Category Archives: Asia

The Importance of the Asian Himbo

Posted on May 30, 2022 by | 1 comment

I haven’t explicitly blogged about the Asian-American experience in three years, last touching on the topic back in 2019 when I interviewed Bachelor contestant Revian Chang about her experience on the reality dating show. With May being Asian Heritage Month up here in Canada and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month south of the border, I thought it would be appropriate to return to a subject I’ve explored so often since this blog’s inception. What I didn’t expect was the immense weight that would accompany my decision.

Thinking over the interim in which this site lay dormant I’m reminded of the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, a horrific incident that struck me so deeply that it wasn’t until an old coworker asked me how I was feeling that I realized I was angry. I think back on a time where it felt like with every passing day was a new story about yet another hate crime being enacted against Asian people, violence born out of xenophobia that studies have shown flourished with the former POTUS’s tweets about the global pandemic.

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Even now, during the month when we as Asian people living in North America should be keeping our heads high, acknowledging our past hardships and present triumphs, we’re reminded only four days in that distrust of Asian Americans has been steadily growing over the past year. 33% of Americans believe that Asian Americans are “more loyal to their country of origin than to the United States.” Countries that many have never even stepped foot in.

The increased difficulty surrounding my existence is directly tied into the dehumanization of my race. The man who shot and killed eight people (six of them being Asian women) was able to do so because he viewed them as temptations before he was able to consider them people. Opposite that mindset, the model minority stereotype that surrounds Asian Americans might seem positive, but it still reduces individuals down to qualities they might not even embody. It’s why a range of representation is so crucial, and the reason the Asian himbo is so important. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, Asia, crime, film, gender, internet, media, race, relationships, sex, television

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Looking for Love as an ABC on ABC: Revian Chang’s Bachelor Experience

Posted on April 1, 2019 by | 2 comments

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On January 7th, 2019, at 8 PM (7 PM Central), ABC premiered the 23rd season of perennial reality TV favourite The Bachelor. Starring ex-NFL tight end Colton Underwood, this latest installment also held the promise of following Revian Chang, an Asian contestant, and her own search for love. It was a search that ended at roughly 11 PM (8 PM Central) that very same evening.

It was an event that I couldn’t pass up covering, and Revian somehow found the article I had written and reached out to thank me via email. After the weeks it took me to finally ask her to do a short interview she graciously agreed, opening up on her short stint on the show and what it meant to be a Chinese woman on the historically very white show.


There’s an easily traceable history of past contestants and future contestants running in the same circles. Did you know anyone else who had also applied to be on Colton’s season? Is there a whisper network for Asian-American applicants?

I didn’t know anyone who also applied for my same season. However, I was friends with a few previous contestants prior to applying.

In an interview with NPR Chris Harrison said that they “don’t get the same cross-section of casting,” specifically referring to the fact that there aren’t as many non-white applicants to the show as white applicants. He went on to say that “[minorities] don’t see themselves represented on television. They don’t see themselves represented equally. And so I would assume, ‘Why would I be going to do this if I don’t see myself there anyway?’” Do you agree with that?

I can understand the assumption as to “why would I do this if I’m not being represented, and if I am represented…it’s not equally,” and rejection or misinterpretation are both scary. But if we continue to assume this, then minorities continue to have a lack of representation.

I went in knowing that most contestants and viewers of The Bachelor are white. I didn’t allow it to scare me off. I think I wasn’t scared because I am confident and happy in who I am. And if a major network show were to cast me, I hoped I would be a good representation for a minority group.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Asia, interview, race, relationships, television

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The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being (Part I)

Posted on April 3, 2017 by | 1 comment

FACT: All Asian Americans are Asian by definition, but not all Asians are Asian Americans. The truth is that most Asians aren’t. While they may share an ethnic heritage, as well as many cultural similarities, Asian people who were born and raised in and reside in an Asian country have vastly different wants and needs and priorities than those who were born and raised in and reside in North America [and other non-Asian countries].

I wanted to start out with that quote for two reasons.

First, because it’s stolen from my co-writer’s post last Friday, which was a really good post you should read.

Second, because I think it does a good job of establishing the complicated and sometimes uncomfortable nuance that goes into addressing identity politics. Which is what we’re going to be talking about today and in the weeks to follow.

More specifically, we’re gonna be talking about White people.

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We’ll probably cover my use of this specific gif sometime later…

Before we dive in, I just wanna make something clear.

Race is a social construct – a series of categories that we’ve made up and ones we’ve made up only very recently in the scope of history. The fact of the matter is that there’s no actual place you can draw a dividing line when it comes to human beings and there’s no good reason you’d want to.

Not that it’s ever stopped us.

For better or worse, we have divided the world up into so many arbitrary categories, and those divisions have played and continue to play a major role in today’s culture. In spite of what some folks might suggest, ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away, and if we want to end the unspeakable hassle that is identity politics, we’re going to need to start by actually addressing them.

And here at Culture War Reporters, I think we’ve done a decent job. Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa, America, Asia, bizarreness, Europe, history, race, Sociology, south america

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All Asian Americans Are Asian, But Not All Asians Are Asian American

Posted on March 31, 2017 by | 5 comments

Just to start with, I honestly don’t think anyone expected to see Scarlett Johansson mercilessly gunning down Asians in two separate movies:

Lucy (2014) – “You speak English?” *BLAM*

Ghost in the Shell (2017) – Well, at least they’re armed this time.

That’s a bit of a tangent, but still relevant as this was sparked by the live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation, which premiered in theatres across the country today. It’s also worth starting things out with a diversion, if only because I didn’t want you to get into a breakdown of the title a split second after reading it.

FACT: All Asian Americans are Asian by definition, but not all Asians are Asian Americans. The truth is that most Asians aren’t. While they may share an ethnic heritage, as well as many cultural similarities, Asian people who were born and raised in and reside in an Asian country have vastly different wants and needs and priorities than those who were born and raised in and reside in North America [and other non-Asian countries].

For the purposes of clarity I will be referring to the former as “Asians”, and the latter as “Asian Americans”.

With all of that being said, it should be obvious that Asians and Asian Americans also have very different views when it comes to their shared representation in Western media. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, Asia, bizarreness, film, race, television

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Was K’un-Lun Founded by Aliens? The Answer May Surprise You!

Posted on March 4, 2017 by | Leave a comment

The following is research that was done for my post titled “The K’un-Lun of Netflix’s Iron Fist [Within the Larger Context]”, as a means of supporting one of my points. Due to its length I decided to dedicate another short post to it to avoid adding to what was already too lengthy an article.

I would encourage you to read that one in full, though this should certainly be interesting enough on its own.

For the vast majority of my blog posts about Marvel comic books I refer to the Marvel Database, an unofficial wiki updated by fans. While that format can and does lend itself to the occasional error, the citations at the bottom of the page referring to specific runs and issue numbers allow for fact-checking if needed. At this point in time there are no direct mentions to K’un-Lun being anything other than one of the Capital Cities of Heaven, besides a heading for the alien race the H’ylthri with no text underneath it.

However a number of other sources have slightly differing origins. Comic Vine, another well-regarded comic book wiki, mentions on its entry for the city that:

“K’un-Lun is the stronghold of a colony of humanoid aliens, place of origin unknown, whose spaceship crash-landed upon a small, extradimensional world, approximately a million years ago.”

Unfortunately there are no citations listed anywhere. This tidbit of information is also listed on Marvel Directory, a largely defunct site that appears to have been last updated in 2015. Their entry categorizes K’un-Lun as an “Alien world” and only refers to the issue where the location first appeared, Marvel Premiere #15. As far as anything from Marvel themselves, the page on the publisher’s own wiki currently does not exist.

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Power Man and Iron Fist Vol. 1, #69. Written by Jo Duffy and Steven Grant, illustrated by Alan Weiss.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Asia, bizarreness, race, writing

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The K’un-Lun of Netflix’s Iron Fist [Within the Larger Context]

Posted on March 4, 2017 by | 1 comment

Technically my posts are supposed to go up on Friday. As loyal readers may have noticed, and much to my chagrin, my tendency as of late has been to put them up on Saturday, and sometimes even Sunday. This is one of those very rare instances where I’m glad I took some time to get to a particular topic.

See, this Thursday I came across the Comic Book Resources headline “Finn Jones On Iron Fist Criticism: ‘Danny Is Not A White Savior’”, which I ended up clicking on against my better judgement.

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The actor begins by empathizing with those who might be upset about Netflix’s latest upcoming Marvel project, saying:

“I understand where this frustration comes from. I understand the need for more diversity in television and films, especially for Asian actors. I understand that frustration. I agree with it, and I stand in solidarity with that voice.”

I filled my lifetime quota for Well-Meaning White Person™ responses with Tilda Swinton last year, though, so there’s only so much Jones’ attempts at allyship could do to affect me. What really riled me up, to the point where I was going to lean hard into the style of my co-writer Gordon’s profanity-laden rage posts, was what he mentioned a little later on:

“People from all over the world, all different cultures come from K’un-Lun, so it isn’t just this Asian-specific culture. You have people from Brazil there, you have people from Europe there. It’s a multicultural intergalactic alternate dimension.”

Fortunately I’ve since been able to calm down, so let’s take a few steps back and start from the top. Continue reading →

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Posted in Asia, comics, film, media, race, television

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