2012 LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS
Southern California’s Largest Asian Film Festival Runs May 10 – 20, 2012, Will Present 188 Films From Over 20 Countries Featuring World Premieres, Sneak Previews; Showcasing Documentaries and Narratives Focusing on the Voices of Asian Americans and Asian Peoples from Around the World.
MAY 10 – 20, 2012
28th LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL
A VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS PRODUCTION
www.vconline.org/festival
For years I’ve been hearing folks talk about gentrifying Chinatowns. This is a real concern in Chinatowns like Oakland’s, where an underutilized BART station (Lake Merritt) is going through a community planning process that can potentially lead to some pretty high buildings, higher population and higher rents and Chinese folks hightailing out.
Oak-rand
Now, I could spend this whole blog post writing about how to protect Chinatowns, but to be honest, what does that mean? Part of it means keeping rents low (rental protections), keeping Chinatowns for Chinese folks (street signs in Chinese) and making sure the local amenities appeal to Asian folks and not Audi-driving yuppie parents. But what happens when a business closes (Chinatown knickknacks, boba tea cafes, Chinese breakfast restaurants). What do you replace it with? Another Chinatown staple? A Starbucks with Chinese signage? Should we maintain the look, feel and economic pulse of Chinatowns? What if a family business that’s been running for 40 years suddenly closes and sells to 3rd generation Asian Americans? What if a business gets passed on, within the family, to a 2nd generation Chinese kid? What if a Korean American kid takes over a family Chinese restaurant and turns it in a fusion Chinese spot that’s voted one of the top ten new restaurants in the country like Mission Chinese in San Francisco? What if MC opened up in the heart of Chinatown SF? What would the local CBOs and Chinese Chamber say? So that’s the dilemma I’m proposing to you. What does it mean to be Chinatown: Geography? Tenure? The things you sell? And how Chinese do you have to be to be Chinatown: Full Chinese? Chinese American? ABC? Asian? Asian American? Vietnamese/Filipino/Korean American? 2nd/3rd/4th generation? Angel/Ellis Island Asian?
I don’t know the answer to all of this, but I do know that folks like me who hang out in Chinatowns like second homes need to be thinking about this shit cause our generation and younger need a PLAN. To start, I’d like to provide you a few examples of what Chinatowns might look like a few years from now, businesses I’m calling Chinatown 2.0 cause these aren’t your typical paper money shops. These are hybrid old school/new school uses, Asian American type businesses, or just hip (probably gentrifying) uses that we need to pay attention to before Chinatowns become ethnic Disneylands crossed with Portlandia: food trucks, secret dive bars, and two girls/two shirt stores everywhere. I’ll be including a gentrification meter rating between 1-10 that’ll predict how this business will affect the pushing out of Chinese folks from the premises (1 being 中文地狱 and 10 being American Apparel next door to a Anthropologie).
Li Po Lounge, San Francisco California. Made famous by the latest Anthony Bourdain Layover SF episode and Sweater Funk (a sweaty/grimy soul party every Sunday night). How legit is this place? Old school chinese bar up top with Tsing Tao bottles and the soul party downstairs. Gentrification Meter: 4 before Bourdain, 5 post-Bourdain. Its grimey and the hipsters are hidden downstairs.
San Francisco's Li Po Lounge
Fortune Sound Club, Vancouver, British Columbia. I don’t know much about Van City other than I like everything about it. I especially know nothing about the City’s Chinatown if only cause I learned early on you gotta go south to Richmond to get a taste of real Chinese food. So I don’t know why there’s still a Chinatown in the City and who actually lives there. But that didn’t stop me from including the only real CLUB I’ve ever been to in a Chinatown (sorry Grand Star, which comes up next). Gentrification Meter: 6? On one hand, you got Saul Williams coming up in March at Fortune, but on the other hand, are there Chinese folks that actually live here? Any Vancouverites wanna fill me in?
Can you spot an Chinese folks in this crowd? Oh there's one! Two, three.... Three...
Grand Star Jazz Club, Los Angeles, California. So hip, Blacklava sells a shirt for this spot. New York tribute night be damned, this spot is so cool and confusing. On one hand, you have Britney making cameo appearances and on the other hand, step one foot outside and you’re a drunk walk away from a big bowl of steaming jook. Gentrify Meter: 7. Did I mention Britney Spears in the same sentence as jook in the previous sentence???
Still see a lot of Asian American folks here no matter what party is going on.
So what can you do? If you’re Chinese, open up a new business in Ctown, USA. Just be culturally sensitive and if you’re gonna sell food, it damn well better be good. And please, no more vinyl toy shops. The ones in San Jose JTown and Chinatown LA haven’t been customer magnets unless you want 12-yr old kids loitering and playing street fighter on your in-house Super Nintendo. I really wish I could have showed you some viable Chinatown retail businesses that fit this Chinatown 2.0 category, but I really don’t know any. Please send them our way if you do know!
According to the L.A. Times, L.A. County has seen an overall increase in Asian Americans enlisting for the U.S. Army:
Overall, the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion signed up 2,300 new recruits, a 34% increase over last fiscal year.
[Enlistees] helped drive the biggest Army recruitment boon for Los Angeles in two decades — led by an 80% increase in Asian enlistments in the last year. Asians have traditionally joined the military at the lowest rate among all races.
But lured by job security, enhanced tuition aid and, for some immigrants, the chance for U.S. citizenship, Asians this year made up 22% of all active-duty recruits, nearly twice their proportion in the Los Angeles County population.
Latino enlistments increased by 37%, while African Americans rose by about 14% and whites, 15%.
I can’t help but feel that these kids are being lured by the American Dream of getting a fully paid college education or US citizenship, rather than the American Dream of fighting for your country. Are they being tricked? Or is this simply a business deal… True, a lot of these folks will not see the battlefield and will probably be behind a computer monitor working on our “defenses”. But some of these kids WILL be in our wars, and blown to pieces in Afghanistan, all because s/he wanted to take engineering classes at UC Irvine and couldn’t afford it with the ridiculous UC fee hikes this year.
Thanks CB
Joseph Anh Cao, no stranger to BcB, has gained Barbera Lee status this week by being the only Republican to go against party lines and voting FOR universal health care.
Anh Cao, I salute you. You truly are a brother (what Anh means in Vietnamese) and your words are wise:
Although your election was based on controversy (the NOLA district Cao represents is majority Dem and didn’t come out for his election), the fact that you’re voting for what your constiuents need is admirable.
Health care is a Fundamental Right. It goes beyond taxes, big insurance, and party lines. It’s about my aunt, mother of three daughters and unemployed for five months and diagnosed with cancer just a few months before her new job’s health insurance kicked in. It’s about the intern at my work who has two jobs and no insurance, who recently scored bronchitis. She medicated herself (very well I might add) with over-the-counter drugs cause she’s been doing this without health care for so damn long.
This bill is not just meant for the very, very poor who are covered by Medicare already and it’s definitely not for the super rich with amazing health insurance that’s included with their Faberge eggs and stock options plan. It’s for you, and it’s for me.
My ass is on Cobra right now, so you can be damn sure I’m donating to Cao’s very uphill battle to get re-elected in NOLA during his next election. Donate here or be a fan on his Facebook page. Just keep a careful eye on him in case he treads back into Republican territory…
I Love Yous Are for White People is definitely a great read. I was going to write a review, but my boy Minority Militant has one already, which you can check out here. I just wanted to touch on what I found most compelling about the book, the subject of Vietnamese American identity, and what it meant to me when I was reading the book. There are some spoilers below, because I mention some of the folks in the novel… So be warned!
The only time you'll see Dodger Blue on BcB. The ONE exception.
Lac came over to LA-LA at a time when Vietnamese folks were still new to the states and Westminster was developing as a Little Saigon. So he, like many Vietnamese folks coming over, was jumping from one world to the other (VN to the US) and then discovering his own identity in a city with a ridiculous amount of diversity: A Latino street gang, a Vietnamese American graffiti gang, a predominantly Chinese (then White) high school, a loving Latino American family and Lac’s own Vietnamese family all played prominent roles in his life. The book depicts pivotal moments in Lac’s life where he was given a choice of several different worlds. Because to accept one, is to reject the other. There was hardly any overlap when you’re rolling with a Latino gang or a Vietnamese American graffiti gang. Lac’s description of growing up Vietnamese in America surrounded by Latinos is a unique perspective that not many get to experience in the world.
Reading about Lac’s childhood at that time, in that place, gave me some insight on how the “American transition” for folks back then was like. The way Lac grew up learning about “nhau” felt like he was seeing it as something inherently foreign, but surprisingly familiar. I think we all feel that way about our Asian motherland’s culture when we experience it as Asian Americans. What does it mean when I go to “nhau” spots in OC to eat pig intestines and drink Beer 333 and end up relating to it no differently than when I hit up Korean bars and eat Dukbokgi with soju/OB beer or Teppanyaki with Kirin at a Japanese spot. I feel like I am so far removed from the experience, that although I speak the same language and grew up in a Vietnamese household, in some ways, I am fetishizing my own culture like I grew up as a My Trang. I can’t speak for Lac when it comes to this outsider looking in perspective, but I can definitely tell you that this is how I felt while I was reading his book.
So I would say this book easily appeals to all folks that are close to the immigrant experience, but still on the cusp of both cultures. For all the folks that took ESL classes in school and learned very early on that its hard to stay friends with your elementary school rainbow collation friends forever, this book is for you. For those of you that are repulsed by the mere mention of coagulated duck blood you should probably read The Lost Symbol (doesn’t Robert Langdon get into the craziest situations?!). For those of you that just came over from Viet Nam, and not entirely fluent in English yet, this book is for you if you bug Lac to get the book translated, especially for his pops.
And to Lac, my biggest criticism is the same as TMM’s, I felt the book was cut short. I wanna hear about your life in high school and what it was like during that time to be in an interracial relationship. That would provide a lot of people, including myself, that have tried to figure out if losing the comfort of being two nondescript Asian folks dating or the ease of speaking your native tongue to Vietnamese folk is worth the sacrifice of all the stares you get when you’re out with a girl of a different race. I’d like to say yes, to some degree, for the right person, but I’d like to hear the story from your own perspective, Lac. Your idol, Augusten Burroughs, blessed us with more than one book, and I hope the same for you.
And send me an iTunes playlist of your music too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Etta James next to Tupac on a playlist before…
I can’t believe Hello Kitty’s been around for 35 years? I still remember heading to Eastridge Mall to watch my cousin Aim pay $2 to spin that Sanrio wheel and “winning” a pencil and eraser. And now for her 35th year anniversary, Sanrio is having an exhibit in SoCal at the Royal/T Café/Shop/Art Space in Culver City from October 23 through November 15, 2009.
Part of the press release:
Hello Kitty has long been a muse to artists & designers. In honor of Hello Kitty’s 35th Anniversary celebration, SANRIO, Inc. is bringing an event to the U.S. like nothing America has seen before. ‘Three Apples’ is a multi-dimensional exhibition and celebration of all things Hello Kitty running from October 23 to November 15 that will kick-off with a VIP media event and be followed by unique displays, an art sale for charity and special fan events that will be open to the public, free of charge – all celebrating this beloved pop icon! The celebration, at Royal/T in Culver City, CA, is targeted at Hello Kitty fans of all ages.
As a trained urban planner from some very very far left schools, I am taught two major lessons: gentrification with displacement is bad but investments in infrastructure and development in poor neighborhoods is good. So I am fully aware that the very places I love to hang out are the very places that are getting gentrified (sometimes with displacement and sometimes without). We’re talking The Mission in SF, Silverlake in LA, Temescal in Oakland and wherever there’s an art show in Brooklyn. So as I’m sitting there at some new bar filled with skinny jean fitted, thick black glass wearing, Catcher in the Rye poking out of the back pocket perpetual grad students, I am fully aware that the bar just opened up where a vacuum shop once thrived 40 years earlier. And that the taco truck outside, Ritmo Latino store next door, or Chinese herbalist across the street may not survive the onslaught of graphic designers, children’s book writers, and post-docs that will soon overtake said neighborhood. So it troubles me greatly (while I’m sipping on my lychee martini, Miller High Life, or Kettle One Grayhound).
Highland Park in LA: The York Pub (where AzN once dropped $230 for a round of 18 Jager Bombs) vs. Elsa's Bakey (I think Elsa is standing with her arms crossed, cut off by the photo, see arrow)
So the point of this blog post is really an apology to the folks that were living in these neighborhoods before urban planners paved the way for these yipsters (hipster yuppies). Yipsters are folks that have the money and youth of a yuppie, but the aesthetics and tastes of a hipster. So they might roll around with a Maclaren baby stroller, but they’re also willing to step into a Mexican bakery for some steaming fresh pigs in a blanket.
While the profession looks down on outright gentrification with displacement (can someone say China Basin or Japantown?), urban planners laud the yipster takeover. The kind that occurs when a really cool bike shop (like Manifesto near MacArthur in Oakland) or a damn good bakery (Bakesale Betty in Temescal Oakland) opens up in a really really bad neighborhood. There is no redevelopment investment or even a Starbucks. A few daring few yipsters (maybe they’re really damn smart people that made a lot of money on some business and wanted to follow their lifelong dream of opening up a hip comic book shop *COUGH* Secret Headquarters in Sunset Junction *COUGH*) decide to put a good business in an area with not much else.
I’m not sure if this phenomenon is an entirely good thing or an inherently bad thing, but I know eventually the neighborhood will turn, and the turn will be towards gentrification. Whether or not that leads to displacement is another thing (or if the residents that stay enjoy the economic benefits). But one thing is certain, urban planning folks love it cause yipsters not only spend a shitload of money on old timey bikes and fair trade coffee and furniture with tons of Umlauts, they also like the ethnic spots that were always there. And if you want proof, check out a little rag called the New York Times or a no-name nobody named Bill Fulton (planning God) writing about the next yipster neighborhood in LA: Highland Park. Fulton actually uses the term HIPSTER in all its academic glory. The End is near.
Echo Park. Check. Silverlake. Check. Highland Park? TBD.
I know! He's HOT, right?!
Love or hate the Kogi Korean taco truck in LA, but the business has not only transformed the way restaurateurs do business (Tweets? Pit stops on the westside and in Echo Park?) and the way people eat their food (on a sidewalk with sauce dripping down their leg). It has also spawned copycats likeminded small business operators that see the initial cost of entry as low (truck + staff + food). See the newest edition to the LA food truck landscape: Nom Nom Truck, selling banh mi straight from OC to your Westwood door step. It was created by a threesome of Vietnamese and Chinese folks who wanted Westminster-style Vietnamese sandwiches without having to deal with the I-405/I-22/Johnny Tran bike gang nightmare that is Bolsa.
Peep their website or the Twitter for updates on their whereabouts.
In case you were questioning whether bacon wrapped hot dogs in The Mission in SF were better than the ones in L.A., your question has already been answered, cause bacon is now banned from being sold on the streets of L.A. unless vendors purchase a $26,000 hot dog cart that stores the bacon properly. ppsshhhT! Like I’d want bacon wrapped hot dogs THAT clean? Thank god unlicensed vendors still slang sell the “danger dogs”… Too bad they get slapped with heavy fines if caught (and the vendors that abide by the law and sell dogs with no bacon get NO love). New laws that indirectly affect minorities like the Mexican Americans in LA? Gotta love the LA County Health Dept!
Why do the skinniest Asian girls always happen to be the biggest eaters I know?!
After the success of RiceBunny, I thought I’d do it again and showcase another AA female internets star. This time, its Yelp reviewer J “the next dog whisperer” L, who is a:
1. Korean American
2. Resident of the Marina
3. Frequent visitor of Los Angeles
But she’s also a belligerent Yelp reviewer that acknowledges all the above with no qualms and much Korean pride. Check out her “best of the best” reviews here or read this little snippet gem on L.A. Live in Downtown LaLa Land:
L.A. Live
1 out of 5 stars
Staples Center
Los Angeles, CA 90189
(866) 548-3452
$15 for parking?
for WHAT?
WTH?
WTF?
SCREW YOU LA LIVE…
for like 5 restaurants, lucky strike and what? an ESPN Zone thats not even opened? and what the hell? no validation whatsoever? what is this?
seriously, someone tell me. for freakin what and why on earth did i have to pay $15 for some sh#thole place… you gotta be outta your mind. i swear, i’m most likely paying for their electric bill with all those lights in between…..
none of the parking attendants even knew when LA LIVE was going to be up and running for the general public…
i swear, i literally stayed at the LA LIVE, AT MOST 10-15 minutes TOPS and left….
i demand a refund! right now!!!
Its gonna be hard as hell to write a review of a book like this without spoilers. So let me just say this book has gently nestled its way into my Murakami top 3, just under Wind Up Bird Chronicles and barely inching above Norwegian Wood. This means a lot cause I'm a fanatic over his ish and spend way too much money on multiple copies of his books... If you're a veteran Murakami reader, you'll love how long this book is. More time before the Murakami-withdrawal hits. You'll also like hearing from a female protagonist for the first time. If this is your first Murakami book, I'd read one of his books with less magical realism first, After Dark or Kafka on the Shore then move up to 1Q84 about 3-4 books later. Also, you might wanna buy the digital version (although the US hardcopy is a sight to behold) cause this book be phat!
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