April 17, 2008

Wong Fu & APAHM at Boston College ¹

by Tim Lee • Culture, Food, Holidays, Life, Photography, Travel

My extended stay at Boston was greeted with just as many adventure, with the exception that it was all on the campus of Boston College.

First, Wong Fu Productions came to visit the Boston College campus. Pictured here is Wong Fu Productions with the Chinese Student Association of Boston College, who coordinated with Wong Fu for a campus tour. I personally enjoyed the event, first, I got to meet tons of new people that goes to Boston College, and they are pretty fun people. Second, Wong Fu guys are actually quite down to earth, and pretty fun to hang out with. Ted an I had a conversation about Nikon and Canon dSLRs, and Brian, Wes’ brother and I had some conversation about Origami and the MIT campus. Third, it was pretty cool to get some insight with Wong Fu about being Asian American film makers, it was quite an interesting event, not to mention the exclusive dinner I got to go to at Eagle’s Deli, which by the way, has the meanest burger ever (Appropriately titled the “Godzilla Burger”):

The next day is the celebration for APAHM (Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month), an event called “Know to be Known” ran by the AHANA (African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American) group at O’neill Plaza on the Boston College campus.

The event was a celebration, but most importantly, it was a chance to advocate through demonstration for an Asian and Asian American Studies program at Boston College. From what I’ve learned, recently the administration there decided to cut a lot of classes that deals with Asian and Asian American studies, and the minor program it has in place only has two or three classes available (not really a minor if you can only take 3 classes!) Asians accounts for 13% of the student bodies on campus at BC.

I was pretty inspired by the whole movement. I’ve realized that I’ve taken Toronto and Canada’s multiculturalism for granted. It seems, at some part of the world, even in a city as vibrant as Boston, there seems to be some sort of discrimination towards certain races. It was amazing to see all these students fighting for their right to learn about their own culture and heritage.

I did not stay for the entire event however, as I had to take the T and head over to the airport. The T was surprisingly simple to use for somebody who has never taken the ride by themselves. As the Delta plane took off for NYC, I’ve come to realize that I’ve fallen in love with the city of Boston, something I didn’t quite expect. The only reason Boston is on the top of my list is because my cousin, Brian currently lives there. If it wasn’t for him, I would’ve probably never feel the need to visit the city. Nevertheless, I’d definitely recommend a trip to Boston to anyone, it’s a city full of rich history and brilliant cultures, something not to be missed. Place I have to visit next time: MIT, Harvard Campus, Bunker Hill, and some sort of museum, since all I’ve really done is walked by them, but never actually ventured inside.

Hello from Taipei, Taiwan by the way, today’s day two of my visit, tons to do. I’ve already have had quite an adventure on day one (complete with an hour long battle with four mosquitoes, which I’ve successfully managed to eradicate). Visit to Taiwan is always filled with visit with families, some I haven’t seen in almost 11 years. More update later.

Oh yea, to see all of the photos I’ve managed to upload so far, head over to my flickr, and as usual, comments are always welcome.