LLC

Limited Liability Company

Last I checked, Yellow people are not well represented at the top.

In the industry I work in, Asians are well represented in the technical fields but not at upper management levels. I feel the reason is largely cultural where Asians don't tend to dominate in managing workloads, preferring to work behind the scenes and therefore don't garner the level of note or respect that their western counterparts might.

I've discovered that I'm something of a loudmouthed Asian and when I speak English to a room of people that are supposedly my superiors, I do it with a deliberate southern twang. I ask hard questions. I ask nearly rude questions. I point out shortcomings. I lose my temper (albeit in a controlled manner) in mixed professional company. I don't think I'm a very "typical" Asian.

That being said, I'm starting my own company.

This isn't about Asians' rights or to make some social experiment but rather a statement to myself that if I want to do what I want to professionally I'll probably have to do it myself.

How do I know that I can follow through?

Let's enumerate the reasons:

1. I've been up until 1 or 2 in the A.M. most work nights in the past few weeks researching my field and what the customers say they want. Also looking around to see what is available and anticipating what the customer will want next.

2. I've been checking out the competition.

3. It consumes a lot (if not most) of my waking thought.

4. I've been in the industry for 3+ years and have picked up on how things work for the most part.

5. I've seen what works at the top and what kind of attitude gets results (thank you Harvard Grads that think they can do no wrong and that there is no such thing as failure, but rather an explanation of how things happened (i.e. failure is an opinion). . . apparently that is the secret to success . . . I'll be careful to not let this govern my non-business interactions)

6. Asking people for money doesn't scare me or make me feel as though I should be ashamed

7. I'm not afraid to fail at starting or having a company (especially now that I know LLC means I'm only on the hook for the monetary amount I contribute to the company).

So I'm thinking of a company name, logo, the process for becoming an LLC and how patents are filed, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Do it while you're young. Do it while you can absorb the impact of these decisions (i.e. can bounce back from a failure while not risking the security of those you will love in the future).

White Dawn?

There's a remake of "Red Dawn" filming right now. The original featured hordes of Russians invading America and a band of scrappy high-schoolers getting together minute-man style to fending them off.

This time instead of Russians they're casting Chinese as the Reds. That's somewhat offensive and makes me not want to see the movie. Last I checked the US saw China as the weird-rich-friend-that-makes-questionable-choices they keep around because they have money.

What really ticks me off is that Australian actress Isabel Lucas will be playing an Asian American highschool cheerleader whom I assume will help the American highschoolers fight against the invading hordes of the Yellow Peril.

Isabel Lucas is not Asian. She's White with blond hair in most pictures google pics found for me.









This situation is also happening with M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender", an adaptation of the American anime series on Nickelodeon. The main character in that movie is named Aang and is play by Noah Ringer (White kid). The character Aang ain't white.

Which brings me to the issue of "Yellow Face".

I can't remember the last example of truly offensive Black face other than those from looney tunes or that "Mammy" bit from the 40's. But I'll stick my neck out and say there have been no instances of Black face in wide spread media in my ~30 years. I attribute that to people like Bill Cosby in the 70's standing up, showing how Black people had been systematically hurt by the media and needed to be treated with respect. This was the beginning of people understanding that things like using the word "nigger" and performing in black face was offensive and just not acceptable even as a joke.

I don't know where this is from but it pisses me off

I'm so, so, so pissed about this because I recently lost a good friend because of a similar situation.

This former good friend of mine (who is white) I held in high regard because I felt for the first time they could understand that there are cultural differences and that was a non-issue in the friendship. But like every other White person I've ever known they decided it would be funny to point out how my Asian-ness or my Chinese-ness was either too much or too little in what ever circumstances. They even went as far as to use terms like "China-Man" and "Chink" to describe me or other Asians for supposedly comedic purposes. I wonder how this information would affect my former friend's significant other who is half Asian.

Its my mistake to have kept this person as a friend. They knew that calling black people "nigger" was wrong and never did that. I assume now they know that saying "chink" is wrong no matter the context.

This was very hurtful because I felt I simply could not trust people who weren't Asian to behave themselves in situations where racial sensitivity is important. I would even goes as far as to say that it has hurt my perception of White America as a whole in that I can no longer have faith in the White American public to be responsible for any racial insensitivity they bring to people of color.

Warner Oland as Charlie Chan

Just because the shade of an Asian person's skin is closer to that of a White person than a Black person's is doesn't make it okay to dress in "Yellow Face". Just because there hasn't been a civil rights movement for just Asians doesn't mean you can treat us like you treated black people before the 90's.

5 Most Overrated Things in My Life

I've been inspired (that's how I euphemistically say that I'm stealing an idea) from MetroDad. His blog is well known and loved by many. Part of his draw is that he's a NY City Slicker raising a little girl. Being Asian is his backdrop but not necessarily a main focus. He's an interesting fellow.

Anyway, back to me . . .


1. Being nice

I'm not saying that I'm going to stop being nice. I think my character is too well established to do that but rather that I just feel that being nice is still getting me the short end of the stick. It might have something to do with the fact that I live in a big city where I describe the general populace as "impatient and ignorant" (I like to allow people 2 words to describe the feel of a city). But there is a positive here. Being nice counts for a lot with the people that are most important to me. Being nice and meaning it and following through day after day and year after year with niceness shows you are willing to give something that not many other people can.

Verdict: Overrated relative to the masses. One-on-One . . . not so bad. My default is to still be nice.

2. Corporate America

It's great to have a job. But I work for a huge corporation whose general attitude towards employee benefits I find unappealing. The benefits I receive are "competitive" with the industry standard in that they are more than zero. A car moving at 50 mph is competitive with a car moving at 100 mph. Just like L'il Wayne is competitive with Shaq. Competitive, in this case, merely means that the existent benefits aren't complete crap.


When my company's policy is to give only 2 weeks severance when laying people off unnecessarily (trust me, it was really unnecessary as money was available to keep most people) I have no qualms about giving 2 weeks on resignation and leaving even though there may be work left. It's simply "business".

Verdict: Big Corporate America is generally too big for its britches. I'd rather work for myself . . . something I'm beginning to explore.

3. Proprietary Technology

These are big scary words that just mean "I know something that you don't and I'm not going to tell you".

I've recently adopted the attitude that since I have a graduate degree in the applied sciences I have the ability to understand most science and engineering concepts. This means 90% of the products available to your normal consumer I can make by myself with enough elbow grease and digging around on the interwebz. I can do it and it's not out of reach.

Verdict: Proprietary Technology is for soft ass bitches.

4. Graduating from Harvard (or some other expensive institution)

I'm of the staunch belief that Yale and Harvard and other similar places still have some of the best teachers but there's a huge ass of a BUT coming.

BUT, they generally deal in the softer sciences and brand name recognition. Work hard in high school, get into/graduate from an Ivy League school and you're set for life.

I went to state school . . .

for free . . .

in Florida.

I must be a complete retard according to how little I paid for my schooling.

My professors lead their fields and show up in the newspapers every once in a while.

Verdict: People who graduated from Harvard and think they're better than me for doing so are also soft bitches.


5. Brunch Places

Has anyone ever said a brunch place wasn't good? I've gotten so many recommendations on brunch places and while I wasn't ever disappointed, I wasn't blown away like I was told I would be.

You know what rocks that people don't talk about enough? Vietnamese Sandwiches.

'Nuff Said.

Verdict: Brunch is overrated and over priced . . . and usually noisy. I can cook a great breakfast at home.

Zombies, Nerds, Robots

I love zombies. Any zombie will do. Even lame dog zombies that seem to move faster than a dog zombie should.

I guess I'm a nerd. A really hot nerd with man boobs of steel. A nerd who can squat, at this point, his full body weight and then some.

But more than anything, I <3 Robots. I'll say I went to school and I studied robots. How to make them how to program them. How to keep them subservient so they don't destroy human kind (Robot booze (Pabst Blue Robot; Samuel Androids; Botweiser . . . feel free to jump in) and robot porn (I got nuthin other than the obvious Playbot) work very well.

I won't say where I work or how I feel about it but for the first time earlier this week I've felt in control of my career. I don't work in robots specifically but I've found some like minded folks at work and we've formed a group called the Sino-Judaic Robot Alliance. Just so happens most of the fellas I work with and identify closely with are Jewish . . . also we all love robots.

But back to feeling in control of my career. We're all fronting a little bit of money to start learning more about robots and build some fun little projects that will give us something good to put on our resumes. That's the worst case scenario. Best case scenario it'll turn into a full company.

But hopefully we'll know better than to call it the Sino-Judaic Robot Alliance Inc.

China Starts Eugenics War

I just read on CNN that in China, for $880, you can have your child's gene's tested for genetic predispositions to being awesome.

This is of course a rip off since Chinese people are awesome in every way possible.

Duh.

But seriously, this is some scary shit because we all know that in China sport scouts go around looking for the tiniest girls to do gymnastics or the freakiest tall yellow dudes to commence the slamma-jamma. In testing people's genes they'll not only be able to identify these traits early on but may even start encouraging people with certain genetic traits to get busy with each other (i.e. sex for super babies).

If the phenomenon spreads to neighboring India and Mongolia there will be no doubt that Khan Noonien Singh will be born.

People in Iowa better start getting busy or we'll all be destroyed.



P.S. Forgive the high nerd factor. I <3 Star Trek. To prevent alienation (pun intended) of my non-Star Trek loving readers. Khan Noonien Singh (evil genius and product of human eugenics) and James T. Kirk (corn eating farmboy from Iowa turned kick ass space captain) are mortal enemies in Star Trek.