ACTORS: John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim, and more
There are now more Asian male leading roles in TV and feature films than ever before.
BASEBALL: Major League drafts from Japan & Korea
There has been a surge of this in the United States in recent years.
BASKETBALL: Yao Ming
Currently the tallest player in the NBA, Yao Ming was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick in the 2002 draft, and has since been selected to start for the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game in each of his first seven seasons, and has been named to the All-NBA Team five times. His rookie year in the NBA was the subject of a documentary film, The Year of the Yao, and he co-wrote, along with NBA analyst Ric Bucher, an autobiography titled Yao: A Life in Two Worlds.
BOXING: Manny Pacquiao
Raised under poverty in the Filipino ghetto and trained with a kick-boxing background, Pacquiao went pro at the age of 17 and KOed his way to being the first boxer in history to win ten world titles in eight different weight divisions. He was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 2000's by the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring "Fighter of the Year" in 2006, 2008 and 2009.
DANCING: America's Best Dance Crew
The abundance of Asian faces on the winners of this competition reality series speaks for itself.
DANCING: Planet B-Boy
This 2007 documentary directed by Benson Lee was a box office hit that proved that another arena of hip-hop dominated by Asian guys is break-dancing. Between the roots of hip-hop in New York and the annual world b-boy battle in Germany lies countries such as Japan and Korea, both of which have brought out teams that have soared to the top of the championships within a matter of a few years.
ELECTRO: DJ Steve Aoki
Perhaps the most well-known Asian-American electronic DJ, Aoki is a self-made success story. Founding his own label just a year out of high school, his remix and production work since then has dominated charts in Europe and North America. A household name among young people in Los Angeles, he regularly plays for crowds of up to a hundred thousand fans.
FILM: Ang Lee
Born and raised in Taiwan, Lee received his MFA in film-making from New York University. After Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominations for The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman, he directed Sense & Sensibility in 1995. His critical & award recognition and box office success grew from there with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain. In 2006, Brokeback Mountain scored a leading eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, which Lee won. He is the first Asian and non-Caucasian director to do so.
HIP-HOP: DJ Q-bert
Raised in the Filipino-American community of Daly City, California, Q-bert learned to scratch at the age of 15. His teacher was Mix Master Mike, and together they would eventually battle their way through the World DMC Championships, becoming the most influential artists in the history of turntablism. Q-bert is universally regarded as the greatest scratch DJ of all time.
HIP-HOP & ELECTRO: Far East Movement
Just a few years ago, Kev Nish, Prohgress, and J-Splif were merely three guys from Koreatown with not much more than a mixtape released. Today, they have a fourth member (DJ Virman), have toured with the likes of Lady GaGa, and have shot to number one on iTunes and the Billboards with their single "Like a G6." Having roots in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino ancestry, the boys of FM represent the first Asian-American artists to top U.S. pop charts.
REALITY TV: Jon Gosselin
What started as an unexpected tale about the miracles of love and family turned into a reality TV cliche full of dysfunction and on-screen train-wrecks. Across multiple seasons, Gosselin played the full gamut from devoted husband & hard working father to the cheating player who gets separated and leaves the burden of raising eight children to his wife. For better or for worse, his image has had a wide influence on America. In its 5th season debut, for example, Jon & Kate Plus 8 raked in nearly 10 million viewers for the TLC network.
SINGING: Lin Yu Chun
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Sporting a bow tie and a bowl-shaped haircut, this 23-year-old kid in Taiwan delightfully surprised the world with his performance of "I Will Always Love You." He went from being a weekly reality competitor to being an international Youtube sensation. The video of his performance generated millions of views within a matter of days, resulting in his first trip to America to appear and sing on The Ellen DeGeneres and Lopez Tonight shows. Later that year, he released his first album on Sony Music and performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at an LA Dodgers game.
UFC: BJ Penn
With training grounds at his place of birth in the Hawaiian islands and the recent addition of Chinese acupuncture to his health regime, BJ Penn can attribute his former UFC Lightweight Championship and UFC Welterweight Championship to plenty of hard work and dedication. Penn has stated that he identifies strongly with his Korean roots and has traveled to Korea to hold seminars. He also said that he gets his hot temper from his Korean side which helps him use this energy in his fights.
UFC: Nam Phan
At the time of this writing, this Vietnamese-American kid from Garden Grove, California is still a qualifying competitor on The Ultimate Fighter, a reality series about pro mixed martial artists aspiring to sign with the UFC. Phan proudly displays both the American and South Vietnamese flag on his gi as a symbol of his pride in the freedom of his current home and of his lost homeland.
