BANANA Magazine
NEWS STORIES
VANCOUVER LIFE TM
by MALCOLM PARRY
Mark Simon, Karen Young Jory Levitt marked their Banana
magazine's first anniversary. - Malcolm
Parry Vancouver magazine Summer 2002
Capturing
its own readers's warp-speed hipness is a new quarterly magazine, Banana.
This lifestyle mag for Asian Canadian youth mines a deep
sardonic vein of humour. It's self-mockery starts with the name: these kids,
it tells us, refer to themselves as bananas -- yellow on the outside, white on
the inside.
Banana's summer "Skin" theme issue has enviable
boldness. It includes an interview with newscaster Lily Kwan from Toronto's
Naked News, and dryly funny rants against the stereotypes of being small
busted and small peckered. Consumer pieces on skin whiteners and eyelid
surgery plus sharp fashions fill in with balance and practicality.
Maybe it's time for all of us to pass on In Style and it's
slavish American celeb-chasing. The newest nightspots, clothing lines, and
stuff that's confused us for years are in Banana.
For example, that white china cat with one lifted paw seen
in restaurant windows? It's "Maneki Neko" a bringer of luck. Did you
know television's Iron Chef uses Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean Sauce in his cooking
"all the time" or that Ricky Martin and Ewan McGregor aren't
circumcised? Banana, $4.95, at newsstands. Made in Canada.
by Kerry Moore The
Province 17 June 2002
Intelligence Online | CANADA 
