Ariba still looking for fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin speakers for overnight customer support jobs in Pittsburgh.

Ariba---"the global leader in business commerce networks, supporting more than $450 billion dollars in yearly trade between over 1 million connected companies"---is again hiring Customer Support Specialists fluent in Japanese, Korean or Mandarin to work overnight shifts in its Pittsburgh office downtown. An excerpt from the job ad, posted on July 23:

The Customer Support Specialist is the face and voice of Ariba to our customers, building relationships in each interaction. Specialists help our customers maximize the benefits of Ariba solutions to facilitate a global exchange of goods and services in the world’s largest business to business trading community. They use their expertise and collaborate with team members and customers across the globe to provide detailed solutions that exceed expectations.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provides inbound application and functional support for all relevant Ariba applications, both internally and externally, by way of email, webform and phone.
• Resolves 80% of issues without escalation.
• Respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner and within service level objectives.
• Successfully documents all requests through the CRM system while adhering to all documented procedures.
• Provides general assistance to other teams within Global Customer Support and Ariba.
• Conducts all customer interactions in a manner that presents Ariba in a positive light. Specialists are required to be respectful, fair, gracious and knowledgeable and to uphold the core values established by Ariba.
• Ensures that individual performance meets or exceeds the department standards.
• All other duties as assigned.

Basic Minimum Qualifications

•Bachelor’s degree or 2-year Technical school degree preferred
•Fluency in Chinese (Mandarin), Korean and Japanese

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical aptitude. Knowledge in computer hardware and software applications along with experience using the Internet.
• Minimum of 1 year work experience preferred.
• Customer focus and stress tolerance.
• Superior communication and telephone skills.
• Friendly presence and helpful attitude; good interpersonal skills and ability to work well with others.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to adapt support style to align with the technical capabilities of the customer.
• Previous customer service experience strongly desired.
• Fluency in at least one foreign language is highly desirable.
• Experience or education in working with individuals from diverse cultures preferred.
Ariba, Inc. is an EEO/Affirmative Action employer and does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected category.

The shifts are 7:00 pm to 4:00 am or 8:00 pm to 5:00 am, in order to accommodate East Asian time zones. More details are in the job ad, and those interested and qualified may apply online.

Kang fan.

Earlier this month, Pittsburgh Pirates play-by-play announcer Greg Brown retweeted a gift he received from Sunshin Kim (김선신), a sports reporter with MBC in South Korea who was doing a piece on .

Thanks for the gift, Sunshine & the team at MBC Korea! Enjoyed the interview about Pgh media's take on Jung Ho. pic.twitter.com/iEsB7gFiCs

— Greg Brown (@gbrowniepoints) July 7, 2015

The fan showed up on Roots Sports as well.



Via a collection of MBC Sports coverage of Kang through mid-July.

Boruto: Naruto the Movie at Hollywood Theater in October.

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont announced today on Facebook that it will be the only city in Pennsylvania to show Boruto: Naruto the Movie when it is released in the US this October. A brief summary from Wikipedia:

It is part of the larger Start of a New Era Project (新時代開幕プロジェクト Shinjidai Kaimaku Purojekuto) to commemorate the series' 15th anniversary. The film, first teased in the post-credits scene of the previous film, The Last: Naruto the Movie, will tell about the next generation of ninja, in particular Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuga's son, Boruto, and Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno's daughter, Sarada, both of whom were introduced in the final chapter of the manga series.

The movie will be released in Japan on August 7, and will play at the Hollywood Theater on October 10, 11, and 13. Screenings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. Showtimes and ticket information are 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.

Twinsters at AMC Loews Waterfront from July 31.

Twinsters, a 2015 movie about twin Korean adoptees separated at birth and reconnected years later through a random YouTube discovery, opens at the AMC Loews theater in the Waterfront on July 31. The synopsis, from the movie's official site:

In February 2013, Anaïs Bordier, a French fashion student living in London, stumbled upon a YouTube video featuring Samantha Futerman, an actress in Los Angeles, and was struck by their uncanny resemblance. After discovering they were born on the same day in Busan, Korea and both put up for adoption, Anaïs reached out to Samantha via Facebook. In Twinsters, we follow Samantha and Anaïs’ journey into sisterhood, witnessing everything from their first meeting, to their first trip back to Korea where their separation took place.

The movie is currently scheduled to run there through August 4. The theater is located at the Waterfront shopping center in Homestead (map), across a bridge from Pittsburgh. Showtimes and ticket information are available on the theater's website.

Asian-style karaoke/ktv/노래방 coming to Squirrel Hill.

A new Asian-style karaoke place is coming to Squirrel Hill. Construction appears to finally be underway at 6316 Forbes Ave. (map), near the corner of Shady Ave., on "C & Z Ktv".



The latest building permit on the window dates to May 28, 2015, and calls for "Interior renovations to 1832 sq ft for recreation and entertainment (limited) in one story structure for karaoke". The owners are the proprietors of "Dragon Chinese Restaurant" in Verona.

The area's first Asian-style karaoke place, K-Box, opened on South Craig St. in Oakland in September 2012. A few Korean restaurants in the area have karaoke, but do not offer the small, private rooms ubiquitous throughout East Asia.

Tomodachi Ties Through Taiko concert and farewell reception, August 15.

A concert and farewell reception for a group of 12 exchange students from Aichi Prefecture, Japan will be held on August 15. The cohort from Nihon Fukushi Daigaku High School will visit Pittsburgh for one week "to practice taiko drumming with Pittsburgh Taiko and students from CAPA and Allderdice High Schools for the TOMODACHI Ties Through Taiko program", according to the latest Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania newsletter. The concert and farewell reception will start at 3:00 pm at the Pittsburgh CAPA School downtown:

See the results of the students' hard work this week at a joint performance by Pittsburgh Taiko, the Pittsburgh students, and the Japanese students. A Farewell Reception directly following the concert will wish the students safe travels on their trip back to Japan.

The visit is part of the TOMODACHI Initiative, formed by the US Embassy in Tokyo and the U.S.-Japan Council,

a public-private partnership, born out of support for Japan’s recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake, that invests in the next generation of Japanese and American leaders through educational and cultural exchanges as well as leadership programs.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (二十四時間の情事) at Melwood Screening Room, August 5.

The 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour (二十四時間の情事) will play at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland (map) on August 5, one day ahead of the anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A summary from a 2014 Village Voice review:

Emmanuelle Riva is a haunted French actress on location in Japan; Eiji Okada is a married architect indulging her for a two-day impromptu, and as their memories and stories commingle, the past — of the Hiroshima bombing and of occupied-Europe guilt and heartbreak — rises like floodwaters. Bedevilingly stylish even as it flirts with neurotic navel-gazing, Resnais's ruminative classic is merely the first salvo in his career's exploration of why we shape life into storytelling — and how sometimes we fail.

A 1960 New York Times review:

A viewer, it must be stated at the outset, needs patience in order to appreciate the slow but calculated evolvement of the various levels of the film's drama, despite its fine, literal English subtitles. Neither M. Resnais nor Mlle. Duras are direct in their approach.

For the first fifteen minutes, our lovers, in intimate embrace, seemingly are savoring the ecstacies of their moment. Simultaneously, however, they are discussing Hiroshima, the 200,000 dead, the remembrance (shown in harrowingly stark newsreel and documentary footage of that monumental holocaust) of that frightful period in history. It is, in striking effect, an oblique but vivid reminder of the absolutes of love and death.

The showtimes are not yet posted, but will eventually be on the theater's website. August 5

Welcome Picnic for students from Nihon Fukushi Daigaku High School, August 8.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania will host a Welcome Picnic for 12 students visiting from Nihon Fukushi Daigaku High School on August 8. From the JASP newsletter:

Twelve students will be coming to Pittsburgh from Mihama, Aichi Prefecture, to practice taiko drumming with Pittsburgh Taiko and students from CAPA and Allderdice High Schools for the TOMODACHI Ties Through Taiko program.

The Welcome Picnic will be held at Prospect Shelter in Schenley Park (map) on August 8 at 12:00 pm. Online RSVP is requested by July 31. A concert and farewell reception will be held on August 15 at the Pittsburgh CAPA School downtown (map).

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 70 Years Later" at Dormont Public Library, August 8.

The Dormont Public Library will host "Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 70 Years Later" on August 8.

In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we proudly present a tribute to Japanese history and culture. This special event, offered in partnership with the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania, is a reflection of this significant period in history and will highlight the many unique aspects of Japanese culture.

This program is recommended for individuals in 3rd grade and up and will feature an interactive demonstration of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, performance of the beautiful koto musical instrument, and unveiling of a special project completed by members of the library staff and volunteers from the public and the Origami Club of Pittsburgh over the course of several months.

Registration is requested and can be done through the Facebook page or by calling 412.531.8754. The library is located at 2950 W. Liberty Ave. (map), and a five-minute walk south of Potomac Station on the T.

Pittsburgh Taiko and Rashomon at Row House Cinema, July 25.

Pittsburgh Taiko, a local Japanese drumming group, will perform at the Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville on July 25 before the evening's showing of the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon. The performance begins at 7:15 pm. Tickets are $9, and more information is available at the event's Facebook page.

A synopsis of the film, from a 2002 Roger Ebert review:

The film opens in torrential rain, and five shots move from long shot to closeup to reveal two men sitting in the shelter of Kyoto's Rashomon Gate. The rain will be a useful device, unmistakably setting apart the present from the past. The two men are a priest and a woodcutter, and when a commoner runs in out of the rain and engages them in conversation, he learns that a samurai has been murdered and his wife raped and a local bandit is suspected. In the course of telling the commoner what they know, the woodcutter and the priest will introduce flashbacks in which the bandit, the wife and the woodcutter say what they saw, or think they saw--and then a medium turns up to channel the ghost of the dead samurai. Although the stories are in radical disagreement, it is unlike any of the original participants are lying for their own advantage, since each claims to be the murderer.

And a 1951 New York Times review writes:

Much of the power of the picture—and it unquestionably has hypnotic power—derives from the brilliance with which the camera of director Akira Kurosawa has been used. The photography is excellent and the flow of images is expressive beyond words. Likewise the use of music and of incidental sounds is superb, and the acting of all the performers is aptly provocative.

Row House Cinema is showing four classic Akira Kurosawa films from July 24 through July 30 in a film series dedicated to the director. 1961's Yojimbo (用心棒), 1949's Stray Dog (野良犬), 1958's The Hidden Fortress (隠し砦の三悪人), and Rashomon (羅生門). A schedule and ticket information are available on the theater's website. The theater is located at 4115 Butler St. (map).