“Dear Faithful Fallout Central Fans,

The last Fallout Central Podcast (for the foreseeable future) was held on Sunday, 7/20/08 at 2:00pm ET. The Fallout Central Podcast, formerly composed of announcers William Lee, Albert Lim, and John Kwak, will no longer be recorded until an Asian American person steps forward to lead Fallout Central. The historical podcast episodes and news archive will remain intact until I am no longer willing to pay for the retention of the Fallout Central web server which currently houses the podcasts that have been recorded, or until an Asian American person steps forward to pay for the maintenance of it.

If you would like to step up to the plate and take control of Fallout Central, please contact me, William Lee, at . I would be happy to assist you in either purchasing your own podcasting equipment (I have very detailed knowledge on every aspect of podcast broadcasting, and I can easily teach you how to do it) or give you FREE studio time at the Fallout Central studio in NYC. All of us (William, Albert, and John) would be happy to serve as announcers on the Fallout Central Podcast, but none of us want to invest the time to lead and produce it.

William Lee

Producer

Fallout Central”

Tags: albert lim, asian american, fallout central, john kwak, new york city, podcast, radio, studio, william lee

This is ridiculous.  Imagine if someone made a similar demand of baseball, basketball, or tennis players around the globe.  This is clearly in response to insecurity/resentment over growing numbers of talented minorities in the sport, most notably South Koreans.  This reminds me of the same kind of superiority complex/arrogance from certain Anglo travelers who expect people to speak English in whatever country they travel in.

Article Link

Excerpt:

The LPGA will require its member golfers to learn and speak English and will suspend their membership if they don’t comply, Golfweek reported on its Web site.

According to the report, the new requirement was communicated to the tour’s growing South Korean membership in a mandatory meeting at the Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 20.

…Players were told by LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens that by the end of 2009, all players who have been on the tour for two years must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills or face a membership suspension. A written explanation of the policy was not given to players, according to the report.

…”The LPGA could come out and say they only want 10 Koreans, but they’re not,” Park said, according to Golfweek. “A lot of Korean players think they are being targeted, but it’s just because there are so many of them.”

Tags: english, golf, lpga, minorities, racist, south korea, suspend, women, xenophobia

I was recently a facilitator at this camping orientation event in which nearly all incoming 1st yr MBA students attended (a few hundred people). The night before it ended there was a big night of skits performed by all the 1st years, who were broken up into smaller teams. A panel of 3 judges (2nd yr students) gave scores and comments after each skit.

Some of the skits were hilarious, others were offensive/retarded. One skit had some sexist jokes offensive to women, which the crowd booed, and the judges gave all 1’s (the lowest score). The same booing and low scores occurred for a skit that made fun of this one female classmate for holding up the entire class during an earlier event. Another skit had some offensive material towards Blacks which was also booed and received low scores.

However, one skit team had a blatantly racist Asian penis joke, and it was even co-enacted with the help of this Japanese international student. This team ended up tied for the highest scores, with no booing or negative reaction from the judges. Only me and one other person were furious at the joke, and also at the indifference towards it by the crowd.

Also, afterwards this Asian female international student came up to me and asked me why American women were willing to be a part of those skits that had sexist jokes towards women. I had to explain to her that the US is a white male dominated country, so whatever they think is okay was the norm.

Tags: asian, funny, japanese, mba, Offensive, racist, sexist, show, skit

Here is an article about Kyle Busch, who just broke a record by winning his 15th Nascar race.

The kicker is that he drives a TOYOTA, who recently has become a powerhouse in the sport since joining Nascar 2 years ago, and Busch is obviously pissing off a lot of rednecks and people in red states.  Kyle Busch is often booed when he gets out of his car, and there is definitely resentment that he is driving, and winning, with a Toyota instead of with a Ford or a Chevy, which is what he used to drive.

Here is a recent Wall Street Journal article that hints about the borderline racism/xenophobia over Nascar fans hating on Toyota.  In the article, one person even says he’d rather drive a crappy Chevy than a good Toyota.  Um, OK buddy.

Here is another link if you can’t read the WS Journal article.

Tags: cars, chevy, ford, kyle busch, nascar, prejudice, race, racing, record, toyota

Western societies and literature love to paint Asian nations as somehow more backwards, sexist, oppressive, and misogynistic towards women.  But let’s look at the stats.  There are like two female CEO’s in the entire Fortune 500, a very small number of female senators and congresswomen, and a very small percentage of female entrepreneurs in this country. Before Westerners point fingers and act all smug, perhaps they should look at their own backwards statistics as they pertain to female equality.

——-

http://www.chinaview.cn

URUMQI, July 22 (Xinhua)—Woman account for nearly half of Communist Party members and government officials in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to the latest report from the Xinjiang branch of the All-China Women’s Federation.

The number of female officials has been rising over the past five years and reached 330,700 at the end of last year, accounting for 49.16 percent of the total, the branch said. That was an 11.22 percent rise from 2003.

“Many women who have both ability and political integrity were put into leading positions, which enhanced women’s participation in various sectors,” said Wang Jianling, vice chairwoman of the Xinjiang branch of the federation.

The Chinese government has taken economic, legal and administrative measures to ensure that women enjoy equal rights with men in such areas as politics, the economy, culture, social affairs and family life.

About 350 million urban and rural women are employed, accounting for 45 percent of the employed population. In urban areas, more than 40 million women are employed, comprising 38 percent of total urban employment, according to official statistics. In rural areas, women make up more than 60 percent of the labor force.

Women also comprise more than 20 percent of the entrepreneurs in China. Among the professionals in the state-owned enterprises and organizations, women account for more than 40 percent.

Editor: Jiang Yuxia

Tags: asian, china, congress, equality, fotune 500, population, senators, sexist, statistics, women

Maybe it’s just me, but I found this British article to be amusing, yet also infuriating.  Basically, one of Gordon Brown’s aides went to a night club in China, went home with a local Shanghai woman (cheating on his wife back home), and then got his blackberry stolen. Somehow, the theft merited a featured article about how this is linked to a massive Chinese spy ring conspiracy, and more anti-Chinese paranoia from Anglo press.  He likely just met someone looking to rob an old White guy. There is no evidence whatsoever to support anything speculated in the article.

For those who haven’t been following the business news, Microsoft made a bid to acquire Yahoo recently (rejected), and since then Microsoft has been making moves to deliberately assassinate Yahoo’s stock price, while also trying to force a hostile takeover over one of the Internet’s first big-time companies and websites.  At the same time, Jerry Yang (Yahoo co-founder) re-took the reigns of Yahoo as CEO and has been re-positioning the company’s business while also protecting Yahoo from a hostile take-over.  The press, depending on what you’ve read, has been saying otherwise.

The entire situation can be found here in a NY Times article with Jerry Yang.

There is some recent news about some Asian American athletes… Michael Chang was Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and the LA Times recently had a feature on golf phenom Anthony Kim. 

Michael Chang was pretty much the only Asian American athlete in American media while I was growing up, and based on the other images of Asians across all realms of Western society, was a really positive and rare image for AA youth.  For those young’ins, Chang is still the youngest ever champion of the French Open.  Who knows maybe he was a reason why I ended up getting into tennis for my HS team.  Michael Chang was an all around great and classy person, a fierce competitor, and I loved how his coach was his older brother, forming a cool family tandem.

Anthony Kim is a rising superstar in the golf world, who was 11 years old when Tiger Woods first started making an impact in golf.  What is striking is Kim’s quote about how Woods inspired him, and how as a kid he pictured himself in Woods’ shoes. 

I think a lot can be said for having Asian or Asian American images and role models in mass media.  What is damaging is when Asians or AA’s have a dearth of positive AA images to look up to, and end up idolizing White or Black icons to the point where these AA youth start internalizing certain things or behaviors that can be damaging or self hating. We already have too many Whitewashed Asians or those who try to “act Black” (whatever that means).  Having a few more Michael Chang’s, Anthony Kim’s, John Cho’s, Justin Lin’s, even more Yao Ming’s, Ichiro’s, and Yi Jian Lian’s, etc is a nice change from what it was like when I was growing up where it was basically Michael Chang and Yo-Yo Ma, amidst a bunch of Long Duck Dongs and evil or negative stereotypes.

Here is the link to a blog article I made on Hyphen about this:

I met up with Hyphen’s publisher Lisa Lee for some of the events going on at the AA International Film Festival in Manhattan. For those who haven’t been to the Asia Society building, it is this huge, futuristic, stylish building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side (70th at Park) that hosts all sorts of events throughout the year. Lisa has been at the festival since the start and been to many screenings. We went to the opening night afterparty at Forbidden City bar, then I joined her for films one day, and also a round table discussion the next day, as well as other random activities.

The films we saw were ‘Heart Squared’ and ‘Option 3’. ‘Heart Squared’ was a nice short that was surreal, eccentric, and very stylish, and since there’s no easy way to explain the film, I won’t even try. ‘Option 3’ was a full length movie directed by Richard Wong, who was there for the screening and gave a brief talk at the beginning. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sit through the entire thing, and though I kept waiting for it to get better, I ended up leaving midway. It wasn’t bad per se; I just didn’t personally enjoy it very much.

The next day was a very interesting panel discussion on Asian and Asian American aesthetics, with David Henry Hwang (playwright, M. Butterfly), Mary Ping (fashion designer), Billie Tsien (architect), Wayne Wang (filmmaker, The Joy Luck Club), and Dennis Lim (writer, editor) on stage.  Click here for the rest of the post.

Tags: asian american, asian american international film festival, billie tsien, david henry hwang, dennis lim, films, independent, manhattan, mary ping, movies, new york city, richard wong, wayne wang

On Saturday night I was privileged to watch the ‘Rebuilding the Bridge’ charity event at Pace University, to raise money for Chinese earthquake victims.  Talk about an AMAZING show loaded with huge stars.  I finally got to see why Phil Lam and Hoc Poeng (fearless generals of Ningin) were so busy the past few weeks working to put the show together, and this extravaganza definitely didn’t disappoint.  There were lots of logistics not to mention controversies that I’ll let other people comment on if they want.

The show was largely hosted by Miss Info of Hot 97, who was clearly passionate about this charity and used her Rolodex to pull in some amazing and talented names from around the entertainment industry.  The show included appearances or performances by Beau Sia (you might know him from this eloquent video), J-Lim, JYP, Ryan Leslie, Rik Cordero, DJ Cipha, DJ Delinger, Nas (!!), and also a meet and greet with the JabbaWockeez.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: charity, dj cipha, dj delinger, earthquake, hoc poeng, j-lim, jabbawockeez, jyp, miss info, nas, ningin, phil lam, rebuilding the bridge, rik cordero, ryan leslie, sichuan, victims