Sulu rather than the brashly hubristic Captain Kirk. And except for the one memorable episode where he got to rip off his shirt, wave a sword around and act like a deranged lunatic, I could never come up with a reason why anyone would ever prefer to be the reliable Lt. Miyagi or Master Po, I wanted to be Daniel-san or Kwai Chang Caine, the troubled young men chafing under their wise Asian masters’ infuriating serenity. I didn’t want to be Data, I wanted to be Mouth.

Being the reliable steady source of clever ideas and technical know-how and good-natured earnestness and inner peace and all that shit-who can relate to that? That wasn’t any kind of hero I could identify with growing up-I was brash, reckless, selfish, unbalanced and my hair was disastrous beyond remediation, and I had no interest in loyally supporting or nurturing other people on their spiritual journeys. The problem was that these “good role models” were freaking boring. I got the sense growing up that their ideal kid would be someone with the quiet, charming naiveté of Data and the calm equanimity and unwavering discipline of a Master Po and the impeccably coiffed hair of George Takei. There were plenty of lovable, responsible, industrious “good role models” for my parents to try to push on me. Miyagi in The Karate Kid to lovably campy helmsmen of the USS Enterprise like Lt. These Asian heroes ran the gamut from lovably goofy techie nerds like Data in The Goonies to lovably enlightened martial-arts mentors like Mr. We have plenty of Asian “heroes.” Lord knows I latched on to my fair share growing up. You know what I just said about us wanting more Asian celebrities? This often gets rephrased as we want “more Asian heroes,” but this is not actually true. I smile a little when I see her pop up in the news and someone links me another incoherent critical-theory-jargon-laced rant of hers on Facebook. She doesn’t speak for anyone except her fellow denizens of Angrytweets, USA, a community whose sole import is random entertainment news and whose sole export is intoxicating outrage.Īnd yet, I like her. But it has to be said, on behalf of my friends, my family and every non-Tumblr non-social-justice-warrior American of Asian descent I’ve personally spoken to about this: Suey Park is crazy. In fact, a significant portion of Suey Park’s disturbingly loyal army of retweeters/rebloggers/petition-signers is White America, and I’m really not looking forward to reliving the experience of angry white “anti-racists” call me a banana to my face and not seeing the irony. Trust me when I say I’m not currying favor from White America by saying this. She would probably snap at me for owning a Firefly box set and agreeing to do Chinese-accented voiceovers for commercials to please my corporate masters-and worst of all for currying favor from the White Establishment by tweeting “I think #CancelColbert is dumb.” Then my wife would probably get upset, and then Suey would probably say something about “drinking white woman tears,” and then I’d probably kick my chair over and the evening would just go to hell from there. In fact one of my worst nightmares is of her ever being in my house. Look, I probably wouldn’t get along with Suey Park in real life. So why not throw my hat into the ring, as an Asian semi-quasi-celebrity, by which I mean a Chinese guy who got a lot of money and attention for winning a game show?

Wong) has actually appeared on The Colbert Report to make fun of the whole thing. Most of the Asian actors-all four of them-that you’ve probably heard of have already weighed in on the #CancelColbert kerfuffle, and 25 percent of the Asian actors that you’ve probably heard of (B.D.

Sooey park