Asians Create Own End of Year Holiday

'Grundel' Debuts as a time of Giving and Family, Street Fighter II

In an effort to integrate into Western culture, the University of Michigan's Asian American Association (UMAAA) gave final approval yesterday to "Grundel," a new year-end Asian American holiday slated for December 27th.

Asians have felt left out of the holiday season for decades. "Everyone has some type of Christmasy holiday except we Asians," said Jason Ching, president of UMAAA. "I mean come on, Christians have Christmas, Jews have 'long Christmas with sensible gifts' (Chanukah), the African students have 'Christmas with a red, green and black motif' (Kwanzaa), Muslims have '30 days of giftless Christmas with fasting' (Ramadan), and Indian students have 'Christmas in October with firecrackers' (Diwali). Even wacked out zombies have Voodoo Murder Day-it's time for Asians to get in on this."

In an effort to fill this void, a delegation representing the many different Asian subgroups on campus created Grundel, the holiday of holidays for Asian students. In order to please all of the different cultures, however, the UMAAA had to choose the broadest of themes and the most racist of Asian stereotypes.

"Grundel represents a time of reflection, giving, and playing lots of pool and smoking," said LS&A junior Julie Shen, the organizer of the first Grundel events. "The occasion is marked by an exchange of presents, a period of intense violin practice, then a session of low impact martial arts."

Some in the Asian community have questioned the stereotypical nature of Grundel, but others feel that reinforcing stereotypes is a cost worth incurring for the benefits of the season.

"I wasn't sure if I was comfortable watching a Chow Yun-Fat movie or studying for a standardized test every December 27th just to get into the holiday spirit," said Engineering senior Brian Yu. "But then I realized that it's like how Christians pretend to go to church every year so they can take off of work and go skiing in Colorado for the rest of the week. For winter fun like that I'll even pretend to like egg rolls!"

Christian Asians are especially excited about potentially receiving two sets of holiday gifts. "I already celebrate Christmas," said Chin. "The addition of Grundel allows us to double our winter holidays, just like black Christians or those Jews for Jesus. Now I can get two sets of tight white T-shirts and black pants."

Grundel's organizing committee is beginning a search for a significant spiritual event that Asians can pretend happened some December 27th long ago. Proposals can be submitted until December 16th. "It's suggested that the event have some sort of quasi-religious significance," said Chin. "It would be nice if it provided some plausible reason for being excessively materialistic. At least that way we'll have more of an excuse than everyone else."

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