I know some of y'all are tired of looking at the guy above from Issue 7. But take one last look. Cause he's a winner. Hyphen took home a first place prize for Best Cover at the Independent Press Association's annual convention this weekend! By prize, I mean bragging rights (no trophies were handed out).
Continue reading "Bragging Rights"
Posted by melissa at 12:21 AM | Comments (6)
Please note there are two people posting on this blog entry. On January 30, Melissa posted:
Happy Lunar New Year.
Not to start off the year on a bad note, but here we go again with radio personalities who think it's funny to make racist comments on the air.
Last Tuesday on Adam Corolla's radio show, he and his sidekick were commenting on the Asian Excellence Awards, put on by AZN TV. They claimed they had a clip of an award being presented on the show, which ended up being two guys saying nothing but "ching-chong" for 52 seconds.
Continue reading "Teased Kids in Grade School? You Have a Future in Radio!"
Posted by melissa at 3:10 PM | Comments (47)
Just got back from the Independent Press Association's 10th annual conference where erin, Ben and I represented. It's always great to meet folks from other indie magazines. There's lots of networking, and a schedule full of workshops to sit in on about topics like how to increase circulation, how to create good covers, how to market online, and so on. It's nice to be in a room full of people who go through the same struggles you do creating non-corporate, non-mainstream media -- people who've decided to take things into their own hands.
Continue reading "Indie Magazines Converge!"
Posted by melissa at 8:42 PM | Comments (4)
A couple of us (Mike, Stef and I) went to a press screening of Annapolis yesterday. Yay for press screenings! But neither of them wants to blog, so i'm doing a composite commentary -- gleaned from our standing-around review after the movie.
So if we had to describe Justin Lin's first movie after Better Luck Tomorrow in two words, they'd be "safe" and "mainstream." We marvelled at what a solid choice in Hollywood vehicles he made: a Disney film that combines military and sports heroics, with the budget it takes to make the formula work. Watching it reminded me of an article I read in the NY Times a couple months back, where a critic bemoaned the lack of real blazing failures in cinema lately -- because the lack of really ambitious failures also reflects the lack of really ambitious successes. The major studios have honed the process down to a fair science: good money pays for respectable writing, respectable acting, respectable camera work, etc. And everything happens on cue: the audience laughs where they're supposed to laugh, at gently funny lines; sighs where they're supposed to sigh, at measured moments of emotional catharsis...
Continue reading "Justin Lin: after Tomorrow"
Posted by erin at 6:30 PM | Comments (4)
photo by Miko Lim
photo by Ejen Chuang
So, you might be wondering, what is in this new issue of Hyphen? Why a girl with a fish in her mouth? Why is her hair wet? What's up with that?
Well, here's a peek at the table of contents:
Continue reading "A Peek at Issue 8"
Posted by melissa at 10:14 AM | Comments (1)
Is it just me or does it seem like you and me and everyone we know - Asian Americans, in particular - love the show, Lost?
Continue reading "Lost in Asian America"
Posted by momo at 9:08 AM | Comments (14)
This story, Out of the Closet, But Still Under Cover, ran in the SF Chron books section yesterday. The review on Covering by Kenji Yoshino, was written by Sandip Roy (a Hyphen advisory board member and sometimes contributing writer).
Covering is what you do when you've come out but tone it down in some circumstances. The example Roy gives is you go to a family gathering and you bring your significant other, but you're careful not to show any affection with each other. And covering is not just a gay thing, but something that anyone might feel they have to engage in. The examples Roy cites are "whether it's Ramon Estévez becoming Martin Sheen or Margaret Thatcher using a voice coach to lower the timbre of her voice, or Franklin Roosevelt hiding his wheelchair behind a desk before Cabinet meetings, everyone covers."
Whoa, Margaret Thatcher used a voice coach? I totally missed that one.
Yoshino's argument is that this may seem like a small, innocous thing, but it's actually an assault on civil rights.
Continue reading "The Idea of Covering"
Posted by melissa at 1:25 PM | Comments (0)
Here's a Los Angeles Times story about how the Huntington Library in San Marino, an institution built on the backs of Chinese laborers during the 1800s, is financing its new Chinese Garden with donations from Chinese Americans that its founder would have considered servants and "not equal socially at all."
Continue reading "Chinese guanxi in San Marino"
Posted by harry at 7:31 PM | Comments (3)
Oh Sandra. You're the best. When you win a Golden Globe you get lost on your way to the stage and forget everyone's name too.
Posted by melissa at 11:25 AM | Comments (1)
Hey, self promotion time! I'll be speaking at a panel this Thursday at Third Thursdays—the monthly dinner series about Asian American community issues.
The title of the program is "The Asians are Coming" (which comes from a Beau Sia poem) and is about Asian American media in the internet age. Here's a brief description:
Bloggers and artists can now create content online on their own terms—in a cheap, easy, and unprecedented fashion. But are the same online trends also responsible for the steady decline of traditional media?
Continue reading "The Asians are Coming (this Thursday at least)"
Posted by melissa at 4:39 PM | Comments (5)
As San Francisco's Japantown turns 100, will it survive much longer? This story says there used to be 40 of them before World War II. Now there are only 3 left: in SF, San Jose and LA. SF's J-town is a mere 4 blocks these days. Sad.
Continue reading "Japantowns Disappearing"
Posted by melissa at 11:14 PM | Comments (3)
Remember Hyphen's feature on Asian Americans and growing obesity rates in issue 7? The New York Times just put out its own story on the topic, concentrating on skyrocketing diabetes rates among recent Chinese immigrants in Queens, as well as the fast-food indulgence of kids in the community.
Regardless of the cheesy "East Meets West" headline, this article is pretty damn depressing, also because it points out the huge disparities in the public versus private school system (eight-minute recess? no gym class?) as well as the Pavlovian responses of kids to TV consumerism--says 10-year-old Tim Wong, "I see the new items on television and I want them." I guess I grew up in a similar situation: my family almost always ate Chinese or Filipino dishes at home, so eating crappy Burger King or McDonald's was an incredible treat for me. I would beg my mom to buy me Happy Meals. My adult stomach wants to retch every time I smell fast food fries, though.
Continue reading "Asian America is Expanding"
Posted by Lisa at 11:51 AM | Comments (8)
Howard Stern made his move from the free airwaves to Sirius Satellite Radio and brought George Takei, aka Mr. Sulu, along with him as his announcer.
I suppose Takei's got the voice for the part, but it seems like an odd pairing.
Posted by harry at 3:09 PM | Comments (3)
Here's a story at my alma mater about the propensity of Asian Americans changing their names, usually to something more "Americanized."
The story says, "It is most common to place an American name in front of the native Asian name and to go by the American name." It also quotes a professor, who says of the Asian American student body at Northwestern University: "In all my time here I’ve only known about three Asian American students who grew up here but use their Asian name and don’t have an American name.”
Continue reading "The Name Game"
Posted by melissa at 1:25 PM | Comments (13)
A groin injury is forcing figure skater Michelle Kwan to withdraw from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships but she will petition the U.S. federation for a spot at the Turin Olympics.
Posted by harry at 12:42 PM | Comments (13)
Hello. Happy New Year. Some of us at Hyphen are still on vacation, but most of us are back. I just got back from Texas where I was caught in a little holiday tradition called Family Drama. Which unfortunately was exacerbated by a family emergency. Then I came back here, got in my car, and the accelerator got stuck, which is kind of scary when you’d like your car to stop. Did I mention that I also got food poisoning in Arkansas and spent 4 hours in the ER? Anyways, good riddance 2005. I’m hoping for a calmer 2006.
Here at Hyphen, we have lots of things in store for the year. For one, Issue 8 is here! Soon we’ll have the new cover and table of contents up so that you can see what’s in the issue. Subscribers will get their issues this month.
Our editors are already working on stories for Issue 9, due out in the spring. We also have grand plans to redesign the website (If you have any suggestions, please share them in the comment section below), and will be holding some of our usual events as well as some new ones.
Continue reading "Good Riddance 2005"
Posted by melissa at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
This Los Angeles Times article points out something I've noticed for some time. There are more and more Mandarin speakers now and Cantonese is becoming less common in Chinese communities.
Continue reading "Mandarin Overtaking Cantonese"
Posted by harry at 3:52 PM | Comments (9)
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