When Bruce Lee was born, his mother gave him a girl’s name to disguise him from evil spirits. When actor/performing artist Soomi Kim learned this surprising fact, she felt destined to create a theatre performance inhabiting the incomparable martial arts superstar. Set in the inner landscape of Bruce Lee’s mind the moment he died in 1973, Lee/gendary is a theatrical deconstruction of an icon; a spiritual and psychological examination of Lee’s life from birth to death. This unique gender-bending theatre performance fluidly integrates text, live original music, video and an explosive hybrid of martial arts and dance. Opens October 14th in New York City. For more information and to purchase tickets see below.

Tera Patrick went from Ford model, to nurse, even earning a BS in Microbiology to adult film star. What brought her to become one of the most successful film stars in the world today? We’re curious and we actually landed an interview with her! Did she have a normal Asian American upbringing? We want to know. What would you ask her? Let us know! Interview coming soon!

We’ll be in Boston this weekend presenting a workshop on AAPI Beauty and Body Image to Boston area Asian American college students at the Boston Asian Students Intercollegiate Conference being held at Boston University. We were invited by Wellesley College to attend BASIC, a student-led conference where college students from all over the Boston area come to take part in workshops, panels, and entertainment, that address and involve Asian American issues. We’ll have a recap of the event and can not wait to meet everyone. Go to Boston Basic for more information: http://www.bostonbasic.org

Ohhh! Look how cute these little monkey waiters are in Japan. But don’t worry animal lovers, by law they are only allowed to work 2 hours a day. See, animals are just like us. You have to see the video. Click to watch.

Don Gurewitz is an award-winning photographer and inveterate world traveler whose wanderings have taken him to more than fifty countries on five continents. He loves shooting Asian destinations as you can see by his above photograph. If you are in the Boston area this weekend. We will be! Please join us this Saturday, October 11, from 2:30 to 4:30 pm, for a “Meet the Photographers” Reception for the show “Three Somerville Photographers” at the Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington, MA. Don Gurewitz’ work is featured along with that of two other terrific local photographers: Meg Birnbaum and Jamil Simon. The exhibit will run from October 11-November 15. The Old Schwamb Mill is at 17 Mill Lane, behind 29 Lowell St., right off of Massachusetts Avenue, in Arlington, MA, just 15 minutes from Harvard Square. There is plenty of free parking, and the 77 bus from Harvard Square stops one block away at Mass. Avenue and Daniels Street. The Mill is a historic treasure: it is the only workshop left in the world still producing round and oval, handcrafted, wooden picture frames. And the work is done on lathes and other machinery dating to the 1800’s! Come for the photographs; come for a peek at this wonderful old mill and a demonstration of its fascinating antique production processes and equipment. Visit them on the web at www.oldschwambmill.org.

We just met up with SuChin Pak who is now the spokeperson for “Uniquely ME!” a partnership with Unilever and Girl Scouts of the USA to address the critical nationwide problem of low self-esteem among adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. As a former Girl Scout myself (I dropped out in 6th grade), the Girl Scouts of the USA has transformed over the years, adapting a more hands on, multicultural and take action approach to its organization. She definitely recommends this program for Asian American girls as coming from 2 different cultures (Asian and American), it is easy to get lost and feel invisible. SuChin says, “Asian parents need to understand that we want to fit in and they need to enroll us in other activities besides piano and wanting us to be the perfect Asian daughter.” SuChin Pak is hoping to encourage not only Asian American girls but all girls to sign up and join “Uniquely Me”. STATS: 5.8 percent of all Asian girls who are Girl Scout age in America are Girl Scouts and Between 2006 and 2007 Asian membership has increased by 3.3 percent. oh and check out her headband. I just had to ask her. Speaking of unique, it’s designed by Rebecca Shim, a Korean designer. You can see more at Prinsic.com. Read on for more on Suchin Pak and her latest endeavor.

Filipino Danny Barrios named his womenswear line Crispin and Basilio after two characters from a 19th-century Filipino novel. His clothes combine California sophistication with a laid-back, natural style and have quickly become a favorite among LA fashion followers. He’ll be showing at LA Fashion week in a few days and we’ll have a few pics. His clothes are frequently seen on The Hills.

David Liu, is a former Olympic skater (competed for China) from Taiwan. He is now dancer and choreographer for The Ice Theatre of New York. David was born in Taiwan, immigrated to the United States at the age of six and began studying dance and figure skating at the age of eight. He auditioned for New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet (SAB) and was accepted on full scholarship, under the tutelage of Richard Rapp and Andre Kramerevsky. David pursued his skating career and competed at three Olympic Games for his native country, Taiwan. He teaches, choreographs and performs in both skating and dance. David has choreographed programs for skating luminaries such as Brian Boitano, Lu Chen, Midori Ito, Nicole Bobek, Rosalynn Summers, and for major television specials including Kurt Browning’s Gotta Skate, Divas on Ice with Katarina Witt, PBS’ An Evening with Champions, and NBC’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Specials. He has choreographed at least five works for and/or with Ice Theatre in the years he has been with the Company, some of which were showcased in “Dance Visions on Ice” last season. He was appointed co-artistic director this year. The Ice Theatre of New York, the nation’s premier ice dancing ensemble, propels its new season with its inaugural performance and benefit gala. The performance will take place at Chelsea Pier’s Sky Rink. For more information on the even see below.

Check out non-profit organization Givology, whose founding members include several Asian females in their 20s that graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. With the thoughtful tagline, “Give to learn, learn to give,” Givology launched September 1 and hails itself as an Internet community that empowers individual donors to connect with students and communities around the world that are in need of education support. The organization’s initial focus is helping students in rural China, but it hopes to expand its efforts to places like Ecuador and Vietnam, as well as help sponsor projects like the construction of new schools. Joyce Meng and Xiang Li, two of the women involved in starting up this endeavor, are very dynamic leaders who are passionate about the grassroots efforts of the organization to change the paradigm of giving (those who sign up as donors can donate as little as $5 or as much money as they want). You can find out more at Givology.org. More to come from Irene Lew!

Mike Relm has become world famous for his mind-melting real time performances. But with the advent of Spectacle, his exciting debut studio album, the San Francisco-based musical talent has masterfully upped his game. His unforgettable A/V mashups wowed crowds most recently during Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam tour. But as Mike – who has also rocked crowds at Coachella, Summer Sonic and Mt. Fuji in Japan – moves forward with Spectacle, he’s eager to incorporate it into his live show and in doing so, he’ll be taking a cue from his superstar associates. “When I toured with Gnarls Barkley, right before they would do “Crazy” at the end of the night, it was like, ‘Alright. We’ve got one left, so you guys know what’s coming,’” Mike chuckles. His album features a lot of great guests - Del The Funky Homosapien, Lateef the Truth Speaker, Morningwood, Mr. Lif...etc. The album’s current single “Everytime” features Del and is getting a nice buzz. MTVU has embraced the song. Mike is of Cantonse decent. You can view the video and more on Mike below.

Chau Van Truong has set out to venture on a journey to turn Hollywood’s negative portrayals of Asians upside down. Throughout its history, Hollywood has depicted Asians as over achievers, dragon ladies, China dolls, foreigners, nerds, criminals, female exotic sexual delights, and villains. The vague descriptions of these deadly perceptions limit Asians to shy away from other psychological and social dimensions of the community. It does not show mainstream audiences the breath, potential, and depth of Asian Americans. “The portrayals of Asian in the mainstream media are dismal because we are stereotype as one dimensional being and playing up to those descriptions we set up ourselves to be ridicule.” Said Chau. His history breaking movie, ‘Secrets Kept’ will bring mainstream appeal and universal themes of love, hate, revenge, and etc to the big screen. At the same time, ‘Secrets Kept’ will serve as a platform for Asian actors/actresses to showcase their talents. The complexities in his characters are reality and experience based like the common citizen we work and play with. ‘Secrets Kept’ embraces the theme of everlasting love. ‘Secrets Kept’ will start filming under Pas Media Inc. in December and will be released in 2009.

Wayne Wang’s new film “The Princess of Nebraska” will make its world premiere on YouTube on Friday, October 17, 2008. Filmmaker Wayne Wang added, “ “The Princess of Nebraska” is about a young woman from China who tries to locate her identity through different kinds of new media. The piece was shot with this kind of mentality with various kinds of easily accessible digital sources. I am very excited that the distribution will be consistent with the way the piece was conceived and produced!” The free release on YouTube’s recently launched YouTube Screening Room and you can see a trailer of the movie below.