Are YOU proud to be an Asian American?

Throughout this Asian American Culture class, I have learned how to gain a deeper, more meaningful understanding about my culture and ethnicity. At the beginning of the class, I had an idea of what my Chinese American heritage was about from my family, visits to Chinatown, and the media. Now I know even more about my roots and culture today because this class has introduced me so many other aspects and components of Asian American culture. When thinking about Asian Americans, I sometimes ponder about being an Asian American myself. I embrace the values that are unique to my culture and learn the traditions that date back centuries to China. However, I ask myself, am I proud to be an Asian American? There are arguments to both sides of this issue. I am sure that this question has hit every single Asian American at least once. We Asian Americans live in a very diverse society in San Francisco and we often interact with people from other races and ethnicities. In some situations and events, we feel like we want to be of another race instead of being Asian Americans. We cannot change our identity and roots though. Our identity and roots are in our blood and will always be a part of us.

I grew up in San Francisco where I was always surrounded by a large Asian American presence. Wherever I went, whether or not it was school or the grocery store, I would find Asian Americans there. Rarely did I ever feel left out because I was the only Asian American. My high school is about 70% Asian (DANG yep, it is really that ASIAN). For the entire four years that I spent there, I have always spent time with Asian Americans. My classes were full of Asian Americans, a majority of my friends were Asian Americans, and I did volunteer work for my school and participated in clubs involving Asian Americans. Basically the point is that my high school was an Asian American domination. Not to say that it is bad or anything, but I never got exposed to other races and ethnicities. Probably the only outlet that I got to have into another culture was Spanish culture during my three years of Spanish class. In that class I got to learn how to speak another language and learn about its culture. Other than that, the other courses I took during high school did not involve learning about other cultures. So when I get into a situation where I am with people of a different race and ethnicity, I admit, I sometimes get slightly nervous and a bit edgy because I am afraid that I might make a fool of myself by doing something embarrassing of Asian American culture. Sounds weird, but it is true. That is how I feel.

So one day I was talking to my Russian friend while walking down the hill from school and we both saw an elderly Asian man spit (rather loudly and forcefully) onto the sidewalk. As an Asian American, I found that normal because I have seen numerous Asians do that countless times but my friend was taken aback by what she saw. At that very moment I felt like I did not want to be Asian. What the old man did was very embarrassing and pretty disgusting and I felt bad that my friend had to see that. From what she saw, she probably asserted that Asian Americans are bad mannered because they do such inappropriate acts (she might not assert that but most likely she probably did). I was ashamed that Asian Americans did that and wish they did not. Inappropriate acts like those degrade the status of Asian Americans in society.

You may wonder if I am proud to be an Asian American. Even though I have gone through many experiences where I felt like Asian Americans have bad manners and could do way better to improve their self-image, I am proud to be an Asian American. Why? Well, I appreciate who I am and what my roots are. No matter how much bad representation Asian Americans get, I am still thankful for the culture, values, and beliefs that I have learned and embraced throughout my entire life thus far. I like Chinese food, Chinese New Year, moon cakes, dim sum, buns, etc. I like a majority of the stuff that makes up Chinese culture, the minor, bad stuff that I do not like includes bad manners and uncleanliness. The good outweighs the bad, so being an Asian American is something that I will always be proud of, despite the bad aspects that appear within Chinese culture.

Free? Don't Mind If I Do!

Freebees, who doesn’t love free things? I remember on the first week of my Asian American Culture class, we were asked to list out stereotypes of Asian Americans. One of the stereotypes listed is Asians being cheap or another thing I hear people say when they are refering to cheap is "being Asian". For example, "I'm going to be Asian and take a lot of napkins." Many come to conclusion that Asians are cheap because like i said asians like to take a lot. For instanst, at fast food restaurants liek i said they take more napkins than they need or any free thing they can get their hands on they take more than one. I confess I am guilty of this act myself, but in a way I think it’s a smart thing to do. Napkins alway come in handy! You never know when you're going to need one. and if they don't want you to take them then why put things out there for people to take? And if they are free why just limit yourself to one?

Over Thanksgiving break I went with my grandparents to the 2008 Auto Show in downtown, and at the auto show place there were free bags for people to take a fill up with brochures and other knick knacks. My grandmother tells me to go get a bag for her so she can hold her jacket. After returning with one bag, she tells me to go back and get her a few more so she can bring them home and use them to hold groceries. The whole time I was thinking, this is where I learned it from! I learned how to take advantage of free stuff from grandma! Everytime I go to a big event I always go for the free stuff and not only do I take one of everything, but I take a handful more!

Like I said, if you leave it out in the open that means you want people to take it. And if it doesn’t have a take only one sign then that just means take as much as you please and believe me I will. I see this as not being cheap, but taking advantage of what they offer. My favorite freebees are t-shirts, bags, and pens! I love free t-shirts. They’re good for workout close, pajama shirts, or just shirts that I don’t mind getting dirty. Bags are always useful for anything; groceries, book bags, or whatever else needs to be carried. And pens! I could honestly say that I have enough free pens to last me couple semester of school. I may sound cheap because these are all free stuff, but I just think of it as being smart and taking advantage of what is being offered in front of me.(haha)

Wong Fu Productions

Left to Right: Ted Fu, Philip (Phil) Wang, Wesley (Wes) Chan

Wong Fu Productions is a production company composed of three UCSD post-grad students: Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, and Philip Wang. They all produce videos and a movie together on a wide variety of topics, some including aspects of Asian American culture. With their videos and movies, the trio have debuted their works on YouTube and on their company website: wongfuproductions.com. They became well-known for their wonderful works and have toured a couple of college campuses in the United States. The trio has traveled to places outside the United States including France and Hong Kong, talking to audiences and attending film festivals.

How did this all begin? It all started back in 2003 at the University of California, San Diego. Phil was a freshman who started making videos at around the same time that Wes and Ted were making their own videos and animations. Phil and Wes met in spring ’04 in a class and both met Ted in another class later that fall. They found out that they all shared the common interest of the love for making videos and animations and soon became the best of friends who started working together to produce videos. Starting off with home video cameras and moving up to using more advanced video cameras, the trio has put out a number of short videos and music videos and has even risen to the challenge of making a long-feature movie “A Moment with You.” Their works have grown in popularity amongst many people from across all cultures and ethnicities, not just Asian Americans. This shows that these Asian Americans are not only reaching out to people of Asian American culture but are also crossing borders and expanding to places where Asian American culture might not be present or strongly represented. Wes, Ted, and Phil have been very successful at producing videos and because they are successful as Asian Americans, I am proud that they are successful at something that Asian Americans are usually not really seen as successful at. There is the stereotype that Asian Americans are encouraged by their parents to take up careers either in law, medicine, business, or engineering, and they usually do. However, video and media production is a different area that most Asian Americans do not consider that highly since Asian Americans tend to care more about living and making money more than following their dreams and pursuing their passions. The trio has shown that living the dream and doing what you love is really important and fun too.

Wong Fu Productions produces the funniest and coolest videos that I have ever seen. As I was watching the videos, I found myself laughing really hard with the funny videos, sad with the sad videos, etc. I was empathetic with the main character in the videos. For the videos where the trio each directly voice their own opinions and views and act as themselves, I thought that they were all cool. I could relate to their opinions on certain issues because they were around the same age as I was, a bit older since they’re in their twenties and I’m not but I could understand what they were saying. Their videos represent another way that Asian Americans can get involved in the media and have a widespread effect on their audience. They incorporate Asian American culture by talking about Asian American culture from their point of view, using some Chinese music, and filming in China where Chinese roots originate from.

Random fact: They own a cute, gigantic teddy bear named Spencer. Wes bought the teddy bear shortly after the trio moved to LA to live together so that they could do their work for Wong Fu Productions.

Check out Wes, Ted, and Phil of Wong Fu Productions and their videos at wongfuproductions.com
Enjoy their videos because they’re just AWESOME. Wes, Ted, and Phil are BEYOND EXTRAORDINARY. One thing is for sure: Watching one or more of these videos will definitely make your day. :)

http://www.wongfuproductions.com/

Panda Express

Asian or not, Panda Express seems to be the most popular Chinese food place. As we learned from the food unit in our Asian American Culture class, Panda Express is 90% Americanize, maybe that’s why everyone likes it so much. It’s Chinese food with an American twist to it. At Stonestown, Panda Express always seems to have the longest line. But why? Can it be because it’s cheap? because its fast? Or perhaps is it because Panda Express’ food is really that good.

I went to Los Angeles last weekend and my family and I went to each lunch at a Café place in Universal Studios. This café served a variety of food items such as fried chicken, panda express, pizza, hot dogs, and others. As I waited in line, I looked around to see what kind of food people were eating and I saw a lot of people eating Panda Express; majority of which were not Asian. I guess everyone was just in a Chinese food mood that day. After I got my food and sat down, one lady even stopped to ask me where I got my Chinese food. And shortly after we ran and got her whole family and went to go get some.

Another time a friend was telling me how he brought some panda express and gave some to his Mexican friend and that friend fell in loved with it. Better than any imitation Chinese food they have down in Mexico. When his friend came to visit from Mexico, the one place he requested to eat at before he left was Panda Express. The friend tried other Chinese restaurants before, but his favorite is still Panda Express. Again, perhaps its because Panda Express is made to acquire the American taste.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Panda Express food, but at the same time I don’t see what the craze about Panda Express is either. But then again, I guess I can’t really say much because I’m not really a big fan on Chinese food either. I’ll eat it, but it’s not very appetizing to me partly because I eat it too much. But it’s just a question that’s being floating around in my mind, what’s so good about Panda Express?

Poem by Nellie Wong

Mama, Come Back Mama, come back. Why did you leave now that I am learning you? The landlady next door how she apologizes for my rough brown skin to her tenant from Hong Kong as if I were her daughter, as if she were you. How do I say I miss you your scolding your presence your roast loin of pork more succulent, more tender than any hotel chef's? The fur coat you wanted making you look like a polar bear and the mink-trimmed coat I once surprised you on Christmas morning. Mama, how you said "importment" for important, your gold tooth flashing an insecurity you dared not bare, wanting recognition simply as eating noodles and riding in a motor car to the supermarket the movie theater adorned in your gold and jade as if all your jewelry confirmed your identity a Chinese woman in America. How you said "you better" always your last words glazed through your dark eyes following me fast as you could one November evening in New York City how I thought "Hello, Dolly!" showed you an America you never saw. How your fear of being alone kept me dutiful in body resentful in mind. How my fear of being single kept me from moving out. How I begged your forgiveness after that one big fight how I wasn't wrong but needed you to love me as warmly as you hugged stranger

You don’t realize how much you love someone until that person is gone from your life. You don’t realize how much you take someone for granted until the day they are gone. You don’t realize how much you miss someone until the day you realize they are never coming back. And this is all very true. We are so into our own lives and our own interest that we take people around us for granted. We boss people around for our own pleasing. We say things to people we don’t really mean. We get mad at people when things don’t go our way, but its not until they day that person has left our lives that we realize what a terrible friend or family member we are. But usually by then it’s too late. We want to take things back but we can’t. We want to apologize but we can’t. We want to see them one last time to tell them we love them, but again we can’t. A lot of times, I know I can say so for myself, we are blinded by our own interest that we don’t see how much of an impact others are in our lives. We don’t realize that by our selfish acts we push the most important people in out lives away. And we finally do realize it. It is too late. So, by thankful for those around you don’t go anything you’ll regret later. Tell those you love how much you love them and how thankful you are for them before it’s too late.

I found this poem really inspiring. And it just makes me think about how much my mother has done for me and yet I fail to thank her. I can’t even imagine how my left would be if my mother was gone. This poem actually reminded me of a poem I wrote for my great grandmother when she left us. Just acknowledging and realizing how much she impacted my life and just not being able to thank her for everything. It just reminds me that life is too short. Live life to the fullest and again to just remember to tell those you love you love them and how thankful you are for them to be apart of your life.

Poet: Bio of Nellie Wong

On September 12 1934, Nellie Wong was born in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants. During World War II, the internment of her Japanese American neighbors left a huge impact in her life. It brought to her attention the issues of racism and the concerns of Asian Americans. In her mid-30’s, Nellie began studying creative writing at San Francisco State University. She was inspired by her feminist classmate who encouraged her to write ad publish her poetry. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nellie co-founded the Asian American feminist literary and performance group “Unbound Feet”. She traveled to China on the first U.S. Women Writers Tour and was also a speaker for many national and regional conferences. She has taught Women’s studies at the University of Minnesota and poetry writing at Mills College in Oakland, California. Now, she is currently residing in San Francisco, California.

I wasn't able to get a book of her poetries, but I was able to find a couple of her pieces online that I can work with. I'm excited to read her work and hear what she has to say about being a female Asian American living in California.

I decided to pick Nellie Wong as my poet because in some ways she reminds me of myself so i figured perhaps I would be able to relate to some of her writings. As I was reading her poems, one of her poems was about her going into a Chinese Bakery and encountering a white man speaking Cantonese. The way she responded to him is exactly how I would have reacted. Her poems also reminded me of the book The Dim Sum of All Things by Kim Wong Keltner which I really enjoyed reading so I figured I would enjoy Nellie’s writing too. Another reason I picked her was because she went to SFSU which I found really surprising. It's not everyday where you find out you went to the same school as a writer or any other famous person.

Justin Chin

Justin Chin at Progressive Reading Series - March 2008 Save Rent Control
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

Justin Chin was born in Malaysia, raised in Singapore, moved to Hawaii, and now lives in San Francisco. In an interview with Frigatezine, he explains that, as a kid, he wanted to be a mad scientist "driven not by evilness, but by some sense of wanting to be saved and redeemed and converted to goodness by the hero," but his parents wanted him to be a doctor. He strayed from both aspirations, obviously, and is now a poet and performance artist, claiming to have stumbled into poetry by accident—"mostly by way of rock music and top-forty pop." His writing spans numerous topics and themes, including childhood experiences, queer life, consumerism, and immigration—all with a touch of wit and brutal honesty. To date, he has published three poetry books (Bite Hard, Harmless Medicine, and Gutted) and two collections of non-fiction essays (Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks and Burden of Ashes). As a performance artist in the 90s, he created eight full-length solo works, which are all published in his book, Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms.

I first discovered Justin Chin's work while perusing the Asian American section of the SFSU Bookstore with Sharon. Flipping through Harmless Medicine, I came across "Neo Testament," a short poetic prose, which starts off with:

Jesus had a twin named Ted. Ted Christ. Ted was neither godly nor evil. He was just indifferent. Jesus hated Ted. He prayed everyday for Ted's crib death, and God listened. Jesus soon regretted his decision and held his breath until God resurrected Ted, but on a different day, so he would not have to share birthdays.

His sense of humor appealed to me, and I made my decision right then and there to choose him as my poet for this class.

AA POET BIO; Ai

"Ai is the only name by which I wish, and indeed, should be known." - Ai

Ai – a word meaning “love” in Japanese – became the pen name for Florence Anthony. Born on October 21, 1947, in Albany, Texas, she also lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles as a child. “There were good times, but they were always eclipsed by bad times,” Ai recounts for she was impoverished in San Francisco. Ai’s multicultural background – a Japanese father and a Choctaw, Cheyenne, African American, Dutch and Scots-Irish mother – is what keeps her life interesting and is an inspiration for her work. At the age of fourteen Ai began writing poetry to enter a poetry contest, but her family moved back to Tucson before she could submit her entry. Even though she didn’t enter the contest because she had to move, Ai realized that she had skill with the pen. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor degree in Japanese, and also has a M.F.A from UC-Irvine.   She writes about things that come to her through real life happenings as described by the media or personal experience.  For example, she can be listening to the radio or watching the news and she hears a particular lyric or newscast that catches her interest.

I decided to choose Ai and her poetry book "Vice" for many reasons. The very first aspect of her that pulled me was her ethnicity, with her background there are vast cultural stories that I can be exposed to and i really like to experience different cultures. The next was her style of writing. She writes about "off-the-wall" and unusual topics that are "hard" to talk about; including sex, rape, etc. this dark side is what i like to read about because it's so different than my real life livings, yet i can relate and it comforts me to know that another person feels the same way i do. After these realizations, i researched and came across some of her poems, and i was hooked onto the mysterious and ambiguous words.

There are several poems that i'm thinking about using, yet i still have yet to pick only three. they are called "The Prisoner", "Talking to His Reflection in a Shallow Pond", and "Blue Suede Shoes", "More", and "Elegy." The first prisoner deals with being interrogated as a terrorist and how much freedom means to a person that has been a PRISONER for so long. The next poem of course has to deal with identity and the cultural struggle with finding that identity balance in America. Next, im not very sure if i understood this poem correctly, but the way i see it, Ai is basically touching upon what a "REAL AMERICAN" is and looks like. what personality and what type of job they are obligated to. next, "More" has to deal with WANTING america, and wanting that American dream as someone who is a minority who cannot achieve the full "american experience." lastly, "Elegy" describes a city undergoing a war.

Asian American Poet

Cathy Song is a Korean-Chinese poet born in Hawaii in 1955. She resists being labeled as an "Asian American writer," and instead calls herself "a poet who happens to be Asian American. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Cathy Song participates in Hawaii's "Poets in the Schools" program, which allows students from kindergarden to high school to work with poets and learn about poetry. She says the program is very rewarding and she learns as much from the students as they do from her.

Cathy's published books are; Picture Bride (1983), Frameless Windows, Squares of Light (1988), School Figures (1994), and The Land of Bliss (2001). Her first poetry book, Picture Bride, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1983, and she won quite a few awards thereafter; the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Hawaii Award for Literature, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

A picture bride is a marriage arranged through the exchange of photographs, which was how her mother and her father met, by way of their parents. She writes about women's issues, motherhood, family, and tries to acknowledge the many roles women play in society. She is inflenced by her own family, and tries to tell her families' stories in her poetry.


I chose this poet because Cathy Song is a female writer that writes about how it is like being female and Asian American. Her poems are easy to read and understand, and I can relate to what she writes about.
Well, that's what I'd like to say but the truth is Katrina borrowed an extra poetry book from the library and I really needed a poet to write about. I ended up liking it quite a bit.

Bio - Pic of AA Poet Frances Chung

For the poetry unit of the class, I choose the Chinese American poet Frances Chung (1950 to 1990). She was born and raised at the border of New York’s Chinatown and Little Italy. Her mother and father are Chee Kin and Wilbur Chung, and she has an older sister Edna. At Smith College, she got a degree in mathematics and after graduating she taught at public schools in the Lower East Side of New York.

There is not much about her online, but I gather that most of her poetry is for her to let out her thoughts and experiences. The book I found is Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple – The Poems of Frances Chung. The titles “Crazy Melon” and “Chinese Apple” are from two unpublished book manuscripts that were found in Chung’s papers. These poems show and describe her living in New York’s Chinatown in the 1960’s and 70’s. “Crazy Melon deftly sketches the streets, fantasies, commerce and toil of Chung’s neighborhoods, while the later Chinese Apple offers new themes and cityscapes – delightfully understated eroticism, tributes to poets, impressions of other Chinese diasporic communities around the world.” From the Commentary by Walter K Lew, Frances also really liked the bookmaking process and was passionate about authenticating her work to get it out in the world for people to read. She would even make her own paperback books with folded sheets of paper and the “Crazy Melon” manuscript was kept in a clear box where she taped a plum candy wrapper to the lid and stamped her red Chinese seal.

I found Frances Chung just by chance landing in the Asian American aisle at the SFSU Bookstore. Katrina and I were on break in-between classes and we were originally looking for a food book that I heard about, but we were a little lost and just so happened to be standing in front of the AA section. Then a light bulb went off that we should look for our poets and see if we could find any poetry books here. We ended up finding this book full of Asian American poets, called Yobo - Korean American Writing in Hawai‘i. When I got home I looked up some of the poets that wrote poems that I liked online and found Walter K Lew. Then I saw that his book was at the SFPL so I went to check it out, but it was missing and then I found Frances Chung’s book. I thought the title was cool so I flipped through it and read some of her poems and there you go – my poet.