By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, May 14, 2012 9:23 AM
Big Brother Roland called today to see what my plans were for Mother’s Day and to ask if I wanted to join him and his family in case the children were not with me this day. He is always looking out for me and invites me every year.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, May 10, 2012 9:59 AM
My fifteen-year-old daughter Hao Hao came back from school last week pretending to sniffle, “All my friends and even my teacher laughed at me.”
That was very much out of the ordinary, so I gathered her into my arms and asked, “What happened?”
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Apr 30, 2012 1:01 PM
A sudden cold snap has sent me scurrying for my Hello Kitty scarf and gloves. Hard to remember that only one month ago, I was splashing through puddles at balmy midnight, wearing a Hawaiian print skirt and flip flops.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Apr 24, 2012 9:17 AM
Purdue University recently had some race-related troubles in the form of a racist anti-Asian Twitter account(s) that denigrated and ridiculed Asian and Asian American students there. The Asian American community was offended. Others thought it was funny. The university was slow to respond.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Apr 18, 2012 12:54 PM
My twelve-year-old daughter was recently backed up against a wall at school by someone much taller and heavier than her—that classic pose with one hand against the wall behind her head, body leaning into her as he talked, running his other hand through his hair, acting so cool. She did not feel like she was in any danger, but she did not like the feeling of being trapped there.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Apr 9, 2012 10:05 AM
Last Thursday, my son, eight-year-old Little Brother, did not want to go to school. No fever. No stomachache. No runny nose. Normally, I am a big softie when the children do not feel well, but that day I had to go to the courthouse, so no time for fooling around. As I carried him to school under one arm, socks and shoes and breakfast and backpack under the other, he finally admitted that he did not want to go to school because something had happened on the playground a day earlier. Nothing too serious—definitely not bullying—just boys playing a little too rough, but he was frightened. He did not want to get his friend in trouble, but I told him that he had to tell, if only to help his friend learn how to become a better friend, and to let the grownups know to keep a closer eye on the foursquare.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Apr 2, 2012 9:51 AM
After Indian American Rutgers student Dharun Ravi was convicted of bias intimidation, I sent the very long New Yorker article about the case to my teenagers so that they can understand what kind of digital footprint they leave whenever they do anything online, and to remind them that regardless of what they might actually be doing, they need to be aware that sometimes those actions may be perceived quite differently by others, including people who do not understand technology and culture, including people with power.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Mar 22, 2012 11:46 AM
A few weeks ago, in the midst of Linsanity and some of its racist reactions, journalist Grace Hwang of Hapamama.com asked if I thought racism was taken more seriously than sexism.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Mar 12, 2012 2:37 PM
I missed the first week of Linsanity because I was caught up in fighting the racist China-fear-mongering Pete Hoekstra political ad that aired during the Superbowl. I remember feeling beleaguered at the time, like we still had a looooong way to go until the elections in November, and if this was just the beginning…
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Jan 19, 2012 12:07 PM
My daughter Hao Hao once dressed as a bag of Koda Farms rice for Halloween. The doorbell rings. The dog barks. I turn on the porch light, open the front door, and…
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Dec 23, 2011 8:55 AM
Asian American journalist Lisa Ling once said onThe View that as a child she thought Santa liked Caucasian children better than Chinese children because he always left much better and bigger gifts, like stereos, for her Caucasian friends, whereas he only left small gifts, like batteries and toothbrushes, in her stocking.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Nov 17, 2011 12:02 PM
My parents say that there is a Chinese saying (there is always a Chinese saying) about how distant relatives are not as good as nearby friends. To illustrate, they recall the time our car broke down on the winding and treacherous Pacheco Pass after midnight and how our neighbor, Mr. Shigematsu, came to rescue us and did not get home until after 2 a.m. Our relatives in distant Los Angeles or San Francisco could not have done anything to help because they were too far away.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Sep 26, 2011 11:06 AM
The University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. As usual for an academic department, they have all sorts of lectures and films and art exhibits and concerts and performances and colloquia and conferences planned.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Sep 21, 2011 12:15 PM
The wall of 52 faces at the Eastern Michigan University (EMU) Looking Both Ways contemporary art exhibit is striking.
The styles are all different — formal, casual, realistic, cartoonish, playful, even black and white and fake-photoshopped. There are old men and young women, hipster rock stars and craggy-faced workers. There is a high mandarin collar, a hooded sweatshirt, a tie, a baseball cap, spiky dyed hair, a cigarette.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Sep 11, 2011 10:51 AM
The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is this Monday. That means mooncakes! A harvest festival, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is a Chinese (Zhong Qiu Jie), Vietnamese (Tet Trung Thu) and Korean (Chusok) festival that celebrates the end of the harvest, family and food. It's sort of like Thanksgiving (without the turkey), Octoberfest (without the beer) and Sukkot (without the tent). It is always celebrated on the largest full moon of the year, the Harvest Moon.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Sep 4, 2011 8:14 PM
In the hubbub of back to school preparations—registration, green emergency cards, forms, fees, textbooks, pictures, school supplies, backpacks, lunchboxes, scheduling extracurriculars, new lunch and snack ideas, catching up with old friends, etc., I keep ending up in the bento box or lunchbox section of every store I enter, be it the Chinese grocery store, the Japanese bookstore, Target, Walmart, CVS, or Busch’s grocery store.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Aug 29, 2011 9:12 AM
The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) National Convention was held in Detroit this month. I really wanted to attend, since it was home, but unfortunately I was not able to make it. Still, I watched from afar via Twitter, I saw my friends smiling in Twitpix, I connected people to each other via Facebook and email, I read newspaper articles online, and I even received a cellphone call that would have allowed me to listen in on one of the panels (if only I had not been driving at the time).
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Aug 22, 2011 9:29 AM
At the annual Band Camp concert at Interlochen a few years ago, my friend Shih-yi joked, “This would be a good day to rob Ann Arbor. Half the town is here.”
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Aug 15, 2011 11:00 AM
A girlfriend who attends St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church once told me how invaluable that one hour a week every Sunday morning was for her, to sit, reflect, pray, and be alone. To hear her describe it, I wanted to go, too.
By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Aug 8, 2011 1:52 PM
Two weeks after the Obon Festival, a Buddhist holiday to remember and celebrate one’s ancestors, during which spirits are said to come home to visit the family for two weeks, comes the Toro Nagashi, a Buddhist ritual to send our visiting ancestors back on their way to the realm of the spirits.
