If this doesn't get you guys angry, I don't know what will

That racist jackasshole Elkhay actually celebrated the launching of Chinese Laundry by bringing in a real, live, and nude Asian American model.

http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1079100&srvc=rss

And to make matters worse, the oxygen thieves over at the Herald have to be racist towards Jenn too.

New Asian eatery’s wanton ad leaves bad taste for some

By Inside Track
Monday, March 10, 2008

Chinese Laundry, a new fusion eatery in Providence has drawn the ire of a blogger called “Angry Asian American Woman” who is steamed about provocative print ads placed by the restaurant to promote tomorrow night’s opening.

The glossy ads, which have run in Providence Monthly, show a nearly naked woman with Oriental symbols tattooed on her torso with copy that reads “Good things come to those who wait” and “The wait is over.”

The ad, according to Jenn, the Angry one, “relies on Orientalist fetishization to sell the store: The message of the ad is that the Asian food of the restaurant - like Asian women - are exotic and different, and will represent a new experience.

“Diners are urged by the ad, then, to come and consume the Eastern food much as they would hope to consume and conquer the Asian woman,” she writes on her blog at www.reappropriate.com.

Whoa. What if you only want a bowl of chow foon?

Jenn’s noodle would have been really fried if she caught the scene on Friday night, when Chinese Laundry threw an opening-night party attended by New England Patriots [team stats] Dan Koppen, Matt Light [stats] and Sam Neal.

Apparently, the star of the night was a live Asian model draped in red silk sheets and sushi - and not much else - posing atop a long table that could be viewed from the glass floor in the main dining room.

John Elkay, the restaurant’s owner, posted on the blog over the weekend that “The only thing I was trying to conquer was a guest’s appetite.

“In today’s overstimulated world is it possible we were just trying to get the attention of the reader and not trying to conquer the east and their woman?” he asked.

Despite the response by the owner, fired-up bloggers are still calling for a boycott and a campaign backed by a national civil rights organization. And one over-zealous poster suggested torching the North Main Street eatery! But the Angry Asian American woman threw cold water on that one.

And speaking of Koppen, we hear the almost-bachelor-no-mo’ offensive line biggie was roasted and toasted by his buds Tedy Bruschi [stats], Light and many more at Abe & Louie’s steakhouse in the Back Bay the other night.

Koppen and fiancee Amber van Eeghen, an ex-New England Patriots [team stats] cheerleader, are tying the knot veddy soon. Rib-eyes all around.

The Wedding Banquet: "I'm liberating you"

Contrary to some opinions that the fairy-tale ending of The Wedding Banquet is unrealistic, I felt that the movie closed on a happy note true to the realities of family conflicts and struggle for acceptance. There were more tears in the last scene than there were smiles and I was left a little unsettled for this reason. However, in spite of all the tears the movie ends with an optimism for the future; that Mrs. Gao will gradually become more accepting of the relationship, Wei Wei will have her baby, who will be raised by two loving fathers in addition to its birth mother, and that Mr. Gao was granted his wish of a grandchild. While I agree that Mr. Gao's deceit is selfish and creates somewhat of a wall in between him and his son as well as his wife, I don't see how else the situation would have played out. After all, it would be more unrealistic if he had whole-heartedly accepted Wai Tung's sexual orientation and foregone his dream of seeing a grand wedding banquet (which was the entire premise of the movie). Watching the scenes of the wedding banquet and how enjoyable it was for everyone involved, I can see why Wai Tung's parents were so disappointed with the initially simple wedding ceremony. For traditional Chinese parents who believe that the point of marriage is to please them through procreation, I find the Gaos' reaction to Wai Tung's homosexuality quite progressive, and anything more than that would have been unbelievable.

Not only was The Wedding Banquet refreshing in its portrayal of romantic relationships, but it also shed a new light on women, and Asian American women at that. I loved Wei-wei's character for her independent spirit devoid of stereotypes (especially those involving Asian American women). One line I found interesting was of hers when she tells Wai Tung, "I'm liberating you," as she practically forces herself upon him on their fake wedding night. While Wei-wei's actions could be (wrongly) interpreted as a stereotype for an Asian American seductress forcing a man to sway from his "good" and "right" path, I found the irony of her statement very refreshing. It erases the line between what has come to be normal (that is, straight), and not normal (or gay) because in this line of thinking one would consider a homosexual person more "liberated" than one that is repressed and in denial. Instead Wei-wei liberates us as the audience by rejecting the stereotypes that plague gay relationships, Asian American relationships, and so on. Like all of his other work, this Ang Lee film (which I believe was one of his earlier ones?) is laudable in its realistic portrayal of unconventional and quite ground-breaking stories and relationships.