOT of people (and yes, I realize it was more dramatic, and we treat comedy different, but it's still something that needs to be taken into account).

At the same time, while people can argue that there are APIA Adoptees out there in different stages of their journey, and that the character of Audrey has similarities to some adoptees (some may say her character is in "The Fog"--though not everyone likes that term) just like the rest of the APIA community--we are not a monolith either--there's a lot of diversity and that's where I think we need to do better in the representation. 

In that way there were so many opportunities for the film and for Audrey's character to push back on those same stereotypes and old-school tropes, just like they did from an Asian/White perspective and Asian American female perspective---but while they had chances--nothing came to fruition and the word on the street, from APIA and other Transracial Adoptees (from what I've heard and read), and just adoptees in general--that portion of the film is pretty much DAP. It could have been WAP. But it ended up just being dry and crusty as a MF with no amount of lube to save the day.

1. Still The Same Tropes/Stereotypes/Infantilization Of APIA Adoptees. Do people just not understand that there's a huge amount of time between being a young kid and an adult who's had a lifetime in some cases to understand their culture, language, and to be comfortable in their skin and around their people? And that's not to say adoptees in their 20's/30's/40's/50's don't go through a journey just like everyone else--and absolutely there are differences and some things that may never be gotten--but it's the same stereotypical APIA Adoptees Are All Whitewashed perspective that gets under the skin, especially when you look at activism from an APIA perspective and look at all the amazing APIA Transracial goodness out there fighting for so many causes.
2. That Train Scene And Audrey Being Racist Against Her Own People. Again, I'm not saying this doesn't happen--because I've seen it and it's some bullshit--but it's the same as the creation and delivery of Dragon Lady characters throughout time, or the simple Hypersexualized-I'm-Your-Concubine flat characters. We all know some folks like that, just like I know some adoptees who call themselves White--but making that the de facto standard--that scene in particular really just laid it all on Ashely Park's character and her purely Adopted Self. Again, a big ass stereotype and something that we've all had to fight--just like APIA's having to fight that we're also American and that we can hold more than just our Asian-ness OR our American-ness. 
3. So She's Really A Korean Adoptee? Again, not saying there isn't some flexibility here, and many of us know Ashely Park from her Broadway or Emily In Paris work, where in the later she plays Chinese--that piece--and I wondered what they were going to do there--while it was a story turn to help keep it moving--there are also people out there that think the APIA Transracial/Intercountry Adoptee landscape is dominated by KADs. So to have this character who's billed as a Chinese Adoptee--getting Chinese Adoptees to go to out as well (let's be honest)--really turn out to a KAD--it was fairly disappointing. I realize this one could be a little more personal, but I've heard similar from both sides (Korean and Chinese). In that way it almost muzzles and hides Chinese Adoptees--like they don't exist in many ways--and let's take that one step further in that in the story no Chinese Adoptee was actually hanging out with Chinese Americans who were not adopted. You get this one?
4. Original/Korean Mom Leaves A Video? Again, I get it's a comedy, and we want to feel good and laugh, etc. and there's artistic license there--but my goodness--I actually almost made gagging sounds in the theater but held myself back. I mean for a movie that was being sold as subversive--this was anything but subversive or pushing boundaries, or even funny. 

At the end of the day, having an APIA Adoptee in the film, just like having a token Asian American in a film--doesn't do anyone any good when it's the same DAP we've seen before.

Gimme the WAP.

XO, Kitty - Holy Hell I LOVED This Way More Than I Thought I Would (For Someone Not In Their Age Demographic AKA I'm Totally On For Season 2 AKA Totally Sucks You In AKA And The Adoptee Story Is Pretty Solid...Well As Much As Can Be)

Btw--because the post title was so long I didn't put it in there, but there's probably some spoilers here. So be warned. 

At first I thought this was going to be another movie and I wanted to check it out, but then I saw it was a series and while I wanted to see it, I didn't know if I wanted to sit through a high-school drama with 8-10 episodes. I'm just not that target group from a marketing demographic, so I get it. 

But just like "Wednesday"--there's a lot to like for all ages, and like other K-Dramas, regardless of content, it sucks you in, and I have to say--I absolutely loved it. I mean they turned everything upside down in a lot of ways--some expected though for sure--and obviously not all realistic--but it's a K-Drama wrapped in an American Teen Drama that plays to both worlds. 

And I think that's what I liked the most--it hit all those notes from so many sides. And the adoption portion of it--while many can lament the fact that this doesn't normally happen in real life percentage wise--neither does Kitty going to a school called KISS. But Peter Thurnwald--who is also an actual Korean Adoptee/KAD/Adopted Korean--I mean he brought all the nuances and real-to-life thoughts/feelings to the part. 

The storyline, filming, editing--what was there not to love? From Anna Cathcart and Gia Kim, to the awesome Yunjim Kim, Choi Min Young, Anthony Keyvan, and Sang Heon Lee, they made this completely worth watching. 

But the ending--loved that, because absolutely--why should Kitty have to get with Dae or any other guy? 

Can't wait for Season 2.

"Past Lives" Was A Beautiful Slow Burn (Some Spoilers)

If you like the slow burn, and a love story with A LOT of nuance, you will really like Past Lives. If you don't - honestly, I can't help you there - because this is a beautiful, nuanced, slow burn about what could have been, what might have been, what doesn't seem to be ever possible, but yet you still wonder if it still could be...at some time.

I mean - that's what I came away from after watching it (and I did actually get to see it the same weekend I posted about it not being in the Midwest (but they just hadn't updated the website I think). 

The way they played these parts, the subtle looks and phrases--understanding the thought of being in a relationship, looking back, and understanding the differences between the life that sometimes lives in your mind--or your heart--and the pragmatic life that helps guide decisions.

That last scene, where she walks alone and just falls into her husband's arms--it's just heartbreaking--you feel everything in so many ways--the loss she felt at her "past life", the remorse she felt for wanting what she couldn't and how it affected her husband, and this thought that maybe, if just a little different timing, because there was still a piece of her that wanted that, that in some ways she was ready for it. 

But in the end--who she really was--what really motivated her--it was something she couldn't escape.

Beautiful. Moving. See it.

Asian American Men Still Get The Shaft (AKA My Recent Turmoil In Male Whiteness AKA White Biased Tendencies)

I was recently involved in this thing, and I won't go into specifics about the org, names, people (because in some ways it's not important and I also said I wouldn't do it because there are still good things about it), but it was outside of my work routine and it pointed to how Asian American Men--that we are still challenged and not given the same respect, typically (albeit not always)--by White Men--even in "community" based settings where there are other BIPOC.

And this isn't something that's really unknown in so many ways, but at the same time, maybe it gets forgotten, or we say "X and X have this from a representation standpoint. We have Y  and Y in this government position or this position"--the same things we point to when we talk about progress"--and then it's either forgotten, or just not acknowledged that it even exists.

I think it's important to remind ourselves of that, and myself specifically, especially in regard to "community". 

Part of what happened to me was that I got skipped over in a final rehearsal type setting, and a lot of it in part because multiple White Guys decided that because they were running short on time, my thing (along with co-creators, but I was the only one able to be there that night) didn't deserve the same treatment as others. And they still did one other person's after mine. 

So I had to ask/remind them, even though everyone knew I was there, and then when they did do it--they didn't even do the full thing. They half assed it. And while I've been in rooms where I'm the only POC and Asian American and Male, I just wasn't prepared essentially get swept under the rug like I didn't matter--and to something I was selected for. 

In many other worlds and instances, I can dialogue, argue, and help sway the sides if I need too, but this time, I was only able to voice some of my frustration--in part because I was just shocked how everything went down. 

How I was just treated as a person.

But as an Asian American Male, Vietnamese American Male--and you know when it happens to you--this feeling of being discarded, that your work doesn't deserve the respect that everyone else gets (and maybe it's more familiar in a work or professional setting)--it was completely disrespectful.

And it's just systematic in many ways.

But I know better too--I know I should keep my guard up--it just takes effort and energy I don't always want to emit. 

And I really don't think I should have to either right? 

Because some of it should just be base.

And there was this component to it which was that it was a multitude of White Guys that imposed their own sense of what art is, and the merit of that art.

Who we revere in the "West"--as we all know--many times has not taken into account other voices, specifically those of color, immigrant voices. Artistic merit (as well as in the sciences and politically)--what is good--versus what is technical (and even then we can have debate)--has been decided upon pimarily by White Men up to certain point (as it is changing but only because of BIPOC and Immigrant Voices pushing this more).

In this respect, artistic merit, which made the decision in whether or not my final product got the same treatment, was largely decided because of hubris and Whiteness. 

Of course--I'm still gonna say something later--there were discussions after this--and I pulled it from the project. There were so many things after that as well, the follow ups that just were typical White Guy responses and actions that didn't take into account being who I was as an Asian American male. 

They were rectified. 

The mistakes were understood. 

There was reflection. And that's promising.

But it all still happened.

Advocate For Yourself At Every Level. Do What You Feel Is Right. But You Don't Have To Take All That Shit

I just say advocate for yourself in the way that makes you feel comfortable and that gives you the power and control that you need for the situation, and to not let others go ad homien on you, or try and put the onus on you. 

And don't let them try and push the Whiteness on you. Like they are the victims who need help. Don't let them usurp the situation--whether it's someone who's White or not. Because you don't have to be White to help/keep White Biased Tendencies. We see it all the time, and I will guess that at some time, this has happened at least once, in an individual's life who's from a community of color, and I'll include myself in that because no one is born with all the answers or exactly what to do right away.

You still have to call it out.

Warrior Season 3 June 29th On Max

 

I don't know about you, but I'm geeked for Season Three.

From Looper:

The "Warrior" Season 3 cast will be quite large. According to Deadline, these main cast members will return: Andrew Koji (martial artist Ah Sahm), Dianne Doan (Sahm's sister Mai Ling, leader of the Long Zii tong), Jason Tobin (Wei tong leader Young Jun), Olivia Cheng (madam Ah Toy), Hoon Lee (Wang Chao) and Tom Weston-Jones (Richard Lee). TVLine broke the news of two new regulars to the "Warrior" cast for Season 3. Mark Dacascos (Wo Fat on the new "Hawaii Five-0; The Chairman on "Iron Chef America") is set to portray Kong Pak, a former gang leader and an old friend and mentor figure to Li Yong. Chelsea Muirhead, best known for the Canadian series "Slo Pitch," is set to play Yan Mi, a Chinatown printer's daughter with more skills and motivation than it may initially seem.

Read More: https://www.looper.com/348075/warrior-season-3-release-date-cast-and-plot-what-we-know-so-far/

APIA VOTE: 6th Annual Congressional Reception (Engage In-Person With Many AAPI Members Of Congress!)

Join us for the 6th Annual Congressional Reception and engage in-person with many of the AAPI members of the U.S. Congress! Be inspired, learn about their journey to Capitol Hill, and share their view on the state of the nation.

RSVP at https://t.co/6Bp2cqMT0f pic.twitter.com/SokHMo8l2Y

— APIAVote | #StopAsianHate (@APIAVote) June 13, 2023

Past Lives, The Ending, Just Let Me Know Ok?

Midwest is great--but damn--we still don't get everything as early as the coasts do across the board.

I JUST WANT TO SEE HOW THIS MF ENDS!

Well you know--I still want the journey--but damn I want to know what happens.

I bet I'm just going to love this...well at least I hope so....

Random Parry Shen + Wheel Of Fortune

I swear this just happened. pic.twitter.com/O2ankFxnAl

— Parry Shen (@parryshen) June 13, 2023

NIKI: Tiny Desk Concert

 

Really liked this Tiny Desk Concert by NIKI.