A picture of Seva Cafe @ Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach (pix courtesy of Be The Cause)
Last year, while I was at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in India on behalf of Project Ahimsa, I was introduced to an incredible concept of serving and giving that elevated the way I perceive food and my relationship to food.
The SEVA Cafe, operated by Manav Sadhna, a multi dimensional NGO in Ahmedabad, India, was created to provide guests and volunteers to encourage giving and serving through the process of making and serving food. The concept is simple but has profound implications for engendering compassion: volunteers make and serve meals to guests who choose to give whatever they wish in return. That giving can be financial or it can be in the form of volunteerism. There are no prices for any items, and the entire financial process and operation is completely transparent and run by the energy of giving. What started as a simple idea has turned into a full operation running 7 days a week and serving hundreds of guests weekly. For me, performing a musical concert with J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science at the Seva Cafe, was a powerful experience...the creative energy of a place full of people who are giving without any expectation or judgement, without any alignment to politics, finances, or religion, was super empowering. The idea is actually not revolutionary...it is simply another interpretation of the pure love of giving food that a mother might give to her beloved child, or the meal a family may unconditionally share with each other at home...but to see this energy in a restaurant setting, a setting we normally associate with paying for food and service with money, that is revolutionary. On an even deeper, internal level, the idea of service itself unravels for anyone who participates in the circle of giving at Seva Cafe. Over time, we begin to experience an important universal truth: we are not serving one another; rather we are being given an opportunity to understand love by each person that we do serve. From this realization comes gratitude. Gratitude towards anyone we give our energy to, and gratitude for being given an opportunity to be a better human being. From this comes the epiphany that Seva Cafe is not about serving food and nourishing just the stomach. It is about nourishing something far deeper and far more important, the soul and the soul's capacity to love unconditionally.
People of all socio-economic levels come to Seva Cafe Ahmedabad to be nourished by the environment of love and giving that emanates from the cafe. Last year, a Seva Cafe was born at the Royal Cup Coffee House in LA, initiated by volunteers from Be The Cause. Here is their story...
I met with Sukh Chugh in downtown LA last week to talk about Seva Cafe LA. Sukh is a spiritual brother of mine, I am convinced we are karmically connected through our passions for service, creativity, and our shared love for being human beings on this planet. A volunteer with Be The Cause, Sukh shared his experiences of serving at the Cafe, which is located at the Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach. Seva Cafe is currently seeking to expand its reach and is looking for new venues that would be interested in helping to elevate the Seva Cafe concept. If you are interested, please visit www.bethecause.org.
Tell me about the Seva Café.
The word Seva is a Sanskrit word that means selfless service. People automatically attach the Seva Café concept to a South Asian theme. But the Seva Café is really a place of genuine giving. That to me crosses all kinds of boundaries, all kinds of religion, and places of living. For me the Seva Café, even though the word has its roots in the Indian language, is definitely not an Indian concept. This genuine place of giving exists within each and every human being that is alive. There is no one country that can claim ownership to what that space is.
The Seva Café is a restaurant that is very different from any dining experience you have ever had. The reason why is because when you walk inside a restaurant there is no price on any of the menus. The reason why is because the food that you eat is actually paid for by a previous guest before you arrive. This previous guest is someone whom you have never met or meet in your entire life. This allows the volunteers to focus on one thing: Can we create this meal with as much love as possible. At the end of the meal, instead of getting a bill saying this is how much money you owe, you receive an empty envelope and inside that envelope you leave whatever you wish as a genuine gift for a future guest, someone you will never meet in your entire life. The really powerful thing about the Seva Café is that every single person in the room is in a place of giving. The guests have an opportunity to be in that place of giving because of the envelopes they receive. Each and every volunteer is also in that place, because they are cooking food, washing the dishes, wiping the tables down. All through the sense of serving others and giving to others.
It can be an explosive environment. You step into a room where you have 50 people and each person in that room is going through the process of giving to another person.
Where is the Seva Café, where are you located?
The Seva Café is currently operating in Southern California at the World Cup Coffee house in Long Beach. Be the Cause rents out the coffee shop every Saturday night, and we transform it into the Seva Café every Saturday from 5 to 10pm
We have never promoted, we have no advertisement, and everything is created by word of mouth. Some Saturdays we feed 130 people, and some Saturdays none at all.
Each volunteer has to be in a place of no expectations. This is when you are a volunteer, so we go as deep as we can into a service mentality. Part of what keeps you from being able to serve another human being with genuine compassion are your own expectations. So if you walk into the Café as a volunteer expecting to see 130 people and only 50 people show up, That is going to stop you from actually reaching out and being loving to another human being because in your mind you are thinking how many people are here, why is this not a successful night? What defines a successful night isn’t how many people came or how much money got left, but how much you serve with a genuine heart. How much change did you go through in your own self in those 5 hours that you were there?
How have these experiences changed you? What has happened to you going through this process of service?
It is a powerful thing, I am 32 years old. Been through numerous corporate environments, been to school, watched a lot of TV, watched a lot of movies, hung out with friends. Unfortunately, learning how to serve with love isn’t something that I have known. It is not something that is taught to us from our school and from our jobs. All of the sudden, you venture out into the Seva Café, and the whole tag line is “Serve is Love.” So you assume that you know how to do that. I know Love, I have seen it in movies, and everywhere, people talk of it…but at the end of the day, do I really know what Love means? Do I know how to serve with Love? Now, I’m face to face with this volunteer opportunity. I show up as a server, I take people’s food order, I turn that food over, I bring that food to the guest, and at the end of the meal, I am responsible for bringing the empty envelope, I take this envelope and I present it to my guests, these are the people I am trying to serve with Love.
As I walk up to the table, I put the envelope on the table, and as soon as the envelope hits the table, a thought goes through my mind; this curiosity: how much are they going to give. That is what I begin to wonder to myself. So all day long, I have been telling myself that I am going to serve with love, but in that moment what I am hit with, is my greed. I begin to judge these people: Are these people rich people, are they going to leave a lot of money? Did these people understand what I was talking about? In that space, there is no room to be loving…if I am busy judging these people, I can’t be loving these people at the same time. Greed and love cannot coexist together in the same place at the same time. That is what is powerful about the Seva Café: You think you are there to serve the guests, but the guests are actually serving you. They are giving you that opportunity to see yourself for what you are. Want to serve with love? Your greed becomes visible in that moment. And that is one experience of just bringing an envelope.
Stuff happens when you are wshing dishes. Stuff happens when there isn’t a busy night…your mind starts unraveling all these expectations, and you get to see yourself for what you are. Life is a beautiful thing, you and I exist as a process of nature. But on top of a very pure way of looking at the life. We are layered with greed, we have ego, we have hatred, we have anger, and services is a tool and a path to happiness. When I am greedy, and overcome with hatred, I notice that I am creating harm with myself. I am moving away from happiness, and so I go to the Seva Café, and I am genuinely serving another human being. I can’t do it with anger, I can’t do it with hatred, and anger if I am going to serve. Just walking around with a sandwich is such a powerful experience, because I am bringing this sandwich to a guest, and what I am doing, is I am putting myself in a place of love. That is working through my ego, my hatred, my anger, and allowing me to experience what many of us are lacking in this world: true happiness and true peace.
Any restaurant you go to you sit down to get a meal, the establishment is thinking: How much money are we going to make with this person? That is our relationship with food. This place, the Seva Café, allows us to let go of all of that, the greed, and get to a place of genuine love and service. Being in that space can be very transformational.
People cry, the guests cry, I have served a sandwich to a guest, explained to her what is going on, and she has broken down and started crying. All I have done is brought her a sandwich.
Why is Seva Cafe important for LA? For the USA?
There are a lot of ways to look at the western world. There is a doctor in India who performs eye surgery and he says that people are struggling with a poverty of wealth. People here in America are dealing with a poverty of service. It is important everywhere.
Be the Cause has been to India to the original Seva Cafe, and has seen first hadn the impact it has had on a lot of people there…people volunteer there, eat there, and it is really impacting a lot of people.
We walked into that environment, and thought that this is great…it is great for India, but it is needed everywhere. People are searching for these kinds of things, and so we thought why not bring to where we live, right here in Long Beach? People ask us, where did the original idea come from…yes, there is a Seva café in Ahmedabad, India…that is where we saw it, that is where we got the idea, and we brought it here…but when we ask the people at the Seva Café in India, where the concept came from, what they say is that the first Seva Café existed when someone invited someone into their home and said: Let me feed you, let me serve you with Love. That is the original thing that we are trying to get back to.
The fact that for me personally, we see so many people come into the Seva Café, and I see it be so successful, so packed…it is a double edged sword. Part of this is great, people are getting this kinds of inspiration in their lives, which is a great thing, but the other side of that is that this is really missing from their lives, that is why they need to be here…why are we not giving and receiving love like that with our neighbors? Why are we not like that with our families? Why is that genuine place of service not with us all the time? Why do we need a place like the Seva café, which runs 5 – 10 on Saturdays, where we go to find love?
To me it is great that people are getting this kind of inspiration but on some level it is somewhat disturbing…ideally, the Seva café shouldn’t need to be in existence, because hopefully people are getting that nourishment spiritually through free giving, or not in this environment…that is exactly what we are trying to teach people, that is what we tell the guests, the volunteers: How do you change the world? How is the Seva Café really helping the world? It is not a soup kitchen. It is through each and every person that walks through the door. We want to plant that seed of service, that seed of giving in them, let them know that this gift has been offered to them and as they walk outside the Seva Café doors there is an opportunity waiting for them. Then the Seva Café doesn’t need to exist in those four walls, it needs to exist in the hearts of each and every single volunteer and guest that arrives. That is what it is really it is designed to do. To invert the Seva Café into itself, take these 4 walls and have it implode where it is everywhere outside, not just inside.
Tell me more about Seva Café in India. What is the original concept? How did you get the idea to translate it, how long did it take to recreate here?
The Seva Café in India has been around for a year and three months and we have been around for the last 6 months, with an organization called Be The Cause. Every year, we go to a different country to serve hands on. We have been to south Africa, we have been to Kenya, This year we were in Peru and Equador. Last year, we went to India, and we had heard about the Seva Café before we left, and already in our mind, we were germinating this idea that this is such an amazing concept and that it can be applied anywhere and everywhere. So when we went to India, we checked it out. And what we see is that it is needed everywhere. It is there for the guests, to challenge their notions of what it is to give and receive and to change our relationship with the food that we eat. But it is there to cultivate that space of service within the volunteers.
The Seva Café in Ahmedabad operates 7 days a week, and it is intense. They have a sign, that is very true to the Indian culture, the sign and saying is “Guest is God” and they have that plastered on the wall there, and this is the mantra running through the volunteers at the Seva Café. As the guests come in through the door, they are to be treated as divinity. And by treating them as they are divinity, as they are God, serving them as God, you are really transforming yourself. The people who are walking through the door, are giving you an opportunity to become pure in that moment.
We here at the Long Beach Seva Café, we don’t have that sign, we are trying to stay away from religious connotations because America is a different world than India, that is fore sure. But one of the things that is apparent, is that there is gratitude for the guests walking in. All the volunteers who are there for a few days get this. We are not serving the guests, they are serving us. They are giving us that opportunity. So there is gratitude. Every time the door opens and someone walks in, there is gratitude. I am not giving them anything, they are giving me the opportunity to become a better human being in this moment.
What do you serve at the Café? Who decides what kind of food to serve?
We try to keep it to a healthy diet, and we serve a vegetarian meal. We have sandwiches, soups, desserts, coffee drinks. It is the same recipe every time. The volunteers and the core team of 7 or 8 people talk as a group and decide what we want on the menu. The Seva Café is not just about food, and just nourishing a person’s stomach. We are trying to nourish something far more important than just a stomach. We don’t want people to be there only for the food…even though it is amazing, all gourmet, high quality ingredients….the food brings people back, but the love is what keeps them there.
It is not about finances, right? So it is sustained by the donations? What have you found in relying on the goodness of others in terms of the survival of this?
We are only relying on the goodness of others. We have been around for 6.5 months, and in the beginning a few of our friends got together, we said whatever it takes, we are doing this for 3 months, if we have to put out of our pockets, we will. Despite that, 1 week before we started, a random person comes by my place and leaves $1000 anonymously, with a note: “This is for the experiment…” To this day, we don’t know who that person is, and we haven’t dipped into our pockets, and we haven’t touched the $1000 dollars. We have paid for electricity, rent, food expenses, everything and all costs, have been self-sustaining through donations by guests. We have even made a $3,000 donation to a charity in India.
I have to be honest: in the beginning, we were doubtful, and many told us we were out of our minds. Maybe in India it could work, but not here… Now, it is not even theoretical anymore. People ask us, your theory on serving with love is great, your theory on believing there is good in everyone is great…but are these theories practical? I see it every Saturday.
We rent the Royal Cup Coffee House for the day. The owner is very generous, we pay $290 for the place, and we pay for all the food. Within that $290 includes a buffer for his benefit. It is not a losing venture from his angle. It is good for everyone.
We are in the process of changing venues and are looking for a new venue to expand into. We definitely want to make the spot sustainable. Someone giving us a home for a week or two isn’t sustainable. We are willing to pay for the rental of the facility, of course. We are looking for a place that has a relaxed atmosphere, wher we can conduct and refine this experiment, and to bring in the types of food that we want to serve, which is gourmet vegetaria. Currently we operate only on Saturday, but we would like to find a place where they are willing to do Friday, Saturday, and even Sunday brunch. Because it is needed, people are missing it in their lives.
You have mentioned a few profound stories that came out of Seva Cafe. You mentioned that it is not a soup kitchen. Have you had many homeless people come? Or have you seen the other side of the spectrum in terms of wealthy people come?
Our mentality is that we are not there to judge people. That keeps us from being in a place where we need to be. So we don’t look at a who is wealthy or poor. When an envelope is left for a guest, we have no way of tracing who left it. I have opened envelopes, for someone who had a soup and salad, and who left a couple of hundred dollars. You do have that happening. There is one incident where a homeless guy came in and ate for a week, and didn’t wait for an envelope, he took off and left.
This is not a free meal, this is not a soup kitchen, you are part of a circle of giving that exists.
So if a guest leaves without an offering, does that violate the idea of Seva Cafe?
It is totally fine. There is no violation. We are asking for an individual to think about what is going on. And by walking away and reflecting on your actions is payment more than what could be left in an envelope. It is not free in an experiential sense. There is some transaction of energy, and that is what we focus on. This envelope is there as an opportunity to give, and if you don’t leave anything in there, we are still here to serve. This envelope has to serve as a reminder of the gifts we are always receiving. As you walk outside Seva Café, the envelope is still with you. For you to give back, for you to complete that circle of giving, that opportunity is arising in every moment. People come in off the streets, I have serious converstations with them, about things they can do to make the world a better place, to make their lives healthier,and that that to me is great. The homeless guy who left without giving, came back a few weeks later. I saw him outside, he is old enough to be my father. He is at a table. I walk up to him, and I hold his hand, and I try to explain simply what the Seva Café. I say to him “We live in a place where there is so much pain and suffering, and all we are trying to do is put some love in the world.” The man starts crying. He says you dont have to tell me about pain and suffering, I see it everyday on the streets. I think to myself, what can I do for this person. Let me get him some food. Before I got up to leave, I explained to him…the food you are receiving is a genuine gift from someone you have never met. And at the end of the meal you are going to have the opportunity to leave a gift fro someone else.
I wanted him to understand, that we are equals. He is not underneath me, He is not getting a handout, I'm not better than him. We are all in this together.Iif there is any say so, he has the same say so as I do. The waiter brings him sandwich, soupe, and water. He eats and leaves. I go up to clear the table, to clean up the plate, glasses, bowl. I look on the table, and the man has left 93 cents on the table. When I talked to him earlier he told me that is all the money that he had on him. Everything he had, he left on the table to pay for some one eles’s meal. He is a homeless guy who we judge all the time. Something happened to him in that moment, he is taking what he has, whatever he has, and he left it for another human being. So this is powerful stuff.
If you would like to help the Seva Cafe in finding a new venue or would like to volunteer or visit, contact www.bethecause.org
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 2:13 PM | Comments (3)
A picture of Seva Cafe @ Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach (pix courtesy of Be The Cause)
Last year, while I was at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in India on behalf of Project Ahimsa, I was introduced to an incredible concept of serving and giving that elevated the way I perceive food and my relationship to food.
The SEVA Cafe, operated by Manav Sadhna, a multi dimensional NGO in Ahmedabad, India, was created to provide guests and volunteers to encourage giving and serving through the process of making and serving food. The concept is simple but has profound implications for engendering compassion: volunteers make and serve meals to guests who choose to give whatever they wish in return. That giving can be financial or it can be in the form of volunteerism. There are no prices for any items, and the entire financial process and operation is completely transparent and run by the energy of giving. What started as a simple idea has turned into a full operation running 7 days a week and serving hundreds of guests weekly. For me, performing a musical concert with J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science at the Seva Cafe, was a powerful experience...the creative energy of a place full of people who are giving without any expectation or judgement, without any alignment to politics, finances, or religion, was super empowering. The idea is actually not revolutionary...it is simply another interpretation of the pure love of giving food that a mother might give to her beloved child, or the meal a family may unconditionally share with each other at home...but to see this energy in a restaurant setting, a setting we normally associate with paying for food and service with money, that is revolutionary. On an even deeper, internal level, the idea of service itself unravels for anyone who participates in the circle of giving at Seva Cafe. Over time, we begin to experience an important universal truth: we are not serving one another; rather we are being given an opportunity to understand love by each person that we do serve. From this realization comes gratitude. Gratitude towards anyone we give our energy to, and gratitude for being given an opportunity to be a better human being. From this comes the epiphany that Seva Cafe is not about serving food and nourishing just the stomach. It is about nourishing something far deeper and far more important, the soul and the soul's capacity to love unconditionally.
People of all socio-economic levels come to Seva Cafe Ahmedabad to be nourished by the environment of love and giving that emanates from the cafe. Last year, a Seva Cafe was born at the Royal Cup Coffee House in LA, initiated by volunteers from Be The Cause. Here is their story...
I met with Sukh Chugh in downtown LA last week to talk about Seva Cafe LA. Sukh is a spiritual brother of mine, I am convinced we are karmically connected through our passions for service, creativity, and our shared love for being human beings on this planet. A volunteer with Be The Cause, Sukh shared his experiences of serving at the Cafe, which is located at the Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach. Seva Cafe is currently seeking to expand its reach and is looking for new venues that would be interested in helping to elevate the Seva Cafe concept. If you are interested, please visit www.bethecause.org.
Tell me about the Seva Café.
The word Seva is a Sanskrit word that means selfless service. People automatically attach the Seva Café concept to a South Asian theme. But the Seva Café is really a place of genuine giving. That to me crosses all kinds of boundaries, all kinds of religion, and places of living. For me the Seva Café, even though the word has its roots in the Indian language, is definitely not an Indian concept. This genuine place of giving exists within each and every human being that is alive. There is no one country that can claim ownership to what that space is.
The Seva Café is a restaurant that is very different from any dining experience you have ever had. The reason why is because when you walk inside a restaurant there is no price on any of the menus. The reason why is because the food that you eat is actually paid for by a previous guest before you arrive. This previous guest is someone whom you have never met or meet in your entire life. This allows the volunteers to focus on one thing: Can we create this meal with as much love as possible. At the end of the meal, instead of getting a bill saying this is how much money you owe, you receive an empty envelope and inside that envelope you leave whatever you wish as a genuine gift for a future guest, someone you will never meet in your entire life. The really powerful thing about the Seva Café is that every single person in the room is in a place of giving. The guests have an opportunity to be in that place of giving because of the envelopes they receive. Each and every volunteer is also in that place, because they are cooking food, washing the dishes, wiping the tables down. All through the sense of serving others and giving to others.
It can be an explosive environment. You step into a room where you have 50 people and each person in that room is going through the process of giving to another person.
Where is the Seva Café, where are you located?
The Seva Café is currently operating in Southern California at the World Cup Coffee house in Long Beach. Be the Cause rents out the coffee shop every Saturday night, and we transform it into the Seva Café every Saturday from 5 to 10pm
We have never promoted, we have no advertisement, and everything is created by word of mouth. Some Saturdays we feed 130 people, and some Saturdays none at all.
Each volunteer has to be in a place of no expectations. This is when you are a volunteer, so we go as deep as we can into a service mentality. Part of what keeps you from being able to serve another human being with genuine compassion are your own expectations. So if you walk into the Café as a volunteer expecting to see 130 people and only 50 people show up, That is going to stop you from actually reaching out and being loving to another human being because in your mind you are thinking how many people are here, why is this not a successful night? What defines a successful night isn’t how many people came or how much money got left, but how much you serve with a genuine heart. How much change did you go through in your own self in those 5 hours that you were there?
How have these experiences changed you? What has happened to you going through this process of service?
It is a powerful thing, I am 32 years old. Been through numerous corporate environments, been to school, watched a lot of TV, watched a lot of movies, hung out with friends. Unfortunately, learning how to serve with love isn’t something that I have known. It is not something that is taught to us from our school and from our jobs. All of the sudden, you venture out into the Seva Café, and the whole tag line is “Serve is Love.” So you assume that you know how to do that. I know Love, I have seen it in movies, and everywhere, people talk of it…but at the end of the day, do I really know what Love means? Do I know how to serve with Love? Now, I’m face to face with this volunteer opportunity. I show up as a server, I take people’s food order, I turn that food over, I bring that food to the guest, and at the end of the meal, I am responsible for bringing the empty envelope, I take this envelope and I present it to my guests, these are the people I am trying to serve with Love.
As I walk up to the table, I put the envelope on the table, and as soon as the envelope hits the table, a thought goes through my mind; this curiosity: how much are they going to give. That is what I begin to wonder to myself. So all day long, I have been telling myself that I am going to serve with love, but in that moment what I am hit with, is my greed. I begin to judge these people: Are these people rich people, are they going to leave a lot of money? Did these people understand what I was talking about? In that space, there is no room to be loving…if I am busy judging these people, I can’t be loving these people at the same time. Greed and love cannot coexist together in the same place at the same time. That is what is powerful about the Seva Café: You think you are there to serve the guests, but the guests are actually serving you. They are giving you that opportunity to see yourself for what you are. Want to serve with love? Your greed becomes visible in that moment. And that is one experience of just bringing an envelope.
Stuff happens when you are wshing dishes. Stuff happens when there isn’t a busy night…your mind starts unraveling all these expectations, and you get to see yourself for what you are. Life is a beautiful thing, you and I exist as a process of nature. But on top of a very pure way of looking at the life. We are layered with greed, we have ego, we have hatred, we have anger, and services is a tool and a path to happiness. When I am greedy, and overcome with hatred, I notice that I am creating harm with myself. I am moving away from happiness, and so I go to the Seva Café, and I am genuinely serving another human being. I can’t do it with anger, I can’t do it with hatred, and anger if I am going to serve. Just walking around with a sandwich is such a powerful experience, because I am bringing this sandwich to a guest, and what I am doing, is I am putting myself in a place of love. That is working through my ego, my hatred, my anger, and allowing me to experience what many of us are lacking in this world: true happiness and true peace.
Any restaurant you go to you sit down to get a meal, the establishment is thinking: How much money are we going to make with this person? That is our relationship with food. This place, the Seva Café, allows us to let go of all of that, the greed, and get to a place of genuine love and service. Being in that space can be very transformational.
People cry, the guests cry, I have served a sandwich to a guest, explained to her what is going on, and she has broken down and started crying. All I have done is brought her a sandwich.
Why is Seva Cafe important for LA? For the USA?
There are a lot of ways to look at the western world. There is a doctor in India who performs eye surgery and he says that people are struggling with a poverty of wealth. People here in America are dealing with a poverty of service. It is important everywhere.
Be the Cause has been to India to the original Seva Cafe, and has seen first hadn the impact it has had on a lot of people there…people volunteer there, eat there, and it is really impacting a lot of people.
We walked into that environment, and thought that this is great…it is great for India, but it is needed everywhere. People are searching for these kinds of things, and so we thought why not bring to where we live, right here in Long Beach? People ask us, where did the original idea come from…yes, there is a Seva café in Ahmedabad, India…that is where we saw it, that is where we got the idea, and we brought it here…but when we ask the people at the Seva Café in India, where the concept came from, what they say is that the first Seva Café existed when someone invited someone into their home and said: Let me feed you, let me serve you with Love. That is the original thing that we are trying to get back to.
The fact that for me personally, we see so many people come into the Seva Café, and I see it be so successful, so packed…it is a double edged sword. Part of this is great, people are getting this kinds of inspiration in their lives, which is a great thing, but the other side of that is that this is really missing from their lives, that is why they need to be here…why are we not giving and receiving love like that with our neighbors? Why are we not like that with our families? Why is that genuine place of service not with us all the time? Why do we need a place like the Seva café, which runs 5 – 10 on Saturdays, where we go to find love?
To me it is great that people are getting this kind of inspiration but on some level it is somewhat disturbing…ideally, the Seva café shouldn’t need to be in existence, because hopefully people are getting that nourishment spiritually through free giving, or not in this environment…that is exactly what we are trying to teach people, that is what we tell the guests, the volunteers: How do you change the world? How is the Seva Café really helping the world? It is not a soup kitchen. It is through each and every person that walks through the door. We want to plant that seed of service, that seed of giving in them, let them know that this gift has been offered to them and as they walk outside the Seva Café doors there is an opportunity waiting for them. Then the Seva Café doesn’t need to exist in those four walls, it needs to exist in the hearts of each and every single volunteer and guest that arrives. That is what it is really it is designed to do. To invert the Seva Café into itself, take these 4 walls and have it implode where it is everywhere outside, not just inside.
Tell me more about Seva Café in India. What is the original concept? How did you get the idea to translate it, how long did it take to recreate here?
The Seva Café in India has been around for a year and three months and we have been around for the last 6 months, with an organization called Be The Cause. Every year, we go to a different country to serve hands on. We have been to south Africa, we have been to Kenya, This year we were in Peru and Equador. Last year, we went to India, and we had heard about the Seva Café before we left, and already in our mind, we were germinating this idea that this is such an amazing concept and that it can be applied anywhere and everywhere. So when we went to India, we checked it out. And what we see is that it is needed everywhere. It is there for the guests, to challenge their notions of what it is to give and receive and to change our relationship with the food that we eat. But it is there to cultivate that space of service within the volunteers.
The Seva Café in Ahmedabad operates 7 days a week, and it is intense. They have a sign, that is very true to the Indian culture, the sign and saying is “Guest is God” and they have that plastered on the wall there, and this is the mantra running through the volunteers at the Seva Café. As the guests come in through the door, they are to be treated as divinity. And by treating them as they are divinity, as they are God, serving them as God, you are really transforming yourself. The people who are walking through the door, are giving you an opportunity to become pure in that moment.
We here at the Long Beach Seva Café, we don’t have that sign, we are trying to stay away from religious connotations because America is a different world than India, that is fore sure. But one of the things that is apparent, is that there is gratitude for the guests walking in. All the volunteers who are there for a few days get this. We are not serving the guests, they are serving us. They are giving us that opportunity. So there is gratitude. Every time the door opens and someone walks in, there is gratitude. I am not giving them anything, they are giving me the opportunity to become a better human being in this moment.
What do you serve at the Café? Who decides what kind of food to serve?
We try to keep it to a healthy diet, and we serve a vegetarian meal. We have sandwiches, soups, desserts, coffee drinks. It is the same recipe every time. The volunteers and the core team of 7 or 8 people talk as a group and decide what we want on the menu. The Seva Café is not just about food, and just nourishing a person’s stomach. We are trying to nourish something far more important than just a stomach. We don’t want people to be there only for the food…even though it is amazing, all gourmet, high quality ingredients….the food brings people back, but the love is what keeps them there.
It is not about finances, right? So it is sustained by the donations? What have you found in relying on the goodness of others in terms of the survival of this?
We are only relying on the goodness of others. We have been around for 6.5 months, and in the beginning a few of our friends got together, we said whatever it takes, we are doing this for 3 months, if we have to put out of our pockets, we will. Despite that, 1 week before we started, a random person comes by my place and leaves $1000 anonymously, with a note: “This is for the experiment…” To this day, we don’t know who that person is, and we haven’t dipped into our pockets, and we haven’t touched the $1000 dollars. We have paid for electricity, rent, food expenses, everything and all costs, have been self-sustaining through donations by guests. We have even made a $3,000 donation to a charity in India.
I have to be honest: in the beginning, we were doubtful, and many told us we were out of our minds. Maybe in India it could work, but not here… Now, it is not even theoretical anymore. People ask us, your theory on serving with love is great, your theory on believing there is good in everyone is great…but are these theories practical? I see it every Saturday.
We rent the Royal Cup Coffee House for the day. The owner is very generous, we pay $290 for the place, and we pay for all the food. Within that $290 includes a buffer for his benefit. It is not a losing venture from his angle. It is good for everyone.
We are in the process of changing venues and are looking for a new venue to expand into. We definitely want to make the spot sustainable. Someone giving us a home for a week or two isn’t sustainable. We are willing to pay for the rental of the facility, of course. We are looking for a place that has a relaxed atmosphere, wher we can conduct and refine this experiment, and to bring in the types of food that we want to serve, which is gourmet vegetaria. Currently we operate only on Saturday, but we would like to find a place where they are willing to do Friday, Saturday, and even Sunday brunch. Because it is needed, people are missing it in their lives.
You have mentioned a few profound stories that came out of Seva Cafe. You mentioned that it is not a soup kitchen. Have you had many homeless people come? Or have you seen the other side of the spectrum in terms of wealthy people come?
Our mentality is that we are not there to judge people. That keeps us from being in a place where we need to be. So we don’t look at a who is wealthy or poor. When an envelope is left for a guest, we have no way of tracing who left it. I have opened envelopes, for someone who had a soup and salad, and who left a couple of hundred dollars. You do have that happening. There is one incident where a homeless guy came in and ate for a week, and didn’t wait for an envelope, he took off and left.
This is not a free meal, this is not a soup kitchen, you are part of a circle of giving that exists.
So if a guest leaves without an offering, does that violate the idea of Seva Cafe?
It is totally fine. There is no violation. We are asking for an individual to think about what is going on. And by walking away and reflecting on your actions is payment more than what could be left in an envelope. It is not free in an experiential sense. There is some transaction of energy, and that is what we focus on. This envelope is there as an opportunity to give, and if you don’t leave anything in there, we are still here to serve. This envelope has to serve as a reminder of the gifts we are always receiving. As you walk outside Seva Café, the envelope is still with you. For you to give back, for you to complete that circle of giving, that opportunity is arising in every moment. People come in off the streets, I have serious converstations with them, about things they can do to make the world a better place, to make their lives healthier,and that that to me is great. The homeless guy who left without giving, came back a few weeks later. I saw him outside, he is old enough to be my father. He is at a table. I walk up to him, and I hold his hand, and I try to explain simply what the Seva Café. I say to him “We live in a place where there is so much pain and suffering, and all we are trying to do is put some love in the world.” The man starts crying. He says you dont have to tell me about pain and suffering, I see it everyday on the streets. I think to myself, what can I do for this person. Let me get him some food. Before I got up to leave, I explained to him…the food you are receiving is a genuine gift from someone you have never met. And at the end of the meal you are going to have the opportunity to leave a gift fro someone else.
I wanted him to understand, that we are equals. He is not underneath me, He is not getting a handout, I'm not better than him. We are all in this together.Iif there is any say so, he has the same say so as I do. The waiter brings him sandwich, soupe, and water. He eats and leaves. I go up to clear the table, to clean up the plate, glasses, bowl. I look on the table, and the man has left 93 cents on the table. When I talked to him earlier he told me that is all the money that he had on him. Everything he had, he left on the table to pay for some one eles’s meal. He is a homeless guy who we judge all the time. Something happened to him in that moment, he is taking what he has, whatever he has, and he left it for another human being. So this is powerful stuff.
If you would like to help the Seva Cafe in finding a new venue or would like to volunteer or visit, contact www.bethecause.org
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 2:13 PM | Comments (3)
A picture of Seva Cafe @ Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach (pix courtesy of Be The Cause)
Last year, while I was at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in India on behalf of Project Ahimsa, I was introduced to an incredible concept of serving and giving that elevated the way I perceive food and my relationship to food.
The SEVA Cafe, operated by Manav Sadhna, a multi dimensional NGO in Ahmedabad, India, was created to provide guests and volunteers to encourage giving and serving through the process of making and serving food. The concept is simple but has profound implications for engendering compassion: volunteers make and serve meals to guests who choose to give whatever they wish in return. That giving can be financial or it can be in the form of volunteerism. There are no prices for any items, and the entire financial process and operation is completely transparent and run by the energy of giving. What started as a simple idea has turned into a full operation running 7 days a week and serving hundreds of guests weekly. For me, performing a musical concert with J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science at the Seva Cafe, was a powerful experience...the creative energy of a place full of people who are giving without any expectation or judgement, without any alignment to politics, finances, or religion, was super empowering. The idea is actually not revolutionary...it is simply another interpretation of the pure love of giving food that a mother might give to her beloved child, or the meal a family may unconditionally share with each other at home...but to see this energy in a restaurant setting, a setting we normally associate with paying for food and service with money, that is revolutionary. On an even deeper, internal level, the idea of service itself unravels for anyone who participates in the circle of giving at Seva Cafe. Over time, we begin to experience an important universal truth: we are not serving one another; rather we are being given an opportunity to understand love by each person that we do serve. From this realization comes gratitude. Gratitude towards anyone we give our energy to, and gratitude for being given an opportunity to be a better human being. From this comes the epiphany that Seva Cafe is not about serving food and nourishing just the stomach. It is about nourishing something far deeper and far more important, the soul and the soul's capacity to love unconditionally.
People of all socio-economic levels come to Seva Cafe Ahmedabad to be nourished by the environment of love and giving that emanates from the cafe. Last year, a Seva Cafe was born at the Royal Cup Coffee House in LA, initiated by volunteers from Be The Cause. Here is their story...
I met with Sukh Chugh in downtown LA last week to talk about Seva Cafe LA. Sukh is a spiritual brother of mine, I am convinced we are karmically connected through our passions for service, creativity, and our shared love for being human beings on this planet. A volunteer with Be The Cause, Sukh shared his experiences of serving at the Cafe, which is located at the Royal Cup Coffee House in Long Beach. Seva Cafe is currently seeking to expand its reach and is looking for new venues that would be interested in helping to elevate the Seva Cafe concept. If you are interested, please visit www.bethecause.org.
Tell me about the Seva Caf.
The word Seva is a Sanskrit word that means selfless service. People automatically attach the Seva Caf concept to a South Asian theme. But the Seva Caf is really a place of genuine giving. That to me crosses all kinds of boundaries, all kinds of religion, and places of living. For me the Seva Caf, even though the word has its roots in the Indian language, is definitely not an Indian concept. This genuine place of giving exists within each and every human being that is alive. There is no one country that can claim ownership to what that space is.
The Seva Caf is a restaurant that is very different from any dining experience you have ever had. The reason why is because when you walk inside a restaurant there is no price on any of the menus. The reason why is because the food that you eat is actually paid for by a previous guest before you arrive. This previous guest is someone whom you have never met or meet in your entire life. This allows the volunteers to focus on one thing: Can we create this meal with as much love as possible. At the end of the meal, instead of getting a bill saying this is how much money you owe, you receive an empty envelope and inside that envelope you leave whatever you wish as a genuine gift for a future guest, someone you will never meet in your entire life. The really powerful thing about the Seva Caf is that every single person in the room is in a place of giving. The guests have an opportunity to be in that place of giving because of the envelopes they receive. Each and every volunteer is also in that place, because they are cooking food, washing the dishes, wiping the tables down. All through the sense of serving others and giving to others.
It can be an explosive environment. You step into a room where you have 50 people and each person in that room is going through the process of giving to another person.
Where is the Seva Caf, where are you located?
The Seva Caf is currently operating in Southern California at the World Cup Coffee house in Long Beach. Be the Cause rents out the coffee shop every Saturday night, and we transform it into the Seva Caf every Saturday from 5 to 10pm
We have never promoted, we have no advertisement, and everything is created by word of mouth. Some Saturdays we feed 130 people, and some Saturdays none at all.
Each volunteer has to be in a place of no expectations. This is when you are a volunteer, so we go as deep as we can into a service mentality. Part of what keeps you from being able to serve another human being with genuine compassion are your own expectations. So if you walk into the Caf as a volunteer expecting to see 130 people and only 50 people show up, That is going to stop you from actually reaching out and being loving to another human being because in your mind you are thinking how many people are here, why is this not a successful night? What defines a successful night isnt how many people came or how much money got left, but how much you serve with a genuine heart. How much change did you go through in your own self in those 5 hours that you were there?
How have these experiences changed you? What has happened to you going through this process of service?
It is a powerful thing, I am 32 years old. Been through numerous corporate environments, been to school, watched a lot of TV, watched a lot of movies, hung out with friends. Unfortunately, learning how to serve with love isnt something that I have known. It is not something that is taught to us from our school and from our jobs. All of the sudden, you venture out into the Seva Caf, and the whole tag line is Serve is Love. So you assume that you know how to do that. I know Love, I have seen it in movies, and everywhere, people talk of itbut at the end of the day, do I really know what Love means? Do I know how to serve with Love? Now, Im face to face with this volunteer opportunity. I show up as a server, I take peoples food order, I turn that food over, I bring that food to the guest, and at the end of the meal, I am responsible for bringing the empty envelope, I take this envelope and I present it to my guests, these are the people I am trying to serve with Love.
As I walk up to the table, I put the envelope on the table, and as soon as the envelope hits the table, a thought goes through my mind; this curiosity: how much are they going to give. That is what I begin to wonder to myself. So all day long, I have been telling myself that I am going to serve with love, but in that moment what I am hit with, is my greed. I begin to judge these people: Are these people rich people, are they going to leave a lot of money? Did these people understand what I was talking about? In that space, there is no room to be lovingif I am busy judging these people, I cant be loving these people at the same time. Greed and love cannot coexist together in the same place at the same time. That is what is powerful about the Seva Caf: You think you are there to serve the guests, but the guests are actually serving you. They are giving you that opportunity to see yourself for what you are. Want to serve with love? Your greed becomes visible in that moment. And that is one experience of just bringing an envelope.
Stuff happens when you are wshing dishes. Stuff happens when there isnt a busy nightyour mind starts unraveling all these expectations, and you get to see yourself for what you are. Life is a beautiful thing, you and I exist as a process of nature. But on top of a very pure way of looking at the life. We are layered with greed, we have ego, we have hatred, we have anger, and services is a tool and a path to happiness. When I am greedy, and overcome with hatred, I notice that I am creating harm with myself. I am moving away from happiness, and so I go to the Seva Caf, and I am genuinely serving another human being. I cant do it with anger, I cant do it with hatred, and anger if I am going to serve. Just walking around with a sandwich is such a powerful experience, because I am bringing this sandwich to a guest, and what I am doing, is I am putting myself in a place of love. That is working through my ego, my hatred, my anger, and allowing me to experience what many of us are lacking in this world: true happiness and true peace.
Any restaurant you go to you sit down to get a meal, the establishment is thinking: How much money are we going to make with this person? That is our relationship with food. This place, the Seva Caf, allows us to let go of all of that, the greed, and get to a place of genuine love and service. Being in that space can be very transformational.
People cry, the guests cry, I have served a sandwich to a guest, explained to her what is going on, and she has broken down and started crying. All I have done is brought her a sandwich.
Why is Seva Cafe important for LA? For the USA?
There are a lot of ways to look at the western world. There is a doctor in India who performs eye surgery and he says that people are struggling with a poverty of wealth. People here in America are dealing with a poverty of service. It is important everywhere.
Be the Cause has been to India to the original Seva Cafe, and has seen first hadn the impact it has had on a lot of people therepeople volunteer there, eat there, and it is really impacting a lot of people.
We walked into that environment, and thought that this is greatit is great for India, but it is needed everywhere. People are searching for these kinds of things, and so we thought why not bring to where we live, right here in Long Beach? People ask us, where did the original idea come fromyes, there is a Seva caf in Ahmedabad, Indiathat is where we saw it, that is where we got the idea, and we brought it herebut when we ask the people at the Seva Caf in India, where the concept came from, what they say is that the first Seva Caf existed when someone invited someone into their home and said: Let me feed you, let me serve you with Love. That is the original thing that we are trying to get back to.
The fact that for me personally, we see so many people come into the Seva Caf, and I see it be so successful, so packedit is a double edged sword. Part of this is great, people are getting this kinds of inspiration in their lives, which is a great thing, but the other side of that is that this is really missing from their lives, that is why they need to be herewhy are we not giving and receiving love like that with our neighbors? Why are we not like that with our families? Why is that genuine place of service not with us all the time? Why do we need a place like the Seva caf, which runs 5 10 on Saturdays, where we go to find love?
To me it is great that people are getting this kind of inspiration but on some level it is somewhat disturbingideally, the Seva caf shouldnt need to be in existence, because hopefully people are getting that nourishment spiritually through free giving, or not in this environmentthat is exactly what we are trying to teach people, that is what we tell the guests, the volunteers: How do you change the world? How is the Seva Caf really helping the world? It is not a soup kitchen. It is through each and every person that walks through the door. We want to plant that seed of service, that seed of giving in them, let them know that this gift has been offered to them and as they walk outside the Seva Caf doors there is an opportunity waiting for them. Then the Seva Caf doesnt need to exist in those four walls, it needs to exist in the hearts of each and every single volunteer and guest that arrives. That is what it is really it is designed to do. To invert the Seva Caf into itself, take these 4 walls and have it implode where it is everywhere outside, not just inside.
Tell me more about Seva Caf in India. What is the original concept? How did you get the idea to translate it, how long did it take to recreate here?
The Seva Caf in India has been around for a year and three months and we have been around for the last 6 months, with an organization called Be The Cause. Every year, we go to a different country to serve hands on. We have been to south Africa, we have been to Kenya, This year we were in Peru and Equador. Last year, we went to India, and we had heard about the Seva Caf before we left, and already in our mind, we were germinating this idea that this is such an amazing concept and that it can be applied anywhere and everywhere. So when we went to India, we checked it out. And what we see is that it is needed everywhere. It is there for the guests, to challenge their notions of what it is to give and receive and to change our relationship with the food that we eat. But it is there to cultivate that space of service within the volunteers.
The Seva Caf in Ahmedabad operates 7 days a week, and it is intense. They have a sign, that is very true to the Indian culture, the sign and saying is Guest is God and they have that plastered on the wall there, and this is the mantra running through the volunteers at the Seva Caf. As the guests come in through the door, they are to be treated as divinity. And by treating them as they are divinity, as they are God, serving them as God, you are really transforming yourself. The people who are walking through the door, are giving you an opportunity to become pure in that moment.
We here at the Long Beach Seva Caf, we dont have that sign, we are trying to stay away from religious connotations because America is a different world than India, that is fore sure. But one of the things that is apparent, is that there is gratitude for the guests walking in. All the volunteers who are there for a few days get this. We are not serving the guests, they are serving us. They are giving us that opportunity. So there is gratitude. Every time the door opens and someone walks in, there is gratitude. I am not giving them anything, they are giving me the opportunity to become a better human being in this moment.
What do you serve at the Caf? Who decides what kind of food to serve?
We try to keep it to a healthy diet, and we serve a vegetarian meal. We have sandwiches, soups, desserts, coffee drinks. It is the same recipe every time. The volunteers and the core team of 7 or 8 people talk as a group and decide what we want on the menu. The Seva Caf is not just about food, and just nourishing a persons stomach. We are trying to nourish something far more important than just a stomach. We dont want people to be there only for the foodeven though it is amazing, all gourmet, high quality ingredients.the food brings people back, but the love is what keeps them there.
It is not about finances, right? So it is sustained by the donations? What have you found in relying on the goodness of others in terms of the survival of this?
We are only relying on the goodness of others. We have been around for 6.5 months, and in the beginning a few of our friends got together, we said whatever it takes, we are doing this for 3 months, if we have to put out of our pockets, we will. Despite that, 1 week before we started, a random person comes by my place and leaves $1000 anonymously, with a note: This is for the experiment To this day, we dont know who that person is, and we havent dipped into our pockets, and we havent touched the $1000 dollars. We have paid for electricity, rent, food expenses, everything and all costs, have been self-sustaining through donations by guests. We have even made a $3,000 donation to a charity in India.
I have to be honest: in the beginning, we were doubtful, and many told us we were out of our minds. Maybe in India it could work, but not here Now, it is not even theoretical anymore. People ask us, your theory on serving with love is great, your theory on believing there is good in everyone is greatbut are these theories practical? I see it every Saturday.
We rent the Royal Cup Coffee House for the day. The owner is very generous, we pay $290 for the place, and we pay for all the food. Within that $290 includes a buffer for his benefit. It is not a losing venture from his angle. It is good for everyone.
We are in the process of changing venues and are looking for a new venue to expand into. We definitely want to make the spot sustainable. Someone giving us a home for a week or two isnt sustainable. We are willing to pay for the rental of the facility, of course. We are looking for a place that has a relaxed atmosphere, wher we can conduct and refine this experiment, and to bring in the types of food that we want to serve, which is gourmet vegetaria. Currently we operate only on Saturday, but we would like to find a place where they are willing to do Friday, Saturday, and even Sunday brunch. Because it is needed, people are missing it in their lives.
You have mentioned a few profound stories that came out of Seva Cafe. You mentioned that it is not a soup kitchen. Have you had many homeless people come? Or have you seen the other side of the spectrum in terms of wealthy people come?
Our mentality is that we are not there to judge people. That keeps us from being in a place where we need to be. So we dont look at a who is wealthy or poor. When an envelope is left for a guest, we have no way of tracing who left it. I have opened envelopes, for someone who had a soup and salad, and who left a couple of hundred dollars. You do have that happening. There is one incident where a homeless guy came in and ate for a week, and didnt wait for an envelope, he took off and left.
This is not a free meal, this is not a soup kitchen, you are part of a circle of giving that exists.
So if a guest leaves without an offering, does that violate the idea of Seva Cafe?
It is totally fine. There is no violation. We are asking for an individual to think about what is going on. And by walking away and reflecting on your actions is payment more than what could be left in an envelope. It is not free in an experiential sense. There is some transaction of energy, and that is what we focus on. This envelope is there as an opportunity to give, and if you dont leave anything in there, we are still here to serve. This envelope has to serve as a reminder of the gifts we are always receiving. As you walk outside Seva Caf, the envelope is still with you. For you to give back, for you to complete that circle of giving, that opportunity is arising in every moment. People come in off the streets, I have serious converstations with them, about things they can do to make the world a better place, to make their lives healthier,and that that to me is great. The homeless guy who left without giving, came back a few weeks later. I saw him outside, he is old enough to be my father. He is at a table. I walk up to him, and I hold his hand, and I try to explain simply what the Seva Caf. I say to him We live in a place where there is so much pain and suffering, and all we are trying to do is put some love in the world. The man starts crying. He says you dont have to tell me about pain and suffering, I see it everyday on the streets. I think to myself, what can I do for this person. Let me get him some food. Before I got up to leave, I explained to himthe food you are receiving is a genuine gift from someone you have never met. And at the end of the meal you are going to have the opportunity to leave a gift fro someone else.
I wanted him to understand, that we are equals. He is not underneath me, He is not getting a handout, I'm not better than him. We are all in this together.Iif there is any say so, he has the same say so as I do. The waiter brings him sandwich, soupe, and water. He eats and leaves. I go up to clear the table, to clean up the plate, glasses, bowl. I look on the table, and the man has left 93 cents on the table. When I talked to him earlier he told me that is all the money that he had on him. Everything he had, he left on the table to pay for some one eless meal. He is a homeless guy who we judge all the time. Something happened to him in that moment, he is taking what he has, whatever he has, and he left it for another human being. So this is powerful stuff.
If you would like to help the Seva Cafe in finding a new venue or would like to volunteer or visit, contact www.bethecause.org
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 2:13 PM | Comments (3)
It’s been five days since AsianWeek published Kenneth Eng’s racist screed. (Read about it at our original post here.) And, well, it’s kind of hard to top that news. The controversy has made it into national media. Here’s a story in CBS from the Associated Press. If you believe in the adage that any publicity is good publicity, then a little-known local rag called AsianWeek is doing quite well for itself.
In other ethnic media news, Hilary Clinton’s campaign snubbed reporters from ethnic media. Reporters from Chinese-language papers, a Chinese-language TV station, and a Russian-languge newspaper were denied admission to a San Francisco fundraiser.
Reporter Portia Li of the World Journal - a Chinese-language paper run independently from offices in San Francisco and other North American cities - said she arrived about five minutes late. When Li showed her business card, the staffer asked for two forms of identification, which Li said she found insulting because she never had to do so at similar events."She kept saying this is only open for local media, not foreign press," Li said. "I told her, I'm not foreign press. I'm local media."
"It's not about myself, it's about how the mainstream looks at Chinese (people) as a whole. Why do they call us foreigners, even they we have a local address on our business card?" she added.
I couldn’t agree with Li more.
Oh, but enough about that. Judging from the volume of comments being left on our site, I know you really want to talk about the AsianWeek thing. SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll weighs in today. He wonders what the hell AsianWeek was thinking in printing Eng’s column. Don’t we all? AsianWeek's Ted Fang says Eng’s column doesn’t reflect the views of the paper.
OK, I wouldn’t say that all stories that appear in Hyphen represent the views of all Hyphen staffers either, but the thing is: there are lots of racist idiots spewing hateful, badly-written drivel. But you don’t hand them a column -- especially when you claim to be “the voice of Asian America,” which is AsianWeek’s tagline.
Surely when young Mr. Eng wrote in to AsianWeek to say he was the author of a book and wanted to write a column for them they asked him for some work samples? Or maybe not. It doesn’t seem like they googled him, or else they would have found this.
Carroll refutes Eng’s assertion that blacks hate Asians by bringing up Tiger Woods. Apparently one famous, multiracial child of an African American man and Asian American woman means that race relations between Asian Americans and blacks are A-OK!
For more takes on the story, you can read former Hyphen staffer Claire Light’s opinion at other magazine’s blog.
Or read Philip Arhur Moore’s dissection of Eng’s column.
And best of all, check out these fine songs dedicated to Eng, who it seems was annoying his classmates at NYU long before he subjected his views on the rest of us.
UPDATE: A press release/ statement of apology issued at about 3 pm today says that Eng has been terminated as a writer for AsianWeek.
Posted by Melissa at 1:41 PM | Comments (14)
It’s been five days since AsianWeek published Kenneth Eng’s racist screed. (Read about it at our original post here.) And, well, it’s kind of hard to top that news. The controversy has made it into national media. Here’s a story in CBS from the Associated Press. If you believe in the adage that any publicity is good publicity, then a little-known local rag called AsianWeek is doing quite well for itself.
In other ethnic media news, Hilary Clinton’s campaign snubbed reporters from ethnic media. Reporters from Chinese-language papers, a Chinese-language TV station, and a Russian-languge newspaper were denied admission to a San Francisco fundraiser.
Reporter Portia Li of the World Journal - a Chinese-language paper run independently from offices in San Francisco and other North American cities - said she arrived about five minutes late. When Li showed her business card, the staffer asked for two forms of identification, which Li said she found insulting because she never had to do so at similar events."She kept saying this is only open for local media, not foreign press," Li said. "I told her, I'm not foreign press. I'm local media."
"It's not about myself, it's about how the mainstream looks at Chinese (people) as a whole. Why do they call us foreigners, even they we have a local address on our business card?" she added.
I couldn’t agree with Li more.
Oh, but enough about that. Judging from the volume of comments being left on our site, I know you really want to talk about the AsianWeek thing. SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll weighs in today. He wonders what the hell AsianWeek was thinking in printing Eng’s column. Don’t we all? AsianWeek's Ted Fang says Eng’s column doesn’t reflect the views of the paper.
OK, I wouldn’t say that all stories that appear in Hyphen represent the views of all Hyphen staffers either, but the thing is: there are lots of racist idiots spewing hateful, badly-written drivel. But you don’t hand them a column -- especially when you claim to be “the voice of Asian America,” which is AsianWeek’s tagline.
Surely when young Mr. Eng wrote in to AsianWeek to say he was the author of a book and wanted to write a column for them they asked him for some work samples? Or maybe not. It doesn’t seem like they googled him, or else they would have found this.
Carroll refutes Eng’s assertion that blacks hate Asians by bringing up Tiger Woods. Apparently one famous, multiracial child of an African American man and Asian American woman means that race relations between Asian Americans and blacks are A-OK!
For more takes on the story, you can read former Hyphen staffer Claire Light’s opinion at other magazine’s blog.
Or read Philip Arhur Moore’s dissection of Eng’s column.
And best of all, check out these fine songs dedicated to Eng, who it seems was annoying his classmates at NYU long before he subjected his views on the rest of us.
UPDATE: A press release/ statement of apology issued at about 3 pm today says that Eng has been terminated as a writer for AsianWeek.
Posted by Melissa at 1:41 PM | Comments (14)
Its been five days since AsianWeek published Kenneth Engs racist screed. (Read about it at our original post here.) And, well, its kind of hard to top that news. The controversy has made it into national media. Heres a story in CBS from the Associated Press. If you believe in the adage that any publicity is good publicity, then a little-known local rag called AsianWeek is doing quite well for itself.
In other ethnic media news, Hilary Clintons campaign snubbed reporters from ethnic media. Reporters from Chinese-language papers, a Chinese-language TV station, and a Russian-languge newspaper were denied admission to a San Francisco fundraiser.
Reporter Portia Li of the World Journal - a Chinese-language paper run independently from offices in San Francisco and other North American cities - said she arrived about five minutes late. When Li showed her business card, the staffer asked for two forms of identification, which Li said she found insulting because she never had to do so at similar events."She kept saying this is only open for local media, not foreign press," Li said. "I told her, I'm not foreign press. I'm local media."
"It's not about myself, it's about how the mainstream looks at Chinese (people) as a whole. Why do they call us foreigners, even they we have a local address on our business card?" she added.
I couldnt agree with Li more.
Oh, but enough about that. Judging from the volume of comments being left on our site, I know you really want to talk about the AsianWeek thing. SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll weighs in today. He wonders what the hell AsianWeek was thinking in printing Engs column. Dont we all? AsianWeek's Ted Fang says Engs column doesnt reflect the views of the paper.
OK, I wouldnt say that all stories that appear in Hyphen represent the views of all Hyphen staffers either, but the thing is: there are lots of racist idiots spewing hateful, badly-written drivel. But you dont hand them a column -- especially when you claim to be the voice of Asian America, which is AsianWeeks tagline.
Surely when young Mr. Eng wrote in to AsianWeek to say he was the author of a book and wanted to write a column for them they asked him for some work samples? Or maybe not. It doesnt seem like they googled him, or else they would have found this.
Carroll refutes Engs assertion that blacks hate Asians by bringing up Tiger Woods. Apparently one famous, multiracial child of an African American man and Asian American woman means that race relations between Asian Americans and blacks are A-OK!
For more takes on the story, you can read former Hyphen staffer Claire Lights opinion at other magazines blog.
Or read Philip Arhur Moores dissection of Engs column.
And best of all, check out these fine songs dedicated to Eng, who it seems was annoying his classmates at NYU long before he subjected his views on the rest of us.
UPDATE: A press release/ statement of apology issued at about 3 pm today says that Eng has been terminated as a writer for AsianWeek.
Posted by Melissa at 1:41 PM | Comments (13)
I just learned that Eddy Zheng, who has been imprisoned since 1986, was released Tuesday.
Here's are two recent entries from his very active blog about his release:
February 27, 2007:
Eddy found out from his Guardian Angel yesterday that he would be released today. After being picked up by his family, Eddy got a haircut and saw his nephew & a new addition to the family. His parents were adoringly intent on overfeeding him. Though his deportation obstacle is still present, beginning tonight, Eddy will reside in Oakland. As soon as he is set up on a computer, he looks forward keeping in touch with you personally from now on through this blog.
Stay tuned.
+ + +
Friends & supporters of Eddy Zheng:
This afternoon, Eddy Zheng was released from immigration detention! This does NOT mean that he will not be deported. It only means that he is no longer being held in immigration detention, while the government goes through the procedures of carrying out his deportation, which could take a while. He is continuing to challenge his deportation order in federal courts, which will probably take another year. If the government is able to carry out his deportation before the courts overturn the deportation order, he will be sent back to China.
This was a very unexpected and unusual development, and we only found out yesterday that they were planning to release him today.
This is the first time Eddy has been on the outside in 21 years -- since January 1986. He was reunited with his family at around 1pm in San Francisco today. He asked me to let you all know that he is extremely grateful for all of your support over the years. He said that he is very excited and that it feels very natural to be out.
This is an extraordinary victory, although it is not yet complete. We are all extremely excited about focusing on winning the final part -- the overturning of his deportation order.
Stay tuned for info on an event to welcome Eddy back.
It's nice to finally share some good news with you all...
+ + +
Eddy was convicted of kidnapping a San Francisco family in 1986, when he was 16-years-old and served a 7-to-life sentence. When he was finally paroled, he faced deportation because he was not a U.S. citizen. He's fought his deportation, has received lots of support from the API community, and received a fair amount of media attention over the years.
Eddy still faces deportation to China, but while he's been incarcerated, he's been a prolific writer and blogger and recently edited an anthology of API prisoners' writings and artwork, which will be published in the spring.
For more background information about Eddy and to read articles, visit his website.
Posted by momo at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
I just learned that Eddy Zheng, who has been imprisoned since 1986, was released Tuesday.
Here's are two recent entries from his very active blog about his release:
February 27, 2007:
Eddy found out from his Guardian Angel yesterday that he would be released today. After being picked up by his family, Eddy got a haircut and saw his nephew & a new addition to the family. His parents were adoringly intent on overfeeding him. Though his deportation obstacle is still present, beginning tonight, Eddy will reside in Oakland. As soon as he is set up on a computer, he looks forward keeping in touch with you personally from now on through this blog.
Stay tuned.
+ + +
Friends & supporters of Eddy Zheng:
This afternoon, Eddy Zheng was released from immigration detention! This does NOT mean that he will not be deported. It only means that he is no longer being held in immigration detention, while the government goes through the procedures of carrying out his deportation, which could take a while. He is continuing to challenge his deportation order in federal courts, which will probably take another year. If the government is able to carry out his deportation before the courts overturn the deportation order, he will be sent back to China.
This was a very unexpected and unusual development, and we only found out yesterday that they were planning to release him today.
This is the first time Eddy has been on the outside in 21 years -- since January 1986. He was reunited with his family at around 1pm in San Francisco today. He asked me to let you all know that he is extremely grateful for all of your support over the years. He said that he is very excited and that it feels very natural to be out.
This is an extraordinary victory, although it is not yet complete. We are all extremely excited about focusing on winning the final part -- the overturning of his deportation order.
Stay tuned for info on an event to welcome Eddy back.
It's nice to finally share some good news with you all...
+ + +
Eddy was convicted of kidnapping a San Francisco family in 1986, when he was 16-years-old and served a 7-to-life sentence. When he was finally paroled, he faced deportation because he was not a U.S. citizen. He's fought his deportation, has received lots of support from the API community, and received a fair amount of media attention over the years.
Eddy still faces deportation to China, but while he's been incarcerated, he's been a prolific writer and blogger and recently edited an anthology of API prisoners' writings and artwork, which will be published in the spring.
For more background information about Eddy and to read articles, visit his website.
Posted by momo at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
I just learned that Eddy Zheng, who has been imprisoned since 1986, was released Tuesday.
Here's are two recent entries from his very active blog about his release:
February 27, 2007:
Eddy found out from his Guardian Angel yesterday that he would be released today. After being picked up by his family, Eddy got a haircut and saw his nephew & a new addition to the family. His parents were adoringly intent on overfeeding him. Though his deportation obstacle is still present, beginning tonight, Eddy will reside in Oakland. As soon as he is set up on a computer, he looks forward keeping in touch with you personally from now on through this blog.
Stay tuned.
+ + +
Friends & supporters of Eddy Zheng:
This afternoon, Eddy Zheng was released from immigration detention! This does NOT mean that he will not be deported. It only means that he is no longer being held in immigration detention, while the government goes through the procedures of carrying out his deportation, which could take a while. He is continuing to challenge his deportation order in federal courts, which will probably take another year. If the government is able to carry out his deportation before the courts overturn the deportation order, he will be sent back to China.
This was a very unexpected and unusual development, and we only found out yesterday that they were planning to release him today.
This is the first time Eddy has been on the outside in 21 years -- since January 1986. He was reunited with his family at around 1pm in San Francisco today. He asked me to let you all know that he is extremely grateful for all of your support over the years. He said that he is very excited and that it feels very natural to be out.
This is an extraordinary victory, although it is not yet complete. We are all extremely excited about focusing on winning the final part -- the overturning of his deportation order.
Stay tuned for info on an event to welcome Eddy back.
It's nice to finally share some good news with you all...
+ + +
Eddy was convicted of kidnapping a San Francisco family in 1986, when he was 16-years-old and served a 7-to-life sentence. When he was finally paroled, he faced deportation because he was not a U.S. citizen. He's fought his deportation, has received lots of support from the API community, and received a fair amount of media attention over the years.
Eddy still faces deportation to China, but while he's been incarcerated, he's been a prolific writer and blogger and recently edited an anthology of API prisoners' writings and artwork, which will be published in the spring.
For more background information about Eddy and to read articles, visit his website.
Posted by momo at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
I'm speaking at a panel tonight at 826 Valencia. It's called How to Start Your Own Magazine. For those of you know don't know, 826 Valencia is a literary nonprofit that helps students develop writing skills. They have free drop-in tutoring, workshops, and storytelling for youth. They also have seminars for adults, like this one, which are not free, but the money raised from the adult events go to supporting the youth programs. It you've heard about them before, it's probably because they've got literati Dave Eggers on board teaching there.
I'll be joined by folks from other Bay Area mags, including Lisa Jervis, founder of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Sam Grawe from Dwell, Jen Loy, a co-publisher arts mag Kitchen Sink, and Neil Stevenson, who has edited at Mixmag and The Face.
Anyways, click here for the details. Personally, I don't know if I'd be good at telling you how to start a magazine. However, I can tell you all about how not to start one and tell you tales of woe about all the things we did that you should try to avoid.
Posted by Melissa at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
I'm speaking at a panel tonight at 826 Valencia. It's called How to Start Your Own Magazine. For those of you know don't know, 826 Valencia is a literary nonprofit that helps students develop writing skills. They have free drop-in tutoring, workshops, and storytelling for youth. They also have seminars for adults, like this one, which are not free, but the money raised from the adult events go to supporting the youth programs. It you've heard about them before, it's probably because they've got literati Dave Eggers on board teaching there.
I'll be joined by folks from other Bay Area mags, including Lisa Jervis, founder of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Sam Grawe from Dwell, Jen Loy, a co-publisher arts mag Kitchen Sink, and Neil Stevenson, who has edited at Mixmag and The Face.
Anyways, click here for the details. Personally, I don't know if I'd be good at telling you how to start a magazine. However, I can tell you all about how not to start one and tell you tales of woe about all the things we did that you should try to avoid.
Posted by Melissa at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
I'm speaking at a panel tonight at 826 Valencia. It's called How to Start Your Own Magazine. For those of you know don't know, 826 Valencia is a literary nonprofit that helps students develop writing skills. They have free drop-in tutoring, workshops, and storytelling for youth. They also have seminars for adults, like this one, which are not free, but the money raised from the adult events go to supporting the youth programs. It you've heard about them before, it's probably because they've got literati Dave Eggers on board teaching there.
I'll be joined by folks from other Bay Area mags, including Lisa Jervis, founder of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Sam Grawe from Dwell, Jen Loy, a co-publisher arts mag Kitchen Sink, and Neil Stevenson, who has edited at Mixmag and The Face.
Anyways, click here for the details. Personally, I don't know if I'd be good at telling you how to start a magazine. However, I can tell you all about how not to start one and tell you tales of woe about all the things we did that you should try to avoid.
Posted by Melissa at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
Long-running Asian American weekly AsianWeek is facing criticism for publishing a column by writer Kenneth Eng entitled “Why I Hate Blacks.”
I have to say, I’m not a regular reader of AsianWeek. Available as a free weekly throughout the Bay Area, AsianWeek doesn’t really seem to reach the Mission District. But I am very familiar with the newspaper: I worked there as a reporter, managing editor and editor-in-chief from 2000-2003. That said, I have no familiarity with Eng or his column, which has the strange title “God of the Universe.” He does seem to be the author of two books: Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate and Reincarnations. His Amazon.com bio lists him as the “youngest published science fiction novelist in America.”
Hmmmm. I don’t know about you, but this is certainly the resume of the guy I want to write columns about race relations!!
In an earlier column, entitled “Proof that Whites Inherently Hate Us,” Eng wrote: “Most Asians know that everywhere we go, white/black/Hispanic people hurl racist remarks at us. I have already received about 10 racist remarks in the past three months and I have only been out of my home a handful of times.” Oh AsianWeek! Did you give a column to one of those crazy recluses that never leave their house and talk to themselves on the bus??
Unfortunately, the column in question seems to have been pulled from the Internet, but you can view Eng’s other moving work by searching for his name here. Including, my favorite, “Why I Hate Asians,” which has the line: “I am also sickened when I hear Asian people imitate Negro slang in an endeavor to sound "ghetto."
Now, I can tell you, that working for AsianWeek, run by the Fang Dynasty, was a complicated job. Just like here at Hyphen, working on a pan-Asian American publication means trying to cover a lot of ground. For me that work is essentially about the intersections between communities and my favorite stories were those about multicultural alliances. Yet, I was told that the main aim of the paper was to represent the Chinese American community, the pan-Asian American-ness more of a marketing tool and less of a reality. Obviously, there seems to be very little excuse for running a column by a self-proclaimed “Asian Supremacist,” (AKA: a straight up racist) but to do it in a publication that already has such iffy ties with community. Bad idea.
Here’s the petition that’s been circulating about the column:
ASIAN AMERICAN LEADERS CRITICIZE ASIANWEEK FOR PRINTING 'WHY I HATE BLACKS' COLUMN
(Feb. 23, 2007) Asian American leaders joined together Friday to criticize AsianWeek for printing Kenneth Eng's column "Why I Hate Blacks" in its Feb. 23 edition. The leaders condemn the piece as irresponsible journalism, blatantly racist, replete with stereotypes, and deeply hurtful to African Americans. They called on AsianWeek to take immediate action and issue an unequivocal apology, terminate their relationship with Kenneth Eng, print an editorial refuting the column, review their editorial policy and process, and hold those responsible accountable.
“Eng's article is unacceptable and offensive not only to African Americans, but to all Americans,” said Karen K. Narasaki, President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center. “AsianWeek has a responsibility to its readers and to the community to take immediate and appropriate action to repair the serious damage it has caused by publishing this piece.”
“Most Asian Americans would not be here in America today, but for the civil rights movement led by African Americans that resulted in the change to racist immigration quotas," said Stewart Kwoh, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.
“It's irresponsible for a publication like AsianWeek to publish an article that advocates hate and bigotry," said Vincent Pan, Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.
“The publication of these racist statements is completely irresponsible and damaging to all our communities. Not only should there be a retraction but a serious effort to repair the harm caused,” said Gen Fujioka, Program Director of the Asian Law Caucus.
“Asian Americans should recognize the debt we all owe African Americans who blazed the civil rights path we have walked on in our journey to equality," said Dale Minami, President of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans.
"Eng's column harkens back to a era of Jim Crow and bigotry that should not be tolerated in our society," said Eric K. Yamamoto, Professor of Law.
"Eng's vile racism is a setback to the efforts of people of color working together against discrimination, oppression and injustice," said Keith Kamisugi, Associate Director for Communications at the Equal Justice Society. "His words alone are disgusting; that it was printed in a prominent English-language Asian Pacific American newspaper is shameful."
"Asian Americans do not share Eng's extremely racist views. Asian Americans need to take this opportunity to reach out and build a constructive dialog," said Yvonne Lee, Former Member of the U.S . Commission on Civil Rights.
"It is critical that our Asian American community stands up and tells America -- and particularly our African American brothers and sisters -- that our community has no tolerance for the racism expressed by Mr. Eng," said David Chiu, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.
The leaders call on all individuals to contact AsianWeek on this matter at (415) 397-0220 or asianweek@asianweek.com.
An online petition is available at: http://www.capaweb.org/awpetition
Posted by neela at 9:43 AM | Comments (103)
Long-running Asian American weekly AsianWeek is facing criticism for publishing a column by writer Kenneth Eng entitled “Why I Hate Blacks.”
I have to say, I’m not a regular reader of AsianWeek. Available as a free weekly throughout the Bay Area, AsianWeek doesn’t really seem to reach the Mission District. But I am very familiar with the newspaper: I worked there as a reporter, managing editor and editor-in-chief from 2000-2003. That said, I have no familiarity with Eng or his column, which has the strange title “God of the Universe.” He does seem to be the author of two books: Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate and Reincarnations. His Amazon.com bio lists him as the “youngest published science fiction novelist in America.”
Hmmmm. I don’t know about you, but this is certainly the resume of the guy I want to write columns about race relations!!
In an earlier column, entitled “Proof that Whites Inherently Hate Us,” Eng wrote: “Most Asians know that everywhere we go, white/black/Hispanic people hurl racist remarks at us. I have already received about 10 racist remarks in the past three months and I have only been out of my home a handful of times.” Oh AsianWeek! Did you give a column to one of those crazy recluses that never leave their house and talk to themselves on the bus??
Unfortunately, the column in question seems to have been pulled from the Internet, but you can view Eng’s other moving work by searching for his name here. Including, my favorite, “Why I Hate Asians,” which has the line: “I am also sickened when I hear Asian people imitate Negro slang in an endeavor to sound "ghetto."
Now, I can tell you, that working for AsianWeek, run by the Fang Dynasty, was a complicated job. Just like here at Hyphen, working on a pan-Asian American publication means trying to cover a lot of ground. For me that work is essentially about the intersections between communities and my favorite stories were those about multicultural alliances. Yet, I was told that the main aim of the paper was to represent the Chinese American community, the pan-Asian American-ness more of a marketing tool and less of a reality. Obviously, there seems to be very little excuse for running a column by a self-proclaimed “Asian Supremacist,” (AKA: a straight up racist) but to do it in a publication that already has such iffy ties with community. Bad idea.
Here’s the petition that’s been circulating about the column:
ASIAN AMERICAN LEADERS CRITICIZE ASIANWEEK FOR PRINTING 'WHY I HATE BLACKS' COLUMN
(Feb. 23, 2007) Asian American leaders joined together Friday to criticize AsianWeek for printing Kenneth Eng's column "Why I Hate Blacks" in its Feb. 23 edition. The leaders condemn the piece as irresponsible journalism, blatantly racist, replete with stereotypes, and deeply hurtful to African Americans. They called on AsianWeek to take immediate action and issue an unequivocal apology, terminate their relationship with Kenneth Eng, print an editorial refuting the column, review their editorial policy and process, and hold those responsible accountable.
“Eng's article is unacceptable and offensive not only to African Americans, but to all Americans,” said Karen K. Narasaki, President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center. “AsianWeek has a responsibility to its readers and to the community to take immediate and appropriate action to repair the serious damage it has caused by publishing this piece.”
“Most Asian Americans would not be here in America today, but for the civil rights movement led by African Americans that resulted in the change to racist immigration quotas," said Stewart Kwoh, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.
“It's irresponsible for a publication like AsianWeek to publish an article that advocates hate and bigotry," said Vincent Pan, Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.
“The publication of these racist statements is completely irresponsible and damaging to all our communities. Not only should there be a retraction but a serious effort to repair the harm caused,” said Gen Fujioka, Program Director of the Asian Law Caucus.
“Asian Americans should recognize the debt we all owe African Americans who blazed the civil rights path we have walked on in our journey to equality," said Dale Minami, President of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans.
"Eng's column harkens back to a era of Jim Crow and bigotry that should not be tolerated in our society," said Eric K. Yamamoto, Professor of Law.
"Eng's vile racism is a setback to the efforts of people of color working together against discrimination, oppression and injustice," said Keith Kamisugi, Associate Director for Communications at the Equal Justice Society. "His words alone are disgusting; that it was printed in a prominent English-language Asian Pacific American newspaper is shameful."
"Asian Americans do not share Eng's extremely racist views. Asian Americans need to take this opportunity to reach out and build a constructive dialog," said Yvonne Lee, Former Member of the U.S . Commission on Civil Rights.
"It is critical that our Asian American community stands up and tells America -- and particularly our African American brothers and sisters -- that our community has no tolerance for the racism expressed by Mr. Eng," said David Chiu, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.
The leaders call on all individuals to contact AsianWeek on this matter at (415) 397-0220 or asianweek@asianweek.com.
An online petition is available at: http://www.capaweb.org/awpetition
Posted by neela at 9:43 AM | Comments (103)
Long-running Asian American weekly AsianWeek is facing criticism for publishing a column by writer Kenneth Eng entitled Why I Hate Blacks.
I have to say, Im not a regular reader of AsianWeek. Available as a free weekly throughout the Bay Area, AsianWeek doesnt really seem to reach the Mission District. But I am very familiar with the newspaper: I worked there as a reporter, managing editor and editor-in-chief from 2000-2003. That said, I have no familiarity with Eng or his column, which has the strange title God of the Universe. He does seem to be the author of two books: Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate and Reincarnations. His Amazon.com bio lists him as the youngest published science fiction novelist in America.
Hmmmm. I dont know about you, but this is certainly the resume of the guy I want to write columns about race relations!!
In an earlier column, entitled Proof that Whites Inherently Hate Us, Eng wrote: Most Asians know that everywhere we go, white/black/Hispanic people hurl racist remarks at us. I have already received about 10 racist remarks in the past three months and I have only been out of my home a handful of times. Oh AsianWeek! Did you give a column to one of those crazy recluses that never leave their house and talk to themselves on the bus??
Unfortunately, the column in question seems to have been pulled from the Internet, but you can view Engs other moving work by searching for his name here. Including, my favorite, Why I Hate Asians, which has the line: I am also sickened when I hear Asian people imitate Negro slang in an endeavor to sound "ghetto."
Now, I can tell you, that working for AsianWeek, run by the Fang Dynasty, was a complicated job. Just like here at Hyphen, working on a pan-Asian American publication means trying to cover a lot of ground. For me that work is essentially about the intersections between communities and my favorite stories were those about multicultural alliances. Yet, I was told that the main aim of the paper was to represent the Chinese American community, the pan-Asian American-ness more of a marketing tool and less of a reality. Obviously, there seems to be very little excuse for running a column by a self-proclaimed Asian Supremacist, (AKA: a straight up racist) but to do it in a publication that already has such iffy ties with community. Bad idea.
Heres the petition thats been circulating about the column:
ASIAN AMERICAN LEADERS CRITICIZE ASIANWEEK FOR PRINTING 'WHY I HATE BLACKS' COLUMN
(Feb. 23, 2007) Asian American leaders joined together Friday to criticize AsianWeek for printing Kenneth Eng's column "Why I Hate Blacks" in its Feb. 23 edition. The leaders condemn the piece as irresponsible journalism, blatantly racist, replete with stereotypes, and deeply hurtful to African Americans. They called on AsianWeek to take immediate action and issue an unequivocal apology, terminate their relationship with Kenneth Eng, print an editorial refuting the column, review their editorial policy and process, and hold those responsible accountable.
Eng's article is unacceptable and offensive not only to African Americans, but to all Americans, said Karen K. Narasaki, President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center. AsianWeek has a responsibility to its readers and to the community to take immediate and appropriate action to repair the serious damage it has caused by publishing this piece.
Most Asian Americans would not be here in America today, but for the civil rights movement led by African Americans that resulted in the change to racist immigration quotas," said Stewart Kwoh, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California.
It's irresponsible for a publication like AsianWeek to publish an article that advocates hate and bigotry," said Vincent Pan, Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.
The publication of these racist statements is completely irresponsible and damaging to all our communities. Not only should there be a retraction but a serious effort to repair the harm caused, said Gen Fujioka, Program Director of the Asian Law Caucus.
Asian Americans should recognize the debt we all owe African Americans who blazed the civil rights path we have walked on in our journey to equality," said Dale Minami, President of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans.
"Eng's column harkens back to a era of Jim Crow and bigotry that should not be tolerated in our society," said Eric K. Yamamoto, Professor of Law.
"Eng's vile racism is a setback to the efforts of people of color working together against discrimination, oppression and injustice," said Keith Kamisugi, Associate Director for Communications at the Equal Justice Society. "His words alone are disgusting; that it was printed in a prominent English-language Asian Pacific American newspaper is shameful."
"Asian Americans do not share Eng's extremely racist views. Asian Americans need to take this opportunity to reach out and build a constructive dialog," said Yvonne Lee, Former Member of the U.S . Commission on Civil Rights.
"It is critical that our Asian American community stands up and tells America -- and particularly our African American brothers and sisters -- that our community has no tolerance for the racism expressed by Mr. Eng," said David Chiu, President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.
The leaders call on all individuals to contact AsianWeek on this matter at (415) 397-0220 or asianweek@asianweek.com.
An online petition is available at: http://www.capaweb.org/awpetition
Posted by neela at 9:43 AM | Comments (102)
Surprise! Surprise! The 15-days of the Lunar New Year celebration is tremendously profitable for Las Vegas.
Apparently, the Lunar New Year is the second biggest betting weekend of the year for some major casinos. That's right, ahead of Super Sunday and behind the conventional New Year. Walking into any casino, it seems pretty obvious that Asians love to gamble, but apparently it's one of the few "cross cultural phenomena" applicable to Asian American youth. So, it's not just your mah-jong playing parents! I find this rather worrisome, as I think many first-generation Asian American families know someone with a "gambling problem." However, not much research has been done on this burgeoning epidemic.
One thing is for certain, casinos everywhere are cashing in on this trend from Asian-themed high stakes rooms, to special shuttles going to and from ethnic Asian enclaves (as usual the corporate researchers are way ahead of the health departments). During my recent "research trip" to Vegas, I was bewildered by the number of Asian-themed night clubs (Tao), restaurants and even Cirque de Soleil shows (Ka). (And no, I didn't win. Sigh, I never freaking win.) My personal favorite advertisement was for the Tao Nighclub that told me to reach for some "dumplings." Something about the billboard's picture of a scantily-clad Asian woman's behind tells me that they weren't talking about my favorite Shanghai Xiao Long Bao.
Posted by jason at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
Surprise! Surprise! The 15-days of the Lunar New Year celebration is tremendously profitable for Las Vegas.
Apparently, the Lunar New Year is the second biggest betting weekend of the year for some major casinos. That's right, ahead of Super Sunday and behind the conventional New Year. Walking into any casino, it seems pretty obvious that Asians love to gamble, but apparently it's one of the few "cross cultural phenomena" applicable to Asian American youth. So, it's not just your mah-jong playing parents! I find this rather worrisome, as I think many first-generation Asian American families know someone with a "gambling problem." However, not much research has been done on this burgeoning epidemic.
One thing is for certain, casinos everywhere are cashing in on this trend from Asian-themed high stakes rooms, to special shuttles going to and from ethnic Asian enclaves (as usual the corporate researchers are way ahead of the health departments). During my recent "research trip" to Vegas, I was bewildered by the number of Asian-themed night clubs (Tao), restaurants and even Cirque de Soleil shows (Ka). (And no, I didn't win. Sigh, I never freaking win.) My personal favorite advertisement was for the Tao Nighclub that told me to reach for some "dumplings." Something about the billboard's picture of a scantily-clad Asian woman's behind tells me that they weren't talking about my favorite Shanghai Xiao Long Bao.
Posted by jason at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
Surprise! Surprise! The 15-days of the Lunar New Year celebration is tremendously profitable for Las Vegas.
Apparently, the Lunar New Year is the second biggest betting weekend of the year for some major casinos. That's right, ahead of Super Sunday and behind the conventional New Year. Walking into any casino, it seems pretty obvious that Asians love to gamble, but apparently it's one of the few "cross cultural phenomena" applicable to Asian American youth. So, it's not just your mah-jong playing parents! I find this rather worrisome, as I think many first-generation Asian American families know someone with a "gambling problem." However, not much research has been done on this burgeoning epidemic.
One thing is for certain, casinos everywhere are cashing in on this trend from Asian-themed high stakes rooms, to special shuttles going to and from ethnic Asian enclaves (as usual the corporate researchers are way ahead of the health departments). During my recent "research trip" to Vegas, I was bewildered by the number of Asian-themed night clubs (Tao), restaurants and even Cirque de Soleil shows (Ka). (And no, I didn't win. Sigh, I never freaking win.) My personal favorite advertisement was for the Tao Nighclub that told me to reach for some "dumplings." Something about the billboard's picture of a scantily-clad Asian woman's behind tells me that they weren't talking about my favorite Shanghai Xiao Long Bao.
Posted by jason at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)
After launching with much fanfare (including a story in Hyphen), MTV is closing down its channels that targeted Asian American audiences.
MTV's move follows programming cuts at AZN Television, which is mostly repeats and movies now. ImaginAsian is still hanging in there as well.
MTV should get credit for making the effort and trying the niche in creating MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans, MTV Desi (for South Asians) and MTV K (for Korean Americans) rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that many other media outlets have taken.
The reality is there is no definition of "Asian American" that rolls off a marketing executive's tongue easily. According to this study, Asian-American youth feel ignored, excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It's probably just not the youth that feel this way.
Many Asian American media outlets have tried and died, but we here at Hyphen are going strong and will make our best effort to be relevant to as many people as possible.
Posted by harry at 10:51 AM | Comments (5)
After launching with much fanfare (including a story in Hyphen), MTV is closing down its channels that targeted Asian American audiences.
MTV's move follows programming cuts at AZN Television, which is mostly repeats and movies now. ImaginAsian is still hanging in there as well.
MTV should get credit for making the effort and trying the niche in creating MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans, MTV Desi (for South Asians) and MTV K (for Korean Americans) rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that many other media outlets have taken.
The reality is there is no definition of "Asian American" that rolls off a marketing executive's tongue easily. According to this study, Asian-American youth feel ignored, excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It's probably just not the youth that feel this way.
Many Asian American media outlets have tried and died, but we here at Hyphen are going strong and will make our best effort to be relevant to as many people as possible.
Posted by harry at 10:51 AM | Comments (5)
After launching with much fanfare (including a story in Hyphen), MTV is closing down its channels that targeted Asian American audiences.
MTV's move follows programming cuts at AZN Television, which is mostly repeats and movies now. ImaginAsian is still hanging in there as well.
MTV should get credit for making the effort and trying the niche in creating MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans, MTV Desi (for South Asians) and MTV K (for Korean Americans) rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that many other media outlets have taken.
The reality is there is no definition of "Asian American" that rolls off a marketing executive's tongue easily. According to this study, Asian-American youth feel ignored, excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It's probably just not the youth that feel this way.
Many Asian American media outlets have tried and died, but we here at Hyphen are going strong and will make our best effort to be relevant to as many people as possible.
Posted by harry at 10:51 AM | Comments (5)
So, this guy Hari Kondabolu made my co-worker laugh real hard on Jimmy Kimmel the other night,
which he qualified by saying: "It's usually really hard to get me to laugh at those late night shows, since the comedians aren't aloud to cuss or anything."
Hari's bio says that he recently moved from New York City to Seattle, which isn't exactly what I thought the track was to fame but apparently it's working. Here's a funny blog post he wrote about being a South Asian stand-up comic and how annoying it can be when being introduced.
P.S. Not to go out on a limb here, but does anyone else find comedians incredibly attractive? Funny = sexy. Right?
Posted by neela at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
So, this guy Hari Kondabolu made my co-worker laugh real hard on Jimmy Kimmel the other night,
which he qualified by saying: "It's usually really hard to get me to laugh at those late night shows, since the comedians aren't aloud to cuss or anything."
Hari's bio says that he recently moved from New York City to Seattle, which isn't exactly what I thought the track was to fame but apparently it's working. Here's a funny blog post he wrote about being a South Asian stand-up comic and how annoying it can be when being introduced.
P.S. Not to go out on a limb here, but does anyone else find comedians incredibly attractive? Funny = sexy. Right?
Posted by neela at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
So, this guy Hari Kondabolu made my co-worker laugh real hard on Jimmy Kimmel the other night,
which he qualified by saying: "It's usually really hard to get me to laugh at those late night shows, since the comedians aren't aloud to cuss or anything."
Hari's bio says that he recently moved from New York City to Seattle, which isn't exactly what I thought the track was to fame but apparently it's working. Here's a funny blog post he wrote about being a South Asian stand-up comic and how annoying it can be when being introduced.
P.S. Not to go out on a limb here, but does anyone else find comedians incredibly attractive? Funny = sexy. Right?
Posted by neela at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
Watch this piece by poet/comedian/actor Beau Sia from MTV Chi.
Posted by momo at 10:40 AM | Comments (3)
Watch this piece by poet/comedian/actor Beau Sia from MTV Chi.
Posted by momo at 10:40 AM | Comments (3)
Watch this piece by poet/comedian/actor Beau Sia from MTV Chi.
Posted by momo at 10:40 AM | Comments (3)
Last chance to see TeleMongol: The Story of A-HOLE TV sketch comedy show this weekend in San Jose.
It's put together by The Asian American Theater Company and Contemporary Asian Theater Scene. TeleMongol tells the story of A-HOLE TV (Asia Home of Language Entertainment), a fictional cable network with a mission to create programming by and for the Asian Pacific American community. Performed by OPM Comedy, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and Cold Tofu in association with Lodestone Theatre. I've heard it's pretty damn funny.
And because we love you so here at Hyphen, get a discount when you enter "hyphen" when buying the tickets online.
If you're looking for something to do tonight, check out this event at Third Thursdays about dating, then head on over to the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival launch party
And there's this from a few days ago: Jeff Yang's most recent Asiapop column takes a look at a topic that Hyphen covered a few issues back:Asian American Chick Lit.
Posted by Melissa at 1:46 PM | Comments (0)
Last chance to see TeleMongol: The Story of A-HOLE TV sketch comedy show this weekend in San Jose.
It's put together by The Asian American Theater Company and Contemporary Asian Theater Scene. TeleMongol tells the story of A-HOLE TV (Asia Home of Language Entertainment), a fictional cable network with a mission to create programming by and for the Asian Pacific American community. Performed by OPM Comedy, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and Cold Tofu in association with Lodestone Theatre. I've heard it's pretty damn funny.
And because we love you so here at Hyphen, get a discount when you enter "hyphen" when buying the tickets online.
If you're looking for something to do tonight, check out this event at Third Thursdays about dating, then head on over to the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival launch party
And there's this from a few days ago: Jeff Yang's most recent Asiapop column takes a look at a topic that Hyphen covered a few issues back:Asian American Chick Lit.
Posted by Melissa at 1:46 PM | Comments (0)
Last chance to see TeleMongol: The Story of A-HOLE TV sketch comedy show this weekend in San Jose.
It's put together by The Asian American Theater Company and Contemporary Asian Theater Scene. TeleMongol tells the story of A-HOLE TV (Asia Home of Language Entertainment), a fictional cable network with a mission to create programming by and for the Asian Pacific American community. Performed by OPM Comedy, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and Cold Tofu in association with Lodestone Theatre. I've heard it's pretty damn funny.
And because we love you so here at Hyphen, get a discount when you enter "hyphen" when buying the tickets online.
If you're looking for something to do tonight, check out this event at Third Thursdays about dating, then head on over to the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival launch party
And there's this from a few days ago: Jeff Yang's most recent Asiapop column takes a look at a topic that Hyphen covered a few issues back:Asian American Chick Lit.
Posted by Melissa at 1:46 PM | Comments (0)
NYU students protested a Valentine's Day performance by the band Ching Chong Song, whose two members are white. The band has changed their name as a result, although this has yet to be reflected on their website.
Which ching chong song could they have been referring to? The Wikipedia entry on 'ching chong' includes some possibilities.
In response to the cancellation of a show at Bryn Mawr, band member Julia LaMendola wrote an open letter to the school newspaper.
In it, she claims that those who complained about her band's name took an unsophisticated approach: "Let's not use misunderstanding as armor against the complicated nature of life. Don't polarize shit when there are so many shades of sexuality and ethnicity to appreciate." Apparently she is able to take this stance because was the "child of a gay parent in a tiny town, a poor second-generation Italian girl, I also have experience with the nuances of language. And give me a break you stupid twats." She continues, "By the way, 'ching chang chong' is what people in Germany call the game paper rock scissors, and stupid petty retards is what I'm calling you."
Well, I call her the paragon of sensibility.
Posted by rebecca at 11:41 AM | Comments (4)
NYU students protested a Valentine's Day performance by the band Ching Chong Song, whose two members are white. The band has changed their name as a result, although this has yet to be reflected on their website.
Which ching chong song could they have been referring to? The Wikipedia entry on 'ching chong' includes some possibilities.
In response to the cancellation of a show at Bryn Mawr, band member Julia LaMendola wrote an open letter to the school newspaper.
In it, she claims that those who complained about her band's name took an unsophisticated approach: "Let's not use misunderstanding as armor against the complicated nature of life. Don't polarize shit when there are so many shades of sexuality and ethnicity to appreciate." Apparently she is able to take this stance because was the "child of a gay parent in a tiny town, a poor second-generation Italian girl, I also have experience with the nuances of language. And give me a break you stupid twats." She continues, "By the way, 'ching chang chong' is what people in Germany call the game paper rock scissors, and stupid petty retards is what I'm calling you."
Well, I call her the paragon of sensibility.
Posted by rebecca at 11:41 AM | Comments (4)
NYU students protested a Valentine's Day performance by the band Ching Chong Song, whose two members are white. The band has changed their name as a result, although this has yet to be reflected on their website.
Which ching chong song could they have been referring to? The Wikipedia entry on 'ching chong' includes some possibilities.
In response to the cancellation of a show at Bryn Mawr, band member Julia LaMendola wrote an open letter to the school newspaper.
In it, she claims that those who complained about her band's name took an unsophisticated approach: "Let's not use misunderstanding as armor against the complicated nature of life. Don't polarize shit when there are so many shades of sexuality and ethnicity to appreciate." Apparently she is able to take this stance because was the "child of a gay parent in a tiny town, a poor second-generation Italian girl, I also have experience with the nuances of language. And give me a break you stupid twats." She continues, "By the way, 'ching chang chong' is what people in Germany call the game paper rock scissors, and stupid petty retards is what I'm calling you."
Well, I call her the paragon of sensibility.
Posted by rebecca at 11:41 AM | Comments (4)
Third Thursdays presents: i only date chinese*...exploring inter-ethnic asian relationships.
*DISCLAIMER: Insert your ethnic group of choice. Third Thursdays does not recommend any particular dating preference or strategy. We do recommend coming to our lively discussion on February 15th.
If you say you only date Chinese, you might be going for the largest pool, trying to appease your parents, or just a bit narrow-minded.
This month, Third Thursdays looks at what’s often considered the next most acceptable option - inter-ethnic Asian relationships. We’ll talk about why, what, and leave out most of the how. Join us for some perspective.
Thursday, February 15, 2007, 7:00-9:15pm. Japanese Cultural & Community Center, 1840 Sutter Street, San Francisco. $5-20. RSVP here.
Make it a night - head over afterwards with your honey-bunny or your beautiful solo selves to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Launch Party at 111 Minna, 8 p.m. to midnight!
Posted by momo at 1:28 PM | Comments (1)
Third Thursdays presents: i only date chinese*...exploring inter-ethnic asian relationships.
*DISCLAIMER: Insert your ethnic group of choice. Third Thursdays does not recommend any particular dating preference or strategy. We do recommend coming to our lively discussion on February 15th.
If you say you only date Chinese, you might be going for the largest pool, trying to appease your parents, or just a bit narrow-minded.
This month, Third Thursdays looks at what’s often considered the next most acceptable option - inter-ethnic Asian relationships. We’ll talk about why, what, and leave out most of the how. Join us for some perspective.
Thursday, February 15, 2007, 7:00-9:15pm. Japanese Cultural & Community Center, 1840 Sutter Street, San Francisco. $5-20. RSVP here.
Make it a night - head over afterwards with your honey-bunny or your beautiful solo selves to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Launch Party at 111 Minna, 8 p.m. to midnight!
Posted by momo at 1:28 PM | Comments (1)
Third Thursdays presents: i only date chinese*...exploring inter-ethnic asian relationships.
*DISCLAIMER: Insert your ethnic group of choice. Third Thursdays does not recommend any particular dating preference or strategy. We do recommend coming to our lively discussion on February 15th.
If you say you only date Chinese, you might be going for the largest pool, trying to appease your parents, or just a bit narrow-minded.
This month, Third Thursdays looks at whats often considered the next most acceptable option - inter-ethnic Asian relationships. Well talk about why, what, and leave out most of the how. Join us for some perspective.
Thursday, February 15, 2007, 7:00-9:15pm. Japanese Cultural & Community Center, 1840 Sutter Street, San Francisco. $5-20. RSVP here.
Make it a night - head over afterwards with your honey-bunny or your beautiful solo selves to the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Launch Party at 111 Minna, 8 p.m. to midnight!
Posted by momo at 1:28 PM | Comments (1)
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
It's happening March 15-25 in several Bay Area movie theaters. For a full schedule of events, information, news and the film festival's blog, go here. Also, the film schedule will be launching on the website today, so check back later if you don't see it now!
You can also pick up your festival guide at the launch party this Thursday, February 15th at 111 Minna. It's free for members and only $5 for nonmembers. Featuring DJ Pickpocket, DJ VNA and DJ B.Quan.
We here at Hyphen are excited about the festival, as always. It looks to be another great film fest year.
Some quick highlights:
- 120 plus films from more than 20 countries
- Some changes in location - the festival will return to the Sundance (formerly AMC) Kabuki in Japantown next year. New venues include the AMC Van Ness and the Landmark's Opera Cinema Plaza.
- The opening night film is Justin Lin's (Better Luck Tomorrow, Annapolis) return to independent Asian Am filmmaking with Finishing the Game.
- Closing night will be Chen Shi-ZHeng's Dark Matter.
- New program at the festival, Out of the Vaults, which brings back known or little known films from the past, like Flower Drum Song (this year with subtitles and sing-a-long at the Castro), Big Trouble in Little China, Pavement Butterfly
- 12 feature-length narrative films, four of which are premiering at the festival this year
- 8 feature-length documentaries
- Two Directions in Sound events, one with DJ Neil Armstrong
- Several shorts programs, including 3rd I South Asian shorts
- This year's spotlight is on renown filmmaker Spencer Nakasako (AKA Don Bonus, Kelly Loves Tony, Refugee), who deserves much acknowledgement for his unique documentary style and his years of work with South East Asian youth.
And lots of other stuff. What can I say? There should be something for everyone.
Posted by momo at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
It's happening March 15-25 in several Bay Area movie theaters. For a full schedule of events, information, news and the film festival's blog, go here. Also, the film schedule will be launching on the website today, so check back later if you don't see it now!
You can also pick up your festival guide at the launch party this Thursday, February 15th at 111 Minna. It's free for members and only $5 for nonmembers. Featuring DJ Pickpocket, DJ VNA and DJ B.Quan.
We here at Hyphen are excited about the festival, as always. It looks to be another great film fest year.
Some quick highlights:
- 120 plus films from more than 20 countries
- Some changes in location - the festival will return to the Sundance (formerly AMC) Kabuki in Japantown next year. New venues include the AMC Van Ness and the Landmark's Opera Cinema Plaza.
- The opening night film is Justin Lin's (Better Luck Tomorrow, Annapolis) return to independent Asian Am filmmaking with Finishing the Game.
- Closing night will be Chen Shi-ZHeng's Dark Matter.
- New program at the festival, Out of the Vaults, which brings back known or little known films from the past, like Flower Drum Song (this year with subtitles and sing-a-long at the Castro), Big Trouble in Little China, Pavement Butterfly
- 12 feature-length narrative films, four of which are premiering at the festival this year
- 8 feature-length documentaries
- Two Directions in Sound events, one with DJ Neil Armstrong
- Several shorts programs, including 3rd I South Asian shorts
- This year's spotlight is on renown filmmaker Spencer Nakasako (AKA Don Bonus, Kelly Loves Tony, Refugee), who deserves much acknowledgement for his unique documentary style and his years of work with South East Asian youth.
And lots of other stuff. What can I say? There should be something for everyone.
Posted by momo at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
It's happening March 15-25 in several Bay Area movie theaters. For a full schedule of events, information, news and the film festival's blog, go here. Also, the film schedule will be launching on the website today, so check back later if you don't see it now!
You can also pick up your festival guide at the launch party this Thursday, February 15th at 111 Minna. It's free for members and only $5 for nonmembers. Featuring DJ Pickpocket, DJ VNA and DJ B.Quan.
We here at Hyphen are excited about the festival, as always. It looks to be another great film fest year.
Some quick highlights:
- 120 plus films from more than 20 countries
- Some changes in location - the festival will return to the Sundance (formerly AMC) Kabuki in Japantown next year. New venues include the AMC Van Ness and the Landmark's Opera Cinema Plaza.
- The opening night film is Justin Lin's (Better Luck Tomorrow, Annapolis) return to independent Asian Am filmmaking with Finishing the Game.
- Closing night will be Chen Shi-ZHeng's Dark Matter.
- New program at the festival, Out of the Vaults, which brings back known or little known films from the past, like Flower Drum Song (this year with subtitles and sing-a-long at the Castro), Big Trouble in Little China, Pavement Butterfly
- 12 feature-length narrative films, four of which are premiering at the festival this year
- 8 feature-length documentaries
- Two Directions in Sound events, one with DJ Neil Armstrong
- Several shorts programs, including 3rd I South Asian shorts
- This year's spotlight is on renown filmmaker Spencer Nakasako (AKA Don Bonus, Kelly Loves Tony, Refugee), who deserves much acknowledgement for his unique documentary style and his years of work with South East Asian youth.
And lots of other stuff. What can I say? There should be something for everyone.
Posted by momo at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
We're gearing up for our Summer issue, The Transit Issue, and we want to see what you've got, Asian America. Riding the bus crosstown can turn into an out-an-out adventure, and we know you have a tale to tell. Send us your well-crafted anecdotes and insights into that human condition we call public transportation.
For our purposes we're not counting taxis and airplanes. But we most certainly welcome things that happened on buses, trains and subways, and even at the bus stop, in 400 to 600 words. Send them to editorial[at]hyphenmagazine.com by February 26, 2007.
Have any questions? Leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (4)
We're gearing up for our Summer issue, The Transit Issue, and we want to see what you've got, Asian America. Riding the bus crosstown can turn into an out-an-out adventure, and we know you have a tale to tell. Send us your well-crafted anecdotes and insights into that human condition we call public transportation.
For our purposes we're not counting taxis and airplanes. But we most certainly welcome things that happened on buses, trains and subways, and even at the bus stop, in 400 to 600 words. Send them to editorial[at]hyphenmagazine.com by February 26, 2007.
Have any questions? Leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (4)
We're gearing up for our Summer issue, The Transit Issue, and we want to see what you've got, Asian America. Riding the bus crosstown can turn into an out-an-out adventure, and we know you have a tale to tell. Send us your well-crafted anecdotes and insights into that human condition we call public transportation.
For our purposes we're not counting taxis and airplanes. But we most certainly welcome things that happened on buses, trains and subways, and even at the bus stop, in 400 to 600 words. Send them to editorial[at]hyphenmagazine.com by February 26, 2007.
Have any questions? Leave a comment and I'll get back to you.
Posted by rebecca at 3:57 PM | Comments (4)
Koon-ja Kim, 81, was among an estimated 200,000 girls forced to serve Japanese soldiers as sexual slaves from 1937 to 1945. She spoke to a packed audience at CalArts today.
I have been meaning to write for some time, I can only say that Mr. Hyphen has been on a Hiatus of sorts...the holidays and a new semester at school, my last, have kept me from writing and sharing. Alas, I'm back! Since the last entry, much has been happening globally and locally, and so I thought to share a bit about what is currently on my mind. Most importantly, today...i just got home after seeing an incredibly inspiring and intense documentary called House of Sharing, directed and produced by CalArts MFA Film Student, Hein Seok. The film contextualizes the contemporary policy issues that surround the horrific sexual slavery of Korean comfort women during WW II by the Japanese military. The film features a number of talented MFA students at CalArts including Nathan Ruyle (Sound Design/Mixing).
The film shares the unimaginably tragic and incredibly inspiring stories of 4 women who still live to speak about the atrocities they endured during WW II. The film was uplifting in so many ways, as the focus was not on the tragedy of the past, but of the journey that each of these women faced after coming to the House of Sharing, a special center in Korea where survivors can share their stories, educate the public, and create awareness for crimes committed over 70 years ago. The film follows 4 survivors, all over 80 years old, on their monthly journies to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea where they continue to ask the Japanese Government to formally recognize the extent of sexual slavery during WW II and to make reparations for the atrocities committed. So far, the Japanese government has done niether, despite pleas from both the Korean and Japanese people.
The film was screened at the CalArts Bijou Theater tonite, and was followed by a special Q & A with 81 year old survivor, Koon-ja Kim. She is touring California (check out the website fo SF and LA dates) speaking about her experiences and sharing excerpts of the documentary film. The room was packed, and the film was beautifully edited and portrayed each of the women as strong, resilient heroes who have endured unspeakable abuse and have become active in trying to change the policy of the Japanese government. One of the most amazing aspects that the film explores is the use of painting and art that survivors have created to express their pain and suffering. The artwork, watercolors and sketches were presented between interviews with the women and footage of their protests in Seoul.
The artwork was intense and visceral, speaking silently and visually about how deep the pain from these crimes are for these women. The details of their stories of being abducted as children by the Japanese army, being captured, being tortured, and having to provide sex for 30 men or more a day in abhorrent conditions, seeking ways to kill themselves but being unable to, and finally coming home to Korea only to be ostracized by society and their families left me and the entire audience in tears.
A watercolor painted by one of the survivors
For me, the whole experience was numbing, terrifying and at the same time humbling...the fact that these women, even seventy years after the crime, are seeking recognition by governments speaks volumes about the failure of modern "nation building" and the absolutely unjustifable consequences of war. They have appealed to the UN, the US and Japan to seek a formal apology from the Japanese government, but to no avail. There is new hope now the that the new Secretary General of the UN is of Korean descent...but during the QA Koon-ja Kim reiterated that the situation is really about people seeking to speak out against the failures of their governments to resolve history. I kept thinking of Abu Grahib, our own atrocities and unwillingness as an American government to heal humans and people destroyed by our violent actions. I thought too of our governments unwillingness to truly heal the people and forests destroyed by Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. The list goes on...how we justify violence, and how ultimately, people are not represented by their goverments. One of the things that struck me most about the House of Sharing in Korea, is that they have about 6000 visitors annually to the center each year...and the vast majority of those visitors are Japanese. A number of the administrators at the House of Sharing are Japanese...they all speak against the actions of their government. And the same could be said for Americans who speak against the violence and atrocities committed by our own government.
While the actions of the Japanese military and the government cannot be justified, it turns out that the US is partly to blame for the difficulty the comfort women have had in getting the Japanese government to admit fault. During the QA I learned that immediately post nuclear detonations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as America embarked on "nation re-building" in Japan, great efforts were made to silence the pleas of the comfort women. Their cries were seen as potentially helping to arouse communist sympathies and the woes of the poor. In order to strengthen the new Japanese capitalist government, the US had to dilute any potential voices that could undermine the solidarity of the new nation. Many documents proving the extent of the Japanese Military's actions were destroyed in the process of building the new Japanese nation, forever hampering the efforts of these women seeking formal recognition from a government that now claims that adequate proof does not exist to warrant an apology.
As we watch the war in Iraq escalate and deepen, and more news about the ensuing chaos there comes to light, I wonder, how many of the atrocities committed and justified in the name of the American war for nation building will be declassified and used to discuss whether war can ever truly be justified?
If you are in LA or SF in the coming weeks, do check out the screening of this fantastic and incredibly relevant film! Details are on the House of Sharing website.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
Koon-ja Kim, 81, was among an estimated 200,000 girls forced to serve Japanese soldiers as sexual slaves from 1937 to 1945. She spoke to a packed audience at CalArts today.
I have been meaning to write for some time, I can only say that Mr. Hyphen has been on a Hiatus of sorts...the holidays and a new semester at school, my last, have kept me from writing and sharing. Alas, I'm back! Since the last entry, much has been happening globally and locally, and so I thought to share a bit about what is currently on my mind. Most importantly, today...i just got home after seeing an incredibly inspiring and intense documentary called House of Sharing, directed and produced by CalArts MFA Film Student, Hein Seok. The film contextualizes the contemporary policy issues that surround the horrific sexual slavery of Korean comfort women during WW II by the Japanese military. The film features a number of talented MFA students at CalArts including Nathan Ruyle (Sound Design/Mixing).
The film shares the unimaginably tragic and incredibly inspiring stories of 4 women who still live to speak about the atrocities they endured during WW II. The film was uplifting in so many ways, as the focus was not on the tragedy of the past, but of the journey that each of these women faced after coming to the House of Sharing, a special center in Korea where survivors can share their stories, educate the public, and create awareness for crimes committed over 70 years ago. The film follows 4 survivors, all over 80 years old, on their monthly journies to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea where they continue to ask the Japanese Government to formally recognize the extent of sexual slavery during WW II and to make reparations for the atrocities committed. So far, the Japanese government has done niether, despite pleas from both the Korean and Japanese people.
The film was screened at the CalArts Bijou Theater tonite, and was followed by a special Q & A with 81 year old survivor, Koon-ja Kim. She is touring California (check out the website fo SF and LA dates) speaking about her experiences and sharing excerpts of the documentary film. The room was packed, and the film was beautifully edited and portrayed each of the women as strong, resilient heroes who have endured unspeakable abuse and have become active in trying to change the policy of the Japanese government. One of the most amazing aspects that the film explores is the use of painting and art that survivors have created to express their pain and suffering. The artwork, watercolors and sketches were presented between interviews with the women and footage of their protests in Seoul.
The artwork was intense and visceral, speaking silently and visually about how deep the pain from these crimes are for these women. The details of their stories of being abducted as children by the Japanese army, being captured, being tortured, and having to provide sex for 30 men or more a day in abhorrent conditions, seeking ways to kill themselves but being unable to, and finally coming home to Korea only to be ostracized by society and their families left me and the entire audience in tears.
A watercolor painted by one of the survivors
For me, the whole experience was numbing, terrifying and at the same time humbling...the fact that these women, even seventy years after the crime, are seeking recognition by governments speaks volumes about the failure of modern "nation building" and the absolutely unjustifable consequences of war. They have appealed to the UN, the US and Japan to seek a formal apology from the Japanese government, but to no avail. There is new hope now the that the new Secretary General of the UN is of Korean descent...but during the QA Koon-ja Kim reiterated that the situation is really about people seeking to speak out against the failures of their governments to resolve history. I kept thinking of Abu Grahib, our own atrocities and unwillingness as an American government to heal humans and people destroyed by our violent actions. I thought too of our governments unwillingness to truly heal the people and forests destroyed by Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. The list goes on...how we justify violence, and how ultimately, people are not represented by their goverments. One of the things that struck me most about the House of Sharing in Korea, is that they have about 6000 visitors annually to the center each year...and the vast majority of those visitors are Japanese. A number of the administrators at the House of Sharing are Japanese...they all speak against the actions of their government. And the same could be said for Americans who speak against the violence and atrocities committed by our own government.
While the actions of the Japanese military and the government cannot be justified, it turns out that the US is partly to blame for the difficulty the comfort women have had in getting the Japanese government to admit fault. During the QA I learned that immediately post nuclear detonations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as America embarked on "nation re-building" in Japan, great efforts were made to silence the pleas of the comfort women. Their cries were seen as potentially helping to arouse communist sympathies and the woes of the poor. In order to strengthen the new Japanese capitalist government, the US had to dilute any potential voices that could undermine the solidarity of the new nation. Many documents proving the extent of the Japanese Military's actions were destroyed in the process of building the new Japanese nation, forever hampering the efforts of these women seeking formal recognition from a government that now claims that adequate proof does not exist to warrant an apology.
As we watch the war in Iraq escalate and deepen, and more news about the ensuing chaos there comes to light, I wonder, how many of the atrocities committed and justified in the name of the American war for nation building will be declassified and used to discuss whether war can ever truly be justified?
If you are in LA or SF in the coming weeks, do check out the screening of this fantastic and incredibly relevant film! Details are on the House of Sharing website.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
Koon-ja Kim, 81, was among an estimated 200,000 girls forced to serve Japanese soldiers as sexual slaves from 1937 to 1945. She spoke to a packed audience at CalArts today.
I have been meaning to write for some time, I can only say that Mr. Hyphen has been on a Hiatus of sorts...the holidays and a new semester at school, my last, have kept me from writing and sharing. Alas, I'm back! Since the last entry, much has been happening globally and locally, and so I thought to share a bit about what is currently on my mind. Most importantly, today...i just got home after seeing an incredibly inspiring and intense documentary called House of Sharing, directed and produced by CalArts MFA Film Student, Hein Seok. The film contextualizes the contemporary policy issues that surround the horrific sexual slavery of Korean comfort women during WW II by the Japanese military. The film features a number of talented MFA students at CalArts including Nathan Ruyle (Sound Design/Mixing).
The film shares the unimaginably tragic and incredibly inspiring stories of 4 women who still live to speak about the atrocities they endured during WW II. The film was uplifting in so many ways, as the focus was not on the tragedy of the past, but of the journey that each of these women faced after coming to the House of Sharing, a special center in Korea where survivors can share their stories, educate the public, and create awareness for crimes committed over 70 years ago. The film follows 4 survivors, all over 80 years old, on their monthly journies to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea where they continue to ask the Japanese Government to formally recognize the extent of sexual slavery during WW II and to make reparations for the atrocities committed. So far, the Japanese government has done niether, despite pleas from both the Korean and Japanese people.
The film was screened at the CalArts Bijou Theater tonite, and was followed by a special Q & A with 81 year old survivor, Koon-ja Kim. She is touring California (check out the website fo SF and LA dates) speaking about her experiences and sharing excerpts of the documentary film. The room was packed, and the film was beautifully edited and portrayed each of the women as strong, resilient heroes who have endured unspeakable abuse and have become active in trying to change the policy of the Japanese government. One of the most amazing aspects that the film explores is the use of painting and art that survivors have created to express their pain and suffering. The artwork, watercolors and sketches were presented between interviews with the women and footage of their protests in Seoul.
The artwork was intense and visceral, speaking silently and visually about how deep the pain from these crimes are for these women. The details of their stories of being abducted as children by the Japanese army, being captured, being tortured, and having to provide sex for 30 men or more a day in abhorrent conditions, seeking ways to kill themselves but being unable to, and finally coming home to Korea only to be ostracized by society and their families left me and the entire audience in tears.
A watercolor painted by one of the survivors
For me, the whole experience was numbing, terrifying and at the same time humbling...the fact that these women, even seventy years after the crime, are seeking recognition by governments speaks volumes about the failure of modern "nation building" and the absolutely unjustifable consequences of war. They have appealed to the UN, the US and Japan to seek a formal apology from the Japanese government, but to no avail. There is new hope now the that the new Secretary General of the UN is of Korean descent...but during the QA Koon-ja Kim reiterated that the situation is really about people seeking to speak out against the failures of their governments to resolve history. I kept thinking of Abu Grahib, our own atrocities and unwillingness as an American government to heal humans and people destroyed by our violent actions. I thought too of our governments unwillingness to truly heal the people and forests destroyed by Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. The list goes on...how we justify violence, and how ultimately, people are not represented by their goverments. One of the things that struck me most about the House of Sharing in Korea, is that they have about 6000 visitors annually to the center each year...and the vast majority of those visitors are Japanese. A number of the administrators at the House of Sharing are Japanese...they all speak against the actions of their government. And the same could be said for Americans who speak against the violence and atrocities committed by our own government.
While the actions of the Japanese military and the government cannot be justified, it turns out that the US is partly to blame for the difficulty the comfort women have had in getting the Japanese government to admit fault. During the QA I learned that immediately post nuclear detonations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as America embarked on "nation re-building" in Japan, great efforts were made to silence the pleas of the comfort women. Their cries were seen as potentially helping to arouse communist sympathies and the woes of the poor. In order to strengthen the new Japanese capitalist government, the US had to dilute any potential voices that could undermine the solidarity of the new nation. Many documents proving the extent of the Japanese Military's actions were destroyed in the process of building the new Japanese nation, forever hampering the efforts of these women seeking formal recognition from a government that now claims that adequate proof does not exist to warrant an apology.
As we watch the war in Iraq escalate and deepen, and more news about the ensuing chaos there comes to light, I wonder, how many of the atrocities committed and justified in the name of the American war for nation building will be declassified and used to discuss whether war can ever truly be justified?
If you are in LA or SF in the coming weeks, do check out the screening of this fantastic and incredibly relevant film! Details are on the House of Sharing website.
Robin Sukhadia
Mr. Hyphen 2006/2007
Posted by robin at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
"Watada, Resister" is a new video recording of the historical meeting between 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy to Iraq, and the WW2 resisters who contested the draft.
Viewable at MySpace here, on YouTube, and below:
I have also been trying to make sense of what happened at the court-martial hearing this week - his trial has certainly received a lot of national and international media attention.
Here's the first piece, an AP article, that I read following the hearing, which many media outlets picked up.
Here is a different take by president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and professor Marjorie Cohn, posted on Alternet and other outlets.
But bottom-line question remains - what does this mean for Watada, and the larger question - the war?
Posted by momo at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)
"Watada, Resister" is a new video recording of the historical meeting between 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy to Iraq, and the WW2 resisters who contested the draft.
Viewable at MySpace here, on YouTube, and below:
I have also been trying to make sense of what happened at the court-martial hearing this week - his trial has certainly received a lot of national and international media attention.
Here's the first piece, an AP article, that I read following the hearing, which many media outlets picked up.
Here is a different take by president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and professor Marjorie Cohn, posted on Alternet and other outlets.
But bottom-line question remains - what does this mean for Watada, and the larger question - the war?
Posted by momo at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)
"Watada, Resister" is a new video recording of the historical meeting between 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy to Iraq, and the WW2 resisters who contested the draft.
Viewable at MySpace here, on YouTube, and below:
I have also been trying to make sense of what happened at the court-martial hearing this week - his trial has certainly received a lot of national and international media attention.
Here's the first piece, an AP article, that I read following the hearing, which many media outlets picked up.
Here is a different take by president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and professor Marjorie Cohn, posted on Alternet and other outlets.
But bottom-line question remains - what does this mean for Watada, and the larger question - the war?
Posted by momo at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)
Survivor: Fiji kicks off Thursday with five Asian Americans among the 19 contestants.
If this casting keeps up, we'll begin to reach the point where if there's five Asian Americans on Survivor, it's not a big deal any more. The Asian Americans hoping to follow Kwon's path are Yau-Man Chan, Stacy Kimball, Mookie Lee, Sylvia Kwan and Michelle Yi.
And come to think of it, just glancing at the entire cast, it's pretty diverse with what looks like five black members, four Latinos, nine women and three people over 50.
Get the lowdown on all the players on Survivor: Fiji at CBS.
Posted by harry at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)
Survivor: Fiji kicks off Thursday with five Asian Americans among the 19 contestants.
If this casting keeps up, we'll begin to reach the point where if there's five Asian Americans on Survivor, it's not a big deal any more. The Asian Americans hoping to follow Kwon's path are Yau-Man Chan, Stacy Kimball, Mookie Lee, Sylvia Kwan and Michelle Yi.
And come to think of it, just glancing at the entire cast, it's pretty diverse with what looks like five black members, four Latinos, nine women and three people over 50.
Get the lowdown on all the players on Survivor: Fiji at CBS.
Posted by harry at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)
Survivor: Fiji kicks off Thursday with five Asian Americans among the 19 contestants.
If this casting keeps up, we'll begin to reach the point where if there's five Asian Americans on Survivor, it's not a big deal any more. The Asian Americans hoping to follow Kwon's path are Yau-Man Chan, Stacy Kimball, Mookie Lee, Sylvia Kwan and Michelle Yi.
And come to think of it, just glancing at the entire cast, it's pretty diverse with what looks like five black members, four Latinos, nine women and three people over 50.
Get the lowdown on all the players on Survivor: Fiji at CBS.
Posted by harry at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)
By Bao Phi
In their recent February 2nd , 2007 Oscar Nominee double issue, Entertainment Weekly printed an editorial by Mark Harris in which he called out Isaiah Washington for homophobic slurs on the set of Grey’s Anatomy.
Mr. Harris went on to decry what he considered to be insincere apologies from Washington and other famous celebrities like Mel Gibson and Michael Richards, who both said some pretty f*cked up things that were offensive to the Jewish and African American communities. But I noticed that he didn’t include Rosie O’Donnell, who recently thought it would be funny to impersonate Chinese language by repeatedly chiming “CHING CHONG!” on The View. Whether she meant to mock Mandarin or Cantonese is unknown. But she, too, offered a non-apology. Why didn’t this make the editorial?
Maybe she took a cue from Will Ferrell – in Talladega Nights, he also mocks Chinese, but in more of a “WA DAO PING WU” way, in a fake plum candy commercial. Did that make national news? Nope, but Talladega Nights went on to become the 11th ranked Hollywood film at the box office in 2006, grossing $148.2 million in the U.S. ($162.9 million worldwide). Ching chong? More like CHA-CHING!
Well, as the red carpets of white Western acceptance begin to roll out and people begin to talk Oscars, I indulged in my secret guilty pleasure and read up on web reviews, magazines, articles, whatever I could get my hands on. Starting with Premiere magazine’s Jan/Feb 2006 issue, I checked out their Finest Performances of 2006 issue. Hmmm – not a single Asian/Arab/Pacific Islander/American made the list. Well, that’s just Premiere, right?
Then the nominees were announced – Deepa Mehta’s Water and Rinko Kikuchi’s performance in Babel received nods. But I found it strange that though Letters From Iwo Jima is nominated for Best Picture and Clint Eastwood is nominated for Best Director, none of the Asian cast from that film received nods for any of the acting categories.
Strange. You may argue they didn’t receive nods because the performance was mostly in Japanese, and it was an ensemble cast – so no single actor stood out for a nomination. Then consider Rinko Kikuchi’s nomination: she also spoke all in Japanese, and the cast of Babel is definitely considered an ensemble. It’s like they flipped a coin between the two favored Western representations of Asians on the big screen: Asian men tragically dying, and tragic naked sexualized Asian woman.
And why hasn’t anyone pointed out the fact that none of the cast of Letters received nods? You might say that the Oscars routinely rob people of the honor. But in other cases, at least people notice – on the day of the announcements, Moviefone posted an article decrying the fact that Brad Pitt didn’t receive a nod for Best Actor though Babel received a nod for Best Picture. This is especially strange given the actors in Letters were receiving plenty of acclaim and praise, all of which went silent when the Oscar nominees were announced.
This isn’t the first time in the Academy’s history that Asian actors got screwed. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon received a good amount of nominations – but none in the acting categories. The Last Emperor set a record for its time in 1987, nominated for 9 Oscars and winning every single one of them – yet there was not a single acting nod for that film either, the Oscars all went to the white people involved in the film, the exception being the Asians who shared the Oscars (with another white man) for Best Original Score. Last year, two white men took home statues for Memoirs of a Geisha, thanking their Asian partners during their acceptance speeches as the cameras cut to them in the audience, as if to say that because these men had Asian partners, they were legitimately down with the Asian people. Geishariffic!
Which reminds me, the first Oscar that went to an Asian was in 1957 to Miyoshi Umeki (Best Supporting Actress), who played the Geisha-ish wife to Red Buttons in the horrendously racist Marlon Brando vehicle, Sayonara. Check out what Entertainment Weekly says about her win:
"Umeki is the most obvious example of what might be called Oscar Exotica: first time film actors who get nominated – and occasionally win – for having the good luck to be so believably foreign...and the late Haing S. Ngor, who won Best Supporting Actor for 1984’s The Killing Fields after essentially reliving his Cambodian genocide experiences." (Feb 2, 2007)
What Entertainment Weekly fails to mention is that neither of those actors received another good role after their win – proving that, even if you are recognized by the Academy, Hollywood remains a place with few quality roles for Asians. An exception is Sir Ben Kingsley (birth name Krishna Bhanji), of mixed race heritage, who after winning Best Actor for the titular role in Gandhi in 1982 went on to star in movies good and crappy – though interestingly, he has mostly played non-Asians in his career.
And why cast Asians when you can swap them for white people? Mark Wahlberg, who got into trouble in his earlier years for a hate crime against two Vietnamese men, in which one of the Vietnamese men lost an eye from the assault (read about it here) gets his first Oscar nod for the Scorsese remake of the excellent Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs. Not only was his hate crime a non-issue, his first role in Boogie Nights granted him a giant prosthetic penis, AND he dated China Chow, AND he co-starred in a movie with Chow Yun-Fat! Violence against Asians is fun AND rewarding!
(Disclaimer: for those of you apologists who insist that he did such things in his foolish younger days and choose to forgive him for assaulting Asian men and taking out one of their eyes while hurling racial slurs at them, not to mention forgive him for his terrible rap album, forgive him because he is a handsome white man with a muscular body, that’s on you. Let’s hope that you will forgive all people equally, for any horrible transgressions we may or may not have committed.)
Though The Departed recast the popular Infernal Affairs in Boston (ironically the same city where Wahlberg assaulted those Asian men), Hollywood has a history of literally substituting white actors for Asians. From Robert Ito’s essay “A Certain Slant: A Brief History of Yellowface”, here’s an incomplete list of white Hollywood actors who have been cast as Asian: Katharine Hepburn; Fred Astaire; Myrna Loy; Ingrid Bergman; John Wayne; Marlon Brando; Mickey Rooney; Peter Sellers; Helen Hayes; Peter Lorre; Lon Chaney; Anthony Quinn; David Carradine.
At this point, you may say, screw the big budget Hollywood films, bring on the small independent films! Well, just because a film is an indie doesn’t mean it’s gonna do our people right – Lost in Translation, anyone? How about Asian American films? Unfortunately, Hollywood seems more intent on exploiting Asians rather than giving Asian American films a chance: even limited release Asian films like Oldboy and Curse of the Golden Flower have a better chance of making it to Minneapolis than Asian American films like Michael Kang’s The Motel and Ham Tran’s Journey From The Fall, films I was dying to see. As in the case of good independent Asian American films with limited releases like Alice Wu’s Saving Face, we here in the Twin Cities have to wait until it comes out on DVD.
What about the good things? 2003 marked the first time that an Asian or Pacific Islander was nominated in all four of the Best Acting categories – Sir Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their outstanding performances in the problematic film House of Sand and Fog), Ken Watanabe (Best Supporting Actor, for the far worse Japanese-men-dying film The Last Samurai), and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Best Actress, for the great but seldom seen Whale Rider). Unfortunately, none of them won that year.
Ang Lee made history in 2006 as the first non-white person to win Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (why isn’t anyone talking about this?!), though that revelatory film lost Best Picture to the far inferior Crash, a film about race relations in LA made by white people that taught Asians that, if your father has a convenience store, make sure to fill his gun with blanks in case he decides to assassinate his locksmith – and the answer to human trafficking is Ludacris.
Can we look forward to 2007? Well, right off the bat, that Edward Norton/Naomi Watts vehicle The Painted Veil kicked us right in the ass. Eddie Murphy puts on make up and acts as a Chinese man, Mr. Wong, in his next film Norbit. And the U.S. production of The Rape of Nanking s currently being screened at Sundance – starring noted Asianphile Woody Harrelson. If there’s good news to be had for 2007 at the movies, somebody please send it my way.
*(Thanks to Juliana Hu Pegues and Giles Li for the conversations and advice which led to the formation of this essay).
Thien-bao Thuc Phi is an award winning poet and spoken word artist who watches too many movies in his spare time.
Posted by momo at 11:34 AM | Comments (35)
By Bao Phi
In their recent February 2nd , 2007 Oscar Nominee double issue, Entertainment Weekly printed an editorial by Mark Harris in which he called out Isaiah Washington for homophobic slurs on the set of Grey’s Anatomy.
Mr. Harris went on to decry what he considered to be insincere apologies from Washington and other famous celebrities like Mel Gibson and Michael Richards, who both said some pretty f*cked up things that were offensive to the Jewish and African American communities. But I noticed that he didn’t include Rosie O’Donnell, who recently thought it would be funny to impersonate Chinese language by repeatedly chiming “CHING CHONG!” on The View. Whether she meant to mock Mandarin or Cantonese is unknown. But she, too, offered a non-apology. Why didn’t this make the editorial?
Maybe she took a cue from Will Ferrell – in Talladega Nights, he also mocks Chinese, but in more of a “WA DAO PING WU” way, in a fake plum candy commercial. Did that make national news? Nope, but Talladega Nights went on to become the 11th ranked Hollywood film at the box office in 2006, grossing $148.2 million in the U.S. ($162.9 million worldwide). Ching chong? More like CHA-CHING!
Well, as the red carpets of white Western acceptance begin to roll out and people begin to talk Oscars, I indulged in my secret guilty pleasure and read up on web reviews, magazines, articles, whatever I could get my hands on. Starting with Premiere magazine’s Jan/Feb 2006 issue, I checked out their Finest Performances of 2006 issue. Hmmm – not a single Asian/Arab/Pacific Islander/American made the list. Well, that’s just Premiere, right?
Then the nominees were announced – Deepa Mehta’s Water and Rinko Kikuchi’s performance in Babel received nods. But I found it strange that though Letters From Iwo Jima is nominated for Best Picture and Clint Eastwood is nominated for Best Director, none of the Asian cast from that film received nods for any of the acting categories.
Strange. You may argue they didn’t receive nods because the performance was mostly in Japanese, and it was an ensemble cast – so no single actor stood out for a nomination. Then consider Rinko Kikuchi’s nomination: she also spoke all in Japanese, and the cast of Babel is definitely considered an ensemble. It’s like they flipped a coin between the two favored Western representations of Asians on the big screen: Asian men tragically dying, and tragic naked sexualized Asian woman.
And why hasn’t anyone pointed out the fact that none of the cast of Letters received nods? You might say that the Oscars routinely rob people of the honor. But in other cases, at least people notice – on the day of the announcements, Moviefone posted an article decrying the fact that Brad Pitt didn’t receive a nod for Best Actor though Babel received a nod for Best Picture. This is especially strange given the actors in Letters were receiving plenty of acclaim and praise, all of which went silent when the Oscar nominees were announced.
This isn’t the first time in the Academy’s history that Asian actors got screwed. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon received a good amount of nominations – but none in the acting categories. The Last Emperor set a record for its time in 1987, nominated for 9 Oscars and winning every single one of them – yet there was not a single acting nod for that film either, the Oscars all went to the white people involved in the film, the exception being the Asians who shared the Oscars (with another white man) for Best Original Score. Last year, two white men took home statues for Memoirs of a Geisha, thanking their Asian partners during their acceptance speeches as the cameras cut to them in the audience, as if to say that because these men had Asian partners, they were legitimately down with the Asian people. Geishariffic!
Which reminds me, the first Oscar that went to an Asian was in 1957 to Miyoshi Umeki (Best Supporting Actress), who played the Geisha-ish wife to Red Buttons in the horrendously racist Marlon Brando vehicle, Sayonara. Check out what Entertainment Weekly says about her win:
"Umeki is the most obvious example of what might be called Oscar Exotica: first time film actors who get nominated – and occasionally win – for having the good luck to be so believably foreign...and the late Haing S. Ngor, who won Best Supporting Actor for 1984’s The Killing Fields after essentially reliving his Cambodian genocide experiences." (Feb 2, 2007)
What Entertainment Weekly fails to mention is that neither of those actors received another good role after their win – proving that, even if you are recognized by the Academy, Hollywood remains a place with few quality roles for Asians. An exception is Sir Ben Kingsley (birth name Krishna Bhanji), of mixed race heritage, who after winning Best Actor for the titular role in Gandhi in 1982 went on to star in movies good and crappy – though interestingly, he has mostly played non-Asians in his career.
And why cast Asians when you can swap them for white people? Mark Wahlberg, who got into trouble in his earlier years for a hate crime against two Vietnamese men, in which one of the Vietnamese men lost an eye from the assault (read about it here) gets his first Oscar nod for the Scorsese remake of the excellent Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs. Not only was his hate crime a non-issue, his first role in Boogie Nights granted him a giant prosthetic penis, AND he dated China Chow, AND he co-starred in a movie with Chow Yun-Fat! Violence against Asians is fun AND rewarding!
(Disclaimer: for those of you apologists who insist that he did such things in his foolish younger days and choose to forgive him for assaulting Asian men and taking out one of their eyes while hurling racial slurs at them, not to mention forgive him for his terrible rap album, forgive him because he is a handsome white man with a muscular body, that’s on you. Let’s hope that you will forgive all people equally, for any horrible transgressions we may or may not have committed.)
Though The Departed recast the popular Infernal Affairs in Boston (ironically the same city where Wahlberg assaulted those Asian men), Hollywood has a history of literally substituting white actors for Asians. From Robert Ito’s essay “A Certain Slant: A Brief History of Yellowface”, here’s an incomplete list of white Hollywood actors who have been cast as Asian: Katharine Hepburn; Fred Astaire; Myrna Loy; Ingrid Bergman; John Wayne; Marlon Brando; Mickey Rooney; Peter Sellers; Helen Hayes; Peter Lorre; Lon Chaney; Anthony Quinn; David Carradine.
At this point, you may say, screw the big budget Hollywood films, bring on the small independent films! Well, just because a film is an indie doesn’t mean it’s gonna do our people right – Lost in Translation, anyone? How about Asian American films? Unfortunately, Hollywood seems more intent on exploiting Asians rather than giving Asian American films a chance: even limited release Asian films like Oldboy and Curse of the Golden Flower have a better chance of making it to Minneapolis than Asian American films like Michael Kang’s The Motel and Ham Tran’s Journey From The Fall, films I was dying to see. As in the case of good independent Asian American films with limited releases like Alice Wu’s Saving Face, we here in the Twin Cities have to wait until it comes out on DVD.
What about the good things? 2003 marked the first time that an Asian or Pacific Islander was nominated in all four of the Best Acting categories – Sir Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their outstanding performances in the problematic film House of Sand and Fog), Ken Watanabe (Best Supporting Actor, for the far worse Japanese-men-dying film The Last Samurai), and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Best Actress, for the great but seldom seen Whale Rider). Unfortunately, none of them won that year.
Ang Lee made history in 2006 as the first non-white person to win Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (why isn’t anyone talking about this?!), though that revelatory film lost Best Picture to the far inferior Crash, a film about race relations in LA made by white people that taught Asians that, if your father has a convenience store, make sure to fill his gun with blanks in case he decides to assassinate his locksmith – and the answer to human trafficking is Ludacris.
Can we look forward to 2007? Well, right off the bat, that Edward Norton/Naomi Watts vehicle The Painted Veil kicked us right in the ass. Eddie Murphy puts on make up and acts as a Chinese man, Mr. Wong, in his next film Norbit. And the U.S. production of The Rape of Nanking s currently being screened at Sundance – starring noted Asianphile Woody Harrelson. If there’s good news to be had for 2007 at the movies, somebody please send it my way.
*(Thanks to Juliana Hu Pegues and Giles Li for the conversations and advice which led to the formation of this essay).
Thien-bao Thuc Phi is an award winning poet and spoken word artist who watches too many movies in his spare time.
Posted by momo at 11:34 AM | Comments (35)
By Bao Phi
In their recent February 2nd , 2007 Oscar Nominee double issue, Entertainment Weekly printed an editorial by Mark Harris in which he called out Isaiah Washington for homophobic slurs on the set of Greys Anatomy.
Mr. Harris went on to decry what he considered to be insincere apologies from Washington and other famous celebrities like Mel Gibson and Michael Richards, who both said some pretty f*cked up things that were offensive to the Jewish and African American communities. But I noticed that he didnt include Rosie ODonnell, who recently thought it would be funny to impersonate Chinese language by repeatedly chiming CHING CHONG! on The View. Whether she meant to mock Mandarin or Cantonese is unknown. But she, too, offered a non-apology. Why didnt this make the editorial?
Maybe she took a cue from Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights, he also mocks Chinese, but in more of a WA DAO PING WU way, in a fake plum candy commercial. Did that make national news? Nope, but Talladega Nights went on to become the 11th ranked Hollywood film at the box office in 2006, grossing $148.2 million in the U.S. ($162.9 million worldwide). Ching chong? More like CHA-CHING!
Well, as the red carpets of white Western acceptance begin to roll out and people begin to talk Oscars, I indulged in my secret guilty pleasure and read up on web reviews, magazines, articles, whatever I could get my hands on. Starting with Premiere magazines Jan/Feb 2006 issue, I checked out their Finest Performances of 2006 issue. Hmmm not a single Asian/Arab/Pacific Islander/American made the list. Well, thats just Premiere, right?
Then the nominees were announced Deepa Mehtas Water and Rinko Kikuchis performance in Babel received nods. But I found it strange that though Letters From Iwo Jima is nominated for Best Picture and Clint Eastwood is nominated for Best Director, none of the Asian cast from that film received nods for any of the acting categories.
Strange. You may argue they didnt receive nods because the performance was mostly in Japanese, and it was an ensemble cast so no single actor stood out for a nomination. Then consider Rinko Kikuchis nomination: she also spoke all in Japanese, and the cast of Babel is definitely considered an ensemble. Its like they flipped a coin between the two favored Western representations of Asians on the big screen: Asian men tragically dying, and tragic naked sexualized Asian woman.
And why hasnt anyone pointed out the fact that none of the cast of Letters received nods? You might say that the Oscars routinely rob people of the honor. But in other cases, at least people notice on the day of the announcements, Moviefone posted an article decrying the fact that Brad Pitt didnt receive a nod for Best Actor though Babel received a nod for Best Picture. This is especially strange given the actors in Letters were receiving plenty of acclaim and praise, all of which went silent when the Oscar nominees were announced.
This isnt the first time in the Academys history that Asian actors got screwed. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon received a good amount of nominations but none in the acting categories. The Last Emperor set a record for its time in 1987, nominated for 9 Oscars and winning every single one of them yet there was not a single acting nod for that film either, the Oscars all went to the white people involved in the film, the exception being the Asians who shared the Oscars (with another white man) for Best Original Score. Last year, two white men took home statues for Memoirs of a Geisha, thanking their Asian partners during their acceptance speeches as the cameras cut to them in the audience, as if to say that because these men had Asian partners, they were legitimately down with the Asian people. Geishariffic!
Which reminds me, the first Oscar that went to an Asian was in 1957 to Miyoshi Umeki (Best Supporting Actress), who played the Geisha-ish wife to Red Buttons in the horrendously racist Marlon Brando vehicle, Sayonara. Check out what Entertainment Weekly says about her win:
"Umeki is the most obvious example of what might be called Oscar Exotica: first time film actors who get nominated and occasionally win for having the good luck to be so believably foreign...and the late Haing S. Ngor, who won Best Supporting Actor for 1984s The Killing Fields after essentially reliving his Cambodian genocide experiences." (Feb 2, 2007)
What Entertainment Weekly fails to mention is that neither of those actors received another good role after their win proving that, even if you are recognized by the Academy, Hollywood remains a place with few quality roles for Asians. An exception is Sir Ben Kingsley (birth name Krishna Bhanji), of mixed race heritage, who after winning Best Actor for the titular role in Gandhi in 1982 went on to star in movies good and crappy though interestingly, he has mostly played non-Asians in his career.
And why cast Asians when you can swap them for white people? Mark Wahlberg, who got into trouble in his earlier years for a hate crime against two Vietnamese men, in which one of the Vietnamese men lost an eye from the assault (read about it here) gets his first Oscar nod for the Scorsese remake of the excellent Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs. Not only was his hate crime a non-issue, his first role in Boogie Nights granted him a giant prosthetic penis, AND he dated China Chow, AND he co-starred in a movie with Chow Yun-Fat! Violence against Asians is fun AND rewarding!
(Disclaimer: for those of you apologists who insist that he did such things in his foolish younger days and choose to forgive him for assaulting Asian men and taking out one of their eyes while hurling racial slurs at them, not to mention forgive him for his terrible rap album, forgive him because he is a handsome white man with a muscular body, thats on you. Lets hope that you will forgive all people equally, for any horrible transgressions we may or may not have committed.)
Though The Departed recast the popular Infernal Affairs in Boston (ironically the same city where Wahlberg assaulted those Asian men), Hollywood has a history of literally substituting white actors for Asians. From Robert Itos essay A Certain Slant: A Brief History of Yellowface, heres an incomplete list of white Hollywood actors who have been cast as Asian: Katharine Hepburn; Fred Astaire; Myrna Loy; Ingrid Bergman; John Wayne; Marlon Brando; Mickey Rooney; Peter Sellers; Helen Hayes; Peter Lorre; Lon Chaney; Anthony Quinn; David Carradine.
At this point, you may say, screw the big budget Hollywood films, bring on the small independent films! Well, just because a film is an indie doesnt mean its gonna do our people right Lost in Translation, anyone? How about Asian American films? Unfortunately, Hollywood seems more intent on exploiting Asians rather than giving Asian American films a chance: even limited release Asian films like Oldboy and Curse of the Golden Flower have a better chance of making it to Minneapolis than Asian American films like Michael Kangs The Motel and Ham Trans Journey From The Fall, films I was dying to see. As in the case of good independent Asian American films with limited releases like Alice Wus Saving Face, we here in the Twin Cities have to wait until it comes out on DVD.
What about the good things? 2003 marked the first time that an Asian or Pacific Islander was nominated in all four of the Best Acting categories Sir Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their outstanding performances in the problematic film House of Sand and Fog), Ken Watanabe (Best Supporting Actor, for the far worse Japanese-men-dying film The Last Samurai), and Keisha Castle-Hughes (Best Actress, for the great but seldom seen Whale Rider). Unfortunately, none of them won that year.
Ang Lee made history in 2006 as the first non-white person to win Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (why isnt anyone talking about this?!), though that revelatory film lost Best Picture to the far inferior Crash, a film about race relations in LA made by white people that taught Asians that, if your father has a convenience store, make sure to fill his gun with blanks in case he decides to assassinate his locksmith and the answer to human trafficking is Ludacris.
Can we look forward to 2007? Well, right off the bat, that Edward Norton/Naomi Watts vehicle The Painted Veil kicked us right in the ass. Eddie Murphy puts on make up and acts as a Chinese man, Mr. Wong, in his next film Norbit. And the U.S. production of The Rape of Nanking s currently being screened at Sundance starring noted Asianphile Woody Harrelson. If theres good news to be had for 2007 at the movies, somebody please send it my way.
*(Thanks to Juliana Hu Pegues and Giles Li for the conversations and advice which led to the formation of this essay).
Thien-bao Thuc Phi is an award winning poet and spoken word artist who watches too many movies in his spare time.
Posted by momo at 11:34 AM | Comments (35)
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