When I lived in Japan last year my Okinawan grandparents took me to see the Himeyuri memorial museum and it was so intense it took me all I could not to break down and cry.  They had a wall full of photos of school children who were bombed in caves and my grandparents pointed out he knew many of them as classmates.  My grandfather managed to survive because his family sent him to the mainland.  My grandmother’s house was bombed when she was 13 and she was buried upside down - only her foot sticking out which is how her mother found her.  To this day they refuse to go into any basements or caves and refer to mainlanders as the slightly derogatory “naicha-”.

Memorial Day should definitely serve as a reminder to celebrate veterans of past and on-going wars, but I would like to take into rememberance those around the world who have been affected by them as well.  Please share your own stories in the comments.

Inspired by this post which revolves around Amy Sedaris’s “quirky” brand of humor.

As much as I love her work on Strangers with Candy, I have trouble understanding the need for Amy Sedaris to go on with jokes that contain racial stereotypes as part of her “quirky” persona. I think what troubled me the most is that her character Jerri (as I saw and understood her actions) is meant to be someone who is socially degenerate. I took her racist attitude and shameless stereotyping to be part of her (comically) despicable behavior – not, as I found out by reading this interview which was linked to in the comments area of above post, a part of Sedaris’s own personality.

How did the character of Jerri develop, specifically some of the cruder aspects and being bisexual, and the off-color, sort of racist remarks? How did that come about?
It just kind of happened once I had the look down, I knew what Jerri Blank looked like. I knew I wanted her to look like she owned a snake, and I kind of wanted her hair to be nice, like a professional golfer’s, and I wanted her to have a nice style. But yeah, she means well, and she’s innocent, but she is a racist, and she can be very nasty. She’s like a kid. All of her emotions are very raw.

She has no delay, it seems?
No she didn’t, which is a lot like me. Trust me, Jerri Blank and I are a lot alike, not with the history of the booze and all that, but just like, “What did I say?” Plus, once I get that mouth thing down, automatically I start acting differently. Also having a wide bottom, you discover things you can do with that. I’m a lot freer and sexier with a fatty suit on.

Once you’ve got a character down, things just kind of happen. You don’t know how they happen; they just come out of the character.

Basically, it sounds like creating the character of Jerri enabled Sedaris to make racist remarks for entertainment value. I am not against comedians having material that points out and makes a mockery of racism in itself (which is how I interpreted Jerri), but it is so easy to cross over from social commentary to a blatantly racist joke with no value. There exists people who understand the difference, but there are many who don’t.

With mixed peoples, we are at an interesting position because there are times when people may approach us with racial jokes and stereotyping without realizing that they are joking about us. When abroad in Japan, I’ve encountered other students who made jokes and generalizations about Japanese women in front of me without knowing I was half. (And these are people who have come to another country to supposedly gain cultural insight and expand their horizons. Right.) But it makes me wonder: would they still have told the jokes and made the generalizations if they knew I was a part of who they were talking about? If I said something, would they just brush me off with “Oh, it was just a joke”?

Likewise, with comedians such as Sedaris, would they still tell the jokes if it wasn’t considered “cool” or “ironic”? Is it worth getting a laugh at the expense of a targeted race using jokes that stem from a history of (and even ongoing) oppression? Or are such jokes supposed to be considered “post-racial”?

Any person whose ethnic background is a mix of Asian and Caucasian, and is in good health with no history of cancer or major illness, and is between the ages of 18 and 60, is a potential donor for Nick. Expanding on the initial information, one does not need to be 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian — any potential mix could work. While the most likely match would be from a person who is 75% Caucasian and 25% Japanese, it is absolutely possible that other combinations of Caucasian-Asian background in different proportions could work. The Asian background should be Sino-Asian, rather than Indo-Asian. Finding an ideal match with all of Nick’s markers is very difficult, and we do not want to exclude any potential donors.

More information here. This is a case in which I wish iChamploo’s reach was more extensive and I hope a donor is found soon.

So as of today, I’m not longer going to take care of him, and tomorrow morning I’m calling child services.

Out of curiosity though, how would you have responded to him?

Skins/Slumdog star Dev Patel

Happy Birthday to Dev Patel! From British hit telly show Skins, to Oscar and BAFTA award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, we’ve watched this young lad (and his career) grow and blossom in front of the camera. At a mere 19 he already has some amazing work under his belt and I think it’s safe to say we are all looking forward to what comes next for him in the future.

...Because they look the same!

In the latest episode of Dollhouse, the character Sierra goes undercover to retrieve some super-secret information. And she dresses up as an Asian employee. Because Asians look the same.

So for those of you taking notes, in order to perform a successful espionage, simply take your resident Asian and dress them up like an Asian employee of the business you are spying on. NOBODY WILL KNOW.

KT Tatara, who is half-Japanese:

And Ayanna Dookie, who is half-black and half-Indian:

I would love to discover more mixed Asians (preferably women) in comedy, but am getting fed up with getting “OMG HOT ASIAN CHICK!!” and “HAHA FUNNY ASIAN ACCENT” videos. So if anybody else has some suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Doing his best Pumbaa from the Lion King impression

Maybe I just have an unhealthy relationship with the Travel channel. I love learning about things outside of my cultural scope, but I feel like that’s not what the Travel channel has been all about lately. On top of its anti-women programming (see: Man vs. Wild, Man vs. Food, Bridget’s Stupid Mindfuck Beach Adventures, That NFL Guy Who Travels the World to Beat Up People), I just don’t think the company really gets travel.

Having traveled constantly when I was younger before my dad retired from the Airforce, I was always excited to go somewhere I didn’t know, even if it was just to a state I’ve never been to before. Even my sisters and I don’t all share the same birthplace – I was born in Melbourne, Florida whereas my middle sister was born in Okinawa, Japan and my youngest sister born in Connecticut. Traveling is fun and gives you opportunities to understand things you’ve never even thought about before. One of the best parts (in my opinion) is always the food.

Food is definitely a major part of traveling – especially in other countries – because while you may get the “tourist” version of any country, the food is going to be guaranteed different than what you’re used to. (Unless you are one of those people who travel overseas to eat at a McDonald’s, in which case, leave now.) Food in any culture is a summation of a group of people’s history. Food tells a story and brings with it journeys that span generations.

So when you have a show called Bizarre Foods that has the premise of “portly bald fellow travels the world and eats other countries’ foods,” you are doing many would-be travelers a disservice. First of all, calling any other culture’s food bizarre is downright insulting. I don’t care if they eat baby chickens whole or snack on scorpions. There are reasons why those particular foods have been integrated into a society’s culinary life style, and to call them bizarre is to imply “…because what I eat is normal.”

Many Americans are skittish as it is when it comes to dealing with other cultures in their own country, and to have a show that exploits the food of such cultures in the name of entertainment only furthers the divides. The last thing mass media should be telling people is that it’s OK to call other people’s cultures “bizarre,” even if the word is just applied to foods.

To me, Bizarre Foods could have better approached the concept of introducing different styles of cuisines around the world by perhaps calling the show “Different Foods,” with a host that treats food less as a “truth or dare” sport and instead show a genuine interest to know where these foods came from.

Because when you have a scene like this…

…in which the host, Andrew Zimmern, calls Japan’s food “adventurous,” he fails to recognize (at least on air) why they might have thought to cook tuna eyes in the first place. The reasons that most “bizarre” foods exist is due to periods of strife in many countries, and to chalk it up to the fact that people were being “adventurous” is downright ignorant. (Also, I hate his expression when he is watching his travel companion eat. It is like he is getting some sick satisfaction from watching her squirm.)

Shows like Bizarre Foods are the reason why people remain misinformed about other countries, and why Americans are perceived as self-serving. It is this kind of 1950s approach to other cultures that is the reason why people will travel overseas only to search desperately for a Wendy’s, the reason why my American grandma won’t eat anything my Japanese mom makes for her, and the reason why people think it’s OK to snub anything that is “different.”

that'll teach the snake to live indigenously where Bear is trying to survive on camera

In the cases of the OMG SURVIVOAR shows Man vs. Wild and Survivorman (seriously, could they get any more HEY BRAH with those names?), the buff and courageous hosts teach us what it’s like to survive in extreme environments.  They risk their lives and endure deserts and jungles.  They eat things like bovine eyes and steam lizards in urine.  So brave, right?  Isn’t it awesome that a burly white dude brah took it upon himself to enlighten us about how to survive?

The thing is, people have already been surviving.  And have been surviving in those places forever and ever.  Why not just show them?  Give them a camera, an interpretor, an accompanying historian?  There are so many ways to explore undeveloped countries and extreme environments without this kind of boy scout Captain America spin to it.  To me, these shows tread on the line of “nature/cultural awareness” and “OMG YOU DO WAT!”

The Travel Channel already has a show where a portly host eats “bizarre” things in the name of the “cultural enlightening” of the average American audience (more on this in a future post), so why did they need to take it a step further and have a GUY NAMED BEAR travel to different countries and eat indigenous plants and animals things to survive?

I highly doubt anybody actually watches the show for real information on how to survive (if they did, they have more problems than just watching a TV to learn survival skills.  Like any show, there is editing involved and many hands the shows passed through for the ultimate end product.)  People watch these shows for entertainment purposes, which is what worries me because Man vs. Wild and Survivorman portray undeveloped countries in largely a negative (or at least undesireable) light.

Take  the Top 10 lists on the Man vs. Wild website.  We see Africa (yup, the entire continent of Africa) associated with diarrhea and bushmen.  Indonesia bring memories of “vipers, crocs and volcanoes.”  That’s quite a different take on the country Anthony Bourdain visited in his travels.

I understand that at their best intent (and testosterone-riddled-money-making aside), these shows intentionally try to explore barely-inhabited areas for educational purposes, but foreign places – specifically Africa and South East Asia – are already portrayed in a negative manner in American media. I feel like until such places are commonly shown in a more positive light (as with the case with Bourdain’s show No Reservations), survival shows should either keep their focus on North America or re-examine how they choose to document other countries.

I am just pretty much sick of buff white guys showing me how to survive in places where people have already done it or are still doing it – without a safety crew, cameras, TV contract and probably a gazillion dollars in life insurance policies.

A bamboo shakuhachi

I know that we need food and we need shelter. I love a good movie, a good book, some music, a nice plate to serve dinner on, a great table to sit at, and a handy gadget that helps me clean up after. But am I less happy without those things? Does my happiness, and the happiness of everyone else, rely on me buying all that stuff, or if I don’t have the money, to buy it on credit?

It takes a decade to learn to make a good flute out of a piece of bamboo. It takes a decade to learn to play that flute. It can take just as long to learn to write a novel, and it could take just as long to read one. One professor I had said we can never read great novels, we can only re-read them. Appreciation requires repetition. Is the third reading of a book still consumption, or have we become dead weight at that point?

A guest post by Sean Sakamoto at No Impact Man explores the effects of material goods (and lack thereof) in his life as he moved to Japan.  He argues against the mentality that consuming breeds a good economy while thrifting only ruins it.

When I studied abroad in Osaka, I heard many other students exclaim that despite Japan being so full of consumerism and material goods, most of their Japanese friends do not actually have a lot of stuff.  Every time I go back to Japan, I feel like I should purge my room and leave only a small bookcase filled with things.  Compared to the miniscule rooms of my cousins, my room seems almost extravagant.  (And that is nothing to say of Roy’s room, which is actually an entire basement!)

This article raises some interesting points regarding consumerism’s impact on the economy, one’s life and the environment.  But what most stood out to me was that this came from a person who – much like the No Impact Man himself – chose to discard materialism for a simpler life, but did so in another country.

Sakamoto’s account is interesting to me because so often do I see Japanese wives being the ones relocating overseas (as was the case for my mom) and not the other way around.  I appreciate stories like these because it shows that despite all the bigots and racists and ignoramuses, there exists those who are willing to embrace cultures that are not their own.* I think many people take for granted all the ex-pats in America who left their lives (and sometimes families) behind in other countries in order to better the quality of life for themselves.

*I am not positive but it is my understanding that despite the last name, Sakamoto is not Japanese.  Perhaps he took his wife’s name?

Via No Impact Man.