The typical life of an Asian American teenager: go to school, study, do homework, eat, go to bed.
Not so fast.
Chinese American Davina Wan’s teenage life was anything but scholarly. From age 12 to 17, she was part of an all-girl gang in the Lower East Side in New York, entrenched in a lifestyle foreign to most of us: danger instead of academic stress, intense loyalty instead of high school bickering, and most notably, while we were attending proms, she went to 35 funerals before the age of 18.

If anyone thinks we live in a post-racial world, she only needs to talk to 20-year-old Lou Jing to have that myth dispelled.
Lou was a recent finalist on “Let’s Go, Chinese Angels!” (“Jiayou, Dongfang Tianshi”), a Chinese reality television show similar to “American Idol.” Her presence skyrocketed the show’s interest and prompted national debate about identity due to a single factor: the color of her skin.

Ever since the phenomenally successful Stuff White People Like website debuted in 2008, it was only a matter of time until other versions appeared. I present to you now: Stuff Asian People Like.
The website features a list of 124 (and growing) things Asian people like, updated daily. There are the expected (academics, rice), but the true genius of the site is stumbling across an entry about a cultural quirk you never noticed before and finding yourself yelling “That’s so true!”

From the flip of a coin to principal soloist in the San Francisco Ballet’s China debut, ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan has come full circle.
Born in Shanghai, Tan discovered passion for dance early in life — an interest her mother supported and her father opposed. Her parents decided to leave the decision up to a coin toss, a fateful move that landed in favor of dance, putting Tan on the road to becoming the most acclaimed ballerina to ever hail from China.

It’s time the world knows about Asian American artists other than just Maya Lin, and the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) is here for that exact purpose.
Celebrating 20 years of “Vision, Vitality and Visibility,” AAWAA is hosting an art exhibition from Sept. 22 to Oct. 24 at SOMArts Cultural Center located in San Francisco.