I saw a free performance by the Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra this weekend at the Stanford Shopping Center. These young musicians really put on quite a performance with a full complement of Chinese instruments. As the Chinese population expands in the United States, I am seeing new opportunities for the Chinese American youth to rediscover the culture and heritage of their ancestors through music. A group like this would have been unheard of 3 decades ago. Basically, music lessons then consisted of learning Western music on Western instruments. However, this slowly matured to learning Chinese music on Western instruments, and finally learning Chinese music on Chinese instruments.
The Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra will be performing a Chinese Operatic Music Concert at California Theatre in San Jose on May 10, 2008. Visit their website for details.
Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, admitted that he was wrong in opposing a national holiday in honor of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. I am glad that Senator McCain admitted his misjudgment because Dr. King is not just a Black hero. He is an American hero and a Chinese-American hero as well.
As Chinese Americans, we owe a debt to our parents and grandparents for all they have given us. To say that the 20th Century was a difficult time to live in China would be an understatement considering the perpetual state of conflict, war and turmoil that wracked the country. Despite all of this, somehow, our parents or grandparents managed to survive and eventually immigrate to the United States so that we could take advantage of opportunities that may not have been available to them.
However, we would be remiss if we did not also acknowledge the sacrifices of Dr. King and the other participants in the American civil rights movement. In fighting against racial inequality, Dr. King opened doors not just for Blacks, but for people of all color, including Chinese Americans.
60 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited state courts from enforcing racially restrictive covenants. These covenants were private agreements to exclude persons of certain races or colors from using or occupying real estate for residential purposes. In the case, the convenant read as follows:
[T]he said property is hereby restricted to the use and occupancy for the term of Fifty (50) years from this date, so that it shall be a condition all the time and whether recited and referred to as [sic] not in subsequent conveyances and shall attach to the land as a condition precedent to the sale of the same, that hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be, for said term of Fifty-years, occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby to restrict the use of said property for said period of time against the occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property for resident or other purpose by people of the Negro or Mongolian Race.”
The property at issue was in St. Louis, Missouri. And, Mongolian refers to East Asians, including Chinese. Let’s look at a racially restrictive covenant from the State of Washington:
That neither the said premises or any house, building or improvement thereon erected, shall at any time be occupied by persons of the Ethiopian race, or by Japanese or Chinese, or any other Malay or Asiatic race, save except as domestic servants in the employ of persons not coming within this restriction.
If you ever saw those photos from the South with the signs for Whites and Coloreds, the racially restrictive covenants listed above should tell you where Chinese Americans fit into the mix. And, it ain’t the White group. Now, if a presidential candidate trivializes a man who was instrumental in opening up so many opportunities for Chinese Americans, I am not sure that this candidate best reflects my values. What do you think?
Last night, as I was cooking dinner, I received one of “those” phone calls. The ones you usually hope to avoid by signing up with the National Do Not Call Registry. As the seller started her sales pitch, I didn’t hang up. This time, I responded enthusiastically and placed a sizeable order. The difference? I knew the seller.
Americans love to overcomplicate their understanding of the Chinese. They turn ordinary human friendships and relationships into a complex set of social norms that mandate the provision of certain favors based on several millennia of Chinese tradition, customs and culture. It’s not that complex, really.
When banks send unsolicited credit card offers, I mail back the empty prepaid envelopes. If someone shows up at the door to sell magazines or newspapers, I don’t answer the door. If someone calls to switch my long-distance service, I hang up. However, if my friend’s daughter calls up and asks if I want purchase Girl Scout cookies, I’m in. That’s Guanxi 101. Guanxi marketing is relationship or word-of-mouth marketing. If you know the buyer, you will have a leg up on the competition because the natural distrust that buyers exhibit for salespersons will be absent. I don’t have to worry about the pitch being a scam or some form of telemarketing fraud. The discussion starts out with which cookies I will buy, instead of deciding whether or not I will buy.
I was looking for a cheap alarm clock. Real cheap. I found the Sony FM / AM Clock Radio Dream Machine on Amazon for $11.00. Yes, that cheap. Who needs a stereo alarm clock that plays CDs? Anyways, their marketers are good. On Amazon, the product is called an Automatic Time Set Clock Radio. That’s just what I need, not that I don’t know how to set the time to a clock radio. But, it’s really a drag to reset the time whenever a power outage occurs. Sometimes, it’s really simpler to wait until 12 midnight, pull the plug, and re-insert with the time magically set correctly. Voila! Of course, it didn’t make sense to me that a clock that featured “automatic time set” would also include “battery backup ensures correct time.” If the clock automatically set the time, why would I need a battery backup?
Here’s why. On the box, “Automatic Time Set” has a footnote. Uh, that wasn’t on the Amazon web site. It says, “The current EST/EDT (Eastern Standard/Daylight Saving Time) has initially been preset at the factory.” So, the Sony Dream Machine is not one of those high tech clocks that are synchronized to the NIST Radio Station WWVB. And, if the power goes out, the clock radio needs the battery backup to kick in because that automatic time set is a one-time only deal.
I stopped by the local farmers market this morning and was bombarded by all the political activists hawking their own candidates. Among the Democrats, representatives from Hillary, Obama and Kucinich were present. For the Republicans, I only spotted the Ron Paul contingent. For the most part, all the reps kept to themselves, except for the Kucinich supporter. His pick-up line was a question asking whether I supported the war. I was going to say that I supported the war before I was against it, but I bit my tongue.
The truth is that the war doesn’t affect me. There may have been a time, say 40 years ago, when everyone watched the coverage of the Vietnam war on the evening news and had friends or family members involuntarily serving in the Armed Forces. But, that day is not today. First, the end of the draft cut most of our ties to the Armed Forces. I don’t have a close stake in the war because there is no threat of being called up. I check the scores every morning to see how my sports teams are doing. I don’t check every day, week or month to see how we are doing in Iraq. In traditional warfare, the civilian population could tell who was winning or losing the war. In modern warfare, I can’t tell whether we are winning or losing in Iraq. I have no idea whether the surge is working or not. Iraq is pretty much like gymnastics or ice skating. It’s totally subjective and you see what you want to see.
The other matter is that news is so personalized today. I subscribe to the news feeds that interest me. You won’t find an Iraq War RSS feed in my reader. So, I know everything that is happening in the world except what happened in Iraq yesterday, last week or last month. And I am fine with that.
TIME Magazine: Tong. Western Union operators in Boston were puzzled, last week, by a number of enigmatic telegrams sent from their station to various parts of the U. S. The messages appeared, at first glance, to be in code, but a closer scrutiny revealed that they were merely lists of names—Chinese names.
The above passage comes from the September 7, 1925 issue of TIME Magazine. It contains one of the earliest references to Chinatown in TIME Magazine and describes a tong war between the Hip Sings and the On Leongs.
Time: Second Thoughts on the Chairman. Not even Mao was perfect, it turns out. Propped up by two solicitous aides, Ye Jianying, 81, the venerable chairman of the National People’s Congress, tottered up to the rostrum last week to deliver the keynote speech for China’s 30th anniversary celebration.
If you are ever curious about how the West perceives China, head over to TIME Magazine. For example, if you search for Liu Shaoqi, TIME will return results from its historical archives. The earliest reference to Liu Shaoqi comes from October 14, 1979. You can then sort the results by newest, oldest or relevance, or even refine your search by date.
Hope you all were able to enjoy the Moon Festival with your family members. I couldn’t figure out how to take a photo of the full moon, so I looked it up online. I set the Nikon D50 to manual, then set the ISO to 200, aperture to f/16 and shutter speed to 1/200. Worked like a charm.
To change the ISO, press the ISO button and turn the right-hand dial until it displays 200.
To change the aperture, press the +/- button and turn the right-hand dial until it displays F16.
To change the shutter speed, press the shutter release lightly, and turn the right-hand dial until it reads 200. So combined with the above settings, you should see 200 F16.
In preparation for the Mid-Autumn Festival, I bought some moon cakes from my local Asian supermarket. Usually, I’m not a big fan of moon cakes because I don’t like the dried yolk in the middle and I’m not too hot on the traditional flavors. So, while shopping around, I came across of box of tea-flavored moon cakes. Green tea anyone? I love the green tea smoothie at Jamba Juice and I also love green tea ice cream. And, the green tea moon cakes did not disappoint. Absolutely delicious. The oolong tea moon cakes and jasmine tea moon cakes were equally well-received. That’s the long tail at work. A flavor for anyone and everyone, even for me.
While searching for some recipes for a Memorial Day weekend cookout, i came across Hearth and Home, a blog that has quite a collection of recipes with photos! It predominantly features a mix of Chinese, Western and Singaporean/Indonesian/Malaysian dishes. I lump that last group together because I am not sophisticated enough to differentiate them. Besides, all restaurants I go to that offer cuisine from that region inevitably serves dishes from all three countries. Anyways, the reason this blog stood out is because it offers recipes for many favorite foods of mine, which I have not been able to locate in any Chinese cookbooks, including Wu Xi Spareribs and Polo Buns, which is more commonly referred to as Pineapple Buns.
For the longest time, I was also searching for a recipe for Pipa Tofu. The funny thing, I found it in a recipe book that I have owned for over 15 years. Except that it was titled Shrimp and Tofu Dumpling. Now, how am I supposed to realize that Shrimp and Tofu Dumpling is Pipa Tofu. That’s why I like cookbooks with both English and Chinese titles, as well as photos.
I saw a free performance by the Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra this weekend at the Stanford Shopping Center. These young musicians really put on quite a performance with a full complement of Chinese instruments. As the Chinese population expands in the United States, I am seeing new opportunities for the Chinese American youth to rediscover the culture and heritage of their ancestors through music. A group like this would have been unheard of 3 decades ago. Basically, music lessons then consisted of learning Western music on Western instruments. However, this slowly matured to learning Chinese music on Western instruments, and finally learning Chinese music on Chinese instruments.
