As I had expected, the coronavirus crisis in China has led to discrimination against Chinese in this country. Kids have been bullied in school. People have been turned away from motels because they are ethnic Chinese. Even here in ethnic diverse southern California, we have experienced this. Our county Chinese association is holding a Chinese new year festival on Feb. 29. We have been asked by our local newspaper if this was going to be canceled. Apparently some people have expressed concern about a large congregation of Chinese may spread the disease!
I wonder if this is racism or ignorance. Maybe a bit of both. One would be more likely to catch an infection at a Lakers game or at work than at a Chinese festival. If one catches an infection anywhere, it will be thousands times more likely that it would be the seasonal flu than coronavirus. In any case, unless you work at a hospital, you will be hard pressed to see more doctors at our festival than anywhere else.
Some positive notes for Asians: Parasites won the Oscars, the first non-English film to do so! For the third season in a row, Asians have won America Got Talent. Shin Lim won 2 seasons ago, Kodi Lee won last time and tonight an Indian group won. We will continue to achieve. We must continue to speak out against racism and ignorance.
Monday, February 17, 2020
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I watched Parasite this past weekend. I thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure if it was the best film of the year, but I usually never agree with the Academy anyway. I am actually going to try and watch more films from this director. I heard some of his other films are good.
ReplyDeleteThey had a Chinese New Year celebration in the Lansing area get cancelled last month due to someone being worried about the virus. It was to take place at a mall and has been an annual event for many years.
In a way, it's an easy way to discriminate because if the virus was from a European country, no one here could tell. But I will say that most Asians are targeted because it's easy to spot us in a white society. I sometimes wonder if the fear is that a person that recently came from China would have the virus and would attend these gatherings. However, aren't most if not all people are tested upon arrival? Also, why is this festival being held so many weeks after the New Year? Have they always had the festival at this time of year or this many weeks after the New Year?
-LBOAYM
I thought for the first three quarter of Parasite, it was one of the best movie I ever saw. The ending was too dark and unrealistic to me. I saw a movie from the same director called Okja which also was excellent.
ReplyDeleteWho made the decision to cancel the event in Lansing, Chinese people or someone else forced them to? I told the president of our county association we cannot back down from this. If someone shows up to debate me, the emcee, I am ready for them. Of course, that is unlikely as most of our fans are not Chinese and they wouldn't be showing up if they are afraid of contact with Chinese people. But you never know if some nut will show up and make a scene.
It is common to stigmatize Asians. Remember the Hong Kong flu? No problems using the name of the place when it is in Asia. We never used the term the American flu when the epidemic in 2009 was started in North America with the majority of cases in the U.S. It was called the swine flu then even though you can't get it from eating pork. The infection rate and death rate worldwide from that flu will not be matched from this Covid-19 epidemic. Yet we didn't cancel any major event in 2009.
The Super Bowl was not canceled this year. I am sure the Final Four, the Masters, and other sports events will not be canceled. Chances of contacting a virus are much greater at those events than at a Chinese festival. There has been Chinese festivals in some cities in southern California with bigger Chinese population than our county already. No infection of Covid-19 has been reported from these events.
Our county usually have our celebration couple weeks after the Chinese new year. Not sure why that is. Maybe the leaders in the past did not want to have our event same time as say Monterrey Park since that one is much bigger than ours. It may also be due to availability of the venue and performers this year.
Did you see this from SI?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.si.com/olympics/2020/02/19/tokyo-olympics-coronavirus-virologist-safety-concerns?utm_campaign=sportsillustrated&xid=socialflow_facebook_si&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0gIk0rpbDZw73tE5aRMsjR-W0-0uEskLMaHWDH2ZAXYLzYGe4PPKlNtc0
Basically they talked to a virologist from Japan about the virus and how if the Olympics were held today that they probably wouldn't be held. Is it due to the proximity of China that is causing this caution?
As far as the Lansing event went, I am not sure exactly why it was cancelled. I was shocked that they cancelled it and assumed it was due to either the group that ran it decided so or that they thought no one would come. And this was the weekend of the new year.
I might try to watch the debate tonight but I'm not sure how much I'll watch. Did I hear that Bloomberg was going to be in this debate? His strategy is very interesting and has created himself as an X factor as we get closer to Super Tuesday. He's spent a ton of money in Michigan and has done a pretty good job with his ads here. I am curious if his ads in other states are the same or if they have a different message. When the stop and frisk stuff came out, he started running ads with Obama.
This whole thing with the Democrats keeps changing. It'll be very interesting for sure.
-LBOAYM
If it was held today there is a chance they may cancel the Olympics. I think that would be irrational but the point they will raise is that China is one of the largest delegations and Japan and other countries may not want China to come. An Olympic without the country which will most likely be the second highest medal winners would be unthinkable. But other countries also may worry about going to Japan which has the second highest infected rate, although most of their cases occurred on that cruise ship.
ReplyDeleteThere is still unknowns about this disease but I think it will be sorted out by the time of the Olympics and the games will go on. The Swine flu started in 2009 and that was one year after the Beijing Olympics. If it happened a year earlier, would China have banned the U.S. from coming or canceled the games? I don't think so and so neither should these games.
Bloomberg was not good tonight. Yang was right when he said before that Bloomberg should be allowed to debate so we can see how he is in person, not in ads. At that time, people like Sanders said Bloomberg should not be in the debate because he had no donors and thus not qualify according to the rules. That was stupid in that he didn't need donors and only by letting him in debates would people see his true self.
I think everybody attacked Bloomberg tonight which made it easier for Sanders. This is good news for Sanders since most of the time the front runner is targeted. Pete did well but the way he went after Klobuchar, I thought was over the top. The moderates fighting each other only open up things for the liberals like Sanders and Warren. Warren was very aggressive, her best debate in weeks. But she went after Bloomberg and the moderates and not much on Sanders. I think that is not good for her because she must beat out Sanders for the liberal votes. Biden did better than the last few debates, but not sure if he turned things around.
Looks like Bloomberg is bombarding all the states with the same ads. The Obama ads are very prominent here in California. But he did not sound in touch with the people in the debates about stop and frisk. He was also out of touch with the nondisclosure agreements with women who sued him. But if Donald Trump got away with much worse problems, maybe Bloomberg still can buy the election. He does have way more money than Trump!
Yang made his debut as a CNN commentator tonight. I thought he was pretty good. This will keep him in the limelight. Maybe he will run for some office if he is not picked for a cabinet position when and if a Democrat wins the presidency.
I think I said before that there are too many of these debates. We keep hearing the same stuff and nothing new of substance is being said. So it's been about attacks and sound bites. In the end, I'm not sure these debates will help people decide who they're voting for in the primaries and caucuses. It might help voters decide from the far left candidates and the moderates. I am still intrigued how Bloomberg affects this race. Hopefully he doesn't become an independent candidate and take votes away from the Dem nominee.
ReplyDeleteHe has said that he will back the nominee if it ends up not being him. As far as the debate goes, I ended up watching maybe a half hour of it. Just from my observations, I didn't see Bloomberg speak much. He seemed OK but no as prepared. Possibly being added late had something to do with it. I know he might be polarizing but he seems OK to me. I think that he doesn't mind mixing it up with Trump, which would be fun to watch. Like other wealthy people, he's a little out of touch with the working class, though I don't know if he's out of touch like Romney.
Sanders and Warren did fine. I thought Warren was a little more aggressive but we might be seeing Sanders starting to take her support away.
Biden I still don't think has done well. It will be interesting to see if he can be competitive in the upcoming primaries and in Vegas. He still needs to get a top 2 or 3 or else it looks bad for him.
Pete's been pretty consistent and to me, impressive. His sound bites are pretty good and don't seem really forced. I guess the strategy was to attack Amy because she's had a surge lately. So he's trying to hold her back. I did see the exchange between the two of them and they were both in the wrong. I noticed that Amy did not shake his hand after the debate, so he got under her skin. She's a pretty tough person, but she hasn't been challenged like this before.
I didn't see much new with Amy either and I still think her sound bites are forced.
I didn't see Yang speak at all. The parts I saw with the panel didn't have him talk, so I missed out on it. There are rumors he might run for mayor, which would be interesting.
One thing I did notice was when they went to commercial, Biden started offstage once and then on the other break, Sanders started off. I wonder if those guys had to go to the bathroom!
-LBOAYM
Yep, I think they were going to the bathroom. They are the oldest men there and I can relate! I think what is going to happen is that Sanders will win the most delegates in the primaries but does not get close to the majority needed to win. So we may have a convention decision which has not happen in my lifetime. Then the question is: Is there a candidate who the Democrats power brokers feel can best beat Trump. If that person emerges, then the super delegates may overthrow Sanders. This will lead to crying foul by the Sanders supporters and it will be ugly!
ReplyDeleteNobody is an obvious choice right now so the person with the most delegates from the primaries is still likely be the nominee. But if polls show Sanders cannot win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin but Biden can, what are you going to do? Right now, despite his stumbles, Biden is still the most likely to win those states. But can he really win if he keeps stumbling?
I did hear that Yang may run for mayor in New York. I still think he angling for a cabinet position. If that doesn't come, he will run for a political office and aim for 2024 if Trump wins again or 2028 if a Democrat wins this year.
More news about Asian discrimination due to COVID-19. I don't remember it was so bad with SARS or even Hong Kong Flu. Could it be people are actually more willing to show their racist sides now that Trump is president? I don't want to read too much into it yet. But the virus is basically not affecting the U.S. now, so what will happen if a lot more people get infected here?
Have you heard of Jonny Kim? He is in the latest class of 12 who finished astronaut training by NASA. Kim was a navy seal who served two deployment in the Middle East with several honors. He then went to Harvard Medical School and trained as an emergency physician. Now he finished his two years training to be an astronaut. He makes me feel like a slacker!
I knew there was an Asian man in the astronaut program because they had taken a group photo a while back. It's great we will have someone go through the program from the U.S. even though China has been pretty aggressive in getting to space.
ReplyDeleteI read about a rise in hate crimes in Europe and North America and Australia for not only Asian people but for Jews and Muslims. I think there was an attack in Germany this week, so I'm not sure if it's the Trump effect or if there is just a rise of polarizing leaders and an unwillingness to make peace. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. I blame it on the internet and being able to access content that is slanted towards certain bias, whether the content is true or not. People are being manipulated and aren't even aware this is happening. They read something and because they might already have a certain bias, it elevates this bias.
The Democratic convention might get ugly. I wonder if Sanders doesn't get the nomination if his supporters will boycott voting and Trump will win. I saw a poll that shows Sanders is ahead of Trump in Michigan. Of course, I think polls showed that Clinton was ahead going into the election. I think the Trump supporters don't take polls so the margin of error is greater than calculated.
I'd be interested to see the accuracy of poll numbers considering I don't know anyone who answers their phone if they don't recognize the number. So who are these people being polled?
-LBOAYM
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ReplyDeleteThat's because hidden in these 12 words is a "secret signal" that fuels a man's instinct to love, worship and care for you with all his heart...
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