Famous hapas embraced as Japanese

[BeTheReds]

This is just coming from something I heard before the last winter olympics when the Japanese press interviewed Apollo Ohno during a spped skating championship held in Nagano, Japan.

They asked him how it felt for him to come back home.

He responded rather angrily saying to the press that Japan is not his home and if they had any fucking sense they could see the large USA letters printed on his speed skating suit.

Then the reporter replied, but your father is Japanese, so you are Japanese are you not?

And he again replied, how the hell did you rise thru the ranks to be a reporter with such a limited view of the world?

I hear Kristy Yamaguchi also had similar questions asked to her.

This is all hearsay tho, cuz i don7t remember ever hearing it on tv or in the paper.

[bwc]

its hypocritical to me that Japanese can be discriminatory to whites, blacks, etc., yet a number of their most adored celebrities are half or 3/4 white.

[SunWuKong]

ah interesting. sorry to hijack once again to the chinese slant, but there is an "overseas chinese" grouping that people in china can use for chinese versions of apollo ohno and kristy yamaguchi.

[MellowDrama]

Originally posted by bwc@Nov 25 2002, 02:42 AM
its hypocritical to me that Japanese can be discriminatory to whites, blacks, etc., yet a number of their most adored celebrities are half or 3/4 white.
???

Eh, the only one I can think of, off the top of the dome is Amruo Namie, she's like 1/4 White or something, and she's nowhere near as popular as she was before.

No, the really funny thing is that most of the people in the entertainment industry (geinokai) are really Korean. :lol:

[YuheiCarreau]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 25 2002, 02:40 AM
This is just coming from something I heard before the last winter olympics when the Japanese press interviewed Apollo Ohno during a spped skating championship held in Nagano, Japan.

They asked him how it felt for him to come back home.

He responded rather angrily saying to the press that Japan is not his home and if they had any fucking sense they could see the large USA letters printed on his speed skating suit.

Then the reporter replied, but your father is Japanese, so you are Japanese are you not?

And he again replied, how the hell did you rise thru the ranks to be a reporter with such a limited view of the world?

I hear Kristy Yamaguchi also had similar questions asked to her.

This is all hearsay tho, cuz i don7t remember ever hearing it on tv or in the paper.
It's even worse when, in the US, these athletes are treated as foreigners... Both Ohno and Yamaguchi have been the subject of headlines like "Ohno Wins Gold, US Comes In Second" or something along those lines.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Nov 25 2002, 10:55 AM
Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 25 2002, 02:40 AM
This is just coming from something I heard before the last winter olympics when the Japanese press interviewed Apollo Ohno during a spped skating championship held in Nagano, Japan.

They asked him how it felt for him to come back home.

He responded rather angrily saying to the press that Japan is not his home and if they had any fucking sense they could see the large USA letters printed on his speed skating suit.

Then the reporter replied, but your father is Japanese, so you are Japanese are you not?

And he again replied, how the hell did you rise thru the ranks to be a reporter with such a limited view of the world?

I hear Kristy Yamaguchi also had similar questions asked to her.

This is all hearsay tho, cuz i don7t remember ever hearing it on tv or in the paper.
It's even worse when, in the US, these athletes are treated as foreigners... Both Ohno and Yamaguchi have been the subject of headlines like "Ohno Wins Gold, US Comes In Second" or something along those lines.
yeah... "Kwan beat by American"

[Elizabeth A.]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 25 2002, 08:00 AM
Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Nov 25 2002, 10:55 AM

It's even worse when, in the US, these athletes are treated as foreigners... Both Ohno and Yamaguchi have been the subject of headlines like "Ohno Wins Gold, US Comes In Second" or something along those lines.
yeah... "Kwan beat by American"
I read in "Monitored Peril: Asian-Americans and the Politics of TV Representation" by Darrell Hamamoto that corporations shied away from giving endorsement deals to Kristi Yamaguchi after she won the gold medal because, according to an advertising executive, "The current anti-Japanese mood in the United States [this was in 1992] limits her earning potential". Never mind that she was American!

Btw, this is kind of irrelevant, but I had a Kristi Yamaguchi poster in my room way back when (ten years ago, was it?). I was a big fan of hers.

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Nov 25 2002, 03:55 PM

It's even worse when, in the US, these athletes are treated as foreigners... Both Ohno and Yamaguchi have been the subject of headlines like "Ohno Wins Gold, US Comes In Second" or something along those lines.
No, you're talking about the "American defeats Kwan" headline from 1998 olympics. But no doubt people think that both are foreigners. Tho I don't see how they can think Ohno is when it says USA across his chest.

[BeTheReds]

Hirai Ken is also a famous hapa.

[ChinaLama]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 25 2002, 11:59 PM
Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Nov 25 2002, 03:55 PM

It's even worse when, in the US, these athletes are treated as foreigners... Both Ohno and Yamaguchi have been the subject of headlines like "Ohno Wins Gold, US Comes In Second" or something along those lines.
No, you're talking about the "American defeats Kwan" headline from 1998 olympics. But no doubt people think that both are foreigners. Tho I don't see how they can think Ohno is when it says USA across his chest.
almost the same headline happened in 2002. "Hughes good as gold. American beats Kwan, (that Russian chick's name that I dunno)" Seattle Times. But they later apologized, TWICE.

[MellowDrama]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 25 2002, 06:00 PM
Hirai Ken is also a famous hapa.
No, have you seen him on Hey x 3 or Utaban. He says he's pure Japanese. Yes, I know, he doesn't look like it at all, but ask him and he says he's not, and the million and one fangirls (and boys) will tell you so, too. Yeah, go figure. :(

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by MellowDrama@Nov 26 2002, 02:20 AM
No, have you seen him on Hey x 3 or Utaban. He says he's pure Japanese. Yes, I know, he doesn't look like it at all, but ask him and he says he's not, and the million and one fangirls (and boys) will tell you so, too. Yeah, go figure. :(
He's pure japanese in the sense that people can be pure American. He was born to 2 japanese citizens. So yea, he is pure japanese. But if you go by blood, then he is a halfie.

[MellowDrama]

Originally posted by BeTheReds@Nov 26 2002, 03:35 AM
He's pure japanese in the sense that people can be pure American. He was born to 2 japanese citizens. So yea, he is pure japanese. But if you go by blood, then he is a halfie.
Link? ;)

He swears up and down he's full (as much as I doubt it). I've tried telling this to fangirls, but shit, I get my ass kicked all the time. :lol:

[DaBestSpooner]

Originally posted by MellowDrama@Nov 25 2002, 06:06 AM
No, the really funny thing is that most of the people in the entertainment industry (geinokai) are really Korean. :lol:
I always thought they looked korean too, but someone explained to me that most of the comedians are from osaka, and osaka people tend to have korean features.

[MellowDrama]

Originally posted by DaBestSpooner@Dec 2 2002, 07:26 PM
I always thought they looked korean too, but someone explained to me that most of the comedians are from osaka, and osaka people tend to have korean features.
It's kind of hard to discern who's really Korean and who's just rumored to be Korean. No one ever comes out and says it, but you hear a lot of these rumors. From what a Japanese acquaintance told me, Koreans in Japanese entertainment is analagous to Jews in Hollywood. Back in the day (and well, today, too), the entertainment biz was seen as something "proper" families didn't do, so it became dominated by Koreans, Chinese, and such. It's well documented that Enka is HEAVILY Korean-influenced. Basically, all the famous Enka singers and songwriters are (were) Korean.

[bwc]

and now we have Won Bin running around mackin on all the famous Japanese Stars like Kyoko Fukada :lol:

[loserbutt]

anti-japanese sentiment in 1992? wow.

[amietron]

Okinawa. It's the water. ;)