Just in time for the end of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month:

Secret Asian Man by Tak Toyoshima is a nationally syndicated comic strip (one of the few, if not only, by an Asian-American), that often deals with racial issues in the U.S. I first saw it in the Mercury News.

One book on my reading list is American Born Chinese [review], a highly regarded graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, which won the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award for literary excellence in young adult literature. (So maybe I’m not in its primary target audience…) The author relates his experience growing up as an Asian-American through three different stories.

Another book on my reading list is The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee. The author’s original purpose was to track down the origin of the fortune cookie, which is basically unknown in China, but the book broadens out into a general discussion of Chinese food in the U.S. Lee makes an amusing appearance on The Colbert Report to promote her book.

There is also a film on the origin of the fortune cookie, The Killing of a Chinese Cookie by Derek Shimoda. It focuses more on the fortune cookie than on Chinese cuisine in general. I saw this movie at the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival, and it’s thoroughly entertaining.

Asian-American comedians are hitting their stride, from 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors to the Kims of Comedy. I saw a bit by one of the “Kims”, Dr. Ken Jeong (who is also a real physician), about his previous girlfriend:

My last girlfriend: 5-foot-10 white woman. I’m a 5-4 Korean boy. Ok, we’re walking down the street, you’re not thinking, “What a cute couple.” You’re thinking, “Oh look, she’s got a tutor.”

Finally, Jeff Wong writes a column for SFGate covering Asians in pop culture, appropriate titled Asian Pop [archive]. In his latest column, he asks whether Asian-Americans in their thirties and older (e.g., me), obsessed with our depiction in movies, books, and TV, are fighting yesterday’s war. While traditional media are still important, teenagers and twenty-somethings are increasingly focused on other types of media, especially online. Have I become curmudgeonly already?

• On my recent trip to Italy, the first two songs I heard in that country was Supernatural Superserious by R.E.M. and Love Song by Sarah Bareilles, in a taxi in Pisa. At first, I wondered if the cab driver was playing American music only to satisfy the tourists, until he started singing along to “Love Song.” On MTV Italy, R.E.M. got a lot of airplay, including a concert in Italy. They seem to be getting more attention in Europe than here (although I read the Berkeley concert today sold out in 10 minutes).
• Another music video on MTV Italy caught my eye: Sweet Harmony by The Beloved from 1993. Besides the obviously eyebrow-raising nature of the video, the tune is pretty catchy…
• Last weekend I went to a wedding, and the last song the DJ played was a beautiful version of Bryan Adam’s Heaven. I found out later that the cover I heard was the “Candlelight Remix” by DJ Sammy and Yanou featuring Do; their original cover was techno.
• On Wednesday, I went to see The Cure in concert at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. I’m not a huge Cure fan, but they were quite amazing live, and they were cranking it: 37 songs in 3 hours. Their current lineup, without a keyboard, made for some interesting arrangements of songs like Lovesong.
• And on Sunday, I’m going to see R.E.M. in concert in Berkeley!

Finally, today’s silly video. Turk from Scrubs brings the flava:

Here are some stats about the photos I took during my recent trip to Florence for CHI 2008. I took 934 photos and videos, kept 907, and uploaded 504. But if you don’t want to experience my trip in real time, you can see my highlights with 350 items, or my super-duper-highlights with only 72 items, a full 92% off the original size!