Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts

Friday, March 31, 2023

Planting Watermelons And Making Sushi

 Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

Spring is in the air and planting season has begun. 


It’s a good time to get those Watermelon seeds into the ground. And, it’s a good time to eat more Sushi, too, particularly the vegan kind. Norimaki rolled with veggies, anyone?



Of course, those words are not-so-subtle references to our Watermelon Sushi feature narrative turned animation.




As we announced in our last post, filmmaker Doug Ing has come aboard as our Executive Producer. This multi-talented man recently had one of his documentaries accepted by SIFF, a major film festival in Seattle.


Omedettou gozaimasu, Doug!



Doug Ing in Honolulu




Doug Ing films Yuriko in Tacoma Washington                      



We’d also like to congratulate Yuriko-san on her fake birthday today. This incredible artist was actually born a month later, but her father forged her birth certificate so she could enroll in school when the semester began in April--instead of waiting another year.



upcoming projects



Anyway, our documentary film about her, Tokyo Lily, will be accompanied by a graphic novel, Lily Wisteria. The documentary will feature her life story and artwork, while the novel will showcase illustrations of WWII and the Occupation.


btw, Yuriko means ‘lily’ in Nihongo and her clan name, Naito, has a mon represented by the hanging wisteria plant.


While we’re tackling all these projects, we’re pumping up our Youtube channels, so please subscribe:


Watermelon Sushi


War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory


And, for your edutainment pleasure, the five 'War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory' films are currently available on Gumroad:


Gumroad


If you need more details about any of our projects, please navigate to our main websites:


Starwheels

Watermelon Sushi

War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory


Or, you can drop us a line, too. We’re always on the look out for more mixies like ourselves to spotlight on this blog.


Lifting up our fans with love and gratitude!


Your Hip Hapa,


Yayoi




Wednesday, September 08, 2010

RAW: Complicated, Controversial, Conspiracy Theorist


Your Hip Hapa meets so many interesting Hip Hapa Homeez everywhere she goes, and Sean Hardin is no exception. We bumped into each other several years ago at a website that promotes vegetarian living. Instantly, I became fascinated with Sean’s raw food lifestyle. While Your Hip Hapa eschews all animal products including suede and leather, taking that one extra step towards a raw diet feels a little intimidating. Below, Sean shares with us some of his other interests, which are numerous as well as complicated and controversial.

Q: What's a nice mixed-race guy like you doing making so much noise about the world?

A: My podcast series Truther is about global public affairs. Most of my podcasts are interviews. Sometimes, I’ll do one where I’m talking by myself, doing an editorial. As to why I deal with public affairs issues, it’s because I still have some hope for humanity. I want to get this information to people, as much as possible, to those who will listen. Most of my audience is people who have been in the truth and freedom movements for a long time. However, there are some mainstreamers, too, and I’m working to increase them because my main motivation for doing what I do is to reach out to them.

I deal with Conspiracy with a capital C. I’ve been investigating the global aristocratic class for about 13 years now, as well as alternative health, and an eclectic mix of other topics that are off the beaten path. I did an interview with Professor Anderlini from University of Puerto Rico who believes in sexual freedom. She’s an advocate for the Gaia mode, as well as Polyamory. I deal with health topics ranging from the AIDS scam, natural ways to reverse conditions like diabetes, and how to get and stay in good health. One of my favorite interviews this year is with Leah Salmon in Luton, U.K., who’s a natural health practitioner. She gives all kinds of eye opening information on how to be healthy. There’s nothing mystical about health, there’s no need for anyone to be in a diseased condition.

My podcast series is aired on one of two hosting providers I use--Blip TV and Vimeo--and I average about 8 podcasts per month. Here are the links:


Prior to my podcast series Truther, I was writing articles online. I’ve been an independent journalist since about 1995.

Q: Who are your parents, and where did you grow up?

A: My mother is Jewish and my father was black although I never got to meet him. I know his name is John Lewis Hardin and mom is Cara Nina Hardin. I have inquired about my father, but my mom always avoids the subject so I gave up inquiring.

I grew up in downtown Minneapolis in an apartment building on Hennepin Avenue, which is no longer there. It was torn down.

Q: Did you grow up with a lot of Jewish culture--customs, food, holidays, rituals and religion?

A: No, my mom was not into religious practice too much although she does believe in a God. I don’t because I’ve seen no evidence to support that theory. I did not grow up going to a synagogue. I don’t practice any religion and I don’t believe in any of the theories of the world’s religions because none of them have any evidence to support their theories. I’m a very clinical thinker and I always demand evidence to support a theory anyone presents. If they can’t support their theory with evidence, than I consider that theory worthless.

Q: How about on your black side?

A: I only know a couple of relatives on my father’s side; two cousins, Angie, and Cara (named after mom). I have not heard from either of them for a long time. I often think about Angie and Cara, and I hope they’re doing well. My mom always had a lot of black friends though, so I was surrounded by black people--mostly intellectual black people.

Q: When and how did you first become so interested in politics and the global picture?

A: I’ve been studying the global aristocratic (Illuminati) for about 13 years now. I got into this area of research because in the 1990’s I began to realize that things are not right with humans around this world. We are plagued with problems that virtually no other species has that I’ve ever heard of.

I met my friend, Brother Ptah, who’s a very intelligent brother from Kenya, who’s been studying this for longer than me. He turned me on to books by David Icke, Dr. John Coleman, Coast to Coast AM, and many other sources. From there, I intensely researched to verify as much of the information I was gathering as possible, and since then I have not been able to get away from this research. I have made my life following the Illuminati.

Q: You don't seem to focus much on racial groups, but on the bigger human race.

A: I do periodically delve into race issues when I deem it called for. I bring race up, for example, when I’m covering the AIDS fraud because I suspect that there are aspects of it that are racially motivated. There are more AIDS testing facilities in black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Western countries than in white neighborhoods by far. Those billboard and poster ads at bus stops and trains stations that says things like “AIDS, get tested, know your status”, etc.; you see those in black and Hispanic neighborhoods overwhelmingly and hardly at all in white neighborhoods in cities like London, Chicago, Paris, etc.

Since Canada became the first Western country to implement criminal laws based on this scientific fraud, nearly all of the people who have been convicted in court in Canada and sentenced to life prison terms are men, and of all the cases I’ve researched out of Canada, all except one are black. That leads me to suspect that this is racially motivated.

What, one might ask, is the purpose for something like this? A possible answer is the money interests from the pharmaceutical cartel. Here’s the ultimate answer though; control of sexual activity, which leads to population control (of the population of people they look down on, that is). Of everything this global cabal has perpetrated upon humanity, the AIDS fraud just about tops everything else. Western countries now have criminal laws predicated on this fraud. That’s right, criminal laws! A person can be locked up in a cage for life if they’re found guilty in a Kangaroo Court for giving their sex partners so-called AIDS.

One question that demands addressing pertaining to the AIDS scam is how in the world is a black woman 20 times more likely to get a positive result from those testing devices than a white woman. Is there a precedent for a pathogen behaving like that? No!

I’m in this to reach out to humanity, to help and benefit humanity; that’s what I will continue to do with my life unless I end up in a FEMA camp. My goal is to plant as many seeds as possible to hopefully make a better world for all humans in the future. As a member of humanity, I value all of it including mainstreamers although they’re dumbed down and gullible. Hopefully, that can be changed.

My hope is that with the efforts of myself and others in the alternative media who are doing all we can to expose the psychopaths, people will not only learn about the criminal global aristocratic cabal, but also learn to tap into the infinite knowledge of how things in the Universe work that we all have programmed in our DNA.

 Q: Why is having a raw vegan diet so important to your beliefs?

A: I’ll never forget in 2000, my friend Peter Arneson and I were at a wedding of a couple of mutual friends of ours. At the reception, I noticed that of all the kinds of food they had to offer, the only thing Peter was eating was the salad. I asked him why, and he said he practiced a raw food diet, and we started talking about that. Everything Peter said made so much sense that I decided at that point to give a raw diet a go, and have stuck with it ever since.

Humans are the only species that cook its food, and there are different theories about why that is. Not all raw foodists are vegan like me. There are some who eat flesh. However, the vast majority of people could never imagine eating flesh raw, so that demands a question: Should humans be eating flesh at all if it can only be palatable cooked?

Cooking fruits, vegetables, and seeds is no good because it destroys the life-giving properties in the food, and creates a lot of carcinogens. That’s what causes all of the disease problems we have because people, whether they realize it, are in a constant state of malnutrition. I’ve been practicing a raw-vegan diet for about 10 years now, and am not having any thought of going back.

Thank you, Sean. That’s some pretty heavy stuff to take in all at once and we appreciate you breaking it down for us.

On another note, remember to join our Hip Hapa Homeez Group on Facebook where we post info of interest to blendies, mixies and multi-cultis. You can also “like” our Watermelon Sushi Fan page on Facebook, which supports our Watermelon Sushi film. And, your purchase of a Hapa*Teez t-shirt, like the one Julia Baker wears below, gets you a rear crawl credit once our film is produced.



Until we meet again, here's a shout-out and big-up for being you!

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Marcus Patrick-Patrick Marcus, Mixed Raw Vegan Movie Star

Cheerio to all you Hip Hapa Homeez! This week, British actor Patrick Marcus Osborne joins us to reveal more than just his buffo bod. Check out Marcus Patrick in the photos and at the link below, and then read what he has to say about his life as a multiracial raw vegan. Deep!

http://www.marcus-patrick.com


Q: What’s a nice mixed-race guy like you doing showing off his abs and pecs?


A: I used to run around my house naked as a kid. My parents were very liberal so it was always considered a fun thing that my sister and I would run around the house naked for fun!


Q: What led you to become a raw vegan, and why are you such a strong advocate of that lifestyle?


A: I actually said a prayer to God/The Universe that I was no good to Earth if I had to sing or rap negative songs, become an egomaniacal actor, sell products I don't believe in, or fight men in competitions. I asked God/The Universe to use me as a vessel for helping humanity and do with me what was needed. It was this prayer that turned me vegan and, later, raw. Once I studied the medical data on it, I saw that it was really the healthiest way one can live. I also gained many other spiritual benefits of heightened sensitivity, awareness and even the intuition that many would think--along with this whole paragraph--sounds crazy, unless they themselves cross the spiritual path.


Q: What are your parents’ ethnicities, and how did they meet?


A: Mother is Jamaican, Cuban and Cherokee. My father is English, Irish, and French. My dad was always obsessed with black women. He would draw them as a kid with an Afro hairstyle. He is a great artist. He always wanted the strongest woman for the strongest kids he said, and he had decided the black race was the strongest. I came out pretty strong so maybe he had a good plan. He was a deejay at the university. My mom came to England from Jamaica to study nursing. They met at a university dance and the rest is a long book filled with lots of drama. Ha!


Q: How did growing up mixed affect your life?


A: It wasn't easy at first. I was rejected by both blacks and whites. I was teased, called jungle boy, light-skinned pretty boy, red boy, gollywog, and monkey boy. I actually began to pray that God might make a hole to swallow me up and take me away when I was eight. Then I began to appreciate what I had going for me--strength and speed. I ran chasing butterflies in the grass fields and gained a love of life. Once I hit mid-teens, my strength had become such an asset that I was the British Tae Kwon Do champion. This title helped gain me lots of popularity at school. Now I was the "it kid". It felt very bizarre. I began to study humans from this point on. Why would we be so fickle? I asked myself. I am the same child that they didn't like a few years ago, but now that I was a champion and could physically beat them in a fight, they respect me? It made for a sad reality observation.


Q: As an actor and model, has being multiracial ever helped or hindered your career?


A: I'm sure we all know being “mixed” means being black, and black roles are far fewer than white roles in Hollywood. I just take what God gives me and if he just gave me the role of Jesus (in a new film), he blessed me real well, didn't he?


Q: You have such a powerful aura along with incredibly good looks that jumps out from the screen, yet you remain humble and approachable. How do you manage to do that and be in show business at the same time?


A: I have studied a lot. The more one studies, the more one finds that humility is required to learn. One must read up on the masters with books everyday. There is still so much to learn. Wisdom and humility go in tandem. I am wise and I am humble in order to stay wise. If I were to become arrogant, my wisdom would soon leave me. Show business has shifted from the days when art ruled. Now it's ego ruling art. Celebrity comes from the two words “celebration” and “humanity” merged into one. A celebrity is a celebration of humanity. Not many of today’s celebrities know this and take the role seriously. They are often too focused on some lie their publicist cooked up.


Q: You call yourself a “Noble Warrior of God”. What do you mean by that?


A: My birth name means "Noble Warrior of God". Patrick Marcus Osborne. Look it up. I began looking up names after I found out that our names have meanings and shape who we are. So, I looked mine up and there it was, staring me in the face as to why I may have been such a truth seeker my whole life. God and truth are one. God means truth. Truth means God. I have always had a dislike of bullturd. If I see politicians lie, it is always irritating and there are so many pockets of society built on lies, delusions and people coddling each other that it's okay to be dysfunctional because we are all a mess together. Well, I feel that we as a race can be in truth/God. On my travels around the world, I have seen so many culture trends, good and bad, all different. The one thing I know about us as humans is that we all want love, truth, wisdom and function. We once had it on the planet. There is evidence to show this in some of the fantastic landmarks. It's up to us to search deep inside and ask, "How brave am I to be truthful, sensitive, loving, caring, of myself and fellow man/womankind?" Well, I can say I am brave ‘til my end. So I am "Noble Warrior of God".


Thank you, Sir Patrick Marcus Osborne for baring your body, heart, mind and soul.


Hey, Hip Hapa Homeez, don’t forget we feature a new profile every week so keep coming back to check us out. And, if you’d like to be interviewed, drop us an email at hiphapa@comcast.net


Remember our film website at http://www.watermelonsushi.com. And, we’re still accepting headshots to post on our Watermelon Sushi Fan page on Facebook. Sign up to join it and our Hip Hapa Homeez group page there, too. You don’t have to be multiracial to be a part of us. We need our supporters, too! Hip Hapa Homeez is where we post links to stories about multi-culti folks and other race issues.


You can also follow Watermelon Sushi on Twitter where we’ve been tweeting bits of dialogue from our film script. Finally, all sales of our t-shirts help finance our film, so stop by http://www.cafepress.com/hapateez and get one. Be sure to contact us if you make a purchase to ensure you get your rear crawl credit.


That’s all she wrote for now. Until next week, I am...


Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

My Father

Dear Regular Reader,

If you think I write a lot about my mother, you're right. I mean, I can't get away from that woman. My sister and I have always been dominated by her strong personality, but our mom is also like our third sister--only bossy because she's the mother, after all.

This week, I'll fill you in a little bit about my dad. That's him in the photo as a young soldier in Germany. The Winfrey's (some who are first cousins to THE Winfrey--Ms. Oprah) are planning a family reunion this summer, and my father and I plan to attend. I just hope there's something vegan I can eat in Arkansas.

Although I've written about my dad extensively in an essay included in the anthology Brothers and Others published about seven years ago, I'll brief you here.

Born in Richmond Texas in 1927, my father was the oldest of three boys and a girl belonging to Andrew and Eleanor Winfrey. A chauffeur and maid, respectively, Andrew and Eleanor saved their money and built a small hamburger stand. It was the first eatery for blacks in Richmond, and, as the years passed, my grandparents grew it into a barbecue cafe with indoor dining. (Today, there's a monument to my grandfather in Richmond.)

As a child visiting during the summers, I would wait on customers and drink strawberry soda in that smoky cafe. Behind the restaurant, my grandparents raised animals they would slaughter for everything from ribs to chitlins. Thinking about it today, my vegan stomach turns. But back in the day, it was a source of pride knowing that my kin owned their own business. That, plus I was known to scarf more than a few pigs' feet.

Not satisfied with having just a cafe, my grandfather also learned bricklaying and built several houses. The family lived in one and rented the others to tenants. But by the time my father turned 18, he decided he wanted to see the world. He wasn't crazy about the idea of working in his parents' b-b-q joint forever, and all the successful black men he knew of in his small country town had joined the military to acquire their bling. So, my dad signed up for the Army.

Well, he ended up seeing the world, all right. He was stationed in the Philippines, Korea and Japan where he met my mother. Later, he was sent to Germany (we went with him) and several other American military bases. But my father also experienced a segregated military before President Truman desegregated it. While my dad was overseas fighting for America, America represented by the Army approached restaurants and shops near military bases in foreign countries and ordered them to either serve only its black or white soldiers--but never both at the same time. Once he returned from serving his country overseas, my father struggled to find a place to live in Washington state.

Several weeks ago, I read an article about the book Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon, and it triggered something my father had told me about his childhood. He'd said that after class each day, he went to work picking cotton. Naively, I replied that it must've been nice for him to have earned some money. But my father corrected me, and clarified that neither he nor the other children were ever paid for their labor. Instead, the white people who would round them up after school each day were still practicing slavery when it was clear that slavery had been declared illegal nearly 80 years before. According to Blackmon's book, slavery continued in the south until 1945--18 years after my father was born.

If you'd like to know more about my father, I still have a few copies left of Brothers and Others. Drop me an email at watermelonsushi@comcast.net, if you're interested in getting one.

And, if you're not busy this Saturday, February 7, at 4 pm, you'll have the opportunity to listen to me being interviewed by Janice Malone at http://www.filmfestivalradio.com. Please tune in to hear us discuss multiracial issues as well the Watermelon Sushi film.

I'm also anticipating an interview with playwright and Watermelon Sushi Associate Producer Jaz Dorsey of Nashville. I'll keep you posted about when the article will appear on the AAPEX blog.

Meanwhile, if you're on Facebook, join our group on the Hip Hapa Homeez page. Dude, we're hip, we're hapa, and we're homeez!

Until next week, I am...

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Hau'oli makahiki hou, omedetto gozaimasu, and happy new year...again. Yes, it's Lunar New Year (or at least it was on Monday), and time for the Year of the Ox. Or as my mother calls the animal, "cow". "Cow," she will say, "is god." Whether I respond or not, she will go on by listing all the things people take from cows--from their milk to their flesh to their hides to make boots. Even when I argue, in my best vegan voice, "That's murder!", my mom will continue praising the god-cow and its useful body parts snatched by humans regardless of its refusals. "But Mom," I'll protest, "That's why Hindus worship cows. They're sacred so you shouldn't eat them."



I love listening to my mother "talk story" as they say in Hawai'i where everyone has a tale to share. (Check out the storyteller, below, at the Hawai'i state library.) I'm not sure why she's so good at it, but over the years I've heard my mom repeating all of them endlessly without wavering. Her facts are always the same, and the details she provides paint such visually rich pictures that I always feel like I'm right there at the scene.

My mother's stories range from the time when she was a little girl of six (when her father died and left their family penniless) to the time when she first arrived in America aboard a ship that landed in Seattle to many, many tales beyond. She tells stories of living in Richmond Texas in the 1950's when it was segregated and a white bus driver conspiratorially advised her that she need not sit in the back with my father's black relatives. She talks about my paternal grandmother who taught her how to wring a chicken's neck and fry it for my dad's lunch. One of my mother's favorite stories is about going to New York after learning English from our southern black kin and asking the bellhop to bring her "soda water". Of course, he brought her seltzer because at that time in New York if you wanted a soda, you'd call it a "pop".

My mother's stories have entertained me and my sister for decades. Even her husband perks up with attention whenever she begins with, "When I was little girl, stay Japan, I not have nothing. My daddy die, then we so poor." Evidently, my mother's family owned a hair salon with six employees, but the business burned down during a devastating earthquake. A year later, just as he rebuilt the salon, my maternal grandfather suddenly became ill and died. That threw the family into a tailspin with my grandmother forced to raise five children by herself.

Another time period that yields many tales are the childhoods of my sister and me. My mother loves telling the story about how as a baby in Texas my sister cried all night keeping her awake. I was three at the time and fast asleep as my mom relates it, but my sister could not be placated. As my mother walked to the bathroom cabinet and reached up to get a lamp to light the room with, something crawled over her bare feet. Looking down, she saw a snake sashaying away to hide behind the dresser. Quickly lighting the lamp, my mom grabbed a hoe and hunkered down in her bed watching for the snake to come out. Surprisingly, my sister suddenly stopped crying. (During this part, I always remind her that my sister was born in the Year of the Snake.) Hours later, in the still of the night, the snake crept from its hiding place, and my mother jumped up and chopped that poor creature into bits. Depending on my mood, I'll either tell my mom that she was very brave or, if I want to get a reaction, I'll chastise her for killing a helpless animal.

My mom is always filled with so many stories, but I think the most dramatic ones that she shares are about her life in Texas. After all, there were no Asians living in our little country town then, and she was treated like an oddity--except for by my dad's people. Talk about culture shock! I can't imagine moving somewhere where absolutely no one looked, spoke, ate or behaved like me. But she did it, and she earned some rewarding life experiences for it.

That's why I think it's so important to reach across cultural lines and invite someone different into your life. Interracial couples do that all the time. Just think how boring life would be if
every single human on earth was of one race.

Just remember this new year is Ox time and those animals are stubborn and pragmatic. This could prove to be one really s-l-o-w year.

Speaking of time, it's hard to believe that it's been one year since I began blogging regularly about mixed-race issues. I actually started Watermelon Sushi World in 2006, but with no time to invest in it then, I let it languish. What really brought me to attention was you. You guys are so encouraging and your comments throughout the last year are so appreciated. Please don't stop. And, please consider emailing me your mixed-race stories so that I can include them in a future blog. Email me at hiphapa@comcast.net

Oh, and here's a reminder that the producers of the Watermelon Sushi film are still checking out talent for our principal characters. Although we've received some nice reels and headshots, we're open to looking at more. We want to give everyone a chance, so please spread the word. Although we don't have our locations set yet, it doesn't matter where you live. It's a new world and even though this year may be slow as an ox, we can always bring you to us wherever we end up.

Here are some photos of my mom showing off her new boots (no, they are not made of "cow") and a hilarious note she posted on the fridge about her dog, Muffin. I added the "e" to her "befor".















Gung Hay Fat Choy to all of you from...

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

No Dead Animals In My Tendon, Jero And Atsuhime

I don't know about other hapas, but whenever I spend time with either one of my parents, I take on the cultural qualities of that one's particular ethnic group. For instance, if I'm hanging out with my dad (my folks have been divorced for decades), I end up reading all of the Ebony and Jet magazines laid out on his coffee table. Now, that's not to say that all black people read Ebony and Jet, but you get my meaning. My dad and I will often discuss politics, too--the state of black folks today versus the Civil Rights movement of yesteryear. However, I don't tend to eat the food my dad eats mainly because he's from Texas and his parents owned a barbecue joint. I am, after all, vegan (even though I'll admit to stuffing many a pig's foot into my mouth back in the day when I didn't know any better).


Whenever I visit my mother, though, I'm always ready to chow down. Mindful of my special diet, my mom tends to make me my own meal separate from what she serves her husband. And, like a true Japanese mother, she will eat what I (the guest) eats instead of what she cooked for her husband. A couple of weeks ago, she made me tendon; that's slang for tempura donburi. Tempura, as you may know, is veggies (and shrimp for those who insist on murdering the poor crustaceans) dipped in batter and fried. Donburi is a dish served in an individual bowl featuring veggies and/or dead animal flesh (call it what it is!) simmered in a slightly sweetened shoyu-based sauce and heaped on hot, white rice. The tendon my mom made me was tempura carrots, onions and pumpkin on top of fresh gohan. I was also treated to her home-grown edamame (steamed soybeans). Oishi!

Earlier, we were watching our favorite show--The NHK Amateur Singing Contest (aka Nodojiman)--when, lo and behold, the phenomenal Jero appeared as a guest singer. This is the kid who hails from Pittsburgh, whose mother is hapa Japanese and black, and whose Japanese grandmother taught him to speak her language and sing enka--a type of music that reminds of me the old R&B songs where the man is begging, crying and carrying on over a woman. Enka is very emotional like that, and is almost always about love. So, I don't think it's necessarily a stretch that a brother like Jero is so into it. Like the old school crooners, he feels the lyrics deep down in his soul. True, he's singing in Japanese, but he knows what the words mean because he knows the language. There's also some very specific expressions that go along with singing enka. One can't be too showy and drop to one's knees like James Brown because Japanese culture isn't about that. Even though Jero wears his signature baseball cap and baggy jeans, he's got the Japanese inflections down.

Later on in the day, my mom's husband and I watched another episode of Atsuhime. My mother claims not to care about
Japanese history, but her Caucasian husband and I can't get enough of the taiga series. Sadly, Atsuhime's husband, the shogun, dies in this episode and because of the turmoil surrounding the choice of heir, no one tells Atsu about his demise until a month later. Now, she's mad because weeks before the shogun instructed her to attend the cabinet meetings and become a part of the political process because she's so smart and beats him at go all the time. But now that he's no longer around, none of the guys are taking Atsuhime seriously. I can't wait 'til she starts kicking some butt. Her kimono may be wrapped around her legs like a mermaid's tail, but you watch--she'll figure out how to strike back. That girl is baaad!

Hey, drop me a line and tell me how your parents' differing cultures affect you. Do you act the same way with each of them, or not?

Above are pix of my tendon dish, my mom's garden-fresh edamame, Jero's appearance on Nodojiman, and NHK's Atsuhime.

Until next time, I swear to be...

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi

Friday, April 11, 2008

Mixed-Race Animals Proclaimed Inferior!

Truly. That's the story I saw on the PETA website the other day as I was cruisin' the 'net.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to read the article, but the photo caption indicated that certain folks felt that purebred animals, dogs in particular, were of a higher caste than mixed mutts. There was a photo of white-hooded KKK look-alikes proclaiming that interracial breeding produced bad results. Ha ha.

As a staunch vegan, I love everything PETA is doing to educate the public. What I read of the article amused me. It also made me think of something I saw a long time ago about breeders ruining the health of some dogs because they breed them for attractiveness only. For instance, some breed of short-legged dogs keep getting shorter with each new consecutive mating to the point that they can hardly walk anymore. Cute and cuddly, yes. But the poor animal lives in pain as it tries to function on stubs instead of legs.

In our blended family (Japanese mother, white stepfather, black father, 3/4's black grandchild), we consider ourselves a healthy combo. So, of course, what else would have but a mixed dog? There she is above, Miss Muffin--a biracial terrier-poodle. You go, Muffy. Arf!

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi

Alert! I'm posting at least four new t-shirt designs this weekend. Check 'em out, and sign up for the newsletter, too, at: http:www.cafepress.com/hapateez

Friday, February 22, 2008

Tabasco v. Wasabi

I don't know 'bout ya'll, but in our humble abode we always had two kinds of hot sauces sittin' up on that dining room table. As you know by now, my father hails from Texas and my Moms from Japan. Since both of them love spicy food, my sister and I were exposed at any early age to all the hot stuff our stomachs and tongues could bear. Which was a lot. Especially for kids.

I remember that way back in the day, before Fritos became so popular, there was a snack called Chili Chips. A lot of children didn't care for them because they were so peppery, but my sister and I would lick our fingers clean of the powdery, red hot residue that inevitably covered our hands.

Since my dad's parents owned a barbecue joint, our family also ate lots of homemade hot sausages that my grandmother would send us via the U.S. post office from Texas. Now that I'm vegan (and veggie for over 25 years), I can't even imagine how I used to stuff myself with all that pork that my grandparents butchered themselves. Folks would come from near and far to taste my grandfather's barbecue sauce--a truly spicy concoction.

But the Texa-cans were never outdone by the Nipponese in our household. My Moms could out-sweat all of us while she slurped boiling hot udon (noodles) sprinkled with seven-spice pepper. Then, there was the wasabi (Japanese horseradish mustard). Squeezing a tube full of the green stuff, Moms would use the end of her ohashi (chopstick) to gather a tiny bit before swirling it into shoyu (soy sauce). She'd caution us about how hot it was, but my sister and I were hardheaded and always put more on our food than we could stand--causing our sinuses to become raw, but exhilarated.

It's really hard to say which of the two was hotter--the tabasco that we dumped all over our meat and side dishes, or the wasabi we'd dip our tempura, sushi, and gohan (rice) into. Like all good Japanese, we ate rice at every meal--even if Moms cooked burgers in buns that night.

This need for heating of the mouth even affected members of our family that came later. I remember when my sister's kid was about 2 or 3, and the three of us had lunch at a Thai restaurant. My sister, who was ordering for all of us, told the waitress what we wanted and added, "I want three stars, my sister wants four, and no stars for him," she finished pointing to her son. Upon hearing that pronouncement, the poor child looked as if he was ready to burst into tears. Choking and sniffing, he blurted, "I want stars!" Of course, he thought that we were getting the celestial variety and didn't want to be left out. But to the kid's credit, he did end up eating his phad thai that day replete with several stars' worth of heat. And, to this day, he is carrying on our family legacy of hot, spicy eating. That's him, an adult now in the photo above, about to grease big time on Moms' cooking.

So, how many stars can you handle? Talk to me. Let me know about some of the unusual cultural combinations your family shared at the dinner table. That Watermelon Sushi comes in many flavas, ya know.

Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi

Oh, and don't forget that we've got some really hip hapa t-shirts at

And, to learn more about my Texas grandparents and their b-b-q joint, read their story in the anthology Brothers and Others. Email me for more information: watermelonsushi@comcast.net