Comedienne Margaret Cho dances the Viennese waltz with professional dance partner Louis Van Amstel on “Dancing with the Stars.” Read more about Cho on the show here.

By Chloe Wang

Margaret Cho poses with her professional dance partner Louis Van Amstel at the Sept. 20 "Dancing with the Stars" premiere in Los Angeles. Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Margaret Cho has long been a stand-up comedienne, actress, and author. Now she is also one of the “stars” on “Dancing with the Stars,” one of America’s top reality shows.

In the first episode of the popular dance competition, she broke out in true Cho fashion.  She started off as a composed lady dancing the Viennese waltz to “We Are the Champions,” but as the camera pulled closer, the audience saw her characteristically over-the-top facial expressions. Cho also injected comedy into the waltz in other ways. She wrapped her face up with the scarves functioning as wings behind her back, and Louis Van Amstel, her professional dance partner, purposely dropped her on the floor at the end of their routine.

The judges thought the comedic element was inappropriate. Judge Bruno Tonioli stood up and yelled, “What the hell was that?” The other judges felt the same way, giving the pair the night’s lowest score.

Despite the cheerless comments from the judges, Cho’s performance won lots of laughter from the audience. She charmed viewers enough to survive the first round.

In the second round, Cho danced a more proper jive. Although she didn’t receive a perfect score, her efforts at least proved to the judges that she could dance.

On Oct. 4, Cho went bold and waved a rainbow flag to represent the gay community. She talked about cyber bullying in the gay community and showed her support, using the flag to get “a really important message of pride and self esteem across in a very exuberant way.”

Cho may not be as elegant as the other stars on the show, but she is lighting up the show by being bold, different, and hilarious. As a comedienne and actress, Cho has always brought fun and energy to audiences. Now she is doing it as a dancer and proving in the process that the show is not only about winning a competition. It is also about having a good time.

Click here to watch a video of Cho dancing the Viennese waltz on “Dancing with the Stars.”

Update 10/6: Cho was the third star voted off on Tuesday, Oct. 5, putting her in 10th place.

Photos by Anne Su
Writing by Nimisha Thakore

Little Tokyo is in our backyard.

The historical Japantown — one of only three Japantowns in the country — is no more than a few minutes’ drive down Figueroa Boulevard, or a 25 cent DASH ride. The quaint area is home to an abundance of enticing restaurants, so much so that USC alums Jeff Okita and Alex Tao started their food tour venture, Six Taste, right in the Japanese village. But there are also monuments and statues dedicated to Japanese American and Japanese heroes like Chiune Sugihara; the Japanese American National Museum; Japanese gardens; and shopping galore.

Little Tokyo became a National Historic Landmark District in 1995. The area is a cultural and historical gem, but it is very easy to take for granted because of its unremarkable proximity to south-central (aka home for all us USC students).

Bamboo writer and photographer Anne Su set out with a camera to capture the expected and not-so-expected scenes of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo so we can take a moment to appreciate its value.

By Sylvia Kim

The 6%DOKIDOKI fan event included a photo opportunity with shop girls Yuka and Vani. Photo: Sylvia Kim.

At a 6%DOKIDOKI fan event at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra on Sept. 12, the Japanese clothing label’s founder and designer spoke about the popular Harajuku style and its evolution.

Sebastian Masuda and the brand’s shop girls, Yuka and Vani, spent the Sunday afternoon celebrating the 15^th anniversary of 6%DOKIDOKI and the Harajuku style as part of the Harajuku Kawaii Experience: 6%DokiDoki World Tour.

David K. and his friend dressed up in the style of Harajuku fashion for this event. Photo: Sylvia Kim.

Harajuku is the fashion district of Japan and home of many different fashion styles. Masuda focused on the style “decora,” which is characterized by bright colors and patterns, layers, and lots of plastic accessories. He described how people use “kawaii,” or cute, images to “create their own happiness.”

According to Masuda, decora is unique from other Harajuku styles because it was born purely on the streets of Japan without being influenced by Western fashion.

Although Harajuku fashion styles vary widely with the cute and pink decora being just one of many, they are related in that they all emphasize self-expression.

“Harajuku is a form of self expression. It’s feeling confident about what you wear and not giving in to other people,” said Sandy J., a fan attending the event.

However, some believe Harajuku fashion is dying as it becomes more mainstream and known internationally. Shop girl Vani called Harajuku “a place of error.”

“Harajuku fashion is not like how it used to be before,” she said. “There are trends now and people dress caring about what other people think.”

Masuda hopes to counteract this by injecting self-expression back into Harajuku fashion with his brand 6%DOKIDOKI.

Helen Y. views the SWEET STREETS 2 exhibit hosted by Gallery Nucleus. The 6%DOKIDOKI fan event kicked off the start of this exhibition, which featured artwork inspired by Japanese street fashion. Photo: Sylvia Kim.

By Soo Jung Han

Nearly half of all unemployed Asian Americans in California had been without work for more than 2 years in July. Photo: Flickr.

Members of every ethnic group have been hit by the recession. Asian Americans, however, are remaining unemployed for much longer than are other ethnicities.

According to the World Journal, Asian Americans and African Americans had similar average unemployment lengths of about 30 and 32 weeks respectively, while those of Hispanics and whites is about 26 and 27 weeks respectively, in 2009.

In other words, fewer Asian Americans are unemployed, but they are staying unemployed  for alarmingly extended periods of time. According to the Los Angeles Times, 45 percent of unemployed Asian Americans in July had been without income for 27 weeks or longer, compared to 41 percent of unemployed Latinos and 42 percent of unemployed whites.

What is going on?

Marvin Leung*, a USC sophomore majoring in business administration, has taken a personal hit by the atypical terms of unemployment among Asian Americans. His dad, who worked as a manufacturing engineer in West Covina, has been unemployed for nearly 2 years now.  Marvin and his family are feeling the unfortunate toll of this economic recession, alongside many other Asian Americans.

With 13 percent of its population comprised of Asian Americans, California is largely affected by this trend among the Asian Pacific American population. Eight counties in the sunshine state surpassed the not-so-sunny 20 percent unemployment rate in March, according to one finding by the Los Angeles Times.

Among high school dropouts, Asian Americans have the lowest rate of unemployment at 8.8 percent, according to a study released by the Economic Policy Institute. However, among those holding advanced education degrees, Asian Americans hold the higher unemployment rate at 4.8 percent. What is problematic is that this higher unemployment is selectively occurring among the well-educated.

Furthermore, Asian American unemployment is increasing at a much higher rate than for other ethnic groups. The rate increase from October 2008 to November 2009 was significantly higher at 96 percent for Asian Americans than the 58 percent increase among whites, 39 percent increase among blacks and 47 percent increase among Hispanics, said Paul Ong, a UCLA professor of urban planning, social welfare, and Asian American studies.

Some attribute the trend of extended unemployment to close family and inter-ethnic ties present in many Asian cultures. Because many depend on work within their ethnic communities, once laid off, they find it hard to regain employment.

Others hold additional factors such as language barriers and new federal regulations requiring verification of Social Security documents accountable for the difficulty.

Regardless of what the exact reasons may be, many are hoping for a turnaround from this bleak state of affairs.

*Name changed.

By Cherise Osaki

The number of Americans who identify with any religious group is decreasing, including among Asian Americans. But at colleges across the country, Asian Americans are dominating membership in religious Christian groups.

Christianity, the most prominent religion in the United States, decreased by more than 10 percent in the last two decades, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey. The same survey found that the percentage of Christian Asian Americans decreased as well, from 37 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2008.

“Christianity has become a national [and] social religion, even in the 80s and 90s. Now, in the new millennium, people are pulling away from that culture and nothing remains of their faith,” said Brooklin Nash, a Christian student at Pepperdine University.

However, contrary to these numbers, the presence of Christianity among Asian American college students does not appear to have faltered. Many Christian fellowship groups at colleges across the country have become predominantly Asian, according to Rebekah Kim, a sociology professor at Pepperdine.

Among more than 50 evangelical Christian groups at UC Berkeley and UCLA, 80 percent of membership is Asian American, writes Kim in her book God’s New Whiz Kids?. At Yale University, 90 percent of the school’s Campus Crusade for Christ fellowship group is Asian American.

At USC, there are more than 50 campus groups affiliated with Christianity, and many of these groups primarily serve Asian American students.

“We are about 10 to 20 percent Asian American,” said Sarah Dean, a staff member at USC’s Campus Crusade for Christ. “But we also have a group that is a branch of CRU (Campus Crusade) called Epic Movement, which primarily serves Asian American students. There are about 60 to 80 students involved with Epic at USC.”

About a dozen Christian fellowship groups at USC specify an Asian affiliation in their mission statement, and many more groups are predominantly Asian, such as the Asian American Christian Fellowship and Korean American Campus Mission.

In an effort to explain such trends, Antony Alumkal suggests in his article “American Evangelicalism in the Post-Civil Rights Era: A Racial Formation Theory Analysis” that Asian Americans join Christian fellowship groups on campus in order to escape racial hostility and find a community in which to belong.

However, some Asian American Christian students disagree with this theory.

“Asian Americans have opportunities to join other Asian identity groups, not just evangelical fellowships,” said Kevin Yeh, a Taiwanese American student at Berkeley.

“For me, I joined [Grace on Campus] because it says in the Bible that we’re supposed to have fellowship with one another,” said Angela Lin, a senior at UCLA.“It is really encouraging to have brothers and sisters to share your faith with and to work with.”

The percentage of Asian American Christians is higher than that of other ethnic groups with Christian affiliations, according to statistics reported in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article goes on to say that at Berkeley, Asian American representation in evangelical Christian groups is greater than their percentage of total enrollment.

Another plausible reason for the increase of Asian Christians at American colleges is the growth of Christianity in Asian countries. In South Korea, for example, though the population mostly claims no religion, roughly 40 percent of people call themselves Christian.

With the increase in international Asian students at American colleges, the number of Asian Christians could likely continue rising.

But there might be an even simpler reason: similarities between certain Asian cultures and the tenets of Christianity.

“Traditional Asian values are well-aligned with Christian values,” said Lin.

By Chloe Wang

USC almnus David Reynaldo co-founded College Zoom to help students get into top 100 universities at affordable prices. Photo courtesy of Reynaldo.

Many international students can likely still recall how expensive it was to pay the service fee for coming to the United States through an agency, which basically prepares you for the Visa officers, persuades you to apply to a few low-ranking universities and just rips you off. At least this writer can still remember paying an agency $3,000 just to get into a community college from China.

When international students apply to universities, many of them try to acquire outside help. At Santa Monica College, a community college attended by a lot Chinese students, there are fliers stapled outside of classrooms everywhere selling services to write your personal statements for you during the transfer season. The number of students who buy the service is nowhere to be found.

But they’re not all rip-offs.

David Reynaldo, a recent USC alumnus, spoke to Bamboo Offshoot about his brainchild: College Zoom – Increase Your Admissions Success, a service that helps international students transfer into competitive universities.

College Zoom first started as a school project, Reynaldo explained. Reynaldo and  co-founders Sean Bandawat and Ryan Christensen found their first customers at Santa Monica College: four Chinese girls who were trying to transfer that year.

Reynaldo said his team had no idea they would end up serving a predominantly Asian market. But as it turns out, international students were the ones who needed the service the most. International students are most disadvantaged because of the language and culture barriers they face, according to Reynaldo.

On average, it takes students 2 years to learns conversational in English and 5 years to master written English. Therefore, many international students who have studied in America for two years aren’t confident with the language when it comes to writing personal statements.

“It’s easy to see why having someone else write their essays for them is a safer option,” said Reynaldo. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The student gets an impersonal essay that will get automatically rejected when the writing doesn’t match the student’s TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) score.”

According to Reynaldo, how students express themselves is more important than what they say.

“It is about selling yourself, and many international students are embarrassed to talk about themselves,” he said.

College Zoom charges $650 for assistance in applying to at least two universities. Covered by that amount is 33 hours of service at $20 per hour. Reynaldo said students can use the two applications to apply to USC and all the UCs.

“That’s our largest service offering and it actually provides everything that a student needs to develop two incredibly strong applications,” he said. “We also invest a lot of time helping students develop writing skills they’ll keep forever, which is something a lot of other services don’t do. They just make recommendations, but we hand-hold students through the entire process. Our service is extremely personal for the price we charge.”

Students who apply to at least two top 100 universities and don’t get in are guaranteed their money back.

Several other admission consulting groups – The Ivy Coach, Ivy Select College Consulting and College Consulting Services – refused to name a price without a completed application. Of the groups that listed prices on their websites, College Karma listed as high as $150 per hour and some packages as high as $4,000 for 6 months to a year of consulting.

Edward McDonnel, a private college counselor from Cincinnati, has among the most affordable rates in the industry. He also charges $650 but offers no guarantee.

“Just like China, America has counselors who are out to make easy money from worried parents,” Reynaldo said about why College Zoom’s prices are so low. “But we genuinely want to help and offer a service that most college students can afford with some help from their parents.  We are not out to rip anyone off or artificially inflate our prices”

It is still unknown how large the demand in the market is going to be since it’s only College Zoom’s second year of business. The four girls who used their services last year all got into top 100 universities in the U.S. Three were accepted by schools that are now ranked in the top 40 for 2011.

“Absolutely yes,” said Shiqiao Guo, now a student at UC Riverside, about whether or not College Zoom’s service was useful. “College Zoom was more helpful than my campus counselors and I learned a lot of writing tips I now use in college.”

Will College Zoom and many other services like it be put out of business if universities’ transfer centers begin providing more help to international students? Considering that many local community colleges like Santa Monica College are overpopulated and faculty are not capable of giving every student one-on-one help like College Zoom can, it seems unlikely that will happen anytime soon.

By Vivian Yan

An English-learning magazine in Germany. The popularity of learning English is increasingly global. Photo: Flickr.

My parents used to send me to Chinese school in the summer with the vain hope that I might learn to speak or read Mandarin.

I didn’t learn either, because when you’re 10 years old you don’t care about speaking a language no one else at school speaks. All you want to do is watch Pokémon, play handball with friends or watch “Monsters, Inc.” – all of it in English.

The funny thing is a lot of parents now want their kids to do what my parents didn’t: speak more English.

Western schools are expanding globally as more parents in Asia want their children to grow up with a strong foundation in English. Perhaps one of the most dramatic examples is the Jeju Global Education City in South Korea, slotted for completion in 2015. The self-contained community will house 12 Western schools on a 940-acre plot of land that will operate solely in English.

Asian governments are encouraging construction of these internationally-focused schools. Their goals include boosting Western investment in their respective nations and educating their youth in the core international language of business and commerce.

But is it a good idea to create such an environment? Is the trend toward Western schools a positive one? In some sense, yes: foreign investment bolsters a nation’s economy, and anyone who’s ever written a résumé knows how cool it is to say you’re multilingual. Furthermore, bringing English-speaking schools closer to home means families don’t have to split between moving to a Western nation and staying in their home country. Relationships aren’t strained by time and distance.

Yet at the same time, completely enveloping a child in a new language can be damaging in many respects. For one, a language learned as a child can be easily lost. My siblings and I grew up speaking Cantonese but dropped the language almost completely upon starting grade school. By sending their children to English-only schools and supporting the creation of English-only cities, Asian families risk the loss of their native languages and the cultural understandings those languages convey.

For example, teaching in English could mean that many children are unlikely to learn the terms of different subjects in their own language. Such a handicap could be especially detrimental when studying history or literature: Western schools are likely to focus on Western history or writers with Western ideas and Western terminology. Language differences could further result in trouble cross-communicating. As a Chinese American living in California, I learned about Mao Zedong – but say his name in Chinese and I’ll have no clue who you’re talking about.

The loss of language is especially detrimental to culture. Any ethnicity has its own idioms or way of thought based on its respective way of life, but by distancing kids from their language, parents pull them away from their cultural heritage. Asian parents may further imply to their children that their culture and language is somehow inferior to English because of an emphasis on learning English over, say, Korean.

The loss of their native tongue could also lead to massive generational gaps. My inability to speak Cantonese leaves me unable to communicate with my grandparents beyond phrases like “thank you” and “I’m hungry.” I will never understand stories they might tell about my ancestors because of this language barrier, meaning that I cannot learn my own family’s history from a direct source. A devastating realization for a history major!

Rather than focus on complete English immersion, Asian countries should aim for moderation. It is highly beneficial for students to learn English, but it is just as crucial for them to learn and honor their native language. It took me 3 years to learn how to write my name in Chinese and many more years before I recognized the significance of my own language and culture. When it comes to teaching their own children the value of their heritage, Asian families should not waste even half as much time.

By Karen Pham

Looking to raise funds for HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention “one thread at a time,” the Asian American AIDS Intervention Team is collaborating with the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising to host “Compassion in Fashion,” a fashion show on Oct. 21 at the Vibiana in Los Angeles from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

The event will feature a showcase of pieces from 10 FIDM students and a finale from designer Andrew Christian, who will present his collection of male underwear.

“The purpose of the event is to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS through the unique avenue of fashion,” said APAIT Program Manager Peter Cruz. “Our hope is that through the event, the community will become aware of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and take a proactive role in fighting the complacency and stigma of HIV by participating in the variety of programs and services currently being offered at APAIT.”

HIV/AIDS has been on the rise among Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“AIDS diagnoses increased in the U.S. by 34 percent from 1999 to 2003, which was the only statistically significant increase in HIV/AIDS diagnoses among all racial groups,” said Cruz.

A recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report revealed the annual increase in the number of diagnoses among gay men was the highest for Asian and Pacific Islanders at 12.1 percent – evidence of a critical need to strengthen HIV prevention efforts among Asian Americans, according to Cruz.

In regards to the student showcases at “Compassion in Fashion,” FIDM students were asked to join a contest in which they designed a T-shirt for APAIT portraying the theme of “compassion” for those living with HIV/AIDS. From the submitted designs, 10 will be chosen as finalists. The top 10 T-shirt designers, as voted on by the Compassion in Fashion committee, will then be invited to present their T-shirt along with a personal collection consisting of three pieces at the fashion show.

A panel of judges will choose the winning design using a scoring system developed by the Compassion in Fashion committee. The winner will be announced the night of the event, and the winning design will then become the official T-shirt of APAIT. Currently, the judging panel consists of 1997 Miss Universe Brook Lee, Los Angeles Times style writer Melissa Magsaysay and “Ugly Betty” actor and comedian Alec Mapa.

“Fashion is all about making a statement. Using fashion to promote HIV/AIDS awareness is an effective way to get our message out to the community and make a statement that HIV/AIDS is still affecting people’s lives today and more work needs to be done in order
to eradicate this disease,” said Cruz.

Tickets are now on sale at www.apaitonline.org at $30 for students, $50 for the general public and $100 for VIP. FIDM students can get tickets for $15 and faculty members for $30. All proceeds from the event and sales of the winning T-shirt will be used to support programs and services for people who are at-risk of or are living with HIV/AIDS.

By Anne Su

Is the shocking number of missing centenarians a sign of a degenerating respect for the elderly? Art by Stacy Kwok.

More than 234,000 Japanese elderly aged 100 or older who are registered on the country’s government records are actually missing or probably long dead, according to Japan’s Ministry of Justice.

Longevity has always been a source of pride and celebration in Japanese society, but the social attitude seems to be shifting in the midst of an economic recession.

Sogen Kato, thought to be the oldest living man in Japan, had actually been dead for 32 years before authorities found his mummified body in July. His daughter had failed to report his death and pocketed 9.5 million yen ($111,000) in pension payments, according to Kyodo News.

This incident was succeeded by a string of reports finding dead or missing centenarians who were assumed alive. A single case of fraud made apparent the flaws and incompetence of the government and the pension system. It also shocked the entire country in which a national holiday is dedicated to the elderly: Respect for the Aged Day.

Kato was considered to be one of the oldest people in the country at 111 years old. Yet when the police found his mummified remains at his home in Tokyo, he was very much dead rather than alive. It quickly became clear that Kato was not the only person who the Japanese government had overlooked.

In the majority of cases, the missing elders had moved away and heir family or relatives had not reported the move to the local authorities for record-keeping and pension distribution. These circumstances can be interpreted as negligence on the part of the families. Another major factor is the poor, unestablished bookkeeping on the authorities’ part.

“It was a greedy family who wanted to keep receiving the pension for that grandpa,” said Yuka Kumagai, a USC professor affiliated with the Japanese Language Program and the Department of East Asian Languages and Culture, of the Kato case. “But after that, there are more missing people found, like 400 years old or 200 years old… It’s just an unestablished recording system of the old days, so maybe two issues were mixed there.”

After the discovery of Kato’s death in July, the government conducted a nationwide survey. That is when officials discovered there is actually a discrepancy in the number of living centenarians and registered centenarians.

There was a gap in the records and government officials found they were not entirely accurate, according to Kumagai.

But Kumagai doesn’t think this means traditional Japanese respect for elders is waning.

“I don’t think that news really mean that we don’t respect senior citizens, you know,” she said. “But [there’s] another social problem… Japan is in [a] depression for many years now, economic depression, so there are more poor families or greedier families who want to get easy money.”

As the life expectancy (about 86 years for women and 80 years for men) and the population of Japanese centenarians soars, Japan’s public pension and medical care system is heavily burdened with its financing. It might be a difficulty for the Japanese government to come up with sufficient funds for the pension.

More Japanese elders now have a notion of independence from their families, unwilling to trouble them. Nowadays, some elders even willingly choose to go to elderly cares. Thirty years ago, it would have been scandalous to send parents to care centers, but times are changing, according to Kumagai.

“Our generation is worried about the stability of the current pension system because there will soon not be enough number of younger generation to support the system for increasing number of senior people,” she said about increasing elderly independence. “Our senior citizens’ being more and more independent is a good social move, I believe.”

Correction: September 21, 2010
The original post quoted Kumagai as saying “My generation are worried… Thirty years ago, it was a scandal to send your parents to a care home, but it’s changing.” We were informed that was a misinterpretation and have made necessary changes. Bamboo Offshoot regrets the error.