Yesterday some guy followed me up the stairs on a subway transfer (that it turned out he wasn’t taking, just creepily following me like a creepy creep creep) and after the requisite come-on line (which I won’t burn your retinas with), he instantly whips out the line I’ve grown so accustomed to hearing: “What’s your heritage?”

Here’s what I don’t understand (well, here’s one of many, many, many things I don’t understand):

Why does every guy in New York who approaches me want to know my ethnicity?

And I’m serious about this. Because, look. I live in New York City. There are more Jews (such as moi) here than like everywhere ever. I should not be so unidentifiable.

For me, there are two varieties of these guys. The guy cited above fits into the first category: guys who guess. And they always guess Italian, Puerto Rican, or Greek. Seriously. And I am pale like the squishy underbelly of a cabbage.

The other category of guys are guys who want to know if I’m Jewish. These guys are usually Muslim or Israeli and nothing in between. I don’t know why either group bothers–I’m too Jewish for the Muslims and not Jewish enough for the Israelis. So it goes.

And why, friends, why oh why for the love of all that is good and not annoying, why do they need to know my heritage in the first place? When did this become an acceptable thing to ask a stranger? Read More »

Yes, I’m not ashamed to say it: I loved Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and I am really really excited for the release of the sequel, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay.

I’m not a stoner, and I don’t really find big boob jokes/pot jokes/fart jokes/beer jokes particularly funny. So why the heck did I like this film? Well, besides Neil Patrick Harris (fantastic) and White Castle (yum), I think the creators, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, are on to something here. The New York Times reviewed the new film recently, calling it a “stoner protest film”, due to the combination of drug humor and sharp political satire–what’s more, the review was actually quite positive.

For those of you who don’t know, Harold and Kumar’s first film involved two stoners determined to make it to White Castle in order to satisfy their munchies. The second film, however, as the name suggests, involves the ultimate stoner vacation (Amsterdam) gone horribly wrong. Harold, a Korean-American, and Kumar, an Indian-American are thrown off their flight after trying to light up in the bathroom. An overzealous Homeland Security officer draws the conclusion that North Korea and Al Quada have teamed up, and throws both of them in Guantánamo Bay. Hyjinks ensue, of course, but so does a very interesting treatment of race in the post-9/11 era. Read More »

Spring fever affects everyone differently, but personally, I’m filled with a dread for bikini season. I love summer, but the process of getting in shape for it is always terrifying until I’m about a month into it. I can’t motivate myself to start moving again and take advantage of the weather, and come June, I’m not quite where I want to be.

A friend of mine decided it would be fun to sign up for a race in Central Park, nothing “too serious,” just over three and a half miles. It’s far enough in advance where we all would have the opportunity to start “training” and whatnot, and so she worked her salesperson magic and spun it as a great, fun, healthy bonding activity. We could all run outside together when it got warmer, we could do it for ourselves instead of an actual win, it’d be great.

And it sounded stellar via email, so sign up I did. And as I printed my registration form, complete with runner number and team captain name, I calculated how long it had been since I had even seen my gym. I wasn’t sure I remembered how to get to it. Sure, last time I’d been I could run almost four miles on a treadmill, no problem… but that had been in January-ish. And there may have been an exceptional soundtrack to guide me.

The last time I ran outside I lasted fifteen minutes without falling over dead, and I willed my roommate my new pumps (even handed her the receipt so she could return them for her size). Read More »

When I stepped onto my college campus fresh-off-the-boat (or FOB, as they call it) from some-obscure-country that I call home, I had no idea of the social niceties of dating in the states; my encounter with the opposite gender consisted of couple of weeks with a classmate in high school, who thought that drawstring shorts were most fashionable when paired with topsiders and gold jewelry.Needless to say, we broke up when I decided that the smell of his pineapple scented hair gel was overpowering the amorous odor of hamburgers and onion rings from burger king, which was our usual joint.

My freshman naivete wasn’t helped by the fact that I had that desperate urge to become the “IT” girl, something I had never been able to do in high school. I had lost 20 lbs. over the summer in anticipation that I would rise to a new social status at my east coast school, stocked my wardrobe with skin tight jeans and bling-encrusted baby Ts and headed to college.

So when I didn’t immediately become the most popular girl on campus, I was a little surprised. And taken aback. Moreover, my pre-college fantasies of hooking up with hot blonde-haired guys sporting surfer bodies wasn’t quite satisfied by the fact that NO ONE in the opposite gender seemed to want to talk to me. But I wasn’t giving up: I was willing to give it another shot two weeks later…and another one another two weeks later…but no action.

I then appealed to a friend who I shall call Courtney. Court listened to my problems, nodding along and making the occasional “uh-huh” as she listened to my ranting about guys not liking me and not being popular enough. At the end of my litany, she spoke a couple of words that seemed to make absolutely no sense at all.

“Honey…that’s because you’re Asian.” Read More »