I’ve always been a huge fan of Eva Chen. I’ve been following her since her start at Teen Vogue and thought of her as a role model – not just career wise, but personally as well (her impeccable style!). However, when she left her post as the Beauty and Health Director at Teen Vogue, many have wondered what her next big stint would be. Since then, she’s done some high-profile consulting and held some contributing editor positions.

Now – she’s been named the new Editor-in-Chief of Lucky. Even cooler – she’s also the first Asian American Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Publications. Condé Nast Artistic Director Anna Wintour had some choice words about Eva:

“From the streets of New York City to Shanghai and everywhere in between, Eva is the quintessential Lucky girl,” Wintour said in a Condé-issued statement. “Lucky’s September issue will be her first opportunity to showcase her leadership ability, and I have every confidence she will meet the moment head-on.”

Congrats, Eva! We’re excited to see what you have in store for Lucky!

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18-year-old Eesha Khare was one of two runner ups at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

“Design and Synthesis of Hydrogenated TiO2-Polyaniline Nanorods for Flexible High-Performance Supercapacitors” – say what? Well, that was the name of the winning experiment of 18-year-old Eesha Khare who took the one of two runner-up prizes at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for inventing a device that charges cellphone batteries in less than 30 seconds. It’s taken the science and tech world by storm for an invention that could eventually wind up in some of our hands in the future. However, the teen is not interested in commercializing it anytime soon – she’s headed straight to Harvard (where she will use her $50k towards her education).

The Saratoga teen also recently appeared on Conan to talk about her invention, lovecalls from Google – and her next invention. She’s quite likeable. Click on to see the interviews!

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You read correctly! The long-awaited 2NE1 comeback is now officially set for July of this year. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of YG Entertainment, Yang Hyun Suk, personally confirmed this himself. He added that instead of releasing the songs at once, 2NE1 will release one music video every month until their October showcase. This guarantees at least four songs for their album. The first song to be released is Falling in Love which is said to have a reggae feel and utilize oversea’s choreographers. Concerts will be planned after the release of the album in October, but no information regarding that has been released yet.

We’re more than excited to see brand new style and genre that 2NE1 plans to give us for this album. Could it be anything like their 2NE1 Loves teasers? Check them out for yourself!

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Make way for The Baddest Female there is. Last month, 2ne1′s CL released her first solo single in over five years. Was she successful? You bet. In less than 24 hours after the video release of her solo single, she hit over 1 million views. Clearly, CL is ready to take the stage. Check out her photoshoot for Vogue July 2013- its nothing short of fierce.

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Electronic Dance Music (EDM) continues to take on the world by storm – and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Eventbrite has put together an interesting infographic from a recent survey comparing some of the activities and interests of EDM fans versus non-EDM music fans. Check it out below! – See more at: http://174.122.78.159/~mindlinq/audreynew/edm-fans-more-than-just-your-average-music-fan/#sthash.m0q9QP4x.dpuf

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I was always considered the night owl in my family. Ever since college, my sleeping patterns consisted of multiple nights burning the midnight oil (in addition to a couple of all nighters). Simply put, my body was pretty programmed to function better at night because it was the time of the day where I was least distracted and I could be very productive. However, a couple of months ago, I decided that I needed to improve my quality (and quantity) of sleep by adopting a normal sleeping schedule (aka, sleeping earlier and waking up earlier). It’s definitely helped with my mood and skin (well, I think it appears better).

However, I’m sure you all know there’s health benefits to getting more hours of sleep daily, but apparently, according to this NYT article, six or seven hours of sleep is still not enough. The article states that poor sleep does quite a number to your mood, productivity, and physical health (including your metabolism and weight control — this could add up to 10 pounds in a year!), among some factors.

However, one of the more alarming things that I came across in the article for women? A higher risk for breast cancer:

The risk of cancer may also be elevated in people who fail to get enough sleep. A Japanese study of nearly 24,000 women ages 40 to 79 found that those who slept less than six hours a night were more likely to develop breast cancer than women who slept longer. The increased risk may result from diminished secretion of the sleep hormone melatonin. Among participants in the Nurses Health Study, Eva S. Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School found a link between low melatonin levels and an increased risk of breast cancer.

Hear that ladies? Keep the hours of sleep you collect daily in check – and your boobies will love you!

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Jessica Lee. The “Best Yearbook Quote” Award definitely goes to Jessica Lee. Her yearbook quote “Fluorine uranium carbon potassium bismuth technetium helium sulfur germanium thulium oxygen neon yttirum” seems innocent enough. Are we applauding her for her enthusiastic show of the periodic table? No, not necessarily. A closer look at her quote shows quite a different story. Decoded, it reads as:

(F) flourine (U) uranium (C) carbon (K) potassium (Bi) bismuth (Tc) technetium (He) helium (S) sulfur (Ge) germanium (Tm) thulium (O) oxygen (Ne) neon (Y) yttrium

And there you have it! Innocent elements of the periodic table turned into Notorious B.I.G. lyrics. Quite different from your average sentimental highschool yearbook quote, but then those didn’t win the award.

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Screenshot from Cheong. Courtesy of DramaFever.

Even if you’re not in town to catch the New York Asian Film Festival coming up on June 28th (they’ve got a cool Jackie Chan Retrospective during the fest!), you’ll still be able to experience a part of the festival from your home computer with the Korean Short Film Madness. NYAFF and Dramafever have partnered together to release a collection of short films from Korea’s Mise-en-Scène Film Festival (it’s all shown exclusively on DramaFever!).

The short films and talented new directors are:

“The Visitor” by Kim Bo-young

“Poison Frog” by Koh Jung-wook

“Cheong” by Kim Jung-in

“Anesthesia” by Kim Souk-young

“You Promised Me” by Pil Gam-sung

“Green Slime” by Kwon Oh-kwang

“The Professional Demonstrators” by Hwang Hyun-jin

“Who Killed Gong Jung-wha?” by Han Ji-hye

“Pandora” by Heo Myeong-haeng

To check out the films, please visit: http://www.dramafever.com/collections/korean-short-film-madness

ABOUT DRAMAFEVER

Established in 2009, New York-based DramaFever is the leading online TV network for primetime shows from around the world. The service streams to millions over DramaFever.com, mobile and web TV apps (Android, iOS, Google TV, Roku) and also provides a curated selection of shows to partners including Hulu, Netflix, and iTunes. All shows are professionally translated into English and Spanish, and are available for free in high quality. To learn more, visit www.DramaFever.com.

ABOUT NYAFF & SUBWAY CINEMA
The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) is North America’s leading Festival of popular Asian cinema, which the New York Times has called “…one of the city’s most valuable events…” Launched in 2002 by Subway Cinema, the Festival selects only the best, strangest, and most entertaining movies to screen for New York audiences, ranging from mainstream blockbusters and art-house eccentricities to genre and cult classics. It was the first North American film festival to champion the works of Johnnie To, Bong Joon-Ho, Park Chan-Wook, Takashi Miike, and other auteurs of contemporary Asian cinema. The Festival has been produced in collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center since 2010.

We’ve all seen the endless jokes about Asians who work in nail salons, massage parlors, and donut shops. This is often an easy target for stand-up comedians such as Anjelah Johnson and her popular skit mimicking the Vietnamese nail salon workers:

Why is it such as easy target? Primarily because such businesses are in fact heavily intertwined in the Asian American community. Its easy for people to make fun of this and yet they don’t take the time to understand that this is a deeply rooted issue for Asian Americans that stems from early immigration into the U.S.  These comedians don’t take the time to understand the hazardous effects that such an environment has on our community (such as chemical exposure from glues, polishes, etc. infecting the nail salon workers). To make matters worse, one of the more popular things to make fun of is the fact that Asians talk about their customers in their own language. Apparently, speaking in one’s native tongue automatically justifies suspicion of gossip.

Needless to say, over the years these places have often become correlated to the Asian American community. So when filming a hidden tv show to try and focus on racism towards Asians, where do they choose to film it? An Asian-owned nail salon, of course.

What Would You do? is an ABC hidden camera television show where actors perform scenarios of conflict in public. The show focuses on the bystanders to see how they react to such situations. Recently, they performed a skit in a nail salon with Asian actors performing as the workers. The Caucasian actress was told to be racially offensive and she performed her task with flying colors. She began to comment rudely on the worker’s quality of life (justifying herself with the fact that the worker didn’t understand English) and went on to make racial comments ranging from Asians being bad drivers, good at math, and all the other Asian stereotypes you can think of.

All this was performed in front of unknowing customers and sure enough, the customers reacted.  I was pleasantly surprised with just how riled up the bystanders were concerning this blatant show of racism. During each instance, the other customers spoke up about the actress’ rudeness. It was evident that her comments were not okay and it is a simple reminder to us that not all is lost. Its easy for us to point out the number of racist instances that our community has endured, but we must not forget that this is not always the case. While this certainly doesn’t fix the larger issue at hand, it is a reminder that there are people who understand what we continuously face.

Check out the What Would  You Do? skit here:

What I love about summer is heading out to a lot of outdoor music festivals – and being able to dress up in some quirky fashion – whether it’s rocking the latest trendy accessory off the runway, or wearing a vintage piece from my closet. I recently came across these cute little accessories for my shoes: Shwings! They’re definitely not for the conservative, but they do make quite the statement on your feet if you’re wearing plain sneakers (I’ve been wearing them with my sneaker wedges!).

Check them out here. Click below for some of our favorites.

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