Saturday, April 27, 2013

PROMposals In Style

Its that time of year where the fellas in high school ask out the girlfriends' or the girl of their high school dreams to prom. Sad to say, I actually never went to my high school prom (its a long story), but thanks to YouTube I now can live vicariously through others who had 10x more guts than I did, like these fellas who proposed in STYLE. This takes more than just Pokemon balls to propose in this matter. This takes balls of fury! Check it out.

Check out Terry ask out this chick to prom in front of everyone during lunch time Pokemon style.


This guy sings Bruno Mars, Marry You, with some funny altered lyrics. He should've practiced a little more on the vocals. Nonetheless, a commendable effort!


And my favorite, the Three Asian Musketeers demonstrating moxy with this dance proposal. Shit, I'd even go with 'em if I were a chick.


With that, I wish all the dudes out there the best of luck on their PROMposals!


Sunday, April 14, 2013

What's Up With Guys And Their Asian Fetishes?

This was too bad for me to pass up. And when I say "bad" I mean Michael Jackson Bad. You know, how he looked really bad toward the end of his life? Saw this by way of Angry Asian Man's blog and was in a bit of shock. These guys must be competing for the offensive douchbaggery award of the year.

For example, here's one that's doubly offensive to both Asian women and men. Racist much?


Look, I didn't think guys out there who fetishize over Asian women were this audaciously bigoted. I mean sure, I know there are guys out there who love Asian women just because they're Asian but never  could I even remotely conceive this is the kind of stuff they have to go through. Wow!

As my dad once told me, there's two sides with every coin. Being an Asian woman, and a beautiful one at that, its a gift and a curse. Sure, you're bound to receive attention, but also a ton of bad attention. I really don't know what's worse...being predisposed as an asexual beta or this? Not only do you have guys who just want to sleep with you, but now you have a swarm of envious, non-Asian females who despise you because your "Asianness" is stealing male marketshare. Damn.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Anna Kendrick joins K-Pop group F(x)

Anna Kendrick, the American actress from movies like Twilight and Up In The Air, has recently joined the K-Pop girl group F(x)...well sorta. Check out this short sketch I found on the website Funny Or Die where she tries out for F(x), learns the choreo and lyrics for Electric Shock as well. Now that is blog worthy. You know if there's one thing that'll get me back on the blogosphere its going to be K-Pop, my guilty pleasure.



Tuesday, February 26, 2013

NY Times Celebrates A Vietnamese American Marriage

Random thought. Vietnamese women are hot. Then again, I'm biased. I've had a lot of crushes on Vietnamese girls while growing up.

Source: NY Times. Caroline and Daniel's Wedding Celebration

Okay, so that's not what this article in the NY Times is about, but it is about a Vietnamese American couple who recently got married. Meet Caroline Trang Nguyen and Daniel Gien, two successful Vietnamese American Ivy Leaguers holding some prestigious occupations working for Washington. If they have children, their kids are going to be ridiculously smart.

Besides having a story that celebrates the melding of two similar Asian cultures, I also like the fact that the article highlights how Caroline was wondering why Daniel hadn't asked her out. I'm pretty sure she gave him all kinds of visual and verbal cues indicating her interest in him. She even went a step further and made it strikingly obvious by asking her brother to invite Daniel to hang out with them. How cool is that? Either he didn't pick up on them or he really was just too busy with his work. The good news is, he made a move!

Sometimes I wonder how many times a girl me sent some kind of implicit cue that she was interested which I was unable to detect. If it was blatantly obvious, I'd try to avoid it by playing dumb. "What...I had no idea she was interested in me!" But then again, there are other times where I'd say the exact same thing and actually meant it. "Seriously, I had no idea. I would've totally asked her out! SHIT!" 

Females will often times demo their interest indirectly by using subtle gestures:
  • Pushing their hair back to expose just one ear
  • Twirling their hair with their fingers
  • Laughing at every damn thing you say as if you were comedian
  • Slapping you in the shoulder pretending to be upset with you
  • Feel free to add to the list...
I've talked about this with plenty of different women and it always boils down to the same response. Women don't want to make it too obvious that they like you because they don't want to appear like they're desperate. It lowers their desirability index and it can give the false impression that they're too easy. Thus, they resort to these kinds of cues which once upon a time clueless guys like me have to figure out. Yes, guys too like challenges no matter how hot she is. 


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Aziatix Signs With Cash Money Records


I caught the flu bug several days ago and have been immobile for several days now. So with that, I wanted to share this fantastic news which I will keep terse. The Asian American trio Aziatix has signed on with Cash Money Records. And Cash Money did they get. The group landed a $11.3 million deal with the label who has a slew of household rap artists such as Lil Wayne, Nicky Minaj and Drake.

For those of you who haven't heard any of their music, its pretty good. Check out this music video for their song "Go". Its a hot track.


This is a huge milestone for AA as it is one of the key indicators that America is beginning to except the fact that musicians aren't just black and white. After the proven popularity of Far East Movement, Cash Money has made a very lucrative investment in the AA group as they not only can they cater to an English speaking audience, but can also woo the hearts and minds of the Asian people. 

Funny how I was just paying homage to their founder Jae Chong who started his own Hip Hop/R&B group Solid. Chong, also their producer, probably went into this project looking specifically to find overlooked AA talent by regular A&R talent hunters. This can be inferred by this work with producing other Asian acts such as Coco Lee, Kim Gum Mo, Shin Seung Hoon, Stanley Huang, Nicky Lee and even JYJ for all you K-Pop lovers out there. And this is why it is so important for AA to have community so we can bond with one another and network to advance ourselves in society, to be a better AA and demonstrate to the world that we are multidimensional and multitalented individuals.

You can read up more on Aziatix here

Friday, February 8, 2013

An Excerpt From Christopher J. Dorner's Manifesto

Its all over the news now. Christopher J. Dorner, a former police officer, is on a deadly rampage taking his revenge out on the LAPD for allegedly being vilified and wrongfully terminated. Initially, I thought the guy was total a whack job until I read his manifesto. I really feel for the guy and even more so after reading this passage.
Journalist, I want you to investigate every location I resided in growing up. Find any incidents where I was ever accused of being a bully. You won’t, because it doesn’t exist. It’s not in my DNA. Never was. I was the only black kid in each of my elementary school classes from first grade to seventh grade in junior high and any instances where I was disciplined for fighting was in response to fellow students provoking common childhood schoolyard fights, or calling me a nigger or other derogatory racial names. I grew up in neighborhoods where blacks make up less than 1%. My first recollection of racism was in the first grade at Norwalk Christian elementary school in Norwalk, CA. A fellow student, Jim Armstrong if I can recall, called me a nigger on the playground. My response was swift and non-lethal. I struck him fast and hard with a punch an kick. He cried and reported it to a teacher. The teacher reported it to the principal. The principal swatted Jim for using a derogatory word toward me. He then for some unknown reason swatted me for striking Jim in response to him calling me a nigger. He stated as good Christians we are to turn the other cheek as Jesus did. Problem is, I’m not a fucking Christian and that old book, made of fiction and limited non-fiction, called the bible, never once stated Jesus was called a nigger. How dare you swat me for standing up for my rights for demanding that I be treated as a equal human being. That day I made a life decision that i will not tolerate racial derogatory terms spoken to me. Unfortunately I was swatted multiple times for the same exact reason up until junior high. Terminating me for telling the truth of a caucasian officer kicking a mentally ill man is disgusting. Don’t ever call me a fucking bully.
First off, I do not condone violence. I've never been a violent person nor someone who bullies those who I see as weaker or different. Like Michael Jackson said, "Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover not a fighter." I embrace the differences that God has blessed us with. It is a gift from the heavens to give us variety like 31 flavors. This excerpt from Dorner's manifesto however, is something I believe all Asian-Americans or recent immigrants, regardless of ethnicity, should abide by when facing racial insults or mockery. Its just uncalled for. If we're friends, that's one thing, but if I don't even know you and you're spewing out racial epithets, then you deserve a critical beat down. As human beings we cannot change that aspect of our physical appearance. In case you might have forgotten, we are born this way and it is completely immutable so why even take it there?

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The 1990s Spawned Modern Asian-American Culture

One of my readers sent me a letter with respect to a blog I posted on dealing with my identity crisis as an Asian-American. I guess it really resonated with him which gives me mixed feelings, but before I go into that, here's his message,
I was reading this post, Identity Crisis For An Asian-American
Your K-12 experience was very much like mine. The main difference is that I visited China at age 11 and after that I was always very aware of my identity and part of me never wanted to integrate, to this day. 
Do you think there is really such a thing as an Asian-American identity? 
When I try to talk about this with my Asian-American friends, they say they just think of themselves as individuals with no racial identity, or they have an identity but they don't care much about it, the portrayal of Asian men in the media doesn't frustrate them. I don't understand how they can be nonchalant as obviously being Asian has shaped their entire life from start until adulthood. 
On the one hand, I'm glad to see that I wasn't alone in feeling this way, isolated and confused at times as to how I fit in this predominately white society, but on the other, I'm sad that America still has a long way to go before it becomes much more integrated to reflect the often mischaracterization of a true "melting pot". I still think it's a salad bowl at best outside of California.

Hell, even our next door neighbor, "Oh Canada!" is more of a melting pot than the U.S. I haven't been to every Canadian city, but I believe my personal experience and sample size (a biased one I reckon) is large enough that it exhausts the majority of the country that allows me to come to that conclusion.

Getting back to the question of whether or not I think there is such a thing as an Asian-American identity...I would have to say I think there is. Asian-American culture is still fairly nascent, but I would contend that our history is punctuated with a distinct AA identity that spawned from the 1990s. You might ask me, "Oh yeah, like what?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Kevin Tsujihara, The 1st Asian American To Run A Major Hollywood Studio


Okay, I'm late to the party on this one, but I had to blog about it regardless since it is a Jeremy Lin like watershed moment for Asian Americans. Kevin Tsujihara will become the first Asian American ever to be CEO of Warner Bros, let alone any major Hollywood studio and will be replacing Barry Meyer who has held the position for almost 14 years. According to the LA Times, Meyer had some kind words to say about Tsujihara,
"Everyone needs a leader, and Kevin was the person best equipped to unify the company at this time," Meyer said in an interview. "We just thought he was the best choice for the whole company...It was about the person and the character of the person," Meyer said. "The digital transition is one that is happening and it is affecting every part of our company. Kevin has really been at the forefront of that, and leading that charge, but Warner Bros. is really about the products that it makes."
I hope this means that more Asian Americans will finally have a fair shot at the big screen devoid of tokenized stereotypical Asian characters.

Monday, January 28, 2013

WongFu Reminds Us Why It's So Important To Approach A Girl In Under 3 Seconds


Have you ever heard of the 3 second rule when it comes to approaching a woman you're interested in? For those of you who haven't, the rule is basically this. If you notice a girl you find attractive and want to talk to, you should do it in under 3 seconds the moment you see her. As WongFu Productions little short "This is how we never met" illustrates, the longer you wait to think of something to say before you just go up and talk to her, the more likely it is that you won't do it.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Check Out Jeannie Lin, The Award Winning Author Of Historical Romance

If you've been a D2R reader for the last few years you might recall a blog I wrote up on how Asian men even get shafted in literature due to the dearth of authors who portray them as the romantic lead or better yet, don't even get included in the storyline at all. It even stirred up quite a ruckus on YOMYOMF. Look, I know what you're thinking,
"But MaSir, what about The Joy Luck Club? Obviously, there's irrefutably no better book out there at describing what a wonderful experience it is to date an Asian male besides that one." 
You are absolutely right! Amy Tan did her best to make Asian men look incredibly awesome, romantic and financially generous. After its release, Asian Americans from all over the world hail and swear by that novel as the most accurate depiction of AA men.

However, I still wasn't satisfied and thought to myself, "There has to be a female author who knows how to write a different kind of Asian love story." You know...where the Asian guy actually gets the girl...like how it is in the real-world. Searching high and low I was fortunate enough to find Jeannie Lin, a writer of historical romance novels set in ancient China. (And no, her stories do not parallel The Last Samurai if you know what I mean.) American entertainment, literature included, retells the same propagandizing love story. Jeannie, however, is different in that her stories center around the Asian male as an actual love interest, unlike what I call the BLS*. 

*Bruce Lee Syndrome (BLS) - Asian male protagonist kicks the shit out of a thousand men, but never gets the girl or is deemed as an asexual creature. 


Thus, I decided to sit down with Lin for a one-on-one interview and learn more about her and her work. You can check out Jeannie Lin's website here.

MaSir: Tell us about yourself. Let's start off with a "Jeannie Lin" boilerplate introduction.

Jeannie:  I'm Jeannie. I write historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China. Surprisingly, my background is actually in cognitive science and education. I'm a techie by day and writer by night.

MaSir By any chance, are you related to Jeremy Lin?

Jeannie:  Heheh...no relation. I do occasionally refer to him as cousin Jeremy as a joke online. No relation to Justin Lin either....

MaSir Damn it. Okay. Interview's over...

Just kidding. So when did you start writing? And when did you officially become "Jeannie Lin" the author?

Jeannie:  I started writing around 2005. I was still teaching and looking for something to do as a hobby to balance things out. I took a class on romance writing and at first it was just something non-teaching to do on weekends, but the more I invested in the story, the more I realized I had always wanted to publish a story, so I committed to going for it. It took about four years of writing before I got noticed and received my first writing contract.

MaSir Do your parents know that you're a romance novel writer?

Jeannie:  Ha, they do! 

MaSir:  What are their opinions of it? I know Asian parents are so particular about their children pursuing STEM related careers but it looks like you already have that so maybe they don't mind so much?

Jeannie:  My mother is quite proud and actually sent my first book to a major Vietnamese paper because she knew the editor. (She publishes poetry under a pseudonym). My father requested a copy of my books -- just to have as a souvenir I'm sure -- so I may be the only romance author who has shipped their books to a Buddhist monastery. He's not a monk, he was just rooming at a monastery. 

Writing is my side job. My parents are very practical people and I'm no different. I'd starve if I tried to feed myself on writing money alone. I have a day job that pays the bills. [Just a side note] A lot of the shame that comes with writing romance or genre-fiction comes from how you feel yourself. I've never been ashamed and everyone I know, family and friends, have always been positive.

MaSir:  I actually stumbled upon your website after a blog that I had written up about the lack of AA female authors writing stories with Asian males as love interests and romantic leads. I was pleasantly surprised that there was someone representing for the Asian male race. What prompted you to stay within your ethnicity and not go off following the typical WM/AF love story that is so mainstream and overdone?

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Is Your Girlfriend Phasing You Out? Eliot Chang Explains

Eliot Chang is part of my original list of Asian men changing the face of American entertainment. Obviously that list has at least doubled in size since and will need to be updated in the future, but Eliot still remains to be one of the major Asian American trailblazers using comedy to entertain, educate and get straight to the point. Take for instance this recent video I found of his on YouTube called, Dating 101: You Are Being Phased Out. For those of you who might not have a clue that you are about to get dumped, Eliot breaks it down for you.


I thought he did an excellent job explaining why certain signs are indicative of relationship abandonment. However, there is one more sign I'd like to add to Eliot's monologue in being able to detect if you're about to get dumped. It might have been an accidental omission on his part, but I also believe that if a girl is "phasing you out" she will begin to pick fights with you over stupid shit. And yes, men are just as guilty of this kind of asshole-like behavior also.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

LeendaD Shows Girls How To Pick Up Guys

I love it when I discover funny YouTube videos. If matchmaking ain't your thing, not to worry ladies. You can always try hunting for the perfect mate yourself. This skit comes to us from LeendaD Productions, a group of girls from British Columbia, Canada, who demonstrate for us how to pickup guys at the gym. What makes this skit so comical is that no girl will ever try to hit on a guy at the gym and secondly, its usually the other way around where guys are the ones gawking. Plus, people there are just focused on working out (and checking out the meat market).


Check out part 2. How to pick up a guy at the library.




Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Even US Employees Are Outsourcing Their Work To China

This story is too hilarious for me to pass up and share. I'll have to categorize this one under comedy. It just goes to show you how China is becoming a bigger part of the US economy whether you see it with your own eyes or not. Based on a story published by The Next Web, Verizon discovered that a US developer was outsourcing his work to China. A guy by the name of "Bob" sent his work over to a Chinese consulting firm paying them only one-fifth of his six figure annual income to do all of his work for him so we could watch cat videos and read Reddit.

I'm going to make an assumption that Bob is Chinese. How else would he have been able to find those connections given the language barrier, but who knows? Maybe he hired a Chinese translator too. Nonetheless, genius.

Apparently, Bob was running this scheme at several companies simultaneously, and they only caught him after the US company contacted Verizon about a possible security breach coming from China. However, it wasn't a hack from the outside in but vice versa. As stated in Verizon's Security Blog,
As it turns out, Bob had simply outsourced his own job to a Chinese consulting firm. Bob spent less that one fifth of his six-figure salary for a Chinese firm to do his job for him. Authentication was no problem, he physically FedExed his RSA token to China so that the third-party contractor could log-in under his credentials during the workday. It would appear that he was working an average 9 to 5 work day. Investigators checked his web browsing history, and that told the whole story. 
A typical ‘work day’ for Bob looked like this: 
9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos
11:30 a.m. – Take lunch
1:00 p.m. – Ebay time.
2:00 – ish p.m Facebook updates – LinkedIn
4:30 p.m. – End of day update e-mail to management.
5:00 p.m. – Go home
Bob managed to use a mix of social engineering and outsourcing fundamentals, which he learned from the best, to write all of his code for him paying only a fraction of what he was making. Sound familiar? Hint: Every major American corporation.

At first glance, the story is all chuckles and yes, what he did was definitely in the wrong. Its a violation of company policy to be sharing trade secrets not to mention a blatant security breach to send over your credentials to an outsider. However, I can see how some people may lionize this man, for he was simply "working smarter, not harder".

I don't know of a single American corporation that doesn't outsource these days to China or India. If you want to compete in this global economy these days, you absolutely must outsource some of your labor, production or customer service to either East Asia or Europe due to the tremendous cost advantages over employing your own domestic workers.  

What makes Bob look like a bad guy in this instance is simply his title. That's it. Had he been a CxO or Vice President of the company, he might've been handsomely awarded a raise or fat bonus for saving the company money and making it more operationally efficient. Looks like China isn't just making all of our hardware now but our software too, at least behind the scenes.

Ka-Ching Dynasty! 

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Comedian KT Tatara AKA "The Poon Sensei" Is Brutally Honest But Always Funny

For those of you who've never heard of KT Tatara, you can all thank me now. I'm not sure what his ethnicity is, but from his last name I'd assume he's half Japanese and half white. Don't quote me on it though. What appeals me about KT is that he has a brutally honest style of delivery. I wouldn't go so far to say it's as extreme as Daniel Tosh but its definitely real. Check out this awesome bit he did at The Laugh Factory in LA.


As you can see, the guy's got skills. KT started getting recognition as a legitimate comedian around 2006 and since then has continued to tour and do stand up. Here's another really good set he had at The Ice House. He kills it!


I didn't know he had an alter ego called "The Poon Sensei" either. You can learn more about KT from his website here.



Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Police Lockup Asian American Teens For 15 Hours Without Food Or Water

Stories like these serve as an unwelcome reminder as to why Asian Americans need to band together and speak out against the injustices deliberated upon them or any other minority. Adam Kim, an Asian American teen of Newark, NJ, is filing a civil suit against the Fort Lee Newark Police Department for unlawfully arresting him and violating his civil rights. Kim and a few others were held like hostages, locked inside a van for 15 hours straight in below freezing temperatures without any food, water or even a place to take care of nature's calling. Had a passerby not taken noticed of the boys locked inside the vehicle the next day, who knows what might've happened to them.

Source: Daily Mail Online

Reported by the Daily Mail, the incident occurred back in March, 2011. According to Kim, the officers "displayed a pattern of racial bias and/or indifference" by using racial slurs to reference Asian-Americans. There was an internal investigation but the department said that they did not find any evidence of malicious intent or discrimination. I'll take those findings with a grain of salt. Seriously, what police department is going to confess that they have a racist unit? Although the officers remain innocent until proven guilty, if what Kim alleges is indeed true, I would be deeply saddened, because entrust these individuals and depend on them to enforce the law, not violate it.