Famous ハーフ's

So I was looking into ハーフ's; which means "hafu"s which is the Japanese importation of the word "half" which refers to half-japanese, half-foreign people. It also has derogatory connotations, just like "hapa" used to have. But anyway I was looking them up cause I was thinking about this character in the Japanese TV drama "Hana Yori Dango" or 「花より男子」in Japanese (yes I learned how to type in Japanese on my computer and its wicked fun). But anyway - there is this character, Shizuka, who's like, drop dead GORGEOUS and I didn't really understand what made her stand out so much at first. The more I thought about it - the more I thought that she might be part western, or not full japanese, but there is like no info online about her ethnicity. So she probably she is full japanese, but who knows. 

But anyway thats the long intro to the list of half-japanese famous people I found, and it was really cool. Here is the list: 

Reika Hashimoto
Anna Tsuchiya
Anna Umemiya
Linda Yamamoto
Beni Arashiro
Tadanobu Asano
Meisa Kuroki
Angela Aki
Chieko Kawabe
Megumi Nakajima
Emi Watanabe
Keisuke Ogihara
Masayoshi "Mabo" Kabe
Minami Hinase
Sowelu
Marcus Tulio Tanaka
Lisa (musician)
Koji Murofushi
Yuka Murofushi
Masumi Okada
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Kiyoshi Okubo
Yuu Shirota
Koji Ota
Hiromi Hayakawa

Quite a few, ne? But I looked up all of them actually to see what they looked like (actually thats a lie - only the women I looked up) and I found one that had the same kind of western characteristics as me (though she is like a bajillion zillion times prettier lol). Here's a couple photos:

Its crazy! she looks so not-asian but she is a famous star in Japan. She sings, I guess. Though I read that she is pretty famous here, too. Oh well, I haven't heard of her before. But she has wavy hair (stereotypically not asian), a bigger nose (stereotypically asians have smaller noses), her eyes are not as slanted, and her face isn't as round (stereotypically Asian's faces are rounder). Anyway, all those things I have always noted on why people don't see me as Chinese is because I don't have that. Though its cool cause she is totally accepted and loved in the generally very homogenous japanese society though she doesn't look super asian. Though... when you are famous its true everyone wants to claim you as family... and I recognize that... though its still a cool idea.

Tiger Woods - Hero to Multi's!

So I found this video - I guess its what all started this multiracial movement thing. Oh Tiger Woods, lol hero for multiracials everywhere! It was interesting, and you just kind of get a glimpse of the multiracial thing, it doesn't really come out and say it, which was interesting because when I first heard about it I imagined it to be basically more forward and blatant about Woods' multiracialism, but nonetheless, its pretty interesting. I am not sure when it came out - I probably will check it out later.

Multiracial rapper/spoken word artist

So I heard this guy with a couple other musicians at the Conference, he was pretty good and had a really good poem on being multiracial. The other two artists were ok, the Cory Wong Violinist kid was decent... the guitarist not so great, but I think that it might have been better if it was so loud and RINGING IN MY EAR THE ENTIRE TIME - yeah it was annoying.

But check out his myspace page - it was different then hearing him live (live was waayy better) but it gives you the idea he has wicked smooth rhymes.

Time Article

So I just saw this at the conference - the cover at least. I have yet to read it though I am not sure where I can, though I am really glad that people are taking notice! I really want to raise awareness on multiracial issues. I really want to read it! Its going to take some more looking around to find it I think...

So first off - the conference was AMAZING, there were some parts that were a bore, and there were some parts that made me want to sing about multiracial pride and some that made me want to cry, but overall it was a great experience to meet so many others who have the same exact issues I do. Ever since I was little I thought it was just me - but know I know I got multiracial brothers and sisters! (lol)

But I didn't want to just write a review about the conference, I can go into length about that another time or at all, because I want to keep this blog less review-like, and more archive-like, so here is an article that I thought was really good on the Hapa Project

You should definitely read it I was interested because it was actually written by a monoracial asian. I am very interested in understanding better the Asian American reaction to things like the Hapa Project, or Hapa issues, because I have found some to be very accepting and understanding of these issues, and others to be not really care about them. It was a really, really well done piece, too. I love the line: 

"But white-bread, rice-bred, or cross-bred, we are all, in one way or another, hapa."

I thought that was cool.