Amid all the New Year’s Eve options out there, my husband and I picked a good one. While the ball was droppin’, our eyes were poppin’—at the final, climactic scene of the modern Korean classic Oldboy. Wow. We were so into it, we forgot to switch over to the TV countdown as we had planned. Will the real Asian film geek please stand up? And does this auspicious beginning to 2009 foretell a great year for Asian film?
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Tags: Addicted, Ang Lee, asian, Asian film, Free Food for Millionaires, Geling Yan, Joan Chen, justin lin, Korean, Min Jin Lee, Never Forever, Oldboy, Stephen Chow, sung kang, Tian yu

Hey, Americans, Happy Thanksgiving. That means stuff your face and watch some movies! I’m catching up on film, including The Namesake from 2006. One scene got me thinking about relationships between Asians and non-Asians–how their cultural navigations are portrayed in film. Here’s just a few that stick out–add a few of your own.

In The Namesake, Mira Nair’s adaptation of the Jhumpa Lahiri novel, Gogol (Kal Penn) takes his white girlfriend Max (Jacinda Barrett) home to meet his very traditional Indian parents. Max ignores many of the politely-given instructions on cultural taboos to respect. I cringed. But the real kicker was when she asked to attend a family mourning ceremony. “I wanna go to India with you to spread the ashes!” Good Lord! Gogol’s in mourning, and she’s gripping his arm, wheedling her way into a trip abroad. I know what the white girl wanted….the trip to India would “prove their love.” But it came across like attending a family mourning ceremony was another notch to make in her cultural-experiences belt. That really bothered me.
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Tags: asian, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, film, interracial, Jason Scott Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kal Penn, Mira Nair, Mississippi Masala, Sarita Choudry, The Namesake

You probably knew about Tiger Woods, Steve Byrne, and Kimora Lee Simmons. Yeah, they’ve got Asian in ‘em. But did you know that funny man Rob Schneider is half Filipino? Or that model Naomi Campbell had Chinese blood? Vladimir Lenin, the father of Communist Russia, was part Mongolian, and Bruce Lee had German ancestry. Here’s more from Frank Agostinelli and asiansofmixedrace.com.

Plenty of famous, and talented people have partial Asian ancestry. And good-looking people….well, maybe not Rob Schneider. Ann Curry of NBC News is Japanese and Irish. Eddie Van Halen is Indonesian and German. New York Yankee Johnny Damon is half Thai, and singer KT Tunstall is a quarter Chinese. But the tag line on asiansofmixedrace.com is, “Percentages Don’t Matter!” Even if you have only a tiny fraction of Asian in you, be proud of who you are.
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Tags: asian, celebrity, Frank Agostinelli, Jason Tobin, Kelly Hu, Kimora Lee Simmons, mixed Asian, race, Russell Wong, Tiger Woods

He’s not a celebrity, just a regular Rhode Island guy. But what he has to say about race in America today is funny, hard-hitting, and well worth a read. He’s Frank Y. Pak Agostinelli, founder of asiansofmixedrace.com. With Frank, what you see is what you get. Everything about him, from his name to his “Random Thoughts of an Angry Half-Asian Man,” sets a powerful example of self-acceptance.

I wanted to learn more about the mixed-race experience because of my own half-white, half-Korean children. A mixed-Asian friend introduced me to Frank and the awesome content of his site. In the first part of this interview, you’ll get to know Frank. Stay tuned for Part 2, which features more about his site, including the fascinating issues and celebrities covered there.
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Tags: asian, Frank Agostinelli, hapas, Korean, mixed race Asians, race, white

It was Saturday night, at my weekend waitressing job. I saw them at the host booth, and hoped they would end up in my section. It was slow, and I needed another table. But I also wanted a chance to say “Hi.” It’s not every day that you see a mixed Asian family in Clermont County, Ohio.
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Tags: asian, family, multiracial

Yes, it’s the Giant White Girl of Ningin, cheesin’ with yet another Asian celebrity. How did I get to meet Kal Penn? At a Democratic voter-registration rally. He, like several other notable Asian-American actors and directors, is putting his clout behind Barack Obama’s campaign. My son, hiding from the camera, was less enthusiastic. Sorry, Kal. He’ll love your movies someday….but he better not repeat the dirty jokes.

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Tags: asian, barack obama, celebrity, democratic, kal pen, ningin