The January 13^th episode of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother has been under constant criticism due to it’s offensive material and yellowface. Twitter has been going crazy with responses to the episode. The episode’s fantasy sequence showed the character played by Jason Segel receiving advice from three other main cast members dressed as “slap masters” styled from old Kung Fu movies.

Each of the characters is seen to be eating ramen, speaking in stereotyped accents, and backdropped by Asian designs as they teach him the Slap of  Million Exploding Suns. The creators have given official apologies, as have some of the performers.

Cobie Smulders is seen in a traditional styled Cheongsam, utilizing a fan, and wearing heavily yellowed make up.

Alyson Hannigan wears a stylized silk jacket and her character is 106 years old. Her face is highlighted by her white make up and shirt giving off the impression of a geisha style.

Josh Radnor wears a Manchu mustache and robes. He speaks like a Confucian scholar.

Challenger

The Challenger Disaster is currently in the news for two very different reasons. One of which is because of Beyonce sampling audio from the event in her song XO. The second of the reasons that Challenger is in the news is because of the new photos recently discovered of the explosion. The January 28th anniversary is quickly approaching.

The biggest connection to Asian-America is crew member Ellison Onizuka. Born in Hawaii, he served in both the US Air Force and NASA.

Paull Shin

Washington state Senator Paull Shin is currently retiring from duty due to his recently diagnosed Alzheimers. In 1992 Paull Shin became the first Korean American to serve in Washington state legislature. As a child he was adopted from Korea during the Korean war. He attended the University of Washington where he studied East Asian Studies.

World War II Stragglers

Japan’s Hiroo Onoda, an imperial soldier, from World War II has died at the age of 91.  He emerged from the Philippine jungles 29 years after the end of the war. It was because of his commander’s return to the jungle to overturn an order given in 1945 that he finally left the jungle. The 1945 order was to stay and spy on American troops. Not even his family could get him to leave the jungle, his loyalty to the Imperial Army was so strong.

HIMYM

I was genuinely surprised while watching this episode of How I Met Your Mother, a television series that my little sister is quite fond of watching. I’ve only seen a few episodes prior to this, mostly while also on my laptop, but it seemed an appealing enough show from what I could tell. Jokes were rarely done in poor taste, and if they were characters would occasionally say that it was inappropriate, and the characters were rather realistic. That’s part of why it was so bizarre when I watched the episode and saw just how poorly handled it all was.

The episode starts to get bad after just three minutes. When Marshall is denied teaching but a teacher, a young boy some out and offers him information on how to find a master to teach him the slap of a thousand suns, and he offers “much gold” in return. This could be overlooked if they hadn’t kept up the charade for the rest of the episode. The “much gold” issue continues to pop up over the course of the episode, and not only did they have several of the main characters dress up in yellow face, but they did poor accent imitations. It also perpetuated the stereotype of Asian women looking young.

The only real upside to the episode was Barney Stinson’s complete and utter disbelief of the whole thing.

The Challenger

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched. It remained in the air for about 73 seconds before a huge fireball erupted in the sky. Every member of the crew died. The entire thing was tragic, but perhaps one of the most tragic aspects was the loss of Ellison Onizuka. At the age of 39 when the Challenger took off, Ellison became the first Asian American to enter space. Instantly he became a role model for all Asian Americans, and anyone else, really. People might be bigoted and cruel, but it doesn’t mean you are any less capable for being who you are. Unfortunately, the very same mission also ended up taking his life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

WWII Stragglers

During class last quarter, I recall a story of a mother who was in denial about WWII being over. She insisted for years to come that the war had not ended yet, and she still resented the people who were responsible for the concentration camps. I do not feel that a reaction such as that was unwarranted, especially in light of the travesties that were committed against Asian Americans at the time. It seems to me that the Stragglers had a very similar issue. Despite the war having ended in 1945, some soldiers continued to fight into the 70s.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5855074/beyonces-use-of-challenger-disaster-audio-angers-nasa-astronauts

However, it wasn’t and that’s okay and the newer news is pretty exciting and I was immediately able to see the connection to Asia America.

Last quarter, we learned that when the Japanese Americans were getting ready to go to into the internment camps, they entrusted some of their treasures either to their white neighbors or hid them within their home in either the attic or basement, but with the conclusion of WWII a lot of the Japanese Americans never made it back to their old home to retrieve their treasures either because it wasn’t their property anymore or they wanted to be far from the city that condemned them to the camps. Throughout time since then, old photographs and dolls were being found. With the photographs, it allowed us to see what kind of lives the Japanese Americans lived within that time. Some of the people in the photographs were also found and when they were shown the pictures they remembered either everything that was happening in the photo or even able to remember any people that were in the photographs with them. It allowed us to dig up a part of american history that was swept under the rug.

The person who found photos of the ‘Challenger’ tragedy found it at his deceased grandfathers house in the attic and posted his findings onto the famous website Reddit. There, people reminisced about where they were and what they were doing when the Challenger exploded. It’s been 28 years since the Challenger tragedy so in a sense, it had turned into forgotten history, but the findings of the new photographs, in some sense re-awakens that part of our American history.