In California, where passage of a 1996 referendum banned government institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, Asians make up about 40 percent of public university students, though they account for only 13 percent of residents.

I actually thought “discriminating on the basis of race” was illegal everywhere. Did Affirmative Action legalize racial discrimination for college entrance? I guess I’ve been too ignorant of this.

“Some Asian-American students feel that they lost something by going to school at a place where almost half of their classmates look like themselves – a campus like UCLA. The students said they didn’t feel as well prepared in intercultural skills for the real world.’’

This is the lamest argument I’ve ever heard. “Some Asian-American students”? Where did they dig up these Asian-American students? Sounds like they looked really hard for a legitimate-sounding reason to justify racial discrimination against Asian-Americans. By the time these kids are at the top of their careers, they would be dealing with a lot of Chinese business people, so they are getting a taste of “the real world” all right.

I really don’t see why schools should use race as a criteria for acceptance. I’m surprised that they are allowed to. How do they do it in the first place? Do you have to write down your race on your college application form? Or, do they try to figure out their race from looking at their last names? (If so, it’s a good thing my daughter took my wife’s last name.)

I don’t think there is any legitimate reason for setting the bar higher for Asian Americans. I think it’s racism, pure and simple. Even if 90% of Harvard becomes Asian, what’s wrong with it? What exactly are the issues? “The real world” experience? That is nonsense. If the real world experience is their concern, they should be accepting a lot of stupid people too because everyone needs to learn how to deal with dumb people as well as smart people. “The real world” is filled with both.

I suspect that the reason why these prestigious universities do not want their schools to turn Asian is because they are concerned about their own image. They do not want their schools to turn into a Chinese school. When you are an academic, you get paid not by money but by prestige and respect. The last thing they want is someone saying, “Oh, you teach at a Chinese school.”

They are probably fearing that the brand image of their school would be ruined, if the majority of their school were to become Asian, and many white students and professors would start leaving for more posh and prestigious white schools; perhaps even to schools in Europe.

I think this is all about brand management.

Sometimes the name alone can sell a product. I came across this bottled marinade at Key Food in my neighborhood. I thought the name “Soy Vay” was so clever that I had to get one. I have a lot of Jewish friends, so this particular combination had a special meaning for me. I wasn’t expecting it to be good, but it turned out to be a great sauce. I happened to be eating onion rings at home tonight, so I dipped one in this sauce; it was so good that I decided to pour it over all of the rings. It also tasted good on fried chickens. This sauce would probably work for pretty much anything that you would use soy sauce for. I’m going to try it tomorrow with dumplings. I would imagine that it would taste good even on salad if you add a little rice vinegar.

Speaking of clever names (and Jewish food); I was at Russ and Daughters the other day, and ordered a “Super Heebster“. The only difference between “super” and the regular Heebster was the Wasabi-Infused Flying Fish Roe, so I said to the guy behind the counter, “Wasabi isn’t so super heeb, is it?” He laughed and told me that this particular sandwich has generated more press for them than any other products they ever sold. By the way, this is a great sandwich, and I would highly recommend getting the “super” one. For me, wasabi is what really pushes this sandwich to a different level.

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I just got this email. I’m not sure what to make of this because I haven’t heard about the death of Tian Sheng, but it looked interesting. So, check it out and let me know what you know/think.

I wanted to bring your attention to huggingasians.com, a response to the recent Asian-Black tensions in and around the San Francisco/Oakland area. It began as response to the death of Tian Sheng Yu at the hands of two Black men. Now, it’s become ORIENT. I hope you can spread the word about this so we can get a conversation started.

All good wishes,
k~
kevinsimmonds.com

The Cove shown in Japan

Many nationalists in Japan are calling for the ban on the controversial documentary, “The Cove”. This is unfortunate. The ban would only legitimize and vindicate the filmmakers’ positions, and would probably sway more people to the side of the filmmakers.

My sense is that if everyone in Japan were to watch the film, the filmmakers would be proven wrong. They have repeatedly claimed that the Japanese media and government are deliberately covering up what is going on in Taiji, and that once they learn of the fact, everyone in Japan would be outraged. I would say they are wrong. In fact, they have already been proven wrong partially. Even though many people have not seen the film yet, now they are at least aware of the fact that dolphin hunting goes on in Taiji, but the reaction of the Japanese people have so far been largely against the film. There is no national outcry to stop the dolphin hunt, which is what the filmmakers were expecting.

The Hatoyama shirt

Is it hideous? Maybe. I really don’t care much about fashion, but given his track record of bad shirts, it probably is. To me, it’s so far out that it goes beyond “bad”; it turns into a political statement about personal taste.

What is interesting to me isn’t how bad the shirt is, but the fact that someone who would wear this could actually become a prime minister in Japan, the land known for, and often criticized for, conformity. How could this be? Did he just let it loose after he became the prime minister, or has he always been this way?

In the country where “the nail that sticks out is hammered down”, it’s hard to imagine why this particular nail was not hammered down. Does this reflect a fundamental shift in how personal expression is accepted in Japan?

You can buy this shirt from shirtsmyway.com. If it were cheaper, I would consider buying it. It would be so much fun to walk around wearing it in New York.

I’ve been trying to figure out who the original designer was. (The one on ShirtsMyWay.com is a replica.) Oddly, nobody seems to know the answer. Some people are speculating that it was by G. Inglese, an Italian company. But the owner of the company denied it.

Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru"

My theory on why this happens in Japan is that it comes from the common misunderstanding of the methods used in achieving enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. Just as the teaching of Christ is misinterpreted by White Supremacists, many Japanese see the rituals and the customs of Zen Buddhism, and mindlessly imitate them without understanding what motivates those rituals and customs. A Zen master often treats his disciples in a manner that comes across as abusive, so the popular culture of Japan interprets this as a sign that abuse leads to enlightenment. This in turn encourages people in power to behave as though they are Zen masters. They abuse those who are below them while rationalizing in their heads that they are doing something noble or even altruistic.

Carl Jung describes this phenomenon eloquently in his book “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.” He tells a story of a sorcerer and his disciples. One day, the sorcerer attained enlightenment. His disciples asked him how he did it, but the sorcerer made no reply. They discovered peculiar diagrams in the cave where the sorcerer attained enlightenment. They said to themselves, “That’s it!” and began copying the diagrams. The point of this story is that by repeating the diagrams, they have reversed the entire process. The diagrams to the sorcerer were effects, not the cause of his enlightenment.

What is particularly insidious about bullying in Japan is that it even manifests in a father-to-son relationship. “Gaman”, which means somewhere between “discipline” and “patience”, is lauded as the most important quality a man should have, and is pounded into children’s heads. What is entirely lacking in this lesson is the purpose: For what should they develop this quality?

Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” provides a great example of how this manifests in Japanese organizations. The main character of the film, Watanabe, is a middle-aged salary-man who worked all his life in a government office just passing time, thinking that he is being virtuous because he is sacrificing himself for his kids. Meanwhile, his kids don’t even appreciate what he does for them. What Watanabe does not realize, until he learns that he has terminal stomach cancer, is that using someone else other than himself as his reason to live is in fact an excuse not to face the meaning of life for himself. By using his kids as a justification for his own existence, he can avoid asking himself why he should be living. Facing the reality of death, he realizes that, if he were to live, he needs to have his own reason. He needs to know or feel inside why he wants to live.

This realization is utterly lacking in the vast majority of Japanese who abuse their underlings and children. They use their positions of power to make themselves feel superior, and to give themselves justifications for why they are living. Because they are only copying the ritualistic facade of Zen Buddhism, their abuse causes nothing but misery for both the abusers and the abused.

When you know why you want to live, when the reason for living is self-evident, you live a life full of passion. You do not feel that you “have to” live (for someone else), but you want to. Everything you do is driven by what you want to do, which includes having and raising children. In such a state of mind, there is no “sacrifice” whatsoever. You would never use your own children as an excuse for you to live.

When your life is full of passion, “discipline” or “patience” comes naturally. There is no need for you to be trained for it. The strength of your passion will allow you to tolerate most anything. If you cannot, then what you should question is not your capacity for discipline and patience, but the strength of your passion. This is precisely what Zen masters are testing when they treat their disciples in a manner that appears abusive to outsiders. They are not training them to be patient; they want to know how strong their passion is to achieve enlightenment. Where there is no passion, there is no point in being patient whatsoever.

I myself suffered the effects of this common misunderstanding of Zen Buddhism while growing up in Japan. Ultimately it was the main reason why I decided to leave Japan. When properly understood, Zen and the Japanese culture are beautiful, but the misunderstanding of their own culture is rampant in Japan. But I now see that people are the same everywhere. The misunderstanding of Christianity is rampant in the West too. So, now I accept it as human nature, and that’s why, I believe, Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” has such a universal appeal.

This video of Taiwanese singer, Lin Yu-chun, seems to be going viral on the Internet now, some calling him “The next Susan Boyle“. If this is the sort of attention these singers want, then I’m happy for them, but I’m not sure whether they are aware that much of their attention comes from people seeing them as essentially freak shows. For the average audience, it’s strange or even freakish to see this type of voice come out of people who look the way they do. It’s the unusual discrepancy that they are responding to, much like seeing a woman with ape-like body hair. In the case of Lin Yu-chun, being Asian adds to this freak show quality (at least from the Western point of view).

In Japan, there are opposite examples. For instance, Jero is a black Enka singer. Enka is a traditional form of singing in Japan. He is apparently quite popular in Japan. I’m sure he is good and deserves some attention, but I’m pretty sure most of the attention comes from the freak-show aspect of his situation. It’s the color of his skin, more than his talent. It’s basically reverse racism.

Although we commonly say “There is no such thing as bad publicity”, there are consequences to getting too much attention for the wrong reasons. These people are essentially being exploited for cheap, disposable entertainment for 15 minutes. It feels rather dehumanizing to see this type of phenomenon.

This is an interesting video about Japan. The most interesting part of it is that the author took down the English version of it. I’d like to know more about his decision to do so, because I suspect that there is a deeper story in it than the story of the video itself.

When we first watch this, we assume that the author is being self-critical, but he says this video represents a “foreigner’s point of view”. This is rather confusing. What he ends up telling is what he thinks is a foreigner’s point of view, so we are not sure who is telling the story. If this is indeed a foreigner’s point of view, it’s not being self-critical. It would be a foreigner pointing his finger at another nation. If we were to view it that way, the story is highly skewed and biased, verging on racism, because it does not put all the issues in a proper International perspective. So, we can accept his arguments only as self-criticism. If the video is being self-critical, stating that this is a “foreigner’s point of view” is a cop out. As one commenter pointed out on Vimeo; he is trying to avoid taking responsibility for his own opinions (which is typically Japanese).

This is why it would be interesting to know why he took down the English version. If the video is meant to be self-critical, then the only people he needs to reach are the Japanese. The idea would be to change their own ways through being self-critical. Foreigners wouldn’t need to see it, so taking down the English version would make sense.

This type of video comes across to me as insincere or even dishonest, because the author puts himself above the target of his criticism. The assumption here is that he is somehow above all the blame and guilt. By pointing fingers at everyone around him, he makes himself feel superior to them. I believe this is why he sees himself as a “foreigner” so that he is absolved of all the crimes he accuses of others. In essence, he is telling everyone else to be self-critical, but he thinks he does not have to be self-critical himself.