As Jon has said in his welcome message, we would like to have a more dynamic online presence for Ricepaper. In the past few months, we’ve tried to take advantage of our facebook more, make sense of the strange world of twitter (‘tweeting’, ‘RT-ing’, these things <#>, and the like), and we’ve come to blogging.
We’re currently in the process of recruiting a web team and a web editor/coordinator – email info[at] ricepapermagazine.ca and go to our volunteers page for more info if you’re interested! Until we manage to recruit more people, it’ll be me, Jon, or our fearless editor, Eury, blogging, tweeting and writing on the latest happenings in Asian Canadian arts and culture. Hopefully there’ll be a web game or two from Ren, our Art Director and the ricepaper collective.
During my early learning days of using Twitter and banging my head to come up with a <140 word twit (tweet?), I came across several Asian-Canadian and Asian-American culture blogs, some that I’d heard of before, and some that I hadn’t. As is common with many other things arts/culture/pop culture-related, the Americans seem to be dominating the Asian-North American blog cyberspace scene. However, if you’ve come across good Asian-Canadian blogs that you’ve enjoyed, share in the comments.
In the States
Angry Asian Man – while searching the Internet many many years ago in search of cool-seeming Asian-American and Asian-Canadian media, I found this and Giant Robot. After a little bit more searching, I found Ricepaper Magazine, eventually becoming a humble volunteer. And now here we are. Sunny Shao described Angry Asian Man in Ricepaper‘s 13.2 issue as a “self-confessed hyper-sensitive-but-proud Asian American” with “tongue-in-cheek conjectures on Asian arts and entertainment, mixed with the odd tidbit on racial profiling.” I took part in a Schema Mag-sponsored web-event and as I expected, Angry Asian Man (also known by his Clark Kent name, Phil Yu) was well-informed and thoughtful about the place of Asian-Americans in movies, tv, pop culture and current events. Surprisingly, Angry Asian Man did not spazz out or live up to his moniker during the webcast (he saves that for when he watches racist TV/movies/etc. and thinks/blogs “That’s racist!”) .
8 Asians – This blog was actually composed by both Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians. Similar to Angry Asian Man, 8 Asians covers “whatever Asian issues are currently relevant in our lives, whether it be pop culture or current events or politics” (according to their About Us page). Note that there are actually 15 bloggers but citing reasons of “community”, “feng shui” and “laziness”, 8 Asians is what the blog will continue to be called.
RaceWire is ColourLines Magazine’s blog. ColourLines focuses a bit more on race and politics, as opposed to pop culture. Since, this blog is, yes, Asian-American, there is a justifiable focus on US politics, current events, immigration policies, social trends, etc. However, it’s nice to contrast and compare our own Canadian politics, current events, immigration policies, etc. to the States, isn’t it? That’s the Canadian way.
In Canada
I haven’t found an Asian-Canadian blog that reaches “Angry Asian Man” superblog status. Most of these blogs are just on the upswing, but I’ve got high hopes (much like the hopes I have for the Ricepaper website). Again though, if you’ve come across any frequently updated, critically thoughtful, suitably snarky blogs with Asian Canadian arts and culture leanings, feel free to share in the comments.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy – in interest of full disclosure, I will admit that Toddish McWong, the creator of this blog, is on the board of directors of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop, which publishes Ricepaper. But in addition to blogging about Gung Haggis Fat Choy (which is happening on the 31st, btw!), Todd blogs about literary and cultural events going around town, Asian-Canadian history, his work with the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society, plus the Gung Haggis Dragon Boat team. This guy gets around (and I mean that in the best possible way).
Schema Mag “explores the unique evolution of diversity in the lives of cultural navigators—through design, food, music, art, film, or comic books—everything that cultural navigators actively consume as part of their daily lives.”
A whole mess of random blogs, from near and far (but still in Canada), from past Ricepaper contributors to people who sadly may have never heard of Ricepaper before, from music to literature to – young poet and frequent Twitterer Gillian Sze‘s blog; Quinn Omori’s music blog From Blown Speakers; another music blog, the Panic Manual – in their words, “probably the first and only indie-twee-britpop-rock, video game-movie-travel-food-gadget reviewing, asian centric-maritime influenced Canadian blog on the interweb”; Asian Canadian Writers Workshop – starting slow, but off to a good start; the Ricepaper Collective – our fabulous Ricepaper art team, hasn’t been updated for a while, but the blog contains a fascinating process overview on the cover design for the 14.3 Space:Culture:Place issue; Bryan Lee O’Malley (creator of Scott Pilgrim, Kim Pine and Ramona Flowers)‘s blog; award-winning playwright Marty Chan‘s blog.
First blog roundup of 2010
As Jon has said in his welcome message, we would like to have a more dynamic online presence for Ricepaper. In the past few months, we’ve tried to take advantage of our facebook more, make sense of the strange world of twitter (‘tweeting’, ‘RT-ing’, these things <#>, and the like), and we’ve come to blogging.
We’re currently in the process of recruiting a web team and a web editor/coordinator – email info[at] ricepapermagazine.ca and go to our volunteers page for more info if you’re interested! Until we manage to recruit more people, it’ll be me, Jon, or our fearless editor, Eury, blogging, tweeting and writing on the latest happenings in Asian Canadian arts and culture. Hopefully there’ll be a web game or two from Ren, our Art Director and the ricepaper collective.
During my early learning days of using Twitter and banging my head to come up with a <140 word twit (tweet?), I came across several Asian-Canadian and Asian-American culture blogs, some that I’d heard of before, and some that I hadn’t. As is common with many other things arts/culture/pop culture-related, the Americans seem to be dominating the Asian-North American blog cyberspace scene. However, if you’ve come across good Asian-Canadian blogs that you’ve enjoyed, share in the comments.
In the States
In Canada
I haven’t found an Asian-Canadian blog that reaches “Angry Asian Man” superblog status. Most of these blogs are just on the upswing, but I’ve got high hopes (much like the hopes I have for the Ricepaper website). Again though, if you’ve come across any frequently updated, critically thoughtful, suitably snarky blogs with Asian Canadian arts and culture leanings, feel free to share in the comments.