OPINION
July 7, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
TALKING STORY IN ASIAN AMERICA
The point of this story is
in equal parts, some awful
Southeast Asian history,
an acknowledgement of
Portland’s warm embrace,
and a morality tale about
this gung-ho guy going into
business on Portland’s
robust east end.
n Polo
What’s up with Kilong
East Portland, making and remaking America
ortland is moving East. It’s not
ambitious immigrant Portlanders
on the move. It’s not blue-collar
Portland moving. These families, our
families, are already raising bright kids in
our city’s east end. The move’s not our
African-American families. It’s not their
faiths or their futures migrating — that
shameful swell peaked a decade ago. No,
it’s none of that.
Today’s big move east is in City Hall
development policies. It’s in downtown
investment dollars. It’s a movement
narrated by westside print and broadcast
media. Early workweek mornings, we see
their news vans zip east on I-84, as we’re
streaming west. Evenings, our tired moms
and dads click on their big screen Sanyos to
stories told in earnest reporters’ cross-
town perspectives. So odd, these are. It
takes me back to when I was a kid.
When we were new to America, there
was this wavy mirror just inside downtown
Salem’s Newberry department store’s
door. Depending on your height, that
mirror distorted either your face or your
middle. Either way, your reflection was
always unfamiliar, sometimes funny —
today’s evening news is a lot like that.
Maybe it’s time to rework this
unattractive perspective. It serves no one
well. Let’s get current, and let’s get there
together. After all, remaking our talk and
reshaping our walk are so central, so
utterly essential to our American ethos.
And always have been.
P
Checking in with Kilong
Kilong Ung is also moving east. That is,
he’s opening up shop out here.
Actually, my best Khamput (Cambo-
dian) bud is not all newsy in our far east
neighborhoods. Not in our ridiculously
optimistic ethnic streams. All 80 or so.
Who hasn’t seen that photo of Kilong,
trim and beaming in his Royal Rosarian
dress whites and dapper hat, holding high
the colors of the United States of America,
at the head of Portland’s Rose Festival
Parade? Cool Kilong, high-fiving his big
sister Sivheng and everyone’s resilient
sister Koann Tan. Killing Field survivors,
all.
And who hasn’t repeated Kilong stories?
— Skinny orphan Kilong pulled away from
the Khmer Rouge abyss by one of the
surviving sisters and her gentle husband;
shy student Kilong, shoved by Cleveland
High’s kind teachers onto Reed College’s
leafy campus; Kilong the New Columbia
dad yanked into Rotary International
business circles by business leaders such
as Michael Cottam and Al Jubitz; Kilong
firmly steered into Portland’s nationally
envied civil society by broad-shouldered
mayor Tuan Tom Potter. The Kilong Ung
we all look at, and say: “Hey, if he can do it
— so can we.”
So the news is: Our best Cambod-
American bud is setting up a State Farm
Insurance shop in humming Eastport
Plaza. Eastport, at the corner of S.E. 82nd
and HK’s super cool cuisine, L&L’s Hawai’i
ono plate lunch, and, of course, that very
last Starbucks before the edge of earth.
Rechecking our reference points
The point of this story is in equal parts,
some awful Southeast Asian history, an
acknowledgement of Portland’s warm
embrace, and a morality tale about this
gung-ho guy going into business on
Portland’s robust east end.
It’s a story that did not click to life the
instant a network news guapo’s antennae
lit up Oregon’s overcast summer sky.
Tidak. It’s a narrative with a complex past,
with an intricate eastside present, with a
shared future. Ask anyone in Eastport
Starbuck’s long-long morning coffee line.
Ja tentu.
Because nearly 37 percent of Portland’s
school kids live, laugh, and lank around in
our city’s east end — because we’re nearly
a month away from trendy and oh-so-natty
Kilong Ung opening his insurance shop out
here — maybe today’s the day to reframe
our public narrative about east Portland.
Now’s a good time to unwarp that unat-
tractive and untrue Newberry’s mirror. A
more discerning eastside strategy for
downtown investing will surely follow.
If Kilong can walk away from one of
humanity’s darkest episodes, if he can
build a business in a neighborhood of trees
gagging from carbon emissions, if he can
‘Transformers’ tries for delicate U.S.-China balance
Continued from page 4
elled to China. He is a positive figure in
Chinese history and workable fodder for a
Chinese-inspired script.
He Xuefeng, a Film Bureau official, said
it was too early to say whether Marco Polo
would be given co-production status.
Chinese private investor Fosun Inter-
national Ltd. has announced it would
invest in Studio 8 — a company founded by
former Warner Bros. executive Jeff
Robinov. Also this month, Hollywood film
financier and Chinese producer Relativity
Media and Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp.
announced an agreement to co-produce,
co-finance, and distribute film and tele-
vision content for both the international
and Chinese markets.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is not an
official co-production, but Hollywood-
based Paramount worked with China
Movie Channel and Jiaflix Enterprises to
make the film. Paramount is not thought
to have applied for the official co-produc-
tion status, although it did not respond to
requests for comment, and was likely
assured of being chosen among this year’s
quota of imports because of its blockbuster
brand and Chinese elements.
Hollywood coming to China isn’t “neces-
sarily a good thing for creative freedom”
because screenwriters will avoid topics
sensitive to Beijing such as the Dalai Lama
or the Falun Gong spiritual group, said
Keane, the expert at Queensland Univer-
sity of Technology.
“It’s going to mean a kind of dumbing
down in terms of people will self-censor,”
Keane said. “They’re going to make stories
that are neutral or even positive towards
China in order to get into the market-
place.”
Cigarette makers ignore
Indonesia label deadline
Continued from page 3
Marlboro, have become more popular in
recent years. All brands are cheap, selling
for about $1 a pack, making it easy for
children to take up the habit.
Associated Press writer Niniek
Karmini contributed to this report.
Royal Rosarian Kilong Ung marches in the Portland
Rose Festival Parade carrying the colors of the United
States of America. (Photo/Mony Mao)
bring a nationally recognized business into
a stretch of town where wheel-chaired
Portlanders roll on streets rather than
negotiate unkind sidewalks — then maybe
downtown’s reporters and policy leaders
need a longer moment to understand that
East Portland. That American dreaming.
In fact, those brown and black and
blue-collar folks referenced at the top of
this column have already done that.
They’ve inventoried all that. They call it
our East Portland Action Plan.
So, with another July Fourth under our
ever-expanding belts, let’s make What’s up
with Kilong? a kind of local pulse-taking. A
real-time application of “What’s up with
East Portland?” Two grounded versions of
“What’s up with America?”
Because you know: If abang Kilong
figures he can do it, so can we.
w
The Asian Reporter’s
Expanding American Lexicon
80 ethnic streams: Portland Public Schools
boasts serving families speaking 77 languages.
David Douglas High School students speak 64.
We hit 80 by adding English-speaking African
Americans, Native Americans, and American
Jews.
Abang (Passar Bahasa): My brother. My best
bud.
East Portland Action Plan: EPAP is a
congress of vigorous civic activists organized
into 16 working committees covering (among
other urban issues) transportation, education,
parks, and civic engagement of culturally
underrepresented
and
language-specific
communities, and it is a living document of (at
present, 268) action items articulating east
Portland assets and east Portland urgencies in
need of implementation.
Guapo (Spanish adjective): Handsome. (Ta-
galog noun): Good looking guy.
Gung-ho (Americanism derived from
Mandarin): Original meaning is work together,
but after reshaping by U.S. Marine Corp, after
reworking by Hollywood, took today’s more
common parlance of referring to a go-getter guy.
HK: Of course this names a very cool
restaurant on the robust corner of S.E. 82nd
Avenue and Holgate. Also short for Hong Kong.
A hip PC (Pacific Community) text abbreviation,
like KL (Kuala Lumpur) or like HCMC (Ho Chi
Minh City). Also like: Ogh, AFD (Asian Fashion
Disaster). Like: Ayaah, DSWP (Don’t Scare da
White People).
Insuring New Americans: Mr. George
Azumano successfully leveraged selling insur-
ance products to his Nikkei neighbors into selling
Oregon universities to Japanese parents, selling
Central Oregon ranch sets to Fuji TV execs. Mr.
Azumano leveraged his good name into selling
River City, Yaquina Head, and Mount Hood as
Asian tourist destinations. Likewise, Manong
Jess Osilla, our 2014 Asian Reporter Foundation
Most Honored Elder, educated his kids, secured
his retirement, and still had evenings to teach
ballroom dancing. And likewise, discerning Viet
Chin civic activist H.Q. La, board director of
Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce
of Oregon and Southwest Washington, and
volunteer for the American Cancer Society, con-
tinues this precedent of serving our communities
while strengthening a national insurance brand.
Ja tentu (Indo patois): Yes, of course.
Certainly.
Koann Tan: Elegant and stubborn Khmer
Rouge genocide survivor. Oregon real estate
business owner. Mom of recent U.S. Military
Academy at West Point grad; wife of U.S. Army
National Guard Colonel (Ret.) who led and
brought home two tours of Oregon guardsmen/
women into Afghanistan’s deadly Kandahar
province, without casualties. Daughter-in-law of
a Royal Cambodian Army Colonel (Ret.).
Last Starbucks: Actually the last Starbucks
before Idaho is at N.E. 102nd and Halsey. Sure
there are two Starbucks drive-throughs, but they
don’t provide the communal space so central to
all Portland A-groups (Africans and African
Americans, Asians and Arabs, Americano
Latinos and American Pacific Islanders).
Ono plate lunch: Ono (Hawai’i patois):
Delicious. Plate lunch: An example of Hawai’i’s
cultural gado-gado (mix-mix). A picnic plate
piled high with fried Yankee spam, Nikkei
chicken katsu, Portuguese sausage, steamed Thai
jasmine rice, Midwest macaroni salad, and some
cra-zy kim chee. So ono, yah?
Tidak (Bahasa Indonesia): Nope.
Tuan (Bahasa Indonesia): Master. Sir.
Woman or machine? New robots look creepily human
Continued from page one
display at Miraikan museum, or the
National Museum of Emerging Science
and Innovation, in Tokyo, allowing the
public to interact with them extensively.
Reflecting widespread opinion, Ishiguro
said Japan leads the world in playful
companion robots. But he acknowledged
the nation was behind the U.S. in military
robots.
Developing robots for more than 20
years, Ishiguro has made a point of
creating robots that approximate the
human appearance, including creatures
that look like him. He has sent them to give
overseas lectures.
His approach differs from some robotics
scientists who say human appearance is
pointless, perhaps creepy, and robots can
look like machines, such as taking the form
of a television screen or a portable device.
Ishiguro noted proudly how Japanese
internet company Softbank Corp. recently
showed a robot named Pepper, which looks
a little like C-3PO in Star Wars, and will
sell for less than 200,000 yen ($2,000).
Pepper’s arrival means robots are
increasingly becoming part of everyday life
in Japan.
“Robots are now becoming affordable —
no different from owning a laptop,” said
Ishiguro.
Celebrate the
Year of the Horse!
January 31, 2014 to February 18, 2015
Read our special Lunar New Year
edition online at <www.asianreporter.com>.