Jane Hyun and Wesley Yang talk about the “bamboo ceiling” on NPR, All Things Considered

Flipping through the Twitter feed this evening, I came across a re-tweet from MOCA with a link to a July 5 segment on NPR’s All Things Considered which featured Wesley Yang and Jane Hyun as guests.  Wesley Yang wrote the recent Paper Tiger article published in New York magazine and Jane Hyun wrote the book “Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling."  The re-tweet is quoted below but in case it doesn’t come through in full, here’s a link to the NPR segment: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/05/137631005/looking-at-the-bamboo-ceilling

Yang claims not to have experienced the Bamboo Ceiling but in the short segment, Michelle Norris failed to bring out that, as described in the article, Yang did not spend time in corporate America.  He does, however, talk about the Asian Playboy teaching a room full of Asians about how to pick up women and describing the Asian men instantly recognizing he Asian Playboy’s reference to "the Asian Poker Face."  Yang admits that he has an Asian Poker Face.  Norris pleaded ignorance to that description and asked Yang to explain.

Hyun’s response to the question of her encounters with the Bamboo Ceiling came in the form of an anecdote from an early point in her career, describing herself as the (stereo)typical keep-your-head-down industrious Asian who grinded out spreadsheets as she was assigned to do but noticing that one of her colleagues would routinely stop in to the boss’s office and engage in banter.  Hyun speaks in broad terms about certain cultural traits developed from her Asian upbringing that may have led to her hitting a Bamboo Ceiling on her way up the corporate ladder.

Asian Poker Face? Asian upbringing creating workplace barriers to advancement?  Does any of this sound familiar?  Is Yang in denial about a Bamboo Ceiling?  Is Hyun correct about the existence of a Bamboo ceiling?

What do you think?

quoted from aabany

RT @mocamuseum: Wesley Yang & business adviser Jane Hyun @npr on the "bamboo ceiling,” Asian assimilation, career challenges/stereotypes …