NEW STICKERS from the homey JP!!!

Most people don't really know this, but my dad was born in Thailand... 100% Chinese though, ethnically, not to mention his father was a Chinese journalist who moved to Thailand RIGHT before the Cultural Revolution (thank God) + his stepfather was 100% Chinese... but anyways I had never been to Thailand before a short trip earlier this year...

Why do I say this?

My homeboy JP, aka the creator of the art for our Japanese Tsunami benefit song remix, has been in Thailand for work for a minute, and I just got this DOPE package today with a Thai return address!!!!



Inside: New stickers from their DOPE skateboarding company!!



Thanks, big dog! See u next time u come thru BJ! Say what up to Paul 4 me!

BONUS: You're Not Alone (Japan Tsunami relief song) REMIX ft. a lot of rappers & singers

VISVIM x KAWS!!!!

I was out on a late morning run today - a couple blocks from my house, before lunch, a whole gang of 老百姓 (older Chinese working-class folk) congregate on about a block and a half of street corner for a street market, selling old books, watches, magazines, used shoes, etc. etc.

Well usually it is nothing that I would even pay attention to! But today when I was running by a pair of shoes caught my eyes and I stopped dead in my tracks!!

These joints are super limited... super exclusive... who knows why they turned up secondhand on a street corner in Beijing! But the stitching + details look legit, plus the price was right! I didn't have any money on me but the 老头儿 (old head) who had em on the back of his wheelbarrow held them for me while i ran home, showered, and biked back for em.



Copped for 5 RMB = ~70 cents!!

If you know, you know!!! Feel free to hate!

Singing my frustrations... singing my prayers...

Peace everyone;

For those of you who do not know... the last week has been really crazy up in here... pollution that was literally beyond hazardous (For 2/5 of the week it just read "Beyond Index"), pollution-induced illness, two-year-old bill payments being demanded, shady landlords, upcoming evictions, unpaying debtors...

I was riding the subway tonight and my emotions on the situation just started writing themselves into a verse...

The Devil tryin' to lie to me - friends try to get high with me
People asking favors then turning a blind eye to me...

So I came home tonight and recorded then mixed this song about the emotions I've been feeling over the last week. I wanted to be honest and put myself out there in front of man - but more importantly, in front of God. You could say that Peace of Mind is a prayer of sorts... when I was feeling frustrated and absolutely knew that I would only get thru this with strength beyond what I myself could provide.

Peace of Mind is streaming on my Youtube channel right now.



-jglc a/k/a Grand Master Chu

Airplanes Remix (live Christmas Night footage)

Hey everyone!!

Some of my crew and I had a DOPE Christmas Night show at Section 6, Beijing's legendary hip-hop party, and I just got around to getting the footage up on youtube...

The song below is my remix of Airplanes Pt. 2, by B.o.B. featuring Eminem and Hayley from Paramore. I got my friend, Korean singer DK Choi, to sing the chorus, and we reworked the lyrics + chorus, which are copied underneath..



We performed this song on our Christmas Night show, the other three songs are also available on my youtube channel if anyone is interested:

1) Asian Streets (Hard in Da Paint remix)
2) 黑色黄色 ft. MC D-One (Black + Yellow remix)
3) Faster ft. MC D-One

As always, if you enjoyed it, please follow my Facebook and youtube accounts! MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!


LYRICS:

Chorus:
I've been flying on an airplane through the night sky
Like a shooting star
I just wish I was home right now,
home right now, home right now
x2

Breakdown:

I'm dreaming... dreaming
I'm falling... falling
x2

Verse 1:
How can I catch the ears of America?
Play a stereotype, or a character?
Maybe if I was more what you want
I would have a better chance of standing up in the front
But could I stand that? Well, can I stand this?
Ten years rapping, with no impact
At least I got mentioned on some blogs
Wish that I could tell the whole world to pause
Life's real, my homey's kid had a fever
He was screaming, MY BABY, like Justin Bieber
At the hospital all day, at the end, there was nothing left to say,
Baby passed away.
So I fly on an airplane, and I land somewhere out in LA
Standing in the runway, playing MJ
Watch the sun fall as it fades at the end of the day.

Breakdown

Verse 2:
Seeing three time zones in a single week,
Not even sure what language I oughta speak
And I'm not just talkin reckless
Yellin "Fire!" in a house with no fire exit
Check the seats for attendance
And pay attention to the flight attendants
Watch the windows as we take off,
then watch the clouds wash over the wings as we take off...
Caught between two different homes
I find rest as I silence my cell phone
Wake up like, did I ever even sleep?
Or was the whole long trip just another dream?
Out the window, I'm staring at night lights
As the in-flight movie plays on
Through the long night, am I on the wrong flight?
Should my life have gone left, or did I choose right?

Chorus

The O

"The Office, Season 7, Episode 10 – “China”
After reading an article about China growing as a global power, Michael decides China must be stopped before they take over the US. Everyone in the office complains about Dwight’s building standards and Pam threatens to move Dunder Mifflin to a new building."

I haven't watched it yet (queueing it up to stream right now, though...), but I'm already half-concerned, and half-hopeful, about the content of this week's Office episode about China.... [continued on my ethnic studies blog]

Studio shopping in Beijing.

After my trip thru the states I hit Beijing hyped up to take grand master to the next level. But determination must inevitably face trials if it is to be refined... that's why we say, Hiphop and you don't stop! So it came as no surprise that my perseverance was tested soon after I returned to the Beijing hood...

Last Sunday afternoon, three days after I returned to China, my producer hit me with a text letting me know that he had a new job and needed the mic setup I'd been borrowing from him (BIG thanks bent!!)... So my home studio was disappearing :/

This setback could have slowed the movement down... But no, we kept it hopping! Monday night I chopped it up with my Model Minority brother D-One a/k/a David Fung and benefited from his research and thought, then spent a couple of hours on Google hitting up the audiophile and recording gear message boards! A lot of good options came out of the woodwork, but in the end I know that I wanted something (a) reliable (b) within my budget and (c) that I could find and get set up ASAP to continue making that good music (no kanye west [but sometimes i wish i were])!

After doin the groundwork online, I hollered at my church buddy JOSH ONG who majored in music and runs the music teams for one of the church locations in town, I knew that he would have the hookup! And he did, he had a place that he usually goes to cop gear... right near the church location, actually. And even going above and beyond, the man offered to come hang out with me Sunday afternoon and walk around to see what might be available.



When I linked with Josh at the Zhongguancun subway station, I knew exactly what I was looking for... throughout the week, I went back and forth on what I wanted to cop and how much loot I wanted to drop on it - my thoughts ranged from a super basic entry-level setup for around $100 total, to a super advanced setup that would run me around $600 (in the US where electronics are cheaper... even though they're all made in China anyways, smh).

I finally settled on a top-quality vocal mic, the Rode NT1A ($230 MSRP, only one level down from the $800 Rode NT2A adjustable mics I bought for my college studio at Yale) and a slightly cheaper preamp/audio control interface, the M-audio Mobilepre ($150 MSRP for an OK preamp but most importantly, an audio => USB interface).

Of course, knowing what I wanted and finding it could be two COMPLETELY different things. After all, in China, brand names are not only often misrepresented, but viewed as even interchangeable. Not to mention, the quality of equipment that I was looking for - in terms of reliability and brand recognition - was a cut above what you usually find in China, super local brands like ISK and Takstar. Not bad, but not something I would be wanting to use 10 years from now.... whereas, decades from now the Rode could still pull its weight.

Right around the ZGC subway station lie several large electronics markets... I'm talking multiple buildings, multiple floors, all crammed with tiny booths and slightly larger but equally transient retail layouts, 20 service workers all trying to pull you towards their shops as soon as you set foot on the floor, etc. You might have one modestly sized store selling Sennheiser headphones (super high quality, my favorite brand) right next to a tiny booth jam-packed with low-quality karaoke equipment and unbranded webcams, mouse pads, USB gadgets etc. I really wasn't looking to roll dolo through this environment so I was really happy Josh came through with me...



Anyways we linked up and walked in and asked one of the first market workers we saw where we could buy a 麦克风 (microphone), and she said 3rd floor so we walked up to the 3rd floor and saw nothing... i'm talking super simple joints, even the few microphones were the local ISK brand junk (OK for a podcast, something like that, but nothing even touching pro quality!) but that was just in the front of the floor. The more pro-level shops are in the back: with no impulse buys in stock, they don't need all that foot traffic and they can have a quieter and more professional atmosphere for buyers looking to drop more than a couple hundred RMB (~20 bucks) on simple gadgets.

Walking back, Josh and I were approached by another persistent worker, trying to draw us into his store... well we weren't going to have it but I just said "you guys got microphones?" to the worker and he said yeah, plus the store looked on the up-and-up and large enough to have good 关系 (connections) with suppliers large enough to stock good brand names. So we went in and he had me write out exactly the model numbers of what I was looking for, then went running around to various stockrooms pulling out exactly what I wanted.



Eventually they had everything I wanted out there... the Rode NT1A package with pop filter and shock mount, plus the Mobilepre preamp/Audio interface package. Haha, the salesman even asked me BOTH TIMES about the price like "are you sure you want this one? 这种有点儿贵" (This kind's a little expensive). But I told him I knew what I needed, and I was willing to pay for the quality.

But remember I said that things usually cost more in China?? Because of taxes and general shadiness on the part of foreign brands, etc. So they were asking 1850 RMB ($278) for a $230 mic package and 1380 RMB ($208) for a $100-150 preamp... ummm not cool. But with the equipment lying right in front of me, in good condition, I felt like making my move. After all, time was burning and the sooner I got my new studio setup done the better, right?? So I put my 8 semesters of Mandarin into play and bargained/cajoled the worker into hitting me with both for 3000 RMB total = 450 USD. NOT CHEAP but not expensive either, especially given how shipping the two from the US would have cost > $80 plus potentially taken weeks! AND having to go collect the package at some post office, plus the possibility of its breaking en route.

And you know the way I knew it was a decent price, the salesman wasn't happy with me after we sealed the deal! When we walked in talking about buying a high-level mic they were all getting us seats and bringing us hot water... but you know, if the staff is smiling at you and acting happy once you put the cash on the table, you did NOT hold up your end of the bargaining in this town!



We wrapped up the interface and mic in plastic bags, and i transported them back on the subway... soon you'll get a chance to hear how that new home studio sounds! By my estimates I'm thinking 10-20x the vocal audio quality.....

PEACE y'all!



BONUS FOOTAGE: I hung out with China's #1 hiphop DJ, 3x national DMC champion DJ Wordy this last week... kickin it in the studio, building on the musical level, and killing Nazi zombies in CoD! I got some footage of Wordy mashing-up, mixing, and scratching for me!

FREE mp3 download! D-One & Grand Master - 黑色黄色 (Black & Yellow)

I arrived at Beijing's Capital International Airport at 4:30 this evening... grabbed my bag and took the airport rail line back home... hit church to link up with my Embassy fam, then went home...

And what did I do there???

Forget going to sleep, D-One was jumping on a track so you know we HAD TO GO IN!

Check it out... Black & yellow... for our people worldwide:



and download the MP3 at http://grandmaster.bandcamp.com/

NEW Music Video!! Model Minority - Faster

Peace everyone!

First off, thanks to everyone who's always supported my music... even when I was super wack and just figuring out this emceeing thing!

And thanks also to the new fans. I won't ever call anyone out on sleeping on me, I'm happy that more people are in on the movement!

This is the first cut off D-One and my duo mixtape: Model Minority presents... The Model Minority Report.

I'd appreciate it if you Like my facebook artist page
and I've been twittering more and more, so hit that too.

More to come! Much more!

Coming to America (no Eddie Murphy)

Well, I just booked my tickets - due to a happy confluence of even happier events, I will be returning to the States earlier than expected (albeit for only about a week):

Tuesday, Nov. 2 - fly from Beijing => San Francisco => New York-JFK. Take the MTA transit line to New haven.
Nov. 3-6 - hang out at Yale
Nov. 7 - Justin's wedding in Allentown, PA.
Nov. 8 - Delaware, visiting my parents.
Nov. 9 - New York City - one more day in New Haven?
Nov. 10 - 7 AM flight out of JFK => San Francisco => Beijing.
Nov. 11 - 4 PM, arrive in Beijing.

Let's hang, people!

hours in a day

Beginning Friday, August 6:

9:30 AM - Woke up. Dressed.
10 AM - Brunch in Dongzhimen with my buddy Israel.
12 PM - lunch at Xizhimen (across town) with my buddy Billy.
2 PM - Head to Dongsi. Hang with Chacey and her roommate in Dongsi, at the underground shopping market. Go to Bustout store, help the girls shop. Hang with Slim Paul.
6:30 PM - back at home. Kelley and Sylvia are waiting! Sorry, girls.
7 PM - go out to eat. 24 hour Xinjiang restaurant. Israel, Kelley, Sylvia, Chacey, Dui Dui, and I are all hanging.
8:30 PM - Chacey and Dui Dui had to bounce. Maggie, Jenna, Jenna's friend, and Ben join us. We ask the server to reheat our food.
11 PM - Maggie, Jenna, and her friend headed home; Ben, Israel, Kelley, Sylvia, and I are back home. Figuring out what to do.
1 AM - All hands in: pledging that we will make it to the sunrise flag-raising at Tiananmen Square.
1:30 AM - I remember that I have the Internet, and can stay awake forever with it, guaranteeing that I will be up to wake others up. The others go to sleep.
2 AM - I'm on the internet checking email, reading blogs, and talking to Jessii. Everyone else is napping. Jenna comes by and promptly falls asleep on my floor. There are 12 people in my house: 6 in beds, 4 on couches, 1 on the floor, and me on the internet.
4:30 AM - Everybody up! Out the door, hailing the few cabs we can find, headed to Tiananmen East.
5:15 AM - sunrise at Tiananmen Square, followed by Israel guiding us over to the national opera house ("The Egg"), lots of photos, and a subway back home.
7 AM - Back home. Time to sleep.
11 AM - Up and at 'em: lunch with Steve!

And so another day dawns...

a day in the life

8 AM - wake up. dress.
8:10 AM - hop on the bus to work
8:35 AM - arrive at my internship
8:40 AM - 5:30 PM - work. sit in on meetings, do some reading, send emails, write letters.
5:45 PM - 7:15 PM - prepare for large group.
7:20 PM - 9:10 PM - large group meeting.
9:30 PM - 11:00 PM - late-night after large group with friends from church.
11:00 PM - 11:15 PM - hop a taxi home from the restaurant.
11:15 PM - 12:00 AM - catch up on emails at home. change clothes.
12:00 AM - 1 AM - head to the nearby bar/restaurant/shopping district. hang out with rap friends - the top emcee and radio DJ in the city. The #1 DJ in the country. Meet the top house music DJ in Taiwan and his new assistant.
1 AM - 3 AM - Wes and Marcus know a guy having his birthday party at another club. hit the club.
3:15 AM - back home. brush teeth, check emails. mess around online.
4:30 AM - sleep. prepare to wake up at 7 AM to pick someone up from the airport. tomorrow, I meet up with friends, go shopping, head to a recording studio, go out to a work dinner with my best friend, and maybe go to see Chozie DJ at a club.

12 hours in

Hi, everyone!

How yall feelin tonight? (this was the second half of one of 108 Tongues' songs, Don't Start Somethin'. The chorus went:

How many tongues in the house? [108, 108]
How yall feelin tonight? [feelin good, feelin great])

Well, it's 1:30 PM in Beijing - a sunny, muggy, hazy day. I just ran around my block...

hold up, let me rewind.

"Yesterday" - that is to say, in that span of time before I last fell asleep and after I last woke - my parents, sister, and I left Delaware around 11 AM, bound for JFK international airport. I arrived in a fantastically, even excessively, prompt fashion: 1:30 PM for a 4:30 PM flight, that later wound up getting delayed until 5:15.

Boarding the plane, I was greeted with the horrific sight of no in-headrest entertainment. That's right: you buy budget, you fly budget.

Well thankfully, this revelation was immediately followed by another, more positive one: that in place of the now-commonplace headrest-mounted touchscreen lay a standard 3-prong electrical outlet. So, ten minutes into the 15-hour flight, I happily pulled out my laptop and spent the rest of the flight alternating between watching movies (The Squid and the Whale, The Departed, Pulling John - all dope flicks) and powering through over a season and a half of 30 Rock, abetted by the empty seats on my either side - at points, I was alternately nearly fully supine and prone.

After a full day of this, I was greeted by the lights of Shanghai Pudong Airport



where I passed a quick layover, including a short 15-minute panic after a delay was announced "due to communications equipment issues" (the worst phrase to hear when travelling: "your flight has been delayed. a new departure time will be announced shortly").



Post-boarding, I settled into my seat and finally succumbed to the dull but growing urge to sleep. Slipping on my headphones, I leaned back like Fat Joe and woke to the even hazier yellow glow of Beijing.

Gathering my two 50-pound suitcases (guh), I motivated myself, plus wheeled encumbrances, into a waiting cab and sped through the night towards dongcheng





Making my way to the address my new roommate Steve gave me, my cab driver and i only got a little (read: a lot) lost. I caught up briefly with Steve before he hit the hay, got online through my VPN and caught up with emails and various work, then fell asleep just as the blue of morning began to tint the east.

Waking up, I began my unpacking, ran various errands (got keys copied, bought a new SIM card) and had a quick run around my new neighborhood.

Tonight, I'm going to swing by an older couple's house to talk to the husband, meet some friends for dinner, and then tomorrow I have a lunch and dinner with friends - and hoping to meet up with some of the Light Fellowship students in the afternoon to hang around in wudaokou. Saturday, practically all day, is my buddy Billy's wedding! and we'll take it from there...

Time to roll!


this machine is super fly. The bit closer to the camera slides into the groove of the key, and moves synchronized with the drill in the background, which carves out an identical copy in the blank.

going down the only road i've ever known

the last time I woke up, I was in Ilsan, South Korea, at a co-worker's apartment;
the time before that, I was in the south of Beijing, at Paco's apartment.

As this morning dawns, I arise at my parents' house in Delaware; and, tonight, I'll be laying my head to rest at my new apartment in New Haven.

After 77 days in South Korea - 55 days of work - and 7 days' vacation in China, it's time to go back to school.

what will this year be called?

Dénouement

For the past work week, I've had a steady tension building, a bubbling froth in the pit of my stomach that sends my mind into a joyfully-wound knot. I'm a kid on Christmas Eve.

There's a saying among certain circles of society, memorialized in The Wire as such: "There are only two days you serve in prison: the day you go in, and the day you get out."

My bags are packed: one lies in a co-worker's apartment, awaiting my return to Seoul eight days hence, and another, half-empty, lies open next to my door. My passport, wallet, and ticket information sit, stacked neatly, on my desk. I've long since stripped my bed of its accoutrements, tucked away in the former piece of luggage, and I lie on the comforter provided, alongside the mattress, by my company.

Reflexive soul-searching will seize its own kairos; for now, I'm just chilling out.

I can't remember the last time I felt this roiling anticipation: probably last summer, preparing to leave for China. Of course, this time, there's an additional tool thrown into the machinery: the palpable, albeit slim, chance of China's vigilance in public health abruptly shutting down my hopes of a leisurely week.

And before that? The strongest association which I can provide is from my youth: the hour before arriving at a beloved summer camp, driving our way out of Delaware, stopping in Philadelphia for lunch, approaching on the winding Pennsylvania foothills. Me barbaric with a pent-up boil of preparation, banging on the ceiling of our old Volvo sedan, ecstatic. So.

In approximately 8.5 hours, I fly out to Beijing; God willing, I'll make it through customs with no hold-up and emerge on the other side of my 7 days off before returning to the States. I've heard that China has started blocking blogspot; if so, communication may be infrequent. So, for now

I lay me down to sleep

BUSTOUT Summer 2009 Line 2

my homeboys in 北京 stay cooking up the flyest gear I've ever seen. After the recent launch of BUSTOUT Girl, they are back at it with a full line of tees and some new rock-inspired corduroy pants.

On a personal note: these days, I've been seeing my personal taste in fashion mature a little bit: I'm more likely to head towards a nearby Uniqlo or wear something from Staple Design, A.P.C., or Band of Outsiders if I want to get fresh. But if I'm in the mood to wear something a little looser and more streetwise, more and more my staples - apart from the occasional piece of early-2000s BAPE - are all coming from the BUSTOUT collection.

God willing, I'll be kicking it in Beijing in about a week, and picking up every piece of the following... and more...

Summer 2009 drop 2: Tees







Summer 2009 drop 2: pants





Summer 2009 drop 2: caps




Modelled by part-time Jay Chou impersonator and full-
time store staff JACKAL.

BUSTOUT 2009 drop 2: BUSTOUT GIRL

for the ladies down with the movement.







BUSTOUT: Street We Are... international?

Personal reflections on Chinese America

A request from a friend taking a summer Ethnic Studies course at school served as the excuse to finally get some thoughts down that I've been hoping to commit to paper ("paper") for a while, now.

Thoughts are scattered, quite randomly arranged, and topics range wildly about. Many thoughts are unsupported, at best, and citations are nonexistent. This is more to have this on record and for those who care to get a stronger sense of my background and current stance on certain issues.

Reading over my thoughts - or, properly speaking, even as I typed them out in more or less stream-of-consciousness flow - I worry that I am myopic. My image of Asian America is gilded and almost universally positive: at least, my first responses to Chinese-American culture is always to assume that the minority has been victimized, is guilt-free, and has taken at most a passive part in the lead-up to the current state of affairs. I acknowledge freely, I think, that Chinese immigrants have been complicit in their own sufferings: but I do not first jump to the domestic abuse epidemic rampant in our communities (and countries of origin).

I tend to lionize the underprivileged and vilify the dominant. This is not wrong, but it is not right: worst of all, it is not true. The causes of current circumstances are manifold, and to simplify it down to Western imperialism (cultural, political, economic, and military) is to discredit my own claims. I worry about this, in the long run: I will have to become far more balanced and willing to critique China, Chinese America, and the Asian milieu if I am to be a credible and caring commentator.

I also have large holes in my discussions of gender. I make assumptions about female roles, rights, responsibilities, and representations (3 cheers for that alliterative streak) that are founded entirely on my male understanding of the female experience and role in society. This is dangerous, and I apologize if I wrongly offend. It's on my list of things to work on.

That said, the text of my response is presented below (cleaned up & edited in brief, most portions of the original text/questions remain):

1. experiences:
a. family traditions/customs/holidays
b. experiencing racism
c. basically, how was it like growing up chinese american?

(attempting to answer the breadth of a-c in one long breath:)

Basically, when I was young, being Chinese-American (which is, I might note, a different term than "American Chinese" or "American of Chinese descent") wasn't something that I thought about at all. There are a few factors that contributed to this: my parents were second- (or greater) generation, already, being born in Southeast Asia to families that had previously immigrated from China, so I was at least two degrees separated, on both sides, from direct ties to Chinese culture and heritage. I knew, on a fairly abstract level, that there was something tying my past to "China" - but that word, "China", referenced an empty concept, for me. Apart from Geography Bee-level details - the Yellow River, the Yangtze, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, etc. - I had no knowledge of China, and definitely no personal connection. The only glimpses of Chinese Culture that I received were in our shamefully irregular visits to my Nai nai/奶奶 (father's mother), who lives outside Washington, DC with her second husband (now deceased). There, I got my most transparent hints of the rich culture underlying our family's roots: conversations carried out in incomprehensible tongues; homecooked Chinese food utterly unlike my mother's Western cooking or greasy "Chinese" takeout; red envelopes of New Year money (that were, I realized much later, not months late, but simply operating according to a different calendar), watercolors of tumbling Chinese mountains, etc.

In short: our family traditions, customs, and holidays were as utterly middle-class, suburban American as one can get: dressing up for Easter Sunday, stockings on the mantle & gifts under the Christmas tree, ice cream cakes at birthday parties.

Which is why, I think, for me, racism was always a little bit of a surprise. After all, the far greater part of my upbringing was indistinguishable from your average American Dream: in the middle of the upper-middle-class, attending a Protestant church and Sunday School every weekend, straight-A report card, etc. But a few incidents stick out, in particular:

• While growing ever-more-increasingly Westernized, my parents, throughout my youth, continued to frequent the local Asian Groceries (albeit more and more infrequently). One of the snacks they would occasionally purchase there - and which I found not so much tasty as intriguing - was made of this sort of cheeto-like material; except, instead of being coated in "cheese" and "cheese" flavoring, it tasted like shrimp. One time, during a kindergarden lunch, I made the mistake of bringing - or my mom made the mistake of packing, in the best of intentions? - a bag of them to school. The White girl with whom I usually traded sandwiches and snack foods turned up her nose at them, declaring them - I'm paraphrasing - "smelly" or "yucky". I must have been 5 or 6; that was, I believe, the first time I had ever been told that something which I considered normal - banal, even - might be Different.

• Towards the end of my attendance of that Christian school (I realize, only at this moment, that the reason my parents probably entrusted me to them was that both my mother and father grew up going to Christian schools in Southeast Asia; and they were likely sending me to this school in hopes of my attaining the same education with which they had been bestowed), I recall that I came home one day and casually, after dinner, reading some book about geography or cultures or something of that nature, pulled my already asiatic eyes up into an exaggerated slant, telling my mom: "look. Chinese!" I can still remember her horrified response, the shock with which she realized that this so-called Christian education (I don't blame the church, of course; I do blame the ignorance and idiocy of young children, coupled with the race-blind/PC-disavowing/culturally underinformed nature of many well-intentioned evangelical communities) was actually driving a wedge between her son and her own background (I recently discovered that she had actually been planning, prior to the time she became pregnant with me, to go into law to help out asian-american and immigration issues). Shortly thereafter, for a host of reasons, my parents pulled me out of that school.

• Something that's often echoed by various generations and varieties of Asian-Americans is the sentiment of being a "perpetual foreigner": a Japanese-American senator, whose family has been in this country for over 80 years, once remarked that he still continually receives compliments for speaking English "so fluently". As a youth, I too had these jarring encounters: trivial at the time, I brushed them off casually, dismissing them as isolated incidents of ignorance or misinformation. Of course, the fact remains, at 23, and with a far broader range of experiences in the intervening years, I can still remember, vividly, the repeated confusion of being asked by young White children, "So, where are you from?" and the frustration of having to, repeatedly, explain that I was from Illinois - or California - or Delaware. I knew who I was, and where I was from; so why couldn't these other kids? A dilemma emerged: either they were simply stupid and couldn't see the blatantly obvious (which seemed unlikely, given that my American-ness seemed to me overt), or the premises on which I had established my identity, with my internal concept of The Normal American Childhood derived from my own experience, were faulty.

2 & 3. as a chinese american, how do you identify yourself? what does being "chinese american" mean to you

Given the circumstances of my upbringing, and my parents' immigration, I think it wouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that my view of myself, in my younger years, was basically that line about "diversity" that we were fed back in the day: "We want to be color-blind." I bought into the construal of Ethnicity that said the best way to accept everyone was to "just look at people as people, not as their skin color." So I applied this happily homogenizing view to myself, and those around me, and assumed that our points of view, personal experiences, and inculcated values more or less lined up. The emphasis in those days was definitely more on "American" than on "Chinese".

In recent years, I've been coming to hold a more subtle approach towards regarding my ethnic heritage: without running out the clock (because I definitely could), the basic outline of my thoughts go as such:

• The term "Asian-American" is in itself dangerous, because it is an umbrella term for vastly disparate groups: in the same way that pitting inner-city Boston Irish youth with jailed parents against as Upper East Side, trust fund, private school kids is unfair in terms of social neediness, so is judging the children of Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Filipino refugees against the kids of Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean businessmen, professors, etc. Not to mention that thinking that every Chinese immigrant is privileged, well-educated, and well-behaved - the "Model Minority" myth - is itself damaging in many ways to Chinese-American communities, for a whole variety of deep-seated reasons.

• For those of us who identify as "American of Chinese Heritage," there is a fine balance to be struck between that "American" and "...of Chinese Heritage". It's foolish to think that I am Chinese: in China, I might be allowed to call myself a "hua ren" (华人) that is, one of the Han Chinese, but I am not a "zhongguo ren" (中国人) that is, a Chinese person. Culturally, in terms of my fundamental assumptions about the world, I am a product of the West. It's important to point out that I don't harbor unnaturally Sinocentric political sympathies, and I'm not going to be a threat to peace in the American homeland or abroad (well, I oppose American hegemony - but that's for entirely different reasons): it's important to remind myself, and others, of this, because the reality is that many still fall into the mindset of Executive Order 9066 and "Yellow Peril", where any Asiatic face is viewed as a potential defector to the long-left-behind "Motherland." Of course returning to China - or heck, even Asia - gives me a warm feeling. But I have White friends who acquire the same sense of Homecoming upon their return to England, France, or Poland; and there is no forbidding sense of fraternizing with the enemy that lies upon their journeys.

• One interesting thing that I have realized is that "Asian America" exists: even as I decry the use of the term, the fact is, whether for right or wrong (I would say more wrong than right), we are seen as a monolithic group. But that makes certain connections possible in the American "melting pot" that otherwise may never occur: a Chinese person in China may never deign to bridge the gap and initiate a friendship with a Japanese individual. But my relationships with my Japanese and Japanese-American friends - heck, even your own parentage, right? - demonstrate that "Asian America" can serve as something of its own melting pot; even if we remain, perhaps, to the side of the rest of the "melting pot" (whether cultural, genetic, or otherwise), at least Asian America has served, it seems, to bridge divides that may not have happened in our mother countries.

There are other thoughts, but these are the ones that first come to mind.

4. how do you think "chinese american" is being represented? by AA? by the public? How accurate are these portrayals?

I think that the public image of Chinese-Americans is problematic, with the blame being distributed all around (though perhaps not equally): Chinese-Americans are at fault for playing into the role of a "Model Minority", passively or actively unwilling to speak out against a dominant and domineering culture, choosing to succeed by means of intellect or behind-the-scenes work instead of through protest and resistence (to generalize largely). Of course, Chinese immigrants' approach to a hostile culture is not to blame: given particular cultural values held by Chinese-Americans, this was the natural, moral, course. And the White media and government is at fault: anti-miscegenation laws, portrayals of the threat of "China Rising," anti-Japanese WWII propaganda (but no propaganda supporting our allies, no pro-Chinese or pro-Korean messages to counteract the inevitable conflation of our three sister cultures), E.O. 9066, all these were designed to Otherize and tokenize Asian peoples, to aggrandize the panic of American businessmen and laborers concerned with increasing competition from across the Pacific. The inherited reminders of these shackles - whether in popular culture or governmental representation - is still evident.

When talking about public, popular, media images of Chinese-Americans, three concepts spring to mind: Kung Fu Master, Exotic Asian Beauty, and Smart Chinaman.

• These portrayals are all highly damaging. Exoticism has been dealt with in a lot of gender/ethnic studies literature, but, in brief: to describe someone as "exotic" is to claim that they are attractive because they are not-me: they are the Other. Exotification is objectification and tokenization taken, in many ways, to its height: a person no longer represents a valued individual Self, but instead an alien, unrecognizable, unable-to-be-sympathized-with culture.

• Media obsession with Exotic Asian Beauties is particularly disturbing given that much contact between Americans and Asian women was in the form of soldiers interacting with wartime prostitutes during the Korean and Vietnam wars. The stereotypes of the Shy Asian Girl and the Seductive Asian Woman (the "Dragon Lady") conflate into a figure that is deserving of both moral scorn and sexual depredation. This is, of course, a faulty stereotype: it is an incredibly transparent attempt to remove en masse the femininity and womanhood of Asian females, in the same way that Black women were degraded by simultaneously being sexualized and defeminized by becoming the unacknowledged mistresses of slave-owners.

• Of course, one subtype of the Exotic Asian Beauty, that deserves particular mention, is the Madame Butterfly: caught up in the wiles and victimized by her brutal countrymen, this woman must be saved by the noble White hero. This stereotype is particularly notable because it implies that the Asians can't be trusted with taking care of their own: whether the next generation, the land, the businesses, the government, or the military, the natives need to be rescued by the strong white Savior. While it's true that Asian - and, yes, particularly Chinese culture - has been incredibly behind in terms of gender parity, and while I am by no means an anti-miscegenist, I do worry about the more or less pervasive idea that an Asian woman's dream is to escape the bonds of her culture and fly away to Western civilization and, apparently, cultural enlightenment.

• The Kung Fu Master is, in its own way, a dangerous stereotype. On one hand, it is fairly empowering and masculinizing. The downside of it is that any Chinese-American who shows strength will be associated with the Kung Fu Master. A strong Black man is not automatically compared to Mohammad Ali: but strong Chinese (or even broadly Asian) men will almost inevitably be compared to Bruce Lee. Again, this stereotype - while not necessarily negative - strips the target of his or her individuality, and places them within a narrowly defined role with little room for expansion beyond.

• And the Smart Chinaman is the very type of the Model Minority myth: the backhanded insult, the barbed compliment. It can be simultaneously dismissive of individual accomplishment - "Of course you did well on the math test, you asian" - and concealment for more subtle racism - "OK, so maybe Chinese-Americans have some problems, but you guys are doing so well! Look at your college acceptance rates! How can you complain about a couple of movie roles and some jokes on the radio and TV?"

Speaking today @ conference on Chinese-African Relations

In other news, apart from the Living Water Spring jam going down tonight, I will also be speaking at a short panel discussion on hip-hop in China, as part of the Youth Forum on China-Africa Relations (YFOCAR) conference going down this weekend. I'll be discussing my background in hip-hop, experiences with my crew in China, and hopefully uncovering socioeconomic parallels between the adoption & flourishing of hip-hop in China and Africa.

More importantly, this marks the first time that I have ever been on a website as a "confirmed speaker". Pretty sure that I am both the least educated as well as, simultaneously, the least experienced on the list.

4:30-6:00 pm

Informal Discussion: Sino-African Parallels, Hip Hop in Africa and China Mohammad Yunus Rafiq Jason Chu

Branford College Common Room

The man with whom I'm sharing speaking time co-founded a Peace Village. For comparison's sake, let me remind you: I co-founded a rap crew.

Out of my league? Nah, right.

Dirty Paco, Slim Paul, Zhang Yi, Beibei... this one's for yall. 代表街头文化.

Finals Week / 聂可来！

12/16 - 12/17/2008

[The first in a series of several recounting various pre-
and interstitial holiday activities.]

Tuesday12.16.2008


Coffee with Stephen at Koffee Too.


Afterwards, heading over to CCL to get work done; run into some
other friends.


Of course.


^Right, Liz?


Vans Off the Wall Sk-8 Hi's (a gift from Paco).


Afterwards, that evening, a quick dinner with Ray.

My old friend/Chinese teacher from Beijing, Nie Ke, was visiting the
Northeast for a few days, so a bunch of her old students got together
for Thai food.

Devin; 聂老师


Esther!




And my 老同学 Yang Jaeyoung too...

Wednesday12.17.2008


In TD.


聂克和她朋友.


很正式的老师们...


A Gutenberg Bible in Beinecke Library.


Beinecke's core collection: the manuscripts contained
therein are so rare that, in case of a fire, the whole case
is automatically sealed off, and oxygen removed from
the environment in order to protect them.


Audubon.




After walking around campus for some time, we
headed down to the Chaplain's Office to rest up and,
naturally, grab some free ice creams.





I departed, for a time, to catch up with a friend over lunch.


And then more friends arrived!




Lunch Part Two: Emily...


...and Ben.

After my official lunch meetings, I headed over to
BAR to catch Nie Ke and her other friends and ex-
students.




杜克项目去年的学生。


三位老师们

After BAR, the 三位中国人 and I headed over to Yale's British Art
Gallery, an institution of which, throughout my undergraduate
career, I had never availed myself.


Some dope art of Nature.




可爱的小狗。


This joint was fly. In my opinion it is about Society.


As the sun set, the view of Street Hall on the corner of Old Campus,
from the vantage point of the 2nd floor of the British Art Gallery.

The setting sun brought us, via a quick detour through
the local Hong Kong grocery, to the Yale Chinese
Language Department's offices.


Them biscuits flow freely.

After chatting with the ladies for a brief while longer, I walked them
over to their parked car and headed back over to Old Campus for one
final student meeting.


The Durfee Christmas lights.


Ms. Lee a/k/a MeLEEsa.


More Thai food, naturally.



[Next: hitting the studio, dinner with Liz, and a trip through New York]