By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, February 25, 2010

The notion that Asians and Jews are two shoots from the same cultural rootstock is an old but evergreen meme.

You see it in fringe theories about the Lost Tribes of Israel -- there's an entire body of cryptoarchaeological canon that uses similarities between customs, language and naming convention to "prove" that the ancient vanished Jewish clans ended up in China, India or Japan. (Japan's 50,000-member Makuya sect, which has as its central dogma that the Japanese are descendants of a lost Jewish tribe, keep kosher, speak Hebrew and use the seven-armed menorah as their symbol.)

Halfpipe gold medallist Xuetong Cai of China is flanked by compatriots Zhifeng Sun (left), silver, and Xu Cheng, bronze as they stand on the podium at the FIS snowboard world cup Friday, Jan. 22, 2010 in Stoneham Que. (CP) Source: CIV

We knew during the Beijing Olympics the media took every opportunity to mock the Chinese Athletes just about anything they could find.

When it comes to talking about Chinese athletes, it seems like every article must reemphasize the words  'government-funded', 'state owned', and rather acknowledging the concept of dedication, hard work and discipline as athletic qualities in the Chinese they prefer to call it 'cultural oppression' or even 'inhuman torture'. 

The same rhetorical defamation recycles itself again and in the 2010 Vancouver Winter games the media has taken another stab at it.

 Software sales executive Joe Wang and his wife Heidi have been married for 11 years. Heidi thinks the race "exemplifies empowerment" and she wants her kids to see that she is "not just a mum". 

Joe Wang

Age: 42

Hometown: El Segundo, Calif.

Connection to your Teammate: Married

Current Occupation: Software Sales Executive

Favorite Hobbies: Coaching youth sports, poker and golf

Achievements: My biggest achievement is my family.

Lifelong to do List: Travel around the world.

If I could switch places with someone: My son Jameson who has unlimited potential.

Role Model/Hero: My parents. They immigrated here to USA to provide a better life for me. 

What are you passionate about? Raising my kids to be the best they can be.

What would you do if you won the million dollars? Pay for my kids' college education.

People would be surprised to learn:  I was born in Taiwan and speak fluent Mandarin Chinese 

Favorite place you have ever visited: Fiji

Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on the Race together: Getting a task that we both can’t do and being away from our kids for an extended period of time. 

VANCOUVER - Vancouver's Chinese community had a defiant message for Winter Olympics organisers when it was suggested they should cancel their longstanding Lunar New Year parade - 'no way in hell'.

The city's 36th annual parade, which will usher in the Year of the Tiger, will go ahead as planned on February 14, two days after the start of the February 12-28 Olympics.

City councilor Kerry Jang said there had initially been suggestions from VANOC, the Olympics organising committee, to either cancel or postpone the parade "over security and other concerns".

"The Chinese community said ‘no way in hell'," said Jang, a third-generation Chinese-Canadian.

"They went to city hall and said ‘forget it, we're having it'. So we had a compromise."

He said he was expecting about 20,000 people or more to attend this year's festivities which will start earlier than usual.

By Professor Hyeouk Chris Hahm

Working with diverse immigrant populations who suffered from various mental health disorders in New York City, Professor Hyeouk Chris Hahm had a first-hand look at health disparities among Asian American communities. As a psychiatric social worker for 10 years, she saw a growing prevalence of young Asian American adults dealing with substance use and sexually transmitted disease (STDs). This led her to question the factors associated with risky health behavior patterns, as well as the protective factors of those behaviors including substance use and HIV/STDs risk behaviors among young Asian Americans.

VANCOUVER — A 44-year-old man whose face was left swollen and battered after being arrested in a case of mistaken identity did not resist arrest, Vancouver police said Friday — contradicting an earlier version of events offered by police.

Yaowei Wu is recovering after two plainclothes officers knocked on the wrong door during a domestic-assault call early Thursday.

Officers were called to the southeast Vancouver house at 2 a.m. after a woman called 911 to report that her drunken husband had struck her in the back of the head and she was concerned for her baby's safety.

The officers apparently didn't realize there were two suites in the home and the complainant was actually Wu's tenant, who lives in a ground-floor suite.

"The cops didn't ask clearly — not even ID me or anything — before they started beating me," Wu said through a translator to the Ming Pao newspaper.

"I think they have an attitude problem."

Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun is set to appear alongside Chinese movie star Zhang Ziyi in a new film by Wayne Wang, according to her agency Sidus HQ on Wednesday.

The film, titled "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan", will be based on the 2005 novel of the same title by Chinese-American writer Lisa See.

Set in 19th century China, the film chronicles the lives of two women -- Lily and Snow Flower -- and their intimate lifelong friendship. Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is set to play the main character Snow Flower while Jun's role in the film has not been decided as of yet.

Wanye Wang, a Chinese-American filmmaker, has directed several notable movies such as "The Joy Luck Club" (1993), "Maid in Manhattan" (2002) and "Smoke (1995)", for which he won the Silver Bear award at Berlin International Film Festival.

In this new year of 2010 I hope everyone can continue to be optimistic as this ever struggling economy still has a heart beat, although we have been told our economies have recovered our wages are still just as terrible ( I think not ). There is still no excuse for not making the best of what we have and we should continue to strive for new heights.

In the past, this website had primarily worked on with publishing Asian related content, intelligent opinions, informative articles and any positive Asian media.

This year there will be a slight adjustment to the style of posting, usually we would publish news without actual commentary but as of today we will be adding in our 2 cents worth to everything post. Ideally would like to throw topics in the air and have people take it upon themselves to think about issues. 

We'll try to remain objective about each issue.

The first fear mongering article I've come across since the beginning of this new year sums up all the forecasts of "experts" panic stricken and fear mongering media who can only see this world burning in hell.

Here is another sad story from Australia and again so if you are wondering where this country is currently at in terms of racism and a multiculturalism then I assure you then it still rather backwards.

'White Australia' still has problems with Asian people socializing and gathering, apparently they feel threatened by it they have managed to use a bit of their imagination to link Asians gatherings with crime in such a way that would give them the right to ban Asians from social events would stop Gang violence.

Hello, someone sound the Asian civil rights violation alarms, wait a minute... what civil rights? this doesn't exist in Australia since racism is still wide spread where ethnic people are still treated like second class citizens socially and politically. It's just taking far too long for someone to recognize this problem.