Month: May 2013

A swimmer’s divide

Jae-Ha Kim

For too long, Asians have had a reputation as being meek, smart, well disciplined and bad at sports. Look at Jeremy Lin. Despite playing at an elite level and leading his high school and college teams to championships, he was overlooked by the NBA. Maybe the instructors saw Kyle and his blue-eyed, blonde-haired friend and assumed that my son would be the weaker swimmer. I’m sure they never heard of Olympic gold medalist swimmer Park Tae-hwan, who is the Michael Phelps of Korea.

Go Away With … LeAnn Rimes

Jae-Ha Kim

LeAnn Rimes will be the first one to tell you that she likes to be in control of just about every aspect of her life, including travel. “I’m very hands on when it comes to planning trips,” the 30-year-old singer says, laughing. “I really would love to go on a safari. That’s the next thing I want to do, and I’ve been planning it for a couple years now. I’m looking forward to going away with my husband (actor Eddie Cibrian).” But first, Rimes will tour to promote her new CD “Spitfire.”

Where are you from?

Jae-Ha Kim

There’s a funny video floating around on social media that’s getting a lot of attention. It shows a young woman of Asian descent preparing for a jog. A white man starts a conversation with her with the dreaded, “Where are you from?” For a lot of people, this is an innocuous enough question. If you say, “Maine,” or “California,” or “Florida,” that’s usually the end of the conversation. But if you look like I do, the series of questions won’t stop until your lineage is traced back to ancient fill-in-the-blank.

Go Away With … Gary Player

Jae-Ha Kim

Before he turned 30, golf legend Gary Player became the third person to win the Grand Slam. In 1974, after winning 165 tournaments, Player was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Player and his wife, Vivienne, live on a stud farm outside of Colesberg, South Africa. They also spend time at their home on Florida’s Jupiter Island.

Go Away With … Pete Wentz

Jae-Ha Kim

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz remembers traveling to the Bahamas as a child and getting ill on the small plane that took his family from Nassau to their destination. “I had terrible motion sickness when I was younger and I barfed into the bag,” says the 33-year-old musician, who also hosts the Oxygen reality series “Best Ink.” There was no place to throw the bag away, so we had to go through customs holding it. That was a little weird, but the trip overall was awesome!”