(Music above is Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project. It’s what I’m listening to right now.)
I need to tell you all the evil thing I was going to do. As you all know, BetterAsianMan William is a friend of mine, and we’ve been discussing ways to help socially awkward Asian men. You can see his latest post here. He stubbornly clings to the ABCs of Attraction method despite the logical fallacies, despite the fact it’s confining him and cramping his style, despite the fact that it prevents him from finding true love. Lots of PUAs have this kind of dedication to the leaders and system of PUA even though they’re in a world of pain. They put their lives on the line for the System. I was tempted to post a picture of an old woman protesting in a cage with the title, “The ABCs of Attraction and Falun Gong” and then talk about the similarities between these two cults. (If you want to see some weird Falun Gong-isms, you can go here. If you want to see the PUA equivalent, visit Johnny or JT’s sites…) Fortunately, my compassionate side kicked in.
Instead, I’m going to reflect on the sadness of the state of Asian America. I believe it’s a shame that we have failed to create an infrastructure to deal with Asian American male issues. William is trying to do this, which is commendable. Asian American men go through a lot of pain and confusion in this society, and our institutions do nothing to help them. Our OCAs and JACLs often pick the easy battles, and the harder ones never get fought. We have a need for infrastructure, but as none exists, men gravitate towards leaders who provide promises that never come to fruition.
The PUA male approach is to react with anger and feigned optimism. They react with anger because their worldview and self-image is one of societal oppression, and they have to strike back. They need to make it a contest. As Asian Playboy argued in our podcast, Asian men are “outperformed” by Asian women, and he thinks we need to catch up. PUA men react with feigned optimism against society because that’s how supposedly “alpha” males act. It creates a hardened insensitivity that drives good people away. And when you drive good people away from you, you find yourself surrounded by people who don’t deserve your respect.
I react with neither anger nor feigned optimism but instead with sadness. Listen to the song in the video below. Ponder the years of stories and music written in America. Where are the stories of Asian Americans?
By the way, I’m not sure why I was inspired by the song above. I will say that the melody is beautiful, and I actually thought it was a love song before I googled the lyrics. Maybe one could interpret it as such. But it could just as well be a song to the ABCs of Attraction. People have the right to feel.
So find another fool like before
Cause I aint gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while all of the signs are deceiving…
Related posts:
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
8(
Jaehwon,
I, like you, do believe that there is a repression in America against Asian-American males. But we can also sit back and look at how history has a sense of repression for not only races (look at African-Americans, for example, they couldn’t even step foot on a bus just 40 years ago – now we have an African-American running for presidential candidacy! And how far we’ve come on that) but also gender issues as well. Look at women who were once repressed moreso than today – when they were expected to farm, stay at home, and domestic violence was prevalent, etc. and now we have women breaking through certain barriers of the glass ceiling serving as CCOs, CEOs, CFOs and running for VP and running mutli-billion dollar corporations. That took a lot of fighting through the historical “system” in a proper way – combating by becoming effective leaders through remedial actions.
My point is that no matter where we are, some type of repression will always exist, whether it be for the asian man, black man, green person, yellow person, purple person, women in general, etc. But we as human beings (and pursuant to history in order to be successful at the goals we seek) cannot allow this societal oppression worldview create anger within us. Yoda has a great quote on this “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” And in a sense, I believe that all those in the pua community (esp Asian men) are suffering, and due to this, they think that actions are justified in the continuous objectification of women.
And this pattern can be dangerous because of the brotherhood and support system it creates within the community. I’m not here to break that type of bond, however many people need to start speaking up about what they think is wrong with teachings and/or what it instills. I find that the “confidence” that it claims to instruct internally within an individual to be unhealthy. Most of these guys morph into some sort of oddness, yet they think they have such self-assurance when that assurance just comes off weird/creepy. What I suggest instead of getting involved in this pickup-artistry world (again “pick up artist” has the same negative connotations as “con artist” no matter how you slice it) is to become leaders of some other organization to gain social skills. Start small – and don’t go about your day “sarging” attractive women – that type of action is degrading, propagates layers of mental contamination, and again will only eventually lead to more anger.
I’m laughing and kicking myself cause I posted something before reading this here
And oops. I read skimmed my post real quick and noticed at least once sentence that I started, got distracted, and never finished.
Jason
man, Falun Gong aint a cult. Practitioners may not be the easiest people to understand in all cases, but they’re as harmless as ducklings. Watch this CBC doco, why don’t you: http://www.david-kilgour.com/2007/Dec_06_2007_01a.htm
Hey Jin,
Thanks for your comments!
Again, I agree with you 100%. You’re absolutely right about leadership; if they became leaders, they could do much more. As you mentioned, they’d probably have to start small. The great thing about leadership too is that it forces people to think about the needs of others. It’s part of being a good citizen.
Hmm…I’m getting lots of thoughts.
Let me talk to one of the leaders at our Frank Chin Event. I’m wondering if it would be cool to do some kind of teleconference or video thing on this site, just to get people to talk. It would be like Lawson Inada said, “Show people where you come from.” That might be cool, and it might open the doors to encouraging these guys to take up leadership roles, either in for profit or nonprofit companies. I’m assuming that most of these guys must be somewhat settled in life with that $1,500 weekend price tag. This would be like a web communication type of thing, and we could translate it into a Thymo-action kind of thing on a local level. We could somewhat replicate the brotherhood.
This could have potential. I’ll maybe throw some ideas to Zach, our web guy. I’ll talk to William too, but I have a feeling it might be something that could require someone with greater tech skills than the both of us.
If we did something really cool over the web, is there anyone here who would volunteer to help out? If we do something really cool, we could get support from some of the other Asian sites out there too.
Jason,
Not a problem! I do that all the time! And you make some really good points in that post. If you like, you can repost it on this thread, or if you prefer, I could repost it here for you.
jjyz:
I personally know Falun Gong disciples. Yes, they’re technically harmless in terms of whether they have sarin like Aum Shinrikyo, but they seriously mess up their followers’ lives.
Do they have:
Weird rituals that degrade their people? Check.
Strange beliefs that differ from what they tell the rest of the world? Check.
Guru-like control over decisions such as who they can marry, etc.? Check.
If I were China, I’d probably “oppress” them too–Falun Gong seriously messes people up. Sheesh, I’ve seen American police chasing those cultists off the street. They also prey off the innocent. Sorry, I have very little sympathy for them…
Instead, I’m going to reflect on the sadness of the state of Asian America. I believe it’s a shame that we have failed to create an infrastructure to deal with Asian American male issues. William is trying to do this, which is commendable. Asian American men go through a lot of pain and confusion in this society, and our institutions do nothing to help them. Our OCAs and JACLs often pick the easy battles, and the harder ones never get fought. We have a need for infrastructure, but as none exists, men gravitate towards leaders who provide promises that never come to fruition.”
What would this infrastructure look like? Non-profit organizations? Counseling services similar to what battered women have? Or a broader movement?
And by Asian American male issues, are we talking about sexuality and its connection to race?
I feel that there is a need to address these issues more than has been done, but that it should be done in the context of BOTH Asian American men and women in a broader movement.
An Asian American version of the Promise Keepers would not be a good idea.
“Ponder the years of stories and music written in America. Where are the stories of Asian Americans?”
Those stories are certainly out there in the Asian American media.
However, in the mainstream media you will mostly find those stories (cough, Wayne Wang?) that don’t “upset” White America too much or pander to their idiot worldview.
This just shows the importance of developing *autonomous* Asian American media institutions.
And regarding the comments about not letting societal oppression create anger in us, I see the point that Jin is making. However, I’d say there is a place for anger in activism.
If somebody has a boot on your neck, it would be a good idea to get angry and throw him off.
In other words, anger is useful in mobilizing people, waking them up, and motivating them to take action.
There is the danger that this anger can overwhelm and consume you, however. So you could say that anger can be useful as a short-term catalyst, but it might not be politically sustainable in the long run.
Hi jaehwan, I haven’t encountered many people who actually say it is a good idea to torture people to death for their beliefs. This seems to be what you’re saying. I think this is a far crazier thing to believe than anything else.
In response to your points, I’ll just make some quick notes:
Rituals? There are five exercises. You can say they’re strange if you want to. At least superficially, they resemble many other forms of qigong. The meditation is just a meditation. I don’t know why you’d call them strange or degrading. I suppose you regard all forms of physical exercise or meditation strange and degrading? I practice the exercises everyday, they work wonders. There are pictures and stuff online, see for yourself: http://www.falundafa.org/bul/audio-video/audiovideo_video.html
Strange beliefs? If you regard truthfulness, compassion and forbearance as strange, that is your prerogative. That they are different from the rest of the world, I’ll warrant. If everyone in the world believed in these values and lived up to them, we wouldn’t be in all the shit we’re in now, would we? As for the rest of the beliefs, so what? Does the number of people who believe in something legitimise it? Christians believe Jesus walked on water and rose from the dead, among other miracles; scientists believe that the only thing that exists is the material world; Islams believe in Mohammed. People have different beliefs, and that’s not a problem. It’s a real freaking problem, though, when you think it’s okay to smash someone for what they believe.
Guru-like control over marriage decisions? I don’t know what you mean. Practitioners marry whoever they want. Only of the opposite sex, I guess, but I can’t imagine you’d call this a ‘restriction.’ What one does is one’s own choice, you can practice not. Falun Gong is concerned with traditional morality, and does not acknowledge homosexuality, transexuality, etc.. There’s no control, and that wouldn’t be possible, since everything is so grassroots. You believe it or not, practice or not. The second page of this article touches on this topic a bit: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/986himak.asp
In the end, none of the points you have said about Falun Gong can be substantiated. There is no evidence for any of those claims, and scholars, human rights organisations, and people of good conscience everywhere have disproven them. That you think it is okay for people to be killed for their beliefs is outright depressing. I originally had an urge to write a kind of witty response, making fun of your ignorance of the subject and poor-taste in commentary, but when I thought about it a bit more, I felt quite appalled at what you said. I hope you never experience the violence, injustice and persecution that Falun Gong practitioners have experienced. They have done nothing wrong, and have not harmed anyone. I’ve practiced Falun Gong for four years, I’m university educated, and in response to your comments, I can say that the bottom line is that I’d sooner be killed than be made to harm people or do bad things. Falun Gong has only given me good and positive thoughts in my relation with the world and with other people. The last thing I would want to do is lose this. I think this question of conscience is the essence of being human, that humans are fundamentally moral agents, and I absolutely would not allow anyone to deprive me of that, as the CCP is attempting to do to Falun Gong practitioners in China.
There’s a lot of information about Falun Gong at http://www.faluninfo.net, and there’s also the 1hr doco I linked above. Please at least do yourself a favour and take that one hour to watch it. Whether you have good thoughts toward others or wicked ones is your own choice. Before deciding on that, however, for this case, at least you should understand the basic facts. How you respond to them is up to you. Innocent people are being killed because the political dice got rolled. But if your views are not the result of your having been deceived or misinformed, then I’d say that is just too sad.
jiyz,
Thanks for your response. I should’ve known you were a member of Falun Gong by the way you first responded–after all, no one defends Falun Gong unless he himself is a member. That being said, I still respect your view, and I thank you for sharing.
So let me first say this–if Falun Gong members are being murdered or tortured for their beliefs, then I don’t agree with this. I don’t know that they are–I hear lots of accusations but haven’t yet seen any reports in reputable papers–but if they are, then that should stop. Most reports I’ve seen, however, just say that they are imprisoned or their churches broken up. This first point brings up another interesting aside–I wouldn’t support breaking up these churches in the U.S., but since China is a communist government that can’t handle cults due to the lack of independent media, democracy, etc., I only support breaking up Falun Gong in countries like China.
Now as for the other issues. Is congregating in large groups and blocking foot traffic on a busy street in Flushing, New York, a strange ritual? Is meditating on the ground on the same busy street a strange ritual? Yogis and traditional quigong practitioners don’t do this. I guess it depends on how you define strange, but I think it’s strange AND degrading. And yet I see it whenever I go back to NY. We live in the U.S., a country that values religious freedom, and yet the American police always have to break these people up. What does that say about Falun Gong?
The Falun guy I know personally used to be a normal person. His guru (or whatever you call it) “suggested” a partner for him to marry. He has interracial marriage in his family, and now he tells them they’re all going to hell because it’s against the will of God. That’s strange to me.
Anyway, your comments about Falun Gong demonstrate the appropriateness of a Falun Gong/ABC’s of Attraction comparison. It’s a theory vs. practice thing again. Disciples of both systems state that they are innocuous, but they seem to most people to perpetuate a system of values that are not in line with what they preach. Your quote here:
Strange beliefs? If you regard truthfulness, compassion and forbearance as strange, that is your prerogative.
has its own ABC’s equivalent. It’s very similar to Will’s discussion about how APB cured his “dishonesty.”
If you’ve read my 44s blog, you know that I’m generally against fundamentalist religion, whether it’s Falun Gong or radical Christianity. I hope we can respect one another’s viewpoints–and maybe find areas where we do agree.
Larry,
Good points!
I’m not sure exactly what kind of form such a movement would take, but I think it would be a broader movement with a focus on a small number of institutions. It can’t be the deconstructionist “everyone’s opinion is right” type of movement, nor could it be counseling services, since that usually only caters to a small number.
Asian male issues could be sexual–or it could be general male issues.
I agree with you 100%–it should be in the context of both men and women. That being said, just as certain feminist classes bar men from entry, I wouldn’t be against men doing things among themselves. There just has to be an idea that they eventually have to rejoin society–something which the ABC’s of Attraction doesn’t address.
I think it would be good to create autonomous Asian American media institutions. I do think that there has to be a guiding philosophy though. I used to attend some Asian American literature group meetings, and those people perpetuated the same mainstream media values that you and I agree are bad.
I agree with both you and Jin on the anger issues. Anger is the first step, but one needs to move beyond it. Angry people rarely behave rationally. They cling to their guns, the same way PUAs cling to their field reports…
Byron, you want an Asian American men’s movement? How about an online Asian American men’s magazine? This way everybody who has expertise in a particular department can contribute. You can be the moral compass, Byron. Will can provide articles in the dating and romance department. I’ll provide articles in the exercise and fitness department. People can contribute to the other departments geared towards self-improvement in some way.
An online mag is a big endeavor, however. I don’t know if you or Will got the time for it. Which is why it’s best to have a cadre of contributors, so that the weight of the mag doesn’t fall on one or 2 people. Each contributor would be responsible for their own column, and cannot edit the columns of other, so it’d a good idea to screen who we want as a co-contributor. If we have an editor-in-chief, then we can’t have who’s an overbearing PC elitist, cuz then we’ll never get anything published. Plus we need a marketing plan.
With regards to an Asian American men’s movement as opposed to a general AA movement, I think there’s a need for something specific to AA men, because our concerns aren’t being met anyway. A general AA movement just makes it vulnerable to being hijacked by other segments. Besides, there are plenty people doing general Asian American stuff.
Byron,
I wouldn’t mind it being re-posted here. I’ll leave re-posting it up to you, if you see it fits good in this thread.
Hey jaehwan, fair response. Here are my thoughts below.
I must say, I can sympathise with opposition to fundamentalist ideas. Four years ago you’d find me stoned, drunk, on speed, going crazy to drum and bass at 3 o’clock in the morning in a club somewhere. I had the understanding that human life has no meaning, and that the only point is to have fun. I really believed that the best thing I could do with my spare time and money was to do drugs, have sex, listen to music–no exaggeration. At the same time I also had other impulses, and I was reading Plato, Spinoza, about Pythagoras, and other philosophies and all kinds of other stuff. To cut a long story short, I came to understand that there is a greater truth to human life that can be accessed, that humans are supposed to access, and that this is predicated on moral discipline. Falun Gong presented itself around this time, and I decided on this path. Of course, giving you super-short version here, just like, for some perspective. I didn’t really get a lot of stuff in the books at first. I just liked to read them, they seemed unusual and positive in some way I couldn’t put my finger on. As time went by I thought this is what I wanted to do, so I stopped doing drugs and all that stuff. That was nearly a year after I first read Zhuan Falun.
I just want to say also that, while Falun Gong embraces traditional morality and all that, it is fundamentally different from fundamentalist religion in a very important way: practitioners make no attempt to export their beliefs onto others, and they do not criticise or attack any other group or individuals for anything they do (except the CCP for persecuting and torturing them). They are the perfect secularists, in that sense. All protests to end the persecution, to let Falun Gong practitioners practice in peace, are being made on secular ideals of human rights, freedom of belief, etc.. I in no way have a wish to make people accept Falun Gong beliefs, or get more people to practice Falun Gong. It’s not like these Christians you get banging on about homosexuality or something. This is about cultivating inward and changing oneself, not about looking outward and trying to change others. This is a really essential point, I reckon.
Just my understanding: they’re on the street because they’ve been vilified and they want to present to people that what they are doing is peaceful and no harm to anyone. You’d have to be nuts to go sit down all day on the concrete, in the dirty streets, knowing that some people don’t want you there, just for fun or something, right? These people are intelligent and rational, they have other things they could be doing on a Sunday afternoon. The reason for this is, however, if they just ignored all the slander about Falun Gong, that all the Chinese media are propagating at the behest of the CCP, then people would have an incredibly distorted understanding of Falun Gong. It’s like the last resort to just go and directly show what Falun Gong is about under these circumstances of persecution and vilification. It is a noble act. It’s not for those practitioners’ own sake that they do these things, it’s for all the people who have been poisoned by the CCP’s vicious propaganda. This point may see obscure, “what do you mean they’re doing it for others?” — I can only explain it in my understanding, what motivates me, and what I understand motivates others. If you care to grasp this point, I suggest reading this: http://www.faluninfo.net/article/493/?cid=29 . It sums it up. I really doubt they meant to deliberately block foot traffic–it’d be a shame if people got angry because their presence was something of an inconvenience, when their intention is to help people understand what they are about.
It really would be too bad if you got a bad impression of practitioners when all they were trying to do was help you understand that they don’t have any agenda, and just want to be left alone. You can see the irony, right? If they just ignore it, then the persecution in China continues. When they go do something about it–like hand out flyers, set up boots, sit outside the embassy, sit on the footpath, trying to show people that all they want to do is meditate, then they cop it the other way. It would be a real shame for people not to get this bit. Of course, if everyone’s sitting outside the front of some obvious area where they shouldn’t sit, they should move, of course. I’ve seen photos of practitioners sitting on the footpath, it appeared to be kind of to the side. These seem issues of basic common sense and logistics. I wasn’t on the ground, so to speak, so I can only make some meta-commentary on my understanding of the motivations. The motivations are pure, righteous, and good.
By the way, did you know that Falun Gong received official recognition and praise in China before the persecution, and that the first place it was taught outside China was upon invitation of the French ambassador, to Li Hongzhi?
Falun Gong hasn’t changed, but the political winds of the CCP are a fickle beast, and if it’s not one group it’s another. Get too popular, look like a competitor for the hearts of the people (which inadvertently creates a crisis of legitimacy for the Party) and find yourself on the chopping block. It’s an absurd series of events, in all honesty. If the CCP, or rather, Jiang, could have just worried about governing the country properly instead of trying to control everyone, this whole mess would not have happened. Of course, when everyone is practicing Falun Gong, you may have a tough time getting soldiers to kill students, and you have a tougher time putting the fear into people. I’m sure this had something to do with it.
The CCP is predicated on making people scared and disempowering them. Practicing Falun Gong, understanding its principles, and applying them to one’s life is a form of power. It is power over oneself only, but this is the only kind of real power there is. My understanding is that on some other level, this itself is scary for a communist government. They require power over people, and they need to be feared. This is a problem of the CCP’s rule, not of people who just want to cultivate their hearts and do meditation.
For a look at what has been going on in Flushing, maybe an understanding that may have slipped by you, or to kind of, see how Falun Gong practitioners see things a bit, check this out: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-6-19/72069.html — this is a short but incredibly powerful article which sums up the CCP and what it has done to people.
I don’t know what to say about your mate. I’ve never met the guy. What you said sounds strange though. I’ve never heard of anything like that, I can’t figure it out. If I heard of someone who called themselves a practitioner talking like that to people, I would be surprised. I would share my understanding with them that this isn’t what Falun Gong teaches, or something like that. I can think of half a dozen practitioners who are married with people of other races, mostly Chinese-western. They have kids. Like I say, not a deal. I can only talk from my understanding. Falun Gong can’t dictate anything in this regard, its only power here is in powerlessness. It’s simply about looking within one’s own heart, and leave the rest up the the universe.
Final two things. First, here are some links to authoritative sources on the persecution. A flick through them should establish very quickly that this is real, serious, and very bad. this is in no way comprehensive, but it’s a fair survey of the range of material:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/china02/china0802-11.htm#P1320_428651 — an excerpt which is related to Munro’s piece originally published in the Columbia Journal of Asian Law: full biblio: Munro, Robin. “Judicial Psychiatry in China and its Political Abuses.” Columbia Journal of Asian Law 14.1 (2000): 1-125.
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/62chr/ecn4-2006-6-Add6.doc — Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment: MISSION TO CHINA, Manfred Nowak, United Nations, Table 1: Victims of alleged torture, p. 13, 2006, accessed October 12 2007 (this has the “Falun Gong practitioners are two thirds of reported torture cases in China” comment)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90133.htm — International Religious Freedom Report 2007, US Department of State, Sept 14, 2007, accessed 28th Sept 2007 (this has the “Falun Gong practitioners are over half the labor camp population” comment)
http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/126.pdf — Sunny Y. Lu, MD, PhD, and Viviana B. Galli, MD, “Psychiatric Abuse of Falun Gong Practitioners in China”, J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 30:126–30, 2002
http://flghrwg.net/reports/UN2004/UN2004.pdf — The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004)
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/events/Fact_sheet_Amnesty.pdf — Amnesty International Fact Sheet on Persecution of Falun Gong, Falun Gong Persecution Fact Sheet, Amnesty International
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,773633,00.html — John Gittings, China ‘sending dissidents to mental hospitals, The Guardian, August 13, 200
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/02/09/falun-gong-china_cz_rm_0209falungong.html — Morais, Richard C.”China’s Fight With Falun Gong”, Forbes, February 9, 2006, retrieved July 7, 2006
http://web.archive.org/web/20030711022606/http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA170112000 , The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called heretical organizations, Amnesty International, 23 March 2000
http://hrw.org/english/docs/1999/11/09/china1959.htm — “China uses Rule of Law to Crackdown on Falun Gong”, Human Rights Watch, New York, November 9, 1999
Julia Ching, “The Falun Gong: Religious and Political Implications,” American Asian Review, Vol. XIX, no. 4, Winter 2001, p. 12
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol2No3/Falun%20Gong.htm — Michael Lestz, Why Smash the Falun Gong?, Religion in the News, Fall 1999, Vol. 2, No. 3, Trinity College, Massachusetts
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/05/china.willycolumn/index.html — Willy Wo-Lap Lam, China’s sect suppression carries a high price, CNN.com, February 9, 2001
Here is a page on personal testimonies from practitioners: http://faluninfo.net/topic/60/all/ — That page actually has a lot of stuff worth browsing.
Other thing is about people who have defended Falun Gong who aren’t practitioners. I’ll just highlight one case, though it isn’t the only one. Read about Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer who took on a Falun Gong case, had his firm shut down, then sent some open letters to Hu and Wen and was chucked in jail and tortured for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gao_Zhisheng , and his open letter a must: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-9-27/60173.html . this is the fourth and final letter his wrote, this time to US Congress, and the one which landed him in jail for the last time. Know one knows where he is now. Last report was that he was being tortured and made to denounce Falun Gong when he doesn’t even practice it. It’s nuts. He was originally given a top award by the ministry of justice for his awesome law work, and he was famous. Until he started on things the regime doesn’t want people to know about.
BTW, just to take you up on one point. There’s no membership in Falun Gong, it’s free for people to come and go, there’s no name lists, money, or anything. Things are just organised on a local level between whoever’s around, no one’s running the show anywhere. We just talk about how to do things then get together and do them. Anyway, increase the peace.
jjyz:
I’m glad you found your path.
Jason,
It looks like William already responded with a long response in the other post. So I guess we can continue discussing it there. Just make sure to click on the “Eye in the Sky” youtube video every so often just so we all have the same soundtrack!
So find another fool like before
Cause I aint gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while all of the signs are deceiving…
James,
I really like your idea of a magazine. I’m personally going to be tied up for at least the next year, and (hopefully) professionally for at least the next two years, but I’m interested in anything that has to do with publications and Asian Americans! Well, these things usually take a while to launch anyway, so maybe we can toss ideas back and forth, either here or over the phone lines.
By the way, is there a reason you would do an online publication as opposed to paper? I may be old school, but I think paper publications make a larger impact. A web site can disappear or go offline, and everything is gone. With paper, it’s there to stay, and it makes a much bolder statement.
Now of course paper has higher costs associated with printing, etc. But I think those costs do end up creating a larger impact. What do you think?
jaehwan: Thank you. Best wishes.
re: jjyz
Don’t turn this site into a proselyting spam platform for your religion.
In case you didn’t realize, this thread in particular was about PICK-UP ARTISTS–not religion. Jaehwan only mentioned Falungong as a passing reference, no less. No need to get your panties all in a knot.
Byron,
I’m thinking online mag, because I’m thinking strategically: maximum exposure with minimal investment. A movement needs to accessible to its people. An online mag is accessible to most people, whereas a print mag is not. An online mag is easy to set up, whereas a print mag requires some background and connections in the industry.
A lot of AA magazines, print and online, have failed. A. Magazine is gone, Yolk is gone, Hyphen is boring, and SAM magazine (the only for Asian American men) is on hiatus. An online mag, if it goes into hiatus, can always be revived.
For such as small niche market (Asian American men), an online mag is best. We’re all pretty busy, but we can talk by email.
I’m open to other people contributing by the way.
Hey James,
I totally hear you on the expense thing. I remember earlier this year when Koreamjournal journalists asked people to just flat out send them money because their magazine was tanking after about a decade of publication. Advertising revenue was down, and they wanted to keep their jobs. Koream is a very good publication, and I felt bad that the switch to online news and bad economy were weighing down on them.
So I guess I have a question since I don’t know much about online magazines. What would be the difference between a blog and an online mag? Is it that the reporters actually go out and report stuff?
I’m just thinking that the real mags have staying power. I know one person, for example, who has tons of copies of the old A mag. I think people take Audrey Magazine a lot more seriously than Asiance. Whichever we do, I think it has to keep on going with regular updates. Magazines build trust by being regular, and sometimes revival is hard. If I remember correctly, when the 44s went from version 1.0 to 2.0, we were down for a week or so and had to work hard to get our audience back. Even then, I think we lost some people because of that break in continuity.
If we need connections in the industry, I can work on that. If we need cash, how much would we need?
B,
An online mag would be different from a blog, because a blog typically has one person blogging. Online magazines nowadays have multiple bloggers. 8 Asians is a good example. A boring example, but a good example nonetheless.
Blogging by yourself and generating interesting, provocative material on a daily basis is always tough, and this is why individual bloggers lose readership. When there’s a lull in material, people lose interest, just like you said about the switch from Fighting 44s 1.0 to 2.0.
Having multiple bloggers means more people can take up the slack. Plus an online mag is more interactive with its readership. The comments for an article should be on a separate discussion board and not right below the article. There are too many screwballs who want to ruin an article with their verbal graffiti.
As far as cash, I have no idea how much it costs to jumpstart a print mag. I only do freelance work for magazines, so I have no idea what it actually costs to run it. I’m not totally resistant to the idea of a print mag. Some groups do both: they start out with the online mag, build a readership, then print an issue or book along with the online mag. We can do that through print on demand sites, like createspace.
With regards to news articles and reporters, that’s a hefty expense, time, energy and money-wise. Reporting on current events is exhaustive and you constantly have to keep up that stuff. It’s much easier to blog your opinions on current events.
I would say the best way to select contributing bloggers is to fill select departments we want to cover. For improving the lives of AA men, we could start with 1) dating and relationships, 2) health fitness, 3) life coaching. There can be more of course, but the contributing blogger has to an expert in the field and damn interesting.
Hey James,
Okay, that makes sense! I guess the 44s could be a magazine too, but it’s usually just me and D who write the longer articles. I think it would be totally cool if we had a general interest mag for men.
I also like your ideas about the comments. On blogs, I think the comments are sometimes more interesting than the articles (it’s definitely true for me on this blog…so keep commenting!), and so the magazine format would definitely have to be somewhat different. I notice on the NY Times site, for example, there are some articles classified as articles, which usually have the comments in another section, and then there are others that are classified as blogs, which usually have commentary right underneath.
I actually liked Jeff Yang’s approach to promoting A Magazine back in its heyday. He had these HUGE parties in NYC, and he invited everyone. They gave away free CDs and free subscriptions, though they went under before any of those subscriptions were mailed. I think they overspent, and perhaps that’s what brought it down, but the idea was right–meet people on their level. Get in people’s faces. We could combine it with online stuff.
Let’s definitely talk more about this. I’m biased towards print–I just think it makes a bigger impact. Online stuff could supplement the print, but print is more real to most people. I proposed another phone meeting in the near future. Perhaps we can discuss then? If we did a print mag, we should definitely all meet in person too. Even if it’s a male issue mag, we could still have female writers–I think Esquire has both. Audrey, which is an Asian American female mag, also has both.
I’m liking this idea!
I used to subscribe to A Magazine and that was one of the most boring magazines ever. It was so bland and mainstream. But you can’t blame them because their goal was to attract the widest amount of people possible.
So you had the “angry”-AAs feel the magazine was skirting around the issues, and the “banana”-AAs feel the mag was “too Asian.”
I think the Fighting 44s does a decent job but it has moved quite a bit from it’s angrier roots. Which I can completely understand, but I do feel sad for the younger AAs who want to vent but are shut down (and then they have to go to MM where a few crazies take over all conversations).
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The other issue is that these mags seem to be all talk, and no action. As in, what are the actual benefits that this content can provide? Is it changing opinions somewhere? Empowering AAs and making us feel stronger? etc…
Hey JJ,
Thanks for your comment!
A Mag totally lacked serious issues, and I got tired of reading about clueless celebrities. I was one of those angry readers, though I LOVED the parties…while there was still money, anyway…
We’ve seen the 44s get older and more mature, but as you say, there needs to be a way to provide some support for the younger guys. I think the answer is groundwork and mentorship. It may have to go beyond the web. (I’ve got tons of theories on this, but it’s way beyond anything I could post in this one little comment.) I guess the next question is how we achieve that. That’s the million dollar question.
I’m about to get really really busy, but let’s do a teleconference sometime in the not-too-near but not-too-far future. Unlike the last conference, I’ll announce the next one.