What a numbnut I am. I completely forgot to thank this person for their gift last week. It came in the mail while I was on those few days of hiatus last week and I could kick myself for overlooking such an important acknowledgment! Thank you to Cyn for the Virtual Tokyo 2000 cdrom. I loaded it into K's computer and installed the Quicktime software that was provided and got to view many areas of Tokyo in 360 degrees. You place your cursor over the area and move it all around. I can't figure out how they caught the picture in every single angle! Pretty amazing! There were places I didn't get to go to this last time in Japan and got a nice little tour of it via the cdrom. So I felt like I didn't miss out on those places afterall. They even have Japanese or English narration - plus a rather rudimentary map of the area. Very impressive especially to some feeble minded person like me. :) Thanks again Cyn and please forgive me for not mentioning this earlier!

Man, I'm feeling loved because I got more presents in the mail today. A big thank you goes out to Rick for getting me the Living Language Japanese Complete Course Set and he also threw in a book he thought that I may like by S.J. Rozan! Talk about double wow! You guys all know how fascinated I am with languages and I can never seem to get enough of learning something new. I've been eyeing these cdroms for a couple years now (when they were on cassette) and have been wondering what the heck is on them. Actually I kind of know because I have an old edition of the book, but learning just by reading to myself is getting boring. I even fell asleep on the plane reading that book to myself. Nerd alert. Yeah yeah. Anyway, Rick knows how much I love to learn Japanese so thank you again for being so thoughtful!

Anyway, I hate to admit it, but I'm feeling rather guilty about pimping my wishlist the way I am. It's so un-Chinese of me to do something like that. Seems like I have no manners at all. But damn, how I do love my readers and fellow online journalists.

Went to the bookstore today after the gym to look at some resume books and some other job books. Needless to say, I couldn't get out the door without making a dash through the magazines section. Was on my way reaching for a tattoo mag when I saw Anthony Wong's face on the cover of Asian Cult Cinema. Now, I think I've seen this magazine before but I'm not sure because maybe the other covers didn't captivate me or something. But Anthony Wong surely attracts my attention since he's such a charismatic actor in HK movies and one of my favorite ones at that. The 7-8 page interview covers his thoughts on his childhood, being biracial, movie directors, favorite movies etc. It's interesting to read about him since I don't know much about his personal life but have always wanted to know. Yes, I'm nosy like that. But I've always enjoyed his acting for some reason. Raw. Unpretentious.

So I'm flipping through the mag and it seems like they have this big section on Korean Films - which is all cool. There's some tidbits of news on some Japanese films, some HK films, some Korean stuff, some Asian smut pics. More or less interesting stuff in general. And then I'm reading about Maggie Q (to the right there) and Richard Grieco doing some film together called Manhattan Midnight. If you don't know Maggie Q, she's a rather popular star in HK right now. She's plastered through alot of the celebrity magazines and has a rather large following. I should ask Ms. X about her. According to the magazine though, they say she's Vietnamese Hawaiian but I've also read that she's of Chinese American ancestry and born in Hawaii. But regardless - it's obvious that the HK media is fascinated with people of multiracial ethnicity and focuses on their beauty value over the plain ole HK folks. What's up with that? It's definitely a phenom I've noticed in the past few years in the HK mags - a ton of "mixed" celebs have suddenly appeared on the scene. And I'm sitting here scratching my head, wondering who they are and where they popped out from.

So you know where this is going right? Yeah, a rant.

I still remember back in HS, there was this one hapa chick who I must admit was very cute. She had all the attention in the world from all the guys because she was so "exotic". And you know she played it up to the max because she wanted to get as much out of it as she can. Unfortunately, she was also rather stuck up but guys normally don't mind because all they see is her "outer beauty". On the sidelines, us other girls would sit watching her, making voodoo dolls out of her, hating her guts and yet and for a split moment - wishing we were her. But that was then, this is now.

I've talked to friends of biracial or multiracial backgrounds about how they felt and it's always unanimous when it comes to being branded as a "hot" person just because they are of mixed ethnicities. It seems like they hate being assumed that they are going to be so exotic without even being seen before.

Admit it, how many times have you heard a friend telling you about another person who's mixed and someone always says, "oh, i bet she's hot" or "japanese and italian? he must be really cute!" And from what my friends say, they hate the assumptions, they hate the expectations, they hate that people don't want to get to know them for who they are and instead wants to know them because they are like trophies to stake a claim to.

Needless to say, not ALL hapa folks are so-called "hot" because damn, they are just human, people! Just like you and me. Flesh, blood, spit, urine etc.

Yeah.

Have a good weekend.

I'm out.

rew

fwd

wishlist

scribble

email