Tina Fey was voted the Associated Press’ Entertainer of the Year. And it’s not surprising when Fey’s name was bandied about as much as Sarah Palins’ during the run up to the election. But oh how the male dominated press with their inadequate penises have to bring a successful woman down. Look at how Hilary Clinton and even Sarah Palin was treated by the press, although my sympathy for the latter is next to zero.

So perhaps now we won’t have to read or listen to male chauvinist b/s about how “women aren’t funny.” It’s a lot like the b/s from a male LA Times writer last week who stated that Nicole Kidman “is not a star,” and that Nicole Kidman, one of the most famous and successful actresses of her generation, can’t sell a movie. What utter bull-shit. These “men” have small dicks. That’s all I have to say about it.

Ginger Liu

This fall was privy to Hollywood firsts and Hollywood backstabbing at its finest with director Catherine Hardwicke ‘s teen phenomenon, ‘Twilight,’ grossing $70 million at the box office in its first weekend and welcoming Hardwicke as the first woman director ever to dominate Hollywood with such a high return. Stephanie Meyer’s adapted first novel had already grossed more than $160 million dollars in its first few weeks and Hardwicke was touted as the industry insider to finally shift Hollywood from its paternal hands of testosterone theatre, (the same Hollywood who had recently declared Nicole Kidman as box office poison because she is a woman), and proved that teenage girls, once forgotten, were a viable and lucrative audience. But Twilight’s producers, Summit Entertainment, fired Hardwicke mid-promo junket, demanding the second installment of the franchise to begin principle filming in the New Year; Hardwicke wasn’t ready. When a director makes a movie for $40 million and that movie grosses more than four times that amount in its initial release, it’s not often the director is fired. It seems Hollywood is ready for a black male president but not yet ready to trust the keys of the city to its creative women.

Ginger Liu 

ALL SITES UNDER CONSTRUCTION. WEBSITE COMING SOON! Feel for my bags.

The British Empire is the greatest empire the world has ever known and once covered 25% of the world. When one moves to the USA, one learns to be patriotic especially when the American media sells America and gets it wrong. America may have been the richest country in the 20th century but it is not the greatest. After all, what is the greatest influence on American life? Why, the English language of course. One gets tired of all the American bullshit and the false bragging.

China is one of the greatest nations and has a bigger influence on life than America but China doesn’t brag like America does. China invented paper, ink, gunpowder, the list is endless. There are China towns in almost every country. Are there America towns in other countries? America’s influence on the world is the make believe, the fantasy moving pictures. This is wonderful of course but it is not essential to life. It is not the invention of ink on paper, of books, of language. They did not invent democracy and they are not the greatest nation since the Roman Empire. What they are are the biggest braggers and self-obsessed, paranoid nation on the planet. They write about themselves constantly. Talk radio, talks, talks, talks about themselves. Do you think Britain or France could give a crap if the world loves their nation or not? Every day in America the media worries about America not being liked abroad. They think that the whole world is watching and that the whole world gives a damn. I can’t tell you how many times an American has come up to me to bitch about not being liked abroad. As if they had a clue anyway because they’ve never been abroad. Europeans and Asians and Australasians couldn’t give a crap if other nations like them or not.  Get over yourself. Pull your fat asses away from the TV and the radio, don’t listen to the manipulating, fear mongering media, and actually live life, travel to foreign lands. I had an American come up to me and say that the French don’t drive or own cars. This person had never been to France. Another American wondered if I was living in the USA because there was opportunity here and not in Britain, as if I’d come from a third world country. I’ve had americans react so violently at the thought that their country was not better than other countries, that the British, German, and French healthcare system was just propaganda made up by Michael Moore. These morons have never traveled to any of these countries yet they all knew more about it than the people who lived there because the American media fed them an American dream. They are so in love with themselves and this false notion that they are the greatest that they think foreigners can’t get through the day without thinking about America. Boy, do I have news for you. And we have to suffer scores of movies about how America is not loved or how America is no longer a great country. I got news for you. We got it good in Europe and Australia. We got free healthcare, cheap education, and more than 5 weeks holiday a year. We enjoy life and we don’t obsess about ourselves. America, get over yourself. Maybe the whole world hates you because like a spoilt child you bore everyone to tears with false vanity.

America I love your optimism. I love your fight. I love your friendly people and your welcoming arms. But get this straight, you are a great nation but you are not the greatest nation, you are one of many. Get over yourselves and travel. See the world and enjoy it.

For Thanksgiving I visited my Aunt, my father’s sister, who is a world renowned Chinese ethnomusicologist, a retired music professor at Arizona State University, author, and recent speaker at the Library of Congress in Washington where she lectured on a rare Chinese opera form: Kunqü: China’s First Great Multi-art Theatrical Tradition
.  Professor Marjory Bong-Ray Liu is the sole expert on the form and recently donated decades of research to the Library of Congress. My aunt and my father were the product of a mixed marriage; the children of a bold English explorer mother and Internationalist Chinese father. My father married an English woman, making me quarter Chinese.

I shared Thanksgiving with my Aunt and her grown children. Her husband was Chinese, making their children more than two thirds Chinese. Around the table where the mixed races of Chinese, English, and Japanese. In a sea of dark hair and dark eyes, I was the only cousin with red hair and blue eyes. Everyone talked with pride of their heritage and I found joy in belonging to a family of “mutts.” This brought my Aunt in to the discussion of President-elect Obama. She spoke for all of us in our understanding of this new president as a man of mixed-race and not an African American man. This is not a triumph for African Americans, after all he is half caucasian, this is an undoubtable triumph for a nation built on the mixed races and a changing landscape of all nations, literally mixing together. This is the triumph of the “mutt.” This is a triumph for the millions of mixed-race Americans who make this country strong but also for those who have suffered the racism that goes hand-in-hand with those who are “different.” African American’s may shout the loudest but they are certainly not the only non-caucasians who have suffered in this country. Let’s not forget the Asians, Indians, and hispanics.

Our new president is not a black president, he is and always will be, a mixed-race president.  I am proud of my Chinese and English heritage and the new president who represents all of us who are “mutts” from many great nations.

I’m a redhead and growing up at school in England is tough for a ”ginger.” We suffer relentless name calling and teasing that pours into adult life with repeated shouts of “Fergie.” I learned to be tough at school. Facebook’s Kick a Ginger Day should not have been allowed publication.

All bullying is wrong. Yes, I do have a sense of humor but there are plenty of
children out there who suffer daily at the hands of school bullies. There should be zero tolerance.

LA Times writer, Henry Chu, lacks journalistic insight and uses decades old cliches to write about a country he obviously knows nothing about.

“A few desperate homemakers did battle with “snoek,” a cheap imported fish that the government promoted but that turned out to be too dry and bland even for British cooking.”

You perpetuate the myth of “bland” British cooking. Britain has the most Michelin star restaurants in the world after France and Japan. I have lived in the USA for six years and America has some of the poorest and blandest food around. When American writers continue to print this myth of “bland” British food, I think of what America has done for the culinary world that is so much better than Britain. I’m still thinking. If I described American food as just burgers and French fries then that would be showing my ignorance because there’s certainly more to American food. So why do you describe British food as “bland?” Have you eaten at the top British restaurants? Have you eaten at the best pubs where you will find organic and local food anywhere you dine in the country? Why do American writers continue to write about a Britain that does not exist today? Should I describe America as a country of fat and stupid people who eat burgers and fries every day? That would be just as silly as describing British food as bland and their people as “stiff upper lipped.” Your cheese sucks, you don’t have real cream, your cakes don’t have the best ingredients such as butter, your bread tastes like rubber, and you overcharge for the local and organic food that Brits have been living on for generations. Now of course I am over generalizing here. We are lucky to live in California where the food is similar to British food. At home in Britain, I eat local and organic food. My family and friends have lived this way for generations. So what the hell are you talking about? Have you tasted how chicken, beef, or lamb is supposed to taste like? Go to Britain. I’ve tried the meat here in the USA and I was much better off just eating the wrapping. I am forced to buy my meat from small purveyors but I have to pay for the privilege. In Britain, eating meat that tastes like juicy, tasty, flavorful meat, is the norm and we don’t have to be upper middle-class to afford it.

I am a Le Cordon Bleu trained and educated chef, writer, and travel reporter and do have some clue about the food in both countries. I suggest you take a trip to Britain and actually learn about the real lifestyle, the real people, and the food. Talk to some Britons, believe me, we don’t think much of your food either.

Ginger Liu

Checking off the essential ingredients that make a James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace didn’t disappoint in the hard, fast action department. From the moment the cinema lights go down, the audience is thrust in to an exciting car chase in Siena, Italy, with our hero destroying yet another gorgeous automobile. This time round it’s the stunning, and expensive, Aston Martin DBS. Check one, our hero is in a bit of bother; check two, he’s driving a fancy sports car; and check three, he is not in Kansas. Number four on my list is Bond’s sense of humor, which is sadly lacking in Daniel Craig’s follow up to the superior Casino Royal. Fifth and sixth on my list are two of the most essential Bond movie elements of its 23^rd outing: the Bond girl and the villain. I realize that this contemporary Bond movie is trying its best to be a real life story of a spy and Quantum of Solace certainly had me holding my armrests throughout the stunning violence that Bond inflicts and endures. But Bond’s villain, Dominic Greene (Matthew Amalric), the chairman of an ecological organization called Greene Planet, is about as sinister a foe as green salad. We know he’s no match for Daniel Craig’s Bond, who is an impressive killing machine. Disappointing still, is the lead lady and lover of Greene, Camille (Olga Kurylenko). She’s a delicate, skinny victim of a Bond girl who doesn’t even land on her back for the good of Her Majesty’s secret service. Where Vespa Lynd (Eva Green) in Casino Royale was tough, sexy, and intelligent, Camille fails to deliver much of any emotion.

But beside the nit picking, Daniel Craig is the most exciting Bond ever and demands our constant attention. The violence is obvious and has consequences; people are in pain, people scream, and people die. And more importantly, the effects, in most part, are real and more awe inspiring than much of the computer generated garbage we see today. I just wanted more: more humor, more evil bad guys, and an incredible knock-out of a female lead. Imagine Angelina Jolie as a Bond girl and then you know where I’m coming from.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iklZGuiLJVo]

Ginger Liu

You got to hand it to the EU. If they’re not regulating the size and shape of fruits and vegetables, then they might just be causing the greatest children’s toy of all time to lose its patent, and with it an end of an era.

Lego was always the coolest toy to own. It was beyond gender bias. Girls could have the same fun as boys by meticulously building houses and bridges, brick-by-brick. Lego was multi-generational, meaning adults and children could join in on the fun without parents having to know which multi-media tie-in the latest disposable toy was, well, tied in with. And they were friendly on your wallet or purse. These little plastic buggers never broke and were good to pass on to your own children. These bricks could survive a nuclear war and came in bright primary colors of red, blue, yellow, and green, as well as black and white.

Lego helped with hand and color coordination, as well as concentration. There seemed to be a point to this toy and that point was not selling any old crap to children. These toys were educational and they made a cool sound when you clicked the bricks together. I remember spending hours in the living room with my Lego; constructing this and that and snapping those bricks together or pulling them apart. It was fun constructing houses and connecting Lego bits to Lego cars. Those cars came in cool cardboard boxes. And remember the little Lego people? Their arms, legs, and heads moved. And children everywhere wondered if this is what Danish people looked like.

Lego was and is the greatest toy on the planet.

So what of the future? The market will be maxed out with Lego look-alikes made in China. Don’t let Lego be the toy of a past generation. Buy Lego, real Danish Lego, and pass it on to your children. Buy Danish.

The bacon is good too.

Lego boasts that more than 5 billion hours are spent playing with Lego in any given year. The world’s first Legoland in Billund, Denmark opened in 1968 and has attracted more than 42 million visitors so far, and there are 52 blocks of Lego for every person in the world.

One word my friends: Lego.

Ginger Liu

It really annoys me when educated men and women use the “marriage is between a man and a woman and has been for the last 5,000 years, so why change.” Sure, why change laws. Let’s take away the vote from women because men have written the law for the last 5,000 years. Let’s not mix the races. Let’s follow a book and not change the contents of that book because our life is no different now than it was 2,000 years ago. While we are at, let’s not have any progress at all and live our lives as it was written 5,000 years ago.

These people are idiots. Get with the times. Do they actually think that gay and lesbian people will just disappear from the face of the earth if they are denied the same rights as the rest of the population? These people pretend that they “tolerate” gay people, yet they don’t want to see them or have them in their own “backyard.” 

Let’s not welcome any gays, let’s not welcome any foreigners, let’s not welcome anyone remotely different.

I feel sorry for these narrow minded people. How boring their lives must be. I have lived in many cities, I have lived in many countries, and I have mixed with different groups in this world society. Without that education and without the guts, I would be still living in a small 1,300 year old village and learning about the world and its people from the media. And I think we all know how much the media distorts people and places. 

Don’t believe what you see and what you read. Instead, buy a ticket to Elsewhere and get yourself an education and an understanding of humanity. While you’re at it, take a trip to San Francisco where gay and lesbians don’t hide away like scared rabbits. Get a life and get a heart.