We’re so excited about this week’s giveaway! We’ve always been a huge supporter of Kollaboration and we’re so proud of how much they’ve grown and expanded – they’re now in 12 cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, New York City, Tulsa, San Francisco, and now, for the first time ever, Boston!
Boston is a truly unique city — it’s filled with talented young students and professionals from all around the world, so we’re not surprised that Kollaboration has finally settled there. The event will be the first city-wide Asian American talent show competition featuring all kinds of performing artists, including vocalists, musicians, dancers and instrumentalists.
You’ve got questions — we’ve got answers! Psychotherapist Meme Rhee addresses your most pressing dilemmas, including long distance relationships and Facebook love etiquette. (Got a conundrum? Email us at Editor@Audreymagazine.com)
Dear Audrey,
I’m in a long-distance relationship with someone from across the world. Recently, I’ve been so busy that I don’t really have the time to think about him or have the motivation to call him. Is it possible to be too busy that you temporarily put him aside or are those signs that I’m losing feelings for him? — Fading Away
Psychotherapist Meme Rhee answers: Healthy relationships require the attention and effort of each individual. In an ideal partnership, that exchange is balanced. However, to achieve a level of emotional congruency and patience with your partner is not easy, and it’s particularly difficult when you are geographically challenged. It is possible that you are too busy to think about him, and it’s also possible that it’s too painful to think about him and by “putting him aside” you’ve found a way to manage your feelings without feeling too inconvenienced by them. Because, let’s face it, who wants to pine for someone on the other side of the world?
Teen shows seem to offer richer opportunities for young Asian American actors these days. But what’s it like actually being “that Asian on that show”? We find out from actresses Ashley Argota (True Jackson, VP), Jolene Purdy (Gigantic) and Nikki Soohoo (The Lovely Bones) in our teen roundtable.
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Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a talker — the 32-year-old spoken word poet of Chinese and Taiwanese descent does it for a living. You got a taste of some of her poetry in our Spring 2011 issue. Here, Kelly tells us more about what inspires her.
Audrey Magazine: Tell us a bit about your background.
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai: I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. I studied Urban Planning and Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I’ve been touring and performing nationally and internationally as a spoken word poet for over a decade. I currently live, work, and love in Brooklyn, New York.
The highly anticipated Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is officially opening next week, March 15. We highlighted the Chinese-Filipina American actress T.V. Carpio in our Spring issue, who is tackling the role of Arachne, Spider-Man’s villainous love. Here, 10 things about T.V. you may not know.
1. She was born Teresa Victoria Carpio, named for her mother, Teresa Carpio, an award-winning Hong Kong performer.
“But my name was initially just T.V. My father said, ‘this T.V. is here,’ because my mother had a TV show at the time and for some reason he just wanted to call me T.V. and mom was appalled by the idea.”
Got a big trip ahead of you? Lighten your TSA maximum liquid load with these easy liquid alternatives, featured in our Winter 2010-11 issue.
ISSUE: Winter 2010-11
DEPT: DestinAsian
STORY: Anna M. Park
It’s hard enough traveling these days without trying to fit your entire beauty arsenal into a tiny quart size baggie. Try these ingenious alternatives to liquids.
Estée Lauder came out with their first collectible solid perfume compact in 1967. This year, the tradition continues with new handcrafted designs for their timeless Youth Dew (it’s hip again!), as well as other favorites like Pleasures, Beautiful and White Linen. 
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How many of you cried at Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never? You ain’t gotta be ashamed. So did we. If you did, it’s all thanks to the talented director Jon Chu who directed the teen mega-star’s documentary and infused it with an extra dose of heart as opposed to cheese. The director has Bieber Fever and a veritable man crush on Glee‘s Harry Shum Jr. (don’t we all?). After this interview, we think we may have a crush on Jon. Featured in Audrey’s Spring 2011 issue, and we’ve got the extras here.
Jon Chu and Harry Shum Jr. attend the LXD after party at The Roosevelt Hotel on July 6, 2010 in Hollywood, California. (July 5, 2010 - Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images North America
Audrey Magazine: Tell us about a day in the life of Jon M. Chu.
Jon M. Chu: It’s The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers or Never Say Never or Step Up 3D DVD release — it’s all coming in at the same time. So yesterday we wake up at 6 in the morning and work on sound, music and sound effects. And at the same time we’re doing color timing. So I had my editors work on the pictures with color timing and the mix. In the afternoon we switched, and then I came back to the office because I had to do a Twitter conversation online to help promote the Step Up 3D DVD release, which came out yesterday. So we did that or a couple hours. Checked out visual effects. And then we’re meeting about a secret project, and then we had to do a Christmas party, with our white elephant craziness. And I had to recheck the movie last week to see if it’s good to preview. It depends on the day.
“I want to help groom the next generation’s future Michelle Obamas: strong-willed, aspira- tional, influential, socially conscious and chic all at the same time.” – Ruby Veridiano
ISSUE: Winter 2010
DEPT: Personalities
STORY: Anna M. Park
The Glamorous Life
To call Ruby Veridiano just a writer doesn’t really cut it. She’s more, as she puts it, “a glamour girl off to save the world.” She co-founded iLL-Literacy, an internationally touring performing arts collective. In 2008, she published her first book, Miss Universe, a reference to women raised to live life like a pageant, but also to the “universe” within us, the “ultimate crown of beauty.” And this past fall, Veridiano launched an eight-week writing empowerment program for young women. Called the “Glamourbaby Diaries,” the program focused on Asian American history within a fashion framework, seeking to redefine glamour to encompass themes of strength, inner beauty and positive social impact.
Now, the 27-year-old Filipina- Chinese American is planning the Glamourbaby Diaries speaking tour on campuses across the country. “I want to help groom the next generation’s future Michelle Obamas: strong-willed, aspira- tional, influential, socially conscious and chic all at the same time,” she says.
Veridiano finds that young Asian American co-eds, in particular, “hunger to find someone in the media that represents who they are and who they aspire to be,” she says. “Young Asian women today strive to be more than visible — they want to be relevant.”
And while her message of loving yourself and being the change is nothing new, her glamour framework is. Using women’s fascination with the external, Veridiano encourages women “to redefine their beauty through purpose, meaning and a vision to lead their communities. True elegance is rooted in character and in spirit; fashion is merely the accessory.”
Ironically, Veridiano came up with the term “glamourbaby” in a less-than- glamorous circumstance. After a botched taping, Veridiano had declared, “Ah man, well … it’s not all glamour, baby.” And that encapsulated it for her. “Much like most of life, it isn’t all glamour, especially when you’re striving towards a dream,” she says. “But it’s about embracing adversity, and continuing to represent something beautiful for your community.” — AMP
Veridiano will kick off the Glamourbaby Diaries tour this spring, and the audio version of her book Miss Universe will be out February 2011. For updates, go to rubyisill.com.
More stories from Audrey Magazine’s Archives here.
Imagine this scenario: you’re getting ready for a hot date. You decide to put on your sexiest dress — the one that hugs all your curves — and (unfortunately) all your … not so smooth areas.
It’s unfortunate that just because you put on a little winter weight, you have to look less than stellar in your sexy dress. But this is where Sassybax Bras come in.
In our Spring 2011 issue, we feature actress Anisha Nagarajan, who plays the shy call center worker Madhuri in NBC’s comedy Outsourced. Here, more of our interview with her.
Audrey Magazine: Your character Madhuri on NBC’s Outsourced is shrouded in mystery, but slowly unraveling her true self. Tell us a little more about her.
Anisha Nagarajan: She’s got a lot more to her than meets the eye. She comes across as this very shy sort of wallflower, but she … can, at times, hold her own when it comes to retaliating when people say things to her about being a wallflower. It’s going be fun to see how people react to the surprises that she’s going to show everyone. I’m enjoying discovering her through the writing and through everybody else’s impression of her. It’s interesting to see where she’s going to go and what’s going to happen.
