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6 07 2006

Excuse me, Mr. Mass Book Retailer. Could you direct me to the Asiaphile section? Oh, I’m already standing in it? Oh, I see. It’s everywhere. OK, great. Thanks.




 

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17 responses

7 07 2006
soon-young (08:07:38) :

LOL. Yep…such great representations of the real lives of Asian Americans…or even Asia and Asians in general. That Buddha or Bust one looks great!!!!!!

7 07 2006
Papa2hapa (08:16:12) :

Are any of these by Asian writers?

7 07 2006
Ji-in (09:52:08) :

Papa2hapa — Nope. Nary an Asian / Pacific Islander author to be found among any of these titles whose mugshots are shown here. And I didn’t even capture all of the Asiaphile bookcovers that were there, only because I started running out of cameraphone memory.

Out of all the books featured among the many tables and prominent displays at the front of this particular store, I only spotted one or two books about Asia and Asians/Pacific Islanders that were written by authors of API heritage.

7 07 2006
harlowmonkey (10:43:06) :

christ, here we go again. looks like evryone’s jumpin’ on the Memoirs of a Geisha theme. Oh wait, that’s right. Asian American Heritage month is over. We have to wait another year before API writers get a table.

7 07 2006
daddy in a strange land (12:46:06) :

And this is in a bookstore in freakin’ HAWAII?!?

7 07 2006
Ji-in (13:23:20) :

DIASL — Yeah, I know! *blinks*

But it’s one of the mega-chain stores. So who knows how much freedom the individual stores get as far as their promotional displays and “popular” paperbacks tables?

7 07 2006
Papa2hapa (15:17:35) :

Hey, I noticed one was so popular they even have it discounted for real cheap. Must be a good read? Or something you could put on your coffee table.

“Look,” the visiting couple says. “They even read about Asian people.”

“They must be smart.”

7 07 2006
Robyn (15:50:41) :

it kind of seems like the chain bookstores in hawai’i purposely include this kind of stuff in like an Asia interest section. what i haven’t figured out is if it’s intened FOR Asians or for all the Asiaphiles that come here.

(i am reading the Asian Mystique though. Well just started so not sure about it yet. but i figured, even if it sucks, it’ll be useful to hve in my back pocket.)

7 07 2006
Ji-in (17:26:13) :

Robyn — True! I initially thought it a novelty to go into a bookstore here and find a whole section dedicated to Asian and Asian American culture & history — with its own placard and everything. And there are those “Asian Interest” displays on the ends of aisles, too.

But then you look more closely at the books, and *tons* of them turn out to be these supposedly revelatory accounts of Asian-Pacific culture as seen through the ethnocentric eyes of a white American pod person. Or worse, the fictional tales of fictional geisha and fictional Thai prostitutes as told by these greasy little creatures who have had a lifelong “fascination” with the Eastern exotic.

Ewwwww. I feel like I have to take a shower after reading some of those dust jackets.

8 07 2006
thevoyage (05:42:19) :

Ugh! Another issue I never even realized existed.

8 07 2006
Papa2hapa (17:02:48) :

If you want a good Asian section of literature, go to San Francisco and check out City Lights bookstore (think Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti).

They have an entire wall of books written by Asian authors, in translation and in English. The books are non-fiction, fiction, memoir, history, short story, poetry, etc.

And guess what, they don’t all write about being Asian! OMG! That’s such a novel idea! Asian people writing about NOT being Asian?

Well, if white people can write about being Asian, and men can write about being women, then we can write about NOT being Asian.

8 07 2006
sume (21:38:56) :

Someone emailed me and recommended Asian Mystique but when I read the sub-title, I felt this sudden need to barf. Same person also recommended Snow Fox by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. (Check out the cover)

Now you’ve made me want to check my local books stores to see if they have one of those sections.

9 07 2006
Lee H. (13:53:36) :

Geesh. That’s a pretty bad selection. B&N and Borders are notoriously lacking. And yes, City Lights in SF is good, Elliot Bay in Seattle is good too, and Powell’s in Portland is luxurious when it comes to selection. Where I live, we mostly just get the junk.

10 07 2006
Mama Nabi (05:43:12) :

The best is when some white guy is making eyes at you while hovering around the Asian book section… like that’s supposed to make us swoon and marry him immediately.

10 07 2006
Robyn (11:00:05) :

Yeah, some of them do look pretty gross. Some of the ones that have been altnernately amusing and grossing me out lately (based on browsing) are Untangling my Chopsticks and Tokyo Suckerpunch.

10 07 2006
Ji-in (14:01:03) :

I was back at the above-photographed bookstore yesterday, and noticed a whole new batch of Asiaphile goodies just waiting to be made fun of. But there were too many to photograph.

I did, however, manage to spot several titles that were written by Asian-Pacific and local authors on prominent display this time. Yay! Maybe somebody saw my blog post. :-P Kidding.

10 07 2006
Papa2hapa (17:18:49) :

I’ve had white guys making goo-goo eyes at me. At first I ignored them, but then, I decided to let them cool off from their yellow fever and I showed them my report card. They were all really disappointed to find out I wasn’t an A+ student in high school or college.