Asian Life in San Francisco | Asian American Poll

ASIAN LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:08:59 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

What's the worst thing about living in the San Francisco Bay area?
No Summer Weather | 12%
Perpetual Gridlock | 40%
Too Crowded with Asians | 1%
Shortage of Decent Housing | 47%

This poll is closed to new input.
Comments posted during the past year remain available for browsing.

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WHAT YOU SAY

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"Kinda sucks that you're not going to HK. Every Southern Chinese person that I know who visits China, always land their feet on HK no matter what. Not visiting HK would be like an insult!"

LSD: Haha... guess I'm just a sellout, huh? Well, I've been to HK, but never to Shanghai, so we figured that it would be more time efficient to stay in Shanghai for a couple more days instead of hopping on another plane. They have packages to certain cities in Asia for 600 bucks for 5 days, which actually only amounts to 3 1/2 days. It covers airfare, room and board, and some meals. Adding extra days is like 80 bucks or something. I might take advantage of that sometime to go back to HK and Tokyo. Check out the site. www.ritztours.com.

"People in HK don't care much of the ethnic differences, everyone assimilates into the mainstream culture."

Yeah, like I said before, Chinese in HK are a lot like whites in America. White Americans all came from different parts of Europe, most of which were poor and uneducated, yet many thrive today. Whether their roots are from England, Germany, France, Norway, etc., they all speak the same language now, and we just consider them all to be "white," just like how all Chinese in HK are considered Cantonese. Rather than wallow in subsistence labor back in the village, Chinese from different regions headed to HK, and made something of themselves.

"You mean the one hour F4 commericals, I think the manga is Hana Yori Dango, a rehashing of an 80's manga Marmalade Boy."

AC: Haha... that's the one. I just watch it periodically. My mom is absolutely addicted. She bought all the memorabilia and all that crap. One of the members (the guy with the long hair) is ABC, so she considers him to be like her son (no way, man!). You are right. The show is basically to advertise the band. It's equivalent to S Club 7 or The Monkees. The band was spawned from the show.

Speaking of Ah Mei, I saw her concert last year in Vegas. It rocked! She has so much energy. And, dude, there were soooo many fine ass Taiwan and HK girls there.

I don't watch too many other Asian programming besides HK, Taiwan, and very little Japanese. They always show Japanese dramas here on local TV, which I find very odd because the Japanese population here is quite small, and the number that actually speak Japanese is little to none. Japanese shows seem to display a vulnerable, but good looking man getting into girl trouble, as opposed to the HK style, which is very womanizing.

I watch Korean videos on International sometimes. It sounds pretty good, but not all that creative. At least HK music has its own distinctive style.

Are you a big manga fan? I'm just a casual fan. I know all the big names, but not the more obscure ones. I like Crying Freeman. All those tattoos are dope! Wicked City is awesome too. I havent' had the chance to see the Jacke Chan live action version though. Girls nickname me "Goku" because I have spiky hair, and similar looking eyes, I guess, so naturally, I watch a little Dragonball Z. It's a bit on the childish side, so I never got too into it. Escaflowne just came out on the Cantonese translation. Is that any good? Also, being such a car guy, it's shocking that I haven't caught Initial D yet. I need to check those out.
TSJ Eric@KristinKreuk.net Sunday, August 25, 2002 at 21:15:20 (PDT)

LSD,

Actually there are 2 prevailing theories about origins concerning the "Tanka."

They speak Cantonese (like the Hong Kong dialect), but they are seen as marginal, because:

1) Many claim they are not Han descended. They say they are the descendants of Yueh (aboriginal) people who got pushed off the land by incoming Han migrants from the north during the Tang Dynasty.

2) Another prevailing theory was that since Guangdong got heavily taxed during the Ching (Manchu) dynasty, some people rebelled by living in boats and not on land to avoid the taxation.

But, it is apparent that there are no really big racial nor cultural distinctions between the Tanka and the Cantonese who live on land.

This is the same with Hakkas. They and the Cantonese (including Toisan) share the most lexicology in their dialects. That is why it is quite easy for all these groups to learn each other's dialects with ease. They most likely separated not too long ago (late Song Dynasty) somewhere around the southern parts of Hunan or Jiangxi province. The Cantonese arrived south to Guangdong first, followed later by the Hakkas. So, they competed for land. I must say that it is also likely that all these groups mixed with aboriginal Yueh as well.
We are all from the Tang Sunday, August 25, 2002 at 18:22:02 (PDT)

TSJ,

Kinda sucks that you're not going to HK. Every Southern Chinese person that I know who visits China, always land their feet on HK no matter what. Not visiting HK would be like an insult!

People in HK don't care much of the ethnic differences, everyone assimilates into the mainstream culture. If you don't follow the trends you'll be left behind. Another thing is that these ethnic differences are beginning to fade away among the Chinese. Many Chinese are marrying outside of their groups. The reason why there is this resurgence of ethnic labeling is because the Chinese are going through some renaissance of self discovery. Much of it has to do with nostalgia of all things..so it shouldn't divide the Chinese anymore. For example, I find many historical web sites about the Toi Sans, Chiu Jaus, Shanghainese...etc. But do you think the Chinese really want to further divide their people? It is just impossible and not practical.

Intrigued by all of this? Hey, listen to this. The HK actor Chow Yun Fat belongs to a group of Chinese called the Tankas. In Cantonese it means the "Egg Family". I'm sure you've seen these people residing in the boats that float on HK. Many of these folks don't have a home on the land, and much of this has to do with customs, but in reality, these people were discriminated on land, so they couldn't come ashore. Fascinating?

The Tankas lived on boats for many centuries. They were hated by the other Chinese and such rumors were because they were thought be descended from a ruler who overthrew an emperor in the 2nd century BC, or that they were traitors of some sort and as a result, they were banned on land, so they took their lives on boats. People called them the Egg families because they put egg whites on their fishing nets for better netting results.

Before the 1950's these people could never come to land. It was only when the Communist took over that such restrictions were eliminated. After all of these years of discrimination, Tankas are still poor, uneducated and sometimes helpless.

You gotta admire Chow Yun Fat, how a dude like him who came from these roots were able to rise to Hollywood Stardom. Impressive!
LSD Sunday, August 25, 2002 at 09:30:07 (PDT)

Hey, so which people was it that ultimately got most addicted to the opium itself?
TSJ Eric@KristinKreuk.net Saturday, August 24, 2002 at 12:18:09 (PDT)

TSJ,

You mean the one hour F4 commericals, I think the manga is Hana Yori Dango, a rehashing of an 80's manga Marmalade Boy. I use to read a lot of chinese translated comics to keep my literacy up. It's pretty girly. But hey girls eat that angst pretty boy stuff up. I even had an asian female friend keep tell me to grow my hair longer to look like one of the members. I'm like no thanks.

Things are changing in China. If HK, Taiwan, SK could do it. Why can't China. I don't really buy the fact the government can keep that tight of a control or want that kind of control. Even Ah-mei eventually was allow in China again, even though she pissed them off by singing at the ROC enauguration.

I'm pretty optimistic about the future of China.

"I see some Chinese shows on TV. They do look like they are getting better. Then again, anything would be an improvement."

Hey...its better than nothing at all. I mean I understand it not always as polished as US or Japanese TV. But it has it high points.

I recently been watching a lot of SK stuff. It's actually pretty good. I think I'm starting to like the korean foundation make up the women use.
AC Dropout Friday, August 23, 2002 at 13:17:59 (PDT)

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