Akira at Pittsburgh Anime Film Series, February 5.

The first selection in this February's Pittsburgh Anime Film Series will be Akira (アキラ), February 5th at Toonseum downtown in the Cultural District (map). Wikipedia tells us about the film:

The film depicts a dystopian version of the city of Tokyo in the year 2019, with cyberpunk tones. The plot focuses on teenage biker Tetsuo Shima (Nozomu Sasaki) and his psychic powers, and the leader of his biker gang, Shotaro Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata). Kaneda tries to prevent Tetsuo from releasing the imprisoned psychic Akira. While most of the character designs and settings were adapted from the original 2182-page manga epic, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, pruning much of the last half of the manga. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation.

The movie starts at 7:00 pm and is free with Toonseum admission ($5 for adults). About the screening:

The film is being screened in conjunction with a special exhibition of original production art from the film, running throughout February at the ToonSeum. The screening will be followed by a lecture on Akira by film writer Joe Peacock, owner of a number of the pieces on display in the exhibition.

The other movies in the series are: 5 Centimeters Per Second (Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru, 秒速5センチメートル) on February 11, Memories on February 18, and Summer Wars (Samā Wōzu, サマーウォーズ) on February 25. They're free, and they're held on the campuses of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University. More details available at the series' official website.

As an aside: New Orientalism.

One of the hallmarks of American media coverage of East Asia over the past decade has been a new sort of Orientalism, a patronizing look at its development that preserves audiences' sense of superiority by marveling at its rapid progress, questioning implicitly how those people could do it, and comforting readers that "we" are still ahead. It's hard to watch anything about Asia on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, or even Animal Planet without repeatedly hearing how "exotic" the cultures are, while the contrast is deliberately underscored through a shamisen, erhu, or other traditional stringed-instrument in the background. It's also apparently an unwritten rule to frequently return to that theme of contrast throughout the article or video report: old versus new, tradition versus Western influence, and the stories of those left behind in the countries whose economic developments have been unparalleled this century.

Japanese film After Life (ワンダフルライフ) at Pitt, January 31.

The University of Pittsburgh's undergraduate Linguistics club Yinzling will show the Japanese movie After Life (Wonderful Life, ワンダフルライフ, in Japan[ese]) on January 31. Wikipedia says:

The movie is set in a building resembling a decrepit travel lodge or social services institution. Every Monday, a new group of recently deceased people check in, and the "social workers" in the lodge explain to each guest their situation. The newly-dead have until Wednesday to identify the single happiest memory. For the rest of the week, the workers at the institution work to design and replicate each person's chosen memory, thereby replicating the single happiest moment of that person's life, and it is filmed.

At the end of the week, the recently deceased watch the films of their recreated happiest memories in a screening room. As soon as each person sees his or her own memory, he or she vanishes to whatever unknown state of existence lies beyond and takes only that single memory with them, to live and relive for eternity.

It starts at 8:30 pm in room 324 of the Cathedral of Learning. Those interested should RSVP on the event's Facebook page.

Philadelphia cherry blossom festival postcard.

The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia recently released a couple of postcards to promote its 2013 event, held from April 1 through 26 this year. Here's the best of the bunch:



And since we're looking at that side of the state, here are a few pictures of a frozen Shofuso Japanese House and Garden.

When Kimchi Bus came to Pittsburgh (and took a nice picture).

Back when it was nice out, the Kimchi Bus visited Pittsburgh.

The Kimchi Bus is, um, a bus that was on a mission to introduce Korean kimchi by touring around the world. It found Pittsburgh back in September. Unfortunately, it didn't tell anyone, so just a few people happened across it by accident. It did give us this nice picture, though, which should hold us over until the weather gets better and until we have interesting things to write about later.

Local student earns gold medal at World Traditional Wushu Championships.

Last week the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review---and Examiner.com the month before---wrote about Gina Bao, a North Allegheny Intermediate High School student who earned a gold medal in her age group for taijijian at the World Traditional Wushu Championships in Huangshan City, China back in November.

Bao, 15, traveled with the U.S. Traditional Wushu Team to participate in the Fifth World Traditional Wushu Championships from Nov. 5 to 11, when she competed with and defeated contestants from several other countries to win the gold medal in her age group, 14 to 18.

. . .

She also won the bronze medal for females in her age group for taijiquan, or tai chi hand form, in the competition.

Both articles have decent write-ups of her training and upbringing in kung fu and other activities.

Originally a ballet dancer, Bao gave up that activity when her family recognized her talent in martial arts.

“That was really hard for me because I didn‘t like martial arts, but we (she and her father) both knew I was better,” Bao said. “I liked dance a lot more, but I was better at martial arts. In the end I chose martial arts. I love tai chi because it‘s like dance. I like to compete, and I like to win because I like to make my parents proud.”

She has won 25 domestic and international medals, according to the Tribune-Review, and will perform at the OCA Pittsburgh Lunar New Year Banquet on February 23.

Pittsburgh Taiko beginner lesson, January 19.

Pittsburgh Taiko, a local Japanese drumming group, will offer a free "crash course" for beginners tomorrow, January 19, from 2 to 5 pm at Shadyside's Winchester Thurston School (map).

During this session, you’ll be learning basic warm-ups and exercises, the proper form and technique, and then diving into your first two kumidaiko songs!

You can see and hear Pittsburgh Taiko on YouTube.

Ramen a "dining-out specialty", writes Tribune-Review.

Gone are the days when Pittsburghers had to make a field trip to Morgantown to get Japanese ramen. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review looked yesterday at several local restaurants that have recently started serving variations of the dish.

"Ai Weiwei: Activist and Visionary" movie and potluck dinner at Thomas Merton Center, January 28.

GlobalPittsburgh's twitter tells us the Thomas Merton Center will show the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry as part of a potluck-dinner-and-a-movie on January 28th. The official website describes the film and subject:

Ai Weiwei is China's most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai expresses himself and organizes people through art and social media. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down his blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention.

The film was last in Pittsburgh in September, and the Pittsburgh City Paper wrote about the subject:

Weiwei enjoys fawning attention in the West, particularly for his pointed critiques of his homeland's government, while in Beijing, his celebrity and influence is constantly checked by the authorities.

The event is from 6:30 to 8:30 and "guests should bring food and drink to share". The Thomas Merton Center is located at 5129 Penn Avenue in Friendship (map), and

works to build a consciousness of values and to raise the moral questions involved in the issues of war, poverty, racism, classism, economic justice, oppression and environmental justice.

Pirates prospect to pitch for Taiwan in 2013 World Baseball Classic.

On the 14th we learned Taiwan's (Chinese Taipei) team for the 2013 World Baseball Classic will feature Pittsburgh pitching prospect Wei-Chung Wang (王維中) as one of the 13 pitchers on the roster. Wang is twenty years old was one of two Taiwanese players signed by Pittsburgh in 2011. Like most Pirates signings, he was already injured, and underwent Tommy John surgery. Little has been written about Wang vis-a-vis the Pirates because he hasn't pitched recently, and it is impossible to speculate where he might project.

The second player signed in 2011 was catcher Chin-De Chang (張進德, written elsewhere as Jin-De Jhang), a 19-year-old who last week was ranked the #20 prospect by PiratesProspect.com. Because he is not a 34-year-old backup, it isn't clear where he figures into Pittsburgh's long-term plans. Pittsburgh's Major League roster has been relatively Asian-free, with three Japanese players and a Korean playing in the regular season, but this list from TaiwaneseBaseballPlayers.com shows five other Taiwanese players who have been in the system the last few years.