Schema | May 2009 Archives : more than ethnic

May 2009 Archives

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Ethnic Names Lose Out on the Job Hunt | Fuk Hing Ho may be a nice name, but you better change it in Canada

A preliminary UBC economics research report has said the unthinkable in "multicultural" Canada - that employers may be deliberately withholding interviews from candidates with non-English-sounding names. The study suggests that job applicants with English-sounding names have a greater chance of getting interviews than those with Chinese, Pakistani or Indian names. You don't say?

The study found Canadians and landed immigrants with names such as "Jill Wilson" or "John Martin" are 40% more likely to be offered an interview than someone with a name like "Sana Khan" or "Lei Li," given an identical resume.

Applicants with mixed names like "Vivian Zhang" had a 20% better chance to land an interview than job-seekers with non-English names, but still less than the English-only names.

"The findings suggest that a distinct foreign-sounding name may be a significant disadvantage on the job market even if you are a second- or third-generation citizen," said Philip Oreopoulos, a professor of economics at UBC who led the research.

More: Read the full article called "Job applicants with foreign names have lesser chance for interviews: UBC study" @ CBC News HERE | (photo source) Who Do We Think We Are?

Posted by Tamiko | May 25, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Commentary, Culture, News

Angry Asian Man salutes America's best dance crews as Top 30 under 30

Why they're influential: Because damn, Asian Americans can dance ... I became an avid viewer at the beginning of season one, not only because it's an opportunity to see some kickass dancing, but because Asian Americans dancers have been seriously representing since the very first audition episode .... But it's not just about the champions. This is really about the entire ABDC phenomenon, and how the show has unexpectedly become a showcase for Asian American dancers to shine, front and center, on MTV -- arguably the flagship television network for popular American youth culture. (from angryasianman.com)

We're big Angry Asian Man, and ABDC fans, and couldn't agree more! Read the complete post at angryasianman.com. See the rest of AAM's 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30.

Posted by Alden | May 27, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Commentary, Culture, Dance, Media, Television

The Lyoto Machida Era | UFC 98

Lyoto Machida's dominant win over former light heavy weight champion Rashad Evans has brought a new excitement about Karate throughout the MMA fandom. Although a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, his advantage has always been his Karate-influenced stance, defense and striking.

Perhaps a martial arts prodigy in the way Tiger Woods is to golf, Machida received strict Karate training from his father right from early childhood. Both Machida and Evans entered the fight with undefeated MMA records.

Watch the fight here, while it's still online.

UFC president Dana White said he was blown away but he always knew it would be scary when Machida got comfortable with the Octagon and more aggressive. Hollywood stardom may also been in Machida's future. A reporter asked the Brazilian if he wanted to be the next Bruce Lee (5:20 mark). White immediately chimed in and said, "please say no." Machida did, saying that he wants concentrate only on defending his belt.
Former UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes is an admirer of Machida's, calling him the total package. (from sports.yahoo.com)

More: Lyoto Machida Official Website | Lyoto Machida's secret revealed at TATAME | Profile on UFC

Posted by Alden | May 24, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Events, Martial Arts, Television

Sita Sings the Blues | Animated Film | Watch for FREE

Sita Sings the Blues is a 2008 animated feature film written, directed, produced and animated entirely by American artist Nina Paley primarily using 2D computer graphics. Sita Sings the Blues is a musical personal interpretation of the Indian epic the Ramayana with a focus on is the relationship between Sita and Rama, who are gods incarnated as human beings, and how the story parallels Nina's real-life break-up.

What's more intriguing? Some conservative Hindus are offended by the film, as well as some left-wing academics have been critical because "any white person doing a project like this is by definition racist, and it's an example of more neocolonialism."

Not only that, Sita Sings the Blues is open to being distributed, copied, shared, archived, and shown through a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. In other words: "you don't need [Nina's] permission to copy, share, publish, archive, show, sell, broadcast, or remix Sita Sings the Blues." Hello, FREE!

Posted by Tamiko | May 20, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Film, Technology

36 Views by Naomi Iizuka | A Play | Vancouver

The Tempus Theatre presents the Western Canadian premiere of 36 Views, a romance-mystery-con game from Japanese-American playwright Naomi Iizuka: "Culture and commodity. Fetish and forgery. Personal and professional revenge are all exposed in 36 Views by Naomi Iizuka." Oh juicy! Now playing from May 1-23 at the Jericho Arts Centre, 36 Views is directed by Anthony F. Ingram.

36 Views Synopsis:

An art dealer and an art historian discover what appears to be an ancient manuscript, a priceless Japanese pillow book created by a medieval courtesan. As they try to prove its authenticity, their search becomes an erotic game of greed, love, and sleight-of-hand. In a series of 36 interlocking scenes, Naomi Iizuka's play explores the relationship between the imaginary and the real, and the lines and spaces that separate feelings and words, objects and images of objects, antiques and reproductions, and a person's heritage and physical features. Culture and commodity, fetish and forgery, and personal and professional revenge are all exposed in 36 Views.

Posted by Tamiko | May 19, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Theatre

Charice Pempengco | Sing, girl, sing!

Hear this girl belt out a tune, and you can't help to say, "You go, girl!" Only 16-years-old, Charice Pempengco rose to popularity through Youtube. The Filipina singer will debut her U.S album this fall, under the guidance of producer David Foster.

In the meantime, Charice has been popping up all over the world - on talk shows in South Korea and England and the US, including The Ellen Degeneres Show (see here); performing for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; singing a duet with Celine Dion at Madison Square Garden -- and, hello, The New York Times raved about her; a duet with Andrea Bocelli in Italy; singing the team anthem at a soccer match in The Netherlands; in January 2009, she performed at two Obama Presidential pre-inaugural events in Washington, D.C.; and today she'll perform a song from her upcoming album on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Born in Cabuyao, Laguna, Philippines, Charice began singing in amateur singing contests since she was 7. Her standards include Jennifer Hudson's Dreamgirls anthem "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

Damn...she's only 16!

More: Official Site | MySpace | Youtube Channel | Allmusic | (photo credit) Tikik Pilipino

Posted by Tamiko | May 18, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Music

Camilla Singh | Artist Talk | Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver | May 21

The Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver is pleased to invite you to a lecture with artist/curator Camilla Singh.

Thursday May 21st | 7 pm | Emily Carr University

Born in England, Camilla Singh is a visual artist and curator, currently working in Toronto and exhibiting internationally. She was the Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, (MOCCA) since 2002. She arrived at MOCCA with an intensive background of orchestrating contemporary art projects after receiving an M.F.A. from the Dutch Art Institute in the Netherlands. Her curatorial projects at MOCCA often featured live areas hosting performances, concerts and sites of change within the gallery exhibition space. In 2007, as curator of Toronto's Nuit Blanche (Zone 'C') she presented Supernatural City, consisting of ten major outdoor contemporary art installations viewed by 800,000 people over the course of 12 hours, from dusk to dawn.

Singh is an active member and co-founder of the New Remote art collective, a group of artists from Canada, the Netherlands and Serbia, who travel the world by invitation producing spontaneous, site-specific installations. New Remote projects employ simple communication technologies to connect with geographically remote collaborators. The outcome of these works is often charged with the politics, culture and social conventions of the sites in which they are produced.

She has worked in conceptual art, including audio, video, sculpture, photography, and performance. Her latest work is aesthetically seductive while interweaving hard pornographic images with images from the interiors of churches and cathedrals. Singh turned critics' heads with her work "Gentle Soothing Action," a multimedia installation which included a video of her showering.

More: Photo by Walter Willems © Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art | You can check out the website for her collective - www.newremote.net and also her work with MOCCA www.mocca.ca

Posted by Alden | May 20, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Art, Events

New Faces of Vancouver | May 15th-16th, 2009 | Centre A

Celebrating Vancouver's multicultural spirit and bringing together Canadian newcomers with long-term residents, the New Faces of Vancouver photography exhibit will be held on May 15-16, 2009, at Centre A (The International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) in Vancouver.

New Faces of Vancouver
Opening Night Friday May 15, 2009 | 7:00 PM
Location: Centre A | 2 West Hastings St., Vancouver, BC

This is a recent collaboration between the Immigrant Services Society of BC and Centre A aimed at initiating discussion of diversity through the medium of photography.

This photography exhibit allows local Vancouver photographers to celebrate the New Faces of Vancouver, while creating an awareness of urban context through visual media. The exhibit showcases 18 local photographers, presenting their visual representation of the New Faces of Vancouver.

More: Official Website

Posted by Alden | May 13, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Art, Culture, Events, Vancouver

Star Trek Movie continues portrayal of ethnic cool galaxy

The science fiction movie Star Trek continues its legacy of a visibly diverse ensemble cast. In the past few years, the success of television hits Heroes and Grey's Anatomy have proven that audiences respond to ensemble casts that reflect today's diversity. Star Trek, on the other hand, has always pioneered the portrayal of an intercultural and diverse-looking future. As Space has been broadcasting a Star Trek movie marathon, fans are reminded of the numerous ethnic cool characters that have become part of the American and Canadian psyche.

The portrayal hasn't been perfect. Hyphen Magazine's Race to Space: Asian Americans, stereotypes in Star Trek's Final Frontier (by Harry Mok) looks at how the Trek universe has portrayed racial stereotypes. Still, having cast John Cho to take over the role of Sulu (originally played by George Takei), the buzz in the Asian Canadians/Americans communities has already begun.

Cho acknowledged being an Asian-American, "there are certain acting roles that you are never going to get, and one of them is playing a cowboy. [Playing Sulu] is a realization of that dream -- going into space. (from wikipedia.com)

In the noticeable absence of black characters in science fiction (see older post, Black Women in Science-Fiction | Where are they?), we are equally excited to see Zoe Saldana play Nyota Uhura.

She is significant as one of the first major black characters on an American television series and for engaging in a then-taboo interracial kiss with James T. Kirk (from wikipedia.com).

More: John Cho, Star Trek Movie Lift Off on Friday (hyphenmagazine.com)

Posted by Alden | May 8, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Film

Alanis Obomsawin Retrospective | Hot Docs Festival | May 3-10 | Toronto

alanis obomsawin.jpg imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and Hot Docs International Documentary Festival will co-present a retrospective of the films of this year's Outstanding Achievement Award winner Alanis Obomsawin.

Obomsawin is Canadian filmmaker of Abenaki descent whose films have brought awareness to many social realities facing Indigenous peoples in Canada. Since directing her first film, Christmas at Moose Factory (1967), Obomsawin has directed more than 30 films at the National Film Board of Canada, including the award-winning Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, which chronicles the 78-day standoff between the Mohawk of Kanehsatake and the Canadian Armed Forces and the aftermath of what is known as the Oka Crisis in 1990.

Other notable documentaries by Obomsawin include Incident at Restigouche, which deals with a small Mi'kmaq community under governmental attack, Rocks at Whiskey Trench, which revisits the site of the Oka crisis years later, and Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Metis Child, which helped reform child welfare policy in Alberta.

Obomsawin's latest film, Professor Norman Cornett, which looks at the sudden dismissal of a McGill University religious studies lecturer and how it raises questions about the nature of pedagogy, morality, and freedom of though, will have its world premiere at the Hot Docs Festival.

An Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the International Documentary Association's Pioneer Award, Obomsawin will be in attendance at this year's festival.

For film scheduling and ticket purchase information, visit hotdocs.ca

More: Films by Alanis Obomsawin | CBC Aboriginal | Hot Docs Festival | NFB Press Room

Posted by Michelle D. | May 3, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Aboriginal, Events, Film

Fairy Tale Resurgence | Art & Design | The Slavs are all right

There's a decidedly fairy tale 'moment' happening in art & design right now, and we don't mean the cutesy Disney variety, neither. Rather, woodland creatures, anthropomorphic animalia, laser cut wood, and graphic art design reminiscent of various Eastern European folk traditions have begun to pop up here and there, often with the sinister undertones of traditional fairy tales intact.

From a G&M article on fairy tale elements in design to programming at the recent signal & noise media arts festival in Vancouver, the wolves (and foxes and bears and squirrels ... vicious things) are among us. (Not to mention all the indie bands with "Wolf" in their names, but that's a whole different post.)

The emergence of these art and design elements that hearken back to pagan European and pan-historic folk mythology right now is interesting, what with the global recession / death of paper / mass move to digital / sky is falling / literal 'wolf at the door' for many industries - and families. There's also notes of the green/environmental movement and our ambivalent relationship with animals. And perhaps there's a nascent appreciation for beautiful, intricate objects made of paper, wood, or clay when most of us are surrounded by cold, ugly electronics all day?

One hopes. A read on thefancy.ca, blog of CBCR3 producer Andrea Gin, alerted us to the recent launch of Pohadky (Drawn&Quarterly) at Lucky's Comics in Vancouver; a gorgeous graphic book by Marek Colek and Pat Shewchuk steeped in Czech and Ukrainian folk legends. Together, Pat and Marek are Tin Can Forest, artists inspired by localism, environmentalism, the urban environment and Slavic folk culture. Their pictures are intricate, sly, haunting, silly, sexy, and demand a second and third look to see what detail(s) you missed the first time. Visit them online, and be sure to check out their animation gallery. The Pohadky promo spot is quite delicious.

More: Fairy tales for scary times in the Globe and Mail, though you'll have to find the print version for the graphics| Studio Job works in paper/bronze/wood/clay at Moss, NY | signal & noise media arts festival | Steve Mazza anthropomorphic sculptures at Transit Gallery | Tin Can Forest: Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek art & animation | henderson dry goods laser cut wooden jewellry & loveliness | Geoffrey Pugen's Utopics

Posted by nikki reimer | May 11, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Art, Design

Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters | Annie Choi

On Annie Choi's website, she begins with this:

My name is Annie Choi and I am going to eat your brains. I will eat them with vigor. Consider yourself warned. I'm very hungry. I've written a book called Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters (HarperCollins) and it's out in stores now. Now! As in this very second. You can find it on the shelf next to Bill Clinton and Winston Churchill. My book is about how I want to mace the crap out of my family but also give them a hug. I am pretty sure Bill Clinton's book is not about that.

Here's the synopsis:

Meet Annie Choi. She fears cable cars and refuses to eat anything that casts a shadow. Her brother thinks chicken is a vegetable. Her father occasionally starts fires at work. Her mother collects Jesus trading cards and wears plaid like it's a job. No matter how hard Annie and her family try to understand one another, they often come up hilariously short.

But in the midst of a family crisis, Annie comes to realize that the only way to survive one another is to stick together ... as difficult as that might be. Annie Choi's Happy Birthday or Whatever is a sidesplitting, eye-opening, and transcendent tale of coping with an infuriating, demanding, but ultimately loving Korean family.

More: Annie Choi's website | Interview @ Small Spiral Notebook | Good Reads | Amazon | Venus Zine

Posted by Tamiko | May 12, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Culture, Literature

Kulus Designs | Contemporary Designs with Traditional Native Art

Kulus Designs, created by Amanda Anderson, blends contemporary designs with traditional native art.

Kulus Designs are made from an ethically-sourced fabric blend of 66% bamboo, 28% cotton, and 6% spandex, with most of the First Nations images by BC Artists John Livingston and Rande Cook.

More: (source) Sweetspot | Kulus Designs | Gloss Magazine | (photo source) Georgia Straight | Kulus Designs @ Youtube

Posted by Tamiko | May 15, 2009 | Comments (0)

Tags: Aboriginal, Fashion

Name On Toast | Make a the world a wee bit better

The world is truly connected. Case in point: Name on Toast. This cute website drives traffic to your website when you donate $ -- they put your name on toast and it acts as a link to your website. The more you pay for your toast, the higher your toast will appear in the listings.

Every penny goes directly to Oxfam Ireland, because "Well, we'd like to make some money; that'd be nice, but we'd prefer to make the world a wee bit better.

Once you pay, your own little toast will be up in 2-3 days. And right now, Name on Toast as a right to turn down offers from "anything pornographic, evil or otherwise objectionable."

More: Name On Toast | Name on Toast BLOG | (photo credit) Notcot | Geeksugar | Advert News

Posted by Tamiko | May 6, 2009 | Comments (0)

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This page contains all entries posted to Schema Magazine's Blog, "Daily Dose" in May 2009. They are listed from oldest to newest.

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