yes, finally. a letter to the editor of hyphen. haha.

Dear Hyphen editor,

I must say I had never heard of Hyphen before I took an Asian American studies class at school nor did I care too much about Asian American culture but it’s very nice to see that there’s a group out there taking an interest in our well being and putting it out there for the world to read. We were assigned to read different issues of your magazine and I had read the Hybrid Issue. Although the articles were interesting as usual, I felt that the title of the issue was a bit off. There were some main articles about hybridization between relationships of two different kinds of ethnicities but then there were some articles that seemed to be out of place. For example, the article titled “One Fine (Three) Days” that talks about an Indian woman marrying an American man three times follows the issues main idea of hybridization very well. As far as some articles like “Asian is the New Black” about asian fashion designers and models didn’t seem to strike me as very “hybrid”. But, despite this specific issue, I find your magazine to be interesting to read and something I can relate to.

Donna Dris
San Francisco, CA

Walkout

Since Donna posted some of the pictures from the walkout [Amanda we're waiting on yours! =D], I figured I should write about my experience with it. Besides... I don't want to write my essay, and I'm really bored at work, haha.

I think the walkout was quite an experience, something everyone should experience. Good thing Scott lied to all of us to get us to join them! hahaha. Anyway, even though we [the fellas from 210s Finest and Donna, Amanda, Jeff, and I] only walked down as far as Stonestown on 19th Avenue [we had class and work, and that's why we couldn't continue... and CCSF is really far!] I still felt the emotions that were flying amongst the crowd of people surrounding us. You can sense the passion and the determination of those trying to make a difference, trying to be heard. People had posters, signs, and T-shirts, and they were all chanting various phrases, trying to get others to hear their voices. People that drove by honked to show their support, and spectators on the sidewalks stopped to watch as we went by. The message was slowly, but surely becoming clear to others in society around us. Oh, and I have to mention, the cops that were trying to control the walkout were assholes! I know Jiawei agrees... hahaha.

I don't think people realize that students aren't the only ones effected by the cuts that have been made... it is also unfair to the staff working at the university. The walkout on the 12th was not just for students, but for staff as well. Although the majority of the staff and faculty couldn't participate since they had classes to instruct, many of them were supportive and let their students leave to support this cause. Students are unaware, but a lot of staff and faculty have gotten laid off, as well as pay reduction, and the lack of staff to run the university. Although staff and faculty are effected as well, students clearly got the shorter end of the stick. We are paying for our tuition, and our fees are constantly increasing, whether they're fees for classes, textbooks or scantrons, the amount that we are paying is never consistent. Not only that, but students are paying MORE to get LESS. Our fees have increased, but our classes have been cut, and it's simply not fair for students to suffer. People in society claim that our turnover rate for college graduates is extremely low, and I believe it. If they are wondering why, they shouldn't because the answer is obvious. The cost of education has gone up, and many people can no longer afford the tuition to go to college. Even with financial assistance, many students can't afford to pay the difference because the costs are so high.

I think everyone should have came and joined us in the walkout. Considering that our school is so liberal, I feel that everyone should participate in such events. It's definitely something worth participating in, and you're actively walking for something you believe in... something that will indefinitely affect you in the long run. Like I said, even though we only walked down to Stonestown on 19th Avenue, [Don't judge us! At least we went! haha] participating even for a short period of time in the walkout was definitely an experience - an unforgettable one.

--Kim [=

the walkout

Birthday Killer..

Happy Tuesday everyone! =D So, usually I blog about something that has to do with Asian American studies - well I try to anyway, but today, we're going to follow a different trail.

My friend's 21st birthday was on March 4th [HAPPY 21st BiRTHDAY SOMANDY! =D] and after she hit a few clubs, went to a few bars, and practiced her official rights as a 21-year-old in American society, we all met up Saturday evening and had dinner at this Egyptian restaurant in the outer Richmond area called Al-Masri... and I think the experience at that restaurant alone killed her celebration as a whole. It was the worst experience I've ever had at a restaurant - not to mention the most expensive bill I've ever seen for 10 people! Can you please explain to me how our bill came out to be $570 for 10 people?! That was just ridiculous. I can't believe these people would have the nerve to scam us just because we're young and they think they can get away with that BS.

First of all, the restaurant itself looked like a house, made into a wanna-be restaurant, and the food portions were TINY! It was supposed to be $37 for a 3-course meal for each person, okay, that's understandable... but the way they plated the food was stupid, and obviously only benefitted them while ripping us off. Our first "course" was pita bread, hummus, and other random dips all on one plate. Okay, this I understand. Who was going to eat all that hummus and cheese and whatever anyway right? The second "course" was salad... not individual plates of salad - no, that would mean they were being fair to us. The salads were on one big plate that we had to pass around - the food was served family style. The entree was also plated on 3 plates that we once again had to pass around - and there wasn't even enough of the food for everyone to have. Those were our 3-courses, and it took us about 2 hours to get our entree. TWO HOURS! Oh, and that's not even the worst part!

The worst part was they tried to make ALL OF US GIRLS get up and BELLY DANCE with some lady that was older than my mom. I mean, props to the lady who can still belly dance at her age, but seriously - to claim that as your "show", that's just a joke. A big, fat, humiliating joke. I mean, Somandy, you are so lucky I love you because if I didn't, you would've suffered that humiliation on your own! haha. Anyway, they tried to make us dance, which none of us wanted to do. I mean, belly dancing in cocktail dresses and stilettos? What the hell.. no. Not happening. Then, the rest of their "customers" [it was actually their FAMILY] got up and joined her, which is fine. Go for it! And then they started trying to record us on their camcorder. WTF?! Is that even LEGAL without our consent?! I don't think so. So my friend told them to knock it off, and the girl that was recording got PISSED. Who cares?

Anyway, they tried to keep us trapped there to have cake for their sons "birthday", and I mean, the kid had that look on his face like, "DAMN! How many birthdays am I gonna have?!" which is so sad. It took them a good 45 minutes to calculate our bill, which I don't understand because seriously, how difficult is it? And meanwhile, they had the ONLY ASIAN GUY working their dress up as some Egyptian to present my friend with a cake that looked really dry and frankly, was reminiscent of pound cake with a glaze on top. I pity that Asian guy - if I were him, I'd hate my job too. They had him dressed up in all these goofy ass outfits, and I still don't understand how he was the ONLY person there that wasn't apart of their Egyptian family... shoot, as far as I know, he might've been adopted or married into that crazy ass, scamming family. Oh, and their "Happy Birthday" song, was like 20 minutes long. WTF?! I swear that shit was on repeat...

So, my advice to all of you out there, don't ever eat at Al-Masri Egyptian Restaurant in the outer Richmond on Balboa. They'll not only ruin your night, you'll leave there HUNGRY and unsatisfied with your food and feeling like you just got ripped off - which you probably did.

Sorry for the ranting and raving - thought I'd do my friend a favor and let everyone know about her displeasure! Anyway, Happy Birthday again hun! =D

--Kim

my long long week

so after my wonderful weekend of non stop partying, i got hella sick monday night after eating wingstop! ! ! that's being sick twice in less than a month. my immune system sucks.

tuesday: so it was about 3:30ish am. i started to whine and cry because i couldn't breathe, and felt hot and cold at the same time. i didn't know what to do so i cried of course. hahah sounds funny huh? and to top it off all my boyfriend kept askin' is "what's wrong and what do you want me to do" JERK!!! haha. of course i wanted him to bring me medicine or water or something instead of asking me questions and of course i was cranky and he was not helping at all. i kept tossing and turning and it was about 5am and i still was not able to sleep. i thought i was gonna die! haha. so i wasn't able to go to school that day cos i couldn't get out of bed til like 3pm. my body was so weak and people kept texting and calling me where i didn't even have the energy to pick up my phone to look at it. i couldn't eat, drink or move anywhere but my head. it was horrible i tell you.

wednesday: so i'm thinking i'll get a little bit better for work but end up couldn't get out of bed either so i called in and stayed in the bed the whole day. the colder it was, the more i coughed and my coughed sounded horrible and my throat hurted at the same time. i hate drinking medicine because it doesn't work. it felt like the medicine i was taking was making me more sick than i was. i was hoping i'll get better for thursday since i didn't go to school on tuesday so i was planning on going to school.

thursday: thursday morning came around 6am when i was trying to get out of bed. as i was getting up my head started spinning and sweating so i knew i couldnt go to school then there i laid in bed for the longest. i swear i've never missed two days of school like that in my life nor have i've been sick where i can't move or get out of bed. my mom kept telling me to get up and be active but i didn't have any energy to do so. *sighs* but amazingly i got a little better by the end of the night so i was able to go to work the next day. which wasn't a very good idea because i gotten worse over the weekend :( so basically the last week i've done nothing but stayed in bed :( wow what a week especially when the weather has been so beautiful!!!!!

' can't believe spring break is almost here! yay and about 2 months of school for me!!!!

***DON'T FORGET MARCH 21, 2008, SYTFU BBQ AT ALAMEDA BASE.*** COME AND SUPPORT US!!!

xoxo
Julie Joi

So tired...

As many of you are aware by now, daylight savings has crept into our clocks once again. Although I was very much aware of the change (I changed my clocks on Saturday), my father felt it was necessary to call and remind me at 7 AM (6 AM pre-DST). He didn't want me to be late for church (o_O). Anyways...enough of the useless banter and time to explore the origins and history of daylight savings.

Throughout human civilization, the sun has been a vital component in governing daily affairs. Prior to the discovery of electricity, the sun was the sole source of light, and it limited the activities individuals were able to perform. Unlike previous ancient civilizations, however, there was no true standardization of time. As a result, they were free to regulate how the work day was conducted. Modern civilizations do not have such laxity when regulating hours. The acceptance of a twenty four hour day meant establishing periods of acceptable times by which the entire society would function. In the early 1900s, William Willett was disturbed by the number of Londoners that would sleep in during the summer months since mornings were brighter as compared to winter months. Consequently, he proposed adjusting the time forward so that individuals could enjoy more leisure time in the sun.

DST is not employed by the entire world. The map above shows areas that are currently using DST (blue), those that no longer DST (orange), and those that never used DST (red). Interestingly enough, DST is not used uniformly in all countries. Arizona no longer abides by DST.

The utilization of DST has its benefits. The increased sunlight allowed individuals to enjoy outdoor activities for longer periods of time. These activities include sports, health and fitness, and shopping. Lastly, traffic reports (circa 1995) reported decreases in vehicular accidents and fatalities due to the increased mid-day sunlight..

Besides the positive effects of DST, there is also a bit of controversy that surrounds it. A large concern is the abrupt shift in the individuals biological clock. Adjusting to an hour less sleep can affect the physical and mental performance of any individual. Also, DST is a complex system that is not accepted by all countries, and that can cause logistical problems. Lastly, a 2007 study by the US Department of energy concluded that Americans used .5% less electricity during the DST period, but the information is not exactly reliable. Many companies are reluctant to spare energy during hours of operation. Additionally, patterns of individual energy use at home can be sporadic.

Lastly, I forgot to blog about the food challenge. Rather than write a lengthy piece on it, I'd prefer to keep it short. Since we lost, we are left to savor the experience of cooking the food. From that merry night, I will make a few observations:
1) We were obviously unprepared in the kitchen. It took us three hours to make a one hour meal (marinating time not included).
2) Having 5 people fight for prep space was interesting to say the least.
3) Moments of desperation where food tastes "plain" calls for an improvization of ingredients.
4) Adding alcohol into the system helps with creativity.
5) Scaring the shit out of Kim is priceless...

so i am told to blog about my experience with the iron chef challenge.

but first, let me give a little background to those who are stumbling upon this page on accident and have no idea what we're all talking about. the "iron chef challenge" was essentially a project for our asian american culture class at sfsu. prior to this project the class was separated into groups and each group was supposed to create a dish that combined american food with asian food based on an assigned country. when we presented our dish, we went up against another group with a different country and were critiqued by judges. scoring was based on taste, presentation, originality, and education/entertainment.

our country was vietnam and we chose to make two dishes. the first was the traditional american cobb salad with the vietnamese lemon grass chicken. the second was the vietnamese springroll with american garlic shrimp.

i just wanna take note that in every group's dishes, i noticed that the american part of the food made it fattening. and i found that both funny and interesting. take our food for example, the garlic shrimp consisted of lots of butter and garlic. and then there was the cobb salad which has bacon on it, but we skipped that part. can you say unhealthy? lol it just goes to show how the american diet has turned out to be.

personally, i think we did really good. i'm not gonna say we were the best, but we set the bar pretty high. and although our food came off as "unoriginal" (based on the comments on our springrolls), anyone who even took the effort to look into it enough and see our effort would have seen that our food was indeed original. props to the TA judges melisa and ryan for recognizing that.

we're not sore losers. i just felt like the competition between us and 210's finest was a bit biased from the get-go. first of all, they had japanese food going up against our vietnamese food. now we all know how much more popular japanese food is than vietnamese food is. in fact when i first heard of the project i wanted japan as our country because i thought it would be easy. i'm glad we ended up with vietnam though. second of all, the minute we started plating i felt like i saw the bias. i don't want to go into specifics why, but that's just how i felt. and then the presentations went. and i admit, some of us didn't seem too prepared with the info or history and we weren't very exciting with it, but we did a really good job at explaining the american/vietnamese aspects of our dish and the history of each. and we didn't really read off of pieces of paper. well, not me anyway. but 210's finest wasn't all that wow either. we should have been tied. really.

it's whatever. it's just a school project. i think i was just upset because i got sick the day before, lost my voice, was late for class because we still had to prepare our food, and i wore shoes that hurt my feet so much that day we presented. yeah, all that in one day. AND we lost, to top it all off. yea, that was one of the worst days of my life. haha.

but all together, it still turned out to be a positive experience. and i agree with amanda, it did bring our group closer. blame it on the alcohol... hahaha jk.

-Donna

Food Challenge

I could go on for DAYS about the food challenge... but i'll make this short and sweet...

First of all I just want to say that this challenge definitely made this group just a tad bit closer to each other. Food challenge = bonding time! (Only because it took about 375668 days to marinate and cook the damn chicken/shrimp!) So i must say the bonding aspect of the challenge was one that i was happy about... on the other hand... i must say im pretty upset about the actual challenge. im not the "sore loser" type but i felt (as well as my fellow group members) that we were judged unfairly.
1. Some judges didn't realize the american aspects of our dishes (particularly the spring rolls)
2. One judge failed to use the sauce that was incorporated with the spring rolls..in other words..missed out on the full taste!!

I know that presentation was a big part of this challenge but shit was our presentation really that bad?!? i mean...if we "killed it" on TASTE.. then what's the problem here?! unlike other groups...we had the dishes plated separately... for presentation as well as for the judges convenience... uhmmm plus i could ABSOLUTELY picture these dishes in an actual restaurant.. p.s mixed persuasian members; I TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT THE VASE WITH FLOWERS! Perhaps our presentation would have been sooo much more creative? haha anyways.

Did i mention i can't even count how many compliments we received about how delectable our food tasted?

ok lastly, i gotta admit.. it's just so damn upsetting when your group puts in sooo much effort and ultimately end up not getting enough credit for it... not to mention the day/night we spent preparing and making the food was one of the worst freakin' days of my life! [[ not because of my group :) ]] Seriously though... it was.

Although i do gotta say... Congratulations to 210's Finest... im glad we were paired up with a team with so much drive and who also put in a huge amount of time and effort into this project. :)

-Amanda