We were a "Blog of Note"!

So apparently, Rice Daddies was a Blogger "Blog of Note" for Thursday, March 8, 2007. Yeah, I know that was a week-and-half ago, but I didn't know till a comment the other day mentioned it. So yay us!

Kiss Me I'm Irsh

So MetroDad and I have always joked about the strange similarities between our lives. The whole French first name thing, the whisky thing, the blogging thing, the whiskey thing, and finally the scotch thing. But the other day when I read his post on MetroDad I just had to shake my head and realize that there is no avoiding the fact that one of us is the imaginary creation of the other. We'll have to fight it out who gets to be Tyler Durden but in the mean time I wanted to post our posts in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

From MetroDad Last Week:

You may not know this but Koreans and the Irish share a special affinity. More often than not, people call us the "Irish of the East." We're both hard-working people with chips on our shoulders and a reputation for being tough, mean, chain-smoking drunks. We love boozing, singing, and getting into fights (preferably all on the same night.) Our people share a history of oppression from neighboring countries and have a homeland still divided by politics and rage. We'd kill or die for our families. And nobody eats more fucking cabbage than we do.

And here's an excerpt from the post I was writing for St. Patricks Day.

Oh yeah what was I talking about...yes Koreans are the Irish of Asia. We love to drink, we love to fight, and we love to spout poetry in long drunken monologues. We have a history of oppression by an imperialistic island monarchy that loves tea and some say....have historically bad teeth.

Crazy. MetroDad never saw my draft, and I had first written it when I joined Ricedaddies...I just decided to save it for St. Patricks Day. Here's the full unfinished post. Have some Guinness or Bulmers maybe a bit of Jameson's or Tullamore Dew. Hold a bit of Ireland in your heart and think of her beautiful green hills. A drink for all my friends...Slainte!

The Koreans are the Irish of Asia. I've been sayin it all my life. So I have this Irish thing...former life or whatnot. I don't know how to explain it, but it came back to me one night when I was singing to my boy. So I was singing Danny Boy to my son like I do every night, and he was smiling like a good Irish kid and towards the hard part of the song...you know the hard part right? You don't? You should. Anyway...he starts clapping and I'm like...what? I haven't taught him that yet. So I think...there it is that Irish thing rearing up again. I thought it was a fluke until last night when I was telling the Mrs. about it and she didn't believe me so I started singing again and just like before he starts beaming and clapping. Now I know I'm genetically 100% pure Silla Bone-Rank Korean but I think my son definitely has that wierd thing I've had for as long as I remember...the thing that says come home we miss you. And so far it's just Danny Boy that does it. When I sing Straight Out of Compton he just stares. Oh yeah what was I talking about...yes Koreans are the Irish of Asia. We love to drink, we love to fight, and we love to spout poetry in long drunken monologues. We have a history of oppression by an imperialistic island monarchy that loves tea and some say....have historically bad teeth. But as a racially insensitive imperfect human being, sometimes I do think about race. I think about how I never think about it and just kinda walk through this world. But we're often categorized and held up to stereotypes. Yeah blah blah blah...but I think of situations like barroom fights. I think about how I would tell the story to my boys.

Henri: Damn dude I was outside the Irish Bank last night and out of nowhere this guy's all flashing and I'm like what and he's like wassup and so we get into it and I nail him and he's like all I'm gonna get my boys and I'm like all go back to high school and he's all whatever and he leaves and I'm like dude that's what I thought.

And then I think here's his version...

Dude: Man I was at the Irish bank and this little Asian guys was all whatup and I'm like get outta here little man and this little Asian guy hits me in the mouth for nothing!

I mean...why do I have to be the "Asian Guy" in the story?

Reunion Time!

To be exact, my 20th high school reunion is this year. WOW, time sure flies!

The thought of the reunion brings back lots of memories, both good and bad. From an Asian dude social point of view, the bad was remembering every girl at my high school who I asked out on a date said no. (Yes, I admit it! And that sucked!!!) The good was having one bold and popular Chinese girl actually ask me out on a date. (I said yes, and she became my high school sweetheart and a good friend to this day.)

Back then I was just another politically apathetic Asian dude trying to fit in. My school was for the academically gifted so we had a proportionately high number of Asians in my class; 15% of the student body was Asian. But our Asian American Society organization was so pathetic; our only highlight was our annual Chinese New Year show. Our parents seemed to be similarly apathetic, getting good grades and a 1600 on the SAT (that’s all it was back then) seemed to be their only concern. (Seriously, I actually did have Asian friends whose parents expressed profound displeasure at scoring only a 98 on tests.)

I was quite different back then. I tried to be pretty color-blind with respect to everything including girls (my Mom’s greatest fear was I would bring home a non-Chinese girl.) I might have even enjoyed watching Sixteen Candles back then (Boo! Hiss!) I had no clue about the biases of American media and how it was affecting me and my Asian brothers and sisters. I guess I was just lucky that I was too stubborn to let “no” stop me.

Fast forward 20 years, I have the Chinese wife my mother always nagged me to have and 3 boys and a girl who in no time will be in high school too. Playing catch-up on Asian American issues was painful and I look back at my last 20 years with a humble “what the hell was I thinking!?” I’m making sure my kids are much more aware of Asian American issues and don’t go through what I did. And that my boys enjoy their high school social experience more.

Now back to the reunion. I have this real selfish urge to show off my wife and tell everyone that she’s my trophy wife, especially to the girls who turned me down. (I’m just kidding!) But bless her Asian genes and her addiction to working out; she gorgeous, looks 21 and weighs the same as when we met - even after 4 kids! My wife nagged to be dressed appropriately for the reunion and I asked her, “Why? You’re the only accessory I need to wear to the reunion.” [ducks…]

P.S. That was supposed to be a compliment.

DOLLS: Two New Educational Proposals Added to the SoulSnax Diversity in Media Challenge

We are all well aware of the role that dolls play in our children's development. And as RiceDaddies, we're also well aware of the special need for dolls that reflect back on the uniqueness of our little ones in a positive, responsible, non-stereotypical way.

With that in mind, I've added two new educational proposals to the SoulSnax Diversity in Media Challenge:

• Diversity Dolls
• Dolls to Help My Students Use Their Imaginations

Our goal is to raise $3000 by June 30. So far, we're only 3% of the way there. So donate now. Do it for the kids!

Putting the fun back in rice daddies -the chow fun, that is

beef chow fun
Originally uploaded by Scuzzi.

Yeah, I know.

Racism = bad; Identity = good.

You what such a heavy conversation needs? a side of yummy noodles. So, I vote we bring the conversation back to the dinner table.

(tech note, there's supposed to be a yummy pic of some greasy chow fun to the right here, but all I get is a stupid little empty box)

Shades of freedom

I've been reading a bunch of posts lately, by hapa parents and/or parents of hapas, about that periennial old miscegenated bugaboo [no, not the stroller, look it up], the "why don't I/how can they/who's keeping me from fit(ting) into the group(s) I/they claim as my/their own" question. Twizzle touched on how the media's "black enough/not black enough" game with Sen. Barack Obama raised the old questions for her and her daughter over on Kimchi Mamas. Carol wrote about yearning for a community of multiracial/interracial AsAm families and why it's important to her on Bokumbop. Over on her blog, Mama Nabi sought tips about how to teach her mixed daughter about difference after LN started making her first early connections between difference and ideas about "normality." Michelle Myers wrote a deep post on Anti-Racist Parent about how and why a multiracial child might not even find community in that most basic of places, the family unit. And on connected notes, here on Rice Daddies, Monster Daddy wrote about how his daughter's formulation of Chinese-ness (and its equation with abnormality) is freaking him the fuck out, while our own Soulsnax, before he even joined us, called out the forces of mental colonization and self-hatred for already messing with his newborn daughter in her first days of life.

Okay, it's way later than I've been staying up lately, so I'm sorta rambling here, but this kinda shit is stuff I've been thinking about and grappling with my entire adult life, as someone who calls himself, variously, a student, a teacher, an activist, a scholar, a parent, and, important here, a multiracial Asian American. Before I totally become incoherent, let me do a couple things. First, here's a link to Prof. Maria Root's "Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People" [yeah, I know the name changed, but that's what it was called when the joint came out in college, so that's what it still is to me]: I've linked to it elsewhere and often, but this thing crystallized so much for me back in those heady identity-formation-filled college days.

Second, check out this essay by African American Salon.com columnist (and mother of two biracial black/white kids) Debra Dickerson [yes, she of the infamous "Barack's not 'black' black b/c he's not descended from West African enslaved people in North America" argument, which really was more about how some white folks might be giving themselves a guilt-free pass for supporting a "black" candidate without dealing with America's racial history and present than about labeling or de-labeling Brother Obama, but anyway]: "Don't be black on my account: A black mother's gift to her biracial children." It's a fascinating look at how a politically and socially conscious and active mom of color from a community with a different history with miscegenation and the inclusion/exclusion of racially mixed people than AsAms is reckoning with these kind of hard questions in her own life and family.

At any rate, I hope this article, and bits and pieces of the blogposts I've referenced here, might open up dialogue in the comments here about these issues—about creating, finding, and redefining community for us and for our children, about ideas of inclusion and exclusion, about how our own experiences with all this crap in our own lives affects, consciously and unconsciously, how we might deal with this stuff in teaching our children about it, and about themselves, their families, identities and communities, and what it all means.

Okay, that's ramble-y enough. Time for bed. Heh.

Baby Shower

Our wonderful friends recently threw us a great baby shower. It was cool to have foods at the shower from multiple different Asian cultures like Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Filipino. One of our friends even got a recipe from the Kimchi Mamas on how to make a Korean dish. The best part of the shower was to see the ethnic diversity of our friends and how they all had a good time together. I think the only scary part of the shower was them posting up a picture of our soon to be baby which was a morphed picture of my wife and I. I sure hope our baby turns out a lot better looking than that picture.

The baby is due in just a few weeks, and I am starting to have some palpitations and diarrhea. I don't know if some of the dad's went through this before their first child was born, but I have moments of excitement and moments of sheer panic. I can't believe I am going to be a parent of this child. The baby shower was pretty much the icing on the cake that this baby is real and that my wife and I are going to have a son. Sometimes it all seems so surreal. Any tips of how to deal with those moments of fear that happen before the baby is born besides running to the bathroom... Oh the woes of irritable bowel...

More Book Review Contest: Green Eggs and Ham

I know, I know, I said the contest was over (except for, of course, the most excellent reviews by the winners of their prizes that, I am sure, are wending their way to me via email even as we speak). But after I called out all the daddies for not stepping up, I got this email from reader (and dad) rockcreek. Seems he sent me his review on February 17, but left out the "a" in my handle/email address and so I never got it. Sucks, dude! But to give props to the only other dad to (try to) enter the contest [or should I say, "props to pop"?], and because Friday was the venerable Dr. Seuss' birthday, here's one more review.

Title: Green Eggs and Ham
Author/Illustrator: Dr. Seuss
Reviewer: rockcreek

EVERYBODY loves Dr. Seuss books. Now that I'm re-reading them 35 years later (give or take), I've only just realized how brilliantly written and illustrated they are. As a kid, you're always taken by pictures, and the trippy Roald Dahl vibe mixed with the Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions wouldn't really register. You'd just see two furry dudes, one looking somewhat pissy, the other holding a vaguely unappetizing plate of green food, having a talk in a car with a goat, fox, and a mouse, on top of a train car which just jumped some impossibly rickety tracks and is headed for the smokestack of a ship. "Cool!"

Then the writing. These are great to read with my eldest son, who is mildly speech delayed. The rhyme scheme helps him process, so when I read, "You may like them / You will see. / You may like them / in a... ", he jumps right in with " ... TREE!" His books are a speech therapist's dream, and their publishing seems to predate the development of many commonly used practices for childhood language acquisition (e.g. using simplified vocabulary, repeating phrases, etc.) And the rhyme and the meter never seem forced or clumsy. ("Green Eggs" is 60 pages; I doubt I could communicate "wash your hands" in a rhyming meter.)

On top of that, the Doc manages to fit in overarching lessons of socialization about the value of persistence and taking risks. That he managed to get all of this in between the cover of a single book makes this one my favorite.

Whoopeeee! I Made It!

Ahh, the sweet smell of success: Dreft, baby wipes, fresh diapers, soiled diapers, cradle cap...

Hi, I'm SoulSnax, a newly minted Rice Daddy, and it's been a long road to fatherhood. It's great to have achieved the rank of Rice Daddy, but I almost didn't get the chance to be among you today...

Our children face many humanitarian issues in this day and age: famine, war, GENOCIDE, child slavery... But the one humanitarian crisis that we never address is the plight of children who may never get to be conceived because of the sad fact that Asian men have been robbed of their sexual capital... That's right, I said it: we lack "bed-cred."

As Monster Daddy mentioned previously, we might not be "normal" enough to mate with. Blame it on whatever you will: the media, colonization, Nintendo...

So with that in mind, I've worked damn hard for what little sexual capital I got. I obviously didn't have the looks, so I had to work on my personality. And as if that weren't enough, it took me forever to de-program my wife's colonized mind before she could ever date me. It was a tough battle, but it was worth it. Seven years later, and now we're the proud parents of a gorgeous baby girl we named Ella (cuz she can wail ...and scat too!). We couldn't be any happier. Just ask my wife. She'll tell ya all about it.

In addition to being a RiceDaddy, I'm a wannabe beatnik whose poetry and prose has been performed at various venues in NYC, most notably at the Five Points Poet's Lounge (formerly known as Teabag). I've also dabbled in filmmaking, coerced by my wife to produce shorts based on my prose and poetry. And I've got some failed business ventures under my belt too, most notably a mail-order-groom website that tried to partner Asian men with American women. It failed miserably for some reason. I don't know why.

My most recent endeavor is the Soulsnax Diversity in Media Challenge, a charity we set up in lieu of a Babies R Us registry. All proceeds go toward selected educational programs that counter the effects of the culturally-negligent, GENOCIDAL media we're all addicted to. It's the Opium War of the 21st Century. So check out the educational programs, and consider making a donation. Do it for the kids!

Blogaversary Book Review Contest Wrap-Up

Taking a quick break from our usual fare of AsAm dad sports injuries, I thought I'd wrap up our Blogaversary Children's Book Review Contest by announcing our winners and prizes.

First, thanks to our reviewers: Honglien123, Naomi Shapiro, Kim, Mommy de Gallo, Rachel, Stephanie, Christina Williams, Superha, Kerri Aldrich, Carol, eliaday, and peachboy. It was great to read about your childhood favorites and why you want to share them with your kids, to discover some new finds and be reminded of old favorites.

So, who won? Thanks to the generosity of Kane/Miller Book Publishers—everybody! Each of our reviewers will receive a different book (selected at random) from the following list of twelve titles from Kane/Miller's catalog of children's books originally published in Asian countries:

My Cat Copies Me (S. Korea)
New Clothes for New Year's Day (S. Korea)
The Zoo (S. Korea)
While We Were Out (S. Korea)
Yellow Umbrella (S. Korea)
The Story of Cherry the Pig (Japan)
Who's Hiding? (Japan)
Happy Birthday Coco (Japan)
Singing Shijimi Clams (Japan)
Guji Guji (Taiwan)
The Mats (Philippines)
Kali and the Rat Snake (India)

See? Everybody got something! Don't you wish you had entered? And another thing—you know we love our mommy readers, but yo, where my daddies at? Props to Peachboy for stepping up—what, the rest of y'all don't read to your kids? Heh. Show me up next time, okay?

Anyway, all our winners are invited to send us a review of the book they won for posting here on Rice Daddies. We hope you and your kids enjoy your books. And of course, i can't end this without giving an extra-special shout-out to Sondra LaBrie, Kane/Miller's marketing manager, without whom this wouldn't have happened. Or, it could've happened, you just wouldn't have actually won anything. Heh. Thanks, Sondra!

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming....