SDAFF: 'Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats'

You might giggle when you try to read the title of this Japanese or you might even offend someone who is adverse to four-lettered words. This 2014 movie, "Fuku-Chan of Fukufuku Flats" is a gentle story about good and bad karma and high school regrets.

In Japanese the four-lettered word f**k and fuku are pronounced differently.  In this case, the fuku stands for　福　or “good fortune.” Double good fortune is still good, yet fuku can also mean to mope.  And there's a lot of moping going around in this apartment complex.

Yosuke Fujita wrote and directs this movie which focuses on a likable guy who seems to embrace the solitary life. Yet it is not because he can't make friends. The Fuku-chan of the title is the 32-year-old Tatsuo Fukuda (Miyuki Oshima).  The auspiciously named flats is really a run-down apartment building that he has been living in since he moved to Tokyo  after his junior high school graduation.

Fuku-chan is the peacemaker for two other single men living in the same complex. They become unlikely friends. Like many people Fuku-chan's work isn't especially inspiring, and he doesn't try to make friends at work. In his spare time, he paints hand-made kites and flies them for fun. Flying kites seems like a solitary endeavor, but making kites for others is more sociable. You want people to like the designs. You want the designs to be admired.

The question then becomes: Why is Fuku-chan so withdrawn from others except those who are similarly single?

In another part of Japan, a young woman's desire to become a photographer and be less ordinary results in a disaster. She wins a contest and she finally meets the art photographer she admired. Her prize is to work with the man who turns out to be a lecherous old man who tries to turn the photo session into a make out session. Her idol now off of the pedestal, she is directionless.

Told that she has bad karma, the woman, Chiho (Asami Mizukawa), remembers a mean prank she once played in high school. As you can probably guess, it involved the likable Fuku-chan. Chiho sets out to find forgiveness from Fukuda and by doing so, change her karma.

"Fuku-Chan of Fukufuku Flats" is a small movie without great ambitions, but it does remind us that some acts that might be deemed cool are actually cruel. And those acts of cruelty can have long term effects on the victims as well as the perpetrators.  Unlike a Hollywood movie, the actors look like regular people, someone you might have known in high school or meet at your high school reunion.

"Fuku-Chan of Fukufuku Flats" was screening at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The movie hasn't been released in the United States, but has also been shown at the New York Asian Film Festival, the Hawaii Film Festival and the Reel Asian International Film Festival. This movie is sweet and funny. It's a welcome change from the samurai movies that most people watch.

For those of us who were targeted by the mean girls and boys in school, this is a thoughtful look at life's choices and consequences. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Looking for the Dawn of the Planet of the Asians

My sister or mother once brought home a science fiction novel in which the white civilization was taken over by China. I don't remember much about the novel, but it undoubtedly played upon the same yellow perilism fear that brought about the anti-Asian immigration laws in California and the United States. What does that have to do with "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes?"

Check out the main characters and then ask yourself: Where are the Asian-looking people? Where are the strong women? When people go to San Francisco, what do they see? San Francisco is the city of diversity. Chinatown should be more than just a scenic backdrop for action (as it was on "Godzilla" 2014).

Although according to the 2010 census, the San Francisco population was 48 percent white (non-Hispanic white is 42 percent), 33.3 percent is Asian and only 6 percent African American, and the Latino population of any race is 15 percent, the representation in this movie is skewed. Chinese are the single largest ethnic minority with 21 percent. 

In terms of leadership, San Francisco had an openly gay mayor, George Moscone, who served from 1976 until his assassination in 1978. He was followed by the city's first female mayor, Dianne Feinstein, who served the rest of his term and then was elected in her own right in 1979 and re-elected in 1983.  The city has also had an African American mayor (Willie Brown, 1996-2004) and currently has a Chinese American mayor (Ed Lee). 

Yet in casting, the human characters for this movie, we had white people as our main characters. Jason Clarke, who plays the main human character Malcolm is an Australian. Keri Russell (an American) is white. She plays Malcolm's second wife. Gary Oldman, who plays the leader of the human survivors in San Francisco, is a white British actor. Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Malcolm's and is very white. Joco Sims, who is black, plays Werner, the radio tech. Two actors are Latino, Kirk Acevedo and Enrique Murciano.  Acevedo is Puerto Rican and Chinese, so he represents the Asian population. Murciano is of Cuban descent. 

With a location that is 33 percent Asian (of that 21 percent being Chinese), it would seem a perfect opportunity to to cast an Asian, particularly a Chinese American as a lead or secondary character. Instead we, get a two-fer in Acevedo who is one of the first to die. 

In a city that has had a woman mayor, it would also seem like a good opportunity to write in strong female characters instead of relegating them to supportive, traditional roles and occupations--that goes for both the human and the ape cultures portrayed in this film . The female characters do not speak up, they are not a part of the policy-making. 

In the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie, the society was set up in a caste system. The gorillas are the law enforcement (police and military) as well as the hunters and manual labor. The orangutans are the bureaucracy--administrators, politicians, lawyers and priests. The chimpanzees are the intelligensia--intellectuals and researchers. Humans are the slaves, experimental subjects and hunted animals. They are not known to speak.  Roddy McDowall played Cornelius and he would return to play Caesar in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes."

Cornelius was a scientist as was his wife, Zira (Kim Hunter). It was Zira who took a special interest in the astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston).  

In "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," Caesar's mate, Nornelia (Judy Greer),  is sick and attended by what looks like a harem of female chimps. None are individualized. We don't distinguish the mates of the other male primate characters such as Koba (Toby Kebbell), the bonobo who is Caesar's adviser, or Rocket (Terry Notary), the common chimp who is Caesar's second in command or Maurie (Karin Konoval) a Bornean orangutan. We have two teenaged male chimps--Caesar's son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) and Rocket's son Ash (Doc Shaw), but no teenaged girls. 

In "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" the few female characters--both chimp and human--are help mates as if the Feminist Movement was fought in a different dimension, an alternative world. And apparently, the simian flu killed off a significant number of the Asian population of San Francisco, or multiculturalism has become a cast-by-numbers one-demographics-fits-all proposition. 

This casting isn't as egregious as the whitewashing in "21" or the Hawaiian segments of "Cloud Atlas," but still it is worth nothing.

Filmmakers and casting directors, when you think of a certain local, think of the demographics and not just ethnic backdrops. When will Asians including ethnic Asians become a part of the action. I'm waiting for a films to see Asians as anyone--earthlings, heroes and essential to the realism of a story, or a locale. I'm waiting for it to dawn on filmmakers that this is a planet that is 60 percent Asian and ethnic Han Chinese are about 20 percent of the world population (largest single ethnic population). 

Re-hashing hashtag activism in the #CancelColbert campaign

If you hadn't heard of Suey Park before last week, then you missed out on a short-lived hashtag activism in 2013: #NotYourAsianSidekick. That hashtag campaign might have put the Korean American feminist on the list of some people including The Guardian who named her as one of the top 30 young people in digital media, but her more recent hashtag campaign #CancelColbert has brought her increased attention and not all of it good.

Before her #CancelColbert campaign, Park was number 12 on The Guardian's list and defined as a writer and organizer based on what the paper called "a much-needed debate about Asian-American stereotypes" because Park argued "she did not feel represented by white feminism." According to The Guardian, the hashtag "trended for days, demonstrating just how much it meant to so many Asian women."

And yet, at number 11 is an 11-year-old named Robby Novak AKA Kid President.  At number 1 is a Yemeni journalist, campaigner and columnist Farea Al-Muslimi. He has only 7 thousand followers and also has a YouTube channel. The Guardian may be biased toward journalists, because Park has 21.7K followers on Twitter. I am one of them, but a hashtag doesn't substitute for content or context.

When I saw the #NotYourAsianSidekick trending, I didn't think it particularly pertained just to Asian and Asian American women. Asian and Asian American women have to put up with stereotypes, but they seem to fare better than Asian and Asian American men who are often neutered wise men and helpmates. When we were still watching "Glee," my husband counted the number of lines Chinese American Harry Shum Jr. got as the character Mike Chang and my husband noted that the Asian American woman Tina who was played by Korean American Jenna Ushkowitz got more lines. Moreover my husband is often discouraged by the romantic pairing of white men and Asian women in movies and TV.

Suey Park has taken her cue from the popular Angry Asian Man and named her Twitter account Angry Asian Woman. Angry Asian Man is Phil Yu, also a Korean American. His Internet blog launched in 2001. He's still angry and he's educated--he received an MA as I did from USC. Park is listed as a freelance writer.

Anger is something I know a lot about. The Monji temper is a legacy of a past that includes battles, a castle, samurai and daimyo. Anger can be a good thing if it is channeled into social activism and steadied by thoughtful research and analysis. There's always a need for anger management and that's something Park may need if she wants to be taken seriously.

Park doesn't want to talk about context, but I think it would give some perspective on the issues. I'm not sure that young women want a place at the table of feminism--white or otherwise. Even when I was an undergrad, feminism seemed to have become a distasteful word and feminists were pictured as shrill, lonely women. A study published in 1987 noted that the female subjects were "highly aware of gender inequality and supportive of the women's movement, although they were also reluctant to identify themselves as feminists."  A more recent 2004 study noted that "Many women, even as they embrace feminist principles, are loathe to be labeled feminists."  Both studies would seem to indicate that even white American women don't want a seat at the feminist dinner table and obviously this isn't because of the racial tokenism Park complains about.

We forget that historically, the first feminists, the people who fought to give the American women the vote also gave time and space to minority women to speak, most notably to Sojourner Truth in 1851, before the Civil War (1861-1865). Surely in the 1860s there were women and men, eager to get the women the vote, who also didn't believe in freeing the slaves and there were probably those who also didn't believe people of Northern European descent were equal to people from other areas, particularly Africa and Asia. Yet they came together for a single cause.

Today, there are many causes and even feminism differs from country to country. Women in Japan do not necessarily want equal pay for equal work because some work schedules inspire the word karōshi (過労死) or death due to being overworked. Asian Americans are often minorities in their hometowns, but not always (e.g. Monterey Park, CA or the state of Hawaii) and some groups have been in the U.S. long enough that we are several generations in--fifth, sixth generations. This means they have different issues that need to be addressed. 

While I can support some causes and write about them, I can't support the #CancelColbert campaign and am disappointed that Suey Park took it on. She writes that she is off of Facebook. Her Twitter account does let one know she is available for speaking engagements, but what will she speak about?  Hashtag activism and free form conversations that are only 140 characters deep? Fleeting alliances? Gathering trolls and whipping them with words into a frenzy? Is this her solution to racism?  

Recent dog-related events on FB have shown me that people are quick to assume guilt, without waiting for a trial. Suggestion of violence followed. The mob mentality quickly takes over what might have begun as a civil discourse in many instances on social media.  In the case of the short-attention span required for avid Tweeters, some Twitter users couldn't even take 22-minutes to watch "The Colbert Report."

My husband and I are both fans of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. Stephen Colbert portrays himself as a fictional character who is more bluster than brains   and is "factose intolerant."   "The Colbert Report" is a parody of news commentators like Bill O'Reilly and his show, "The O'Reilly Factor."

"The Colbert Report" on Wednesday (26 March 2014) had a segment poking fun at Daniel Snyder. Snyder has defended the name of his team, the Washington Redskins, against claims it was racist,  and decided  to improve his image by founding the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. Colbert countered with a Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation to Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever." It wasn't this segment that raised the ire of Park. It was the Comedy Central Twitter account for the Colbert Report that on Thursday just furnished the punchline--"I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever"--that caused Park to jump into hashtag activism.

The topic trended on Twitter and showed the best and worst of social media. By Friday, Park had an interview with the Huffington Post.  Park's interview with HuffPost Live's Josh Zepps didn't make Park sound any better from my perspective. Zepps asked, "Why Cancel Colbert?"

Park's reply distanced me even more when she said, "Unfortunately people usually don't listen to us when we're being reasonable." She didn't appreciate that Asian Americans are always a punchline.

Such sweeping generalizations make weak arguments.

Zepps asked Park if she understood satire, to which she replied, "Of course I understand satire; I'm a writer." Yet she also said, "I don't really think we're going to end racism by joking about it." That's her opinion. I don't share it.

To be fair to Zepps, it was Park who first interrupted Zepps as he was reading a comment by Colbert. Zepps has the confident speech pattern and quick delivery you'd expect from an experienced broadcast commentator.   Park does not. Zepps is from Australia and worked on radio.

Park chose to close down the argument by telling Zepps that "as a white man I don't expect you to be able to understand what people of color are actually saying with regards to CancelColbert." She began to say something that sounded like "he has a history" but didn't complete the sentence. She did complain saying that "white men definitely feel entitled to talk over me" and said that Zepps was "offensive and patronizing."

To be fair to Zepps, in most languages, men tend to dominate conversations. That's not just white men talking over women of color. Sociolinguistics have also done studies that show difference styles and practices between native English speakers from different ethnic groups and regions that can lead to misunderstandings. The classic sociolinguistic examples were series of white and black interviewers and interviewees in and out of sync.

Park had an opportunity to explain, but decided it would be "unproductive" and that's a shame. Park's words alienated Caucasians that might have been sympathetic. She's probably already alienated white women as well as men and women of any color who feel that reasonable argumentation and humor are good tactics in eliminating racism.

I might be faulted  as I sometimes am when I discuss Korean and Korean American celebrities and issues, because I am Japanese American. So in my defense, I cite that other Korean Americans did not agree with Park, including Deadspin's Tommy Craggs and Kyle Wagner who wrote "Gooks Don't Get Redskins Joke" and Jay Caspian Kang who spoke with Park and who posted the blog entry "The Campaign to 'Cancel' Colbert"  for The New Yorker.

Kang spoke with Park and she told him, "There’s no reason for me to act reasonable, because I won’t be taken seriously anyway. So I might as well perform crazy to point out exactly what’s expected from me.” That statement seems to trivialize not only Park and her indignation over her interview with Zepps, it also trivializes all those who tweeted to support her. I want to ask (I did attempt to contact Park), if by performing crazy and doing what's expected of her if she isn't being a stereotype? We rarely see the authentic Stephen Colbert. How can we know when we're seeing the authentic Park?

For me, the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever is not offensive (but I also wrote a letter to a publication claiming to be a dog from the Scottish Collie Anti-Defamation League). It's a shame that the #CancelColbert took attention away from Snyder and the issues of Native Americans. That makes Park's hashtag activism seem thoughtless at best or at worst, self-serving. Park had previously helped with Native American hashtag activism such as #NotYourTonto and #NotYourMascot.  Yet Park's behavior has lost her friends among the Native American community according to an account by Jennie Stockle. Stockle notes that she and others hadn't originally seen the show and after seeing it Stockle became aware that many Native Americans felt betrayed.  Stockle also noted that Park reacted to a Wall Street Journal article about "weaponized hashtags" by childishly declaring that the writer, Jeff Yang, should be fired. Is this a trend? Anytime one disagrees with a public figure, one should start a hashtag campaign?

The debate did make for exciting TV. Colbert and his writers had to come up with a response and they did, while reminding his viewers of the real issue was being overlooked. "The Colbert Report" for 30 March 2014 began with employees leaving its offices and a collage of images that included the faux Native American (Italian American Iron Eyes Cody) crying from that famous  "Keep America Beautiful" PSA, and Colbert waking up dressed in Washington Redskins wear to find B.D. Wong ready to analyze his dreams.

During the 22-minute show, Colbert destroyed the offending Twitter account, fired his supposedly only Asian American employee whose name he repeatedly mispronounced (Ja-mes instead of James), made a crack at a high profile supporter of the #CancelColbert campaign (Michelle Malkin), and noted that there was more of a frenzy about a non-existent organization than the one he meant to skewer.

Colbert also upheld free speech and good manners by calling for an end to personal attacks and threats of violence against Park saying, “She’s just speaking her mind, and that’s what Twitter is for, as well as ruining the ending of every show I haven’t seen yet.”

Yet Colbert kept in character, saying, “I just want to say that I am not a racist. I don’t even see race, not even my own. People tell me I’m white, and I believe them, because I just spent the last six minutes explaining how I’m not a racist. And that is about the whitest thing you can do.”

Colbert's special guest was not Park, but Twitter co-founder Biz Stone who helped Colbert terminate the Colbert Report Twitter account. It was a good choice, considering Park's stated intent and continued behavior.

Like Angry Asian Man, I don't agree with Park in her stated intentions or in her way of attracting attention. Playing the race card should be saved for when it counts and it's unfortunate that her hashtag activism took attention away from the real issues.  You can't really fault the news media, including printed publications. News--broadcast and printed--is a business. What attracts readers is controversy. I used to be annoyed that too often the feminists or whomever was chosen to comment on an issue was so extreme and alienating, but I understand from a business point of view, people with extreme opinions are more likely to spark passionate arguments and sell papers or attract clicks online.

When I write, I  attempt to make a reasonable arguments and that might not attract as much attention. I want to be taken seriously  which is something that women of any color sometimes have trouble with, particularly in the company of men. It saddens me that young women like Park still feel the need to "perform crazy" to fulfill expectations.

My husband feels Park has made it harder to be Asian American and that you can't really deny the power and popularity of satire.

Reality TV may have deadened us to the concept of people being fired, even in this economy, but we shouldn't call for the cancellation of a TV series or the firing of a person for minor mistakes, particularly if the reasons that aren't heartfelt or as minor as differing opinions. Democracy is built on free speech and lively debate.

Hashtag activism has its limitations and depth is one of them. To resolve the problem of racism, I believe we need to engage and not alienate people of all races and if we want people to understand the reasonable and logical points we put forth against racism, then we need to make reasonable arguments and eschew mob mentality campaigns. Women would not have won the vote without men and racism can't be resolved without men and women of all races becoming engaged in earnest conversations and life is too short not to laugh at our shortcomings.  Laughter is the best medicine and it is one that I believe will ultimately help us find a more peaceful way of life.

--This was also published on RogerEbert.com. 

Fonda Theatre and Hollywood events: Blue Palms Brewhouse for hearty food

This time we didn't have a chance to go before, but after we'd spent some time at the Edwardian Ball in the Fonda Theatre, we dropped by the neighboring Blue Palms Brewhouse. You can watch sports (we watched the Olympics) while you eat and check out the people going into the Fonda Theatre.

Since this is a brewery, as you might guess, there's a lot of alcohol in the cuisine so there are actually few things that I can get. I got the Wild Boar Andouille ($8 with a garnish and two toppings). Ian got Smoked Venison (also $8).  The Lobster Mac N Cheese as a side dish is also $8.

This was our anniversary dinner and Ian was finally convinced that Mac and Cheese can be a good thing.

Blue Palms Brewhouse

6124 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Neighborhood: Hollywood

(323) 464-2337

bluepalmsbrewhouse.com

Wild Boar Andouille 

Lobster Mac and Cheese. 

Venison sausage. 

Sweet potato fries for $6

Fortifying comfort food at Andersen's

We didn't plan it that way but both coming and going on the I-5 to San Francisco, we stopped at the famous Andersen's. Ian have never had their split pea soup. The split pea soup is good, but they give a good old-fashioned California fruit salad.

We had enough for a second meal and thus didn't go out to eat for dinner in San Francisco.

The banana bread was too sweet for me and I'm not a fan of pre-buttered toast, but we think of Andersen's in Santa Nella as a good deal.

12411 S. Highway 33 
Santa Nella, CA 95322

 Website

(209) 826-1685

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Waffles, waffles everywhere in a dog-friendly hidden venue: More Than Waffes

If you want to sit back and relax and even listen to a few tunes, try More than Waffles in Encino. This was another shopping expedition find--no we didn't buy anything. We did help set up a garage sale and asked the person in charge about a good place for brunch.

Go early, because this place gets crowded fast! We waited and waited--apparently someone near the door took our reservations for two so our wait was longer than usual. Still we listened to the person with the red merle Aussie play some tunes, and even danced a few tangos.

We were rewarded with a beautiful pumpkin spice waffle ($9.25 with low fat frozen yogurt) and a very well-stuffed crepe: Ika's. See below for what all is in it.

Ika's - organic spinach, turkey sausage, organic basil, garlic, mozzarella, feta, scrambled with eggs, topped with melted mozzarella, served with home fries or fruit

11.95

This is a family-owned business that was started in 1975 and is well-worth the wait (but not a double wait). It's tucked into a courtyard that you can't see from the road or even from the parking lot of the mini mall.

• 17200 Ventura Blvd
  Ste 109Encino
• Get Directions
• Phone number(818) 789-5937

Thai food in Northridge: Lum-Ka-Naad

We went on another shopping expedition out to Northridge. We didn't end up buying anything, but we did find an exceptional Thai restaurant. What we liked was the unusual tastes and the vast, vast menu. We asked for everything at medium spicy.

The duck noodle soup didn't have enough duck for our tastes, but the broth was rich and not overly salty and it was enough for both of us.

I usually love eggplant, but Ian liked the eggplant salad better than I did.

Pla pling ($9.95) is a very spicy fish wrapped in banana leaves. I liked it better than Ian.

The menu is divided into Southern and Northern cuisine so you get to learn something about the Thai cuisine past the usual.

Lum-Ka-Naad

8910 Reseda Blvd
Northridge, CA 91324

(818) 882-3028

Duck noodle soup ($8.95) 

Tum makua (eggplant salad at $7.95) 

Pla pling ($9.95)

Waiting for an apology?

All Nippon Airways made what they thought was a funny commercial, but ended up apologizing for their "white face."

Are you waiting for your apology for yellow face?

I'm waiting for an apology from M. Night Shyamalan and Paramount for the 2010 "The Last Airbender."

How about Cloud Atlas Productions for the 2012 "Cloud Atlas"?

A Possible Cure for Yellow Fever

With Katy Perry's recent AMA performance, yellow fever has become the hot topic among Asians and Asian Americans. I've called it the Asian Babe Syndrome where guys, usually white, but not necessarily so, seek out Asian or Asian American women hoping for compliant and unconditional love.

That may or may not include BDSM if only because the man is seeking a submissive partner. When I was still dating, I got a few emails from male doms looking for a female sub--something I didn't get when I didn't identify my race or lied and alleged that I was white or black.

The cure of the man looking for a geisha is a heavy dose of reality. I recommend a spreadsheet in place of spread eagle legs, showing how much it costs to support a real geisha.

Numbers, I know, can be boring and as Americans are historically lacking in math skills in comparison with most of the world, probably a better way is to show rather than tell.

There are two movies I recommend:

1. "In the Realm of the Sense" which is inspired by the real case of Abe Sada or Sada Abe.
2. "Audition" which is a movie that strikes terror in the hearts of many men.

Sada Abe was a Japanese woman born in 1905 and became famous, after a brief attempt at being a geisha, for cutting off the penis and testicles of her lover, Kichizo Ishida, in 1936. She kept those organs because she wanted a part of him that gave her vivid memories. They had been engaged in torrid sex and Ishida was stranged as a part of erotic asphyxiation--so during sex to intensify his pleasure.

Nagisa Oshima's 1976 "In the Real of the Senses" is about that incident and includes nudity, unsimulated acts of sex and violence. You can watch it on HuluPlus.

It should be noted that the woman who played Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) didn't enjoy a respectable film career, but the man (Tatsuya Fuji) was able to go on into legitimate films. 

The 1999 "Audition" is based on a book by a man, Ryu Murakami. A widowed middle-aged man, Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi)  pretends to audition women for a movie, but is actually auditioning someone to date and be his new wife. His friend Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura), a film producer, helps him but has a bad feeling about the woman, Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) that Shigehara chooses. 

Abe did it out of love. Others, like Ecuadorian-born Lorena Bobbitt, cut their lovers penis off out of spite. In Orange County (Garden Grove), Katherine Kieu, who was born in Vietnam, drugged her husband, cut off his penis and then threw it down the garbage disposal. That was in 2011. The couple had only been married 16 months. She was only recently sentenced to life in prison in June of this year. 

In an earlier case in Guangzhou, Mainland China, a husband, Lin Mouru, suggested that he, his wife and their three kids live together with his mistress. That was in 2008. By 2009, his wife, Xie Mouman, asked for a divorce. He refused. She alleges that he threatened her and their kids. In February of 2009, she cut off his penis and then fled the scene. She was captured two days later. She was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison.

You might be able to buy "love" but that unconditional love depends upon your bank account.  Asian and Asian American women are not butterflies or chrysanthemums, but human beings who can be just as angry and bloody as other women. 

Dating and Asian American men and women

Justin Chan of PolicyMic.com recently posted the question: "Are Asian Men Undateable?" The answer is both yes and no. Instead of moaning about it, there's plenty Asian men and Asian American men can do about it.

Chan notes that the website "Are You Interested" surveyed 2.4 million interactions and noted that their male users favored Asian women.  Chan's article seems to be a response to Cherylynn Low's 13 November 2013 "Asian Women Don't Get Luckier on OkCupid, We Get More Harassed."

Chan worried about being rejected (Don't all men worry about that except those extraordinarily vain few?).  He mentions a UCLA Bruin who wrote "I feel cheated out of a myriad of romantic experiences that could have been brought to fruition were I not an Asian male." Does that comment make you think the writer, John Shim, was looking for a relationship or a notch on his score card?

When I first read both of these articles, I thought that not much had changed since I started dating. Because of my stalker ex (despite a restraining order in place and one arrest), I didn't post my photo. I was told this would greatly decrease the number of responses I received. However, as a Japanese woman, I received about 20-30 a day. So I decided to experiment. Without a photo, if I used the same profile and wrote Asian, I got about 30 responses per week. If I did not identify my race, then I got very few. If I identified myself as black, then I got none.

What I also noticed was that if I politely declined men, as an Asian woman or as a Japanese woman, I received more nastigrams---even if the decline was for something as simple and impersonal as geography. I didn't want to date someone on the other side of the country. This kind of outrage never happened if I didn't identify myself as Asian or Japanese. Some men in their nastigrams would tell me that they had had my mother, sister, cousin for a buck when they were in Asia. I got the distinct feeling they felt I should be honored to have received their attention.

Further, I was more likely to get complimented for my English even though I clearly stated I was born in the U.S. Of the men who responded without knowing my race, when I revealed my race, there were some who would claim that they could tell from my writing that I was a non-native speaker of English.

As a Japanese or Asian American woman, I also got asked my bra cup size by white men, sent photos of erect penises by white and black men, and received unwanted advice from Asian men about how I should behave. Some were greatly offended that I was willing to date men of any race. Some wanted to teach me how to be more Asian.

If nothing has changed since I was dating and it seems not much has changed since Mickey Rooney played Mr. Yuniyoshi in the 1961 "Breakfast at Tiffany's" then there's no use in whining about it. If "Frances Ha" and her best bet for a good relationship both call themselves "undateable" maybe there's something undateable Asian American men are missing. Get up and make yourself more dateable.

Dating as practiced in the United States is filled with facades building up false expectations. For Asian and Asian American men, I recommend they turn away from this often artificial dating practice and cultivate other aspects of socializing with the gender of their preference.

First, I think that Asian American men must deal with the disconnect between what their parents teach them, particularly parents from an older generation. Many Asian American parents value their sons above their daughters. So the Asian American man may get to order his sisters and mother around at home and his mother may tend to his every need, but he's not the object of adoration outside the house within the larger general American population. Asian American women will be sought after by men of various races and in higher demand than Asian American men.

That means, you can't treat Asian American women unkindly. You can't take them for granted. You can't treat them like your mother and you can't let your mother or father treat them poorly either. You may be king at your home, but you're not one of the golden princes of the American social scene.

One way to deal with this disconnect is to understand what is generally acceptable. You can glean this from reading Dear Abby or various other advice columns and the comments posted on those columns.  Read Miss Manners or Emily Post. Good manners will get you noticed.

In my opinion, some Asian American men are the worst of both cultures--they adopt the most sexist aspects of their respective Asian culture and add it to the sexist aspects of the American culture. They become super sexist. That, in my opinion, isn't sexy. What is sexy is a guy who is interested in what I'm interested in without being paternalistic or condescending. The interest, however, must be geniuine.

As a geek and someone who has been in the geek culture, this is the same advice I'd give to my science geek friends. Many geek subcultures that are predominately male. If you want to attract the few women in that culture, you have to be better than your competition.

If you want a woman who looks a certain way, then you better be able a good match for her. Be a Ken to her Barbie. If you're a jeans and T-shirt guy, don't expect to get a fashionista.

If the competition is too rough in whatever culture you're in, then you need to find activities that put you together with more women. My hobby of rock collecting is predominately male. However, you can be like Rosey Grier, the former football player, and take up hobbies like macrame and needlepoint. You could take dance classes. Don't be one of those leering guys in the yoga class, aerobics or zumba class. People notice and you'll be labeled the creepy guy.

Most of the dance classes have more women than men. Of course, when I emphasized that I wanted a man who danced, I got a lot of hate email from men who told me that there were no heterosexual men who liked dancing and that John Wayne never danced. If that's your prejudice, you might need to work on yourself. John Wayne did dance in a movie and there are plenty of heterosexual men who dance. Remember, Fred Astaire was balding, didn't have the kind of physique that makes you want to rip his shirt off, but he was attractive to women. I've seen short men, men with paunchy stomachs, balding men and even older men who don't have the Donald Trump big bank account advantage being swooned over by women who want to dance.

My husband, who I met through Argentine tango, believes that Asian men need better PR and after a recent U.N. study made headlines, that may be true and there's a lot one can do about the bad PR. More people must be willing to speak out and not accept ghastly yellowface or the whitewashing of history. That's a campaign that won't help your immediate needs on the dating frontline, but one that needs to be fought just the same. Don't be the always ranting angry guy, because that's also unattractive.

Women must also be willing to speak up. One thing that personally turned me off of many men, white and black, with yellowfever was how they spoke about Asian men. I reminded them that my father was Asian American, my grandfathers and uncles were and are Asian American. My brother and cousins are Asian American. Every derogatory statement they said about Asian and Asian American men was a negative comment about my family.

Being undateable may just be a state of mind. Things at the movies have changed since my parents time and the era of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" despite the yellowface in "Cloud Atlas." Besides Bruce Lee, we have Bi (Rain), Jet Li, Chow Yun-fat, Poreotics, Jackie Chan and a former part-Japanese Superman in Dean Cain and part-Asian Booboo Stewart ("The Twilight Saga: Eclipse") and part-Asian Dan Southworth ("Act of Valor"). While it's true that Asian Americans face different problems on the dating scene than Caucasians, Latinos and African Americans, there's always something one can do to improve one's chances and opportunities and in doing so, on a local level you can help define the new normal.

Defining normal: Asians and human sexuality

How do we define normal? That's a question we need to consider anytime we read newspaper articles or listen to reports. Are Asians and Africans--both nationals and ethnic communities--used in defining what is normal? Or are we allowing white Christian men and women to be the standard.

Recently I had a heated discussion regarding two Facebook postings of articles. One article was about Asian men and the other was not. Both articles were posted by white American women. Consider what both articles mean in regards to being normal. 

The first was a study conducted by the U.N. I don't fault the U.N. so much as the way journalists reported the study with catchy and sometimes misleading headlines. The resulting headlines I'm referring to included: "Nearly A quart of men in some Asian Countries admit to rape, study finds" or "1 in 4 men surveyed in Asia-Pacific say they committed rape" or "Rape widespread across Asia-Pacific, UN study says." The study itself is flawed, covering only six (Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea.) out of 49 Asian countries. Notice that the study doesn't cover India or any country West of India such as Afghanistan. The study doesn't cover the economically powerful South Korea or Japan.

Yet there were other flaws to the study such as the respondents not being representative.  The title "Rape widespread across Asia-Pacific, UN Study Says" is from NPR and not some yellow journalism rag. Bloomberg.com used the headline "One in Four Men Surveyed in Asian Study Say They Raped." Imagine what kind of misinformation could be spread by other headlines and careless readers.

When a post by a white woman hit my Facebook page, I looked at the article and looked at the original source and made sure everyone commenting on that particular post knew that the study didn't represent Asia. Asian men are from one continent but they come from different cultures and different religious communities.

Limited research is always a problem but consider this: How many studies are Asians and Asian American left out of? Asians make up 60 percent of the world population, but we make up only 11 percent of the population in Los Angeles. Yet why wouldn't we want to add our voices to that 60 percent?

When discussing another recent issue brought up by an article posted (again by a white woman), research on mental health and human sexuality, I raised the lack of research into non-white communities such as Africa and Asia as problematic. I was told that this was a ridiculous concern. The study was reported by the Huffington Post as "BDSM Correlated with Better Health Mental Health, Says Study."  The Huffington Post writer cites other sources such as LiveScience and Reuters, but it doesn't seem that the study has anything to do with the United States. The study was done through online questionnaires using 902 BDSM practitioners and 434 people who practiced non-kinky sex, but it was done by a psychologist, Andreas Wismeijer,  at Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands. As the lead author, Wismeijer admitted that the study was limited.

The study is somewhat limited by a self-selecting response pool and by the fact that BDSM practitioners could have been answering in ways to make themselves look better and avoid stigma, Wismeijer said — though the fact that the participants didn't know the reasons for the study ameliorates that concern somewhat. The findings are reason for mental health professionals to take an accepting approach to BDSM practitioners, Wismeijer said.--LiveScience.com.

The Netherlands has over 17 million people. As the Netherlands has that Black Peter tradition and the possible limitations of the language spoken, Dutch, I would question how representative this study was of Europe and then of the world in general. From the three articles I read, it wasn't clear that the study went beyond the borders of the Netherlands or hit any English-speaking communities. The study did use the largest BDSM forum in the Netherlands and the so-called vanilla sex practitioners were drawn from "a women's magazine website, a personal secret website and a university website." Using those three sources, they were only able to find 434 people, that's less than half of the BDSM practitioners. Not good.

Yet even if we consider the studies representative of Europe, just watching movies like "Stranger by the Lake" or "The Warmest Color Is Blue" should indicate European attitudes (French in the case of the movies) are different from American attitudes toward sex and nudity. Why should we believe that this small limited study done in the Netherlands has anything to do with the United States and anything to do worldwide attitudes?

My points are:

1. We shouldn't allow news items that roll up Asia into one monolithic culture to go by without comment. Six countries do not represent the 49 Asian countries and are less representative if you add the Pacific Islands. The concept that Asia and the Pacific (and sometimes North Africa) can be seen as one cohesive culture is Orientalism at its worst.
2. A study of white people by white people, particularly in a nation that is predominately Christian (Protestant or Catholic) is not representative of the world and does a disservice to the peoples of Africa and Asia as well as people of other world religions such as Islam, Hindu and Buddhism. While "The World Factbook" lists Christians as 30.59 percent of the world population, Muslims as 23.2 percent and Hindus are 15 percent. Together that's 33.2 percent. Buddhists are only 7 percent. The majority of the world isn't Christian (and doesn't celebrate Christmas).  The largest ethnic group  in the world is the Han Chinese (18 percent worldwide) and Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language (14 percent to 5.52 percent for English).  The next most populous ethnic group is Arab. The Arabs are a panethnic group from West Asia and North Africa. As 1 out of 5 people in the world are Muslim and a large percentage of the world population is Arab, both Arabs and Muslims and even Arab Muslims should be included in any study that is meant to determine worldwide norms. 
3. If you want to claim that a small study of white people should apply to peoples of the world, then conversely a study about people in Asia or Africa should apply to all peoples of the world. That means instead of saying, Asian men, the headlines in the U.N. study should have said simply "1 out of 4 Men Surveyed Say They Raped."

Where we have seen movies such as "21" and "Emperor" whitewash East Asian Americans out of historical events--major and minor, we can also see Asians and Asian Americans being whitewashed out of research and data used to define normal. Minorities are part of normal in the United States. Asian Americans may only be 5.6 percent of the American population but we are the fastest growing ethnic group. There are cities in California where Asian Americans are a majority and citizens of those cities shouldn't be held to a measure of normality that was defined by research that excluded them. 

Moreover, Asia holds a little over 60 percent of the world population. If religion and culture define attitudes toward sex and other emotional issues, and the largest religion in Asia is Islam, followed by Hinduism and Buddhism, then sexual practices and attitudes of these populations should be part of any research on human beings so we understand what is average and what is normal. The true norms of the world may not be the norms of America or Europe. The true normal in this global community would best be defined by including research on Asia. 

Just as the U.N. research of 10,000 men in nine sites in six countries doesn't represent Asia or Pacific Asia as in the case of the rape, then less than 1,500 people in the Netherlands doesn't represent Europe, America, Africa or Asia in regards to sexual attitudes and mental health. 

According to world demographics, research on what is normal, mentally or physically, should include both Han Chinese and Arabs, Christians and Muslims as a significant percentage of the research subject pool. 

What we, as Asian ethnics, as Asian Americans, as non-Christians need to ask for is a new normal.