The Conversation
- “But he hit me back first!” (50)
- Eurasian Sensation: @ N: Why, because I’m half white I want to defend European colonialism?
- Raguel: JStele, you’re right about intermingling and contributing to communities. It should be an option, not...
- N: @ES No mention of the great deeds the Dutch had done in Indonesia? (Similarly the English in Malaysia). I love how...
- Jeremy Lin: Our Generation’s Joe Louis (16)
- N: I hope Davis understands he should be winding down his career and is happy to enjoy the party. I personally think...
- gar: Coverage of him has been interesting; I think some folks don’t know what to make of him still or even how...
- bigWOWO: He did it again! http://www.usatoday.com/sports /basketball/nba/story/2012-02- 11/Lin-takes-Knicks-into-Ta...
- Seeking Asian Female (10)
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (247)
- bigWOWO: Not sure if you’re a “bot” or a real person, Andre, but I know lots of Chuas. Only...
- Andre M. Smith: Further on Chua as a Chinese surname . . . My wife, a gyn surgeon, hails from a family of...
- The Other-Directed Personality (1)
- Siegfried: Mitt got Obama worried. He is shaking in his boots. It’s over for Obama because Mitt is going to...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (9)
- N: @TD Good pick up on that one.
- trolldetector: @Colin I love how whites keep trying to troll their divide tactics Asian blogs under different guises.
- Eurasian Sensation: @ Colin: I’m pretty sure Jeremy Lin and his supporters are not the same person.
- Jeremy Lin shines (21)
- trolldetector: GO JEREMY LIN
- N: @danny You should youtube his college games. The two against Boston college and the one against UConn. Lol, he can...
- Lingyai: @Ben Efsaneyim Why would it be surprising a non Asian crowd cheering for Lin? Most of the NBA fans going to...
- What Cultures Value (22)
- trolldetector: @Colin. Dont you belong on a Lord Of The Rings filmset? Thats where most white trolls dwell isnt it?
- colin: A bit late to this, but bigwowo, you grossly underestimate the anti-work and anti-intellectual ethic here in...
- bigWOWO: Yeah, I could go for that.
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (6)
- bigWOWO: That’s a really good point, Raguel. Like it or not, TV executives control everything (including what...
- Raguel: I could be wrong but the distribution windows for media and especially film seems very hierarchical. If you...
- bigWOWO: Illegal streaming? I had no idea anyone did that! Well, I really should check out some movies one of these...
- Superbowl Recipe and Xenophobic Superbowl Ad (22)
- Raguel: Time to get your concealed carry licences, folks!
- Eurasian Sensation: Jeff Yang has a good article about this ad: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn....
- Raguel: I haven’t even gotten to why the ad really is so offensive to us, ROFL
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (9)
- Raguel: ^ Nice one Byron! I’m reading through the NYT picks, they’re good!
- bigWOWO: The Times had an Op-Ed by the President of the RIAA, and I commented. My comment was picked as a...
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (402)
- bigWOWO: Here’s an interesting suggestion coming out of MIT: Connectome by Sebastian Seung...
- Battle Hymn of the Kitten Daughter (36)
- Raguel: You know Andre, you and me, I think we and a lot of other folks may have gone through some pretty harrowing...
- Andre M. Smith: Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew....
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- “But he hit me back first!” (50)
Category Archives: parenting
Deciding Not To Have Kids
Man, that Amy Chua article has lit the Asian American blogosphere on fire. Amy Chua’s got the World on Fire. No kidding. I’ve been fielding e-mails, getting a decent number of comments, getting Facebooked all over. What a trip. I think this is the closest that I’ll ever get to being totally in sync with the mainstream. Even if I disagree with Amy in some respects, I think it’s great that she’s opened dialogue on this issue. And we’ve had some great dialogue, not just here, but all across the Asian American blogosphere. I had no idea that parent-child issues were so widespread in the community.
Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question
Amy Chua and family
Amy Chua, author of World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, wrote an article about Chinese child-rearing today: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior (Thanks to Jason from RiceDaddies for sending; and thanks to Fai for asking for this post.) In the article, Chua espouses a hard-line “Chinese” way of raising kids. She tells us how strict she is with her kids. She writes about how Chinese mothers, as opposed to “Western” mothers, don’t care about self-esteem. She writes about how Western people coddle their children. She justifies her own ridiculous behavior by talking about how well Chinese kids do in school. She uses her White Jewish husband Jed as a counterpoint to her insanity.
Posted in Asian American, parenting
Tagged Amy Chua, Asian Female Celebrity Club, interracial relationships, parenting
247 Comments
Asian Parents and the Arts
Thanks, NH, for this excellent monologue by Randall Park, where he comically tells the story about how he told his parents he wanted to be an actor, as opposed to one of the more typical Asian careers. I think most Asian parents support their kids in the arts, but few encourage it. (Yes, some Asian parents wage abusive campaigns against their own children to make them do what is socially more beneficial for themselves, and I’ve seen these sorry assholes succeed in fucking up their children, but I do think they are still a tiny little minority).
Posted in Asian American, parenting, Strategy
Tagged Arts and music, Ocean Vuong, Randall Kim
18 Comments
5 Days to a Perfect Night’s Sleep For Your Child (Review)
If you are having trouble getting your child to sleep, this may be the right book for you: 5 Days to a Perfect Night’s Sleep for Your Child: The Secrets to Making Bedtime a Dream by Eduard Estivill.
I will admit–the last couple months have been very trying, with a baby who wouldn’t sleep. When my son was a baby, he fell asleep by himself quite easily–he’d cry for five or six minutes before falling asleep for the night. My daughter was not so cooperative. She’d cry for hours and hours until we’d go in and pick her up. Then she’d wake again at 2 in the morning and wouldn’t stop crying. I rushed to the library to get a book on teaching good sleep habits.
Bullying, Gracie Jujitsu, and the Gracie Bullyproof DVD Program (Review)
I saw this article in the Christian Science Monitor about a woman whose child was bullied. She responded by taking her child to learn Gracie Jujitsu, where they have a program called Bullyproof. She took her son to the park after he learned GJJ, and what followed was some scary behavior on her son’s part, which this woman not only condones but praises! While I appreciate everything that the Gracies have done for Mixed Martial Arts (my favorite spectator sport by far) and martial arts in general, I’m not in agreement with how they teach children to verbally deal with bullies. See here:
Posted in MMA, parenting, Reviews, Strategy
Tagged bullying, Bullyproof, Gracies, MMA, parenting
9 Comments
Podcast with Ben and James on Fatherhood
Our latest podcast features Ben from Conceived and Composed and James from Alpha-Asian. In this latest installment, we talk about what it’s like to be a dad. You’ll hear how new dads Ben and James live today, what they were thinking before they had kids, and what life lessons they hope to impart to their kids. Download it here, or listen to it below. It’s 36 minutes and 33 MBs (yes, GarageBand f#$ed up again and I had to do the circular route which expanded the size. Apple is taking it out on the Asian male).
Posted in Asian American, parenting, Podcasts
Tagged Alpha-Asian, Asian American, Conceived and Composed, fatherhood
9 Comments
RiceDaddies Founder on the Today Show
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Check out Jason Sperber, the co-chief of RiceDaddies, on the Today Show above. I think he is quickly becoming the most prominent Stay at Home Dad in the country. First RiceDaddies, then NPR, and now the Today Show with Matt Lauer. And neither he nor his wife is part of the Celebrity Club. I smell a book deal in the works!
Raising Happiness by Christine Carter, Ph.D. (Review)
I sometimes put my name on the waiting lists for popular books at the library. I requested the book Raising Happiness by Christine Carter probably three or four months ago. I was #25 or #26 in line, and my turn finally came up just last week.
This is an excellent book, both for children and parents. I don’t know what the rest of you think, but I know very few parents who consciously raise their kids for happiness. Success, maybe, and confidence, maybe, but happiness? I think many parents view happiness as a fleeting kind of state, one which pales in comparison to more concrete goals like achievement or academic skills. I think Western cultures view happiness as more of a temporary state than a goal.
Posted in books, parenting, Reviews
Tagged Christine Carter, happiness, Raising Happiness
14 Comments
Should Lyoto retire?
This is an interesting video. ESPN talks to Lyoto Machida’s father Shinzo and asks if Lyoto should retire. Shinzo says that Lyoto should retire, that he has spoken with the rest of his family about his opinion but has yet to raise the issue with Lyoto.
I think part of the reason Yoshizo wants him to retire is that Lyoto is Yoshizo’s son. It must be hard watching your son getting beaten up by a fighter like Shogun Rua. The interesting part for me, however, was at the end, when Yoshizo talks about spirit, and how physical injuries heal quick while injuries to the spirit can take years to recover. This was exactly why I was calling for Machida to fight someone very easy in his next outing. (This, of course, is pretty hard to find. That 205 division is stacked with talent.)
Posted in Asian American, MMA, parenting
Tagged Lyoto Machida, MMA, spirit, Yoshizo Machida
4 Comments
Why Parents Hate Parenting
Thank you to RiceDaddy blogmaster Jason, who podcasted, facebooked, and blogged the NPR conversation above (Go directly to NPR here if the above video doesn’t load). It’s a discussion with three dads about whether being a dad makes a guy happier or not. It’s an extension of the conversation initiated by this article in New York Magazine: All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting. According to the article, parents think that they’re happier because they decided to have kids, but in reality they’re not. There’s no correlation between kids and happiness, unless people have more than one kid, in which case they tend to be unhappier than people without kids.
But here is an...