The Conversation
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
- Siegfried: If it was a Russian or any other white man who told blacks”to go back to Africa”, it would...
- Raguel: I saw that Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing” years ago but still can’t understand it.
- bigWOWO: Stele: “Care to qualify that statement? Even if that were true, you have to look at this case on its...
- 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...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (7)
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- Raguel: Following the temporary shelving of SOPA and PIPA in the long line of net neutrality battles, the feds and...
- Chr..: “Asian American men have to get more involved, not less. It’s a civic responsibility, and you have to...
- 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...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- 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.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “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...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8( - Raguel: ROFL! Thank you for thoroughly destroying Amy Chua, Andre. WELL SAID ^_^ You know the destruction is so...
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (245)
- Andre M. Smith: I believe some useful purpose will be served by offering here, what the lawyers might like to call,...
- N: What’s your opinion on Yundi Li and Yoyo Ma.
- Andre M. Smith: Amy Chua has never lived in China. Her understanding of its culture, that is, the culture as it’s...
- How to Finish Life With No Regrets (9)
- trolldetector: ^ i’d agree with that. but i wouldnt call them ‘idiots’, just misguided. crazy media...
- N: Agree with Jeff that not one regret is unlikely, the key is learn from it. Another way to look at it is that...
- American Jobs and India (14)
- lingyai: I am not sure what happen there with my name, that is not my email, so just ignore.
- lingyai@hotmail.com: @bigwowo Just because the average income in India is $2 a day doesn’t make a person...
- AM/AF couple: Nottyboy, Yes, just like every place of employment, upper management needs to do a better job in terms...
- Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy (6)
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
I wouldn’t say...
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
- National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2012 (32)
- Raguel: http://www.occupydream.org/ ^ I heard about this from Russell Simmons. I hope that things develop well to...
- Raguel: So is that the reasoning for why you don’t need the right to due process? Are you some kind of fucking...
- N: @King The constitution gave power to the states to benefit white america or the constitution gave benefitial power...
- When Your Fan Base is Full of Crazy People (24)
- N: @American girl Too be honest, I don’t really see why this video that ‘disgusting’ –...
- Mitt Romney and the Problem of Wealth (6)
- Raguel: Where do people get their information and knowledge from, though? Media, and education, word of mouth only...
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
Category Archives: Writing
Invisible Heterosexual Asian Men
Check out my piece in the current issue of the Seattle-based International Examiner: Heterosexual Asian Men and the Invisibility Problem. I even managed to quote Russell Simmons at the end.
My favorite line: “We Asian men are de-facto exiles within our own culture.”
The piece begins:
Kartika Wants to Find 500 Readers of Asian American Literature
TZ informed me about the 500 Project, where the Kartika Review is trying to get 10 Asian American readers of Asian American literature from each state in the U.S. to contact them. Check it out here. She wants you to send an e-mail to 500project@kartikareview.com and to list the following:
1. Full Name
2. Date of Birth
3. Ethnicity
4. Residence (City, State)
5. Occupation
6. Professional Affiliations (optional)
Then answer the following questions:
Universal Humans and the Privilege of Whiteness
In the YA Literature thread, King, Kobukson and I had an interesting discussion with Oriental Right, formerly known as Asian of Reason. Some of you remember AOR–he is a “human biodiversity” proponent from Johns Hopkins who believes that black people on average are not as intelligent as White people, and Asian men aren’t as masculine as White men. With all due credit to him, he defended these views in a podcast with me, Alpha, and King (who is black), which we recorded here: Podcast. Although everyone disagreed with his views and the logical leaps he took to stand behind his beliefs, people respected him for having the courage to step up.
Posted in Asian American, Features, Writing
Tagged human biodiversity, literature, racism, Writing
27 Comments
Diversity in YA Fiction
I just saw this: Diversity in YA Fiction (thanks, NW.) It looks like it’s a book tour to gather readers and writers of YA fiction. It’s run by Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo, two Asian American Young Adult fiction writers. They’re trying to promote diversity in YA fiction (in case the name didn’t give it away.).
I think what they are doing is good. Writing and publishing are in trouble right now, and anything that we can do to revive it would be welcome, not just for the economy but for our own cultivation as well. I like the fact that they are meeting writers and readers in person. In this new age of digital isolation, that is definitely the way to go.
Writers, Cultures, and Points of View
Alice Munro
I’ve been reading Alice Munro. She is an amazing writer. I’ve not seen many writers who can skillfully create entire lives for characters within so few pages. I think she’s tied Yiyun Li as my favorite short story writer.
Posted in Asian American, books, Knowledge, Writing
Tagged Alice Munro, Emerald Girl, Gold Boy, Yiyun Li
7 Comments
The Keitai Shousetsu (Cell Phone Novel)
I found this New Yorker article from two years ago–I Love Novels:Young Women Develop a Genre for the Cellular Age. It’s about how women in Japan have become bestselling authors by writing novels on their cell phones. They call it the keitai shousetsu (cell phone novel). The article was linked from a recent New York Times article which profiled a company that is trying to do something similar in the U.S. by encouraging young people to write, share, and critique their writing online.
Activist to Writer or Writer to Activist?
David Brooks has an excellent tribute to Leo Tolstoy here. Tolstoy started as a writer and became his own activist, unlike the opposite path that many people today take. As Brooks astutely remarks, the gifted writer Tolstoy observed and was noted for being able to describe his observations. The activist “tried to heal the world directly.” In Tolstoy’s case, the writer was more successful.
Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Asian American Gold
I got one of those 40% off Borders coupons in my inbox, and like all dutiful cheapskates, I took that mo’fo’ to the nearest Borders to see what I could get for less. I knew that Yiyun Li was a first generation Asian American writer who writes mostly about life in China, and because the subject matter was a bit outside of the normal Asian American themes, I held the book in my hand for a good ten minutes before approaching the register. Past experience with Chinese Chinese writers had been good but not great: Mo Yan’s writing is good but too gross for me, Ha Jin’s book didn’t have enough action, and I was too leery of White worshipping themes to even pick up anything by Wei Hui or Annie Wang. I also remembered sending out a mass e-mail telling people about a Wayne Wang film based on a Yiyun Li short story–the Princess of Nebraska. Several people saw that film online (me not included), and they told me they hated it. (You can see the story of what went down here.)
Posted in Asian American, books, Reviews, Writing
Tagged Emerald Girl, Gold Boy, Yiyun Li
5 Comments
Leaders of Literary Fiction
Tao and Franzen
Thanks, S, for sending this interesting blog post from the Economist. In the blog, the author compares two cover stories from Time Magazine and a magazine called the Stranger. Time featured a posed Jonathan Franzen with the title Great American Novelist, while the Stranger had the same exact title with Asian American author Tao Lin in the exact same pose. In the article, the blogger talks about how the literary fiction establishment restricts its definition of mainstream normalcy to authors who are White men. The author writes, “Will an Asian-American author, or an African-American or a woman, ever be credited with writing the Great American Novel?”
Posted in Asian American, media, Strategy, Writing
Tagged fiction, Jonathan Franzen, literary fiction, Tao Lin
2 Comments
YA Literature/Someone Like Summer by M.E. Kerr
As a writer, it’s always good to read words of other writers–to get ideas on delivery, to develop a sense of rhythm, and to see different perspectives. I’ve mostly been reading literary fiction, so I decided to take a break by checking out the YA (Young Adult) literary scene. My library has pamphlets that recommend books by providing a short synopsis of each book, and when I read the synopsis for Someone Like Summer by M.E. Kerr, I decided to give it a shot because of the interesting storyline: a rich White girl from the Hamptons falls in love with an undocumented Latino day laborer.
Posted in books, Reviews, Writing
Tagged M.E. Kerr, racism, Someone Like Summer, Writing, YA Literature
24 Comments
