Woohoo for Woo! Boo for PR Lady

This man is a legend in the film industry.

He is one of the most famous Asian directors with Hollywood leverage. He directed

Face -Off and Mission Impossible 2. He crafted the iconic image of a protagonist jumping out and shooting people with two guns-one in each hand. He is John Woo.

For a guy with such an action-packed resume, you would expect him to be a lot more slicker, harder, tougher, much like the characters in his films. Instead, in person, Woo is a very soft-spoken director with kindly eyes and a constant semi-grin. With a devout Christian upbringing, Woo hopes his films will promote messages of peace and reveal the grim truths of violence and brutality. He wants to educate the youth and help out poor countries. He's like an artsy Mother Teresa. He reminds me of a certain family member. Which one? I'll let you know when the Audrey Magazine blog entry comes out.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him at the lovely Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills last week. This was one interview where I wish lasted longer because I just had so many questions to ask him. Mainly, how he maintains his faith while working in the industry. But time and four other journalists robbed me of the answers.

When the interview ended, I asked the publicist if she would mind if I took a picture of Woo by his poster. The woman said no problem. After I snapped the shot, another journalist, a bearded, chubby white man, asked someone else to take a picture of him with Woo. Seeing that, I immediately asked the publicist if she could kindly take my picture with the director as well.

The publicist did not see the other journalist taking his picture so she said to me, "oh, you want me to take your picture with him? Like, the two of you standing next to each other? No. you can't do that. I know they do that in your country but we don't do that."

Then, she finally sees the other journalist doing EXACTLY that in THIS COUNTRY, no less. Immediately, her tone shifts. "Oh, I guess they're taking pictures. Yea, sure, I'll take it for you." She hurries over to take my camera, snapping this shot.

Everything happened so quickly I didn't even have time to digest the entire conversation until I stepped out of the hotel and into my car.

"Wait a minute, that was racist!" I thought to myself.

Then a million possible comebacks raced through my mind.

"I didn't know people in America didn't take pictures with each other."

"But this is my country."

"Whoa whoa whoa, that's pretty racist, PR lady. Stereotyping that Asian people like to take pictures with other people is kind of bigoted and narrow minded. You should really read my blog entry about that."

It's insulting that we have to face this kind of discrimination in a country we call our home. But I hope with more awareness, like this public blog post, we will face careless, idiotic remarks like that less and less.

Oh, and if you think that PR lady soured my mood, think again! I got to interview and take a picture with John Woo! God loves me.

East/West

What a fitting picture. A Korean village home colliding with a New York apartment complex. East meets West. West engulfs East but East's impact on West is transparent. Welcome to my life.

I'm Asian. I'm American.

My Asian and American side fight with each other all the time.

I wish they would just get along.

They debate whenever I'm in a room of strangers and unsure of whether I should first approach that comfortable, familiar-looking Asian girl sipping lemonade or chat up that cute blonde hair blued eyed French lothario instead. They quarrel whenever I look over my Facebook pictures and notice that I have quite a bit of Asian American friends. They bicker whenever I try to decide whether I should accept that internship at an Asian American magazine or the "American" production company.

I'm Asian.
I listen to Wang Lee Hom... crave a hot bowl of congee...am always on the lookout for the best bargains and cheapest deals...feel guilty when I don't finish my food...avoid the sun like a vampire... cannot handle a car for the life of me and rely on herbal remedies when I get ill.

I'm American.
I listen to Jason Mraz...crave a good ol' hunk of steak and wine... value good service at establishments...enjoy a good hike...never feel guilty when I get a great pedicure...feel there's nothing better to do on a rainy day than cozy up with a cup of hot tea and magazines...think thoughts in English.

I'm Asian-American.
I read "Angry Asian Man" daily... feel scorned when the Chinese man in the movies is relegated to a stereotype...wish Laura Ling and Euna Lee would be freed already...date white men...date Asian men... frequent Sawtelle on a monthly basis...

is torn between the colliding cultures of my Eastern and Western worlds.

There's always a side. Society forces you to take one even though you don't always fit neatly into one or the other. You can flitter between the lines but in every circumstance, situation, decision, you make a choice.

You make a choice on the type of friends you make, music you listen to, events you attend, people you date and all these choices affect whether people think of you as more, "Asian" or more "American." More yellow or white. Fobby or white-washed.

An uncle is a very successful business consultant at a large firm. He has really achieved the American dream, immigrating here from Taiwan over 50 years ago, utilizing all of his education and natural talents (and luck) to end up with a very good paycheck, flexible hours and capability to work from home. But one day, he was telling me a story of how a guy at his work brought some leftover Chinese food to eat during lunch and how it was soooo smelly. Uncle commented, "why couldn't he have just brought a sandwich like everyone else?" Uncle's tone was condescending, as though he was on the "other side." When he told me this story--or even when he was at the cafeteria that day--had he decided to not be as Asian and more American?

When I first approached an up-and-coming comedian at a film festival, I asked her for a possible interview with Koream. She loved the idea and gave me her manager's phone number. After my editor exchanged a couple of phone calls with the manager, it became apparent that the funny girl would not be on our cover anytime soon. Her manager didn't think it would be such a good idea for her to appear on the cover of a Korean American magazine because she would be tagged as "Asian."

Even on my own resume, I look at all the work I've done at Asian American publications and wonder if future employers might assume that's my beat and all I'm good at reporting on. Would they think I'm too Asian?

My life is rife with decisions made or situations falling on me because of my ethnicity. Sometimes being Asian American plays a big part in it, sometimes not so much. I'm sure this will continue in the future and I pray for the day when it won't matter so much anymore. Because seriously, I'm Asian American. I'm a mish-mash of both worlds. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Open Your Eyes, Miley!

I'm a little behind on this but a couple of weeks ago, Miley Cyrus, Disney pop sensation ("sensation" being the right word because this girl's talent and worth is totally sensationalized by the Disney machine) was found in a picture with a group of her friends doing this...

At first glance, one can say, "okay. It's just a picture of a girl having fun with her friends, making some goofy faces."

One can even interpret these faces in many way. Maybe they're pretending to need glasses! Maybe they're potheads! Maybe they're constipated!

But upon closer inspection, it's pretty obvious that this is a completely racist picture of a bunch of white folks pretending to have chinky eyes. Note how the one Asian dude in the shot isn't making the face at all? Note how some people (Miley included) are pulling their eyes taut to achieve the oriental look? Note how one genius in the back even put his fingers up to his mouth to adopt a buck teeth look reminiscent of Charlie Chan's (incredibly racist) Breakfast at Tiffany's character?

Genius

Inspiration

Gotta give him props for being precise and detailed!

Now, I'm not the biggest advocate for anti-racism or anything. I understand that people make mistakes sometimes. We've been brought up in a world where stereotypes exist and racism still lingers. As much as we try to become as open-minded and loving of our neighbors for who they are as a person rather than the color of their skin, it's still typical to make jokes about certain races, to make comments generalizing a group of people, to behave a certain way around them. I'm not saying it's acceptable. Just that it's typical.

However, Miley Cyrus is a celebrity figure. The comments she says, the faces she makes, the pictures she takes, weigh a whole lot more than the average human being. There are little girls who don't even know what racism means who dance along to her songs and sleep on "Hannah Montana" monogrammed pillows at night. I know that she's only 16 herself and just trying to grow up in the public eye but she's been in enough photo scandals to know that anything she does on film will be scrutinized, analyzed and criticized by society. By taking a picture making that kind of face and then letting the photographer keep the picture and post it up online only shows that she doesn't care what message she is sending out.

My sister was in her "7 Things" music video and told me that on-set, Miley wouldn't take pictures with any of the young girls who asked her. Taking pictures with her fans, those that feed her livelihood and made her who she is, is a no no but you know, taking "goofy," ignorant and utterly tasteless shots, that, she will do!

So as is typical "Disney It Girl Gone Bad" fashion, Cyrus has come out with a sort-of statement explaining the photo:

"I've also been told there are some people upset about some pictures taken of me with friends making goofy faces! Well, I'm sorry if those people looked at those pics and took them wrong and out of context! In NO way was I making fun of any ethnicity! I was simply making a goofy face. When did that become newsworthy? It seems someone is trying to make something out of nothing to me. If that would of [sic] been anyone else, it would of been overlooked! I definitely feel like the press is trying to make me out as the new 'BAD GIRL'!"

Girl, you need to (no pun intended) open your eyes if you think that the picture was just goofy. If you think people are "making something out of nothing," why don't we just put up a picture of a bunch of people with hay stuck in our mouths and greasy long blonde hair in our faces and see how you feel about that?

Asians are offended by racist actions like pretending to have chinky eyes because we've had a history of being taught to hate our smaller-than-white-people peepers. We've had a history of thinking that the smaller your eyes are, the less attractive you are. So when you go and take a picture trying to mock our eyes and then say that you weren't trying to do that but was just making a goofy face, you've not only made fun of us once by taking that picture but twice by saying that the face you were making was goofy. Thanks! I quite love walking around with a "goofy" face 24/7.

What Miley Cyrus did was not okay. And I hate how other people out there also think that it was. On Zap2it, the commenters to the article would say these like, "she's only a kid!" and "I don't see what the big deal is!" Um..okay, just because you're a kid doesn't mean that you can get away with racism. If we don't punish her now, how can she grow up to become a responsible, race-conscious adult? And the big deal is that no one ever makes a big deal when there's racism targeted towards Asians. John Imus' infamous "nappy headed hoes" comment drew outrage all over the country, this hardly made a ripple.

On the other hand, there are people who are angry about this and insults Miley back by calling her just another ignorant "country hick." That's kind of racist as well, wouldn't you say? How about we say that Miley Cyrus isn't just another ignorant country hick. She's actually a very lucky girl who's able to live out a dream most other girls would kill for. It's harsh being under the spotlight all the time but you can't expect the fame, glory and moolah to come without some costs, can you? With great power comes great responsibilities (yes, I totally pulled a "Spiderman") and she needs to learn how to be a proper role model whether she likes it or not. If she doesn't want to be one, then GO AWAY. Let Selena Gomez take your place.

Oh! And I also found the Grammy performance Cyrus did with Taylor Swift (whom I girlcrush on madly) She totally ruined Taylor's gentle song with her nasally and crass hooterin' and hollerin'.

Hmm..Taylor Swift's eyes are known for being fairly cat-eyes and slim, I wonder how she feels about Miley calling her eyes "goofy"?

Inspiration for this post: Angry Asian Man

*Edit: FINALLY a real apology issued on her official fan club website...

Posted on Feb 08, 2009

"I want to thank all of my fans for their support not only this week, but always! I really wanted to stress how sorry I am if the photo of me with my friends offended anyone. I have learned a valuable lesson from this and know that sometime my actions can be unintentionally hurtful. I know everything is a part of GODs ultimate plan, and mistakes happen so that eventually I will become the woman he aspires me to be. Peace and love, Miles."