Governor’s Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs Town Hall in Pittsburgh, March 25.

The PA Governor's Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs will host a Town Hall meeting at the University of Pittsburgh on Saturday, March 25.

Please join the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs for an interactive dialogue. GACAPAA is responsible for serving as the advocate agency in the Commonwealth for our diverse AAPI communities. The Commission wants to hear about the challenges facing the AAPI communities in Greater Pittsburgh and how we can leverage our strengths to effectively advocate, promote resources and best serve our AAPI communities. Space is limited and your participation is critical. Please plan to attend. If you have specific questions or issues you want addressed please e-mail them ahead of time to tlawson at pa.gov.

The event runs from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in room 2700 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public. The required registration can be completed online.

Three-part Comparative Religions of East Asia series at Carnegie Library West End, starting March 4.

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's West End branch will hold three Comparative Religions talks on East Asia, starting March 4 with "Comparative Religious - China, Korea and Japan".

For three weeks in March, CLP-West End will host Steve Joseph — Dean of Library Services and professor of Comparative Religions at Butler County Community College — for an hour long lecture and discussion of religions in East Asia.

This first lecture will focus on the neighbors China, Korea and Japan, and touch on religious themes that are present in all three cultures, as well as how practices of the same religion, like Buddhism, differ across East Asia.

The March 11 session is on "Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism":

The second lecture in our three part comparative religion series, hosted by Steve Joseph, will examine the themes, similarities and differences between Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Each religion (or philosophy, if you prefer) exerted great influence over social, political and religious thought and practice throughout China, Korea and Japan. Learn about their origins, basic tenants and points of emphasis.

And the March 18 session on "Buddhism and Shinto":

During the third and final comparative religion lecture at CLP-West End, we will focus on Japan to examine the island nation’s differences with it’s mainland neighbors. How Buddhism evolved there and how Shinto worship came to be, and what it symbolizes, will be the focus of our religious inquiry.

The events run from 1:00 to 2:00 pm and are free and open to the public. The West End branch is located at 47 Wabash Street (map).

2006 documentary Blindsight at Carnegie Library in East Liberty, February 28, part of Silver Screen Stereotypes: Disability in Film series.

The East Liberty branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will show the 2006 documentary Blindsight on February 28, part of the library's Silver Screen Stereotypes: Disability in Film series.

Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, this documentary follows six Tibetan teenagers on their journey to climb a 23,000 foot mountain. 104 minutes.
Join us as we watch recent film portrayals of persons with disabilities and ask:

• Are the portrayals accurate?
• What’s the message being promoted?
• What film needs to be made to promote an accurate or positive image?

The ways in which individuals and groups are portrayed in popular media can have a profound effect on how they are viewed by society at large. Persons with disabilities are beginning to be portrayed more in popular cinema. Yet, many of those representations remain inaccurate and may be offensive. This film series is intended to stimulate discussion about how persons with disabilities are portrayed in film and should not be considered an endorsement of the films’ accuracy or appropriateness

The event runs from 12:00 to 3:00 pm. The library is located at 130 S. Whitfield St. (map).

Poet and writer Ocean Vuong at Pitt, February 25.

The University of Pittsburgh's F.O.R.G.E (Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment) will host Vietnamese-American poet and writer Ocean Vuong on February 25. The event starts at 6:00 pm in the William Pitt Union's Lower Lounge (map).

Kizumonogatari parts 1, 2, and 3 at Hollywood Theater in April.

Parts 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont will be the only theater in Pennsylvania to show Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu (傷物語III 冷血篇 ) when it makes its US premiere in April. The theater will also show Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu (傷物語Ⅰ 鉄血篇) and Kizumonogatari Part 2: Nekketsu (傷物語II 熱血篇) in April, both of which played at the Hollywood last year.

Tickets for the three Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu shows on April 15, 16, and 18 are available at the theater's website. Tickets for the two $15 double features of parts 1 and 2 are available there as well.

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.

Korean Film Series at Butler's Maridon Museum, March through May.

Butler's Maridon Museum announced today its South Korean Film Series, starting March 24. Four movies will run in its latest film series: 2002's The Road Home (집으로), 2015's The Beauty Inside (뷰티 인사이드), Masquerade (광해: 왕이 된 남자), and 2010's The Yellow Sea (황해). The first is The Road Home (집으로) on March 24 at 6:00 pm.

The Maridon Museum is an Asian art museum at 322 N. McKean St. in downtown Butler (map) that runs film series periodically throughout the year, in addition to art classes, book club meetings, and its regular exhibits.

Tickets still available for Korean troupe Bereishit Dance Company (브레시트무용단) at Byham Theater, March 4.

via FocusNews.

Tickets are still available for the Bereishit Dance Company's first performance in Pittsburgh on March 4 at the Byham Theater. From the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust:

In this first-ever Korean dance presentation for Pittsburgh Dance Council, the Seoul troupe Bereishit presents contemporary work that draws upon eastern Asian culture. Witness Bereishit’s amazing display of space and rhythms choreographed with kinesthetic clarity and power. Elements of street dance and multimedia add to Bereishit’s potency.

Sport meets dance in the rigorous male duet BOW, inspired by the Korean tradition of archery. The intensely physical Balance and Imbalance juxtaposes the dancers alongside some of Korea’s most revered traditional storytelling genre drummers and pansori vocalists.

Tickets range from $10 to $60. The theater is located at 101 6th St. in the Cultural District (map).

Stephan Haggard and "Hard Target: Dealing with North Korea" at Pitt, March 14.

Advance notice for a talk on North Korea at the University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center with Dr. Stephan Haggard of UC San Diego.

North Korea poses a number of challenges to the new Trump administration, from its nuclear and missile programs to the possibility of political instability. Diplomacy with North Korea is further complicated by pressing humanitarian and human rights questions and the complexities of dealing with China as a partner in negotiations with North Korea. How has the US dealt with North Korea in the past and is there a different way forward?

The talk will be held from 12:00 pm in 4130 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.

"The Trauma of ‘Liberation:' National Unity and Memory on the Ethnic Margins of Maoist China" at CMU, February 24.

Via DissertationReviews.

Dr. Benno Weiner, an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University, will present "The Trauma of ‘Liberation:' National Unity and Memory on the Ethnic Margins of Maoist China" as February's installment of the Socialist Studies Seminar. The talk runs from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in Baker Hall 246-A (map).

2016 Park Chan-wook film The Handmaiden (아가씨) at Erie Art Museum, March 8.

The 2016 Korean movie The Handmaiden (아가씨), directed by Park Chan-wook, will play at the Erie Art Museum (map) on March 8. An October four-star review on RogerEbert.com provides a summary:

Park Chan-Wook’s “The Handmaiden” is a love story, revenge thriller and puzzle film set in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s. It is voluptuously beautiful, frankly sexual, occasionally perverse and horrifically violent. At times its very existence feels inexplicable. And yet all of its disparate pieces are assembled with such care, and the characters written and acted with such psychological acuity, that you rarely feel as if the writer-director is rubbing the audience’s nose in excess of one kind or another. This is a film made by an artist at the peak of his powers: Park, a South Korean director who started out as a critic, has many great or near-great genre films, including “Oldboy,” “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Lady Vengeance” and “Thirst,” but this one is so intricate yet light-footed that it feels like the summation of his career to date.

Doors open at 6:00 pm and the movie starts at 7:00. Tickets are $5.