Taxi fights in the old news: Pittsburgh almost had 대리운전, too.

Advertisements for a designated driver company lined up in Gangnam, from Sisa Channel.

Big local news in recent months has been the arrival of ride-share companies Uber and Lyft to Pittsburgh, and the pushback by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the entrenched taxi services. Several years ago, Pittsburgh briefly had another para-taxi company called BeMyDD, which functions like the designated-driver (대리운전) services ubiquitous in South Korea. From an August 26, 2010 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article:

BeMyDD (Be My Designated Driver) started operations in Pittsburgh this week after launching in three Ohio cities earlier this year, he said.
"BeMyDD is a new twist on a transportation service which gives people an affordable alternative to the usual limo or taxi. The premise is that 'We drive YOUR car, so you don't have to,' " Mr. Simanovsky said.
The company offers two services: A customer can reserve a driver ahead of time who will meet them at a location of their choice, chauffeur them around in their own car, wait for them and take them home, for $12.50 an hour.
For those who are already out and in no condition to drive, the company will dispatch two drivers to take them and their car home. That costs $25 plus $2.95 a mile for the first 10 miles and $1.50 per mile thereafter.

"I want to repay the love I received"; local adoptee pays it forward in Korea.

On March 27, Yonhap--the South Korean wire service--ran a profile on Sarah Lynch, a local woman and Korean-American adoptee who recently visited Korea and volunteered with a Seoul orphanage. The Eastern Social Welfare Society (동방사회복지회) has the story in English; an excerpt:

On May 21, a truck which was full of diapers came out at Eastern Social Welfare Society.

The person who appeared with the truck was one of ESWS adoptees, Sara Lynch(24). She was adopted to a family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when 6 months, and she has been working as a tennis coach for two years, under the influence of her father who once a tennis player.

Sara Lynch visited ESWS to present diapers to the babies waiting for a loving home. She organized this drive to pay it forward and show appreciation for the love given to her from ESWS, by putting her story on the online fundraising site and asking people join in it on Facebook.

She put on it on online fundraising site(www.gofundme.com) on January 1 for a guide of 2,000USD, however, it passed the initial goal and she finally received 5,710USD within 4 months to her surprise.
With 5,700USD, she purchased rice cereals, body lotions, toys, blankets and ointments of the worth of 1,600USD in person in the U.S.A. And she purchased 85 boxes of diapers after a discussion with Eastern Social Welfare Society with the rest of fund.

Loads of photos and stories from her visit in April and May are on her trip's Facebook page.

Carnegie Library Oakland Comics Decoded Book Club does Sunny by Taiyō Matsumoto, June 16.

Sunny, Vol. 1 cover, via Amazon.

The Comics Decoded Book Club, which meets at the Carnegie Library Oakland (map) once a month, will look at Taiyō Matsumoto's Sunny next.

"Chicken bites and bubble tea" place almost here.

Signage went up yesterday at 117 Oakland Ave. (map) in Oakland for Chick'n Bubbly, a restaurant serving "Chicken bites and bubble tea". Work started late last year on the former nail salon, and it will become the sixth Asian place on that block of Oakland Avenue between Fifth and Forbes.

Chinatown bus stop still running in Oakland.

There's a sign on the door of a papered-up Oakland storefront that reads:

Retail opportunity on the ground floor of one of
Pittsburgh's hottest technology co-working spaces
116 Meyran Avenue is available for lease

116 Meyran Avenue (map) has for years been the home of a Chinatown Bus station. In spite of the sign on the door, the bus station is still up and running, a phone call to a local ticket salesman confirmed. The daily bus to New York's Chinatown leaves at 12:20 am and costs $45 each way ($65 at the door, though $45 if you mention "George", says George).

Chinatown buses enjoyed their highest popularity here before Megabus and other alternatives to Greyhound emerged. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did a short profile on some of the lines servicing Pittsburgh in 2006, and their popularity among non-Asians given the lack of affordable intercity public transportation.

Kin Yeung of McCandless said that when he took a Fung Wah bus from New York's Chinatown to Boston, more than half of the passengers were non-Asian.

Nonetheless, "a lot of people in the Chinese community in Pittsburgh are using these bus services because they're so cheap," he said.

The Chinatown bus lines followed a business model similar to the discount lines today:

[Greyhound spokeswoman Anna] Folmnsbee said Greyhound's generally higher bus prices, for the most part, subsidized buildings and staff.

"We put a lot of money into our facilities, to make sure our passengers have a safe, comfortable, warm place to wait and customer service agents who tell you where to go to line up," she said. "Plus our passengers know we offer more schedules, a dozen to New York per day as opposed to maybe a handful."

While Ms. Folmnsbee declined to discuss how Greyhound regards the advent of low-cost Chinatown bus services, the company did sue Fung Wah in 2004 for lacking proper permits.

Google will help you learn why they aren't as popular anymore.

AppalAsia at Three Rivers Arts Fest, June 6.

AppalAsia, a Pittsburgh group that "combines the influences of Appalachian and Asian music traditions with original composition and inspired improvisation to create their unique musical voice", will perform at the Three Rivers Arts Fest on Friday, June 6, at 7:00 pm. (The festival website says 5:00, but the band says 7:00). The performance will take place at the Second Stage at Gateway Center and, like all others at the festival, will be free. The festival runs from the 6th through the 15th at several downtown locations.


A performance of "Wild Horse" in 2012, uploaded by erhu player Mimi Jong.

"The Asians Among Us".

The local papers have been running articles on immigrants recently, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Pittsburgh's economy has gained from high-skilled immigrants" on May 18 to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's "New Pittsburgh initiative attempts to bring more immigrants to city" on the 28th. Both articles feature Asian immigrants prominently, and both comment sections are ugly and xenophobic.

Historically, the local papers have, on occasion, taken interest in local Asian immigrants and communities; one such article, a four-pager called "The Asians Among Us", ran in the Pittsburgh Press on April 26, 1981. It profiles some of the earliest local community leaders from Korea, China, and Japan, though some of the stereotypes--"who said Asians are inscrutable?" and the overtly othering headline--are uncomfortable a couple generations later.

Local bonsai cultivator profiled in Post-Gazette ahead of annual show.

Ahead of the Bonsai Show next weekend, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week profiled a local bonsai cultivator, Daniel Yobp of Plum. An excerpt:

Having a Japanese roommate gave him the opportunity to visit Japan, which only fueled the flame. After graduation, he returned to Japan to live. He taught English and art while trying to learn everything he could about bonsai.

“I loved it. I started going to bonsai nurseries,” he says. “I quit my job and worked at Yoshoen bonsai nursery in Osaka. I got better and better.”

Eventually, he became skilled enough to teach bonsai classes there. Now back in the States with his Japanese wife, Mari, he’s an active member of the Pittsburgh Bonsai Society, and also one of the younger members at age 32.

At 11 a.m. June 7, Mr. Yobp will be offering a tree styling demonstration at the Bonsai Society’s annual show at the Phipps Garden Center in Shadyside.

Sukhothai Bistro opens in Squirrel Hill.

Sukhothai Bistro opened in Squirrel Hill on the 24th, in the spot formerly occupied by Cool Ice Taipei. It becomes the fifth Thai place in the neighborhood, joining Bangkok Balcony, Silk Elephant, Sun Penang, and Curry on Murray.

Cutie and the Boxer at Harris Theater, June 6, 9, and 12.

The 2013 documentary Cutie and the Boxer will play at the Harris Theater on June 6, 9, and 12 as part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival's "Art on Film 2014" series. A synopsis of the Oscar-nominated film, from the distributor's website:

A reflection on love, sacrifice, and the creative spirit, this candid New York documentary explores the chaotic 40-year marriage of renowned “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara and his artist wife Noriko. As a rowdy, confrontational young artist in Tokyo, Ushio seemed destined for fame, but he is met with little commercial success after he moves to New York City in 1969, seeking international recognition. When 19-year-old Noriko moved to New York to study art, she fell in love with Ushio—abandoning her education to become the unruly artist’s wife and assistant. Over the course of their marriage, their roles shifted. Now 80, Ushio still struggles to establish his artistic legacy, while Noriko is at last being recognized for her own art—a series of drawings entitled “Cutie,” depicting her challenging past with Ushio. Spanning four decades, the film is a moving portrait of a couple wrestling with the eternal themes of sacrifice, disappointment and aging, against a background of lives dedicated to art.

Cutie and the Boxer, as well as the other films in the series, is free and open to the public. The Harris Theater is located downtown at 809 Liberty Ave. in the Cultural District (map).