is considered offensive in East Asian countries, specifically in China and the Koreas, as it is considered to be associated with Japanese militarism and Japanese imperialism during World War II.It looks more interesting, I guess, than the current Japanese flag, and as such it gets used inappropriately on t-shirts and in ad campaigns (such as by the Chicago Cubs when Kosuke Fukudome joined them in 2008).
The Korea Society and The World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh co-host an evening on New Trends in Asia for Council members and young professionals in policy, business, and foundations. Featured speakers include World Affairs Council President Steve Sokol; The Korea Society Senior Vice President, Dr. Stephen Noerper; The Asia Society’s Executive Director of Global Leadership Initiatives, Dr. Mike Kulma; and The Korea Society Assistant Director of Policy, Nikita Desai. Slides of works from the recent The Korea Society exhibition, Social Graphics: The Art of Jeski (Jeseok Yi), are on-view at The Fairmont Pittsburgh event.The Korea Society is, explains the website,
an organization that, for over 50 years, has promoted greater awareness, understanding, and cooperation between the peoples of the Unites States and Korea. From our base in New York City, we present timely and informative public programs in business, policy, education, culture, and the arts.Browse some of "Jeski's" work online at his website. (Casual observers might know him best not for his award-winning campaigns but for his ridiculous "Kimchi Prevents Flu" mask during the swine flu scare in 2009.
Our active Korean Studies program provides American educators and students with expense-paid opportunities for study and travel in Korea. The Society also programs a nationwide schedule of Korean performing-arts groups and exhibits, and a new “Korea Day” series brings discussions of business, policy, and cultural affairs to regional capitals throughout the United States. In addition, many of our programs reach national audiences through a growing online presence.
ONE of the legendary triumphs of philanthropy was Andrew Carnegie’s construction of more than 2,500 libraries around the world. It’s renowned as a stimulus to learning that can never be matched — except that, numerically, it has already been surpassed several times over by an American man you’ve probably never heard of.. . .
I came here to Vietnam to see John Wood hand out his 10 millionth book, at a library that his team founded in this village in the Mekong Delta — as hundreds of local children cheered and embraced the books he brought as if they were the rarest of treasures. Wood’s charity, Room to Read, has opened 12,000 of these libraries around the world, along with 1,500 schools.
“There are no books for kids in some languages, so we had to become a self-publisher,” Wood explains. “We’re trying to find the Dr. Seuss of Cambodia.” Room to Read has, so far, published 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.It reminded me of a Pittsburgh-based group I saw profiled on WQED some time ago, Friends of Danang. The group's goals, as published on their website, are:
It also supports 13,500 impoverished girls who might otherwise drop out of school. In a remote nook of the Mekong Delta, reachable only by boat, I met one of these girls, a 10th grader named Le Thi My Duyen. Her family, displaced by flooding, lives in a shabby tent on a dike.
When Duyen was in seventh grade, she dropped out of school to help her family out. “I thought education was not so necessary for girls,” Duyen recalled.
Room to Read’s outreach workers trekked to her home and cajoled the family to send her back to class. They paid her school fees, bought her school uniforms and offered to put her up in a dormitory so that she wouldn’t have to commute two hours each way to school by boat and bicycle.
Now Duyen is back, a star in her class — and aiming for the moon.
* Raising funds to support humanitarian projects in and around the seaport city of Danang, Vietnam.It's encouraging to see this charitable work continue decades after the war ended. So much of the American interpretation of the war focuses on its own suffering: the loss of lives, the tumultuous protests, and the upheaval of a generation. The inscription on the Vietnam Veterans Monument in Pittsburgh, for instance, reads:
* Nurturing a better understanding between the people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Danang, Vietnam.
* Presenting an opportunity for anyone who has been touched by the war in Vietnam to contribute to acts of human healing.
Welcome home to proud men and womenNo doubt a moving tribute to those who served, but trying "not to make political statements" and "not [debating]realities" ignores the scale of destruction half a world away. We don't often enough acknowledge the enormous devastation wrought on Vietnam and its neighbors, the losses suffered by American allies acting on its behalf, and the conflict their presence wrought on Pan-Asian relationships. A major part of the American response to this war in particular needs to be atonement, not simply an accounting of its own losses, and projects like Room to Read and Friends of Danang are important parts of this.
We begin now to fulfill promises
To remember the past
To look to the future
We begin now to complete the final process
Not to make political statements
Not to offer explanations
Not to debate realities
Monuments are erected so that the future
might remember the past
Warriors die and live and die
Let the Historians answer the political questions
Those who served -- served
Those who gave all -- live in our hearts
Those who are left -- continue to give
As long as we remember --
There is still some love left.
- T.J. McGarvey
Bringing alive the masterful choreography of Zhang Jianmin (House of the Flying Daggers, The Butterfly Lovers) and Chen Weiya's classic Emperor Qin's Soldiers, the Beijing Dance Company, housed at the famed Beijing Dance Academy, presents an exciting program of classical Chinese dance fused with vibrant, cutting-edge new works. Don't miss this opportunity to experience the magic and mystery of China's best dancers who have already captured Europe and Asia by storm!The show starts at 7:30 p.m., with a free "Meet the Artists" session at 6:30. Tickets start at $38, but discounts are available for current University of Pittsburgh students by using promo code Pitt1112.
[Christine] Moudry, along with four other young women, applied to participate in the New Wilmington Mission Conference's Summer Service Team. She had seen other participants take service trips and admired the powerful experiences they had.Westminster College---roughly between Pittsburgh and Erie---has a write-up of the trip on its webpage.
"I feel like I'm being called into doing mission, whether it's short term or long term, but I had never been outside of the United States before," Moudry explained. "This was a really great opportunity to go and see what that is like and be immersed in another culture. I never would have had that opportunity before."
While in South Korea, the group learned about history, politics and religious heritage, with a focus on the history and character of Korean Christianity. The students visited many sites, including prayer retreat centers, churches, a Christian school for disadvantaged children, a Buddhist temple and the royal palace.
"An outstanding memory for me was the opportunity to talk with a few young men who were North Korean defectors," Moudry said. "They had risked their lives and sacrificed several years to travel through China to the freedom of South Korea, where the government accepted them as citizens and helped them adjust to the new culture through a mentoring program. One of the men we met had only been in South Korea a year and had never met an American. That afternoon, he had a dream that he met an American and by evening, we were talking and praying with them. It was a very powerful experience."Regardless of your religious leanings, you can glean some interesting information on South Korea from the work of local missionaries, such as the Sisters of Charity, active in the country since 1960.
the Ibrahim Theater at the International House (3701 Chestnut Street), the Asian Arts Initiative (1219 Vine Street) and the Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut Street).The official site has a schedule.
