Ed Lin's Posts

(Hello and welcome to my serial novel. Art by spoon+fork.)

Everything was going great until she wanted to talk about two things I hated:  California and family.

The latter because I didn’t really have one and the former because everyone from there was rich or at least well-off and looked down on New Jersey.  Ever since a surfing magazine listed Shore Points as one of the top places to catch a wave on the East Coast, communes of college kids from L.A. would rent out entire houses for the summer and hog up our beach.  The chamber of commerce even ran ads out there to get more California kids over.

You could tell they weren’t local because they wore expensive body suits. They weren’t used to a cold ocean.

The girl I was having dinner with was from California, but she had nice tits, which definitely made her likeable.  I had found her waiting for the shuttle bus to the mall that got axed in the last recession.   I had got the girl to talking and shared my joint with her.

Her name was Quincy, like the TV show.  She was 19 and was wearing a flower-patterned bikini, cutoffs and Reeboks with socks.  The hair was long, straight and brown.  The only problem was she had a snub nose, but it didn’t bother me enough.

We were having fried clams and beer in the Chatterbox on the pier.  The tartar sauce cup was holding up okay, but we were running low on the cocktail sauce.  I held up the empty bottle and shook it a few times at our waitress.

I turned and saw that the hostess up at the front was glaring at us.  She had had it in for me ever since I first started working at the Chatterbox.  Bon Jovi had stopped by for a drink and I had washed the glass before she could put it up on the wall.  Someone told me later she got her cherry popped to the “Slippery When Wet” album.

The hostess was looking at me so hard, I could hear her voice in my head, and it was loud.

I was the last-shift dishwasher — the hardest position to keep staffed, so the Chatterbox let me run a tab for meals.  Otherwise I’d never take a date there.

When the cocktail refill came, Quincy spun her fried clam on her plate and said, “Someday I wanna have a house full of kids in the Bay Area.  Everyone there is very open-minded.”

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C’mon, Chinese people! Notebook purchased in the People’s Republic. (Thanks, Bryan Ong!)

This list represents a lot of stuff that I just got around to in 2011 and really dug. I hope you get a kick out of it.

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They are warm, brown, juicy and salty – and they actually taste pretty good!

C’mon, Corean people!

The photo isn’t doctored, but these students are.

The Economist recently reported that between 1996 and 2007, the U.S. awarded a whopping 57% of its science and engineering doctorates to Asian nationals, if one needed proof of the continent-wide value of masochism.

Here’s the breakdown: 28% went to Chinese; 11% to Indians; 9% to South Koreans; 7% to Taiwanese; but only 2% to Japanese. C’mon, Japanese people!

(Japan is addressing its relative underperformance.)

Brokers “egging on” transactions between couples and ova sellers.

Young women attending famous universities in Beijing come to a café where couples evaluate the girls and inquire through agents about the girls’ height and blood type. Ovum providers get 5,000 yuan according to an investigation carried out by the Beijing News reporter — that’s about $800.

C’mon, Chinese people!

Wegmans is a regional supermarket chain in the Northeast where “Asian” by itself doesn’t sound appetizing enough. Hickory, dickory…wokery? C’mon!

Julie Otsuka’s second novel is a quiet and disquieting story of the Issei. Written in the first-person plural from the point of view of the picture brides who become wives and then mothers, The Buddha in the Attic begins with the uneasy journey across the ocean. We follow the women and girls (as young as the early teens) as they experience disappointment and heartbreak with only flashes of satisfaction and hope. All the time there is a sense of impending doom that will snatch all of them away — and of course it happens.

The narrative structure allows for multiple and sometimes contrary impressions while providing a uniform voice. Consider the experience of the women on their first night with their husbands.

The tied us up and took us facedown on threadbare carpets that smelled of mouse droppings and mold. They took us frenziedly, on top of yellow-stained sheets. They took us easily, and with a minimum of fuss, for some of us had been taken many times before. They took us drunkenly. They took us roughly, recklessly, and with no mind for our pain.

The voice is most effective when capturing the paranoid time after Pearl Harbor was bombed and men are being rounded up and taken away after possibly having their name on a list.

The list was written in indelible red ink. The list was typewritten on index cards. The list did not exist. The list existed, but only in the mind of the director of military intelligence, who was known for his perfect recall. The list was a figment of our imaginations.

The Buddha in the Attic is a short book that also happens to be a quick read — Otsuka has chosen her words her words with care and the text is tight enough to repel rain. It is among the best fictional renderings of the stories of early Asian Americans who were allowed to exist in this country but never truly live.

That’s how strong my lobe is!

So not only does Zhaozhuang City in Shangdong province have a used-car expo, but they also kick it off with insano publicity stunts like having a man pull a car with his ears. I guess it was a family event, so the iron-penis thing wouldn’t be appropriate.

If only the ears of China’s heartless leaders were so easy to bend!

The latest issue of The Asian American Literary Review is out. It’s a major step up in the young life of The AALR in terms of ambition and production. Guest editors Rajini Srikanth and Parag Khandhar, as well as Editors-in-Chief Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and Gerald Maa, are to be congratulated heartily. The East Coast-based AALR commemorates a decade in Asian America after 9/11. The entire Asian community in New York has seen things change profoundly in obvious ways (racial profiling of South Asian, Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans; the conversion of Chinatown into a parking garage for the Feds) and in subtle ways (Afghani restaurants took down maps of the country from their dining rooms). It is a full-scale multimedia effort: The print journal collects first-person testimonies and transcribed discussions and interviews, while there are also visual art sections and an illuminating DVD.

The pieces range from angry to somber to bitingly satiric. A long-time contributor to Time is eyed carefully after an airport customs official sees a Syria stamp on his passport and thinks the journalist’s chicken-scrawl handwriting is Arabic. A 13-year-old plaintively asks to live in a world “without having the thought of something bad happening to you.”

In words, images and performance, we find that when we view the most unforgettable events from dozens of viewpoints, we not only honor the past but also contemplate our future.

Pushkar Sharma‘s mindblowing “10 Little Coolies” spoken-word piece from the DVD.

One of five of Tomie Arai‘s works in the print issue.

Are you promoting civism or civet-ism?

This is Sichuan Province’s way of promoting good citizenship — dress up your local nubile volunteers as skanky cats and unleash them in the subways.

Dad is getting the message!

It figures. Sichuan is known for spiciness, right?

Looks like open solicitation to me…

After the day was over, these women went home with Chairman Meow. Ba dump dump.

Fake Tiananmen Square looks real, but where are the hawkers?

A “local enterprise” (private business) in Qishan County of China’s Shaanxi province has gone one step further than securing government approval to operate. It became the government by building its headquarters to replicate Tiananmen Square.

Looks like they couldn’t decide where to put the replica tanks.

Hey, maybe they took the Bad Religion song to heart, but what is truly amazing is that this complex is allowed to stand. Has the copyright on the set design of the Square expired? What’s next? Maybe the official organ of the People’s Republic will call the Tiananmen Massacre a myth and having a duplicate Square is one way of wiping away history.

He has no choice but to use his noodle.

Times are tough and in the global recession, not even superheros are immune. Witness the transformation of Ultraman from monster-crusher to noodle slicer in Shijiazhuang, China.

No word yet on his immigration and work-eligibility status.

When you try to change your restaurant’s name, remember the little sign, too.

Let’s say the Chinese restaurant you run is already a couple years old — too old for you to call it “NEW GREEN BO.” Let’s say you want to change it to “NICE GREEN BO,” just so your  regulars aren’t thrown off too much.

If your sign is translucent and lit from the back, it’s probably worth it to properly fix your sign instead of pasting on “NICE” over it, because at night, your restaurant becomes “NIECWE GREEN BO.” Not that that’s a bad name.

Yes! New York City’s Asian American International Film Festival is in full swing!

Last night, John Sayles‘ Amigo kicked things off and the intensity continues through Sunday. Apart from the films, check out the awesome workshops, too!

A biopic on Anna May Wong! You can see why Macy’s wanted in on this.

I happened to catch The Warriors of Qiugang at another fest. Sounds like there’s going to be kung-fu fighting, right? But in reality it’s a documentary about poor residents in a community fighting an industrial plant and Chinese bureaucracy.

Hardcore! My Country Is Tibet is screening at the Museum of Chinese in America.

Jesus, they let just about everybody in this year!

She is quietly judging your diet as you consume a double cheeseburger and slurp a hopscotch concrete.

This giant Asian head will leave Madison Square Park (probably best known as the location of the original Shake Shack) after August 14. The artist is Jaume Plensa of Barcelona and this nontalking head is known as Echo.

From a distance, it looks as if the face (so life-like, it seems ready to open its eyes and speak) is projected onto a blank wall, but as one approaches, the marks of a sculpture become more clear.

Even though the installation was just for a little while, it’s nice to know that Asians can still get a head in the city.

The little film that could! Coming to your town soon!

This indie-to-the-core film was recently a Critics’ Pick in The New York Times. It is currently showing in Brooklyn through Aug. 5. Don’t live out here? It will be out on Aug. 30 on VOD, digital and DVD!

The incredible cast includes Mark Duplass, Bret Loehr, Carr Thompson, Linas Phillips, Davie-Blue, Laura Kai Chen and Melissa Leo. Writer and director Craig Johnson, DP Kat Westergaard and editor Jennifer Lee have created a hilarious film that hits the viewer on a much deeper level, too. I know I will be feeling the highs and lows again as I put away some bacon-fat popcorn and fender dogs at the reRun Gastropub Theater. Now wipe off your fingers and click on the trailer!

The legend of the lens himself, Corky Lee.

The Queens Museum of Art is currently exhibiting “Asian Pacifically New York: The Photography of Corky Lee” through August 14. In the city, everybody knows Corky. He’s at nearly every Asian Pacific American event. Has been for decades. His pictures have run everywhere from Time magazine, The New York Times, The Village Voice and the Associated Press. Corky’s 1975 picture of the old Pagoda movie theater in Manhattan’s Chinatown became the cover of my second book, This Is a Bust.

Yes, the museum is in the outerborough of Queens, but you haven’t seen New York until you’ve seen Queens, and you haven’t seen Asian Pacific America’s story on the East Coast until you’ve seen Corky’s work.

The Queens Museum of Art, New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens NY 11368
Telephone: (718) 592-9700

http://www.queensmuseum.org/
info@queensmuseum.org

Corky likes cool cats. Jimmy Mirikatani, former homeless artist, concentration-camp internee and subject of the documentary “The Cats of Mirikatani,” in 2007.

Another Corky classic. Sikhs at a 9/11 candlelight vigil in Central Park.

You mean I get two bucks off for the last two hours before you have to throw it all away? Awesome!

Put it up on the glass: Surrogate Valentine poster framed and hanging in Brooklyn Academy of Music’s cinema.

Surrogate Valentine debuted in New York last Thursday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s BAMCinemaFest of new films. The film’s stars came out and shone along with all the East Coast Asian Pacific American stars.

Director Dave Boyle (left) and star Goh Nakamura (right) introduce the film, explain they’ll be drinking during the screening but will return after for a Q&A.

The film’s over and they’re back, joined by co-executive producer, Michael Lerman.

The women of Surrogate Valentine step up: left to right, Di Quon, Mary Cavett and Lynn Chen. Co-writer Joel Clark has snuck in on the far right.

Di gets goofy.

Goh is the best. He’s like when Beyonce is both the guest star and the musical guest on SNL.

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