Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Some things just don't fit in a single Facebook status update.  And since it's relatively tame information for the public sphere, I'm okay with posting it publicly.  

Stupid f*cking sushi set

If you see the previous post about the sushi set, I'm still angry about it, but it's a non-issue for Kitchen Stuff Plus and the manufacturer, MSC International.  Kitchen Stuff Plus' president never emailed, but as I can see from recent stock updates, it's full swing in-stock, except for the two stores that don't carry it.  And it makes sense that I would never seen the offensive item in five years since I would have shopped at those exact two stores while living in Toronto.  Well, you've lost my business, Kitchen Stuff Plus.  I actually don't even like seeing your sign anymore.

I suppose the consolation is that it's not a well-known or widely popular item, so in proportion to the time it takes to rally people (many who frankly can't be rallied for a North American Asian-only cause), I at least had a go at raising awareness.

Media consumption

With being around so many writers (of books) these days, I'm always a little embarrassed by my lack of a book in hand whereas everyone else is toting one.  But then I realized that I consume a LOT of media, because I write/produce for interactive digital media.  

So the question is not "what am I reading?" but the list goes:

- What book do you have on the go?  N.M. Kelby's White Truffles In Winter

- What e-book do you have on the go?  Maya Angelou's Letters To My Daughter

- What iPhone game are you playing?  Social Girl (I know, it's like crack)

- What iPad game are you playing?  Settlers of Catan (campaigns)

- What audiobook do you have on the go?  Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

- What preschool shows did you last watch (that you enjoyed)?  Charlie and Lola, I Can Cook, Sid the Science Kid

- What tween shows did you last watch?  Suite Life on Deck

- What kids shows did you last watch (that you didn't enjoy)?  I'd rather not say publicly

- What shows are you watching in continuous sequence?  House of Lies, 2 Broke Girls, New Girl, Glee, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, The Cosby Show, Portlandia 

And while you might think I'm a complete media couch potato ... how many pounds have you recently lost?  7

The Sushi Set

I normally reserve my ramblings on here for fluffy, funny things, but this is the first public forum where I can just say what I want to in long form.

So here’s the story of The Sushi Set.

While shopping at Canadian retailer Kitchen Stuff Plus, I came across this: Sushi Set by Joie/MSC International.

When I got to the cash register, the Caucasian guy beside me was buying it. And when the credit-debit machines went down, I actually became enraged while staring at the box. Politely, I said, “Please don’t buy that sushi set.” He said, “Why? It’s not cute and funny?”

No, it’s not cute and funny.

I find this item incredibly offensive, and I’m definitely not the only one who thinks so. People rallied with me, emailing me the manufacturer Joie/MSC International. For all intents and purposes, I can believe that the owner is a wonderfully kind man, but for a fact, he does not see the harm in selling this product outside of East Asia. Apparently, it has been on the market for five years without a complaint. Until mine.

There are lots of people who think nothing of an item like this. Four people told me to “lighten up”, “look the other way”, that I can “choose not to take offence.” But in the last few years since moving away from the multicultural and generally ethnically diverse Toronto, I’ve encountered more cultural ignorance and racial stereotyping than I care to remember. That description is polite. I’m tired of being polite. Call it flat out racism that I’ve encountered.

I’m tired of staying quiet so as not to embarrass someone when they talk about the “coloured people” at a dinner party or how I was too polite (and too shocked) to correct someone who called a Vietnamese man a “Chinaman” because I was in her house. I’m not staying quiet anymore.

Call it a personal agenda. I don’t care. But that sushi set was like a last straw. When people ask me if I (or where did I learn to) speak English, assume that I automatically like tofu, or confuse me for an employee of the local Chinese family-owned dollar store (despite my carrying a purse and keys), having that sushi set on a trusted retailer’s shelves doesn’t help to eradicate ignorance. It spreads it.

The Kitchen Stuff Plus president and I had a very lengthy conversation about the item, and while he commendably and thoroughly took my complaint seriously, he is surrounded by people who do not find the sushi set offensive. He still has to decide whether to de-list the item, but he would still have to sell off the remaining stock.

And in a very strange learning experience, which stemmed from the same conversation, East Asians from East Asia actually go for stuff like this. The item actually sells best in the Richmond Hill and Scarborough locations of Kitchen Stuff Plus where Asian populations are highest. And that the item itself sells extremely well in China.

I would argue that in a culturally homogenous society, sure, if it makes you take ownership of an image like this, then fine. Whatever floats your boat. In fact, Italian-owned company Alessi has a whole line of similarly designed products in partnership with the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Canadian retailer Gabriel Ross sells Alessi items, but is smart enough to put the box on the website images that clearly state Alessi’s partnership with the Taiwanese museum.

So I’m going to clarify why I find this particular sushi set offensive, and why I don’t think it should be sold outside of East Asia, where Asians are not the majority.

1) This sushi set doesn’t even identify with the correct Asian group. For a Chinese figure to be on a product meant for a Japanese food is the first step on a slippery slope to grouping all Asians into one amorphous mass. While there are some similarities, there are very distinct differences in the language, culture, traditions and history of East Asian nationalities.

2) The composition of the figure bowing subserviently, offering chopsticks, with a bamboo hat and slanted eyes is a throwback to stereotypical and derogatory depictions of the 1800s. This kind of image is associated with denigrating names like “Chink” and “Chinaman” that maliciously categorize the Chinese (and/or Asians if used generally) as lower-class citizens, meek and backward. By singling out a racial group with such a portrayal makes them a target of racism. If the argument is that it’s “cute”, then that’s covert racism.

3) The context for where it is sold can heavily define the acceptance of an image. It’s like an advertisement. Consciously or subconsciously, passersby are being told that it’s okay to think of Asians as an amorphous foreign group. When sold by a mainstream retailer that can support and even define popular culture, ultimately, that only perpetuates derogatory stereotypes and ignorance.

There were lots of people who rallied to support me in my stand against having this on the shelves. Lots shared my link, retweeted, and voiced their outrage. Lots wrote me messages of encouragement and thanks for saying something and bringing the issues to the fore. I’ve made friends and reconnected with others. Thank you.

For what it is, it’s a fight to get one offensive product off shelves outside of East Asia. My campaign is not about boycotting the stores or the manufacturer. I am not asking you to spend money or donate to anything. In fact, I am asking you not to buy something and to discourage others as well. If it makes anyone think about cultural stereotypes and how people are portrayed, that’s a bonus. If it makes anyone educate someone else for the better, that’s an even better bonus.

If you want to speak up, please email the manufacturer at info@msc-international.com. Don’t just tell them that you find it offensive. Tell them why because they don’t understand why.

If you find a retailer that sells it (that is not on this list), please voice your concerns. Tell managers, tell customer service, and tell others, especially through social media.

Target (although not sold in stores)

Vat19

Amazon

Ebay

Ballpoint Penss

Shopping Nexus

Just 'cause you feel like ranting on a Saturday morning

Sometimes, there just aren't enough characters available in a Facebook status or tweet.

Here's what's been happening since September:

I got a job.  And then, I got 3 jobs.  Simultaneously.

The stop-mo short that I've been working on (and off) for four years got a grant.  So since March, I've been shuttling back and forth between here and the center of the Canadian universe, sleep-deprived, cranky, anxiety-ridden are probably a little fatter because of all the takeout I've been eating.  Yup, it's at that stage where it's more cost-effective to pay someone to cook for me than to actually cook for myself.  Because by the time I factor in the transportation time, cooking time, waiting time ... when I could just be working.  I don't know how people regularly eat out every day for almost all three meals.  After a while, you get bogged down by the constant decision-making and guilt over choosing the deep-fried Asian food options.  Part of you chooses the things you won't make at home, and part of you really just wants ... vegetables.

A colleague heard me coughing and saw me leave the room yesterday.  He asked if I was alright.  I said that I was fine thanks, and why?  Apparently, that is the same cough that his wife had when she had morning sickness.  I said, "I'm not pregnant, I'm just getting fat."  He wasn't alluding to any sort of weight gain, but I thought I'd point it out as my quickest response, instead of my usual, "I am NOT spawning offspring at the moment."

The thing about blog posts is that people just really hate to hear about the 9-5 grind.  In my case, it's been a 7 a.m. - 12:00 a.m. grind.  And no one wants to hear about that, because it entails lots of whining, lots of sentences that make no sense at all because of your stupor.  And when you take on projects that take more energy than required, you get WICKED cranky.  Crankier, in fact, because the project you love only pays you in love and instant gratification when you see your work in all its glory on screen.  Until your director cuts it, explains to you that you shouldn't fall in love with a prop, at which point, you pretty well want to throw a tantrum and tell him that it took four hours to make that.  Or the giant set that took you pretty much four years and all of last fall to paint ... which comes out lit for night-time.  So when you're done exploding in your head, you compromise and say that you'll use it in the credits.  Lit for day time.  And that solves that.

We are near delivery and on the home stretch.  I don't have time to keep writing.  I have cost report stuff to do.

Adventure in the 21st century is not like hobbits going to dispose of a ring

With this being the long weekend, and my birthday coming up soon, hubby and I decided that we would attempt going away for a few days.  The parameters were something along the lines of driving distance and relatively cheap.

I sort of got set on the idea of Maine, just because I was kind of digging the idea of seaside and clam chowder, and it's about twice a year that I get to have lobster.  Well, now that I can cook them myself, I'm thinking that number will up itself a bit.

Anyway, Hurricane Earl dashed any sort of plans for Maine, and while I could probably do the travel search thing in a heartbeat, for someone else, professionally, on my own, I'm really quite useless when it comes to booking any sort of vacation.  Business trips seem to be a different story, because then you have a starting point of reference, like location of the conference, hotels and restaurants in close proximity, things to do according to the given schedule.


When we were planning our honeymoon, I was set on the idea of learning to surf somewhere.  I scoured for days, looking at places like Costa Rica, Hawaii ... all for nought, because we ended up going to the Bahamas on the great and fabulous recommendations of two of our best friends.  But also, hubby is generally quite good at planning travel stuff, and on other occasions, while I have been searching for days, he finds something in 15 minutes.

This, however, was not the case.  For various reasons, hubby was being all defeatist in his travel searching.  We have been thoroughly put off bed and breakfasts, and availability of "nice hotels" seemed to be dwindling as the hours went by.  Eventually, hubby called it quits on the search and declared that we would just be spontaneous.

Yikes.  I really don't enjoy being spontaneous.  I like knowing where we're going, I like knowing what to pack, and I like having a plan of action for stuff like nearby restaurants that I'd like to try.

ANYWAY ... we woke up late, and hubby says, "So, let's just get in the car and drive."
Me:  "Uhh ... okay.  We'll leave in two hours."

So I scurry around the house like some headless chicken on crack, flailing about trying to get snacks and grab things that I think we'll need.  I packed spinach dip (to use up the expired-but-still-good sour cream), tortilla chips, water, watermelon (1 pound eaten, 14 to go) and two apples which are sort of nearing their last legs.  (Yes, you do sense a theme here.)  I scurry around some more, grabbing things that I think we'll need, and what hubby should take but doesn't think he'll need.  Then the hallway looks like we are leaving for two weeks of camping.

We get in the car and drive west.  Armed with iPhones and a sat nav (GPS), we briefly enjoy the sites of small towns along the way.  There's a lovely beach near Turkey Point, there's a majestic lighthouse in Long Point, there's a cute little dock somewhere close by.  We stop in Point Stanley, and hubby gets completely turned off of the post-50s bed and breakfast crowd yapping about ponchos.

"We are not staying here," he says gruffly.

So we get on our iPhones and use a combination of the HotelPal, TripAdvisor and Priceline apps to find somewhere close by.  I tell him that the closest available and cheapest hotel is the Howard Johnson (Ho Jo) in London at $90 for the night.  He later tells me that his experiences with the Ho Jo have never been stellar, and which is why we were rushing off to find a Staybridge Suites in London.  We actually really like that brand of hotel - usually the suites come with a kitchenette, and the rooms are quite large.

While hubby drives, I get online to see if the Staybridge Suites have a vacancy.  Nope.  Determined, hubby plows on to London, where he decides that there has to be something available.  We get there, drive through, hubby saying all the while that he's looking for the nice downtown historic part.  We drive down what appears to be a main street, find "town", and decide that it looks too much like Hamilton.  A LOT like Hamilton.  Nevermind.

We keep driving through, and suddenly, London looks like it's finished.  There are just houses and side streets, then more and more farm land.  Oh, guess we went through it.

Eventually, having this wretched cold and blowing my nose every five minutes, I pass in and out of consciousness as the medication weakly kicks in.  When I wake up, we're still in farmland like area, and hey, it looks a lot like 10 minutes from where we actually live.

It starts to rain, and hubby sees a blue provincial sign for two inns.  We drive by the one, call and find out that there's no vacancy.  Boy, I can imagine a pregnant Mary swearing Joseph up and down on that donkey for not having called ahead.

Somewhere along the way, striking out on GOOD hotel availabilities, I did actually say, "This is what happens when you don't call ahead."  I don't think the Bible does justice for Mary in censoring what she probably said.

Eventually, we drove past the Stone Willow Inn.  I looked online quickly and found out that they had ONE room left with two queen beds.  $150 minus $5 for a CAA discount ... sold.  We were tired of roaming around southwestern Ontario.

It turned out to be alright ... no Hilton NYC, but decent enough.  The restaurant wasn't really stellar.  The beds were alright, they had free wireless.  They had a little fridge in the room stocked with bottles of water.  Umbrellas in the lobby for guests to use.  The toiletries were okay, but there was a big set-in stain of some sort on my bath towel.  THAT freaked me out.  And I wrote so on my comment card.

So we won't be visiting St. Mary's again.  It didn't really help that people were staring us down at the diner where we had breakfast.  (And the food was terrible.)  Usually, if you're a "foreigner" to the town, people will be friendly and greet you, or kind of stare until you engage them in some sort of conversation.  If they keep staring with the frowny face after that, well, then you sort of chalk it up to old-school racism.  Surprisingly, living where I do, it happens frequently enough that I'm fairly familiar with the drill.

Our "weekend getaway" wasn't great, but it wasn't disastrous.  Hubby agrees that we're relatively done with small town tourism, but that next time, we'll just have to do a proper vacation and go somewhere city-like.  And book ahead.

A pretty rad thing ...

Yup ... life in a small town is just a little more manageable when you hear that the project for which you were the only writer/researcher for seasons 2 and 3 got a GEMINI NOMINATION!!!

Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, www.TasteBudsTV.com got a GEMINI NOMINATION for Best Cross-Platform Project - Children's and Youth!!

And even though my name is not on the billing (it's all the producers' names), I am totally riding the coattails even for the nomination.  Spent time updating my LinkedIn profile, resume and Facebook status ... because my claim to fame by association on that is being THE writer/researcher for seasons 2 and 3.  CONTENT, baby, CONTENT ... is king.  So let's be clear now though that I'm not claiming ownership for all things word-related, but at least I can say that there's enough of a contribution there that I'm going to toot this horn until the if/when of a next award.

I know we'd all be jazzed about nominations for the actual show, but the website is (albeit cross-platform because of the brand but) a separate entity, and my absolute FAVOURITE gig in the whole wide world.  I love the team, I love how straightforward the tasks were, I love the positive responses I got for my work (which didn't feel like work because it was mostly fun); I love that I got to work from home; and I love how promptly I got paid compared to some other companies that take a MONTH or MORE.  (Can you tell that I'm waiting for a cheque?)  And I love that I got to speak on a panel.  [Thanks again Sasha!]

Worked on the stop-mo short today and had a fabulous day.  More on that later.

Coffee Protocol

Okay, so I'm putting this out there.

I admit that I'm a little petty about etiquette.  (Like on the train: when seats are empty, people should sit diagonally from you as opposed to next to you.)  But I also think that if there's a standard etiquette-related protocol, people should know about it.

The big thing about this [media] industry is that everyone takes people out for coffee, whether it be for networking, or meetings, or when you're in that awkward stage of just starting your career, and you want to pick someone's brain for their "tips and secrets to making it big."

I've had a few instances now of being invited to coffee for specific industry reasons (by people I didn't really know), and then I have to pay for my own, or in the more unusual case, I'm COMPLETELY left without a beverage.  This happened the other day, and then I realized that it happens to me too frequently.


Here's where I think you're in charge of picking up the entire tab for coffee, especially for someone you don't know that well:

• you're the one who invited the other person out for a specific reason
• you used a phrase somewhere in the initial correspondence (leading to the coffee meeting) such as:
• "I'd like to pick your brain about .... xyz"
• "I wanted to know what you thought about ..."
• "I have this show idea and I wanted to run it by you, seeing how you're a development executive, could you comment?"
• "I'm new to the business and am looking for some advice ..."
• "I was hoping you could walk me through how to ..."
• "I wanted to run something by you ..."
• "I have a show idea and wanted to see if you'd like to work on it with me"

• you're pitching someone on the idea of working on something for free

It's not the cost of the coffee, it's the principle of protocol.  A coffee is a small courtesy for to "repay" someone for their time. 

Summer 2010

Well ...  yes, shame on me for having a blog and then failing to update it.

Truth is, there hasn't been a whole lot of interesting stuff to tell you about.  I suppose I'm keeping up the blog because it's a nice outlet on which to vent (and write things like "Coffee Protocol", see next entry), and people tell me that it's hilarious.  Thank you.  I'm steadily losing followers on Twitter, but I'm wondering if maybe that's because I had a bunch of animal rights' lovers.  Motorcycle Man has been replaced with "Neighbours-Who-Do-Not-Control-Their-Yappy-Dog", and I tweeted the other day that if it didn't stop, that dog might soon become a muff.

Well now, it's hard to pick up sarcasm in 140 characters sometimes.

So if you really want to know what's been going on, I'll tell you.

The Short

My friend Animal (not his real name but close) and I have been working on the neverending stop-motion short that seems to be taking us years.  Lately, we've been getting help from skilled friends who can make tiny prop magic.  It's rather inspiring for being able to work on my own shows later on in life, because there's this truly gratifying feeling of working all day toward something that *I* wrote/created.  Amazing.

Starcraft 2
Yup ... who knew that I would have nerded out and gone gaga over Starcraft 2?  Well ... it's like reliving high school, even though I caught onto the wave a bit late.  The game's slightly varying variables somehow really appeal to my organizational sense and need for order.  Of course, my desk is in chaos most of the time, but I like that SC2 units have certain jobs and functions.  And they do what you tell them to do.

Weight loss
Turns out that Starcraft 2 is a fabulous distraction, pain reliever (I sprained my ankle) and appetite suppressant, which was a great help in the initial weight loss regiment.  I went to the doctor for a physical, and while I think that perhaps the nurse may have overestimated my weight, I pretty much freaked out when the doctor told me what my current weight was.  YIKES!  So I've been using this iPhone/iTouch app called Lose It!, which basically acts like a calorie counter.  You log the foods that you eat and the "exercise" that you do, and you have a handy way to see what your calorie budget is for the day.  Of course, I've been sort of cheating on this thing by programming in regular type activities for which there actually is a calorie loss count, like cooking, typing, loading/unloading the car, shopping, driving, washing dishes, etc.  I suppose the kicker is that I added "playing board games" and while there is no actual moving of physical pieces or picking up anything while playing Starcraft 2, I figure that it raises the heart rate a little, so I think it counts.  Plus, you sort of forget about food while in battle sometimes.


My friend Syd thinks that there's no way I could have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks (since it's too rapid a period), but overall, I'm sticking to the story that I've lost 11 pounds in 4 weeks.

Cooking
As usual, hubby has been enjoying meals around here.  While it hasn't been anything too exciting, (I usually save that for Facebook updates), here are some of the things I've tried in the past few weeks:

• cornbread muffins
• oven "fried" fish
• chicken korma (using the VH Sauce)
• spaghetti with homemade meatballs (I described it as "spaghetti with homemade meatballs, a thick tomato sauce peppered with fresh tomatoes, sauteed sweet vidalia onions and roasted yellow zucchini; garnished with Parmesan and fresh basil from our front-step 'garden.'"
• homemade herb chicken burgers and homemade fries (which even enticed our friend Mike to drive all the way out here for dinner)
• Chinese beef stir-fry with rice and Chinese broccoli (hubby went for THIRDS!)

Ah, and the culinary highlight of summer was cooking live lobsters for the first time!  Our friends were absolutely delighted, and I was pleasantly surprised that I can get three grocery store lobsters for the price of one in a restaurant.