Asian Outlook Fall 2014 Issue #1

ASIAN OUTLOOK volume XXVIII, issue 1

4 | The Hong Kong Crisis: Politics & Diplomacy | Kahlil Stultz 6 | Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution: Occupy Central | Maneo Choudhury & Jeffrey Sun

ASIAN

Volume XXVIII, Issue 1

contents OUTLOOK

featured

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

8 | Echoes of a Shot: What Ferguson Means to Us | Eric Liang 12 | The Fall of MH17 | Ashley Lau 14 | What Abolishing the SHSAT Means | Sharon Lau

editorials 10 | Story From Asia: The Dark Side of Siem Reap | Jin Hwi Hong 16 | Diversification of Teachers | Siu Lam Koo 18 | Rare Co-Champions of Scripps National Spelling Bee | Russell Tobias 20 | Englishmen, Frenchmen, But No “Chinamen”? | Dale Gao

arts & entertainment 22 | A Star ‘s Trek to Life, Liberty, and Love | Amanda Lau 25 | Four Days in Japan | Anna Lin 26 | My Experience in China | Calvin Chan 28 | Bonding with Beauteque | Tina Yu

conscience 34 | Ying Xu 35 | Vietnamese Student Association Haikus 36 | Diandra Hassan 37 | John Paul Randrup 38 | Rashid Shafi 39 | Angela Wu

Cover Image Sources: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Police_%22response%22_to_PAD_Protest.jpg http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9763443.ece/alternates/w620/25-HongKongProtest-AP.jpg Cover By: Sungwon Kim

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letter from the editor...

efore I go in-depth about Asian Outlook Fall 2014 Issue #1, I want to start off by saying thank you to those who contributed to the successful completion of Asian Outlook’s first issue of this academic year. It’s extremely rewarding to see a high-quality magazine come to fruition after weeks of submissions, copy edits, layouts, and integration.

I was the secretary my first semester when I joined Asian Outlook. Two years later, I’m the Editor-in-Chief of this great publication. Although I have big shoes to fill, I hope to continue learning and growing as a person. I hope to grow my feet, figuratively speaking. Reflecting back to when I was a freshman, I was ecstatic when I saw my article published in Asian Outlook’s Fall 2012 Issue #1. During the weekly meetings in the Asian Student Union office, I was fortunate enough to have spent half my college career with some of the coolest and most insightful upperclassmen on campus. Just as they have taught and inspired me, I hope to do the same for incoming and current members.

Since the spring of 2014, many unfortunate events have occurred, stirring outrage and protest among fervent groups around the world. Whether it was the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson or the riots in Hong Kong, feelings of contempt and passion have risen in many parts of the world. Other occurrences include Bob Beckel’s racial slurs on television and Mayor Bill De Blasio’s plan to remove specialized high school admissions tests. Whether it’s domestic or international, activism is always playing a major role in bringing about political or social change. Being an activist does not always mean picketing and rioting.

Sometimes the first step towards activism can be being informed about problems in society.

On a different note, a few of our executive board members were fortunate enough to travel abroad this summer. In this issue, you’ll see their experiences and food adventures in places like Shanghai and Japan. During this summer, we also had the honor of interviewing a young entrepreneur who’s making her way into the beauty industry. Did I mention she’s still in high school?

Representing the Asian Student Union as the art, literary and news magazine, Asian Outlook has always been an outlet for your views and passions. We work hard to protect the voice of marginalized groups whether you’re of different race, gender, sexuality, etc. We are not Asian exclusive and we welcome all to find out more about us!

If you are interested in becoming involved with Asian Outlook, come to our weekly general body meetings at 8 p.m. , on Wednesdays in UUW-329. Asian Outlook is always looking for submissions for publication. Submit articles and opeds to ao.editor@gmail.com and creative works (i.e. comics, photos, poetry, short stories, etc.) to aoconscience@gmail.com.

Thank you for reading our magazine, and stay tuned for more!

Dale Gao Co-Editor-in-Chief, Fall 2014

ASIAN OUTLOOK EXECUTIVE BOARD FALL 2014 editors-in-chief conscience editor copy editors

layout editors

secretary business manager publicity manager historian blogger staff writers

Dale Gao Tina Yu Rudy Kuang Alex Ching Angela Wu Eric Liang Siu Lam Koo Amanda Lau Anna Lin Ashley Lau Sophia Kim Ting Lin Calvin Chan Sungwon Kim Sharon Lau Shelley Shin Kahlil Stultz Russell Tobias

EDITORIAL POLICY Asian Outlook is the art, literary and news magazine of the Asian Student Union of SUNY’s Binghamton University. Originally conceived and created to challenge, redefine, re-imagine and revolutionize images and perceptions associated with Asians and Asian Americans, Asian Outlook also serves to protect the voice of those in the minority, whether by ethnicity, gender, and/or political orientation. All matter contained within these beautiful pages do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board. Asian Outlook reserves the right to edit submissions and publish work as deemed appropriate. Prospective contributors are encouraged to discuss their work with the editors prior to submissions.

Articles may be submitted as an e-mail attachment to ao.editor@gmail.com. All artistic and literary pieces may be submitted to aoconscience@gmail.com.

CONTACT POLICY Uninvited contact with writers and contributors is forbidden under punishment of pain. Please direct all questions, comments and complaints to ao.editor@gmail.com.

interested in contributing?

E-mail us at:

ao.editor@gmail.com

Or come to our weekly meetings held in the Asian Student Union office (UUW-329) every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

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The Hong Kong Crisis:

Politics & Diplomacy

By Kahlil Stultz

N

o

bulky

academic

paper

on

the

sociological

roots, historical context or even the political significance of this budding can capture the visceral emotion of the conflicting parties of the conflict happening in contemporary Hong Kong. The skirmishes are happening on the streets and in the highest levels of the city’s legislature. For some, it is a battle of democracy and self-determination versus nationalism and stability, with some Hong Kongers asserting a unique creole Anglo-Chinese identity (as evidenced by the ubiquitous presence of the Hong Kong Colonial Flag in many democratization marches) against what they see as incursion by a foreign government into their way of life. For others, it’s a paradoxical case of young and naïve student activists clawing for the hallmarks of a colonial past which is more the product of euro-centric nostalgia then reality. While the issues facing Hong Kong, China and the inhabitants of the communities torn apart by the bickering are multi-dimensional, one must first understand the public policy and political context of Hong Kong’s turmoil in order to appreciate its gravity.

Many media outlets such as Al-Jazeera and the International Business Times push the start date of the tensions between China and activists in Hong Kong to the 1997 handover of the then Crown Colony of Hong Kong by the United Kingdom to the governance of China.

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However, the tensions in the country stretch back before the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and are rooted in the promises of democracy and self-government which underpinned the repatriation of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the ‘New Territories” in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984.

Then British Prime Minister, the late Margaret Thatcher, was a British nationalist whose unflinching political personality garnered the popular nickname “the Iron Lady”. However, even she could prove little of her mettle before Deng Xiaoping and his vibrant Reform-Era China.

The United Kingdom, having won Hong Kong in various diplomatic and military operations known as the “unequal treaties” and the Opium Wars during the nineteenth century, exploited a period of weakness in the autumnal Qing Dynasty. Whereas Mao thought that political revolution through grassroots insurgency could undermine the British role, his Cultural Revolution inspired riots in Hong Kong and only served in earning the Hong Kong Police Force the prefix ‘Royal’ from Queen Elizabeth for their heroism. By the 1980s, however, the People’s Liberation Army was perched outside the border of Hong Kong and Deng Xiaoping was waving a rubber sabre, threatening the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Hong Kong. An economically fragile Britain struggling to adopt a monetarist economy and a warweary Thatcher, having already engaged in one war in the

“It is a battle of democracy and self-determination versus nationalism and stability.”

South Atlantic with Argentina, was not willing to enter into international crisis or military conflict. Instead, she and the British Foreign Officer engaged the Hong Kong government in an agreement whereby Hong Kong and Hongkongers would rejoin Communist China in 1997, but incrementally develop democratically within a ‘special administrative region’. Principal among these promises is the direct election

by Hong Kong citizens, of a Chief Executive in the 2017.

It is 2014, and since the handover in 1997, the promise of democracy, which Britain and China would give to the people of Hong Kong, has been to some a dream deferred.

While the Chinese government has allowed Hong Kong the maintenance of its own legislative body and civil service, along with its own legal code and immigration policies, it has also routinely reneged on its 1984 promises. Lu Ping, the Chinese Diplomat in charge of the Hong Kong & Macau affairs Office in the 1990s, promised in 1993: “The central government will not interfere” when it came to Hong Kong autonomy. However, his dubbing of Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, as a “Sinner of a Thousand Years” a year later for the governor’s role in the creation of municipal and legislative councils throughout Hong Kong, speaks much of Beijing’s stance towards democratization. In 2004, after a series of major protests in Hong Kong against national security legislation, the Chinese government broke its promise to isolate itself from the region’s affairs by changing the legal code of the special administrative region, and claiming that conditional reform could not occur without its approval. In 2007, it arbitrarily decided against city elections in 2012. Perhaps the most egregious reversal of Beijing’s agreement to Hong Kong autonomy was the June 2014 White Paper which firmly laid out that Hong Kong’s judges and jurists were “equal” to administrators who were beholden to “love the country” and that the basic tenets of Hong Kong autonomy were “not an inherent power, but one that comes solely from the authorization by the central leadership’.

The outrage of many Hongkongers had been percolating through various protests and demonstrations throughout the 2000s, but the 2014 White Paper incurred the rage of numerous facets of Hong Kong society. On June 27, 2014, shortly after the White Paper was released, several hundred of Hong Kong’s lawyers and jurists appeared en masse for a silent protest march. Several days later, on Jun. 1, between one hundred and five hundred thousand people protested against the White Paper.

Rather than retreating from its policy of direct intrusion into Hong Kong affairs, the Chinese government and its allies were emboldened by the protests. In late August, the Chinese government declared that “patriotism” was the biggest determinant in the eligibility of candidates for Hong Kong’s highest office, the Chief Executive.

Since last summer, protests, demonstrations and controversy have changed from being municipal matters to international matters. A recent Wall Street Journal oped slammed the United Kingdom for its “betrayal” of Hong Kong due to the former’s reluctance to engage China in a diplomatic quarrel over the latter’s disengagement from the Sino-British joint declaration; numerous Hong-Kong based corporations wrote public notices criticizing the protests, and the Chinese state media tied key leaders of the protest to the United States Government. Global, political and media opinion and action are split on Hong Kong’s situation.

China, in the name of what it sees as national unity and stability, has reneged on major promises that were made during the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Small-scale political violence that followed escalated into social media

Protesters fighting for their rights in Hong Kong.

firestorms and police reprisal against intemperate prodemocracy and pro-Beijing activists. With secondary school students, criminal gangs and other sectors of Hong Kong society engaging in this conflict, there is little hope that the turmoil in Hong Kong will subside within the next weeks or even months.

Sources: http://online.wsj.com/articles/britains-betrayal-of-hong-kong-1411403837 http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/hong-kong-on-edge/ http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hong-kong-pro-democracyprotestsdecolonizationboycott.html http://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/15140 http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hong-kong-pro-democracyprotestsdecolonizationboycott.html http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/191131 http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/191131 http://thediplomat.com/2014/03/hong-kong-two-systems-one-country/

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

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Hong Kong’s

Umbrella Revolution:

Occupy Central

By Maneo Choudhury & Jeffrey Sun

T

Chinese territory of Hong Kong is no stranger to highly vocal political movements, as it has long been in a unique position as one of China’s Special Administrative Regions. But the recent rise of the people of Hong Kong is like no other movement before. On Friday, Sept. 26, pro-democracy demonstrators began congregating in Central Hong Kong. The size of the demonstration grew substantially over the next few days and violence soon erupted as the police cracked down. But what exactly are the people demonstrating for?

The movement started with demonstrations organized by a group called Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), often abbreviated to Occupy Central. Taking inspiration from Occupy Wall Street, they based their movement to take place in Central Hong Kong, a major business district. Protests in favor of freedom and democracy were originally scheduled to begin on October 1st, a national holiday commemorating the rise of the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). But the occupation began earlier in order to unite with student

hand. Demonstrators were faced with armed riot police who deployed tear gas on the peaceful demonstrators. This came as a surprise, since non-violent political demonstrations are fairly common in Hong Kong and rarely face run-ins with the authorities.

Protestors equipped themselves with umbrellas to protect themselves from the descending clouds of tear gas. This symbol quickly spread around social media, giving the movement its nickname, “The Umbrella Revolution”. Images of police brutality only inspired more citizens of Hong Kong to take to the streets in resistance, joining thousands of other revolutionaries.

To understand the monumental significance of these events, one must analyze historical context that set up the stage. Until 1997, Hong Kong remained one of the last few colonies of the British Empire. Under British colonial control, the island city achieved great prosperity and the people had far greater individual autonomy than the people of mainland China. When the handover from Great Britain to the PRC occurred, the Chinese government promised to abide by a “One Country, Two Systems” policy for fifty years, which would allow the people of Hong Kong to maintain their personal and economic freedom under a democratic system, regardless of the policies applied to mainland China. From the perspective of the people of Hong Kong, this was a buffer time to wait for mainland China to become more democratic, whereas the PRC viewed this as nothing more than a period of integration into the main political system of China.

Regardless, it allowed the two to remain culturally united despite political differences.

As one of two Special Administrative Regions (the other being Macau S.A.R. , a former Portuguese colony), Hong Kong was to be led by a democratically elected Chief Executive.

However, since the inception of the S.A.R. , the only people Protesters protect themselves with umbrellas as police try to control the crowd. who could participate in the CE election have been the 1,200 members of a Beijing-approved election committee. It’s for organizations that were already protesting Beijing’s recent this reason that many call the current Chief Executive ”689”, decision to require PRC approval of any candidates for Chief symbolizing the extreme minority of voters he represents.

Executive of Hong Kong in the 2017 election.

The Basic Law (constitution) of Hong Kong stipulates What happened next changed everything: authorities open elections and universal suffrage as per Article 45, rapidly cracked down on the demonstrators with a heavy with committee-based elections only being a temporary he southern

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

Students occupying Central Hong Kong holding up signs of their demands.

fix while working towards that goal.

Many in Hong Kong advocated more modest political reform as a stepping stone, to allow civil nomination as part of the selection process of the Chief Executive. Such a proposal would allow 7-10% of Hong Kong citizens to nominate a candidate for the Chief Executive. Other scholars proposed party nomination as an alternative. However, all these proposals were seen as minor reforms on the path towards full universal suffrage. Finally, in 2007 Beijing approved a resolution which seemed to allow free and open elections in 2017.

But this year, the PRC began showing hints that they may turn on their promise. In August, Beijing announced a decision to place restrictions on who could run for Chief Executive. A Beijing-sanctioned committee would have to approve candidates as being sufficiently pro-PRC to be eligible to run for election. The measure would functionally limit the candidates to the people who would have been selected by the old election committee anyways. Politicians who support democracy, Hong Kong independence/autonomy, or other positions which contradict the views of the PRC’s Communist Party would not be eligible to run. Many fear that this is an overreaching step closer to the end of the two system policy, along with the freedoms that the people of Hong Kong pride

themselves in. Even if Hong Kong does not ultimately seek to elect a candidate who stands against the PRC, the people of Hong Kong do not even have the ability to make that decision for themselves despite the 2007 resolution, which assured open elections.

In other words, the 2017 election will not be a free and open election as promised unless action is taken. This is why thousands of citizens of Hong Kong are out on the streets, despite the risk of violence, fighting for their right to have a fair say in their government. They are resolved to “Occupy Central” until their pleas are heard and their demands are met. If the will of the people can outlast the will of the government, Beijing will have to heed to the protesters appeals in order to restore order.

Now the question is: what can we do to support Hong Kong? One problem is that the news media has not given this situation the spotlight that it deserves. We can overcome this by getting the conversation started ourselves. Spread the word on social media, talk to people about it, make it known to the news media that this needs to be brought into the public eye. The spread of information is essential to the success of any pro-democracy moment. People on the streets have sent a message to the world that their voices must be heard. Now is the chance to give the people of Hong Kong a voice.

“[The protesters] are resolved to Occupy Central Hong Kong until their pleas are heard and their demands are met.”

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

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Echoes of a Shot: P

erhaps the most controversial event of the summer,

the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo. has sparked heated debate across the nation due to the still-unclear circumstances that surrounded its occurrence. The recent spread of news headlines about this particular case has brought back to national attention many of the same issues that were associated with the Trayvon Martin incident two years ago, and more besides. These issues— especially the thread of anti-black racism that seems to run beneath all of these incidents—bring to question the very values that are supposed to be implicit in our police force, and on a wider scale, the seemingly indelible racism that still continues to permeate the United States.

The death of 18-year-old student Michael Brown, an African-American, occurred on Aug. 9, 2014, when he was fatally shot by a white police officer named Darren Wilson. Brown was walking with his friend Dorian Johnson in the middle of a residential street when Wilson drove up to them and ordered them to move onto the sidewalk.

Here, the details of the incident become uncertain; in Johnson’s statement, the officer drove in front of them to block their path and grabbed Brown around his neck through the open car door window. The police statement, however, suggests that Brown was the one who initiated the struggle and attacked Wilson’s head through the window while reaching for the officer’s gun. Regardless, at some point in the scuffle, the gun was fired and

Demonstrators in Ferguson, Mo. protesting the shooting of Michael Brown.

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

What Ferguson Means to US

“

By Eric Liang

According to a report issued by the Missouri attorney general, of the statewide 5384 police stops made in 2013, 86.0% of the stops were of blacks, compared to 12.7% of whites. The numbers for searches (611 total, 92.0% blacks and 7.7% whites) and arrests (521 total, 92.7% blacks and 6.9% whites) are even more skewed.

Brown was hit by the shot, after which Brown disengaged from the fight and ran away alongside Johnson. Wilson then proceeded to get out from his car and chase the fleeing civilians, firing several more times in the process.

Although these shots missed, Brown turned around with his hands up and was then shot multiple times until he fell to the ground.

For a little bit of context, let’s first take a look at the racial demographics of Ferguson, Mo. According to the 2010 census, of the approximately 21,000 Ferguson residents, 67.4% were African-American, compared to the 29.3% who identified as white. However, there is a clear disparity between these numbers and the racial distribution of Ferguson’s 53 commissioned police officers, of which only 3 are black, according to the Los Angeles Times. Moreover, according to a report issued by the Missouri attorney general, of the statewide 5384 police stops made in 2013, 86.0% of the stops were of blacks, compared to 12.7% of whites. The numbers for searches (611 total, 92.0% blacks and 7.7% whites) and arrests (521 total, 92.7% blacks and 6.9% whites) are even more skewed.

At this point, it should come as no surprise that the questions we must turn back to are those of race: what if Michael Brown had been a white man? According to an investigation by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, “Officer Wilson said that Mr. Brown had lowered his arms and moved toward him, law enforcement officials said.

Fearing that the teenager was going to attack him, the officer decided to use deadly force.” Would Wilson have made the same choice had Brown been white? Of course it’s impossible to say for certain, but just by looking at the numbers, it’s obvious that there is a significant amount of racial discrimination on some systemic level. It is likely that this discrimination also colored Wilson’s judgment.

Of course, there are still those who deny racism in the face of all the facts and somehow manage to keep pushing the blame onto the victim. He shouldn’t have run away from

”

the officer, or he shouldn’t have engaged the fight through the car window, or he shouldn’t have been in the middle of the street and blocking traffic in the first place, or whatever it might be. To the supporters of these perspectives, victim blaming is an easy way to ignore systemic racial disparities and discrimination, or to pretend that these aren’t relevant issues in this day and age. While it might be easy to blame Brown’s death solely on his own bad decisions, it becomes harder and harder to do the same for Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Nathaniel Gaines, and so forth. As the list goes on, it takes more and more willful ignorance to pretend that these were all isolated incidents rather than symptoms of a systemic racial issue.

So what are the lessons to be learned here? First, in order to do something about racist America, we have to first accept that it exists. And second, unless we do something to close the racial divide, tragedies like this will continue to happen—and be passed off as racially-uncolored happenstance. White privilege does exist, and it only hurts people of color to try to work around it. Whether it’s racial epithets that are shouted in passing, or a job interview that tips in favor of the white candidate, or a police gun fired at someone who has done no wrong, the consequences of simply watching minorities continue to be suffocated are both large and small, and it’s up to us to level the playing field.

Sources: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-michael-brown-fergusonmissouri-shooting-20140811-story.html#page=2 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-before-teen-michael-brownsslaying-in-mo-racial-questions-have-hung-over-police/2014/08/13/78b3c5c62307-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html http://ago.mo.gov/VehicleStops/2013/reports/161.pd

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

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: a i s A m o r f y r o t AS

L

By Jin Hwi Hong

Cambodia, Siem Reap is a popular resort town with tons of historical sites.

Awesome views from places like Banteay Srei, Angkor Wat, and Bayon attract people all over the world. In 2013, more than two million tourists from around the world visited the city of Siem Reap to see and learn the old, mysterious history of the great Khmer Empire.

Tourism in Cambodia is one of the most important factors in the Cambodian economy. In 2014, the total contribution of travel and tourism to Cambodia’s GDP was $3,621 million, which made up approximately 25.8 percent of the total GDP. The total contribution of travel and tourism to employment, including a job indirectly supported by the industry was around 22.3 percent of total employment, which is good news for Cambodia.

Just as the moon has its dark side, Cambodia also has its dark side. When people visit the city of Siem Reap, the first thing they see is tons of people who are begging a dollar.

The beggars’ “one dollar” requests start from the Siem Reap International Airport right after arrival, passengers are required by the Cambodian government to pay a visa ocated in northwestern

Despite its popularity and tourist sites, around 30 percent of people in the province are below the poverty line, earning only $30 per month.

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fee, and for tourists, a 30-day single entry visa fee costing $20 each. During immigration interviews, officers would also ask for at least one dollar from each foreign tourist.

Since this is an unofficial fee for tourists and essentially considered an illegal bribe, tourists can legally refuse to pay. As a consequence, officers would not let them to go inland. Tourists have to pay at least one dollar of bribe to officers to even leave from the airport. These “one dollar” requests never end until the tourist leaves the country. On

ASIAN OUTLOOK

the streets, in marketplaces, and even at the Angkor Wat temple, tourists meet those kinds of people who are asking for one dollar.

As it is, the request is pretty understandable for tourists and foreigners, when they understand Siem Reap’s current situation. First of all, in 2012, the minimum wage of Cambodian laborers was only 80 USD per month. Thus, there was a big strike throughout the whole country in 2013 to increase the minimum wage to $100 per month, even though that would still be pretty low compared to the United States. Second, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army bombed the border between Vietnam and Cambodia to try to kill the notorious Vietnamese guerilla troops known as the Khmer Rouge regime. Add that with a long civil war afterwards, industry infrastructure in Cambodia was all destroyed and devastated. Nowadays, Cambodia still imports tons of necessities from foreign countries like China, Thailand, and Vietnam. More than 2.8 million people are poor, and about 90 percent of them are living in the countryside.

Moreover, the situation in Siem Reap is harsher than other cities in Cambodia. First of all, according to the Cambodian government, Siem Reap is considered as the second poorest region in the nation. Despite its popularity and tourist sites, around 30 percent of people in the province are below the poverty line, earning only $30 per month. Second, along with the Cambodian riel (KHR), the U.S. dollar is also regarded as the official currency, which seriously inflated the Riel in Siem Reap, to the point where nothing can be done with KHR cash. Also, electricity that is used in the city is all imported from Thailand. Other necessities like home appliances, vehicles, agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and even fish are all imported from overseas. Everything that happens in the city makes residents unable to survive in the province with their salaries. That is the reason why tourists see people continuously requesting “one dollar”, and that is also the reason why those requests cannot be considered as a minor problem for tourists.

There is another big problem happening in Siem Reap: child labor. Like many other developing countries, Siem Reap also has many child laborers in many industrial

fields. Some work for garment factories, some work for tourists. Of course, Cambodian government has specified the minimum age to work to be at 14. However, tourists still can find young children trying to sell small souvenirs and homestead items in front of the Angkor Thom, Tonle Sap Lake, mango farms, and the night marketplace. Foreign tourists can hear those kids’ narrow, quiet, but consistent ‘merchandising’ voices until their day of departure.

Actually, the children are the main source of a lot of the “one dollar” requests.

Why do children in Siem Reap desperately try to earn money despite their young age? The reason can be the harsh living conditions, as already mentioned above. These poor living conditions can actually be the reason of the lack of minimum standard of child protection, since more parents are trying to force their children to workplaces like cafés or restaurants. In other words, parents are literally selling their children so their children can secure their own food and shelter by themselves. Of course, no education can be expected for these children. Since many parents are trying to ‘give up’ their children, they crowd the orphanages, and orphanages can do little for child protection. Remember, Cambodia is regarded as the most corrupt country in the whole world. According to Transparency International, Cambodia scored 20 out of 100, ranking 160th out of 177 countries. Although there are laws regulating orphanage facilities and finances, these laws do not work correctly.

Therefore, children in Siem Reap have to make their own way to protect themselves.

Behind the smile that took Andre Malraux’s mind exists the severe, desperate reality of Siem Reap. “Onedollar” requests exist because of harsh living conditions, and children have to work to protect themselves against this reality. Still, we cannot condemn the future of Siem Reap right now; the city is now changing, little by little. I have to share my personal

experience to prove that Siem Reap has a much brighter future than before. I visited a school, which was established by a Korean priest, located at the West Baray. During the day, students learn Khmer languages, alphabets, history, mathematics, and the Korean language. After class, they make bracelets for tourists. By working around two hours a day, they earn money for their school tuition. Even though students in this school still work for their tuition, their schedule is mainly focused on their learning, unlike children in other schools Therefore, they can spend more time to concentrate on studying. This school system can be a realistic approach to solve problems in the city.

After a few hours at the school, I had a chance to talk to the students. They first asked me to teach them English.

I did, and that was the most unforgettable experience in my whole life. I saw that they are willing to cope with and change their current situations with a positive mindset. I strongly believe that Siem Reap will be changed into a lot better place than now.

Sources: http://www.ccfcambodge.org/en/single-news/n/key-figure-2013-tourism-economy-in-cambodia/ http://www.wttc.org/site_media/uploads/downloads/cambodia2013.pdf http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/wages-03212013185628.html http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/cambodia/overview http://editorials.voa.gov/content/a-41-2008-04-25-voa4-84654527/1481107.html http://www.unicef.org/eapro/Children_work_in_Cambodia.pdf http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/02/cambodia-child-protectionworkers-call-for-end-to-booming-orphanage-tourism http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Travel-g297390-c143217/SiemReap:Cambodia:Before.You.Volunteer.At.An.Orphanage.html http://thediplomat.com/2013/12/corruption-incambodia/

p a e R m e i S f o e d i S k r a D The Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

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THE FALL OF MH 17

By Ashley Lau

Even though the airplane was destroyed, money can be found to build another Boeing 777. Yet, what cannot be replaced are the lives of the 298 people that were lost in the plane crash.

O

March 8, 2014, the world whipped into a frenzy over the missing flight of MH 370.

Somewhere on its intended path from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Beijing, China, the Boeing 777 plane suddenly went off the grid an hour after takeoff. There were a total of 12 Malaysia Airline crew members and 227 passengers on the aircraft. As of September 2014, the whereabouts of MH 370 continue to remain a mystery, as the international search for the airplane is still underway.

Unfortunately, four months after the first incident, the airline company faced another tragic loss as the flight MH 17 was unexpectedly shot down by a Russian missile as the plane came near the Russian border on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. This incident took the lives of 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew n

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

members. According to the reports of Dutch aircraft investigators, the Boeing 777 plane left Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at 10:30 a.m. GMT on July 17 and was set to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 10:10 a.m. the next day. However, around 1:20 p.m. , air traffic control lost signal of the 777 plane. The signal stopped about 50 kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Evidence shows that the shooting was most likely done by pro-Russian rebels who mistook the aircraft plane to be a different aircraft and decided to fire at the plane. Voice-recordings were also found of the rebels giving the cue to take down the airplane as an act of rebellion. Satellite images released by US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt onto his Twitter account displayed pictures of facilities used to train rebels near Rostov, Russia. Primary reports stated that the “MH17 broke up in mid-air after being hit by ‘numerous objects’ that ‘pierced the plane at high velocity’ from outside the cabin and above the level of the cockpit floor.”

Following this tragedy, people started to question why the aircraft flew over Ukraine in the first place. Flying over a ‘conflict zone’ is highly dangerous and deemed unsafe. Nonetheless, during the duration of that week, Malaysian aircraft were the only ones to travel along the same route. Based on readings from Flightradar24, a live flight tracking service, airlines that commonly flew past Donetsk (a city near the crash site) were Aeroflight, Singapore Airlines, Ukraine International Airlines, and Lufthansa.

MH17 just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even though the airplane was destroyed, money can be found to build another Boeing 777. Yet, what cannot be replaced are the lives of the 298 people that were lost in the plane crash. After the incident occurred, newspapers and news sites uncovered the passenger list of MH 17, which had names of citizens from over ten nations, from students to journalists to professionals. Two Britons, Liam Sweeny and John Alder, who were fans of the Newcastle United Football Club, were on their way to watch

a football match in New Zealand. Adler, also known as “the Undertaker,” commonly wore suits to football games; the duo was widely recognized for their frequent appearance and dedication to Newcastle United. After hearing of their passing, the Newcastle United players wore black armbands in memory of the enthusiastic pair.

A particularly melancholy story is the case of an Australian family who lost family members in both of the Malaysian airlines incidents. Parents Irene and George Burrows from Brisbane, Australia mourned over the loss of their son and daughterin-law when the MH370 vanished. Additionally, their son-in-law’s daughter and her spouse, Maree and Albert Rizk, lost their lives aboard the MH17 flight. In a statement, Irene Burrows said, “We are absolutely devastated. This incident has brought back a lot of bad memories.” One such loss would be bad enough, but to have two instances occur from the same airplane company has to have doubly impacted the family. The husband and wife face a heartache that can not be lifted for a lifetime.

After the news of these two sad events, Malaysia Airlines can only hope that they can recover from this and regain their customers’ trust in flying Malaysian Airlines with them. Their ticket sales have sunk

drastically, but the company has not decided to give up yet. The airline company is devising new incentives and plans to attract customers to sit on board their planes. They plan to offer cut-price tickets, agent incentives and traveller bonuses. Other exciting motivations include competitions for “free flights and iPad technology giveaways.” Regional senior vice president, Lee Poh Kait, said, “The new initiatives are designed to inspire and encourage customers to dream, plan and book their next holiday, and to rebuild trust in Malaysia Airlines”. Kait additionally commented that, “We are committed to regaining the confidence of our customers and the industry as a trusted five-star carrier. These new rates are a very competitive offering for both travel agents and customers as we build a stronger Malaysia Airlines.”

Sources: http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/ksd-maintenance/DarkSites.html http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28357880 http://www.newsweek.com/victims-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh-17-startbeing-named-259818 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-12/missing-malaysia-airlines-planeburrows-family-pray-for-miracle/5314392 http://www.skynews.com.au/news/feature-1/2014/09/04/malaysia-airlines-working-hard-to-rebuild-trust.html

Respects being paid to the people on board the MH17 that was shot down on July 17.

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

13

What Abolishing the SHSAT Means

By Sharon Lau

T

he New York City legislature is considering abolishing the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) in hopes that it will increase the admission of students of African American and Hispanic background to specialized high schools. According to an article from the NY Post, “Blacks constituted 13 percent of the student body at Stuyvesant [a competitive specialized high school] in 1979, 5 percent in 1994 and just 1 percent the last few years, while Hispanics dropped from a high of 4 percent to 2 percent today.” As noted, there has been a heavy decline in the number of African American and Hispanic students admitted to specialized high schools and there has been suspicion that the cause is due to a bias in accepting Asian American students and the unfairness of the SHSAT. As Asian Americans make up around two-thirds of the students attending New York City specialized high schools, there is a lower percentage of other races, but this does not represent a bias towards the acceptance of Asian Americans. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) believes that the test is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights act in that it discriminates against African Americans, but the LDF does not have accurate evidence that supports this claim. The presence of more Asian American students in specialized high schools like Stuyvesant or Bronx Science does not necessarily constitute as discrimination towards other races. Other factors like student performance must be taken into consideration.

In addition, many Asian American students that attend specialized high schools come from impoverished backgrounds with immigrant parents who can only take on working-class jobs. In cases where the student is not from an affluent family, he or she has a greater motivation in working hard in school in order to become more successful in the future. This means that many Asian Americans tend to study harder for the SHSAT to guarantee their acceptance into the school because they do not have the resources to attend SHSAT preparation classes or extracurriculars. It is not their race is not correlated with their acceptance, but rather their hard work.

The LDF believes that there should be different factors taken into consideration when it comes to the admissions process. Some suggestions they proposed include “student portfolios, leadership skills and community service,” but these are all factors that can more easily be achieved if the student comes from a wealthy family. If a student comes from a poor family, how are they supposed to have an abundant amount of extracurricular activities when his or her parents cannot even make enough to live? This is evidently unfair and favors

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Statistics of acceptance rate for students of African and Hispanic ethnicities in NYC specialized high schools.

Rather than stating that Asian Americans are taking up too many spots in specialized high schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Technical High School and abolishing the SHSAT to place the affluent at an unfair advantage, why not provide students that are not performing too well on the exam with more resources to help them excel? the upper class. An article in the NY Post states that “half the students at the specialized high schools qualify for free or subsidized school lunches, including 47 percent at Stuyvesant and 48 percent at Bronx Science.” This means that these students do not come from wealthy families and they do not have any leverage in gaining a seat in a specialized high school. Many of these students cannot even afford to attend SHSAT preparation classes.

If the city were to implement a new admissions process that weighs a student’s extracurricular and other factors before they get accepted, rather than taking a standardized test, more problems could come to light. Mayor Bill de Blasio also suggests that “a student’s extracurricular activities should be one of the selection factors” but the NY Post rebukes, “subjective selection criteria also inevitably favor the affluent and connected.”

It is illogical to take away the SHSAT and instead replace it with another admissions process, when the SHSAT allowed for more equal opportunities to the students.

A school having a higher make-up of one race does not necessarily mean there is racial discrimination in the air.

Yes, Asian Americans represent a greater population in

the specialized high schools, but it does not suggest that schools are discriminating against other races. Rather than stating that Asian Americans are taking up too many spots in specialized high schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Technical High School and abolishing the SHSAT to place the affluent at an unfair advantage, why not provide students that are not performing too well on the exam with more resources to help them excel? Adding additional factors such as a student’s extracurriculars in the admissions process is not going to make it more “fair” as the NAACP or as Mayor de Blasio believes. It will only hinder the process and place Asian Americans at a disadvantage because now they are being discriminated against for their hard work.

Sources: http://nypost.com/2014/07/19/why-nycs-push-to-change-school-admissionswill-punish-poor-asians/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-cahn/dont-take-away-ourtest_b_5476951.html

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

15

DiversifIcation of Teachers

By Siu Lam Koo

“According to the World Bank’s data, as of 2012, the percentage of male elementary teachers in the U.S. was 13%; females thus occupied 87% of that workforce.”

F

or a couple of summers,

I was a teacher’s assistant at a local summer tutoring program for elementary school students in New York City. In between all the math and English sessions, there would be one question that would inevitably pop up during discussions: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers were always colorful and varied: “Policeman!” “Ballerina!” “Firefighter!”

However, one boy responded, “A teacher, just like you!” and that eventually got me to notice that a majority of the teachers in the program were female. Out of the 30-something teachers participating the program, I could count all the males on one hand. Being the inspiration and source of knowledge of the next generation is a wonderful thing, but to properly reflect the diversity that the students bring, the teachers themselves must also be diverse. One such aspect is the widening gap between male and female teachers in elementary schools, an issue that needs more attention.

According to the World Bank’s data, as of 2012, the percentage of male elementary teachers in the U.S. was 13%; females thus occupied 87% of that workforce. The question, then, is why are the demographics so unbalanced? There are a few factors to consider.

For a job that handles and shapes the future of the country, teaching does not pay all that well.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), the average starting salary for all teachers

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from 2012-2013 is around $36,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) states that the median salary for elementary teachers is around $53,000.

While making $50k a year isn’t all that bad if you’re free and single, trying to support a family with that (especially if you’re on the lower end of the pay scale) won’t be easy. Also, it’s not as if students become teachers right after graduation.

Advanced schooling in education – which is also available on our very own Binghamton campus – is often required on top of a bachelor’s degree; add that on top of certification/licensing exams, on-site training, and state fees, and you’ll realize that the cost of becoming a teacher is quite high.

The men that do make it through and earn a place in teaching are then faced with another challenge: the actual image of the teaching profession. When we think of “elementaryschool teacher”, chances are we think of a woman, unless we had a particularly memorable male teacher. As it turns out, starting from as early as the 1900s, the teaching profession has been mostly dominated by women, since it was seen as an extension of domesticity that was only appropriate for females (Martino, 2008).

While this vision of domesticity has more or less petered out, the critiques surrounding teaching haven’t done men any favors in the industry. They might feel intimidated or discouraged following assertions that teaching and caregiving isn’t a “man’s job,” which, really, is nonsense.

In an ideal scenario, the ratio of female to male

The ratio between male and female primary school teachers is very small, and it should be increased to provide a more well rounded education.

teachers would be representative of female to male students, which is roughly half and half. The next question: would there be benefits in having more male teachers? Research done in an Australian school seems to think so. Qualitative interviews of 184 year six students and 97 parents (in which both groups had approximately equal numbers of males and females) suggests that male teachers are beneficial for both boys and girls in the classroom.

Male teachers can act as role models and father figures, as well as improve girls’ interactions with men and give boys a person to whom they are able to relate their troubles and concerns (McGrath and Sinclair, 2013).

To attract a larger sample of prospective (male) teachers, it is necessary to raise the beginning and median salaries for teachers to compete with other professions. Why spend years studying and training only to earn $50,000 a year? While some might argue that raising salaries might attract those who only want money, I don’t think people would put in such time and effort inside and outside the classroom just for money. It is important to reward teachers who do their job properly (student achievements, curriculum developments, etc.).

Exploration of professional fields for high school and perhaps middle school students are probably helpful as well. I remember that my high school had an annual Career Day, during which representatives from various professions

gave talks on their opinions of their careers. This kind of idea is great for spreading awareness for educational professions and allowing students to consider teaching as a choice. Another example is an actual “education major,”such as the one featured in the Birmingham City School’s Academy for Urban Educators, in which high school students explore teaching and take education classes for four years. Programs like these give young students an unbiased view on teaching and can help eliminate stereotypes attached to it.

The bottom line is that none of us attending Binghamton University would be here without the help of our teachers. Improving the image of the teaching profession and attracting a diverse and bright pool of teachers are the only ways to ensure the success of the next generations.

Sources: Martino, Wayne John. “Male teachers as role models: Addressing issues of masculinity, pedagogy and the re-masculinization of schooling.” Curriculum Inquiry 38.2 (2008): 189-223.

McGrath, Kevin, and Mark Sinclair. “More male primary-school teachers? Social benefits for boys and girls.” Gender and Education 25.5 (2013): 531-547. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.TCHR.FE.ZS http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kindergartenand-elementary-school-teachers.htm http://www.nea.org/home/2012-2013-average-starting-teacher-salary. html http://www.bhamcityschools.org/Page/14036 http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/201005/YCFriedmanOnline0510.pdf

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

17

Hol·lus·chick

En·cae·nia

Rare Co-Champions of Scripps

By Russell Tobias

A

ugenphilologie.

Hyblaean.

Sdrucciola.

Holluschick. Thyemelici. Paixtle. Encaenia.

Terreplein. Skandhas. Feijoada. Many people (myself included) probably couldn’t even pronounce these words, let alone spell them. For two particularly adept young teen spellers, however, these and countless other words appeared to be second nature at the 87th Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Maryland. 14-year-old Sriram Hathwar of Painted Post, New York and 13-year-old Ansun Sujoe of Fort Worth, Texas, emerged as the first Spelling Bee co-champions in over 50 years.

While Hathwar was a celebrity among spellers, having previously competed four times in the Bee and even finishing in third place last year, Sujoe’s victory was completely unexpected. He was eliminated early on in the preliminaries just last year, so his improvement is extremely noteworthy. Sujoe describes himself as a big fan of Hathwar’s achievements and views him as a source of inspiration during his studies.

Throughout the duration of the bee, evidence of how well-matched the two spellers were became increasingly apparent.

Only once did Hathwar slightly stumble on “corpsbruder” (meaning a close companion), but then Sujoe also missed “antigropelos” (waterproof leggings) immediately afterwards. By the rulebook, this means the Bee must carry on.

The competition concluded - the championship master list having nearly run dry - as the pair falwlessly spelled a dozen consecutive words with ease. Hathwat’s final word was, “stichomythia” (theatrical term for staged altercation), while Sujoe wrapped things up with the correct spelling of “feuilleton” (European featured news section).

When interviewed after the Bee, Hathwar and Sujoe provided a glimpse into their pure sportsmanlike personalities: “I think we both know that the competition is against the dictionary and not against each other,” Hathwar stated. “I’m happy to share this trophy with him.” Each co-champion will receive their

Sdruc·cio·la 18

ASIAN OUTLOOK

own trophy to proudly display at home, along with over $30,000 in cash and prizes.

Hathwar’s hobbies include skating, swimming, basketball and playing the oboe, while endeavoring to become an ophthalmologist in the future. Sujoe is also a talented musician and takes an interest in engineering, the career path of his father. Both young men are Indian-Americans, continuing the seven year winning streak of Spelling Bee champions of Indian descent. In fact, the 2002 documentary “Spellbound” features Nupur Lala, the champion from 1999, who is said to have pioneered the stream of victories for extraordinary Indian spellers.

Among the cheering fans and standing ovations, one of the largest smiles appeared between the cheeks of Bhageerathi Pathwar, Hathwar’s grandma, who made a special trip from her home in Bangalore to see her grandson compete. For her, that trip surely was worth every penny.

A fellow Upstate New Yorker, Hathwar was honored in person on Sunday, Sept. 14 at Binghamton University’s Anderson Center for the Performing Arts.

He took the stage following a stellar performance of the internationally acclaimed Sanskrit operatic ballet Méghadootam: The Cloud Messenger. Hathwar and Sujoe traveled to Washington D.C. to meet President Obama the following Monday, where they challenged the President on the spot to spell the championship words. “The President was actually pretty close,” said Sujoe.

Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/29/scripps-spelling-beechampions_n_5414969.html http://www.cbsnews.com/news/its-a-tie-two-boys-win-2014-scripps-national-spelling-bee/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/05/29/scrippsnational-spelling-bee/9666667/ http://www.dancecca.com/meghadootam/ http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Spelling-Bee-Co-Champions-Meet-the President-275210361.html

Thy·mel·i·ci

Hy·blae·an

Ter·re·plein

National Spelling Bee Co-Champions emerge for the first time in over half a century.

Ansun Sujoe (left), 13, of Fort Worth, Texas and Sriram Hathwar (right), 14, of Painted Post, New York emerge as the first Scripps National Spelling Bee co-champions in over 50 years.

Paix·tle

Au·gen·phi·lo·lo·gie Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

19

Englishmen, Frenchmen, but no “chinamen”?

By Dale Gao

C

hinamen,” said

Fox News host Bob Beckel on the July 10 airing of “The Five.” This was but one of many cases in which Beckel has uttered racially charged insensitive comments while on air. The lax attitude regarding censorship in Fox News’ “The Five” has led the television program into many controversies thanks to Beckel’s on-air profanity and insensitive remarks. In 2011, Beckel defended his use of the term “rednecks” and in 2013, the co-host made a string of anti-Muslim comments after the Boston Marathon bombings and the Westgate shooting.

In response to Chinese hackers invading the computer networks of the United States government in March, Beckel expressed his anger towards China during a rant in which he accidently lets the racial slur “Chinamen” slip out: “The Chinese are the single biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. They have been, they will be and they can wait, they're very patient. Do you know what we just did? As usual, we bring them over here and we teach a bunch of Chinamen -- er, Chinese people -- how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us.”

20

ASIAN OUTLOOK

“The Chinese are the single biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. They have been, they will be and they can wait, they’re very patient. Do you know what we just did? As usual, we bring them over here and we teach a bunch of Chinamen -- er, Chinese people -- how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us.”

Co-host Eric Bolling attempts to supress laughter after Beckel drops the racial slur.

Although Beckel’s anger toward the Chinese hackers was justified, it did not warrant the use of the ethnic slur. Containing historical context since the California Gold Rush, the contemptuous term evokes the hardships and discrimination that Chinese have experienced in America. First appearing in the mid19th century, the word “Chinaman” was commonly used by Central Pacific Railroad workers to identify workers of Chinese descent. Unfortunately, the term has grown in negative connotation, due to the white workers’ hatred and distrust towards the Chinese workers. The Chinese workers’ inability to speak English, along with their differences in appearance and style of dress, led to discrimination by American workers who wanted the East Asian foreigners to go back to their country. This would eventually lead to many instances of prejudice in the United States, such as the Chinese massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles and the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Thanks to social media, Beckel’s remark has spread all over the United States and China, stirring up a storm of outrage and contempt.The Chinese American populations in the United States have demanded Fox News to fire Beckel immediately. Albert Wang, Bay Area chairman of the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association, said, "Chinese Americans play a pivotal role in the development of U.S. advanced technology, making up half of Silicon Valley's scientists and engineers. They were deeply hurt by Beckel's words.”

California State Senator Ted Lieu called for Beckel to resign immediately:

“We should all be alarmed by the racist, xenophobic comments by Fox News host Bob Beckel. His comments have no place in America and this is at least the second time he has used racial slurs. He must resign immediately … It is Mr. Beckel’s extreme racist and xenophobic views that are a threat to the American people and he should resign now.”

While the terms “Dutchman,” “Irishman,” “Englishman,” and “Frenchman,” among others, are not offensive, “Chinaman” certainly is. For Chinese Americans, descendants of a group that had been historically discriminated against, the word has been ingrained in their minds as a reminder of the prejudices they have faced in America. Although the literal meaning of Chinaman—a man from China—is not insulting in the literal sense, generations of nonChinese who have persisted in using it as a derogatory term have evolved the word into its current perception in modern society.

Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/10/bob-beckel-chinamen-thefive_n_5575873.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/world/asia/chinese-hackers-pursuekey-data-on-us-workers.html?_r=0 http://www.thewrap.com/bob-beckels-racial-slur-on-fox-news-the-fivetriggers-internet-backlash-video/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/bob-beckel-muslimmosques_n_3983240.html http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-media-blast-foxnews-718957

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

21

A Star's Trek for Life, Liberty, and Love

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

By Amanda Lau

B

est known as Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek series, George Takei has made his mark in American pop culture. However,

the 77-year-old actor-turned-activist has done much more than just that. His first-hand experience of World War II internment camps sparked his lifelong interest in politics and community affairs, as well as his involvement in the production of the musical Allegiance. Unofficially dubbed the “King of Facebook” with over five million fans, his words reach out to Trekkies, Howard Stern listeners, and the LGBTQ community with his “quirky mix of kitten jokes, Star Trek references, heartfelt messages, and sci-fi memes.” In his documentary “To Be Takei,” viewers follow Takei’s career and personal life to see how he “continuously challenges the status quo well into the 21st century.”

For four years starting at the age of five, Takei and his family lived in two internment camps. He distinctly remembers the barbed wire surrounding the prison camps and the machine guns pointed at them. People assumed that because all Japanese Americans looked like those who bombed Pearl Harbor, they needed to be locked up. At the time, this became part of his normal landscape: “What would be abnormal in normal times became his normality in camp.” The worst part of it all for him, he recounts, was the releasing of the children. The first home his family had following their release was in downtown Los Angeles, where his father worked as a dishwasher in Chinatown. The moment he came out of the camps was when he realized that having been in a camp, being a Japanese American, was something shameful. His father once told him, “Look at the kind of roles Asians have played.” Takei then looked at his father and said, “Daddy, I am going to change that.”

George Takei with his signature Star Trek pose.

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

23

Takei is more than just an icon; he has been a gay-rights activist since 2008. As an avid advocate of the Human Rights Campaign Equality Tour, which he calls the Equality Trek, Takei coined the phrase, “It’s OK to be Takei,” to counter the notorious Tennessee “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Takei sports his “It’s OK to be Takei” shirt during the Equality Trek.

After college and earning his master’s degree at UCLA, he landed his hallmark role in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second Star Trek (1966) pilot, as the series creator, Gene Roddenberry, wanted a multiracial crew. Even though his career proceeded well from that point on, he unfortunately had to remain closeted in order to sustain it. He and his partner, Brad Altman, had been together more than 21 years before they married on September 14, 2008.

When the California Supreme Court took down the ban on same-sex marriage in May of 2008, Takei and Altman were among the first gay couples to receive their marriage license. Since then, Takei has been a gay-rights activist supporting the LGBTQ cause. During a 2006 interview with Scott Simon on National Public Radio, he said, “I went to school in a black tar paper barrack [as a child in internment camps] and began the day seeing the barbed-wire fence, and thank god those barbed wire fences are now long gone for Japanese Americans. But I still see an invisible, legalistic barbed-wire that keeps me, my partner of 19 years, Brad Altman, and another group of Americans separated from a normal life. That’s what I’ve been advocating on the Human Rights Campaign Equality Tour – I call it the Equality Trek.”

He used his unique baritone voice in several public service announcements including one countering Tennessee’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” bill and stimulated people to say “It’s OK to be Takei.”

One of his goals in ”To Be Takei” was to defy the “stereotypes of same-sex marriage or union and break that.” In the documentary, there is a discriminative instance in Tokyo when Takei receives

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ASIAN OUTLOOK

an award from the Emperor of Japan in the Imperial Palace. This occurred before Takei married Altman.

Other attendees brought their spouses, but because of the negative comments directed towards them, Altman stayed on the bus instead of appearing at the ceremony.

In an interview with CBS This Morning, Takei mentioned that he was initially skeptical about the documentary. “I do not want a vanity project,” he said.

He preferred to film one in which he could share the normality of his life with his spouse. Many directors approached him and Altman, but the couple only agreed to do it under the direction of Jennifer Kroot after numerous persuasive discussions and dinners.

She defines Takei as “sort of like the Dalai Lama of pop culture” and has multiple reasons to say so.

On January 18, 2014, “To Be Takei” was received with positive reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.

Michael Eades wrote in Ain’t It Cool News Review that he “highly recommends seeking this documentary out for anyone that is a Takei fan, a Trek fan, and for people that still need a dose of seeing a dose of seeing a loving gay couple as normal and deserving of the same respect and rights we all should be able to enjoy.” Watch how Takei “transformed as fantastically as science fiction” from his childhood in WWII internment camps to Star Trek to the daily feeds of social media. Oh Myyy!

Sources: http://tobetakei.com/ http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/13968/to_be_takei http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001786/bio

Four Days in Japan

By Anna Lin

T

he first thing I remember about arriving in Japan is how humid and hot it was there. It felt hotter than what I was used to in New York City. The heat, however, did not stop me from appreciating the country’s culture and beauty. The first city I traveled to was Tokyo, where my family and I explored the shopping districts. Many shops and restaurants are located on the upper level floors of the buildings. We took the subway to get around and I remember noticing how different the train system was compared to our train system. Instead of paying a set amount for each ride, you pay for a single ride and the price depends on the location of your destination.

The subways are also a lot cleaner than the MTA. This made me realize how clean Japan is; they take care of their environment. The streets are spotless and you have to hold your own garbage because there are rarely any garbage cans around. The roads in Japan are structured opposite from our roads. Instead of having the steering wheel on the left side, it is on the right side of the car and so, the streets are opposite too, so you drive on the left side of the road.

Compared to New Yorkers, the people in Japan are also very polite. Our bus driver, for example, always greeted the

The culture was very different from both American culture and Chinese culture and the trip allowed me to appreciate the Japanese lifestyle. tourists when we got off and on the bus. He even helped all of us with our luggage by lifting it on and off the tour bus.

As we left one hotel, the staff stood outside while waving us goodbye and only turned to go back in after our bus was out of sight. Apparently, sending guests on their way is Japanese etiquette. They always speak politely to strangers.

I also traveled to Osaka, another city in Japan, where I learned that Japanese people never cross the street unless the walk light is on.

In Osaka, we explored the city square where most of the people hang around. My family and I tried the takoyaki from one of the food stalls. Takoyaki is chopped pieces of squid in dough, shaped like a ball, and topped with dried bonito and green laver. Speaking of food, Japanese people tend not to waste food. They eat moderate portions of different side dishes. Some of the side dishes that I had included poached egg, tsukemono (pickled vegetables), sushi (sliced raw fish over rice), miso soup (miso broth with seaweed and scallion) and edamame (soy beans). The food was not only nutritious, but also delicious.

Japan was a refreshing and beautiful experience for me.

The country amazed me with its tradition and way of life.

The culture was very different from both American culture and Chinese culture and the trip allowed me to appreciate the Japanese lifestyle.

Vol. XXVIII, Issue 1

25

My Experience

in

T

China

I studied abroad in Shanghai, and visited Beijing and Guangzhou as well. The last time I was back to my home country was with my parents in 2001, when I was still in elementary school and wiping my nose on my sleeve. I was young and it has been a long time, but the memory is still vivid.

I remember throwing tantrums and wanting to go back home to New York, because I didn’t have any of the comforts I was used to. My worst memory of China from that trip was getting violently ill after eating street food and having to use the bathroom, only to discover the nearest bathroom was a squat toilet without any toilet paper. I am happy to say that my second trip to China was a lot better than my first.

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I was blown away his summer

By Calvin Chan

by how beautiful and modern the city was. I landed in Pudong International Airport and was surprised to see how nice it was compared to JFK International Airport, where I departed from. It was even equipped with a high-speed maglev train that takes you right to the city’s center at a blistering speed of 431 km/h. As someone used to commuting with the MTA, it was a nice refreshing change of pace. At the city’s center is Pudong, which is Shanghai’s financial district. Pudong houses some of the world’s tallest buildings, such as the Jin Mao Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, and the Shanghai Tower. The Shanghai Tower is the 2nd tallest building in the world, behind the Burj Khalifa, and it’s not even completed yet! My favorite building in Pudong, however, is the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. It might not be

“Looking down at Shanghai from 263 meters in the air was amazing and quite frightening at the same time. “

A scenic view of Shanghai, including the famous Oriental Pearl TV Tower on the far left.

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Shanghai has a variety of delicious cuisines, their most famous being the xiaolongbao.

as tall as its surrounding buildings, but it was the most unique. Inside the tower is a mall, an amusement park, a revolving restaurant, and an observatory made entirely of glass. Looking down at Shanghai from 263 meters in the air was amazing and quite frightening at the same time.

Across from Pudong is The Bund. If Pudong is a symbol of Shanghai’s future, then the Bund is a symbol of Shanghai’s past. In contrast to Pudong’s towering skyscrapers, the Bund features dozens of historical buildings with different architectural styles including Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque, and Renaissance. Here, you can admire the splendor and grandeur of old Shanghai on the one side, and the gleaming promise of new Shanghai on the other side of the river. Together, the night views of the Bund and Pudong are simply not to be missed.

Besides the sights, I never thought I would enjoy Shanghai cuisine as much as I did. Some delicious foods I discovered in Shanghai include stinky tofu, drunken chicken, and hairy crab. The most famous Shanghainese dish is the xiaolongbao, or soup dumpling, which has a cultlike-fanaticism in the city. The xiaolongbao is a pork dumpling that conceals its soup within its skin and is served in bamboo baskets. You can find this delicious snack almost anywhere in Shanghai, with the most famous spot being the Nanxiang Mantou Dian, located in Yu Garden. My favorite xiaolongbao was at a restaurant called Paradise Dynasty, where they served 8 different flavors of the soup dumpling that has to be eaten in a certain order. All of this delicious food was ridiculously

cheap as well; for example, you can buy a basket of xiaolongbao for 10RMB, which is less than two dollars.

Also, with bubble tea shops like CoCo or Happylemon around every corner, Shanghai was heaven, especially for a bubble tea lover like me.

The city of Shanghai has a lot to offer, but it was the people I met there that made my trip so enjoyable. The first day I arrived, my suitemates hooked me up with their wi-fi and showed me around the neighborhood.

Throughout my six weeks in Shanghai, my professors

Another popular dish was the drunken chicken.

were patient with me even if my Chinese wasn’t very fluent. Before I got to Shanghai, I had heard a lot of horror stories about how rude Shanghainese people were, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. Everyone I’ve come across were friendly and made my study abroad trip in Shanghai a blast!

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Interview/

Bonding With

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Interviewed and Transcribed by Tina Yu

Tina: How did you think of this idea and what was your biggest inspiration?

Elina: I have never used Asian products until a year and a half ago. My friend, who was actually from South Korea, came over, she had all these products that she brought from Korea. I tried them and I was amazed by what the result was. I have tried a lot of Western products before, but none of them gave me the results that this product gave me. I have tried a ton of Western products as well, but none of them gave me the same results. The price [was great] too, so I wanted to bring this awareness to more people, so that more people can be exposed to these great products.

Tina: What do you think your biggest challenge has been?

Elina: Biggest challenge, hmm, that’s a good question.

I think, well, actually, we had actually launched our own beauty campaign called the Beauteque Beauty Bag. It’s a subscription beauty bag, we thought that the idea was very fun, but finding products that were both appealing and cost effective for my customers were one of my biggest challenges because we needed to find something that would fit under the budget yet still be appealing to everyone. But I think I’ve managed all right because I’ve been getting some good feedback.

Tina: I’m glad! What about your challenges in other terms, such as being one of the youngest CEOs, what challenges has that brought?

Elina: *Laughs* Well, balancing school and work can be very hard, especially since now I’m a senior, this coming September and SATs in October, you know, with the GPA and prepping for college, yea, it is definitely very, very hard. I think that a big obstacle that I come across every other day would be proving myself; not only proving, but working twice or three times as harder to show other people that I’m not…younger, that I don’t act younger, like my age, that I can be a professional, and that I can be a good partner. Many people would judge, because I’m 16, because I am younger than other people.

Tina: Do you think that this has allowed you to grow up faster? Would you say?

Elina: Yes, definitely. It has really allowed me to grow up faster. You know, you see the real world, and you see a lot of things that are good and bad. You have to talk to a lot of people, meet a lot of people every day. This has made me a lot stronger and a lot more mature.

Tina: Do you think that’s a good thing?

Over the summer, Asian Outlook had the opportunity to interview Elina Hsueh, the 16-year-old Asian American CEO of the startup beauty company, Beauteque.

Elina: Yes, that’s definitely a good thing! I’m happy and I’m excited.

Tina: How supportive were your parents of this idea?

I know that from your blog you mentioned that you presented to them as you would present to funders as the owner of a Fortune 500 company. What were their reactions and do you think that it has changed your family dynamics?

Elina: That’s a good question, actually. Let me tell you the whole story. What had actually happened was that after I had tried my friend’s product and really loved it, I did a lot of research about this market. I knew that I didn’t have the financial ability to start this company, so I sent out invitations through email [to my parents] saying that I needed an investor. I invited them out to dinner, and they were really surprised because they would think that it was someone else, but it was actually their own daughter. They were hesitant at first, because you know, they thought I was too young, or things like that Asian parents would think. But I did a lot of convincing, I got the products for my mom and told her to try and try, so she finally tried [the product] and fell in love with it. My dad and mom really did do a lot of research on the internet and they thought that it was a good market and a good industry to work with at the time.

In terms of family dynamics, it really hasn’t changed all that much. The only thing that has changed was that the fact that my parents not only became my investors but my mom became my business partner. She has been in the business industry, in garment manufacturing, for over 25 years, so she has a ton of experience. She has worked with a lot of big names such as Forever 21, Lord and Taylor, Macy’s, Walmart, for many years, so she had a lot of experience. That was a really big blessing for me. In terms of family dynamics, it really changed the way I saw her, because before, I only saw her as a wife or in the role as a mom, but now, on top of that, you could add a business partner, a business woman, a boss—so that was amazing.

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Tina: So do you also talk about Beauteque at home? Is it part of dinner table conversations now?

Elina: Yes, very frequently. *Laughs* Tina: So what exactly inspired you to think of the “East meets West” idea? I know that you mentioned trying out your friend’s products from Korea, but what are some of your other inspirations?

Elina: Well, what really inspired me was that when I used similar products in the West, they didn’t really have the same result, one; and two, the price was really expensive too. So I wanted to bring this awareness and let people know that some Eastern products are not only cheaper but also a lot better, so that’s how I thought of the “East meets West” market.

Tina: I see. In terms of your goal for the company and for the “East meets West” initiative, what is your outlook? Where do you see the company in five years?

Elina: We just started actually. We launched on March 3rd, so it’s only been a couple of months, but one year

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from now I see our company being very well known through our subscription service. In three years, I see the brand, well I hope to see the brand, become well known in stores and retail. In five years, probably a household name, in 10 years global. *Laughs* Tina: That’s very ambitious! I wish you the best of luck, I believe in you. I think that the company will go far and so will you.

Elina: Thank you so much, it is your kind words like those that give me a lot of inspiration and drive every day.

Tina: I think that there will definitely be a lot more people rooting for you than you realize. So, how has your company been doing so far? Even though it has only been a few months?

Elina: To be honest, it’s been doing well so far. So many opportunities came along, can so many chances. For a company that is only a few months old, it has grown a lot faster than I ever envisioned it to be. Everything for me is a blessing.

Tina: Like you mentioned before, it is quite unusual for Asians to go into entrepreneurship at such a young age.

You told us what happened after you told your parents, but were they always so supportive of you or would they sometimes try to limit your involvement in the company or tell you to focus more on your studies?

Elina: Yes, definitely. *Laughs* Oh my god, I could talk to you endlessly. In the beginning, when I was a lot younger, you know these Asian parents; they would want you to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, etc. My mom and dad wanted me to be on Wall Street, they wanted me to be a financial analyst. That was their dream, their plan for me. I’d say that I wasn’t very cooperative! I thought okay, okay, but that wasn’t my dream, you know, that wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something that was like this: huge. It was very hard in the beginning, but they did agree with it. But I’m telling you, every single day since I started; it was a constant struggle between grades and business, grades and business. Sometime when my grades weren’t up to their standards, they would say “stop working on your business,” they would want to shut it down, they would say, “If it continues like this, what are you going to do?”

Even when business wasn’t going the way they would want to see it, they would be like, “What happened, why isn’t it going the way you wanted it to?” So every day was a constant struggle, but I think over time they realized that what’s best is to just let me achieve and work on my dream.

Tina: I am definitely glad that they are more supportive of you. Do you think that they had let go of some of their past expectations for you and let you do whatever you want in terms of your future?

Elina: I wouldn’t necessarily say whatever I want, but I would say that they definitely understood me a lot more and that I’m a lot happier. So, yea, they were a lot more supportive and a lot more encouraging.

Tina: I see. So what do you like to do in your spare time?

Elina: I like to sew, and I like to play tennis and I like to dance. I also really like to hang out with my best friends.

Tina: Where do you see yourself in the future, personally?

Elina: I think that I would like to go to college, because I’m going to be a senior, and after that I would like to get my MBA. Tina: Any colleges in mind?

Elina: Yea, I like this entrepreneur school that I’d really like to go there, or NYU Stern is another option.

Tina: Well, best of luck with your college application process!

Elina: Thank you.

Tina: What advice would you give future entrepreneurs?

Elina: I’d say that when you have to have support, there are a lot of people to help you through it. Another is to be optimistic. When you are faced with a lot of hard stuff, you have to get through it, but after you get through it, you’re going to think that it’s all worth it. And lastly I’d have to say is to set and pursue your dream and never give up.

Note: Readers can receive a 10% discount on any purchase on http:// www.beauteque.com/ if they enter the code “ASIAN OUTLOOK” at checkout.

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e c n e i c s on

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Photo by Luke Nguyen

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“Good Morning, Kappa-san” ASIAN OUTLOOK

By Ying Xu

VSA Haikus Outside the window Golden leaves falling from trees Autumn is coming Under the blue sky Sakura dances in the air Oh, sweet Spring has come

High mountains, blue sea Beautiful heaven on earth Vietnam, our country

Ba ba, you were there To give, to feed, to take care Ba ba, I’ll be there

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The Ocean I Knew Once

By Diandra Hassan

From her window, she could feel the grains of sand grazing her feet, and hear the melody of the ocean that was sung by an empty shell

“I’ve always imagined being one with the ocean, the ocean I knew once” She wrote that once on her journal: a journal covered with a map that had a blurry color of the sea on it

She searched for the place she came from on the map, but the vast ocean hid her memory

And she also understood this: the map also hides her memory like the night that hides an empty town

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Photo by John Paul Randrup

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

— Mother Teresa

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“Life in Colors” Oil Painting on Canvas

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By Rashid Shafi

Hide and Seek

By Angela Wu I always open her doors and let her in, Yet she refuses to keep me safe.

Distracted by her goldfish memory, Sick of being forever neglected My sinister schemes to toy with her are all in good fun.

It’s not my fault I enjoy hiding from her.

I’m teaching her the importance Of cherishing something so shiny and gilded with gold.

I am the Joker of this room!

Hiding under stacks of papers, Ruffled bed sheets, Dust filled floors, These are my different homes.

She’ll never find me!

Suddenly, I hear knocks on the door Her complaints to be let in, Finally searching for me.

Someone else unlocks her door, I see her face peep under her bed.

She is so close, I see the crinkles on her forehead.

Red chubby cheeks and big wet eyes Did I take it too far?

“I’m here! I’m here!” I want to scream to her.

I yearn to be held in her warm soft hands.

In a few moments, I’ll have to deal with her harsh impatient motions Of jamming me into her door lock But for now, I am cozy in her grasp, A little moist, But enjoying the feeling of being found.

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