culture

In growing numbers, experts say (there is always an experts somewhere) a highly educated children of immigrants to the United States are uprooting themselves and moving to their ancestral countries. They are embracing homelands that their parents once spurned but that are now economic powers.

Some, like Mr. Kapadia, had arrived in the United States as young children, becoming citizens, while others were born in the United States to immigrant parents.

Enterprising Americans have always sought opportunities abroad. But this new wave underscores the evolving nature of global migration, and the challenges to American economic supremacy and competitiveness.

In interviews, many of these Americans said they did not know how long they would live abroad; some said it was possible that they would remain expatriates for many years, if not for the rest of their lives.

Their decisions to leave have, in many cases, troubled their immigrant parents. Yet most said they had been pushed by the dismal hiring climate in the United States or pulled by prospects abroad.

The latest Marion Barry controversy burned bright Thursday, but it’s now mostly burnt out.

In case you missed it: Barry (D-Ward 8) made comments late Tuesday at his primary night victory party suggesting that the Asian-American owners of businesses in his ward run “dirty shops” that “ought to go.” After the comments were reported late Wednesday, the rebuke was swift, and by Thursday evening, Barry had tendered an apology of sorts.

But the episode — which gave new voice to decades-old tensions between the residents of largely black inner city neighborhoods and the many Asian owners of the businesses that serve them — deserves a coda.

I’m happy to give some space here to Mark L. Keam, a Democrat who represents a portion of Fairfax County in the Virginia House of Delegates. He’s the first Korean-American and the first Asian-born immigrant elected to serve in that body, and he has valuable experience bridging the longstanding divide between Asian businesses and their black customers.

WHEN she was a philosophy student at Harvard College eight years ago, Liane Young never thought twice about all the interracial couples who flitted across campus, arm and arm, hand in hand. Most of her Asian friends had white boyfriends or girlfriends. In her social circles, it was simply the way of the world.

But today, the majority of Ms. Young’s Asian-American friends on Facebook have Asian-American husbands or wives. And Ms. Young, a Boston-born granddaughter of Chinese immigrants, is married to a Harvard medical student who loves skiing and the Pittsburgh Steelers and just happens to have been born in Fujian Province in China.

Ms. Young said she hadn’t been searching for a boyfriend with an Asian background. They met by chance at a nightclub in Boston, and she is delighted by how completely right it feels. They have taken lessons together in Cantonese (which she speaks) and Mandarin (which he speaks), and they hope to pass along those languages when they have children someday.

BOSTON — Perhaps you've heard of Heejun Han, the 22-year-old Korean American from Flushing, Queens, who also happens to be a semi-finalist on American Idol Season 11.

To many, he may seem an unlikely star. He's known for his likable personality, but also for shaking his arms before each performance to get the nerves out. Idol judge and Aerosmith leading man Steven Tyler said Han's song selection on Tuesday night — Robbie Williams' "Angel" — was a miss.

But when he opens his mouth to sing — that’s when US pop star Jennifer Lopez gets a little teary. His voice on Tuesday was "smooth as silk," J Lo said. His initial performance “really impressed and shocked” another judge, music producer Randy Jackson. Even Tyler said previously he thought Han “could be the next American Idol.”

Han isn’t the first Asian American to be on American Idol, but the overwhelming love and attention he’s getting on camera and off makes it seem that way.

In western culture, many social animals like to associate drinking to social skill and ability, more particulary in males who measure theier masculinities with one's alcoholic tolerance ie. holding down their drink.

With this in mind, many Asians have long been on the subjected to stereotypes and made fun of when they preduce a flush reaction to their alcoholic drink.

These stereotypes can easily be debunked, as people become more clued in with a fact that the assumption is not a race matter. To imply asians are weak simply because they turn red is nothing more than ignorance and social racism, many of us do not flush.

Here is the story:

New Shanghai-based research reverses the stereotypical Western notion that Chinese people cannot hold their liquor – at least, when it comes to pounding back grain-based alcohols like baijiu.

WCCO's James Schugel is in the doghouse with the Asian American Journalists Association, which is demanding an apology for his idiotic report last week that local dogs were being sold for human consumption in New York City's Chinatown.

Environment Minister Peter Kent calls neighbourhood “worthy nominee” for world heritage site.

Two of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s top ministers joined other politicians and community members today (October 13) in announcing that Vancouver’s Chinatown will be added to the list of National Historic Sites of Canada.

“There is no better example of the success of Canada’s multiculturalism than Vancouver’s Chinatown,” Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney said at the event, which took place today at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden on Carrall Street. “My parents were from the Lower Mainland, and I remember as a little boy coming down to Chinatown and being awestruck by the colour, the exotic architecture, and the tastes of Chinatown. And all of that as a little boy gave me a sense of the ancient Chinese culture and its role here in its home in Canada, here in Vancouver’s Chinatown.”