But that begs the question, What, exactly, qualifies as small stuff?
Last week, my wife and I met with someone from our denomination. Although we’ve exchanged emails and phone calls, this was our first face to face meeting with this person.
After giving some personal background, along with some of the difficulties we’ve experienced along the way, that were relevant to our conversation, this person stopped and remarked:
Oh, you both speak English so well!
Ugh.
Perhaps you’ve seen those “Obama Mama” shirts around but wished you could find one partially written in Korean? Well, wish no more! Thanks to artist Jee Yun Lee, you can now have your very own “Ahjumah for Obama” shirt! [h/t: Angry Asian Man]
It might not rhyme, but now English- and Korean-speaking Obama Mamas can show their support for their candidate! I’ll let you know if I see anything similar for John McCain…
According to this article at ESPN.com, the LPGA has reversed its planned policy of suspending players who could not speak English:
Facing anger from lawmakers and bewilderment from sponsors, the LPGA Tour backed off plans to suspend players who cannot speak English well enough to be understood at pro-ams, in interviews or in making acceptance speeches at tournaments in the United States.
The policy has generated a storm of bad publicity since it was announced last month
Perhaps this is a testimony to Eugene Cho’s blogging power (and, if so, how can I get him to blog about people sending me gifts of gold doubloons?). In any case, this is a small bit of good news — even if it takes the threat of sponsors withdrawing financial support and possible legal challenges — that change is possible (although, really, the LPGA should have seen this one coming).
The Olympics are about the bringing the world together in perfect harmony, right? Maybe that was just an old soda commercial.
I have definitely been enjoying these Olympic games — in fact, I might be watching too much. The other day, my daughter identified the Chinese flag without prompting. And she’s never studied flags or nations or anything of the sort in her five years of life. It must be from all the handball, fencing and table tennis I’ve been watching.
The Olympics are supposed to bring us together, to provide a literal playing field upon which nations can come together and forget their differences. And yet, as the headlines of reality remind us, nations still continue to sabre-rattle, posture, provoke and invade one another. Even within the games themselves, we are reminded — despite Visa’s best advertising efforts (“Go World,” to which we respond, “Go where?”) — that we still have a long way to go in understanding one another. A very long way.
I was hesitant to watch Last Comic Standing the other night because the Korean American woman made it to the semifinal round [update: apparently, the finals now – great] and her material is just awful. I was all excited to see her perform when the show first started, because Asian faces on television are so scarce. But now I wish she would just go away.
Her routine is like watching a six-year old Asian kid following around another Asian kid on the playground, yelling, “Me Chinese, me play joke” and “Why don’t you talk American good?” for three and half minutes, while all their non-Asian classmates watch, point and laugh. But less funny, if that’s even possible.
headsparks* 