ASAM 197: Asian American Arts and Activism
SPRING 2009
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The course addresses the lack of recognition given to the role of the arts in the Asian American movement. It will primarily focus on the role that the arts have played in social justice and awareness work situated in the context of the Asian American movement. It will look at how art, whether in music, fine arts, street art, poetry, etc. has transformed as a part of social justice and awareness work and responded to changing times.
This course will encourage students to support local Asian American art events with their participation and attendance as well as their boundless creativity. Individual and class projects will include the production of creative works, publications or workshops and conferences.
In addition, students will collaborate to create the next year’s ASAM 197 course topic and syllabus.
PEDAGOGICAL STATEMENT
The course is designed to provide students with the greatest opportunity to enrich themselves in Asian American studies through the course material and leadership inside the classroom. The learning process will continue outside the classroom, in the greater Los Angeles area, specifically within Asian American communities. Off-campus site visits comprise a significant portion of the class. The overall success of this course rests solely on the commitment of each individual student.
Our pedagogical model is based on the experiences of learning through teaching. As such, students’ course grades will reflect feedback from their classmates and the faculty collaborator.
ASSIGNMENTS
-1. Due end of week 2: Decorated “stream of consciousness” journal.
-1. 2 times a week: 5-10 minute journal entry.
-1. Due end of semester: Final Creative Project.
This can be an individual or group project. Possible projects include a creative performance piece, short film, workshop, written piece, etc. It must in some way be related to activism, education and raising awareness about contemporary Asian American issues to a larger Claremont community. 


SPEAKER SERIES

CROSS-CAMPUS CONFERENCE

WEEK1
Tuesday
Intro the course

Thursday
- Intro people
- Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

WEEK2
Tuesday
- Karen Umemoto, "On Strike!" San Francisco State College Strike, 1968-1969: The Role of Asian American Students" (Contemporary Asian America) p.49-75
- Glenn Omatsu, "The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation: Asian American Activism from the 1960s to the 1990s" (Contemporary Asian America) p. 80-112)

Thursday
- Dorinne Kondo, Chapter 31 "Art, Activism, Asia, and Asian Americans" (Contemporary Asian America) p. 636-664
- Fred Houn, "Revolutionary Asian American Art: Tradition and Change, Inheritance and Innovation, Not Imitation!" (Legacy to Liberation) p.383-388

WEEK3
Tuesday
- Elaine H. Kim, "Interstitial Subjects: Asian American Visual Art as a Site for New Cultural Conversations" (Fresh Talk Daring Gazes) p. 1-50
-Elizam EScobar "Art of Liberation A vision of freedom" 86-95 (reimaging America_Arts of Social Change)


Thursday
- ed. Augie Tam, Chapter 30 "Is There An Asian American Aesthetics?" (Contemporary Asian America) p.627-635
-Ricardo Levins Morales "The Importance of Being Artist" p.16-24 (Reimaging America_Arts of Social Change)
- Nina Felshin, "Introduction" (But is it Art?) p.9-29

WEEK4 REPRESENTATION
Tuesday
- Stuart Hall reading on media literacy (Get from Nancy to choose articles)
-Richard Fung , "Seeing Yellow: Asian Identities in Film and Video" p.161-171 (State of AA in 1990s)
- Nick Carbó, “Assignment” p. 239-240 (Screaming Monkeys) prose
- - Denise Duhamal, “Hello Kitty”242-245 Poem

Thursday (Filipino representation)
- Catherine Choi, Salvaging the savage on representing filipinos p.35-49 (Screaming Monkeys) article
- Rick Bonus, Homeland Memories and Media: Filipino images and imagination in America p. 145-153 (Screaming Monkeys) Filipino images

WEEK5 THEATRE
Tuesday
- Chapter 1 Critical Strategies for reading AA drama, page 1-34 (Josephine Lee, Performing Asian America)
- 99 Histories or Durango by Julia Cho (mental illness, history, generation, gender)

Thursday
- Chapter 5 Acts of Exclusion: AA History of plays, pg136-163, (Lee, Performing Asian America)
- FOB play (50 pages) by David Henry Hwang




WEEK6
Tuesday
- Lane Ryo HIrabayashi, intro, (significance of visual media and potential) (Reversing the Lens) 3-11
- Jun Xing, empowerment, smashing stereotypes and developing empathy (RL) 11-29
- Stephen Gong, A History in Progress:Asian American Media Arts Centers (SAA)

Thursday
-Bill Nicholas, Historical consciousness and the viewer: who killed vincent chin (SAA) + video (SCREENING)

WEEK7 GENDER/SEXUALITY
Tuesday

GENDER ARTICLE???
- Elaine Kim, Asian American Women Artists p. 573-602
-Alqizola Hirabayashi, confronting gender stereotypes of Asian american women (RL) 155-169
slaying the dragon- Hirabayashi, Issue of Reinscription (RL) 241-249 (SCREENING)

Thursday
- "The Art and Politics of Asian American Women" (Legacy to Liberation) p.235-242
- Laura Hyung-Yi Kang, The desiring of Asian Female Bodies', interracial romance and cinematic subjugation (SAA)
- Jessica Hagedorn, “Asian Women in Film: No joy no luck” p.204 (Screaming Monkeys) 6 page reflection/analysis
- Miss Saigon boycotting reading????

WEEK8
Tuesday
QUEER ARTICLES???
1) Looking for My Penis - Richard Fung. Examines emasculation of gay Asian American males in pornography

3) Creating, Curating, and Consuming Queer Asian American Cinema, Ji Han and Marie Morohoshi. An interview w/ the director of the annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF).

Thursday
DETAILS Magazine
Screaming Monkeys men section???
LGBT Organizing thru media???


WEEK9
Tuesday
- Abelmann and Lee, Blue dreams p.399-406 (screaming monkeys) article on LA rebellion and race relation
- Anna Smith, "Twilight," monologues on LA rebellion and race relations

Thursday
- Sesshu Foster Manual something…
- Thiem Bao Thuc Phi, Reverse Racism p.154-155 (Screaming Monkeys) Humor, Prose
- Prashad, summer of bruce, pg.255-265 (Screaming monkeys) Article on polyculturalism and about afro-asian culture

WEEK10 VIOLENCE/WAR
Tuesday
-Lin and Tan, Holding Up More than Half the Heavens: Domestic Violence in our communities 321-334 AA in 1990s
-RIta Chaudhry Sethi p.235-247 Smells like Racism State of AA in 1990s
- Yamamoto, Wilshire Bus, 413-416 (screaming monkeys) short story

Thursday
MID-APRIL: TAD NAKAMURA’S DOC + MANZANAR PILGRIMAGE
-Inada, drawing the line p. 367-376 (screaming monkeys) poem on interment

WEEK11
Tuesday
-Enemies within and without pressure to depolitize community art 148-153 (reimaging a)
- Melanie Kramer, "Garden the City: Activism through Interventionist Art" p.121-132
- Aileen Penner, Jacinda Mack & Lee Bensted, "Salmon Tales: Eco-Art Activism" (Wild Fire) p.133-145
- Sau Wai Tai, "Confessions of a Community Artist: A Letter to My Fellow Earthworkers" (Wild Fire) p.146-159
- Pariss Garramone, "Tellingsmiths: The Work of Planting Trees and the Politics of Memory" (Wild Fire) p.160
PLUS FARMLAB

Thursday
- Heather Lash, "You are my Sunshine: Refugee Participation in Performance" (Wild Fire) p.221-229
- collective work eva sperling cockcroft(reimaging america) 190-198
PLUS THE DRAMATHERAPY DUDE

12 break
13
14
15

PUT YOUR READINGS UNDER THESE TOPICS!

1 AA Movement/New/early

- Chapter 4: speaking out, asian American alternative press (William White, Asian American Movement)
- Chapter 1: Origins of the Movement (White, AA Movement)
- Chapter 3: Race v. Gender, the AA women’s Movement (White, AA Movement)
- Carlos Buloson, America is in the Heart p.53 novel excerpt (Screaming Monkeys)6 pages
- Bienvenido Santos, The Day the Dancers Came p.126 novel excerpt (Screaming Monkeys) 11pages
- Thaddeus Rukowski, Hello Nuremberg p. 144 prose (about transnationalism in Screaming Monkeys) 1 page.
- Stephen Gong, A History in Progress:Asian American Media Arts Centers (SAA) 101-111
- Roland Tolentino, Identity and Difference in :Filipino/a American" Media Arts, (SAA) 111-133
- Karen Umemoto, "On Strike!" San Francisco State College Strike, 1968-1969: The Role of Asian American Students" (Contemporary Asian America) p.49-75
- Glenn Omatsu, "The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation: Asian American Activism from the 1960s to the 1990s" (Contemporary Asian America) p. 80-112)
- "Rethinking the Asian American Studies Project: Bridging the Divide Between Campus and Community." Kenyon Chan
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_asian_american_studies/v003/3.1chan.html
- Petra Kukacka, Chapter 9 "Mixing Metaphors: Risk in Art and Activism" (Wild Fire) p110-118
- Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed




1.5 Asian Americans and Art general background

- ed. Augie Tam, Chapter 30 "Is There An Asian American Aesthetics?" (Contemporary Asian America) p.627-635
- Dorinne Kondo, Chapter 31 "Art, Activism, Asia, and Asian Americans" (Contemporary Asian America) p. 636-664
- Fred Houn, "Revolutionary Asian American Art: Tradition and Change, Inheritance and Innovation, Not Imitation!" (Legacy to Liberation) p.383-388
- Elaine H. Kim, "Interstitial Subjects: Asian American Visual Art as a Site for New Cultural Conversations" (Fresh Talk Daring Gazes) p. 1-50
- Jan Avgikos, Chapter 3 "Group Material Timeline: Activism as a Work of Art" (But is it Art?) p.85-116
- Nina Felshin, "Introduction" (But is it Art?) p.9-29
-David Mura "Shift in Power, A Sea Changes in the Arts" p.183-204 (The State of AA in 1990s)
-Ricardo Levins Morales "The Importance of Being Artist" p.16-24 (Reimaging America_Arts of Social Change)
-Elizam EScobar "Art of Liberation A vision of freedom" 86-95 (reimaging America_Arts of Social Change)



2 Gender/Sexuality
- Jessica Hagedorn, “Asian Women in Film: No joy no luck” p.204 (Screaming Monkeys) 6 page reflection/analysis
- Laura Hyung-Yi Kang, The desiring of Asian Female Bodies', interracial romance and cinematic subjugation (SAA)
- "The Art and Politics of Asian American Women" (Legacy to Liberation) p.235-242
- Oona Padgham, "Arts in Detention: Creating Connections with Immigrant Women Detainees" (Wild Fire) p.117-187


3 Theatre
- FOB play (50 pages) by David Henry Hwang
- Golden Child By David Henry Hwang
- Chapter 2 of (National Abjection) “The dance that’s happening”
- Chapter 1 Critical Strategies for reading AA drama, page 1-34 (Josephine Lee, Performing Asian America)
- Chapter 3, "Chinaman’s unmanly grief" pg. 61-89 (Lee, Performing Asian America)  (about this Chicken Coop Chinaman)
- Chicken Coop Chinaman by Frank Chin  60 pages

- Chapter 4 Seduction of Stereotype pg89-136 (Lee, performing asian america)
- Chapter 5 Acts of Exclusion: AA History of plays, pg136-163, (Lee, Performing Asian America)
- 99 Histories by Julia Cho (mental illness, history, generation, gender)
-


4 LA/Race

- Thiem Bao Thuc Phi, Reverse Racism p.154-155 (Screaming Monkeys) Humor, Prose
- Prashad, summer of bruce, pg.255-265 (Screaming monkeys) Article on polyculturalism and about afro-asian culture
- LEw, Black Korea p. 395-398 (screaming monkeys) Prose/poetry Black Korea
- Abelmann and Lee, Blue dreams p.399-406 (screaming monkeys) article on LA rebellion and race relation

- Anna Smith, "Twilight," monologues on LA rebellion and race relations



5 Representation
- Catherine Choi, Salvaging the savage on representing filipinos p.35-49  (Screaming Monkeys) article
- Thaddeus Rukowski, White and Wong p.142 (Screaming Monkeys) 1 page. poem
- Rick Bonus, Homeland Memories and Media: Filipino images and imagination in America p. 145-153 (Screaming Monkeys) Filipino images
- Yamanaka, I Wanna Marry a Haole so I can Have a Haole Last Name p.231-237 (Screaming Monkeys) Prose assimilation
- Nick Carbó, “Assignment” p. 239-240 (Screaming Monkeys) prose
- Denise Duhamal, “Hello Kitty”242-245 Poem
-Richard Fung , "Seeing Yellow: Asian Identities in Film and Video" p.161-171 (State of AA in 1990s)


7 Violence/war
- Jose Ileto p.125 + spoken word media track 7
- Bill Nicholas, Historical consciousness and the viewer: who killed vincent chin (Screening Asian Americans) P159-173 + show video
- LinMark, the two Filipinos,  (screaming monkeys) 321-323 short story assimilation anger
-Inada, drawing the line p. 367-376 (screaming monkeys) poem on interment
- Huynh, SOuth wind changing p. 384-391 (screaming monkeys) novel excerpt 
- Yamamoto, Wilshire Bus, 413-416 (screaming monkeys) short story
-RIta Chaudhry Sethi p.235-247 Smells like Racism State of AA in 1990s
-Lin and Tan, Holding Up More than Ha;f the Heavens: Domestic Violence in our communities 321-334 AA in 1990s


8 Film
- Jessica Hagedorn, “Asian Women in Film: No joy no luck” p.204 (Screaming Monkeys)
-Bill Nicholas, Historical consciousness and the viewer: who killed vincent chin (SAA) + video
- Stephen Gong, A History in Progress:Asian American Media Arts Centers (SAA)
- Roland Tolentino Identity and difference in "filipino/a American" Media Arts (SAA)
- Lane Ryo HIrabayashi, intro, (significance of visual media and potential) (Reversing the Lens) 3-11
- Jun Xing, empowerment, smashing stereotypes and developing empathy (RL) 11-29
-Alqizola Hirabayashi, confronting gender stereotypes of Asian american women (RL) 155-169
+ slaying the dragon

- Hirabayashi, Issue of Reinscription (RL) 241-249



9 Transnational

- Robbie Seth, Fifty-Fifty p.181-188 (Screaming Monkeys) prose
- Bino Realuyo, Four million p. 191-202 (Screaming Monkeys) poem


10 Healing (earth, individuals, groups)
- Melanie Kramer, "Garden the City: Activism through Interventionist Art" p.121-132
- Aileen Penner, Jacinda Mack & Lee Bensted, "Salmon Tales: Eco-Art Activism" (Wild Fire) p.133-145
- Sau Wai Tai, "Confessions of a Community Artist: A Letter to My Fellow Earthworkers" (Wild Fire) p.146-159
- Pariss Garramone, "Tellingsmiths: The Work of Planting Trees and the Politics of Memory" (Wild Fire) p.160
- Heather Lash, "You are my Sunshine: Refugee Participation in Performance" (Wild Fire) p.221-229
-Enemies within and without pressure to depolitize community art 148-153 (reimaging a)
collective work eva sperling cockcroft(reimaging america) 190-198

I've been wanting to post this it's so funny

Grocery Store Wars

It's been too long! Intense Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients
8 oz of bittersweet chocolate chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla ( I always use a little more : ) )
1 TBSP orange liquor (grand marnier or cointreau are best; optional)
Cocoa (dutch process is best)

1. Heat the cream in a small saucepan until it is just boiling.
2. Immediately turn off the heat and allow the cream to sit for 20-30 seconds. With a wire whisk, slowly stir the cream and chocolates together until the chocolate is completely melted.
3. Whisk in the vanilla and orange liquor(opt.).
4. Set aside at room temperature for 1 hour or in the fridge so that the mixture can set


With 2 teaspoons, spoon round balls of the chocolate mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roll each ball of chocolate in your hands to roughly make it round. Roll in cocoa powder. These will keep refrigerated for weeks, but for best results serve them at room temperature.

Tambourine Man!!

WAIT FOR IT...................



WAIT FOR IT...................



WAIT FOR IT...................



WAIT FOR IT...................



HELL YEAH!!!

Arts Course Focus

The Fluid Version of the Arts and Activism/Artistic Activism Course

The course addresses the lack of recognition given to the role of the arts in the Asian American movement. focuses attention on the role that the arts has played in social justice and awareness work situated in the context of the Asian American movement. It will look at how art, whether in music, fine arts, street art, or poetry, transformed as a part of social justice and awareness work and responded to changing times.

Add! Change! Improve!

Menu project

Often when you look in a telephone book there is one section for Asian and if you are lucky there are subcategories such as Japanese, Chinese or Korean. One of my favorite restaurants when I go home is an “Asian” restaurant, the name is Yu’s Mandarin. During winter break when I took my best friend, Eric there his mom told him to take a menu because “Laurie’s family knows Asian food”. The menu is simple and unadorned but the same couldn’t be said for the restaurant. There are golden lions outside the entrance and even more inside to greet you. The waiting area is small but there is a row of seating along the wall. There are Japanese language magazines on a table and even a shoji screen next to the bar. There is a podium that takes your party’s name which always has a red banner on it with golden Chinese characters. The hostess is always a woman and more often than not is a young women in her 20s. She’s usually dressed in a cheongsam or at least has chopsticks in her hair. There are lucky bamboo plants and bamboo planters everywhere along with a small bubbling rock fountain.
The menu is interesting because there is a picture of people cooking and a blurb that reads, “For an unbelievable dining experience, enjoy superior Chinese cooking as you watch our chefs masterfully prepare traditional dishes and house specialties behind a magnificent glass backdrop”. There is no way that this cannot be food pornography. Sometimes you can see a chef hand making noodles through this glass window and it is quite showy. Usually all you can see are chefs turning woks and seeing huge red flames.
The rest of the menu is all in English with Chinese character subheadings except for the last page which is only in Chinese Characters and Korean Hangul script. The items on the Chinese/Korean language menu aren’t clearly delineated as different from the front pages but there are quite different prices and the numbers don’t match up to the numbers on the English menu. I’ve gone to this restaurant with different groups of people one being friends and the other family. When I go with my family we eat at the big tables where they have lazy susans but there are always dishes that I can’t find on the English language menu. Clearly there are two markets that they are trying to cater to. One is white Americans and the other is Chinese, Koreans and Japanese speaking Americans who crave traditional, “authentic” cuisine that may seem odd, unusual or disgusting to the general population.
However, the items that are clearly made for white Americans cannot be clearly separated either unless you or other guests you are dining with know that certain dishes are not authentic such as General Tso’s chicken, Sweet and Sour Chicken and Pork, Orange Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Fried Rice, Crab Rangoon, Mongolian Beef, Chow Mein and basically any fried food especially egg rolls. Most of the “authentic” dishes are more Americanized. The egg rolls for example have thicker skins and are full of meat instead of traditional egg rolls with thin crispy skins filled with carrots, bean sprouts, cabbage and other thinly sliced fresh vegetables. One time I ordered an eggplant dish in English and what I got at the table was heavily sauced, fried eggplant when I was expecting a dish that I had ordered before in Mandarin which was fresh eggplant with a light spicy sauce with fresh basil leaves and boiled peanuts. I find it extremely interesting that the chefs and wait staff will vary a dish depending on who is the perceived customer.
“Traditional” Asian dishes use vegetables as their main focus and meat serves as a garnish but with American food it’s the other way around. They don’t say Americans are meat and potatoes for no reason! Most people assume that “Asian” food is greasy, full of refined carbohydrates such as noodles and rice, and with tons of MSG lobbed on. Asian food doesn’t need to be that way. Asian cultures are full of fresh foods that are locally grown or raised. In Japanese restaurants if the fish for sushi is not fresh then you are in trouble. In Chinese restaurants you are given the impression that the food is not necessarily fresh because there are no indications to tell you otherwise. You can hide taste and freshness with spices, lots of oil, and MSG.
The atmosphere of the restaurant itself is interesting. The wait staff are all male and either Chinese or Korean while the busing staff are usually Hispanic males. In this setting there are few females on staff so women aren’t hyper sexualized as they are in other Asian restaurants. It seems that the décor is more stereotypical of an “Asian” restaurant with a golden Buddha at the front, boxed dolls, Asian wall fans, silk paintings, and glass paintings all over the walls. I feel like they are here to reassure non-Asians that this is an authentic restaurant full of the dishes and décor they have become accustomed to. By marketing to both groups simultaneously they can have save space by having almost like two restaurants in one. They can fulfill the expectations of Chinese and Korean diners seeking Chinese cuisine but also the palate and visual expectations that westerners have created. What is particularly problematic is that Westerners begin to believe that the found served to them in the restaurant is the same stuff that Chinese Americans eat at home everyday. This only reiterates the stereotypes of Asians as all the same and of opium dens and the like.
I don’t necessarily think that we should necessarily accuse Asian American business owners of selling out when they create dishes with the American palate in mind. However, I feel that if one is only making these dishes only to earn a living that is wrong. Food plays a huge role in cultural identity and if chefs are deliberately distorting these dishes then they run the risk of distorting the cultural identity they put out as well as their own identity.

my plant

Hiya, i know we're supposed to post today what sort of things we want to plant in the garden, and i want to plant garlic! either garlic or okra. does anybody know a website telling you what things are good to plant this time of year in SoCal?

Also, don't forget to post your menu projects, when u finish them!

TALK TOMORROW!!!!

Hey y'all Professor Suh's talk at the motley is toorrow 10 am until 12 pm.

Menu project (yay 4 saving paper)

FYI - This was about 5.5 pages double-spaced, thought I would be environmentally friendly by posting online instead of printing!


Justin Royal – Menu Project
March 4, 2008
Chef Wang’s Asian Buffet – Murfreesboro, TN
Twenty, possibly even ten, years ago, mentioning the words “Chinese food” in Murfreesboro, TN would have yielded responses such as “You mean fried dog and fortune cookies?” At the time, responses such as these were at least somewhat understandable: Asian Americans comprised a shockingly low percentage of the Murfreesboro population, and most ideas of what “Asian” food was were based primarily off of frozen dinners at the local grocery store.
Yet in the past decade, Murfreesboro has topped many lists of America’s fasting growing population, with a huge first- and second-generation Asian American population (mainly Chinese and Laotian) – one primary reason being Nissan’s main production plant opening in a nearby city, whose jobs paid well and required hard physical labor rather than proficient English skills.
As the Asian American population in Murfreesboro began to grow, so did its food outlets. A few family-owned eateries opened to cater exclusively to the Asian community, but the vast majority of white residents remained clueless as to what “Asian” food actually was. Clueless, that is, until the restaurant industry discovered an ingenious way to make white patrons feel ‘cultured’, adventurous, and knowledgeable about Asian cuisine without having to use chopsticks, AND to consume shockingly large portions of food in shockingly low amounts of time – Asian buffets.
While Asian buffets exist all across the country, they serve a unique role in Murfreesboro – for many residents, they embody all they will ever know (and will care to know) about Asian food. At this point, it should probably be noted that Asian is nearly synonymous with Chinese, but restaurant owners feared the schema of “Chinese” food would discourage many potential customers for fear of accidentally consuming cat, dog, or some other domesticated animal. To this end, many Murfreesboro-ers’s definition of Asian food embodies the following food: General Tso’s chicken, Chinese donuts, sweet n’ sour chicken, lo mein noodles, and 5 other variations of chicken that have been cooked in gallons of oil and loaded with nearly toxic levels of MSG.
Eating at Asian buffets in Murfreesboro, and listening to the other patrons, is simultaneously interesting and comical: “Asian food is so good!” “How do Asian people eat all this food and stay skinny?” Many patrons don’t realize that out of all the people in the restaurant, probably 1-2% are actually Asian Americans (who are most likely there to work and not eat). The industry is wildly successful: how else could you deliver a taste similar to the greasiness of McDonald’s but let customers brag about expanding their culinary horizons at the end of the day?
Chef Wang’s is the most well-known of the Asian buffets in Murfreesboro, and I chose to examine their menu because they actually do offer a few menu items found in authentic Chinese restaurants, the most notable being a few types of the dumplings you can find at dim sum. Walking into the door of Chef Wang’s, you are greeted and seated by a hostess wearing a Japanese kimono (even though there is not a single Japanese menu item), and automatically given plates for the buffet (unless you specify otherwise). As a local restaurant reviewer described, the restaurant provides “a family atmosphere, with traditional Asian music playing in the background.” (traditional Asian music? I mean, the musics of India, China, Japan, and all the other Asian countries are all SO similar, let’s just use one adjective – Asian – to describe all of them!) Service is minimal, with server-customer interactions usually limited to the server toting away the dozens of dirty plates accumulated at each table.
The actual menu at Chef Wang’s is relatively straightforward – basically, for those who want their entrée prepared fresh (instead of sitting on top of a food warmer for the past six hours), or for those with smaller appetites, any buffet item can be ordered a la carte. The buffet costs $5.99 for lunch and $12.99 at dinner – the price increase being attributable to the all-you-can-eat crab legs served at dinner. I do have to give the restaurant some credit for the fact that preparing such large quantities of food is no easy task. Different reports have calculated anywhere between 120-150 buffet items available at any given time. As mentioned before, may of the “authentic” items on the buffet are usually some type of meat drenched in oil, garnished by a few decorative vegetables – stark contrast to the standard diet of many Asian countries, in which plain rice accounts for the majority of daily calories, and meat is a garnish, not a main course. Luckily, for customers too scared to venture into the unknown, the buffet also includes classic American foods such as macaroni n cheese, chicken fingers, Jell-O, and pepperoni pizza. Convincing one’s friends to eat at Chef Wang’s is usually no problem due to the inclusion of these foods – those with less adventurous taste buds can be comforted by knowing that Chef Wang’s also serves “real food.”
The owners of Chef Wang’s are perfect examples of food pornographers – they KNOW what they are putting on their buffet lines is a far cry from real Chinese food. Yet, by embellishing their buffet plates with Chinese characters and listing their buffet items in Chinese (with English translations), they try to lead customers into thinking that they are having an authentic and novel cultural experience. Not surprisingly, a good friend who speaks and writes Chinese fluently that few, if any, of the translations are accurate, most of the characters are non-existent, and that many of the English words used to describe the menu items don’t even translate into Chinese. When I asked her if she planned on saying anything to the managers, her response was, “Why would they care? Have you ever seen any actual Asian Americans eating in here anyways? The customers don’t know if the translations are right.” In a sense, what she says is true – if white patrons can continue eating the “exotic” menu items at Chef Wang’s without knowing that what they’re actually eating may be impossible to find anywhere in Asia, and without knowing that the Chinese-English translations are completely fake, does it really matter in the end?
Yes, it does matter, because especially when language barriers are involved, we learn much of what we know about a culture based on its food. Logically, false information about that culture’s food leads to false information about that culture in general. Furthermore, ensuring patrons that they are eating the “real stuff” leads to potential catastrophes later on – imagine going to eat dim sum with a Chinese family after assuring them that you “loved the dim sum at Chef Wang’s!” How would you feel after a plate of chicken feet arrives at your table, and everybody expects you to be the first person to dig in? How would you feel after finally going to a REAL, authentic Chinese restaurant and asking the waitress why General Tso’s chicken isn’t on the menu?
The aforementioned situations are realistic possibilities that not only embarrass the consumer but frustrate those in the restaurant industry who are NOT food pornographers. The mother of my best friend owns a small Vietnamese grocery store, which includes a small eating area that serves dishes such as pho and bun rieu. These authentic Vietnamese dishes don’t fit Murfreesboro’s mental schema of Asian food, and often lead potential customers wondering where the ‘real stuff’ is. Luckily, there’s still a venue for her dishes because of the ever-increasing Asian American population in the city. Ms. Senboutarath feels no need to disguise any aspects of her dishes in an attempt to appease the white customer’s palate, and while she’s made a comfortable living for herself and her family serving a predominantly Asian American clientele, white customers typically regard the place as “too ethnic” and uncomfortable. In some ways, their feelings are understandable – are struggling with potential language barriers, dealing with unfamiliar menu names, and not understanding relevant manners and etiquette really worth the prize of “true” ethnic food, when an all-you-can-eat buffet with an atmosphere as comfortable as McDonald’s is right down the street?
In conclusion, I by no means suggest that Chef Wang’s, or any other “Asian” buffet, is an offense to the restaurant industry or the Asian American community – clearly, they’ve succeeded in providing a relatively affordable and fast way for anybody to consume a month’s supply of MSG. But what happens when the only knowledge whites have about Asian food is based solely on these buffets? The menu items are clearly not accurate depictions of the standard Asian American diet, but they provide the typical Murfreesboroan’s sole image of what Asian food is, and consequently, who Asian Americans are. Furthermore, because housing in Murfreesboro tends to be segregated by race, eating may be one of the only venues for communication. But by never venturing into eateries like those of Ms. Senboutarath’s, some people remain under the impression that Asian American women wear kimonos every day, and that Asian American families eat General Tso’s chicken, Sesame Beef, and strawberry Jell-O for dinner.

Supersize me

I am supposed to lead class this week, but realized that we are watching Supersize Me. I will bring the film to class but it is a pretty long movie (100 minutes). So, it is going to go over the first class session... unless everyone is willing to stay a little after class this tuesday to finish it up. Just wanted to give you all a heads up!

syllabus materials

Hi, I've looked more into the sexuality articles I mentioned in class today and think they'd be great for the next class:

1) Looking for My Penis - Richard Fung. Examines emasculation of gay Asian American males in pornography

2) The Joy Fuck Club: Prolegomenon to an Asian American Porno Practice, Darrell Y. Hamamoto. Hypersexualization/eroticization of Asian American women in porn.

3) Creating, Curating, and Consuming Queer Asian American Cinema, Ji Han and Marie Morohoshi. An interview w/ the director of the annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF).

FYI,
These 3 readings are all fairly short reads, about the same lengths as most of the chapters in our reader.

Also, here are the descriptions of the 2 books that look promising:

1) One Way or Another:

Contemporary Asian American artists––with a strong sense of being American and an acute critical consciousness of world matters––grapple with issues of identity in a way that sets them apart from their predecessors. Whereas many Asian American artists of a previous generation directly referred to an Asian sense of self in their works, it can be argued that younger Asian American artists only sometimes make reference to it or omit it entirely.

This creatively designed book focuses on recent works by seventeen Asian American artists born in the late 1960s and 1970s––including Patty Chang, Kaz Oshiro, and Jean Shin––to explore this pivotal generation of artists, the prevalent themes in their art, and the different ways they configure identity in their work. One Way or Another features examples of painting, sculpture, and video and installation art––many previously unpublished––and includes essays that discuss the shifting meaning of Asian America over the last decade and address the issues of mixed heritage and the emergence of an evolving Asian American identity in an increasingly globalized society.


2) Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes:

Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes chronicles the blossoming of Asian American art and anticipates the growing democratization of American art and culture. Pairing work by twenty-four contemporary Asian American visual artists with responses provocatively drawn from cultural critics, other artists, activists, and intellectuals, this book explores themes of geographical movement, the sexuality of Asian bodies, colonization, miscegenation, hybrid forms of immigrant cultures, the loss of home, war, history, and memory.
Elaine H. Kim's historical introduction charts the trajectory of Asian American art from the nineteenth century to the present, offering a comprehensive account of artists, major artworks, and major events. Commentaries by writers, artists, and cultural activists examine the work of visual artists such as Pacita Abad, Albert Chong, Y. David Chung, Allan deSouza, Michael Joo, Hung Liu, Yong Soon Min, Manuel Ocampo, PipoNguyen-Duy, Roger Shimomura, Carlos Villa, and Martin Wong. Prominent artists and critics such as Homi K. Bhabha, Luis Camnitzer, Enrique Chagoya, Gina Dent, Ellen Gallagher, Arturo Lindsay, Kobena Mercer, Griselda Pollock, Jolene Rickard, Faith Ringgold, Ella Shohat, Lowery Stokes Sims, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie offer thought-provoking reflections on each artist. Sharon Mizota's extended captions further elucidate the paintings, graphics, photography, installations, and mixed-media constructions under discussion.
As a set of dialogues, simultaneously visual and textual, Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes encourages the cross-cultural conversation that is shaping the emerging art of Asian Americans and of the United States in general. Alternately personal, intellectual, aesthetic, and political, these essays and the art they consider provide unique perspectives on both the past and the future of American art.

From the Inside Flap
"Godzookie Lives! Kim, Machida, and Mizota have opened up a whole new series of conversations on identity within a varied and distinguished group of artists and writers. And we get to eavesdrop. The artists are Asian American, the respondents are from all over the map, and the results are in turn scholarly, political, intimate, and provocative. This dialogic form, across cultures, across generations, brings a breath of fresh air to cultural studies."--Lucy R. Lippard, author of Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America

"This wonderfully rich collection is three big projects stuffed into one: critical essays that help us theorize and historicize the Asian American art of the past and present; a generous sampling of contemporary artworks, accompanied by provocative and informative captions; and a series of responses to the efforts of individual artists by a wide range of intellectuals and activists. Altogether, we discover Asian American art at the crossroads of history, theory, criticism, and practice. Scholarly and sassy, personal and critical, this book stakes out an emerging and exciting field."--Anthony W. Lee, author of Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco

"This brilliantly original collection of essays and images overflows with experimental energy and ideas. Structured to foreground difference and to reflect theoretical, historical, and poetic perspectives, Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes radically redraws the cultural profile of Asian America."--Mark Johnson, co-curator of With New Eyes: Toward an Asian American Art History in the West

"Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes chronicles the coming of age of a distinct category in the American art scene. This paradigm-setting book collects together major voices in Asian American art and art criticism, literally acting as a visual and textual declaration that Asian American art has finally arrived."--Shu-mei Shih, author of The Lure of the Modern

related to last week's topic

HAHA - I found this on slashfood.com:

No fruit in that snack? I could have told you that.
Posted Feb 25th 2008 2:00PM by Shayna Glick
Filed under: Snacks, British Isles, Business, Fruit, Food Quest

I was just reading about a survey done by a U.K. group called the Food Commission. The group looked at several products that were fruit flavored (they actually concentrated on strawberry flavored foods) to see what the actual fruit content was. Well, it wasn't so great. Only about 40% of the products had any fruit in them at all, and those that did only had minimal amounts.

The Food Commission is upset. They say that the products which have no fruit but are flavored and have that fruit pictured all over the packaging are misleading consumers, at the very least. But in this day and age, with all the studies that have been done and all the information available, can anyone really claim to not know what they're eating? Maybe companies can be misleading on packaging, but they can't outright lie on the label information (though they do find tricky ways around some information).

I just assume that big corporations are lying to me. I assume that anything in a box or other packaging has very little nutrition, especially real fruit. If a food says it's fruit flavored and has that picture on the front, you still need to read the ingredient label to know what you're really eating. I feel like people should take charge of their own consumption. Read the label. Then if you still eat it, at least you know what you're getting.

schedule change?

I know I'll probably ask yall about this in class tomorrow, but would anybody else want to make a :slight: modification to the class schedule - meet twice the R before spring break, and then skip class the T after spring break?

My dad is having surgery the week AFTER spring break (bad timing, I know), and I won't be in class that week bc I need to go home and make sure everything turns out OK. I know that absences are strongly discouraged, since there's so few of us in the class, so I thought maybe if we had back-to-back classes the week before break, we could skip the T class after? Or is there any other make up time that would work well? I'd still be missing that R class, but hopefully 1 absence won't be that bad. I'll def. be an avid blogger that week though in order to (sort of) compensate for my absences.

-Justin

Healthier Lunches

Check out these websites about the Natural Ovens Healthy Lunch Program that popped up in Appleton, Wisconsin. It cost $20,000 more but I guess offsetting the cost would be less kids in jail.

http://www.naturalovens.com/lib/content/default/schools/3b20f9fc17401af81394cf3947a89590/Schools.pdf

or

http://www.feingold.org/PF/wisconsin1.html

New ASAM 197?!?

This is what Shiyuan sent us all. What do you think? Anything you'd like to change, add, omit?

ASAM 197: Asian American Activism through the Arts

Course Description:

The course is designed to provide students with the greatest opportunity to enrich themselves in Asian American studies through the course material and leadership inside the classroom. The overall success of this course rests solely on the commitment of each individual student.

Our pedagogical model is based on the experiences of learning through teaching. As such, students’ course grades will reflect feedback from their classmates and the faculty collaborator.

Through creative expression, artists work to confront, challenge, and disrupt commonly accepted forms of cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, class, sexual, and national identities. On both individual and the community level, artwork has the great potential to engage its audience in a conversation about important and often ignored social issues. Rather than thinking about art as a benign pastime, we urge you to treat the creation and consumption of artwork as a political act that can be wholly transformative on many levels.

This course is designed to encourage students towards a sustained analysis of artistic expression born from the Asian American project with a focus on the sociohistorical context in which it was produced and consumed. To do so, this course will examine the role of art in identity formation on the individual, social, and ideological levels. That is, this course will ask: In what ways has art been able to advance different social and political agendas? What types of power can art harness? And how have issues of gender and sexuality been confronted in art?

The texts for this course will include performance art, such as dance and spoken word; visual arts, such as films and documentaries; photographs; paintings; murals; and different forms of mixed media.

Lastly, we hope that this course will encourage students to support local Asian American art events with their participation and attendance as well as their boundless creativity.

huh?

i'm a little confused, bc i thought we were gonna do the job ad after class today, but then everybody just sort of disseminated? well, i mean, i guess since we can set our own deadlines, it's not that big of a deal. so ian and sarah, should we stay next tuesday after class to work on it or what?

also, i know i was supposed to facilitate today, and i actually had some interesting things to talk about in our discussion. but i think i already said this to all of you, but i just felt like this week's readings couldn't produce much intense reaction. so, i'm fine w/ just omitting today's classtime and going on w/ the syllabus if everybody else is feeling the same thing. i mean, i'm not trying to cop out of being the facilitator, but i just felt like there wasn't that much we could have talked about on tuesday or today. also, i'll have another week of facilitation in like 5 weeks anyways, so i'll just try to be an extra good facilitator then! also, i brought macaroons on tuesday and monkey bars today so that should count for something haha.

anyways, just wanted to see if yall were on the same page. also, what did we thing about the talk today? i liked it, but i wish i had known more about the actresses she was referring to prior to going to the talk, bc some parts were a little hard to follow if you weren't already familiar w/ the subject matter!

CSU Community Work

For those of you who didn't get Jessica's email:

Check out the link. It's pretty cool!

Using food as a tool to organize communities of color around issues of
access, self-reliance, nutrition, and the political economy of food
production, CSU works with youth of color in South L.A. schools to
grow organic vegetables that are then super-affordable to the
community.

CSU's magic is incredible-- they have created abundant gardens out of pavement
(both literally and metaphorically).
> > >
> > > If you want to see some of the community work that has impressed me so,
> > > check out CSU on their website... they just posted a few new videos
> > > explicate their programs:

> > > http://csuinc.org/multimedia/

> > > They also have a great produce-program where you can pick up a bag of
> > > organic veggies for $8 every week right near USC

professor job ad

Here's the professor job ad that we made for THIS course:

INTERCOLLEGIATE DEPARTMENT OF ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
CLAREMONT COLLEGES
CLAREMONT, CA 91711

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
SPRING 2008

The Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies (IDAAS) at the Claremont Colleges invites applications for a part-time visiting assistant professor for Spring 2008 to teach a pedagogically innovative course in Asian American Studies. The basis of the course is for students to learn through teaching each other, to provide a space to claim their education, and to raise awareness of class power dynamics and different pedagogies. The course will accomplish this by using food as a focus to look at its intersection with race, class, and gender, and its role in community and identity formation.

The instructor will be expected to be highly supportive of student leadership in determining both the pedagogy and content of the course, be available for advising, and act as a resource for course material, class facilitation, and final projects. A successful candidate will possess strong interpersonal skills, the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds, experience teaching and advising students, and an interest in the politics of food.

Applicants should be ABD or have a Ph.D. in ethnic studies, Asian American Studies, history, psychology, sociology, anthropology or other disciplines or interdisciplinary studies appropriate to this subject. Teaching experience preferred. Applications will be reviewed as soon as complete and accepted until the courses are filled. Please submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, a brief statement of teaching philosophy, and contact information for three references to: Professor Thomas Kim, Scripps College, 1030 Columbia Avenue, Box 4063, Claremont, CA 91711. Interested applicants are highly encouraged to contact Professor Kim at tkim@scrippscollege.edu.

IDAAS offers a rich academic program to all students at The Claremont Colleges (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps). Interdisciplinary in both research and teaching initiatives, IDAAS promotes collaborative projects with other departments at the Colleges, and with scholars at other institutions. The Claremont Colleges are composed of seven institutions of higher learning located 35 miles east of Los Angeles. In a continuing effort to enrich its academic environment and provide equal educational and employment opportunities, IDAAS and the Claremont Colleges actively encourage applications from women and members of historically underrepresented groups.

miscellaneous

Are we going out to eat tomorrow?? 

also we should all decide what we want to grow and get the seeds. the garden is still pending but we can still start the seeds in the green house to make sure we get our foods before summer! shall we place an order on thursday??

okay see you all tomorrow!!

high interest savings account

oneunited bank - 5.15% APY

wamu - 4.25% APY IF you open a checkings account with them. 

I hear that oneunited has really terrible customer service. so there's a trade off with the high interest...

so sick

Hey class,

Sorry for this strange attempt to contact you all, but I am not sure how else to get in touch. I have been sick all night with either the stomach flu (caught from my nephew) or food poisoning (caught from a "nice" dinner last night) so i don't think I will be able to make it to class. I had to also cancel my morning class (eeks!) and hope you guys can find a space to meet without me. I thought I had Sarah's number but I don't... and I gave the list of e-mails to Shi yuan. Hopefully someone checks the blog before class. thanks.

garden news...

so i talked to facilities today and they said it might be really hard cause it's a "high visual area." i'm talking to another person right now, but it seems like there is all kinds of red tape in our way... we shall see what happens, but for sure there are other spaces and we shall get a garden!

also here's a mike polan interview on democracy now. i haven't read it all of it but seems pretty interesting

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/13/in_defense_of_food_author_journalist

see you all tomorrow!

Seed Savers

http://www.seedsavers.org/

Food Not Lawns

I think this lecture and these workshops are pretty pertinent to what we have been discussing and the whole garden idea. any thoughts? The first-half of the lecture is during class of that week - any desire to go in lieu of regular class?

SIGN UP NOW FOR WORKSHOPS
Please email pitzergarden@yahoo.com for a space.
Food Not Lawns: Eco-Revelatory Action for Fun and Profit
Thursday, February 21 4:30-6:30 p.m., Avery Auditorium

In this colorful, dynamic and interactive slideshow, Heather Flores will demonstrate a wide variety of projects and share over a decade of hands-on experience in ecological gardening, permaculture design, and community organizing.
Strongly recommended for those planning to attend the following workshops.

Grassroots Gardening
Friday, February 22 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Pitzer Organic Garden and Broad Performance Space

We will learn how classic permaculture principles can turn an ordinary, high-maintenance annual garden into a perennial food forest. This workshop will emphasize hands-on interaction with the existing gardens and connected community, and specific foci will flex, according to the needs and interests of the students.

Design for Community
Saturday, February 23 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Pitzer Organic Garden

We will master the logistics of organizing events, cultivating functional working groups, and creating and directing the flow of surplus plants, seeds and other resources. This will emphasize whole system design and project planning

Saturday night - ending dinner sponsored by the Shakedown CafE9.

garden idea

How is that moving along? Has anybody heard back from anybody in charge about feasibility?

cool. Happy Sunday everyone!

Good eats for tuesday 2/12

Okay, so I think some people were discussing having our eating-outing next Tuesday, after class. Can everyone make it? If so, I will bring my ungodly suburban to Claremont. Please respond back. Do we know where we are going? Do we need reservations - if so, does anyone want to volunteer making them?

ASAM 197 future topics

Hi peeps,

So I thought I would start a thread that we can comment on about possible topics for the future asam 197 course. Two ideas brought up in class were the politics of Asian American sexuality & Asian American arts and activism. Any others?

If others can post their sample syllabi that would be great. If you all would like to see my syllabus (still slightly in the works) on arts and activism, please let me know.

thanks!

when wings got balls...

I know we touched on how certain foods have "genders" last week in class, but especially after the Super Bowl this weekend, it's been a topic that I can't quit thinking about (PS - are we allowed to use prepositions at the end of our sentences in this class?).

When was the last time a TV ad showed a pack of ravenous girls/women scarfing down a platter of buffalo wings, and have you EVER seen a chocolate commercial in which a man, seemingly on the brink of orgasm, is secretly indulging in a chocolate bar? Sure, women eat baby back ribs and men eat cream pie-flavored yogurt, but is it possible for a man to eat frozen cookie dough without feeling slightly emasculated?

The media tells us that men eat "real" foods, while women sustain themselves on a diet of sugar-free jello, lean cuisine frozen dinners, and individually wrapped Ghiradelli chocolates (eaten so slowly and sensually you'd think they were performing some sort of ancient ritual). Just the thought of 4 male coworkers daydreaming over which 300-calorie meal they'll eat for lunch is comical. Sure, there are exceptions, but for the most part, the media makes men feel good about eating, and women feel embarrassed, ashamed, or even sinful. Products that we know aren't the healthiest are approached with religious tones: "You've been good all day, now it's time to be bad, "The eighth deadly sin," etc.

I'm still waiting for the TV commercial when men on Wall Street meet for afternoon tea and cupcakes, and when girls' nights out feature polish sausages instead of Double Stuffed Oreos. Studies show that men and women DO eat different foods, but not to the extent portrayed on our billboards. Typically, women's diets DO consist of a higher percentage of "snack food," and men's diets DO consist of a higher percentage of "meal food," but I feel as though a roadside billboard featuring a man springing into the air with a small container of cheesecake pudding would turn more heads and cause more wrecks than a naked marathon (OK, maybe not a naked marathon, but some other moderately unexpected visual stimulus).

Psychological studies show that the discrepancy between men and women's comfort foods is due in part to their gender roles. For older generations, women were usually the primary food providers of their families. In my grandparents' youth, especially in the rural farmlands of the South, men had labor-intensive jobs and worked from sun-up 'til sun-down; women, on the other hand, were assigned the task of creating whatever hearty, sustaining meals they could given their financial means. To a man, nothing was more comforting than coming home to a massive plate of beef stew, chicken n dumplings, homemade biscuits, and various other 'stick-to-your-ribs' kinds of foods. To a woman, these foods were a visual reminder of a long day in the kitchen - thus, candy bars and other prepackaged sweets became the ultimate comfort, as they required absolutely no effort on the woman's behalf.

Have the psyches of our elders been passed down to the current generation? Surely we learn what's appropriate food at least somewhat from our families. Obviously, we no longer live in a society where men are bailing hay all day while women are peeling potatoes in the kitchen. Do men still NEED 'stick-to-your-ribs' food if working involves trading e-mails all day instead of trading livestock? So, why is it that even when a man and woman have the exact same position in today's society, their 'acceptable' foods are so drastically different? The reality is that guys eat girl food, and guys eat girl food - so why do buffalo wings still have balls??

fav fam foo

ok, ok, sorry i took so long and i'm such a failure at life. here's mine. i just wanted to warn you all before hand that i'm increasingly become fed up with academic discourse and writing in certain ways so i think i'm going to try to be more experimental in this course so if my writings are weird, i apologize, but i can't take it any more yo!! oh yeah, it's kind of long too... and the freaking blog wouldn't accept it at first wassup with that.

btw, there's a huge Caterpillar bulldozer with the long neck that digs up earth thingie outside my window digging up the lawn they just put in like a couple weeks ago. wtf.

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce
If harmony is described as the divine balance of opposites that are consummated in a graceful dance that cannot make one help but think that there is something as perfection, pork chops and apple sauce used to be that dance for me. Okay, not really but it’s still a funny image to think about with the pork chop dragging its feet or ass(?) across the dance floor while the apple sauce droops over the hunk of meat with bits and pieces getting flung around. In my idealized view this was one of my favorite meals as a child. Mashed potatoes, sticky rice, steamed vegetables, sautéed peppered mushrooms and pork and applesauce. In retrospect and with my boogie analytic skills, I’ve come to see how this meal contained many problematic elements.
Whenever I could, I would help out as much in the house. Usually I would come back from playing sports at school pass out on the floor for a while and then get the shopping list hop on my bike and ride to the “super market”, although that word does not do justice to what was called the suu-paa, which is an abbreviation and japanesization of super market, as it was much more markety than super markets here. Perhaps on a market-super market continuum it would place slightly center left like a good ‘ol democrat, I’m looking at you Obama and Clinton. Anyways, I had to bicycle through the alley like streets with bicycles jam parked on the side like neatly aligned dominos, leaving me no less than about 2 feet worth of street to avoid running over shopping moms who occupy the full width of the street as they talk and acknowledge that I am coming but absolutely refuse to let me pass. Once I get passed that trial, I see the hustle and bustle of the main street of the shopping arcade and start hearing the shouting of youthful employees trying to get people to buy the fruits and other products that they have to sell before they close. Strawberries, strawberries! Two packs for 200 yen! I park my bike and look at the apples as the fruit section annexes a small portion of street, as if trying to make you trip on the fruit and take responsibility by buying it. I keep forgetting what kind of apples are the best for applesauce, from fuji to ourinn to mutsu. I can’t ask the employees because applesauce isn’t really eaten here. After making usually the wrong decision and buying the other ingredients, I get back and I start helping with cooking the rice and peeling and cutting the vegetables and fruits. After that my mom, or Rieko as we are required to say, finishes the rest. Even if the meal was prepared, often times we would wait for my dad to come back, even if that meant waiting an hour or two. Once he gets back we would start eating. Once finished I would wash the dishes.
What is interesting about this dish is that it is surprisingly indicative of not only our food habits but also various power positions within the family. Rieko is Japanese and my dad is Irish-American. Although he does eat Japanese food, Rieko often alternates between western and Japanese food, mostly for him. Additionally, although I helped a little, she usually worked all day and often came back and started preparing for dinner, while my dad would often come back just in time for eating, very excited about eating. Finally, he would always rejoice over emphatically when dinner was something western or things that was more familiar to his palate, such as steak, pasta, beef stew or pork shops. This brought up an interesting dynamic that I did not really consider. It is true that my dad probably liked such foods more than Japanese foods, as he was living in Japan and foods that you were brought up on when growing up often holds a symbolic value of home and familiarity. When I am in the US I intensely crave Japanese foods, although I like all kinds of foods, and the meal itself provides a lot more value than merely its taste. Nevertheless, by excessively enjoying the meal and never showing such appreciation for Japanese foods that Rieko worked hard in preparing, he was quietly denying Japanese culture, or at least showing noticeable preference for western culture. His preference for western culture was not marked by praising one kind of foods and disrespecting of other kinds of foods, but the silence was enough to affect Rieko, whose culture is steeped in interpreting little signals where nonverbal cues reveal as much as verbal affirmations. Why do I bring this up? To me it seems that in many ways he was disrespecting the host by favoring some types of foods despite all the hard work and love she put into cooking while additionally working as much as he did, although he did make more money possibly due to being a male and having a advanced degree at the time, which Rieko taking care of us allowed for. Finally, his participation in the ritual only as financier and consumer was also indicative of his status in the family. The family tasks were definitely gendered although he did help with laundry and dishes occasionally. I say gendered as I began taking on tasks Rieko usually complete and I was merely an assistant to her rather than being designated that I should do certain chores, and thus I was merely an extension of Rieko, working in her sphere of tasks and not my father’s.
Growing up bicultural and eating both western and Japanese foods I had never really discriminated between the two culture’s foods, or for that matter other things such as Thai, Chinese and Mexican foods. I appreciated all kinds of foods, or at least I think I did, and this was perhaps because how my family, mainly Rieko, raised me. Although I am sure he meant no harm, my father’s reaction was in many ways indicative of the latent sense of cultural superiority that westerners have in Japan. Many come to Japan perhaps attracted by its exoticness, make money by teaching English, hang out in their clique of foreigners and then trash Japanese culture. No doubt, this surely happens in various immigrant communities, but none are accorded as much freedom to remain aloof and not assimilate, while not facing the backlash of nativism.
I am not sure how this particular dish has affected Rieko. To a certain effect I may be imposing my own values upon her. Nevertheless, her feeling that she was not culturally and humanly validated has been an on-going theme. As a Japanese female living with an Irish-American male, she felt that she was not given agency and the right to live the way she wanted to in her own country. Even when cooking, which was her sphere of influence where she supposedly had total control to pick what she was going to cook and how, she was faced with double consciousness, seeing herself through the eyes of the dominant gaze of the family, which coincidentally was the white male.
Obviously my father wasn’t constantly saying negative things about Japanese foods or culture, and thus this could all be mere speculation. But in many ways whatever his true feelings be, his actions did portray disrespect to someone who sacrificed so much only to please him. This dish, although is undeniably wholesome and delicious, brought up various issues that arise in international marriages, especially one of a western male and a Japanese female; issues of transnational racism, sexism, symbolic power within the household was most salient. Although when I look at the point of view of my father, it certainly doesn’t seem like there are any problems, but when looking at the psychological and material effects it had on Rieko I begin to see how this meal was problematic in many ways. Although at the time all I saw was the beautiful dance of the dish itself, I did not realize how it was a messy dance that left various emotions all over the place.
Recipe:
Rice, Pork Chops, Potatoes, Carrots, Peas, Broccoli, Apples (still don’t know which kind is best), Shimeji mushrooms, Milk, Salt and Pepper, Cinnamon, and Flour.
Cook rice.
Steam carrots, peas and broccoli.
Peel and cut apples into little pieces and put into pot with cinnamon and some water and simmer.
Boil water and put potatoes in. after 30 minutes, wash in cold water, peel the skin, put into bowl and mash. Add milk, salt and pepper and butter if it pleases you.
Cut fat off the pork chops if it’s fatty and bread it with flour. Heat frying pan up, put some olive oil in and sauté? (don’t know exact word)
Cook mushrooms with salt and pepper
Bon appetite!

my fave (pseudo) family food

I know this is going to sound strange, but I think it plays in well with our discussion about the politics of food and the ways in which it crosses national and cultural boundaries. Growing up, one of my favorite family dishes was kah-reh (I wish I knew how to post in Korean font, like Sparkle). This is better known as curry to the rest of you. I am full Korean American and I know that curry is traditionally an Indian dish, but I grew up thinking that it was a Korean dish until I learned that kah-reh was curry. To add to the cultural fusion, the brand of kah-reh that my family buys from the Korean supermarket is actually a Japanese brand, S&B Golden Curry. It is a yellow curry and I can only handle the Mild but add kick to it with some kim-chi. :)

The kah-reh comes in a cardboard box and is basically a solidified bar of curry (it looks like a curry chocolate bar) that is slowly added to water (one square at a time) and other essential ingredients. For my family, these ingredients include carrots, chunks of beef and dices of potato. Once these are all cooked together, the kah-reh is poured over a bowlful of hot white rice and enjoyed.

I LOVE the smell of cooking kah-reh and I can eat two to three bowl fulls of the stuff. No matter how full I am, I always get seconds and thirds. This is my serious comfort food. Quick and easy to make but so satisfying and fulfilling. I am a little OCD about eating it because I have a system. I have to have the right proportion of rice to meat to potato to kim-chi in every spoonful. I don't particularly like boiled carrots, so I eat all of those off of my dish first. then, I methodically fish out a piece of beef and potato with my spoon of rice, lay a kim-chi slice on top and enjoy all the flavors together in my mouth. This stands out in my memory because as a kid, I hated eating different foods at once. The thought of them mixing together in my mouth simply grossed me out. This is odd for Koreans because the whole point is to eat your rice with all of these different side dishes, but I would eat everything one by one - the only exception being kah-reh. Come to think of it, this may be why my mom cooked kah-reh so often. I don't know why I had this compulsion, or how it relates to the politics of food, but I thought I would mention it. I no longer have this strange fixation on separating my food... but it does creep up on me from time to time.

There is another odd way in which kah-reh reminds me of my childhood. I would read stories about stone soup or see commercials for beef stew (which was a completely foreign and "white" food to me) and kah-reh was my "Korean version" of such foods. That is why I was so shocked when I later found out that it was an Indian cuisine and the writing on the box was in Japanese.


In any case, I still enjoy it and consider it to be one of my childhood and family foods. Is that strange?

Bihun-my comfort food

Whenever I return home from college there are many foods that I miss but there is one dish I know will be waiting for me when I get there-bihun. It is such a simple dish with easily attainable ingredients, little preparation that can be eaten hot or cold. Whenever my cousin Yiwen returns to the States for a visit, or my cousin Hsin-Yi comes home from Milwaukee, or if my A-ma and A-Kong pick my family up from the Airport or basically whenever I get together for a home-cooked meal at either my A-Ma or Kim-Po’s house there is always plenty enough to eat then and two days later. This dish means home and family and holds a special place in my heart.

Bihun is relatively easy to make and even I have been able to make it although it does not taste the same as Kim-Po’s cooking. When I first consulted my mom the first time that I prepared it she didn’t really have an exact recipe for me to follow. It’s just one of those things that you just know how to make it. The ingredients can vary but we usually make it in one particular way.
The recipe looks like this:
1-package rice stick noodles
1-2 green onions
1 handful Chinese chives
< ½ cup (about 5-6) dried black (shitake) mushrooms
½ cup chopped cabbage
1 cup of shredded carrots
¼ pound minced pork
1 handful of dried shrimps
Soy sauce
White pepper
Water
Oil

The rice stick noodles, dried shrimp and dried mushrooms are all soaked in separate containers with enough water for them to moisten. The Chinese chives and green onions are finely chopped and sautéed with the dried shrimps in a wok. The shitake mushrooms are chopped and added to the wok along with shredded carrots chopped cabbage and minced pork. After these ingredients have been cooked for a while the rice stick noodles are added and the mixture is cooked. Soy sauce and white pepper are added to taste. The noodles have now become a very light brown.

The process involved in preparing bihun is nothing out of the ordinary nor is there any elaborate ritual that is performed before eating it. Typically the experience and memories that I have eating this dish are sitting at the large, plastic tablecloth covered dinning table at Ku-Kong and Kim-Po’s house along with several other members of my mom’s family. My A-Kong or my father offers to say grace. Then everyone closes their eyes with their hands in their laps and we say amen in unison. Another male in the family says, “cha pong” (let’s eat) and passes around beer for all the adults. The bihun is usually served in a very large bowl and people dish it out themselves onto their own plate. We eat with long, slippery, plastic chopsticks. You can tell who needs another serving when you hear the plastic chopsticks scrape against the plastic plates when someone is trying to get the last bit of noodles and vegetables off of their plate and into their mouth. No one at the table spares anyone bad manners. People talk with their mouth open, put plates up to their face to scoop food into their mouths, and talk loudly. There is no doubt that this is my family and everyone is comfortable around each other.

When my mother and I take home leftovers we have a different ritual. Typically it is two or four in the afternoon on a Saturday and my mom and I haven’t eaten lunch yet. All we do is pull the food out of the refrigerator, put it on small plates, grab chopsticks and sit on the couch watching television and talking.

It’s true that this dish is nothing particularly special in presentation, preparation or ingredients but that is precisely what I love about it and why it holds such a dear place in my heat. It’s a dish that is comforting and whenever it is made it means that my family is getting together for dinner. Bihun makes me think of talking with family, watching Asian television, eating fruit with salt sprinkled on it, and drinking fresh brewed, hot oolong tea.

Often the most simplest and humblest dishes are the ones that are truly made from the heart and hold special meaning. Bihun is made to welcome someone home when they are too tired to make their own dinner, if you are just stopping by or made to be accompanied by other dishes at a larger dinner. For me bihun means seeing my cousins who now live far away. Even though I go for long periods of time when I don’t see different members of my family I know what’s in store when my mom calls me and says A-Ma’s making bihun.

potstickers!

I think that a person's relationship to the production and consumption of food says a great deal about them. At the very least, it will tell you where they came from. 

A good friend of mine is a notoriously slow eater. When we go out together, it is not uncommon for me to be completely finished with my meal only to notice that she has barely begun to eat. This is especially apparent if we're eating food that comes in measurable portions, like pizza, because in those situations, I can't just claim that I got a smaller serving than she did. I comment on this from time to time and she will usually respond with a shrug followed by a laugh and then, "I don't know... It's just how I grew up."

Knowing her family, that makes a lot of sense. In her house, dinner was a complete event. Her family talks about what they want to eat, sitting around the table flipping through old copies of Gourmet and Bon Appetit, recipe cards, and the latest Barefoot Contessa publication. Then they cook together. No single one person is responsible for feeding the whole family. Rather, the cooking process is creative, collective, and joyous. And eating is not an activity that is primarily a function of necessity but a way they could spend time together. Food, then, to her, was a form of intimacy, a way of forming one's relationships with other people. That could not have been farther from the way my family eats meals. 

Neither of my parents especially love to cook. But not only is my mom wholly disinterested in cooking, she's also pretty disinterested in eating. By that I mean she will eat just about anything. If it was left up to her, we'd eat beans and rice all day long. My dad is fairly good at cooking but that is more about wanting to eat real food - if he wasn't cooking, my mom would be, and I use the word "cooking" loosely - than any love of the act. Meals in my family are not a social or collective process. Eating is just what you do when you're hungry. I think that way of thinking about food has been largely shaped by the hours my parents keep. Up until I was in middle school, there was always one parent that worked late at night. We couldn't eat together because by the time that the second parent came home, the first parent had already gone to bed. And I would eat two meals - one with each of them. Towards the end of middle school, my parents, because of their jobs, were living in separate cities. My dad would commute for an hour and a half to Portland, where my mom and I lived, from Corvallis where he stayed during the week. When my dad wasn't at home, my mom and I didn't make a big deal about meals. She didn't care one way or the other and I was perfectly happy having sandwiches and microwavable meals. They live in the same house now, but my mom gets up early to go to work and my dad stays late. We're not often in the same physical space when we need or want to eat. 

There is, though, one dish that we make together: potstickers. My dad does all the prep work which for potstickers is the trickiest part. He takes the meat out of the freezer several hours in advance and lets it defrost in a bowl of cold water on the kitchen counter. As the meat defrosts, he chops vegetables - onions, cilantro, green onions, and other ingredients I don't know about. He haphazardly pulls bottles of soy sauce, sesame oil, and vegetable oil out of the cabinets. Then, minced garlic, whole peppercorns, and a small handful of dried anchilo chillies are deep fried in a shallow layer of oil. A minute or two later, everything, oil included, is poured into the mixed bowl along with the vegetables and ground meat. 

My mom assembles all the pieces together. She breaks up the dough into golf-ball size pieces. They are dusted with flour and rolled out to a disk that's about 2 inches x 2 inches and then filled with the meat and vegetable mixture. Their edges are deftly pinched shut with a little bit of flour and they are set on a large, circular bamboo mat. The whole process lasts about 15 seconds. Those steps are repeated until the mat is completely full. 

Once they're done cooking, my dad will eat first. He likes them when they're hot and my mom is busy cooking the other batches. She doesn't mind if they're a little bit cold - again, she'll eat anything. I don't mind either so I eat whenever I pass through the kitchen, or when I get hungry. 

For the most part, the kitchen to my family is a transitory point - the place we go when we're on our way to somewhere else. 

Yumyum Pa Jeon!

During the summer time, my whole family finds relief on the tiled floor of our kitchen. Grandma loves to visit because her apartment becomes a sauna during that time of the year. And we grandkids love it when Grandma visits. She comes bearing all these wholesale packages of ingredients and two portable fryers. It’s time to make haemul pa jeon.

Before anything begins, Mom makes us all sit on cushions taken from the dining chairs. Ever since she had children, her rear end has been in a constant state of frigidity. She blames it on the epidural. So for us, sitting on cold tiles is out of the question. Once we’re all warmly perched on the cushions, the oil starts to flow and Grandma ladles large helpings of her crazy mix into the fryers. To this day, I have never seen her make this mix of green onions, squid, pa jeon mix, bell peppers, onions. There are no measurements; all are added by eyeballing or preference.

The oil gives off a crackle and pop every now and then, slightly burning my arms but Grandma’s wrinkly, leathered hands don’t react. It’s calming to watch her. She’s this short and delightfully pudgy woman, enthroned on a flower-print cushion with frills, surrounded by frying pans and large platters of finished pa jeon. 예프게해야돼, 예프게. 응, 이러케. You have to let the circle form naturally as you pour the mix. There’s so many ingredients involved that smooth curve is impossible. Grandma likes to make them into different sizes; some are the size of the entire 15x15 frying pan. If ever a small clump of the mix is frying by itself in the corner, she likes to feed t to i my brother and I hot from the pan. MM mmm mmmm. Usually, a fourth of the pa jeon are already consumed before they hit the table.

It’s my job to make the gahng-jang: soy sauce, vinegar, chili powder, green onions. No measurements. No matter how many times I’ve been told, I still mix up the Korean names of soy sauce and vinegar. The pancakes are still hot but once you dip tham into the gahng-jang, the sauce takes the burn out and adds a full, seasoned flavor. It’s hard to think about what it is that you’re eating; just have to let all the flavors play out in your mouth, a different surprise every time. My brother and I love the browned, crispy edges of the pancakes. My parents don’t mind so it all works out.

family dish assignment...now I'm hungry =(

The Beans of Sunday Supper
Justin Royal

Nutritionally, beans of any variety have been acclaimed praised as great sources of fiber, protein, antioxidants, iron, and a variety of vitamins. Dry beans are cheap and store well, and can be easily prepared with little skill (if need be).
Probably not by chance, I’ve never heard a member of my family glorify my grandmother’s “Sunday supper white beans” for their nutritional content. Like many other Southern chefs, she has succeeded in the art of transforming relatively healthy foods, from chicken to okra to sweet potatoes, into not-so-good-for-you but oh-so-delicious creations such as fried chicken, fried okra, and sweet potato casserole. Her white beans are no exception: while their method of preparation may be the subject of nutritionists’ nightmares, the time-honored tradition of consuming them every Sunday will likely continue until the next (or first?) Great Bean Famine.
Sundays in my family have always been synonymous with eating. Actually, every day in my family is usually synonymous with eating, but especially Sundays. Because of my family’s increasingly hectic schedule, Sunday has always been set aside for visiting with (and of course, eating with) each other. Regardless of the previous night’s activities, the aroma wafting from my grandmother’s kitchen on Sunday mornings has long been a more reliable means of waking me up than any alarm clock. The whole family stumbles into her kitchen in half-awake states (from just waking up), and leaves in a similar fashion (from being in food comas). A typical Sunday breakfast consists of homemade biscuits with sausage and country gravy, homemade cinnamon rolls with icing so creamy and gooey that each person should receive a moist towelette along with their plate, fluffy buttermilk pancakes soaked in melted butter and pure maple syrup, fried eggs, grits with grape jelly (gotta get those 5 fruits a day somehow), and most importantly, country ham. “Country” ham refers to the fact that it is cured in more salt than a normal person consumes in one calendar year, and seems to have triple the fat content of other types of ham I’ve seen at the grocery store.
Eating country ham is especially crucial on Sunday mornings: it is the key ingredient in Grandma’s famed white beans that we eat on Sunday nights. Shockingly, my family actually doesn’t consume all of the country ham that she fixes for Sunday breakfast. The night before serving us breakfast, she begins “soaking” her white beans for later that day. After breakfast, the leftover country ham is cooked just until part of the fat renders. The soaking beans are then transferred to a “crock pot” and cooked along with the ham hock for about 3-4 hours, and the fat that has been drained from the partially-cooked ham. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “crock pot” is a cooking appliance that uses low amounts of heat to cook things over longer periods of time.
Unfortunately, I’m not able to provide the exact recipe for these beans. While the basic ingredients and methods used can be more or less guessed, the exact timing, special combination of spices, and precise measurements remain a mystery. Although her cooking isn’t the ONLY reason why my family loves going to her house, she’s afraid that sharing the recipe with any average Joe will detract from the magical experience of eating at her house. I’ve scoured the internet for a recipe that sounds somewhat similar to how I imagine hers, and I’ve included what seems to be the best bet.


1 lb dried navy beans

6 cups cold water, for soaking

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 onions, chopped well

1 carrot, chopped well

2 cloves garlic, minced

6 cups cold water, for cooking

1 bay leaf

1 meaty ham bone, from baked ham

salt and pepper
1. Wash and pick over the beans.
2. Place in a large stockpot and cover with the soaking water.
3. Let stand overnight.
4. (you can speed this up by using your crock pot on high and watch the water. It takes around 3 hours) Drain the beans, rinse and drain again.
5. Heat the oil in the pot over medium high.
6. Add the onions, carrot and garlic.
7. Cook, stirring often until the onions are tender, around 3 or 4 minutes.
8. Add the beans, cooking water and the bay leaf.
9. Slowly bring to a full boil.
10. Reduce the heat to a simer, cover and cook for 1 hour.
11. Add the ham bone to the pot.
12. Re-cover and simmer 2 hours longer-watch the water level.
13. Remove the bay leaf and discard.
14. Remove the ham bone and cut away the meat.
15. Chop into bite sized pieces and return to the pot.
16. Add salt and pepper to taste.
17. Serve with corn bread.
While the last step in this recipe may seem extraneous to novices, it is perhaps the most crucial. Nothing acts as a better accompaniment to white beans than beautiful, golden corn bread served fresh out of Grandma’s ancient cast-iron skillet. TRUE corn bread is always made in a cast-iron skillet that’s been well-greased and aged over time. This particular skillet has been in our family for at least 50 years, and while the utensil itself is not a particularly beautiful sight to behold, I’ve never heard a single complaint (from family or friend alike) about the corn bread it produces.
Of course, beans and corn bread aren’t enough to satiate my family’s appetite, and a typical Sunday supper spread would also include chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, macaroni n’ cheese, fried apples, and just about anything else that’s been featured on Paula Deen’s show. However, the white beans have become particularly meaningful, since they require the most preparation and rely on our eating country ham in the morning to yield the final creation at supper. Over the years, I’ve realized that making us fall in love with this dish has helped Grandma ensure that she’ll be able to feed us twice in the same day.We’ve all heard the expression that beans are a ‘magical fruit.’ In my family, my Grandma’s white beans really are magical (just not for the stereotypical reason you’re probably thinking of).

depth?

That second class session of ours was probably the most fast-paced discussion I've ever had. People seemed really eager to share about their experiences and I thought it was really cool that we could learn from each other in that respect.

Something I want to bring up before the next class session though...I think it might be interesting to focus the direction of our discussion a bit more intentionally. We brought up a lot of great and intriguing ideas, but there were so many of them and a bit all over the place. I feel like if we want to gain a comprehensive understanding of food politics, developing the reading or interesting issues in depth would be an important thing to keep in mind.

Another thing, what do we want to purpose of this blog to be (also in light of this being openly read by other viewers)? Something to talk about next class~

all in the spirit of the super bowl

snack trays

crockpots and grills in the shape of a football. 

football serving plates. 

and my personal favorite...

the beer cheese cupcake.