I really enjoyed reading about the Hip-Hop section of this chapter.  I would never have made those connections to Enter the Dragon if I hadn’t read it.  ”It is a music made up of bits and pieces of preexisting sounds–looped, collaged, and layered until they take a new identity.” (177)  This quote reminds me of what we have learned about Asian/American in this class.  I think all of the examples of pop culture that we have learned about have had bits and pieces of culture of many different cultures all mixed into one.  There are pieces of history, pieces of memory, pieces of people all throughout even the simplest of things in America today.  Bubble tea is one of my favorite beverages, and yet I know nothing about it’s origin or it’s meaning.  I even asked Yuka why bubble tea comes with a clear, plastic seal and everyone I’ve had, no matter where I got it from has had little pictures on them.  I asked her why and she said she didn’t know; that it was Chinese.  I just laughed and said, “oh okay.”  These are all examples of cultures being combined.  And it shows me that I still have a lot to learn.

I have never seen Fist of Fury, however I watched Enter the Dragon and I saw the expression on Bruce Lee that this chapter is describing.  I found it very interesting to watch him in action.  I don’t know much at all about Kung Fu, and I had never seen a Bruce Lee film before watching Enter the Dragon, but I still noticed his expression and genuine portrayal of Kung Fu in the film.  ”In other words, it is the totality of Bruce Lee’s artistic expression that is presented here as the basis of my political analysis.” (41)

I can’t talk about Fist of Fury, but I can talk about what I saw in Enter the Dragon.  What I saw was a very talented man who was portraying a character, but didn’t let that character or the movie or anything get in the way of making the Kung Fu as realistic as possible.  I think that is really hard to do in movies.  Everything is so dramatized, and even though the film was dramatized in some ways, Lee made sure to keep it true and genuine.

I found this chapter to be very interesting.  The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books, and it was talked about in this chapter.  This chapter talked about Chinese women during the twentieth century, and how there have been many memoirs written about the time period.

There were a lot of changes to China during this century, and there were many Chinese women who broke away from their social and political boundaries and took on a new life.  Many of these memoirs portray Chinese women as having to endure “an overwhelming series of challenges that generations of Chinese women must confront and overcome.” (138)

I loved The Joy Luck Club so much because it’s about mother/daughter relationships; it’s about being a woman, and it’s about cultural differences and similarities.  In this chapter, it describes the importance of these memoirs and why the authors felt the need to write them, “‘It is my duty to try to understand my mother, to seek answers.  To ignore the past is too much like forgetting.  And to forget the past would be to dishonor my parents.’” (145)

“For many, race is skin deep, and , as such, race resides at the level of the visible…” (Dave pg. 276)

In Leilani Nishime’s chapter in Dave (Guilty Pleasures) she discusses racial outing and claiming, mainly focusing on Keanu Reeves. The idea is that we like to claim celebrities if our race is the same. Obviously, Reeves, who is part Asian, is a controversial celebrity to claim because he doesn’t ‘look Asian’. But what about the race you claim? That’s always been far more interesting to me.

I used to go to school with a girl named Kaisha who was mix raced. She was very loud and sassy and wore large hoop earrings almost everyday. I think my peers expected me to act more like her and were slightly thrown off when I took up snowboarding or when they’d catch me listening to Blink 182. I, on the other hand, always thought she acted very ‘black’ for lack of a better word. I came to my own assumption that maybe, Kaisha was over exaggerating her blackness because it isn’t as apparent as mine. What I mean is that I never felt the need to ‘act black’. You can see I’m black just by looking at me. Kaisha on the other hand? Honestly, you could look at her and come up with about ten different race possibilities. So maybe she just wanted us to know her race for sure.

Hiram Perez’s chapter in Dave (How to Rehabilitate a Mulatto) focuses on Tiger Woods, who identifies as ‘Cablinasian’. He is a mix of Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian. His word for his race resulted in backlash from the black community who felt he was discounting or not fully claiming his blackness.

Clearly, race is important when it comes to identity. But why? Why do we feel the need to prove or explain what we are to people? And should we? My whole life, I’ve identified as black or African American. I’m sure that there is more in me than African but I don’t know for sure. I’ve never felt the need to find out what I am. Is race only skin deep? Should it depend on what country you were born in? Or does it depend on what country your great-great-great-great grandparents were born?

*When I think of pop cultures I think of the science of pop culture. The trends and what changes and what stays the same…

*”Consensual Hallucination”  (I like that).

Tuesday Sem Chapter 8 Questions -Why do you think Indians are rarely counted when the term Asian arises? What similarities did you see between the Japanese Americas and the Asian Americans? Pay 307 says that compared to the Japanese, the Punjabis had a low literacy rate. Why do you think that was? What effect of not having wives have on the Asian-Indian community? Now a days, Asian-Indian often have the stereotype of being very smart. However, this passage continuously talks about them having low educational scores. Do you think this stereotype came from them trying to be model minorities or the association they have with Asia?

“If you repeat something enough times it becomes a part of you” -Better luck tomorrow

“Spector”-something that haunts you.

-Love hate relationship between white men and black culture. Eminem, black face? Why is struggle so associated with black culture? Still happens today. Black women? Both sexualized and unwanted at the same time.

Say it loud! I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD! -Does black culture and Asian culture overlap so much because they see so many similarities? Why isn’t this apparent between other cultures? The idea of being proud of your culture. T-shirts in Forever 21 with Biggie and Tupac. The idea of your culture being cool. The underdog sciece.  THE NEW KUNG FU. The idea that underdog tend to stick together and relate. How underdogs are “cool”. How Kung Fu started out Asian and gave black people a voice and now hip hop has done the same for Asians. (ex. ABDC and Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting) Do Asians do ‘thug’ better than black people?

2.18.14 (Review chapter 8 in Lee. 7 post this week. Look up Star Spangled Banner. Frances Scott Key (send blacks back to Africa))

Dat Rap Game Doe (Unfinished Thoughts)

When I was a junior in high school Blue Scholars were like, that group. Like the cool new underground rap group that was even cooler because they were from Seattle. And even though we lived in Bellingham we had this sense of pride like “YEAH WE’RE BASICALLY IN SEATTLE” which we aren’t because we were like…two hours away. And then when I was a senior in high school I was able to see them at Whatcom Community College and I climbed up onto a ledge and Geo totally gave me a thumbs up while they were preforming and it was awesome. Anyways, I never really listened to the lyrics until last quarter when Chico brought them up. When I was 16, 17 even 18 I was just digging the beat and flow but not listening. I mean, I don’t know…I like learning without realizing that I’m learning. Or how many references they’re making that we learned about! It’s amazing…and I still get a sense of pride because they’re based out of Seattle and it makes me smile.

Also I fan girled one time when I saw Geo walking down the street in Seattle and I hugged him and it made my whole day.

But on the topic of Asian American rappers is this girl named Awkwafina. I read about her on buzzfeed in an article about female rap artist to look out for and not only is she hilarious in her songs, she’s actually good. Her birth name is Nora Lum and she actually went to Beijing Language and Culture University in Beijing, China and studied Mandarin language. Songs I’d recommend, Mayor Bloomberg (Giant Margeritas) and My Vag

Dumbfounded. I heard about him when I was listening to a Latin American rapper by the name of Wax when they had a song together. He’s a Korean

Females in the Media (Unfinished Thoughts)

From what I know from first hand experience, what I’ve read about and what I’ve learned in class is that it basically sucks to be a girl. Let’s start out super, ridiculously basic. All girls, no matter race, are taught from a young age that are bodies are basically toys that we need to control. You see it as early as elementary school when girls aren’t allowed to wear spaghetti string tank tops, because boys can’t possibly focus in class. Because who doesn’t automatically start thinking about sex when they see a bare shoulder?

But then we move onto races and it only get more complicated and ridiculous.

Throughout history, white woman have always been this ideal of how all women should be. They were pure, innocent, holy, wife material. They were the girl next door, the cheerleader, the girl you bring home to mom. She’s the trophy wife that has dinner ready when you get home. She’s the Disney princess that’s waiting for her prince. But she’s also extremely defenseless according to propaganda. Ever notice that regardless of who the new scary minority was, the white women always had to be protected from them? Like they were so helpless that any man cold just steal her away at any moment, as if she had no say in the manner.

And then there is the Asian women. They’re more complex than the white women now. They are one to two things and only these things. 1.) they’re the sweet by nature, barely speak English, wife that will bathe you and cook you dinner and never talk back to be. They live for him. They’re even more ideal as a wife than the white woman. AND they’re exotic. They’re something new, something different. Or they’re the dragon lady. She’s coy and mischievous and can’t be trusted. She’s evil, still sexy, but pure evil and still desirable.

And now, what might be the most complicated of all these, is the black women. Now, I might be biased in saying that and I’m fully willing to acknowledge that but hear me out. A few weeks ago my roommate (who is African American) was telling me that black women are both sexualized and unwanted at the same time, more than any other race of women. I never really thought about it but its true. Explain to me why women get plastic surgery to have features that we are often born with. Fuller lips, bigger breast, rounder backsides yet black women who have all these naturally remain unwanted. Do you know how confusing that is? To people want to look like you but not want anything to do with you?

At the very least, at least the other two women are still wanted on some level. Yes, the desire is in the completely wrong place and for bad reasons, but they’re wanted. Black women aren’t wanted, only our features are wanted on different races. Because we’re scary. We’re aggressive. We’re loud. We’re whores. We’re gold diggers. We’re angry. We’re uneducated.

http://www.atimes.com/

A plane crashes on March 9 carrying over 200 passengers with some from china crashed on the coast of Vietnam (in the article they say ‘mysteriously’) It stated that the Vietnam planes for rescue saw oil near the beijing-bound planes location when contact was lost with air controllers. Sad and out of nowhere. 

Chapter5 : Due to colonization, Languages have affected one anthers meaning and created new words and meanings for exsiting words. It has lead to a sense of privledge in some cases due to education and has influenced popular music by being able to have double meanings and be interchangeable in language.

In the book Davé, he talks about how language and music have been cross currents into different languages. He has examples of words like Pappy, Padré, Papa,  and daddy. We in all languages can understand these words even though we might not speak that language.

It was also explained how English is being taught all over the world. I think that it is very accurate that we can all understand people even if we speak different languages. Working in retail I have had times were customers won’t speak one or two words of English but we are still able to communiate with the few words that are given and understood between the two of us.

Hello Kitty has been something I have loved since I was a little girl. When I was born the first thing I had was a stuffed animal hello kitty and a stuff pikachu. She gives me so many past childhood memories and she’s just so adorable, with how popular she is and seeing her everywhere in stores I sometimes wonder if people ever want to know how she started out and where it all began, the hello kitty sensation. Hello Kitty or Haro Kiti or Kitty white was made by the company of Sanrio, the designers name was Yuko Shimizu who is a designer for the sanrio company. Yuko’s design of Hello Kitty was introduce in 1974 and than made its way to the states in 76 just two years later. As we’ve talked about kawaii in class hello kitty is sort of one of the stables of that and is a huge piece of Japanese pop culture. “At age 36 as of 2010, Sanrio has groomed Hello Kitty into a global marketing phenomenon worth $5 billion a year.”

“Hello kittys ‘story’ “According to official character profile, she was born in the suburbs of London, England on November 1. Her height is described as five apples and her weight as three apples. She is portrayed as a bring and kin-hearted girl, very close to her win sister Mimmy. She is good at baking cookies and loves Mama’s homemade apple pie. She likes to collect cute things and her favorite sub jets in school are English, music and art. Hello Kitty is portrayed surrounded by a large family who all possess the surname White. Her twin sister Mimmy is described as “shy and very girly,” interested in sewing and dreaming of marriage. While Hello Kitty wears a bow on her left ear, Mimmy wears hers on the right. Also Hello Kittys dresses are normally red, whereas Mimmys are normally yellow. Their papa George is described as dependable, humorous but also absent-minded. Mama, Mary, is portrayed as a good cook who loved doing housework. Grandpa Anthony likes o tell stories and Grandma Margaret likes sewing. Dear Daniel is Hello Kittys childhood friend. His character profile describes him as born in london May 3 with the real name Daniel Starr. He travelled with his parents and was away from from Hello Kitty for a long time. He is portrayed as fashionable and sensitive, good at dancing and playing the piano, with an interest in photography and dreams of being a celebrity. Charmmy Kitty  is Hello Kittys pet a white persian. She is described as docile, obedient and fond of shiny things. Her necklace whole the key to Hello Kittys jewelry box. Hello Kitty also have a pet hamster name Sugar, who was a gift from Dear Daniel.

In my own opinion as a Asian-American I so much relate Hello kitty to my past and childhood, I see it as a reminder of my family in Japan and a relation to the culture that i’ve all my life loved and been so curious about.  I

This is a little background story on Hello Kitty, theres way more to the story than just a picture drawn up of a cute kitty that got popular all over the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_Kitty

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAHEPky7uOI

I just have to at least share this video because I love kick the can crew and just Japanese music in general. The crew was established in 1996. Babymetal was another new band that was formed in 2010 and consists of 3 girls all around the ages of 14, 15. The music is a mix of metal and some electronic. It is hard for me to grasp exactly what the girls are saying but it was kind of explained as give me chocolate and than its sort of using Japanese expressions. I guess from my point of view since I don’t understand as much as I’d like it’s more of the show their putting on in their videos as well as the metal music aspect of it. It allows me to feel like I’m connecting to the modern pieces of the Japanese culture and some of the things that people my age are into over in Japan. Both bands or groups are something I found catchy or something that had some form of relatable sound to the American Music I listened too and I sort of just became obsessed and would get sucked into the rabbit hole for hours with related searches on YouTube

Cowboy bebop!!! OMG!! I’ve become a little bit obsessed with this show, the movie everything since we watched it. I’ve download all the episodes and probably watched the movie 4 times now. I’m loving it the story line is great, spikes cute (in a weird anime way) , i love the techy girly and the dog is cute. Up until this point I was never really fascinated or into the idea of anime, I used to love love love MANGA drawing when I was younger, I thought they were adorable , but I never got into anime shows. I feel that these shows have a wrong reputation and if people took the time and gave it a chance they might see that there are many versions. Cowboy bebop is a version that I would consider something for the older generation that has a deeper story line, something more serious and something that grabs your mind and draws you in. I absolutely love it and can easily find myself getting more and more into it as well as finding more shows I might be interest in, in the long run. I loved the amount of diversity in this movie with people of all colors, which from statements in class aren’t something that always happened, also I love the idea of it being based in the future and like their living on Mars. Shows like this sort of give you a reason to dream of things you may think impossible. OH and the music was awesome!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PneJzBpki-U&list=PL7CC54D0900E70FBA&index=3

I was also able to find the soundtrack on youtube^