I’ve seen only a few parts of Sex and the City. Every time I saw it, I got bored in a matter of minutes. I understand why it’s interesting for some people but it was just way too shallow for me. It wasn’t because of the subject matter; it was a lack of something else.

Today, I got an email from “Tight Banana” up in Calgary, Canada. She suggested that I read her blog. As I read her amusing and enlightening stories of her sexual exploits, it occured to me that this is what Sex and the City badly needed; the element that could add more intellectual twists to the whole theme.

For many people, race is a major factor in sex. Each race comes with a number of stereotypes that feed into our fantasies. For instance, in one of her posts, Tight Banana mentions that when White men refer to Asian women, they always call them “Asian girls”, never “Asian women”. This reveals a part of the mechanics of so-called “Yellow Fever”. There is a degree of pedophilia in it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging or condemning anyone here. (Note: In Japan, a mild form of pedophilia is widely accepted in the mainstream culture.)

Reading her blog, it is clear how significantly race influences the rules of the mating game. It’s as if she is playing a completely different game. Imagine if Sex and the City had 4 characters of different races, and if they introduced us to the different games they play. Each time the 4 characters got together, they would be able to put their own experiences in much wider perspective. What each of us take for granted about our own experiences in life would be brought to light and questioned. It would be much more intellectually stimulating, without losing the fun, gossipy aspects of the show. The producers shouldn’t infuse the show with some moral messages about race and racism; that would ruin it.

Sex and race are both controversial and loaded topics on their own, so when you combine them together, it becomes a potentially explosive topic. Perhaps we are not ready to see that on TV, but the role that race plays in sex is something that affect many of us in a fundamental way. The fact that we do not talk openly about it is probably fueling the fetishistic view of race in sex. Once the sense of being taboo is gone, race would no longer work well as an object of fetish, fantasy, or perversion. Is that good or bad? I can’t say, but a human relationship is more meaningful when we don’t use a real person as a physical placeholder for our imaginary character.

Teaching Chinese to children is all the rage right now. Some people are hiring Chinese babysitters just so that their kids can learn Chinese. Oh, I remember a similar craze back in the 80s when everyone wanted to learn how to speak Japanese. Now the limelight is on the Chinese, and it makes sense. Personally, I wish I could speak Chinese myself. China seems like the most exciting place to be these days. Fast-changing, dynamic, and choatic; just the kind of environment I like.

The DVD you see on the right, The Advantures of Walker and Ping Ping, was produced by my friends to introduce American kids to the Chinese culture and language. It’s a pretty ambitious project where they developed the characters from scratch. If you have kids, check it out.

Image by Dienekes Pontikos

These are faces created by compositing multiple faces of Chinese, Japanese, Korean women. Can you correctly identify which one is which? The answer is over at Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog.

How about this one? I’m pretty sure this is some type of shellfish (could be a type of mushroom too) but what kind, and how do you use it? Anyone?

Google recently got in trouble for publishing a historical map of Japan that pinpoints the locations of where “Burakumin” lived in Japan, which angered this group of people. To be honest, I had never heard of this group of people called “Burakumin.” They are a minority group (ethnically identical) who are apparently still subjected to discrimination. A left-over problem from their old caste system. Google Earth now makes it easy to identify where they once lived. I’m not sure how this causes a problem, but they didn’t like it. Part of me wishes that I didn’t learn about them at all. Now, if I ever meet a Burakumin, what I now know about them would be associated with that person, unavoidably influencing my view of that person. Whether it’s positive or negative, I would rather not form any preconceptions.

This is a tricky issue with racism (though, in this case, race was not involved): if the young generations are kept unaware of the discrimination, the problem should theoretically go away in time. But if you kept talking about it, would that solve or perpetuate the problem? I’m not exactly sure what the answer is; I’m just raising it as a question here.

For instance, take the Jews as an example. Educating our children about their history of suffering is important in the sense that we can learn from our mistakes and try to prevent them in the future, but at the same time, this can lead to perpetuating the discrimination because there will always be many different ways that people can interpret the same information, and it’s not possible to eradicate bigotry (because prejudice is part of human nature). Bigots will always find ways to discriminate. So, their knowledge of the Jewish history will only give them something to discriminate about, like adding fuel to the fire.

In an extremely hypothetical scenario, if we stopped talking about the Jewish suffering completely for the next 100 years, I would imagine that the discrimination would disappear, because nobody would know about it. (Obviously, I’m over-simplifying my argument here, but I hope you get my point.) Don’t get me wrong, this is completely hypothetical and I’m not suggesting that this is the right answer. However, it is an interesting argument to ponder, because, by studying the extremes, we can always consider the strategy/solution that is somewhere in-between.

In fact, I believe the Asian Americans employed (consciously or unconsciously) the in-between strategy. The Asians here are often called the “silent minority” because they (I guess I should say “we”) are not particularly vocal about speaking up against discrimination. Some people view this as a positive thing while others view this as a negative thing. Well, which is it? And why? If you can share your thoughts, I would appricate them.

When I was still living in Japan, I didn’t think anything of it, but being away for over 20 years, this video epitomizes the surreal nature of the Japanese business world. I’m not sure how it came about, but the Japanese love mascots. That in itself is not so strange—everyone loves cute things, especially women—but what is strange about Japan is that mascots are a very well accepted part of the corporate culture. And, often the mascots look as if they were designed for kindergarten kids. In this video, you see these stodgy old businessmen introducing their new mascot to the press. It appears to me that the only reason why they have these girls standing next to the mascot is because it would look absurd if this infantile mascot was standing alone with these old men. The girls serve as a bridge between the 5-year old mentality and the 50-year old mentality.

In Japan, old businessmen are supposed to embrace young female employees to behave like 12-year-olds. It’s seen as fatherly love. If you are a real professional woman, it must be rather difficult to maneuver in this type of atmosphere. Every age group and gender has a strong stereotype that everyone is expected to conform to. In this sense, when the Westerners say “all look the same”, it’s hard to argue, because they actually do want to look and behave the same. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it is certainly not for me personally. I’m happy to observe the surreal world of Japan from New York.

If I had to guess what these are, I would say dried sea creature of some sort. But then, why are they so brown? So, maybe they are the roots of some plant? Anyone?