Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

A white male Princeton grad student has confessed to cutting locks of hair from nine Asian American female students without their knowledge, as well as pouring his urine and semen into the drinks of Asian female students on more than 50 occassions. Real smooth.

Little did I know that I am actually Korean and Japanese. Yes: according to Face Analyzer, which “analyzes” a photo of you to ever-so-scientifically determine your real race, I am a mind-boggling 90 percent Korean/Japanese, news I am sure will stun my Chinese Filipino parents. In addition to the weirdo race calculations, the Analyzer has deemed me Average Intelligence (oh well), Average Ambition, Average Politeness, and Very Low Gay Factor, among other things. The white collar versus blue collar stereotypes are super lame (and what does Gay Factor really mean?), but I’m determined to upload more pictures until I can finesse that hidden and magical combination of races that will explain my true origins. Perhaps more enjoyable is the wonderful Face Transformer, a java tool which allows you to transform your face into you as a child, as an elderly person, as a manga cartoon, as a chimp (SCARY), as a member of a different race or gender. My “masculine” doppelganger might hypothetically resemble the long-lost cross-dressing sibling I never had, while my African American self was kinda cute. Click here to see me as a white girl with swirly skin. Eek!

You've probably heard of it by now, but if not, the latest in racist "shock" radio news is the universally offensive "Tsunami Song" which was airing on NYC's Hot 97 for the past few weeks. Check out some of the lyrics: "You could hear the screaming chinks and no one was safe from the wave There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away You could hear god laughing, 'swim you bitches swim' So now you're screwed, it's the Tsunami You better run or kiss your ass away, go find your mommy I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head and now the children will be sold to child slavery..." Listen to the song, which pretty much speaks for itself. Or listen to the clip of the Hot 97 morning show in which Asian American co-host Miss Info is slammed for voicing her objection to the song. Hot 97 has since issued a lame apology, but you can also sign an online petition or contact any one of the station's sponsors.

Haven't we all witnessed lame-ass tattoos in Asian languages, mostly on people who don't know the language in the first place? For your browsing amusement, I bring to you Hanzi Smatter, where users submit photos of such tattoos to a guy named Tian, who then posts on whether or not they actually mean anything. As Tian writes: "I have been a fan of the website Engrish.com for years. To my surprise, there is virtually no website existent for pointing out the faults in Westerners' interest of Eastern culture, especially the usage of Hanzi Chinese characters. As a Chinese American, I felt it was my duty and honor to educate the public about the misusage of Chinese characters." The results are somewhat unintentionally hilarious: witness such photographic evidence as the sorry sucker who got the Chinese word for "idiot" permanently etched on his flesh.

My fellow Hyphen editors have probably heard me rave over the rarely mentioned international "sport" that Asians and Asian Americans are truly kicking ass at: the world of competitive eating.

If Harry's entry about Iris Chang's suicide wasn't disturbing enough, I just found a few more disturbing links while reading the news. Namely, that pharmacists are now refusing to dispense birth control on "moral grounds". (I read a similar blurb here a few months back, as well.) Since when is the birth control pill considered an abortion? And since when can one's personal beliefs interfere with fulfilling prescriptions and providing basic medical care? Seriously, I am so disturbed. Tell me I'm not the only one.

So I was trying to remain somewhat optimistic enough to write a we'll keep fighting type of blog entry, but I'm just not feeling it today. From a Republican-controlled White House and Congress to the future of the Supreme Court, from California propositions like the three strikes law being upheld to 11 states passing anti-gay marriage amendments, all I can say is that these are some f***ing scary times we live in, both here and in the rest of the world. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more angry than anxious, but right now I'm feeling more sick to my stomach than anything else. Feel free to comment.

Not to make this blog too San Francisco-centric (San Francentric?), but I’ve been walking past the hotel workers picketing at the Holiday Inn two blocks from my house in SoMa each night for the past month, feeling pissed that they were still there, night after night, locked out of their jobs. But as Jennifer mentioned yesterday, SF mayor Gavin Newsom threatened to—and actually did—join the picket line today! Maybe mayoral pressure will mean that one day soon I’ll walk past the hotel and not see the strikers, because they will have been able to return to their jobs. Hearing that neighborhood news was a lot sweeter than reading about the Asian sex slavery that occurred just another few blocks away. A recent raid on a downtown massage parlor found 17 young Asian women hidden in the basement who had been trafficked into the country for forced sex slavery. This topic hit pretty close to home in more ways than one, because I’ve been researching it all week for a documentary that the company I work at is funding, and the statistics are horrifying: of the more than one million women and girls who are sold, transported and forced into sexual slavery each year, 50,000 are in the United States. It makes me wonder about the “Oriental massage parlor” with the blackened windows up the street from my house that I walk past at least twice a day.

Perhaps you've already caught the link meme about How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men by Adam Quan. Now Amazon.com has "bundled" Quan's book with the classic Ming Tan text How to Attract Asian Women, presumably written for non-Asian men. Although the books are meant for divergent readerships, one could purchase both today for a low price of $44.36. So wait, do people actually buy this crap? A few more clicks on Amazon.com revealed even more fascinating facts about consumer habits: Customers who bought How to Attract Asian Women also bought such titles as How to Get Laid Today! The System, Korean Bar Secrets II, "Hello My Big Big Honey!": Love Letters from Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews, The Complete Asshole’s Guide to Handling Chicks and Don’t Be Afraid to Ask!! How to Date a Beautiful Woman, Third Revised Edition (both exclamation points included). Those who went for Quan also went for such titles as Worse Than He Says He Is: White Girls Don’t Bounce and, oh yes, Managing Herpes: How to Live and Love With a Chronic STD. Quan, an "international business consultant," counts "dating women of many nationalities" as requisite knowledge in "providing the knowledge, framework and tools necessary for an Asian man to understand, to plan, and to put into action the steps to successfully date a white woman.” Tan is, sadly, a fellow Chinese American writer who grew up in New York City. She owns an online dating site that specifically hooks up non-Asian men with Asian women—or, in her words, "has helped numerous men understand and attract Asian women." All quease-inducing racial politics aside, the true lesson learned in my online superstore browsing might best be summed up by this Amazon list: "Why I will NEVER Get Married".