The Conversation
- Scapegoating our own (13)
- King: ^Yeah, but so did Obama 4 years ago. It’s inconsistent to think that Obama can have an arch of decision...
- Frank Chow: @King He definitely said he opposed “same-sex marriage”, that didn’t change....
- King: @ Frank But Manny didn’t even say what he’s been accused of.
- Facebook co-founder renounces U.S. citizenship prior to IPO (13)
- Raguel: This is a storm in a tea cup, a new five minutes of hate. This is because despite the outrage, people will...
- Frank Chow: “The country is not over-taxed; in fact, tax rates are near 60 year lows.” -source,...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Mark Cuban is rich (richer than me anyway), and he’s just as horrified as I am. I don’t...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (428)
- LadyBlack: Hello, you who believe that some races are inferior and that some are superior. As a Black (in particular...
- bigWOWO: Thanks, Grover!
- Grover Porquel: Excellent roundup. I have taken on these “biodiversity” types myself over the years and...
- Higher education: the next subprime bubble (5)
- bigWOWO: Let’s think hypothetically. Let’s say they had quotas, such as a company of X number of...
- kobukson: In the past, a high school diploma was sufficient for getting a job. Things changed and a HS diploma...
- bigWOWO: I do agree with you, Ei, to a certain point. I have heard that some lawyers and engineers are having...
- Americans Eat the World’s Cheapest Food (36)
- bigWOWO: A week in, and: I liked the mock chicken, but the family didn’t like it. I don’t know if...
- King: ^ But isn’t Anthony Bourdain the same guy who recently called Paula Deen the “Worst Unhealthy Cook” for...
- kobukson: I like Anthony Bourdain’s take on vegetarians and vegans: “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like...
- Why Do Asian People Have Bad Eyesight? (37)
- Suing the Bachelor for racial discrimination (34)
- George: The problem with the entertainment industry is that they have already stated that blacks are not on the show...
- George: “Oh and prediction, you know the first female non white bachelorette will be Asian, and it will be...
- Chen: i’ve been reading about BFOQ cases, and it seems as if the entertainment industry wins unless they do...
- Reasons to eliminate black studies (23)
- Asian Men, Black Men, and the Competition for White Women (569)
- Raguel: Actually, white people may laugh at him even more, and that may be why they like him so much.
- Raguel: How does this nihilistic dog so filled with ressentiment and love of the slave morality even dare to mention...
- ChineseMom: (continued) Criticism of contemporary Chinese literature and Marxism Q: After the publication of your...
- Immigration records of Asian immigrants to be made available to public (2)
- American woman becomes hero to abused women in China (39)
- Chen: thats it. This woman got beat up, and that is wrong. I’m sure some assholes are going to use that and run...
- Eurasian Sensation: Patriarchal practices are incredibly ingrained in some countries and are extremely hard to shift....
- Raguel: Wasn’t it reported in one of the major american magazines like life, time etc that travelling ulamas...
- San Diego student left alone in cell for five days (3)
- bigWOWO: Haha…I know, Zach! This is the absolute worse kind of invisibility that there is!
- Zach Katagiri: Man — talk about asian american males being invisible!!
- Linda: this will be the next episode of “I survived….” I am surprised they don’t have video...
- Adventures of the Karaoke King by Harold Taw (Review and Question) (4)
- bigWOWO: Alpha, Glad that you see the precious metals rather than the ranking! Although I guess I should consider...
- Raguel: Why not make contact with other blogs and Asian American websites to feature your reviews? This way,...
- Alpha Asian: B, I know what you mean. A lot of reviewers just give very bland reviews and they don’t really...
- Asian women fetch high prices for egg donation (5)
- Dman: I don’t get the article Asian women in demand for donating her eggs. I did not see anything mentioned...
- bigWOWO: I think that buying an egg is financially easier these days than adoption from China. I know people trying...
- Linda: Also regarding about adoption. I think a lot of Americanized Asians are open to adoption in the US. (unlike...
- Re-Programming Your Mind (74)
- Chr..: I’m not making this up! I saw this guy in front of a Trader Joe’s here in NYC not too long ago as...
- Asian Women and the Invisible Chain (187)
- Chr..: @ King Yes, and what can the general masses do to stop with what’s going on right now? Not much I would...
- King: @ Chr Because the money, more than anything else, is ‘the system’ that affects everything else.
- Chr..: “The whole thing looks like a very twisted version of musical chairs, doesn’t it?” Why does this...
- Creative Monopolists (3)
- Asian husband-wife team on Shark Tank (3)
- Artists Who Refuse to Work for Free (5)
- Courtney: I have been drawing for 22 years. I think it’s really inconsiderate to ask an artist to sit down for...
- More Asian Americans Marrying Within Their Race (106)
- Chr..: “Look at some of the fatcats on Wall Street–a guy who can drop $800 on a single night out isn’t...
- The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy (Review) (12)
- Chr..: “dystopian mating marketplace where, like income inequality, the rewards of female sexuality will go...
- Whiteness and American TV (9)
- Linda: @hadoken – I don’t know why korean dramas are like crack. I go thru phases. since it’s a...
- Scapegoating our own (13)
Category Archives: Reviews
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Review)
I thought Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections was a very good book, amazing, complex, ambitious, and powerful. The Corrections was a great book because of the complexity and Franzen’s grasp on modern life. Let me just say then: Freedom is on a whole different level. Franzen deserves all of the acclaim that the media has been paying him and more.
“Hooked” by John Franc (Review)
I don’t remember how I found out about Hooked, but I heard about it, ordered it from the library, forgot about it, and then received it a month later.
The book is about a group of successful, middle-aged men who, in between soccer practices and work, begin sneaking out and hiring prostitutes at high-end houses around an unnamed city. The main thrust of the narrative is the struggle between secrecy and authenticity, and between the men who hire prostitutes and their families. The book was written mostly from a first person plural point of view, reminiscent of Yiyun Li’s story from the perspective of a town. The author “John Franc” tells a good story and is skilled with language. “John Franc,” in keeping with the style of the narrative, is a pseudonym.
American Rust by Philipp Meyer (Review)
So far, I’ve read four novels from members of the New Yorker’s 2011 20 under 40 (Yiyun Li, Joshua Ferris, Meyer, and some dude whose name I won’t mention because his novel was absolutely PAINFUL). I wanted to check out Philipp Meyer’s novel because out of all the stories that I read in the New Yorker, his was my favorite. He’s also got a fascinating personal biography.
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (Review)
I wanted to read something different, so I decided to check out Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. Erica Jong herself isn’t a racial minority (although she’s Jewish), but she was married to a Chinese American psychologist for a while (a dude with the last name Jong), and I had heard that Fear of Flying, an autobiographical novel, was about a White woman married to a Chinese guy. I had also heard that the book was an important one for the growing feminist movement during the 70′s, and I thought it might be good for me to educate myself.
Banana Boys (Heung Jiu Jei) by Terry Woo (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Popular Fiction Gold
Great news: Banana Boys is now available in the U.S. through Amazon. I had to drive all the way from Portland to Vancouver when I bought my copy seven or eight years ago. Now you can just order and get it in your mailbox.
I re-read this book last week because I couldn’t in good faith have a website that reviewed Asian American literature without having Banana Boys (Heung Jiu Jei) reviewed.
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris (Review)
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris is a book about Tim Farnsworth, a family man with a successful law career who develops a sickness where he sleepwalks at random times. His sickness is beyond the grasp of his doctors or the experts they recommend; he can start walking at night, during trial, or during the day, and he won’t remember when he started walking or where he went. The disease begins to destroy his life, his career, and his family. One day he decides to just up and leave. The story is about his struggle with the disease and how he manages his family life with his wife Jane and his daughter Becca.
Do You! by Russell Simmons (Review and Analysis)
bigWOWO rating: Strategy Gold
My sister-in-law brought this book to Malaysia, and since imported English-language books in Malaysia are uber-expensive, and since I had finished my other books, I decided to check it out. I started and finished in just a few days. There were a good number of reasons not to jump into the book–a foreword by Donald Trump, a title like Do You!, another “12 laws” to remember–but I finished, and I’m glad I did. It’s actually one of the better “strategy” books that I’ve read. The book is exactly what it says it is–12 “laws” that Russell Simmons used to build up his media empire. The laws are:
Chinese Girl in the Ghetto by Ying Ma (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Memoir Gold
I found out about Chinese Girl in the Ghetto at GASP (from 8Asians.com), but I’ve known of Ying Ma for much longer-she and I graduated the same year at Cornell, and I had read many of her opinions in the Cornell Review, which was (and probably still is) the conservative newspaper on campus. Ying was an electrifying figure, as her writing about affirmative action galvanized the liberal parts of campus against her paper. She wrote like a dude, and I didn’t know she was a “she” until my senior year. I still remember reading an article about how her family set an example through hard work, humility, and dignity, and why other minorities could learn from her parents’ example rather than begging for government handouts and racist admissions preferences. I think it was the first time I had read an Asian American so eloquently write against the racism of affirmative action.
Kung Fu Panda (Review)
This is a review for the first Kung Fu Panda, not the new one.
The story is about Po, a panda who dreams of becoming a kung fu master but who is stuck in his family noodle business, where his father expects him to someday take over the noodle shop. He loves kung fu, and on the day when the local monastery is holding a celebration to find the “Dragon Warrior,” a warrior of legend, he goes as a spectator only to find himself chosen by the grandmaster as the Dragon Warrior himself.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (Review)
I had been putting off reading Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections” for a long time. I had read a review a while back that said it was about medication and how people are addicted to medication these days, and it didn’t seem (from the review) to be my cup of tea, since I know only a few people addicted to meds. However, after reading article after article canonizing Franzen as the quintessential Great American Novelist of our time (see a related WOWO post here), I jumped in. And I have to agree with the fanfare–it’s a great novel.
