SuddenWorld.com

For the upcoming holiday season, if you’re looking for something somewhat different from the usual products sold by the usual national chain stores (because, really, aren’t you suffering from just a wee bit of consumer fatigue from just about every Best Buy or Target or Macy’s around practically every corner?), then perhaps you might consider some of the following online shopping sites—listed in alphabetical order—for an alternate gifting experience.

1. AnimeNation: Japanese pop culture in the way of manga (Japanese comics) and anime (Japanese animation) has made significant inroads to the American mainstream. You might have noticed the growing shelf space devoted to these genres in your local book store or DVD retailer. AnimeNation maintains a huge catalog of 8000-plus products, including extensive manga and anime titles. Parents should take careful note of the “Suggested Age Rating” listed for each product, as there are some materials that are definitely not suitable for younger viewers.

2. CafePress.com: Need a t-shirt that says “Auntie” in Chinese characters or a baby bib that says “Puerto Rican Princess? Then look no further than the “International T-Shirts and Gifts” section of CafePress.com. The site features numerous logos, emblems, icons, or what have you pertaining to various countries around the world.

3. CDS International Bookstore: CDS International is a nonprofit organization dedicated to international training opportunities for young students and professionals. In affiliation with Barnes & Noble, purchasing a book specifically through the CDS bookstore will automatically generate a donation to CDS International’s endowed Scholarship Fund which helps support American students and young professionals gain work experience overseas.

3. Cost Plus World Market: Okay, admittedly this is a chain store (299 stores nationwide and counting, according to their site), but it has its own distinct modus operandi. It’s as if someone decided to blend a Crate & Barrel and a Whole Foods Market with the added twist of focusing on global imports. The slightly unwieldy commercial name aside, this could conceivably be your last-stop shopping for all your international home needs.

4. Culture for Kids: The site is a great resource for parents, teachers, and librarians looking for educational items dedicated to expanding children’s knowledge of various languages and cultures. They offer products ranging from arts-and-craft kits to bilingual books to foreign language software.

5. DollsLikeMe.com: Although all the world does not look like Ken and Barbie, certain ethnic minorities may be hard-pressed to find this reality reflected in their choice of toys. In answer, DollsLikeMe.com promotes self-esteem among children of color by providing toys of cultural relevance to their respective backgrounds. Besides dolls, products include games, books, birthday cards, and puppets—all chosen with the same contextual ethnic sensibility.

6. A Greater Gift: This is a program of SERRV International, a nonprofit trade and development organization, which allows you to purchase authentic handcrafts and agricultural products from artisans and farmers from developing regions throughout the world. Online or in their participating outlets, you can purchase unique arts, crafts, and foods for various occasions, which in turn will help their artisans and farmers earn a living wage.

8. Housing Works | Thrift Shops: According to their site, Housing Works is the nation’s largest non-profit minority-controlled AIDS service organization. They rely on donations for their thrift shops and auctions from which they raise money for public health advocacy for AIDS-related issues, which means that a careful buyer could score some great deals on various clothing (including international designer brands like Dolce & Gabbana or Christian Dior), home furnishings, and/or assorted bric-a-brac while supporting a worthy cause.

9. Kalustyan’s: A specialty grocer originally known for its South Asian and Middle Eastern food products, they have expanded their stocks to represent countries from practically every continent. Their physical store is located in the Midtown/Murray Hill area of Manhattan, but anyone who may not have easy local access to international food products can order from their online site.

10. Princeton Home Décor: Their showroom is located in Princteton, NJ, but you need walk no further than your own home computer to order home décor items specially imported from Asia (specifically China and Tibet). Although their furniture may be rather cost-prohibitive for the average holiday shopper, check out their “Best Sellers” list for reasonably priced accessories such as a hand-made Chinese calligraphy set at $40 or a Feng Shui compass at $23.

Now you have a fighting chance to get your friends and family a gift they may have never seen before, and in some cases, you’ll even be contributing to a greater cause. They’ll wonder at your resourcefulness in cosmopolitan gift-giving, so don’t hesitate to buy into a bigger world!

Making a professional living is tough. Even when you find your calling, the choices you have, while they may come more into focus, don’t necessarily become any easier. Throw into the mix that you happen to be a foreign national trying to get a film made in New York City, and said individual has got his work cut out for him. However, when you believe in the medium of film as strongly as I learned filmmaker Jinoh Park does, such circumstances are simply part of the grand quest for artistic growth.

Jinoh Park was born in Seoul, South Korea, but for now, he calls the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens his home as he commutes daily into Manhattan, endeavoring to make his first full feature-length film. An alumnus of New York University’s Graduate Film Program, he is certainly no stranger to the city.

To date, his short films “Lunch,” “Request,” and “Slowly Silently” achieved international recognition as official selections in numerous film festivals around the world, including the Cannes Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, and the DGA (Directors Guild of America) Haig P. Manoogian Screenings in Los Angeles, to name a few.

I sat down with Jinoh recently in November, on the second floor of a deli not far from Manhattan’s own Koreatown, to discuss the beginning stages of his film. He had just made his final casting decision that evening for the female lead, an actress by the name of Marina Michelson, with whom he was in the midst of discussing the film’s character roles.

I decided to take the interim to ask his assistant Chris Hwang some details about the film. Its working title is Night and Day. He describes the plot in brief as an actor and actress spending a full twenty-four hours against the backdrop of New York City. There is a story outline, but the script will be developed in organic fashion, which Chris indicates has a notable precedent in the expressionist pastiche method of director Wong Kar-wai.

Jinoh concludes his discussion with Marina, who says her good-byes until their first rehearsal. Although I hope to be able to speak with various members of the cast and crew as the film develops, for now I am eager to begin my interview in earnest with the aspiring director.

If Quentin Tarantino’s voice shoots out like a hare hopped up on caffeine pills, then Jinoh’s voice ambles forth with a tortoise’s profound convictions about reaching the finish line. As we talk, his demeanor is one of continual introspection, so that sometimes his face flashes moments of mild but genuine surprise at his spoken words, as if skirting the edges of knowledge heretofore unknown, but then quickly accepting their intrinsic truth.

Prior to our discussion, I learned from Chris that Jinoh also plans to take the lead male role in the film, so I’m curious to ask him his reasoning behind this particular creative decision. He responds, “I think sincerity is one of the most important factors for me both as a director and an actor. I want to really feel in all honesty, you know, try to achieve in both ways.” He emphasizes that this decision was not a conscious one, but happened naturally as a result of his various experiences in filmmaking over the years. Although he has also had prior acting experience, he feels more ready to take it seriously now and see what happens.

Shifting focus to his role as the director, I ask how he felt about moving across cultures as a Korean national directing an American-based film, citing Clint Eastwood and Ang Lee as filmmakers who have worked on films outside their normal spheres of cultural familiarity, i.e., Letters to Iwo Jima and Sense and Sensibility, respectively.

Indicating his great respect for those two directors, he answers, “I’m very interested in exploring different, specific cultures. I was born in Korea; however, America has been very important to me. So culturally, spiritually, emotionally, I feel very close to the States.”

He continues, “But I think cinema is essentially about a universal language. I truly believe and hope that cinema can overcome any specific culture. And it can really deal with the essence of life like human nature, human heart, human beings.”

To the practical matter of trying to direct the performances of characters in an unfamiliar culture, Jinoh recalls a response by Ang Lee (whom Jinoh had occasion to meet a few times) to critics who questioned whether a Taiwanese-born director could effectively direct a British period piece like Sense and Sensibility. (To my mind, such thinking reveals an inherent Hollywood hypocrisy, since relatively little concerns were raised about films ranging from “The King and I” to the more recent “The Last Samurai,” where foreign cultures were for the most part depicted under the helm of white directors).

According to Jinoh, Ang Lee expressed his belief that no one could truly know how people behaved back then (British people included) and thus found directorial freedom from that perspective. However, with a more contemporary movie like The Ice Storm, Ang Lee had to research far more extensively for the film in order to capture convincing details of the more recent era of the 1970s.

Regarding the barrier of language across cultures, although citing his admiration for Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who spoke little French yet directed many French-speaking films, Jinoh qualifies that he believes it would be better for a director to be familiar with the language in which he is directing.

When I ask why he decided to make his first feature-length film in the U.S.A. versus South Korea, he answers that it’s not so much a conscious decision as it is a manifestation of where he stands now in his life experience. During his 3 years of obligatory military service in South Korea, he thought deeply about his aspirations, not even sure if he was interested in the particular medium of film.

It wasn’t until coming to the U.S. that his commitment to film evolved. Living here, Jinoh is able to surmise, “One of the happiest moments for me as a human being is when I go to the cinema.”

Unfortunately, since the evening was stretching on into the night and Jinoh still had business to discuss with his assistant Chris, I wasn’t able to explore in greater depth the whys and wherefores of his artistic evolution, but given his open invitation to visit him during various parts of the filmmaking process, I was sure there would be more opportunities.

Similar to the conception of his film, I plan to write future postings (you’ll note the “Part 1” in the title) in like-minded organic fashion. As the film develops, so will this particular series of blogs entitled “Making a New York Film,” paying close attention, as is the wont of this site, to the fascinating cross-cultural issues that stem from filmmaking.

Should the above title make you nervously expect a punch line of questionable taste to follow, just bear with me for a wee bit longer and all will be revealed.

If in our working world, there is a green thumb for the kind of money that grows on trees, then my thumb, figuratively speaking, typically stays in the red. That’s not the punch line yet, folks. Contrary to the stereotypes about Asian Americans being good with numbers, my savoir faire falls resoundingly to the side of the Liberal Arts. So why then should I take even the remotest interest in a New York Times article entitled “Is There Room at the Top for Black Executives?” by Ron Stodghill?

I think one of the most unfortunate results of excessive ethnocentrism is the view that falling into one particular minority demographic would preclude one from taking an interest in other minority demographics. In mainstream media, there seems to be this obsessive bipolar lock on how we discuss ethnicity, usually with the white majority as the go-to dance partner while the other minority groups each wait their turn on the floor.

The Punch Line

So here’s the punch line: in a truly ethnically enlightened society, an African-American CEO and an Asian-American Blogger occurring in the same sentence really shouldn’t have to seem like part of a punch line. In other words, the real joke is that a dialogue about members of two different minority groups (without the white majority) sadly seems more likely to occur within the context of vulgar ethnic humor.

So let’s make the title work and address the question I asked earlier, “Why should I, as an Korean-American with no direct background in business, take the remotest interest in a New York Times article about the state of black American corporate executives?” Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that what has bearing on one minority group has bearing on others as well.

If there is a dearth of black executives in the corporate world, particularly given that blacks are one of our longest standing minority groups in U.S. history, then it stands to reason that other minorities may suffer a similar lack of representation. Of course there are experiences and conditions unique to each ethnic group, but looking at the plight of one minority group can serve as a bellwether for other groups.

But beyond the motive of self-interest by proxy, I believe that regardless of what demographic one belongs to, accepting a state of ignorance about other cultural groups with which we share this country invariably leads to the toxic by-product of bigotry, both overt and covert, both conscious and unconscious.

Can’t See Forest for the Trees

What struck me most about the article was that several of the black executives interviewed expressly stated wanting to be treated on the basis of their performance, whether good or poor, as individuals before the labeling of their black identity (if at all in the case of the latter).

The fact that they even need to provide the disclaimer, almost as if in some reflexive defense mechanism, is symptomatic of the problems that all ethnic minorities face in a dominant white society—the difficulty of seeing the individual before seeing the perceived attributions of the individual’s ethnic group. I discussed this issue in my earlier posting entitled, “Don’t Doubt the Benefit of the Doubt.”

But therein lies the pointed irony, despite claims of our living in a color-blind society, you can’t get to the individual without first properly understanding your own conceptualization of said individual’s identity—a process that is not always so easy to do.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly problematic comments of a few weeks back provide an excellent case example. Several weeks ago, he had made headlines for certain statements he had made on his radio show while recounting his dinner with Reverend Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a black-owned restaurant in Harlem.

On his radio show, he was discussing interethnic relations with Fox News analyst Juan Williams, specifically between blacks and whites. He cited his experience at Sylvia’s as a sign of social progress for blacks in America.

In the course of his dialogue with Mr. Williams, Mr. O’Reilly indicated surprise by stating he “couldn’t get over the fact” that there was no difference between black-owned Sylvia’s and other restaurants.

“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” he said. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

In general, I am not a fan of Mr. O’Reilly’s role in mainstream media (similar to that of his counterparts like Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck) in which he blurs his role as a demagogic pundit with declarations of being the American everyman, or in Mr. O’Reilly’s specific case, sometimes even with protestations of being the maligned “outsider” to mainstream media which he imbues with an overall liberal bias.

My honest belief is that Mr. O’Reilly meant to express relatively progressive views on the topic of interethnic relations, but his comments demonstrated perfectly the kind of bigotry that is in some ways more difficult to guard against or argue against than overt racism, because the initial intention was so well-meaning. He exhibited the classic soft bigotry of low expectations, or to put it more colloquially, he paid a back-handed compliment to Sylvia’s, and by problematic proxy, the black community.

For those who still believe his comments to be innocuous and the rest of us are being too critical or over-reactive, I find that role-reversal sometimes helps to point out the inherent myopia of a given perspective, and the blogger “Black Sentinel” effectively illustrates this in “Restaurant Review Bill O’Reilly Style,” a biting parody in which she as a black customer reviews a fictional white-owned restaurant.

Free Your Mind, The Rest Will Follow

Being a nationally recognized media figure, it’s too easy to pick on Mr. O’Reilly’s foibles to feel better about ourselves in our ostensibly superior social sensitivity, but at least he has engaged and continues to engage members of another ethnic demographic (in this case the black community) in dialogue. We as individuals would do better to carefully examine how we might also embody bigotries hidden even to ourselves that foster through a lack of engagement with worlds beyond our everyday familiarity.

This could entail a Korean-American blogger reading about black corporate executives in the New York Times or a white news pundit sharing a meal with Reverend Al Sharpton in a black-owned restaurant in Harlem—small steps towards greater understanding. The learning curve exists for every single one of us.