Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
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.)
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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!
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Wegmans is a regional supermarket chain in the Northeast where “Asian” by itself doesn’t sound appetizing enough. Hickory, dickory…wokery? C’mon!
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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.
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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!
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