Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

In their documentary Open Season, Mark Tang and Lu Lippold go beyond the headlines to explore how and why a Hmong man shot and killed six white people.

It's Thursday. Have you not bought your SFIAAFF tickets yet?! Well, in case you needed an extra little nudge to make your movie picks this week, here's Hyphen's last installment of film reviews from the SFIAAFF 29 catalog. Today we've got romance and family dysfunction, Asian American style -- and real-life murder, Korean American style.

Asian American dancers, designers and others who’ve made careers for themselves in the arts were celebrated this week at a benefit and awards gala held by the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York.

And anyone with parents who may have preferred a doctor, lawyer or investment banker for a child might agree that success in the arts despite discouragement is cause for celebration.  After all, breaking the mold of the model minority is no easy task.

Guest blogger Mayka Mei sits with up-and-coming visual artist Martin Hsu to discuss fobby roots, pursuing art, and fantasy chats with Hayao Miyazaki on the Cat Bus.

Dozens of New York City restaurants and vendors joined food lovers and volunteers last Friday for a night of pork belly and sake-filled decadence.

by Ken Cheng

To continue the dialogue that kicked off with Harry's post on possible racial undercurrents in attacks on Bay Area Asian Americans, Hyphen is cross-posting an article by Odette Keeley at New American Media that discusses how Rev.

Originally posted by Ravi Chandra at the Center for Asian American Media blog.

This SFIAAFF, there were two outstanding movies related to adoption. I sat down with Deann Borshay Liem (IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE) and Stephanie Wang-Breal (WO AI NI MOMMY) for an hourlong conversation during the festival. The following is an excerpt of that conversation. (Both films will be on PBS later this year. WO AI NI MOMMY airs August 31, 2010, and IN THE MATTER OF CHA JUNG HEE airs September 14, 2010; in the intervening week is another documentary on adoption, Nicole Opper’s OFF AND RUNNING.)

Image provided by Catherine Shu

Over the Lunar New Year break, many stores in Taipei played classical Chinese music (or modern remixes of classical Chinese music). The songs made me feel uneasy and I wondered why. Was it because the melodies sounded atonal to my Western ears? Or was it because the music reminded me of being the fattest kid in my traditional Chinese dance class?

When I was studying Mandarin in Taipei two and a half years ago, one of my classmates, another Taiwanese American, and I went to a dessert shop for bowls of douhua, or tofu pudding. I’d never had douhua before and diligently photographed my “exotic” treat before tucking in. “You’re not very Taiwanese, are you?” my classmate remarked.