Responding to calls of increased ethnic diversity, the producers of Survivor just announced, the next season of Survivor will divide people into tribes by races. The island will contain Black, White, Latino and Asian tribes whose members will struggle with each other for dominance before trying to drive the other tribes off the island.

That’s certainly reality TV in the sense that the situation applies to many LA neighborhoods. I suppose this message of tolerance and inclusion is what America is most receptive to these days.

Vietnamese girls have strong opinions about their Japanese counterparts. I’m not sure where the image comes from, but I had variations of this conversation with three different Vietnamese girls:

“So you’re American?”

Yeah, but I live in Japan.

“Oh, so do you have a Japanese girlfriend?”

Sure, dozens of them.

“I like Japanese girls. They’re really fashionable and beautiful.”

Really?

“Oh yes. They smile a lot and seem really sweet.”

They do? …Japanese girls?

Interestingly, it’s the girls who have these high opinions of Japanese girls. In general, Vietnamese guys have no comment one way of the other.

Greetings from a beach in somewhere in southern Vietnam. I’m here swimming, scuba diving and just generally hanging out. Although the waves on this particular beach are tiny, it seems that surfing is catching on among the younger Vietnamese.

A survey commissioned by Oxygen Media found that 77% of women surveyed would rather receive a new plasma TV than a diamond solitaire necklace and that 86% of them would rather receive a new digital video camera than a pair of designer shoes.

Riiiiiight.

I smell a fix. I’m sure there are some women (somewhere) who would prefer a Cannon FinePix to a pair of Jimmy Choos, but any man who relies on this survey for gift-giving advice does so at extreme peril.