When I first caught “Wong’s” on DVD, I was stunned to find an actual show from the ’80s with non-stereotypical Asian American characters. I was also stunned to learn that the episode was a backdoor pilot for a “Wong’s” TV series, which didn’t get picked up, of course, because those were the days when networks would only greenlight shows with Asian leads if they involved martial arts or starred Pat Morita.

It’s most definitely good to have a combination of youthful vigor and older experience. I just learned a bit about experience this past Fathers Day, which is what I was originally planning to blog about. In any case, we need both, and it’s great to have both!

@anna – hahahahahaha!!!! well, you’ll find yourself in my position one day. i never thought that i’d behave like my parents at times (and it’s an eye opener when you catch yourself) but it happens. All of a sudden, you find yourself really being the chip off the old block and that every step or turn in life you take, you start realizing that your mom and dad already went thru that—be it marriage, having kids, getting downsized, etc… Having grown up on ’70′s pop, classic rock and post punk stuff, it still cracks me up when i catch myself telling
my nephews and nieces to turn that rap or alternative music stuff down. They just roll their eyes at me just like I rolled my eyes at my parents who yelled at me to turn my music down!

None! I read A POEM by Maya Angelou when I was in the second grade, but outside of that, Gordon Parks was the only one. I think your school may have been more sensitive to other voices since you grew up in a nonwhite country. I think my school was very good, but the focus just wasn’t on us. There were other classes that focused on women, but believe it or not, I don’t think there were many classes that covered the minority experience. Weird, now that I think about it. I don’t think Kingston, Hughes, or Baldwin were taught in any classes. I know Chin wasn’t.

I think things have since changed. Last time I looked at their curriculum guide, I saw a class called “World Literature.” I would guess that that probably extends beyond Europe.

OH! Sorry, there was one more. I read a translation of the Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima when I was a frosh. Great book.

Mojo:

I haven’t run a poll, but my gut is telling me that you’re the winner. The second oldest regular, if MY old graying memory serves me correctly, is 42. I have a reader who is in her fifties, but I think she only left one comment, and that was wayy back in September or October. I have another reader in his fifties who has never left a comment. So unless I can convince them to drop more comments, you’re in the lead!

Speaking of which, maybe I should get their feedback on Holden…

but you’re right; there are only so many hours you can devote to the “classics” and I’m pretty sure we never read anything by Toni Morrison or anyone else of color. It was really an ethnocentric curriculum devoted towards white westerners. Like you, I read books outside of the classroom out of intellectual curiousity.

@mama nabi – whew, glad someone else came to defend Holden! I can understand young folks today not getting Holden’s anti-hero status and seeing him as a whiner. But Holden was a young teen defined by his times, but what he felt as a teenager should be universal. Who hasn’t felt lonely or depressed as a teenager? Who hasn’t felt like they were an outsider and not accepted by cliques and all the popular kids at school? Who hasn’t felt like they were searching for something to make them whole but they just didn’t know what it was?

And yeah, Holden is a character that, while maybe precocious, has an intellectual thirst that goes beyond the vapid and superficial fads around him. I took from it that he was looking for some sort of meaning in his life that was chock full of superficial crap.