Singaporean film Ilo Ilo (爸妈不在家) at Northland Public Library, May 13.

The May installment of Northland Public Library's Foreign Film Series is the Singaporean film Ilo Ilo (爸妈不在家) on May 13. A summary from the Three Rivers Film Festival, where the movie played in 2013:

Set in Singapore during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, this delightful film chronicles the day-to-day drama of the Lim family – troublesome grade-schooler and his overstressed parents. Comfortably middle-class and with another baby on the way, they hire Teresa, a Filipino immigrant, as a live-in maid and nanny. An outsider in both the family and Singapore itself, Teresa struggles to manage the boy's antics and find her footing in her new community. The two eventually form a unique bond, but just as Teresa becomes an unspoken part of the family, unforeseen circumstances arise.

The movie will play at Northland from 1:30 pm, and the library is located off of McKnight Road and Rt. 19 in McCandless Township (map). The film is free and open to the public.

Kang gets first hit of Major League career.

From 스포츠조선.

On Sunday, Jung-ho Kang (강정호) hit a single off Milwaukee's Kyle Lohse in the 7th inning. The hit was Kang's first in Major League Baseball, and made him the first Korean to record a hit in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. Kang is the second Korean to play for Pittsburgh in the regular season, following pitcher Chan-ho Park in 2010.

University of Pittsburgh hiring part-time instructors of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean for Fall 2015.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures is hiring part-time instructors of Chinese for the Summer 2015 and Fall 2015 terms, and instructors of Japanese and Korean for the Fall 2015 semester:

EALL anticipates openings for part-time instructors in the Chinese language program beginning in the summer 2015 or in the fall of 2015. Candidates must have native language proficiency, hold at least a college degree, and be authorized to work for the University.Prior experience in teaching foreign languages and familiarity with language pedagogy or linguistics is highly preferred. If interested, please contact Juchun Wei at juchun@pitt.edu. A resume or CV is required for initial screening and candidates with desirable qualifications will be contacted for interviews in March/April 2015.

PTI positions in Japanese Language EALL anticipates openings for part-time instructors in the Korean language program beginning in the fall of 2015. Candidates must have native language proficiency, hold at least a college degree, and be authorized to work for the University. Prior experience in teaching foreign languages and familiarity with language pedagogy or linguistics is highly preferred. If interested, please contact David Mills at dom@pitt.edu. A resume or CV is required for initial screening and candidates with desirable qualifications will be contacted for interviews in April/May 2015. PTI positions in Korean Language EALL anticipates openings for part-time instructors in the Korean language program beginning in the fall of 2015. Candidates must have native language proficiency, hold at least a college degree, and be authorized to work for the University. Prior experience in teaching foreign languages and familiarity with language pedagogy or linguistics is highly preferred. If interested, please contact Mi-Hyun Kim at kimmh@pitt.edu. A resume or CV is required for initial screening and candidates with desirable qualifications will be contacted for interviews in April/May 2015.

Hong Kong film Five Deadly Venoms (五毒) at Hollywood Theater, April 11.

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont will show the 1978 Hong Kong kung fu movie Five Deadly Venoms (五毒) on Saturday, April 11. A 2009 A.V. Club review provides a summary:

The needlessly complicated plot has the dying master of the notorious “Poison Clan” sending Chiang Sheng, his final student, out to track down five of his former protégés. Each of the five was taught a different combat style: Centipede, also referred to as “thousand hands,” is known for the quickness of his strikes; Snake lashes out at opponents with clawed fingers; Scorpion can paralyze his adversaries with a few piercing kicks; Lizard has the ability to walk on walls and attack from them; and Toad has a defensive style that repels all blades and bends solid metal. Because their identities are unknown beyond their masks, finding them isn’t easy, and harder still is figuring out which are good guys and which are corrupt, treasure-stealing thugs. Then it’s up to Chaing to combine the skills of all five men to bring honor to his late master’s disgraced house.

Tickets for the 11:00 pm show are $5 and available online. The theater is located at 1449 Potomac Ave. in Dormont (map), and is accessible by Pittsburgh's subway/LRT at a block south of Potomac Station.

Heroes of the East (浮城) at Maridon Museum, April 10.

The Maridon Museum will show the 1978 Hong Kong movie Heroes of the East (浮城) on April 10 as part of its Hong Kong Film Series. LoveHKFilm provides a plot summary:

An arranged marriage between a proud Chinese man and a fiery Japanese woman leads to a variety of domestic squabbles, numerous cross-cultural misunderstandings, and a martial arts battle of epic proportions in this entertaining Shaw Brothers fight fest from master director Lau Kar-Leung.

The film is presented by Dr. William Covey of Slippery Rock University. The Maridon, an Asian art museum, is located at 322 North McKean St in downtown Butler (map), roughly 40 miles north of Pittsburgh.

2015 Chinese movie Let's Get Married (咱们结婚吧) at Waterfront.

The 2015 Chinese movie Let's Get Married (咱们结婚吧 is now playing at the AMC Loews theater at the Waterfront (map) from Thursday, April 9. The movie was released in the US on April 3 and is based on a 2013 Chinese drama. A synopsis, from the distributor's site:

Wenwen, the owner of a bridal boutique, longs to find Mr. Right and walk down the aisle in one of her beautiful wedding gowns. Yi Wen, a violinist, wavers over her engagement after meeting a mysterious man in a foreign country. Lei Xiao, an airport employee, tries to force her pilot boyfriend to marry her. And Hai Xin, a successful business woman, finds herself in a broken marriage and unexpectedly pregnant. Based on the hugely popular Chinese TV series of the same name, Let's Get Married follows the lives of four couples looking for love and to find that special someone to say "I do."

Tickets and showtimes are available at the theater's website.

TOP Shabu Shabu & Lounge menu.

Analytics tells me that people are finding this site in search of the TOP Shabu Shabu & Lounge menu. Here is what is available on their door:



TOP Shabu Shabu is located at 114 Atwood St. in Oakland (map), and soft opened on March 24. The Pitt News, the student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh, ran a profile on the restaurant in January:

Andrew Khoo, the restaurant’s manager, said although they named the new restaurant after Shabu-shabu, a Japanese style of dining, yet Top Shabu’s hot pot style is traditionally more Chinese.

Customers will order a “hot pot” and whatever meats and vegetables they would like to eat, which servers will bring to the table. Customers will then cook the food using the hot pot, a metal container filled with broth and heated by an electric coil, and eat their food at their table. In hot pots, the food is cooked while the pot simmers. Thinly sliced beef is the traditional choice, Khoo said, but Top Shabu will offer a variety of meat and vegetable options.

“All food is cooked at the table,” Khoo said.

According to Khoo, Top Shabu’s bar will offer Asian-inspired drinks.

“We have a 10 tap system from the previous owner,” Khoo said. “We’ll also have a variety of wine and a large variety of liquor for unique mixed drinks. The mixed drinks will have an Asian influence. For example, melon liqueur is used a lot in China.”

"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).