Mom teaches adorable daughter important life lessons

From the guy who wrote Rebecca Black's "Friday"

Psy's insane concert in Korea

The video says 80,000 people were there but statisticians say it looks more like 150,000. All singing along and doing the Gangham Style dance.

So Asians ARE the superior race

New research from the Pew Center released today seems to confirm that BuzzFeed's earlier, non-scientific suspicions that Asians are "the superior race." According to the report, Asian Americans are richer, have more college degrees, and value parenting and marriage more than adults in this country as a whole. Perhaps as a result, they're more likely to raise kids in two-parent households, though many think they put pressure on them to succeed than the average U.S. adult. But no matter, because they're happier than the average adult in this country anyway, the research shows.

Pew's findings are a result of surveys conducted by phone from January 3 to March 27, 2012 of 3,511 Asian Americans in English and seven other Asian languages. Statistical highlights:

• Eighty-two percent of Asian Americans are overall satisfied with their lives, while 75 percent of the general public is.
• Among Asian Americans, 51 percent said they were satisfied with their personal finances, versus 35 percent of the general public.
• Asian Americans are more likely to have college degrees: 49 percent do, while 28 percent of adults do.
• They also make more: Asian American households have a median household income of $66,000. The median for U.S. adults as a whole is $49,800.
• The report cites media favorite Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg's new wife, as an example of the 37 percent of "recent Asian American brides" who married non-Asian grooms.
• Asians recently surpassed Hispanics as the largest immigrant group in the U.S. — and they're packing more degrees than any immigrant group. Pew found that 61 percent of Asian adults aged 25 to 61 who came to American in recent years at least have a bachelor's degree, adding, "This is double the share among recent non-Asian arrivals, and almost surely makes the recent Asian arrivals the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history."
• A successful marriage is one of the most important things in life for 54 percent of Asian Americans, while the same is true for only 34 percent of adult Americans. (See also: this.)
• Asian Americans place higher value on parenting than U.S. adults: 67 percent of those surveyed said being a good parent is one of the most important things in life, while just 50 percent of U.S. adults agreed.
• Fifty-nine percent of Asian Americans are married; 51 percent of U.S. adults are.
• Asian American children are more likely to be raised in a household with two parents — 80 percent are versus 63 percent of American children generally.
• Almost half of Asian Americans surveyed think parents of their national origin put too much pressure on their kids to succeed in school (just 9 percent of U.S. adults said the same).

Read the full report here.

Source

What Jeremy Lin means for male Asian Americans

Jeremy Lin is not just the basketball player who has launched a thousand bad “Lin” puns — and prompted a refresher course on why the word “chink” is unacceptable for an ESPN headline.

His sudden emergence in pop culture has also underscored how strangely acceptable it is in America to make make racial comments about Asians, whether they are considered complimentary (like “all Asians are good at math” or “all Asian women are hot”) or insulting (like “Asian men are not sexy.”)

The thing is, if you’ve never seen an attractive, sexy Asian man, you probably ought to check either your eyes or your prejudices — like all hot men, they’ve been all around us all along.

The idea that people apparently think Asian guys are all shy, have tiny penises, and sit in their dark bedrooms writing computer code all the time is preposterous. I’ve dated two different Asian-American guys — one for four months (who is still a good friend) and another for two years. The fact that we’re even discussing “what Asian men are like” is as ridiculous to me as the fact a GOP debate included the totally-serious question, “Do you believe in birth control?”

But it’s happening left and right. Take, for instance, a piece by Chaweon Koo at Nerve.com:

I don’t expect you to understand exactly what Linsanity really means to the hordes of Asian-Americans who are saying, “Finally.” For me, “finally” comes in the form of relief that I can stop justifying why I’ve always liked/preferred Asian men. Most of my boyfriends have been Asian, and my current boyfriend (not Asian) gets jealous when I gush about Asian-American guys. I never did understand all the videos and stories about how Asian guys can’t get girls, aren’t good looking, etc. — stories that have been internalized by not only the Asian-American guys, but also the girls.

Now, it is true that if you do not personally know a hot Asian-American dude, then you shouldn’t look to pop culture for help. There aren’t terribly many Asian-American male sex symbols in pop culture and the ones that exist epitomize the unsexy, goofy-awkward stereotype: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, Mr. Chow from “The Hangover” and Han Lee on “Two Broke Girls. I’m racking my brain right now to think of other Asians on TV shows or in movies and I’ll be damned if I can think of anyone other than John Cho from the “Harold & Kumar” movies and Daniel Dae Kim from “Lost.” (Both, by the way, are really cute.)

All that being said, I find questions, like the one Koo asked at at Nerve. com — “Is [Jeremy Lin] a new vanguard for Asian-American sex symbols?” — a little offensive. We have to be careful when we talk about race and sexuality in regards to what it actually is we are saying. To me, the undertone I don’t like is that “oh, hey, Asian-American guys actually are more masculine than they get credit for in pop culture! They’re actually not effeminate!” While that might sound like an enlightened comment, it is predicated on the idea that Asian-American guys are good because they’re actually “masculine.” For one thing, from my experience, I can’t say Asian-American men are more or less masculine or feminine than any other race I’ve dated. But the idea that more non-Asian women should be attracted to Asians because they’re actually not the calculator-toting pussies we apparently thought they were is ridiculous. The reality is Asian-American guys have both masculine and feminine traits like any other race and they’re just great to date because they’re great to date.

I don’t think Nerve.com intended to sound ignorant — they really were trying to say something positive about what Jeremy Lin could mean for Asian-American dudes in popular culture. And I Am Yellow Peril blogger Justin Huang (who obviously knows a hell of a lot more about what it’s like being an Asian man than I ever will) seems to welcome all the new attention, on some level. “Linsanity could very well redefine the Asian American man as a sexually acknowledged being,” he wrote. “Frankly put, our basketball whiz kid has given the rest of us balls.” That is indeed fantastic — albeit somewhat perplexing to the rest of us who’ve always thought Asian-American dudes were hella bangable all along.

Source

Happy Chinese New Year!

Warning: This will make you cry. A commercial from Bernas, an rice distribution company.

I think someone is going to get mediocre pizza for life...

Minhee Cho went to Papa John's for some fast food goodness. Little did she know, she would get it served with a side of racism.

At around 12:30 p.m. today, Papa John's customer Minhee Cho tweeted a photo of a receipt she received at a Papa John's restaurant in uptown, New York City.

In it, under the customer's name section, the restaurant employee who rang up the order used the racial slur "lady chinky eyes" to describe her.

Cho posted the photo to her Twitter page, where it was quickly retweeted by hundreds of people. By 3 p.m., the photo had been viewed over 25,000 times.

When The Huffington Post reached the Papa John's in question for comment, the assistant manager -- who only gave her first name as Marjani -- said she was unaware of the incident.

"I apologize," she said in a phone interview. "I'm sure they didn't mean any harm but some people will take it offensive." She added that she "had an idea of who it was," based on the time of the receipt.

Marjani went on to say that this was the kind of behavior that would result in disciplinary action, but declined to go into further detail on what she planned to do.

Papa John's has yet to respond to the incident in a statement or its Facebook and Twitter accounts, but with such a PR disaster on their hands, they most likely will soon.

Papa John's has responded to the incident on Facebook. A post on its official page reads:

"We were extremely concerned to learn of the receipt issue in New York. This act goes against our company values, and we've confirmed with the franchisee that this matter was addressed immediately and that the employee is being terminated. We are truly sorry for this customer's experience."

The company has also addressed the matter on its Twitter feed, tweeting to multiple people that "We have issued an apology, are reaching out to customer & franchise employee is being terminated."

Timed to perfection

I love the look on people's faces when they see this.

Conan as a Chinese food delivery boy

Restaurant Review: Chinatown Express

Compared to New York, Boston, and San Francisco, DC's Chinatown is more about American consumerism (i.e. Bed Bath and Beyond, Dunkin Donuts, Urban Outfitters, etc.) than ethnic restaurants and shops.

But if you're in the area and you're looking for great dumplings and/or Chinese food then look no further than Chinatown Express on 746 6th Street Northwest. Don't be turned off by the restaurant's lack of decor; it's the fresh food that counts at this place. Noodles and dumplings are made fresh all throughout the day and you can watch the cooks at work through the exterior window next to the entrance. That being said, I would definitely recommend the pork dumplings or the fresh dumplings that are both featured on the shorter menu the waitresses give you right away.

There is also a plethora of traditional Chinese food dishes that look and smell delicious but I've never tried myself. I'm too hooked on the dumplings! And my mom always says that you can tell if a Chinese restaurant is good if there are actual Chinese people in it - and that's true for Chinatown Express.

Stop by during lunchtime for a quick and cheap (dumplings are only $5.95) meal!

Tumblr Blog: Accidential Chinese Hipsters

This guy has no idea how fashionable
he is in the hipster world.

My friend Cameron showed me this blog called Accidental Chinese Hipsters and I am having so much fun looking at all the crazy outfits and laughing at the commentary. The caption for an elderly Asian man wearing a Velvet Underground t-shirt reads:

"I can only guess that A) somebody’s grandchild has a good sense of humor, or that B) he is a fan of bananas, as it is totally reasonable for a person to be."