Lemons to Lemonade

Way back in 2006, Mrs. SoulSnax and I put ourselves on a "modified media diet." We did this to avoid pissing our money away to producers of diversity-negligent media/entertainment content. When we became parents earlier this year, our 2007 resolution was to take those savings, and donate them to diversity-oriented education.

A few weeks ago, a large envelope arrived in the mail from DonorsChoose.org. It contained photos and letters of thanks from students who benefited from the educational programs that we helped to fund through the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge.

Upon reading through the letters and viewing the snapshots, I realized that I was holding tangible proof that a modified media diet can actually change the world! Just think: money that would have gone to producers of diversity-negligent content were diverted, and instead, helped to fund the education of kids in a way that helps to empower them by virtue of their diversity. Our 2007 New Year's Resolution has truly paid off!

You too, can also make a difference. Right now, you have a little less than 72 hours to make your last tax-deductible contribution for 2007. We've added six new proposals to the challenge, since your generosity has already funded the previous twelve proposals:

• Pen-pals say Gung Hay Fat Choy!
• Bringing The World Into The Classroom
• Cultural Awareness Wanted
• What in the World Are You Reading? (Asian Literature)
• Coming of Age in China
• Multicultural Celebrations Books

Launched in June 2007, the RiceDaddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge aims to mitigate the marginalizing effects of diversity-negligent pop culture and media by funding innovative educational programs that do the following:

• Promote positive images of ourselves for our children
• Promote positive images of ourselves for other people and their children
• Develop skills in our children that empower them to be leaders in the world in which we live
• Promote pride in one's culture instead of shame
• Promote self-respect and appreciation for others like ourselves
• Develop our children's ability to use their imaginations in an empowering way
• Encourage our children to be who they truly are

Jolie in Training

For lil' Sunshine's first Christmas, Mrs. SoulSnax ordered one of those rare Asian dolls, because she wanted Sunshine's first doll to be Asian.

"Too late," I told her, because lil' Sunshine already had a doll, and it's a pretty little black doll in a pink dress.

"Aww... well that's cool, at least she's got some variety in there," Mrs. SoulSnax replied. "All my dolls were blonde and had blue eyes. And I grew up in the Philippines."

"Yeah, well a few more of these, and we can call her Angelina."

UPDATE: We've received a cease and desist order from the Philippine Colonial Ministry. Apparently, in our efforts to bolster the self-esteem of young Filipino children, we have been "complicit in undermining the Philippine media's Cultural Subjugation Programme."

We have been instructed to indoctrinate our daughter in the value of aspiring toward lighter skin and big, round eyes. They recommend that we give our daughter the same blue-eyed blonde-haired dolls that her mother had as a child.

Furthermore, they recommend that she watch any of the telenovelas on The Filipino Channel (TFC), since they feature a lot of mestizo "actors."

The "S" Word Revisted

It's that time of year again, when the existence of that jolly red-shirted fella is called into question. Last year it was a toss-up for me. This year, its been so busy we haven't even had time to think about it. But the kids are getting older and wiser (and asking for cellphones!).

So, ricedaddies and ricemommies, what's your verdict this year: is there a Santa Claus? Or is he just a freak in a velour suit?

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Next Generation

Arrrrrh! Me boy wants to be a pirate after his maiden voyage to the Magic Kingdom early last month. Here he is on YouTube singin' the pirate theme song.

I Pick You

Piggybacking on ThisisLarry's post on ear wax, I love my ear pick. They have them at every Japanese sundry shop right by the cash register. I've even seen a Hello Kitty version.

When we were kids my mom would hold our heads and scoop out wads of ear wax with the bamboo pick. It was like getting your back scratched. When I got old enough, I figured out every nook and cranny of my ear hole and went to town. I still do it every day, much to the chagrin of Otolaryngologists, my wife who has to deal with the remnants on the bathroom sink, and friends unfamiliar with Asian ear canal hygiene who happen to catch me in my boxers, head askew, concentrating, sticking what looks like a torture device in my ear and scraping with impunity.

Now, being a father, I get a little freaked out just inserting a Q-Tip into my son's ear though I remember clearly how good it felt as a kid to have my ears cleaned. What if he moves his head? What if an earthquake hits and something knocks my arm? What if I have a muscle spasm and ram the thing into his eardrum?

How do you clean your kids ears? And do they like it?

SD

World Domination, One Ear At a Time

It seems the pace of human evolution has been accelerating recently -recently being, in evolutionary terms, the last 5000 years.

Of course, like in any good contest, there are winners and losers, as Reuters reports it:

"For example, Africans have new genes providing resistance to malaria. In Europeans, there is a gene that makes them better able to digest milk as adults. In Asians, there is a gene that makes ear wax more dry."

So you can see obviously who came out ahead. ahem. rice daddies rule.

WTF! Really, five thousand years of Confucianism, Haiku, Bi Bim Bop, and Thriller, and this is all we get? Drier ear wax? This is our genetic heritage to pass on to our kids?

Remember you saw it here first, when the seas rise and all around others you are complaining about Swimmer's Ear.

Flaming Lips Balm

The past few days I've been thinking about James Kim and one thing that really brought a smile to my face was reading a Yelp review that his wife Kati wrote about a club in the city. And although some might imagine that she should act the grieving widow 24 hours a day, forever and a day, I couldn't disagree more. Getting on with happiness, or as close as you can get to it, is what it's all about. Grief is love's weight. It doesn't get lighter. Our backs just get a bit shiftier. I smile at the thought of her dancing. So before I forget, let me leave a message to my family in case one day I'm gone way too soon....

1) Crap I'm sorry. I'm an awesome guy, I'm sure you miss me.
2) Laugh and dance as soon as you can. I'll be laughing too...actually I'm laughing at your dancing.

And above all else remember... all of life's answers can be found in the Flaming Lips.

Can Asian People Cook?

In the immortal words of Mookie (portrayed by Spike Lee in my all-time favorite movie, "Do the Right Thing"), "Yo Sal, how come there ain't no brothas up on the wall?" is repeated refrain and the genesis of an eventual race riot involving African Americans and a pizzeria owned by Italian Americans in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The overwhelmingly black patrons are not represented on the pizzeria's "Hall of Fame" reserved for Italian Americans.

Beginning with my grad school roommate who would bootleg copies of all the Japanese Iron Chefs, Food Network has changed my life. It made me want to cook and showed me it could look easy even when it isn't for me. I think cooking makes people healthier and its become a creative outlet. There is more Food Network on my TIVO than anything else. That aside, it started to dawn on me that everyone on food network was European American. It hit me most strongly when I watched the Swedish (by way of Cameroon) Chef Marcus Samuelssohn, Canadian Caribbean Grill Master Rob Rainford, and then Australian Hong Kong Chef Kylie Kwong on the Discovery Home Channel within the span of one and a half hours. This was more people of color cooking than I'd ever seen on Food Network.

Yes, Ming Tsai used to have a show and a few African Americans used to or still host shows. But in 2007, how does a channel devoted to something as uniquely cultural as food look as lily white as "Birth of a Nation"? (I swear they started offering Simply Delicioso after I complained to them directly!)

Yes, Emeril sometimes drops some egg rolls and Tyler Florence might stir fry a bit but isn't there some sense of "authenticity" in having a cultural lineage. Isn't this why I'm seated next to the window in Chinese restaurants? I would argue the most publicized chefs that cook Latin food are Rick Bayless, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, and Bobby Flay. Where is the Latin in Latin food?

Where is the Asian food? China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia have nothing to offer to the culinary world? Tell that to the takeout industry.

All Your Hairs Standing

Pinay homegirl kills it on Star King, the Korean version of A.I. Now if only she can get a stylist.

SD

Bert, Ernie, what hast thou wrought?

Via Virginia Heffernan in the NYT magazine:

“What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times....

Well, that explains a LOT. Good thing our toddlers have more understandable fare to watch these days.