"Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China" at CMU, April 13.

Carnegie Mellon University will host Dr. Rowena Xiaoqing He on April 13 and her lecture "Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China" based on her 2014 book of the same title. A summary of the book, from Amazon:

In the spring of 1989, millions of citizens across China took to the streets in a nationwide uprising against government corruption and authoritarian rule. What began with widespread hope for political reform ended with the People's Liberation Army firing on unarmed citizens in the capital city of Beijing, and those leaders who survived the crackdown became wanted criminals overnight. Among the witnesses to this unprecedented popular movement was Rowena Xiaoqing He, who would later join former student leaders and other exiles in North America, where she has worked tirelessly for over a decade to keep the memory of the Tiananmen Movement alive.

This moving oral history interweaves He's own experiences with the accounts of three student leaders exiled from China. Here, in their own words, they describe their childhoods during Mao's Cultural Revolution, their political activism, the bitter disappointments of 1989, and the profound contradictions and challenges they face as exiles. Variously labeled as heroes, victims, and traitors in the years after Tiananmen, these individuals tell difficult stories of thwarted ideals and disconnection that nonetheless embody the hope for a freer China and a more just world.

The talk begins at 4:30 in 4307 Gates Hillman Center (map), and is free and open to the public.

Seiichi Makino and "How and why do we repeat? --- A case study of Japanese" at Pitt, April 10.

The University of Pittsburgh Department of Linguistics will host Dr. Seiichi Makino and his talk "How and why do we repeat? --- A case study of Japanese" on April 10 as part of the department's weekly colloquium series. The abstract:

My talk discusses how and why repetition operates in the Japanese language. Interestingly linguists of various persuasions have intensively analyzed deletion in language but they seldom dealt with repetition in language. Kuno (1978:8) defined the function of deletion as “lowering redundancy of a sentence by deleting information known to the listener”. It sounded as if the function of repetition were only elevating redundancy level of information. Kuno’s analysis is correct in so far as strictly semantic information is concerned, but human communication needs more than merely logical semantics. After reconsidering Makino (1980) I will bring in evidence that repetition not always leads to redundancy. Rather it has such functions of politeness, confirmation, involvement in dialogue, expression of emotion, cohesiveness, styles, idiomaticity, rhetoric, and above all “interactivity”. Towards the end of my talk I will touch upon some implications for foreign language education.

The talk will be held at 3:00 pm in 1501 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.

2015 Korean Food Bazaar, May 2 in Shadyside.

Look for 2015's Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh Korean Food Bazaar (제20회 선교바자회) on May 2, from 10:30 to 4:00 pm. The annual Korean food festival is in its 20th year, and is held at 821 S. Aiken Ave. in Shadyside (map).

"Vigilant Ethnicity: Korean Chinese Communist Party Members Encounter the Forbidden Homeland" at Pitt, April 10.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present Dr. June hee Kwon and her talk, "Vigilant Ethnicity: Korean Chinese Communist Party Members Encounter the Forbidden Homeland", on April 10. The abstract:

Since China and South Korea normalized diplomatic relations in 1992, Korean Chinese, part of an officially recognized ethnic minority group in China, have migrated to Korea in search of both long-lost family members and better working opportunities. This massive and persistent migration to Korea is commonly called the Korean Wind. Based on ethnographic research in Yanbian, China, this paper examines how the ethnic politics of Korean Chinese Communist Party members have developed in response to the Korean Wind. South Korea was long been considered a forbidden capitalist enemy. How have these party members re-conceptualized their ties to South Korea, a relationship that was used as grounds for political persecution during the Cultural Revolution? How have they dealt with the economic affluence and cultural changes brought about by the Korean Wind over the last two decades? The elderly party members I interviewed exemplify a sharp split in the politics of ethnicity that distinguishes economic intention from political position—they are highly economized by the transnational migration to Korea while at the same time intensely politicized because of their tight identification with China as socialist subjects. I argue that the combination of economic need with a sense of multiple belonging is what constitutes and generates Korean Chinese as a vigilant ethnicity. This paper details the emergence of “Yanbian socialism,” a political nexus articulated between post- Cold War circumstances, post-socialist China, and neoliberal East Asia.

Dr. Kwon is the Korea-Japan Postdoctoral Fellow in Pitt's Department of Anthropology. The talk begins in 4130 Posvar (map) at 12:00 and is free and open to the public.

University Gamelan concert at Pitt, April 11.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Music will present a concert by its University Gamelan Ensemble on Saturday, April 11. The University of Pittsburgh Gamelan Ensemble, according to its self-introduction,

plays the gamelan music of the Sundanese people, an ethnic group that inhabits roughly the western third of the island of Java. Gamelan refers to a set of predominantly percussion instruments including tuned gongs, metal-keyed instruments, and drums (as well as bowed lute and voice). Gamelan music is played as accompaniment to dance, drama, puppet theater, and martial arts, as well as for concerts of listening music. Gamelan is performed in conjunction with special occasions and to mark important life-cycle events.

The performance begins at 8:00 pm at Bellefield Hall (map). It's free for Pitt students with a valid student ID card. General admission tickets are $8.50 in advance and $12 at the door.

Lecture by Ryoji Ikeda at CMU, April 7.

A 2009 DATA.TRON exhibition, by Liz Hingley.

The Carnegie Mellon University School of Art will host Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda on April 7 as part of its 2015 Spring Lecture Series. The school profiles Ikeda, whose installation "DATA.TRON" was in Pittsburgh from July 12 through September 8, 2013:

Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the essential characteristics of sound itself and that of visuals as light by means of both mathematical precision and mathematical aesthetics. He has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. Ikeda elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, materials, physical phenomena and mathematical notions into immersive live performances and installations. His albums +/- (1996), 0? (1998), and Matrix (2001) have been hailed by critics as the most radical and innovative examples of contemporary electronic music. Currently, Ikeda is working on cyclo, a collaborative project with Carsten Nicolai.

The lecture begins at 5:00 pm in Kresge Theater (map) and is free and open to the public.

Korean movie 10 Minutes (10분) at CMU, April 8.

The Korean movie Ten Minutes (10분) will play at Carnegie Mellon University on April 8 as part of this year's CMU International Film Festival. A summary from the Busan International Film Festival, where the movie premiered in 2013:

A young man preparing for an exam to work for a broadcasting company starts to work as an intern and a junior government employee. He is only there to make some money before finding a real job, but when his boss tells him that he wants to hire him full-time, he is tempted. After going through the interview and getting congratulated from others in the office, he is shocked that the full-time position is in fact given to someone else. An older co-worker tells him that it was a set-up, and the young man decides to fight the decision. The fight for justice is not as easy as his co-worker says. The film cruelly looks on as the man stoops lower and lower, from an intern loved by both co-workers and managers, to a disgruntled employee. He is at a crossroads. Should he stay a good, social employee, or start anew as a straggler?

The event starts at 7:00 pm in McConomy Auditorium in the Jared L. Cohon University Center and includes a "post-screening discussion moderated by Seung-hwan Shin, Professor of English/Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh" and reception. Tickets are $5 for students and seniors, $10 for everyone else, and available online.

An izakaya coming to Lawrenceville?

That's what PG Plate says today:

Roger Li, the chef who has been with Tamari in Lawrenceville since the day it opened, has left to take on a new project. His last day was March 15.

His plan is to open a Japanese izakaya called Umami that will feature, "traditional Japanese dishes using modern techniques and local ingredients. Every dish will have umami flavors," he said.

Umami will have a sushi bar and a robota grill. He'll also serve ramen, housemade tofu, gyoza (Japanese dumplings) and other Japanese street food. His drink menu will include sake, cocktails and Japanese whisky.

An announcement on location is pending.

“In the Shadow of Working Men: Gendered Labor and Migrant Rights in South Korea" at Pitt, April 3.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. Hae Yeon Choo of the University of Toronto and her talk “In the Shadow of Working Men: Gendered Labor and Migrant Rights in South Korea" on April 3.

This talk will investigate the gendered production of migrant rights by examining two groups of Filipina women in South Korea: factory workers and hostesses at American military camptown clubs. Based on ethnographic research, I identify two distinct labor regimes for migrant women that were differently shaped in the shadow of working men. Divergent forms of civil society mobilization in South Korea sustained these regimes: migrant factory workers received recognition as workers without attention to gender-specific concerns while hostesses were construed as women victims in need of protection. Thus, Filipina factory workers were able to exercise greater labor and social rights by sharing the dignity of workers as a basis for their rights claims from which hostesses were excluded. Emphasizing gendered labor processes and symbolic politics, this talk will offer an analytical framework to interrogate the mechanisms through which a discrepancy of rights is generated at the intersection of workplace organization and civil society mobilization.

The talk will be held from 3:00 pm in 4130 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.

Hong Kong Film Series at Maridon Museum, April and May.

Over the weekend the Maridon Museum announced its lineup for Hong Kong Film Series running in April and May, 2015. The films are: 1978's Heroes of the East (浮城), Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express (重慶森林), 2011's A Simple Life (桃姐), and 2012's Floating City (浮城). The first movie, Heroes of the East, plays on April 10 at 6:00 pm.

The Maridon, an Asian art museum, is located at 322 North McKean St in downtown Butler (map), roughly 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. A few times a year it has Asian movies series; Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan have been subjects in recent memory.