They Call Us Bruce 116: They Call Us Asian in New Zealand

Jeff Yang and Phil Yu present an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America.



What's up, podcast listeners? We've got another episode of our podcast They Call Us Bruce. (Almost) each week, my good friend, writer/columnist Jeff Yang and I hos an unfiltered conversation about what's happening in Asian America, with a strong focus on media, entertainment and popular culture.

In this episode, we welcome New Zealand writer/activist Tze Ming Mok. She talks about her country's complicated racial politics, what it's like to live under a functional government that has actually had a handle on COVID-19, and what her view of America looks like right now. (It's not good.)

Was this guy's passport photo rejected by a racist robot?

"Subject eyes are closed."



Can robots be racist? Okay, we've heard all the jokes about Asians having small eyes. Fine. Get the f*ck over it. But here's how it can get really inconvenient. In New Zealand, an Asian man recently got his passport photo rejected when facial recognition software mistakenly registered his eyes as being closed.

New Zealand passport robot tells applicant of Asian descent to open eyes

Richard Lee was trying to renew his passport, but found his attempts repeatedly blocked by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs' automated online passport system, claiming his photo did not meet the technical requirements. The reason given: his eyes were closed in the photo. But actually, his eyes are clearly open.

Lee posted a screen shot of the notification on Facebook:

We're Asian, Female, Kiwi, and Make Scripted Comedy. Shoulda Stayed in Med School.

Guest Post by Roseanne Liang



Here are the cold hard numbers from Middle Earth:

• Almost 12% of New Zealand's population is Asian.

• Over 25% of Auckland, NZ's most populous city where we live, is Asian.

• Only 1% of our TV producers, 2% of our TV directors and 4% of our TV writers identify as Asian.

• We make decent volumes of local film and TV, but we hardly ever see Asian actors on screen, and when we do, they're young female Asians.

If Alan Yang's Emmy wish comes true, and a couple Kiwi Asian parents hand their kids cameras instead of violins, do we really have to wait a generation to get our Fresh Off the Boat?

Asian students targeted in Auckland attacks

Police are investigating a series of aggravated robberies on international students in New Zealand.



More disturbing news of Asians targeted with violence. This one comes to us from New Zealand, where a spate of vicious attacks on international students has raised concerns that Asians in the area are being targeted.

Brutal assaults scaring Auckland's Asian students

In Auckland, police are investigating a series of aggravated robberies -- four attacks in the past week -- in which the victims were Asian international students. All of the attacks occurred in public places, sometimes in broad daylight Arrests have been made in two of the cases.

Cops called on Sikh student "doing something with wires"

Those wires turned out to be his headphones.



Okay, folks. I now present the stupidest reason to call the cops on a brown man. This one comes to us from New Zealand, where a Sikh med student was questioned by police... because of wires in his headphones.

NZ student mistaken for terrorist

In Auckland, 21-year-old Jasprett Singh was sitting cafe near the University of Medical School when he approached by police officers and asked to step outside. They were apparently called to the cafe because someone saw him "doing something with wires" in his laptop bag.

Those suspicious wires turned out to be Singh's headphones.

Casting Call: 'Ghost in the Shell' remake seeks extras

Whitewashed adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson begins shooting in New Zealand in 2016



Noooooo! As fans may have heard, a live-action Ghost in the Shell remake starring Scarlett Johansson has been in the works. And so, a casting call for extras recently popped up. This thing is really happening.

'Ghost in the Shell' Starring Scarlett Johansson Open Casting Call

Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow, Ghost in the Shell follows a Japanese public security agency's hunt for a mysterious hacker. Produced by Avi Arad, Steven Paul and Mark Sourian, with a script by William Wheeler (Hoax, The Reluctant Fundamentalist), the remake will be directed by Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders. Scarlett Johansson will presumably pay the role of Major Motoko Kusanagi.

Rachel Bullock Casting posted an open casting call for extras to appear in Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures' live-action adaptation of the manga and anime classic, which is scheduled to begin shooting early next year in Wellington, New Zealand.

The casting call is for people of all ethnicities, age 18 and over.

The ladies of 'Flat3' are back for season three

Watch the third and final season of New Zealand's indie cult comedy webseries



They're baaaaack! The ladies of Flat3 are back for a third and final season of New Zealand's indie cult comedy webseries. Co-written and directed by Roseanne Liang, and starring JJ Fong, Perlina Lau and Ally Xue, Flat3 follows the misadventures of flatmates Lee, Jessica and Perlina as they try to figure out "who they are, what they’re doing in this life, and whose turn it is to buy toilet paper." That third part is very important.

There are a lot of webseries about aimless twentysomethings trying to figure out what they're doing with their lives. This one is probably my favorite. Here's the trailer for season three:

My favorite new comedy webseries from New Zealand: Flat 3

Check this out... I'm kind of digging Flat 3, this new webseries that recently got passed along to me. Hailing from New Zealand, it's a comedy that follows three Kiwi-Chinese roommates trying to "figure out who they are, what they're doing in this life, and whose turn it is to buy toilet paper." It starts out a little slowly, but by episode two I was charmed. Here's episode one: