Read a book written by an Asian author.
That's it.
That's literally all you have to do.
It's the bare minimum, and some people can't even do that. [Coughs]
[Intro music]
The downside of living in New York now is that I take even longer to film
because there's always a car honking, revving their engine,
or someone yelling or singing outside.
Such as the beauty of the city.
If you're new here, Asian Readathon is a month-long readathon
dedicated to reading books that feature Asian characters
or are written by Asian authors, or preferably, both.
A lot of publishing industry is heavily slanted towards
promoting books by white authors or feature white characters.
So this is really a way to challenge all of us to read more diversely
and focus more specifically on Asians.
So this takes place during the month of May
because May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,
but obviously, I want this readathon
to celebrate Asians of all over the world as well.
So you don't have to read about Asian Americans,
you don't even have to be from America.
This is a 100% online event, anyone can join.
I started this when I first joined YouTube, which was four years ago.
So this is the fourth time that Asian Readathon will be running.
In this video,
I'll be giving you all the information you need to know about Asian Readathon
including the new challenges for this year.
The read alongs that you can participate if you want to join any book clubs.
And join other people who are reading Asian books.
I'll also talk about the huge directory that we have on StoryGraph
where you can add books by Asian authors.
It is categorized by different ethnicities
so you won't have any trouble reading diversely
because you can have so many new options to choose from.
Another great way of supporting Asians is when a sponsor supports an Asian YouTuber.
Like Native, a brand that has decided to sponsor this very video.
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Now let's talk about the nitty-gritty for Asian Readathon.
First things first, everything you need to know about Asian Readathon
is also in this Google doc that I will link in the description.
Technically, you don't even need to watch this video.
But if you want to help your girl out with the ad revenue,
you can go ahead and keep on watching.
But all the information will be in a Google doc so you don't need to rewatch
unless, again *ehem* ad revenue.
Let's talk about the challenges because they are something different every year.
And every year I do try to make them as easy as possible
because I want everyone to be able to participate.
And I personally am a very lazy reader.
So as I was thinking about the new challenges for this year,
I thought it might be fun to base it around a theme
just so that we have something a little bit different every year.
So the theme for this year is going to be loosely based
on Everything Everywhere All at Once.
I watched this movie in theaters last weekend and it was amazing.
It stars an Asian woman in her late 50s who discovers the multiverse
and that she's lived several different alternate lives in different universes,
and she becomes this unlikely hero who has to save the world.
So the first challenge is something that's pretty much a staple every year
and that is read a book written by an Asian author.
That's it. That's literally all you have to do.
It's the bare minimum.
And some people can't even do that. [Coughs]
How I'm tying this to the movie though is that it initially caught my eye
because I saw an interview clip with the main actress from the movie
who said that when she first read the script,
which was written by the Asian director,
she really felt like this was such an important role for her
because it truly showed what she was capable of.
She could finally show her friends and her family and her fans
all the different layers who a character
instead of being confined to a one dimensional role
or being typecast as something.
She really felt like she could be
a fully developed human being through this character
and truly show off her acting chops.
And that just goes to show how important it is
to read stories written by people of color, including Asian writers.
Challenge number two is to read a book featuring an Asian character
who is a woman and/or an older character.
This is based on the fact that in this movie,
the main character is a 59 year old woman.
We don't often get to see Asian women leading their own stories.
And we especially rarely ever get to see older Asians,
which is a shame because women and older people and older women
still have so many stories to tell.
If you're wondering what constitutes as an older character
that is really up to your interpretation, like all these challenges are going to be.
So if you would consider this character to be an older character
than you would normally see in stories,
then you can count that towards the challenge.
For example, I recently read Convenience Store Woman,
which is a novella featuring a woman in her 30s.
Being 36 isn't necessarily old.
However, that is a huge part in the novella
because people kind of see her as an older woman,
and shame her for still being single and not having a career.
So I still feel like that book would be fitting for this challenge.
Challenge number three is to read a book written by an Asian author
that has a universe that you would want to experience
or a universe that is totally different from yours.
Again, this challenge is totally up to interpretation,
an easy one would be to read a fantasy book written by an Asian author,
because that is definitely a universe that is very different from ours.
But you could still read a contemporary or romance book or whatever,
as long as the "universe" has something that you would want to experience
or is different from yours.
It's like how in the movie,
the main character sees the snippets of her in other universes
where she's a chef or she's a famous singer.
And part of her really wishes she could have been in that universe
instead of experiencing her own one where she's having a shitty life.
So this challenge is for you to find what universe you want to experience.
Challenge number four is based on the iconic googly eyes
that you might see whenever there is a promotional poster or clip about this movie.
There's a significance to the googly eyes, but I won't say any further
because I don't want to share spoilers about the movie.
But that has inspired the fourth reading challenge,
which is to read a book written by an Asian author
that has a cover worthy of googly eyes.
Basically, that just means read a book that has a pretty cover.
This is a book that you just want to stare at.
There are lots of beautiful books that cover this.
Ranging from books by Emily X.R. Pan, or maybe Axie Oh, or maybe Julie Dao.
There are tons of book covers out there that are beautiful,
and it just makes reading more fun when you have something pretty to look at.
And then the final challenge is based on the fact that this movie
has had extremely high ratings from critics.
It is the top movie rated on Letterbox and Rotten Tomatoes with a 97%.
So for this prompt, we will read a book written by an Asian author
that is either highly rated, whether that's on good reads or StoryGraph
or whatever book review websites there are.
Or a book by an Asian author that is highly recommended by someone.
That could be your friend, your family, a BookTuber that you see online,
a blogger that you found through Google.
Literally anybody, as long as it is recommended or praised in some way.
That's definitely why I decided to finally watch the movie over the weekend
because I rarely go to movie theaters since they're so expensive now.
But I had heard universal praise for this movie.
And I knew I had to check it out so I could be blown away.
Now it's very rare to find a book that has universal praise.
You don't have to be that strict about it.
Again, it's very up to your interpretation on what a "high rating" constitutes.
If you consider it high, then that would count as a book for you.
If somebody told you that this book is good,
whether it's someone you know in real life or someone on the internet,
then that counts to.
Another part to make your lives easier
is the fact that you can combine any of these challenges too.
So theoretically, I could read a book
with a pretty cover that features a woman or an older character,
that's written by an Asian author,
that has a universe that I want to experience,
and was recommended by someone,
I could read a book that covers all those challenges
and I will complete Asian Readathon.
However, there is a twist if you decide to read more than one book.
Even though you can combine challenges and you can read your books in any order,
I would like to challenge you to make sure to read each book
by an author of a different ethnicity.
This is really to encourage cultural diversity
because there's so many different types of Asians out there
and a very common misconception is that Asians are all the same.
Or Asians are just Japanese, Chinese, and Korean,
when there are literally so many types of ethnicities out there.
A big source of proof for that
is if you look at the StoryGraph list of recommendations that we have
because you will see all the different authors based on different ethnicities.
So for example, let's say I decide to read Convenience Store Woman for Asian Readathon
and I want to combine challenges to make my life easier.
So this follows challenge number one, read a book by an Asian author,
the author is Japanese.
Read a book featuring an Asian woman or an older character,
this protagonist in the book follows both of them.
This book does have a universe
that I would consider it to be totally different from mine
because I do not work as a convenience store worker
and I have never been to Japan.
And this book was highly enjoyed by one of my friends Chanel.
The challenge that it doesn't quite follow though is that
it doesn't have a cover that I would consider to be pretty,
that I would want to stare at with my googly eyes.
So I would want to read another book to fulfill that challenge.
However, if I decide to pick up another book written by a Japanese author,
that wouldn't count towards the challenge because I'm only reading Japanese authors
and this ain't Japanese Readathon, it's the Asian Readathon.
So I should pick an author of a different ethnicity.
And there's tons of options out there.
So it should not be difficult at all.
So you're probably trying to figure out
what books you should be reading for this readathon
and compiling your reading list at the moment.
And you probably want suggestions or recommendations.
And this is where StoryGraph is going to come in.
So last year, I built this directory of Asian books on StoryGraph.
And this page is essentially a very easy way
for people to add their own book recommendations.
And it is categorized by different ethnicities.
All of this is user submitted so you can contribute with your own recommendations,
or you can scroll through and look at what other people are adding.
If you want to add books to the directory,
I will paste a clip from last year's video that teaches you how to do that.
They're called challenge prompts on the website.
But I'm actually cheating it a little bit
so that I can use it as just like, general book recommendations,
because each section is divided by different author ethnicity.
And as you can see, there are a bunch of books added to each section.
If you scroll down past all the ethnicities,
you also can see that I added LGBTQ+ authors, nonfiction books,
graphic novels, books translated from their native language.
If you click on any section,
you can see all the book covers and the tags that are listed along each book
so that gives you a general idea of whether you're interested in the book or not.
Once you make an account on StoryGraph,
all you have to do is first join the Asian Readathon challenge.
You can just do that by clicking on the link in my Google doc
or in my video description.
And then after you join it, type any book that you want to add to the list.
So for example, I am going to search up In the Vanishers’ Palace,
which is by a Vietnamese author and is also LGBTQ+ according to the tag.
While I'm on the book page, I scroll down,
and on the left side, it says Add to your reading challenge,
I click on Asian Readathon.
Now I see all these categories.
So I'm going to search Vietnamese authors. So I can add that.
And I'm going to search LGBTQ+ authors.
Then you click on save changes.
Now when you look at the page,
you can see that the book is added there.
And now other people can see the book is listed in those categories
and they might be interested in picking it up too.
But something new that I have added this year is a second StoryGraph link
that is specifically dedicated to the reading challenges of this year.
So that way, if you have a StoryGraph account,
you can track your reading challenges
by joining the 2022 Asian Readathon challenges.
Then you can track your progress
and you can see what other people have added to the prompts,
which is great because if you don't know what book you want to read
for a specific challenge,
like for example, what pretty covers are out there,
you can go through the page and see what other people have added
and you might be inspired to read it too.
Basically to summarize, there are now two StoryGraph links.
One of them is a big directory of tons of Asian books
organized by different ethnicities.
And then the other is more focused on the five specific challenges
that you can add on to track your reading progress
or see what other people have added.
So that's pretty much the main stuff that I wanted to talk about for this video.
But there are some few fun things that I want to point out too.
If you are interested in joining a book club
or doing a read along with other people,
in my Google doc in my description,
I will have a list of read alongs from different book clubs
that are reading Asian books during May.
And if you have a book club that plans on reading an Asian book during May,
you can go ahead and message Asian Readathon on Twitter
and that will be added on the Google doc as well.
Speaking of Twitter, you can follow the readathon, @asianreadathon.
And if you tweet about the readathon and your progress, you may be retweeted.
If you post a YouTube video that talks about what you plan on reading
or you decide to vlog your experience or you do a wrap up or whatever,
just make sure to tag it as Asian readathon or put it somewhere in the title
and it will be added to the big 2022 Asian Readathon playlist.
And if you're looking for other resources to pick up some books,
at the end of my Google doc there is a list of things to check out
like audiobooks that are available on Spotify
or blog posts that have recommendations for Asian books to check out.
And I think that is pretty much it for what I have to announce.
If you're wondering what I plan on reading during the month of May,
I actually have no idea. [Laughs]
I just barely put together all these rules for Asian Readathon
but I haven't even thought that far yet to what I plan on reading.
I look forward to seeing what you will be reading in the month of May
as I try to figure it out too.
Go ahead and unsubscribe from my channel and goodbye.
[Music: After Image - I'MIN]