Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Me being from a Celtic culture that tends to emphasize directness, conflict, openness has a big effect on my living in Japan, which tends to focus on indirectness, avoidance of conflict and keeping things close to your chest. So that has led to quite a lot of cultural misunderstandings in dealing with this East Asian culture I live in.
Hollywood can be a really tough environment for anyone trying to make a living. Unfortunately for actors of color, namely Asian Americans, opportunities have been and remain substantially limited. One place this is not the case is on 'Hawaii Five-0,' where we have three Asian American series regulars and a landscape rich with diversity.
People are always asking me if the industry is changing, and my answer is always that it is changing only as much as we are. Many South Asian actors complain about being pigeonholed into playing terrorists and cab drivers, but it's time that we stop talking about it. The industry will always say 'No' till we have enough to convince them.
It was very challenging in terms of making sure that everyone is distinct. Also, we wanted to have some Asian influences as well, so that it really is a mashup. We want evidence of our presence in this world, so you'll see there's an interest in technology, that there are not complex electronics. There's electricity in this world, but computers, circuits don't work.
I'm spinning records and I look across the restaurant and I see somebody who looks Asian. And I'm like, "Yo, that looks like Yoko Ono." I'm like, oh, I can just meet - that's going to be great. Then I look carefully and I'm like, "That's not Yoko Ono, that's Bruno Mars." And it was Bruno Mars. That just happened recently. I was bugging out. Because that was totally not Yoko Ono at all.
Asian men are the sexiest. They got no body hair from the neck down.
Normally, people think of Asian women as timid, but I think I'm very strong.
I make American films for American audiences and Asian films for Asian audiences.
But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there's any barriers. I've never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.
The fact is, I'm half-British, half-Malaysian. For an Asian who's grown up in America to be commenting on how Asian I am when they've never left America... does that make them more or less Asian than me?
Winning the Asian Games is about the most important thing I have achieved for my country, and seeing the delight on the faces of the people back home is something that will last with me forever.
I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven't stopped studying. There's an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for the role.
Do not tell me what I can and cannot do. I'll be as asian as I want to (Stretches his eyes in a racist manner).
As soon as you start looking into roles which are specifically Asian, Black, or Latina, you start looking at stereotypes. That's the issue minority actors face - it's not that we don't want to play our ethnicities; it's that, often, the role that's written for our ethnicity is a stereotype.
I've been fortunate to work with some amazing Asian filmmakers in independent film.
Asian American men, Asian men have been basically eunuchs in American cinema and television.
I hope Hong Kong and Asia wants to hire American Asian actresses as much as Hollywood has been hiring Chinese actors from Asia.
I want to be a representative and be a role model for the Asian American community.
In Asian languages, the word for 'mind' and the word for 'heart' are same. So if you're not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you're not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.
I will never forget my ASIAN fans, because they're so welcome with me, its my best moment ever
We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
My real name is Joseph Herbert. My dad is white; my mom's Asian, Filipino. And when I started stand-up 22 years ago, I used to go up as Joseph Herbert, and I would just have to defend my name. Every time I went onstage, it was so annoying. People would heckle.
In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that's like a big no-no. I know my parents' discouragement was for my own protection, and I'm really close to them now, but they didn't understand that there is value in this. That's because they didn't know.
Against Japan and any Asian teams, we've had good results, so I would say that history proves we are the best Asian team.
I never thought in a million years I'd be involved in a project that celebrated the fullness of my identity of being queer and Asian.
Eventually we got to a point where 'Riverdale' came along, and it was a character that was originally written white, and I saw this as an opportunity to take a classic American character and make them Asian.
The only thing that was sort of Asian [as a role model] was Hello Kitty. I don't want to model myself after Hello Kitty. She has no mouth.
My hope is that shows like 'Fresh Off the Boat' open the door for even more of those kinds of characters for Asian actors and actresses.
We have already seen some instances of systemic risk in recent times in the Asian financial crisis. But what sparked off the Asian financial crisis? Automated trading programmes!
I think a lot of people, even if you're not Asian, you go to your place of origin where your family comes from, and you get this sense of, 'Wow - people look like me and talk like me and treat me like their son in the stores and like a cousin in the restaurants.'
People's view of exotic or Asian women are changing. It's much nicer to hear 'She's pretty' than 'She's pretty - for an Asian woman.'
Because if Asian American content is seen as a trend, the way that like leggings are in, then that's not true representation or inclusion. The mainstream doesn't have to worry about that.
I'm half Asian, so people immediately go, "Oh, you do kung fu," like that's what we do. We wake up, we do kung fu, we brush our teeth. It's just assumed that you're not working your ass off to make this believable and make this something great, and we absolutely are.
Sydney in general is eclectic. You can be on that brilliant blue ocean walk in the morning and then within 20 minutes you can be in a completely vast suburban sprawl or an Italian or Asian suburb, and it's that mix of people, it's that melting pot of people that give it its vital personality.
I think Dr. King would be pleased to see the number of elected officials of color - African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and progressive whites.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.
Even if you look at 'American Idol,' or 'X-Factor,' or 'The Voice' or anything, it was always difficult to see an Asian or an Asian-American make it to a certain point.
There's a misconception that I can't relate to the quote-unquote 'Asian-American experience' because I didn't grow up with an Asian mom and dad. And that's just not true. I am Asian American, and so playing a girl who is half Korean, half white, but her white dad tried really hard to connect with her mom's heritage - that's very familiar to me.
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month provides us all an opportunity to reflect upon this community's many contributions and to celebrate its bright future.
I've grown up with racism my entire life. I've been bullied, sent to the hospital, beat up, I've been called a Chink and a Gook. Every single racial slur an Asian person can be called, I've been called it.
After I made 'Better Luck Tomorrow' and started taking meetings in Hollywood, I quickly learned that Asian Americans weren't even in the conversation as a minority, since there wasn't even a significant enough audience, and especially an audience for Asian American content.
Jeremy Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career.
I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn't identify as that before I came here. People started calling me that, and I started being treated in a specific way.
I went to college as an economics major because that was the easiest major that could still please your Asian parents, and then, much to their dismay, I became a stand-up comedian.
There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.
Like steampunk, silkpunk is a blend of science fiction and fantasy. But while steampunk takes its inspiration from the chrome-brass-glass technology aesthetic of the Victorian era, silkpunk draws inspiration from East Asian antiquity.
The one dream I have is to do a musical. I love singing, but most people don't know because I don't sell myself as a musical person. My dream is to play Audrey in 'Little Shop of Horrors' - it would be so interesting to have an Asian Audrey because it's all about achieving the American dream in a sinister, success-driven way.
It always interested me that 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars,' when shown around the world, were referred to as British comedy. It was only here that they were referred to as Asian comedy, even though I always felt it was very British in its humour and structure.
I hope that when people see Asian women, they realize we are all different. A lot of time with Caucasian people, they just group us together as Asian. But even with different cities in China, people have different personalities... We look Asian, but we still look different. We don't look the same.
Asian food is very easy to like because it hits your mouth very differently than European food does. In European food, there may be two things to hit - maybe sweet and salty, maybe salty-savory, … but Asian kind of works around, plus you have that distinct flavor that’s usually working in Asian food.