Chinese-Indian co-production Kung Fu Yoga (功夫瑜伽), starring Jackie Chan and Lay Zhang, in Pittsburgh from February 3.

The 2017 movie Kung Fu Yoga (功夫瑜伽) will play at the AMC Loews Waterfront from February 3. A January 2017 one-star review summarizes:

Chan plays Jack, a well-respected university professor who specializes in Chinese/Indian history. Like Indiana Jones before him, Jack insists that everything valuable belongs to the world/a museum. So, after enlisting the help of his teaching assistants Zhu (Yixing Zhang) and Nuomin (Miya Muqi), Jack inevitably embarks on a quest to dig up buried treasure that takes him from Tibet's frozen tundras to Dubai's urban sprawl. Along the way, Jack's group gets attacked by Randall (Sonu Snood), a descendant of the treasure trove's owners. But conflict only ensues 40 minutes later, after Jack bores us to tears with a multi-part history lesson about the treasure's past. Chan wants to make history come alive(!) so he lectures us multiple times(!!) after an equally boring "300"-style battle sequence that pits ferocious Indian soldiers riding elephants against ingenious killing machine Chinese soldiers. A scuffle ensues, then a really dull auction for more treasure, then he drives a car with a computer-generated lion in it, and then the rest of the movie keeps right on happening.

Tickets and showtimes are available via Fandango. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.

1993 movie Sailor Moon R: The Movie (劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンＲ) at AMC Loews Waterfront, from February 3.

The 1993 movie Sailor Moon R: The Movie (劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンＲ) which played in US theaters for the first time in January, will be at the AMC Loews Waterfront theater from February 3. The distributor provides a plot summary:

Long before Mamoru found his destiny with Usagi, he gave a single rose in thanks to a lonely boy who helped him recover from the crash that claimed his parents. This long-forgotten friend, Fiore, has been searching the galaxy for a flower worthy of that sweet gesture long ago. The mysterious flower he finds is beautiful, but has a dark side- it has the power to take over planets. To make matters worse, the strange plant is tied to an ominous new asteroid near Earth! Faced with an enemy blooming out of control, It’s up to Sailor Moon and the Sailor Guardians to band together, stop the impending destruction and save Mamoru!

Tickets and showtimes are available via Fandango. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.

HarbisonWalker International hiring entry-level Mandarin-speaking Purchasing Agent for Moon Twp. location.

HarbisonWalker International is hiring a Mandarin-speaking Purchasing Agent for its Moon Township location (map).

HWI is seeking a highly motivated and qualified team member to join our Product Supply group in Integrated Supply Chain.

Product Supply group is a key contributor to HWI's vision of being "The First and Only Call" in the refractory industry. The primary responsibility of the Buyer, International Products, is to be the single point of contact for quotation, purchase, and shipment for assigned international suppliers and/or product lines. S/he will work closely with both cross-functional internal partners and external suppliers. Internal partners include Customer Service, Technical Marketing, Sales, Quality, Transportation, and Finance. External suppliers are based worldwide with a sizable network of suppliers based in China.

The Buyer will also be responsible for the creation of process and reporting documentation to track supplier performance. S/he will work closely with the cross functional teams to critically examine current process and identify opportunities for continuous process improvement as well as creating new processes and metrics.

• Provide and/or facilitate quotation of products from international vendors in a timely manner to support HWI revenue growth goals
• Process purchase orders, monitor and communicate order status and delivery dates. Process invoices. Prioritize orders for suppliers by understanding HWI business needs
• Lower freight cost to support overall cost reduction goals
• Assist in resolving issues related to assigned international suppliers and/or product lines including delivery, quality, and claims
• Identify and implement opportunities for continuous process improvement as metrics warrant

Job Requirements:
This is an entry level position with advancement opportunities for the right person.

• Intern or entry-level work experience in a supply chain function of a manufacturing company is desirable. Willingness and ability to learn is a must.
• College degree in Science, Engineering, Business, Economics, Supply Chain or related field is required.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and project management skills is required.
• Proficiency in MS Office with high skill level in MS Excel is required.
• Fluency in Mandarin Chinese is a definite plus.

Those interested may apply via the HWI website.

Twinsters, Jenny Yang part of Asian American / Pacific Islander Advocacy Week at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Students Alliance will present the 2015 documentary Twinsters and comedian Jenny Yang as part of Asian American / Pacific Islander Advocacy Week through February 3.

Twinsters, about two Korean adoptees separated at birth and reunited years later, will play on February 2 in 109 David Lawrence Hall (map) from 9:00 pm. A synopsis, via 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.

Twinsters explores the meaning of family and connection through a story that would have been impossible just 10 years ago without the creation of YouTube and Facebook.

Speaking on February 3, Jenny Yang

is a Los Angeles-based writer and stand up comedian who produces the first-ever, mostly female, Asian American standup comedy tour, Disoriented Comedy, and The Comedy Comedy Festival: A Comedy Festival, a comedy festival showcasing the best in Asian American comedic talent.

The talk starts at 6:00 pm in the William Pitt Union Lower Lounge (map). Both events are free and open to the public.

"Ecologies of Chinese Computing: A Guided Tour through Recent History" at CMU, February 7.

The Carnegie Mellon University Department of History and School of Computer Science will host Thomas Mullaney of Stanford University and his lecture "Ecologies of Chinese Computing: A Guided Tour through Recent History" on February 7.

Early in the history of computing, Western engineers determined that a 5 x 7 dot matrix grid offered sufficient resolution to print legible Latin alphabetic letters. To do the same for Chinese - a writing system with no alphabet, and whose graphemes present greater structural nuance, variation, and complexity - required engineers to expand this grid to no less than 18 x 22. In the 1960s, the development team behind ASCII (the American Standard Code for Information Interchange) determined that a 7-bit coding scheme and its 128 addresses offered sufficient space for all of the letters of the Latin alphabet, along with numerals and key analphabetic symbols and functions. Chinese characters, by comparison, in theory demanded no less than 16-bit architecture to handle its more than 70,000 characters. And of course, long ago Western computer engineers piggy-backed on the preexisting typewriter keyboard, using the two-dimensional SHIFT key to toggle between lower and uppercase letters.

By comparison, Chinese keyboard designers from the 1970s onward experimented with what might be termed “hyper-SHIFT” - 15-level SHIFT keys which transformed “flat” touchpad surfaces into hyper-dimensional Chinese character interfaces. Whether in terms of screens, printers, interfaces, character encoding schemes, optical character recognition algorithms, or otherwise, Chinese has constantly pushed to the world of computing far beyond its familiar alphabetic ecologies.

In this talk, Thomas S. Mullaney charts out the ecologies of Chinese computing, an unfamiliar terrain that remains unmapped despite China’s present-day status as a global I.T. powerhouse. Abridged Abstract: Whether in terms of screens, printers, interfaces, character encoding schemes, optical character recognition algorithms, or otherwise, the Chinese language has constantly pushed to the world of computing far beyond its familiar alphabetic ecologies. In this talk, Thomas S. Mullaney charts out the ecologies of Chinese computing, an unfamiliar terrain that remains unmapped despite China’s present-day status as a global I.T. Powerhouse.

The event begins at 4:00 pm in the McKenna, Peter, and Wright Rooms of Cohon University Center and is free and open to the public.

"Lunar New Year Celebration: Year of the Rooster" at Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, February 4.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh will host "Lunar New Year Celebration: Year of the Rooster" on February 4 from 12:00 to 4:00 pm.

In ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. Come celebrate the Chinese year 4715, the year of the Rooster, with Silk Screen Asian Arts and Culture Organization. Make art, enjoy live music, and join the Steel Dragon Lion Dance Team for a parade through the Museum!


12:00 pm: Explore caligraphy with guest artist, Ming Rui, and make a sign for the parade.

1:00 pm: Steel Dragon Lion Dance Team performs in the Art Studio. Join them for a parade into the Theater.

1:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Make Korean Yuk Sticks with Pitt Asian Studies Center in front of the Theater.

1:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Fresh Picks: Taste some of our favorite teas and learn about the Vietnamese 5 Fruit Tray tradition in front of the Theater.

2:00 pm: Learn dance moves from Yanlai Dance Academy and enjoy music by Purple Bamboo, a Chinese musical ensemble in the Theater.

The celebration is free with museum admission ($16 for adults, $14 for kids aged 2 through 18, and free for infants under 2). The museum is located at 10 Children's Way on the Northside (map).

"Cue integration in Korean fricatives: Intrinsic or learned?" colloquium at Pitt, January 27.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Linguistics will host Dr. Jonah Katz of West Virginia University and his colloquium "Cue integration in Korean fricatives: Intrinsic or learned?" on Friday, January 27.

A central question in phonetics is whether the integration of information across various acoustic cues is driven primarily by inherent properties of the auditory system, or primarily by linguistic experience with covariance of cues. Obviously, the two theories tend to make similar predictions, because cues with similar auditory effects tend to covary in speech. Here I present experimental data from Korean that tends to support a role for inherent properties of the auditory system instead of or in addition to learned covariance. In particular, I show that multiple acoustic cues involving the presence of low-frequency energy integrate in the perception of Korean coronal fricatives. The finding helps explain a surprising asymmetry between the production and perception of these fricatives found in previous studies: lower F0 onset in the following vowel leads to a response bias for plain [s] over fortis [s*], despite the fact that there is no evidence for a corresponding acoustic asymmetry in the production of [s] and [s*]. A fixed classification task using the Garner paradigm provides evidence that low F0 in a following vowel and the presence of voicing during frication perceptually integrate. This suggests that Korean listeners in previous experiments were responding to an ‘intermediate perceptual property’ of stimuli, despite the fact that the individual acoustic components of that property are not all present in typical Korean fricative productions. This in turn makes it unlikely that Korean listeners have experience with this type of covariance. The finding broadens empirical support for the general idea of auditory-driven integration to a new language, a different manner of consonant, and a situation where covariance of the acoustic cues under investigation is not generally present in a listener’s linguistic input.

The talk begins at 3:00 pm in 332 Cathedral of Learning (map) and is free and open to the public.

TOKiMONSTA at Carnegie Mellon, January 28.

Carnegie Mellon University's Activities Board will host LA-based electronic music performer TOKiMONSTA on January 28. The event starts at 7:00 in the Cohon University Center Studio Theater and is free for CMU students with a valid student ID. More information available via the Facebook event page.

"Fertility Restrictions and Life Cycle Outcomes: Evidence from the One Child Policy in China" at Pitt, January 28.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Economics will host Harvard University PhD candidate Wei Huang and his talk "Fertility Restrictions and Life Cycle Outcomes: Evidence from the One Child Policy in China" on January 28. The abstract, based on his job market paper:

I use the experience of China's One Child Policy to examine how fertility restrictions affect economic and social outcomes over the lifetime. The One Child Policy imposed a birth quota and heavy penalties for “out-of-plan” births. Using variation in the fertility penalties across provinces over time, I examine how fertility restrictions imposed early in the lives of individuals affected their educational attainment, marriage and fertility decisions, and later life economic outcomes. Exposure to stricter fertility restrictions when young leads to higher education, more white-collar jobs, delayed marriage, and lower fertility. Further consequences include lower rates of residing with the elderly, higher household income, consumption, and saving. Finally, exposure to stricter fertility restrictions in early life increases later life female empowerment as measured by an increase in the fraction of households headed by women, female-oriented consumption, and gender-equal opinions. Overall, fertility restrictions imposed when people are young have powerful effects throughout the life cycle.

The talk runs from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in 4716 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.

"Transport Infrastructure, City Productivity Growth and Sectoral Reallocation: Evidence from China" at Pitt, January 27.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Economics will host UCLA PhD candidate Yang Yang and his talk "Transport Infrastructure, City Productivity Growth and Sectoral Reallocation: Evidence from China" on January 27. The abstract, based on his job market paper:

This paper examines the impact of highway expansion on aggregate productivity growth and sectoral reallocation between cities in China. To do so, I construct a unique dataset of bilateral transportation costs between Chinese cities, digitized highway network maps, and firm-level census. I first derive and estimate a market access measure for cities in China from 1995 to 2005. I then examine the channels through which the highway infrastructure affected economic outcomes. Highways promoted aggregate productivity growth by facilitating entry of new firms and reallocation among existing firms. I estimate the aggregate economic impact of China's national highway system and find that eliminating all highways in China would decrease aggregate productivity by 3.2%. There is also evidence that the national highway system led to a sectoral reallocation between cities in China.

The talk runs from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in 4716 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.