The 7th annual Asian Pacific American Federal Career Advancement Summit (whew, that’s long) was held on the 15th of May. Being a federal employee, I was able to attend. It was held at a swanky hotel in Washington D.C. (Marriott Renaissance) and lasted from 7:30 am to 5 pm (unfortunately my supervisor only gave us 4 hours). This event is hosted by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and Director Linda Springer of the Office of Personnel Management.

So, what is this whole thing all about? The summit started back in 2002 to address the issue of the shortage of Asian Pacific Americans in the senior executive or management positions within the federal government. Through the day, there are various workshops that one can attend which provides management insight and skills training to help Asian Pacific Americans advance in their federal careers. Various governmental agencies were also on site with their tables promoting their agency and giving away some free stuff. Here was this years agenda (taken form the apasummit.gov website):

I was unfortunately able to attend only one workshop (Emotional Intelligence) due to the limited time I had, but I thought it was a good experience and definitely worth the trip. The presenter for the workshop I went was very good. Elaine Chao also did a speech in the morning and that was excellent also (I even think she was winging some of it)! She touched on subjects of Asian culture, how American used to be, and how America is changing for the better. She peppered her speech with personal stories which gave it a nice touch and made her come off as someone you could really relate to.

Overall, I thought this was well-organized. Plus, we even got free lunch and lots of StarBucks! Mmmmm, steak.

Since Elaine Chao is approaching the end of her tenure, I wonder if this summit will still continue after she is gone (Maybe not? Seems like the went all out. I was sensing a “Going out with a bang” feeling). It would be a shame if it did disappear, because I think this event helps/empowers the Asian Pacific American in many ways.

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For a while, I’ve noticed this. A situation occurs where your ethnicity is mentioned, and it feels like most of the time, non-Asians automatically assume you’re chinese. Two things can be basically going on in your mind:

1) You are Chinese and are like “Wow, you have a sixth sense of Asianness!”

2) You aren’t Chinese and are like “Wow, you suck!”

And depending on where you live, this may happen quite often. This is somewhat understandable…I mean, I can’t usually tell what ethnicity an Asian is. Particularly in the U.S., Chinese are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) percentage of Asians in the country as well. So maybe there’s some validity to all this, but still, it can be annoying, especially if you fall under number 2. This annoyance stems from Chinese essentially representing all Asians.

image credit: www.lukechueh.com

Does this happen to you quite often or is it a rare occasion and I’m just goofy?

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So I was talking with my sister a while ago and she brought up something I found quite amusing. Apparently she said something along the lines of her not being Asian enough, and she doesn’t have the “aura”…On the other hand, apparently she said I do, lol. Weird thing is though, I hardly know any Chinese…while she’s nearly fluent!

image credit: wesandjo.files.wordpress.com

It’s not like she hangs out strictly with non-Asians either. In fact, she has a lot of Asian friends…maybe even more than me! I had to take a step back as I began to ponder about all this. I’ve been thinking, is it our subtle differences in lifestyles which gives me a lead in our so called “Asian-ness”? Here are some brief examples:

-Music: Both my sister and I listen to English music, however I also listen to Asian music, albeit a small amount.

-Food: I’d prefer eating a bowl of pho than a bowl of spaghetti. Although we both like Asian food, I have more of a tendency to eat it I guess?

-Entertainment: This is also similar to music. We are both into Western movies/tv shows/ etc., but I also have an taste for the Asian arts as well, particular anime and manga.

-Events: My sister would be more interested in going to a Chris Brown concert, and I would be more interested in checking out the Cherry Blossom Festival.

-Appearance: I’ve been told by my sister that I just look more “Asian”. It’s weird, I mean I don’t try to wear Asian clothes, in fact I’m usually wearing some American Eagle stuff, lol! I guess it might be due my hairstyle or just physical features?

In conclusion, I’m still lost as to what makes me more “Asian” than my sister, because even with all things considered…does it actually make me more “Asian”, or just more aware of Asian culture? I guess being more “into” the culture is essentially part of the equation…but how does this all fit into the “aura”? Or maybe this “aura” is some convoluted theory or idea thought up by my sister…which it probably is.

So how Asian are YOU?

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Shanghai Kiss is a romantic comedy that came out in 2007 as a direct to dvd movie. The main character is Liam Liu(Ken Leung). Two other important characters are Adelaide Bourbon(Hayden Panettiere) and Micki Yang(Kelly Hu). This is a movie about Liam Liu, a Chinese American, who grows up trying to live the American dream of becoming an actor. Liam doesn’t appreciate his Chinese roots. Liam one day meets a high school teen named Adelaide bourbon and unwillingly gets into an one-sided relationship with her. One day a turn of events places Liam in China. Liam finally gets to experience his Chinese culture and then he must make some big decisions regarding his life.

Shanghai Kiss was a good movie that depicts how some Asian Americans live their life not liking their own heritage. Sometimes they continue the way they feel, and sometimes they go through an experience which changes their views like in this movie.

Here’s a trailer of the movie:

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If you are Asian, chances are when you are having an alcoholic beverage, your face or whole body starts to turn red (This happens mostly to just Asians and not Pacific Islanders from what I understand). This what people refer to as the “Asian Glow”. When this happens, “those that don’t know” consider that you are drunk already. Despite what they say, you probably aren’t drunk at all!

From Wikipedia:

“50% of the Pacific Rim Asian population inherit a mutant ADH known as ADH2*2 that leads to faster-than-normal degradation of ethanol to acetaldehyde…45-53% of the Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and Korean population possess a mutant ALDH2 known as ALDH2*2. Approximately half of people of Asian descent are considered to be sensitive to alcohol due to this condition. Flushing, after consuming one or two alcoholic beverages, includes a range of symptoms: nausea, headaches, light-headedness, an increased pulse, occasional extreme drowsiness, and occasional skin swelling and itchiness. These unpleasant side effects often prevent further drinking that may lead to further inebriation, but the symptoms can lead to mistaken assumption that the people affected are more easily inebriated than others.”

According to Wikipedia, about 50% of Asians get this condition…the way they make it out to be sounds scary….mutant inheritance??!

image credit: www.bagofnothing.com

For me, I just get pinkish on my face by the first mug of beer (It never gets tomato red no matter how much I drink, however). As far as symptoms like headaches, increased pulse, breathing problems, and nausea go…It doesn’t really seem to happen to me fortunately. People have found success in alleviating some of these symptoms through over-the-counter antacid medicines like Zantac and Pepcid AC.

So how does much does the Asian Glow affect you? Let me know your thoughts by commenting or polling!

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Columbia News Service has written a great article about this roughly a year ago going into further details about the symptoms, the medical explanation, personal stories, and possible remedies. Check it out here.

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I watched this the following day after it came out in theaters (04/26/2008). I wasn’t expecting to much due to the general trend of sequels sucking majorly. To my surprise however, it was funny and I enjoyed it! I am still debating on whether it is better than White Castle, but at least I thought it was good, lol.

image credit: www.moviecritic.com.au

Obviously this film isn’t for everybody. If you didn’t like White Castle, then save your money, because this time around it’s even more gross, disturbing, racist, etc. That being said, I thought the vulgarity was executed quite well throughout the movie and gave me an extra couple of good solid chuckles.

The jokes dealing with racist and political issues were funny. And the government agent, Ron Fox (played by Rob Corddry…hilarious. He’s the main deliverer of the typical stereotypes, and the delivery is great! The sad thing about his character is that on some level, there are people just like him in the world. I enjoyed how they tried to deflate certain stereotypes and at the same time they are making fun of the deflating as well (example: Harold and Kumar’s Jewish friends scene when they get interrogated by Ron Fox, lol)!

image credit: www.moviecritic.com.au

Great movie, I want to see it again. It’s great to see two Asian-Americans taking lead in a Hollywood film that’s not related to martial arts…even if it’s just a “stoner” movie. I dare say this is even a breakthrough, because it wasn’t until this franchise that we’ve seen Asian-Americans taking center stage like this. So while I’m still debating which “Harold & Kumar” I liked most, I definitely can say both were quite entertaining and gave me a good amount of laughs. Hopefully they’ll come out with a DVD bundle in the future, lol!

image credit: www.iwatchstuff.com

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Of course when Goofy Asians are procrastinating around on the internet, they tend to “goto” strange”places. Places which, if they are at work at the time and the network is being monitored as well, would set off red flags…and no, it’s not always porn, LoL.

The Why: Little explanation is needed or rather, there’s not much explanation to begin with. The reason for our peculiar perusing is that we need subsistence to fuel our persona, our minds, our souls. That and we just are a weird bunch that needs weird stuff to look at.

The What: If you have gotten this far you must be thinking to yourself, “What exactly is considered weird?” This can literally range from any subject as well as any type of media (text,video,images,etc.). Most of the time, the subject matter is pretty normal…However, what really makes it considered weird can be a number of possible things:

1. Tendency to get nearly obsessive of said subject. Example: Hitsushark and her lolcats. Go ahead, ask her how many times she goes there per day.
2. Frequency going off on a tangent during any particular instant messaging session. Ever get a response from whoever you are talking to such as: “that was random”, “wtf”, “you’re weird man” a lot? You may be a Goofy Asian. Not Asian? Consider yourself an honorary one in this regard, LOL.
3. Playing little social games, like “Would you Rather do this or that?”, and coming up with some of the strangest questions/answers. Yes, asking whether you’d rather make out with Dr. Phil or eat a bird turd is out there…you know who you are, LOL.
4. Doing stuff online, which would be much easier offline. I bought shoe lace on the internet…even though the shoe store is right there and probably cost less considering I had to pay for shipping. And no, this isn’t just an isolated incident! Another personal example: Using random.org as sort of a “heads or tails” for deciding where to eat.
5. Always doing the “wrong thing at the wrong time”. Example: Being on YouTube looking at “Hard Gay” at church, which brings me to the next number…
6. On YouTube most of the time for strange videos. I remember for a few weeks I used YouTube mainly to look at those quirky Japanese game shows…good times.
7. Giving out links to people and usually getting a “Are you on crack?” vibe. Some people just don’t get your sense of humor or whatever, and most of the people who do are either in the same boat or worse!
8. Being on the internet at ungodly hours doing things that would make you question yourself. Can someone tell me why I was up till 4am reading about the guarana berry (Which is a fruit with natural occurring caffeine by the way.)?
9. Coming to conclusions of life’s mysteries through random websites of random things at random times…and being somewhat serious about it, but not really. (Who would’ve thought I could learn so much about myself on subway.com? Be sure to take the inner-sub quiz before it disappears!)
10. There is no number 10…but I wanted a list of 10.

image credit: joke art

So there you have it. There’s definitely more to it, this is just a glimpse of the possible ways of being weird. If you’re still confused, or you’re saying to yourself, “What the hell is he talking about?”…well, you obviously are normal.

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Thanks to Nami, our correspondent from the land of the rising sun, Goofy Asians will take you through a visual tour of Japan! Witness things you may have never seen before or would’ve thought of being in Japan…or be completely unsurprised (in that case, damn)! Either way, expect some great pictures from Nihon!

In this part of the series, Nami has provided some pictures of how Japan looks like in the Spring as well as some various landscape images. Great pictures indeed, check them out (If you haven’t figured it out…you can click the pictures to expand it, lol…warning: images are large, so it may take a while to load…I will reduce the file size next time.):

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Such fleeting beauty. The National Cherry Blossom Festival ended last weekend, signaling the end of the blossoms. My friend and I headed to D.C. to check out the 2008 Sakura Matsuri, a street festival that usually starts after the end of the Cherry Blossom Parade and stretches across a couple blocks in the heart of downtown D.C. featuring various events going on through the whole street festival (Lists from the National Cherry Blossom Festival website):

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