Tag Archives: psychotic foaming

WTF Wednesday: Must We Show So Much Boobage as We Empower Ourselves?

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Behold, m’ladies. The latest ironic, gender-stereotype-busting, geek-affirming musical video designed to empower us, by showing the world: Fuck Yeah, We Are Women, We Are Bad Ass, We Like the Same Things that Men Like and We Are Good At Them, Too. Plus, We Have Boobs.

 

 

This video and this tweet from Nathan Fillon (yes, of Firefly fame) is why I should not be allowed to roam the Interwebs…

I find offense everywhere I turn and then burn a hole in my head because I agonize over things that, to most people, don’t matter. Look at me, here I am, trying to find fault with a musical video featuring female (supposedly) geeks named TEAM UNICORN. Come on, what’s the matter with me, shouldn’t we all love geek girls and Everything Unicorn?

I can never decide whether to rejoice and feel empowered or to throw up my hands and resign because of what is now considered to be “female empowerment”… by those who are on our side, men who are supposed to be more enlightened than most of their counterparts.

The top comment for the video is from a proud dad whose daughters watched JLA before Dora the Explorer. I am very happy for him and proud of his girls too for smashing gender stereotypes, crossing the boundaries. I loved ThunderCats & Transformers etc. when growing up. So people are liking and sharing this video NOT because of the gratuitous boobage?…

 

"Sexy Ass" = Sexy + Badass? Nicely done. All our feminist foremothers thank you.

It is getting harder and harder to be a modern woman.

In her seminal essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All“, Anne-Marie Slaughter, perhaps facetiously, wrote, “… women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot).”

At the turning point when high heels are no longer tortured devices invented by men to force us to all sway our hips unsteadily in order to exhibit the fantastical, imagined femininity but rather a figurative pair of Samurai swords that we wear to demonstrate our resolve, and to dare men to face our sexuality and general badassness with respect, I became extremely confused and simply gave up.

Show your sexuality. BUT demand respect and autonomy. What the lady giveth, the lady may taketh away.

Be a diva if you’d like. Be girly and feminine if that’s your style. Accumulate wealth. Climb the ladders. Emulate men in all their power, glory and vice. Be all that you can be.

That’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? When everything counts in theory, nothing makes impact in reality.

We are not being allowed to be all that we can be. For starters, we are NOT free to be un-sexy, un-pretty, un-thin. Have you noticed the myriad of female empowerment icons all looking pretty darn hot? If they don’t look hot now, no worries, they will as soon as they take off their geek glasses and their hair pins. We are being (re)trained to (continue to) be the object of desire. Do your progress thing. Be a Super Woman. Better yet, handle everything. You’ve got the power. But make sure you look hot while you are doing it. The male gaze lingers on. Probably even more perniciously because now we are in on it.

Sometimes I just want to stand up and scream, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house!”

Then I reprimand myself for possibly (mis)appropriating Audre Lorde’s famous words and for being a defeatist. I also feel guilty for not being a feminist AND a sexpot AND a fierce warrior Ninja AND a genius mathematician all at the same time.

Sitting down now. But not before I post this:

Helen Keller FTW. Absolutely no boobage required.

 

Old Rules. They just need to be said again.

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I don’t have any new rules to share with the world like Bill Maher and his team of writers. What I have though is a list of OLD rules that I just want to humbly scream out loud into the abyss of the Internet.

  • Old rule: Don’t say that you do your own laundry if you do NOT fold the clothes. Throwing in the dirty laundry into the washer and then moving the clothes from the washer into the dryer is like you accidentally getting a girl pregnant in the back of a Chevy. The real work is in carrying the baby to term and giving birth.
  • Old rule: It does not count as doing the dishes if all you do is rinsing the dishes and stacking them on the kitchen counter.
  • Old rule: Please stop telling people you enjoy cooking. Try cleaning up the kitchen next time and we will discuss how much you still like cooking afterwards.
  • Old rule: Turning on the turn signal AS you are making the turn is the same as NOT using the turn signal, and it makes you a law-breaking d-bag.
  • Old rule: If you drive a sporty car, DRIVE it like a sporty car. Don’t go under the speed limit. It is not Cruise Night. Listen. Your car is crying.
  • Old rule: Just because you can see me, it does not mean I can see you. You can see me because I am driving in a car with its headlights on; I cannot see you because you are effing riding a bike wearing dark clothing at night.
  • Old rule: Just because you can see me, does not mean I can see you. You can see me because your back is towards the sun; I cannot see you because I am driving dead west at five o’clock and the sun is attacking my eyes with its giant laser beams.
  • Old rule: Adding a smilie face at the end of your curt email only highlights the passive aggressiveness of it.
  • Old rule: If you don’t know the back story, don’t tell someone, “Don’t be a bitch.”
  • Old rule: You ask me to have coffee and catch up. Please refrain from scanning the room the whole time seeing who else comes and goes. I don’t know about you, but the whole networking approach taught in B school is really getting on my nerves. You’ve climbed far, more power to you. Next time, please feel free to fail to contact me. It will save us both time.
  • Old rule: It is extremely rude to make that “hurry up” gesture when someone is talking no matter how long that person has been droning on.
  • Old rule: Be nice to people who do not matter, e.g. servers, doormen, delivery people. Your true character shall be judged on this.
  • Old rule: It makes you an asshat if you do not hold the door open for the next person if they are within “the courtesy zone”.

 

Whenever I find myself in the awkward zone, I hurry up so I could get into the courtesy zone asap

 

  • Old rule: When you find yourself in the awkward zone, DO hurry up so the person that’s holding the door for you can 1. stop feeling awkward, 2. move on with their life. He’s not your doorman. You are not god’s gift to men. And for goodness sake, thank them!
  • Old rule: When someone says “Thank you”, the proper response is “You are welcome” and not “uh huh”. It makes you sound bitter.
  • Old rule: Use Please. Thank you. Excuse me. It is really that simple.

 

I know there are a lot more. It’s 4 am. Old rule: Stop telling people what time it is when you are banging out gibberish on your keyboard. Just go to bed already. Anyhoo, would LOVE it if y’all wouldn’t mind adding your own in the comment section.

Father and Daughter

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I’m sitting in the train station with the only Starbucks in this town. This has been a routine of mine for Saturday mornings when the kids are at religious class. I like to think it’s free babysitting service provided by the Catholic church for me.

“Awwwww. How cute!” I exclaimed to myself when I saw the father sitting at the table in front of me trying to put up a ponytail for his little girl. The grandmothers from the table next obviously thought the same as they commented on how adorable the scene was.

image

I immediately caught myself, wondering WHY, why is it deemed universally adorable whenever we see fathers (attempting to) take care of their OWN children, and whether I ever go “Awww” when I see a woman taking care of hers.

Sometimes, the more clumsy the attempt, the more adorable it appears. The man clearly is trying his best. He gets points for the effort. Do we ever give mothers credits for simply trying without passing judgment?

Disobedience

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Before we got married, The Husband and I talked about whether we should raise our children Catholic, his mother’s religion. I said “his mother’s religion” because like countless Catholics, he is twice-a-year Catholic. He gives up something for Lent (that usually make me exclaim, “Jesus died for you sin and you are giving up THAT for him?”), refrains from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, goes to the Easter Mass and the Christmas Eve Mass.

A convenient way to be a Christian if you ask me. To me, an outsider who is pretty mush ignorant of the whole Catholic “thing”, it seems that once you’ve been confirmed, you are IN. It’s like one of those lifelong 1 Million Mile frequent flyer status. You are set for premier status for life even if you stop flying altogether.

I was young and naive and more importantly, a newcomer to the West. I thought religion is all about doing good, fearing cosmic retributions, building moral characters, helping out each other in the community, believing in the Golden Rule and “what goes around comes around”, and more importantly, being self-reflective and building that relationship with the cosmic force up there whatever you personally call it. How can religion be bad?

Alone in the U.S., deprived of a close-knit society that really believes in “It takes a village”, I thought, “THIS [The Catholic upbringing] could replace the built-in value systems in a Chinese society so that my children will not grow up in a moral vacuum.”

Like I said, I was naive and ignorant. I was not aware of the political implications associated with being a Catholic, or in general a Christian, in the United States in the 20th and 21st century. In fact, I did not know that in the U.S., despite the claim of separation between church and state, many Christian denominations behave as if they were political parties, to say the very least.

Dante apparently did not have to deal with marriage equality. Milton was not asked to spout his opinions on women’s right to choose.

If you have followed this blog for a while, you probably have heard me talking about my inner struggle of negotiating between sending my kids to the religious school every week and disagreeing with almost everything the Catholic church decided to take a stand for/against in recent years. It becomes more and more difficult as my children become older and the Church shares more of its doctrines with them in a more straightforward way.

Today a bomb was dropped.

Like all Catholic 8th graders in this country, my son is going through the Confirmation process. It is something that he tolerates and may even look forward to since after this, there will be no more religious class! There was a mandatory half-day “retreat” this afternoon where they gathered all the 8th grade class into one big giant room to prepare them for the big decision, the big day.

On our way home, I asked casually, “So how was it? What did you learn today?”

“We had some interesting discussions. He told us, ‘No judgement. We will not tell your parents what you say. But, imagine if you are a parent, and your 15-year-old daughter comes home and tells you that she’s pregnant, what will you do? Tell her to get an abortion? To give birth to the baby? Raise the baby or give the baby up for adoption?”

I gritted my teeth.

“… We learned that there are four ways for abortion….”

It’s a miracle the car behind me did not crash into us when I braked abruptly. I had to restrain myself from saying anything and to wait for him to share more.

“It was absolutely horrible. We were eating and he was telling us about how abortion is done. Did you know that they used to use saline…”

“… Forceps… Forced babies to come out…. Pulled the baby out by the feet… Dead babies… … …”

I was beyond upset. So instead of reaffirming these young people of their faith, they penned them into a room, told them the most extreme, horrifying in any standard, cases from the past,  and force-fed them anti-abortion propaganda. If these were the first things, and only things I’ve heard on the subject of abortion, I’d probably be out there holding protest signs against Planned Parenthood too.

Why weren’t the parents consulted first? These kids were only 13 year old. How many of you want your children to be shown details of abortion procedures at the age of 13?

I tread lightly as I did not want to startle the deer, to scare him away when all I wanted was for him to come home, by his own will, with me.

“I just want to make sure that you understand the facts…” I rattled off some pointers.

Did they explain that only a very small % of abortions are late-term? No. Did they explain that in the current legislature, many states outlaw late-term abortions except for the safety of the mother? [Gross generalization but it would have to do at the moment]. No. Did they mention that it is still up for debate whether an embryo counts as a person? No.

I was losing him: these facts were not as powerful as the sensational, graphical, description he just heard.

He started defending the young, hip, traveling priest. “Why are you so judgmental? Now you are just judging these people. Just because they have a different view does not mean you are right and they are wrong.”

I had to bite my tongue again, knowing that “Not everything is relative. I bet Hitler’s family thought he was a great guy” was not a productive thing to say at that moment.

 

I was so angry. I imagined red hot flames coming out of my eyes and nostrils. I am still shaking as a matter of fact. On the verge of tears finally I said, “Ok, hear me out. If those people think that they can spoonfeed MY CHILDREN a bunch of propaganda, I should be able to present MY perspective… I will say this first: If you are a man, you have no right dictate what a woman is or is not allowed to do with her body.”

The whole way I was wishing that I had thought about this more before we took the pre-Canon class, before we even got married. I should have said No way, Jose. This is not what I signed up for. To have someone come in and teach my children values that are completely opposite of mine and not being allowed to say anything about it, or the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, just so he could get that piece of paper. Confirmed.

This is NOT the Golden Rule I expected a religion to help instill in my children.

 

“I am very upset as you can probably tell.” I told my son the truth. “This was not what I signed up for. They are supposed to teach you morals and telling right from wrong. Not this propaganda stuff.”

“Mom! I am not an idiot! I don’t just believe everything the guy said.” He said from the backseat, “I can think for myself, ok? You are treating me like some kind of brainless robot that simply follows orders.”

I guess I’ve never thought that one day I’d come to be grateful for his being a pain in the ass, to appreciate his natural tendency to disobey, to question authority.

 

 

The Yellow Invasion

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By now you probably have heard of “The Super Bowl commercial you probably did not see”.  Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s campaign advertisement aired during Super Bowl features a beautiful Chinese woman (or, as he called her later when he was made to explain himself, “a Chinese girl”), complete with a straw hat, bicycle, rice paddy, and “Chinese-sounding” music.

It’s like, HELLO! back to the World of Suzie Wong, Fu Manchu, and Dragon Lady.

 

 

The Internet, at least the part I frequent, was all-a-buzzing, criticizing Hoekstra’s campaign of insensitivity, stupidity, and flat-out lying. There are several areas about this ad that are under criticism:

1. The actress’ perceived accent, fake or otherwise: I was quite moved by people of non-Asian descent being offended by the portrayal of a Chinese person (purported in China even though the scene was actually show somewhere in California) speaking with an accent and “broken” English. I have to admit: I did not see this at all. We have all heard atrocious fake Asian accents, and compared to those, hers is actually subtle (regardless whether the actress is Asian American or Asian Asian).  And the “broken” English amounts to dropping the “S” after a verb which I sometimes do by mistake because, well, I am speaking a foreign language.

I would like to put this out here: Although I would rip anybody’s head off for attempting fake Asian accents, my children’s included, there is no shame in speaking English with an accent. Duh. I tell my kids, “Don’t make fun of people speaking with an accent. They all know one more language than you do. And their English is better than your [insert foreign language].”

2. Her accent is not authentic: Well, we will find out when the APB put out by Lawrence O’Donnell for this poor actress succeeds in tracking her down. Even though I do not like what she did, being a theatre person, I have to give her some slack: Do people understand how hard it is for actors of Asian descent to find roles that are NOT stereotypical in nature?  She actually sounded a bit like me. So now I am sitting here wondering: “Fuck. So people think MINE is broken English and my English sucks?”

I was once criticized by an audience for not having an authentic Chinese accent in the play I was in. I found it hilarious and thought it was a great compliment. What do people think a Chinese accent should sound like? It baffles me really.

3. She does not look Chinese: People say that to me all the fucking time. Well-intentioned criticism like this frustrates me to no end. What IS a Chinese supposed to look like? Is there an encyclopedia of Chinese people that we can look up like a bird watcher’s guidebook? Nope. Not Chinese. Angle of eyes all wrong. Not Chinese either. See? The nose is not in the right place. Coloring is all wrong too. Seriously?

Furthermore, who cares if the actress is Chinese or not? It does not matter whether she is American-born or not either. What matters is that PeteHaveNoClueHoekstra and his people approved an ad with rampant, racist stereotypes (and of course, shameless fear mongering and blatant misinformation regarding debt and economy).

4. Yes, the fear mongering alluding to the misconception about the debt China holds against the US [Remember the Chinese Professor ad in 2010? And the Yellow Peril trope populated by the Fu Man-Chu series in the 1930s?], and the relationship between the debt and the economy. Actually, it is rather insulting that PeteGetNotHoekstra assumes people would believe the line he’s trying to draw between US government spending and jobs being sent overseas. Here, allow me to quote Paul Krugman: [I know not everybody worships him but this article, Nobody Understands Debt, is spot on]:

Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.

This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base…

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

… …

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

 

Ok. Now that we’ve got the air cleared, could I please start with my psychotic foaming at the mouth now? Thank you.

Nobody seems to be bothered by this. At least, they did not comment on it. My first reaction?

“O.M.G. Is she selling porn??!! Is she trying to get the good ol’ American white boys into her pants?!”

WTF is with the downcast eyes, the come-hither smile? What’s even more bizarre is that she’s supposed to be addressing  Debbie Stabenow, Hoekstra’s opponent in this race. I was seeing Lotus Blossom and Dragon Lady morphed into one right on my computer screen, on a Monday morning, in the fucking 21st century. It was such a visceral reaction that I had to grip the edge of the table to stop myself from screaming; I held my breath in fear because I was half expecting her to say “Me love you long time”… This is THE most offensive stereotyping I have seen so far in the 21st century. PeteMeSuckHoekstra did not even try to hide it. This “character” in his campaign ad is made up of everything that created “Dragon Lady” and sustained this stereotype over the decades. The ad, unapologetically, resurrected the stereotype of women of Asian descent as calculating, treacherous and manipulative a la “Dragon Lady”. Along with that, the ad invokes the fear of the Yellow Peril (originated in the 19th century when Chinese laborers were imported like cattle to the West Coast to build the railroads): only now they stay in China while taking away the jobs from the Americans…

 

Hello? PeteIamNotARacistHoekstra, Fu Man-chu called. He wanted his Dragon Lady back. He said that you could come over to the 1930s to visit her.

 

Thank you, indeed, PeteShowingYourTrueColorHoekstra, for reminding me and for proving to people who like to tell me that “It’s in your head. Racism does not exist any more. Grow some thick skin. Stop whining.” that idiots without self-awareness are still around us. Stay vigilant.

 

 

Introverts are not shy.

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My blogging friend Nance over at Mature Landscaping posted about the new issue of Time Magazine with a cover story titled:

“The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated).”

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It’s about time!

I have written about Introverts, or rather, the misunderstanding, mishandling, and under-appreciation of this group of people in the past. Ok, I ranted with foams at the corners of my mouth. I LOVE this paragraph below and will quote it again, and again, whenever I have a chance:

The American dream is to be extraverted. We want our children to be “people who need people.” We want them to have lots of friends, to like parties, to prefer to play outside with their buddies rather than retire with a good book, to make friends easily, to greet new experiences enthusiastically, to be good risk-takers, to be open about their feelings, to be trusting. We regard anyone who doesn’t fit this pattern with some concern. We call them “withdrawn,” “aloof,” “shy,” “secretive,” and “loners.” These pejorative terms show the extent to which we misunderstand introverts…

Introverts need to learn about the positive benefits of their personality type. They need to be taught that reflection is a good quality…

The time has come to respect the introverts in our families and classrooms, and the hidden introvert in ourselves.

Source (1999)

 

This was written in 1999. It is now 2012. About time that a major publication such as the venerable Time rights the wrong, sets the record straight.

I was ready to take out my credit card in order to walk through that pay wall Time.com cleverly set up so I could read the said cover story.

Then I took a good look at the cover Time has chosen for this issue.

 

 

No. No. No. No. No.

Introversion does not equal shyness.

Introverts are not necessarily shy. In fact, psychologists have been warning adults from labeling children “shy” if they seem reserved. This will only create a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is ironic since Susan Cain, whose book Quiet this Time article was based on, wrote an article titled “Don’t call introverted children shy” published by Time Online at the same time. She specifically addressed this common mistake of confusing introversion with shyness:

Shyness and introversion are not the same thing. Shy people fear negative judgment, while introverts simply prefer less stimulation; shyness is inherently painful, and introversion is not. But in a society that prizes the bold and the outspoken, both are perceived as disadvantages.

Though I along with many others are excited that the undue attention paid to the extroverts in this country is finally being brought to light by such a widely-read magazine, I believe this cover is doing a lot of people, esp. children a disservice by reinforcing a misconception.

And, that’s what I have been doing these past two nights. I tweeted, I Facebooked, I google+’ed. I could not let it go.

So here it is. A Facebook page for  Introverts are not shy. 

 

 

LIKE the page if you agree! Chances are nothing will get changed. I don’t have the self-grandiose illusion of this starting a movement. BUT, it certainly makes me feel better tonight.

And I am going to bed.

 

 

p.s. Now it’s two days later. Still cannot let it go. I added a Google Plus page for good measure.

WTF Wednesday: So you think you are being a good Samaritan…

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Hello, there. I thought I’d resurface with an installment of WTF Wednesday. I hope this serves as a nice counter balance to the holly jolly Christmas cheer, as manifested by the non-stop Christmas music ringing in your ears, that’s making you, even though you don’t want to admit it, a little bit dizzy. Or maybe even stabby.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by people who love you and whom you love. I hope that you have finished all the left-over in the fridge or at least the pies that you left outside in a Tupperware container because there was no space in your fridge. I hope you now finally have space in your fridge for the more important things in life. I mean, beer, white wine, Franzie, etc. of course. I hope that you have by now managed to feel less bloated so you can fully enjoy the said beverages without other stuff such as meat and stuffings in the way.

I received an email from our local food pantry today: “There has been a tremendous response to the call for food donation. As a result, the food pantry is inundated with donations and is in great need for help to sort all the food in order to stock the pantry.”

You ask: How hard is it to just stick the cans and boxes onto the shelves? And why is it such an emergency?

Basically, the shelves are empty because all of the food is on the floor of the sorting room waiting to be processed.

The food needs to be processed before they can be put on the shelves because people are crazy.

Yup. You heard me.

Some people must think that poor people will eat just about anything. You know, as the saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers? So they bring in everything from their pantry that they do not want and yet cannot bring themselves to throw away.

Rusty jars. Torn packages. Dog food mixed with a box of people food.

The volunteers have to open up every single jar of peanut butter because somehow people love to donate half-eaten jars. My son found two today. And it’s his first time there. Bingo!

And you know what? Stop buying green beans. It seems that what most people do is buy green beans, leave them on the shelf at home, and then donate them whenever there is a food drive. Come on. If you don’t like green beans, don’t buy them, because chances are the poor people and their poor children do not like them either.

Most of the time is spent on inspecting the expiration dates. Here is my plea to the FDA or whatever government agency in charge of this: Please dictate a date format and a set of standard locations for putting the expiration dates on food packages. Really. Go into your own pantry and time how long it takes you to find the expiration date for everything in there and to decipher the alphanumeric string.

The oldest expiration date I saw today? 2006.

2.0.0.6.

That’s like, oh I don’t know, half a decade ago. A baby has grown up enough to enter Kindergarten during all those years when that can was sitting inside your house post-expiration.

(Blogger’s Note: I went back again today and won the top prize:  A can with the expiration date of 2002. Apparently though even that is not the oldest the regular volunteers have seen there.)

Being Chinese, I understand the inability to throw away food. I really do. Heck, the folk tale tradition tells us that one of the main responsibilities of the God of Thunder is to strike people who waste food. You throw away food, you get smitten to death.

However, let’s think about this: These people are already unable to afford basic meals. Hello? That’s why they come to the food pantry in the first place. What do you think will happen when they eat your shitty food and become ill? It’s much worse than if you have not tried to help.

So here is the shocker: the expired food does get identified and thrown away. Oh yes. Don’t think you can sneak one in: Oh, maybe they won’t notice… so you don’t feel bad about wasting food. Any time the volunteer spends on reading that expiration date is time not spent on stocking food on the pantry shelves for families in need of help.

 

I can totally see Fox News headline: SHOCKING REVELATION ABOUT POOR PEOPLE IN AMERICA!

Megyn Kelly: Poor people not really poor. They refuse to accept expired canned goods!

Bill O’Reilly: I remember in the good ol’ days when there were only good ol’ hard-working American people in this country, we ate expired food all the time and we grew up fine. It’s all those Liberal’s fault: putting such a Socialist idea into the poor’s heads that they should say NO to a perfectly good ol’ can of green beans with an expiration date of 2010.

Seriously people: No Christmas decorations or music yet. Bring Back Thanksgiving!!!

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I first published this post in 2009 and reposted it in November 2010. Every year, as early as towards the end of October, I found myself aghast coming face to face with Christmas merchandise and sometimes even MUSIC when the leaves are still sporting brilliant red and yellow.

Seriously? What the F people?

What about Thanksgiving? You know, the quintessential American holiday? The way I see it, FAUX NEWS should be carrying this “Bring Thanksgiving Back” flag if they talk about being the TRUE Americans all the fucking damn time.

The following is my now annual (so it seems *sigh*) tirade against the demise of the significance of Thanksgiving in the face of overwhelming commercialism…

Yeah tirade! Aren’t you glad that I am back in more ways than one?!

.

.

I started campaigning for a forced postponement, a temporary deferral, of celebrating Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving Day four five six years ago.  I even registered for the domain name: BringBackThanksgiving.com (which is still available… I am sad to confirm… Any takers?)  I stopped paying for it after two years when I realized that with a full time job and three boys to take care of, I simply did not have the capacity to deal with Microsoft FrontPage. (Yikes. Do you remember the days, the days before Blogger, WordPress, etc. when one had to use a software such as FrontPage in order to have one’s own website? *shudder*)

“Curb your enthusiasm!” I beseech you.  “As you recover from the sugar high from all the Halloween candies.  As you dispose of the spider webs, the goblins, the mummy tombs, the rotten carved pumpkins.”

Please, oh, please don’t switch directly from Orange and Black to Red and Green.  However tempting it is when you move all the Halloween boxes down to your basement and see all the Christmas boxes beckoning at you. The smiling Santa with the chubby cheeks.  The snowman. The reindeer.  Resist the temptation: Didn’t Jesus die on the cross partly to teach us this lesson?  Be strong for the sake of your children.

The children need you to show them that, Yes, you believe in the meaning and significance of Thanksgiving Day. Yes, it is important that we take one day out to deliberately remember and show gratitude to all the people who add meanings to our lives, to all the material goods that we are blessed enough to own. To strangers who give you a smile in the street and thus brighten your day. To strangers who by merely doing their jobs are making the world a better, safer place.

My heart aches upon seeing houses adorned with Christmas lights right after, sometimes even before, Halloween.  Of course I am not intimating that the homeowners are therefore not thankful.  No siree.  I am simply dismayed that the significance of Thanksgiving, the arguably ONE holiday that we should all be able to agree on and celebrate, is undermined sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas.

(I admit: I may be putting my foot in my mouth by saying this. I have no clear idea how the native Americans take this holiday though I suspect there must be a lot of conflicting feelings. Do they sometimes wish that Squanto were not so kind as to assist the pilgrims? FWIW, by reading “Thanksgiving: A Native American View” and “Teaching About Thanksgiving“, I am convinced that Thanksgiving is indeed deeper and bigger than just the Pilgrims and the Indians… I hope I do not offend should anyone of Native American descent stops by this post…)

I blame the turkey.

You heard me right. It is the turkey’s fault. In terms of merchandising, turkeys are just not as attractive as say, bunnies, chicks, Santa Clause, snowman, reindeer, and so on.  I have not seen any child hugging a plush Turkey toy lovingly.

turkey

To be honest, that red thing hanging down the throat freaks me out.  Pardon me for being crass, but it always reminds me of testicles. I don’t know why. But it does.

Many, especially Hallmark (bless their heart!), have tried to turn the turkey into an adorable icon:  but seriously, how adorable can you make a turkey?

Turkey for eating

Even more sickening is that in these cutesy depictions of turkeys, they are all forced to celebrate the event in which they will be slaughtered, cooked and eaten! The abomination!

No cute icons, no easy way for merchandising. No easy way for merchandising, no rampant commidification of Thanksgiving. No rampant commidification of Thanksgiving, no shelf space at your local drugstores and grocery stores.

(I am grateful for no longer being in the academia which affords me the opportunity to posit theories full of holes and preaches them on the Internet with no qualms… I am like Glenn Beck on an anti-Turkey path…)

But with your help, we can stem the tide.  We can start it from inside of our homes.

Perhaps we can all start a tradition of having each one of the family members mention one thing that they are grateful for, every day, in the month of November.  No matter how small or how trivial.

Perhaps we can start a quiet movement to resist the Red and Green color scheme from popping up inside of our own houses. Until the day after Thanksgiving.

On the morning of November 26 this year (because November 25, Black Friday, is reserved for Competitive Shopping, or most likely, nursing a stomach ache and hangover headache), I am moving up the Christmas Tree from our basement first thing in the morning.  I am really looking forward to it. And to optimize my effort of transforming my house into a winter wonderland for Christmas, I shall keep the decorations up until after Valentine’s day. Thank goodness for the lllloooonnnngggg winter here. That is, of course, until one of you starts a campaign for bringing back Valentine’s Day…


Sucker Punched

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Warning: This post is a RANT with a heavily identity politics bend. So if you have no time nor patience to listen to People of Color whining “Oh no not that wah-wah we want to be represented crap again!”, please just ignore me when I come back down from my high horse.

I AM BACK! PEOPLE! Remember what I said? That a good case of justifiable (or not who gives a shit? Not me certainly!) indignation is the best way to get me all fired up and ready to go?!

Go like AKIRA!

 

Kicking and screaming like Sucker Punch!

 

I read an article on Racialicious today that made me pause everything I was doing to write a long comment. It surfaces up all the internal debates I have had about identity politics, about ownerships, about representations, about who gets to represent whom, about the gaze.

“An Uncomfortable Silence: Why Is Geek Media Keeping Quiet About The akira Remake?”

Long story short: the manga series and anime films AKIRA have long been revered by fans all over the world, including the self-professed Otakus in the U.S. (I should really write about “Otaku” and the adoption of this self-identity by the youth / geek culture in the U.S. … Focus. Focus!) There has been a rumor for many years that a major adaptation by Hollywood is in the works while fans all over hold their breath waiting for the announcement of WHO will be playing their beloved biker gang in a post-apocalyptic world. Lists of actors have been floating around and it becomes more and more alarming to the Asian American community as EVERYONE attached to play to lead characters so far has been… Lily white.

The GEEK community, usually considered to be progressive and presumably to be more aware of the reality of “racial diversity” in major urban cities in the U.S., has been quiet about this. NO protest. NO griping in the chat rooms.

Seriously? If even the self-professed self-identified Otakus have deserted our cause, why does Hollywood have to give a rat’s ass about under-representation by Asian American actors, especially MALE actors?

 

Anyway, here is my long comment. I am sharing it here in case the editors over at Racialicious deems my comment unworthy of being published over on their site…

Thank you so much for this article! I was just lamenting this fact of Hollywood coopting the fringe Geek Culture (manga, anime) and “Whitewashing” it to try to mainstream it all in the pursuit of something NEW to revitalize the at-risk film industry (Hello YouTube!)

I saw the trailer for Sucker Punch and it looked like a balled-up conglomeration of every Otaku’s fantasy from anime and mange rolled into one. As far as I could tell, all of the lead girls (yes, they are MEANT to be objectified as girls, so no disrespect on my part) are blonde and so pale they glow in the dark. “So this is it? We can’t f*** get a break? They are taking away manga and anime from us too?”

(Let’s not go into the whole obvious issue of the problematic of perpetually objectifying women in the name of empowering them through hyper-sexualization…)

On a bright note, actually, now I think about it, I am not sure whether this counts as a plus or minus but the ONLY U.S. movie I know with an Asian American male lead who is NOT a kung fu master and who actually gets to kiss and gets the girl aka Debbie Gibson (sorry about the spoiler; and IF you don’t know who Debbi Gibson is then you are too young and I shouldn’t be talking to you…) is Vic Chao in… “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”…

In this post-Obama juncture, I have many people telling me that we are a “color blind” society and I should NOT be so hung up on race/ethnicity/blah blah blah, implying that by not letting go I am being the “racist” myself because I seem to be the only one seeing race. Now I get it. “Color blind” means “Universal” which in turn applies to “WHITES ONLY” as in “White actors/actresses can represent any culture especially in the post-apocalyptic universe previously residing in manga/anime aka Japanese culture”. Sorry. I’d better stop since I am merely repeating myself: I have written about this in my graduate school more than a decade ago.

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

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As an agnostic, I do acknowledge a higher unknown force. But I also know that the earth revolves around the sun and that the tides are created by the moon's gravitational pull. Incidentally, my second-grader knows that too.

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Just so we are clear on this: Mars has TWO moons, discovered in 1877...

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But, Wait, There is more!

Inspired by Vapid Blonde’s brilliant idea in her comment, that Papa Bear’s words when read out loud could sound almost like a children’s book, I present you with these…

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