Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
The latest issue of The Asian American Literary Review is out. It’s a major step up in the young life of The AALR in terms of ambition and production. Guest editors Rajini Srikanth and Parag Khandhar, as well as Editors-in-Chief Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and Gerald Maa, are to be congratulated heartily. The East Coast-based AALR commemorates a decade in Asian America after 9/11. The entire Asian community in New York has seen things change profoundly in obvious ways (racial profiling of South Asian, Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans; the conversion of Chinatown into a parking garage for the Feds) and in subtle ways (Afghani restaurants took down maps of the country from their dining rooms). It is a full-scale multimedia effort: The print journal collects first-person testimonies and transcribed discussions and interviews, while there are also visual art sections and an illuminating DVD. The pieces range from angry to somber to bitingly satiric. A long-time contributor to Time is eyed carefully after an airport customs official sees a Syria stamp on his passport and thinks the journalist’s chicken-scrawl handwriting is Arabic. A 13-year-old plaintively asks to live in a world “without having the thought of something bad happening to you.” In words, images and performance, we find that when we view the most unforgettable events from dozens of viewpoints, we not only honor the past but also contemplate our future. Pushkar Sharma‘s mindblowing “10 Little Coolies” spoken-word piece from the DVD. One of five of Tomie Arai‘s works in the print issue.
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Are you promoting civism or civet-ism? This is Sichuan Province’s way of promoting good citizenship — dress up your local nubile volunteers as skanky cats and unleash them in the subways. Dad is getting the message! It figures. Sichuan is known for spiciness, right? Looks like open solicitation to me… After the day was over, these women went home with Chairman Meow. Ba dump dump.
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Fake Tiananmen Square looks real, but where are the hawkers? A “local enterprise” (private business) in Qishan County of China’s Shaanxi province has gone one step further than securing government approval to operate. It became the government by building its headquarters to replicate Tiananmen Square. Looks like they couldn’t decide where to put the replica tanks. Hey, maybe they took the Bad Religion song to heart, but what is truly amazing is that this complex is allowed to stand. Has the copyright on the set design of the Square expired? What’s next? Maybe the official organ of the People’s Republic will call the Tiananmen Massacre a myth and having a duplicate Square is one way of wiping away history.
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He has no choice but to use his noodle. Times are tough and in the global recession, not even superheros are immune. Witness the transformation of Ultraman from monster-crusher to noodle slicer in Shijiazhuang, China. No word yet on his immigration and work-eligibility status.
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When you try to change your restaurant’s name, remember the little sign, too. Let’s say the Chinese restaurant you run is already a couple years old — too old for you to call it “NEW GREEN BO.” Let’s say you want to change it to “NICE GREEN BO,” just so your regulars aren’t thrown off too much. If your sign is translucent and lit from the back, it’s probably worth it to properly fix your sign instead of pasting on “NICE” over it, because at night, your restaurant becomes “NIECWE GREEN BO.” Not that that’s a bad name.
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