Storytime: Chinese & English, November 25 in Squirrel Hill.

This month's installment of Storytime: Chinese & English will be held on Saturday, November 25 at the Carnegie Library in Squirrel Hill.

Celebrate our city’s diverse culture as we explore new words through songs, action rhymes and stories in both English and Chinese. For children birth – 5 years and their caregivers.

It runs from 11:00 to 11:30 am and is free and open to the public. The library is located at 5801 Forbes Ave. in Squirrel Hill (map) and is accessible via buses 61A, 61B, 61C, 61D, 64, and 74.

Chinese movie Explosion (引爆者) opens in Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving.

The 2017 Chinese movie Explosion (引爆者) will open in Pittsburgh on November 23. The Hollywood Reporter provides a summary of the film that closed the 2017 Shanghai International Film Festival in June:

More thriller than actioner, and influenced by stylish art cinema more than Hollywood, it starts off with quite a bang. In the claustrophobic bowels of a mine, a blast goes wrong and sends a flaming fireball racing through the shaft in a brief but effective disaster scene that leaves four workmen dead and the audience hungry for more.

Duan Yi-hong . . . is gritty and glammed down as experienced blast technician Zhou Yu-dong. He's stunned and injured by the explosion, but instead of rushing him to the nearest hospital, his gangster-boss Li Yi knocks him down for screwing up, then throws hush money at him. The four victims, who are seen only from their burnt feet, are quickly buried.

Zhou is too expert not to smell a rat. Exiled from the mine, he moodily hangs around a local eatery run by his eye-catching girlfriend . . . until he makes up his mind to investigate what really happened.

The movie plays in Mandarin with English subtitles. Tickets and showtime information are available online 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.

New restoration of 1953 Japanese movie Ugetsu (雨月物語) at Row House Cinema, from November 24.

A new 4K digital restoration of the 1953 Japanese movie Ugetsu (雨月物語) will play at the Row House Cinema from November 24 through 30 as part of the theater's Poetry of Images series. The distributor provides a summary:

By the time he made Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi was already an elder statesman of Japanese cinema, fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other directors of a younger generation. And with this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers whose pursuit of fame and fortune leads them far astray from their loyal wives. Moving between the terrestrial and the otherworldly, Ugetsu reveals essential truths about the ravages of war, the plight of women, and the pride of men.

Tickets and showtimes are available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map).

Japanese electronic music artist Cornelius (コーネリアス) to play in Pittsburgh in March.

Japanese musician Keigo Oyamada, also known as Cornelius (コーネリアス) and whose newest music can be roughly categorized as downbeat, will play at Carnegie Lecture Hall in Oakland on March 10, 2018, as part of next year's tour of US and Mexico. The Andy Warhol Museum summarizes:

Beginning with his 1997 release Fantasma on Matador Records, Cornelius (the name is an homage to the Planet of the Apes) gained much critical praise as the “modern day Brian Wilson” for his lush orchestral/pop arrangements and quickly became an in-demand producer working with artists such as Beck, Bloc Party, and MGMT. Oyamada’s forays into scoring films include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and the anime mega-film Ghost in the Shell Arise, as well as being a key performer in Yoko Ono’s reformed Plastic Ono Band.

Tickets for this Sound Series event are currently available online for $25 for adults or $20 for students and museum members.

Mochi Workshop at Pitt, November 18.

The University of Pittsburgh's Chinese American Students Association will hold a mochi-making workshop on November 18. It runs from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in room 630 of the William Pitt Union (map). Registration and $5 payment for supplies is due on Friday, November 17.

"No war against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea!" November 18 in Oakland.

The Pittsburgh Anti-Imperialist League will host Derek Ford of Depauw University for "No war against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea!" on November 18.

Join a discussion on the origins of the current crisis and the movement against a new war by the US empire against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK.

Our speaker Derek Ford, assistant professor at DePauw University, has recently returned from DPRK in August 2017 as an organizer of the latest "Korea Peace Tour", the last civilian tour to DPRK before the travel ban by the Trump regime went into effect. In 2016, Mr. Ford also travelled to South Korea representing the ANSWER Coalition as he participated in the International Forum on Peace and Reunification, visited political prisoners and held meetings with progressive organizations, and joined in several protests and actions.

The Trump regime has consistenly engaged in dangerous escalations in Korea, risking re-opening the Korean War. Such a war would risk millions of lives across Asia while sending many poor and working people in the US to do the killing and dying for the US capitalist class.

The event runs from 3:30 to 5:30 pm in the Barco Law Building (room 111) at the University of Pittsburgh (map), and is free and open to the public.

"Pedagogical Technology Mini Workshops, Part One: VoiceThread and Quizlet" with Department of East Asian Languages, November 17 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures will present a "Pedagogical Technology Mini Workshops, Part One: VoiceThread and Quizlet" on November 17, featuring one professor from the Korean program and one from the Chinese. Kyungok Joo will present "Quizlet, Digital Flashcards for Vocabulary Learning."

This presentation will demonstrate how to create digital flashcards to teach vocabulary to beginners in learning L2.

Vanessa Ju-Chun Wei will present "VoiceThreading 101."

This presentation will cover basics on creating a VoiceThread and its pedagogical implications in a foreign language class.

The workshop runs from 12:00 to 1:30 pm in 4130 Posvar Hall (map).

SAP Ariba hiring bilingual Mandarin-English Operations Support Specialist for six-month position.

SAP Ariba, through a staffing service, is hiring a bilingual Mandarin-English Operations Support Specialist for a six-month position. Please note, these are overnight shifts of 7:00 pm to 4:00 am and 8:00 pm to 5:00 am in order to align with Asian office hours. Reviewing similar jobs posted to the SAP Ariba site provide more information about the nature of the work.

Philippine Nationality Room construction hoped to begin May 2018.

This month's Nationality Rooms Newsletter reports on the progress toward a Philippine Nationality Room.

The PNR Task Force has had a very busy year fundraising so that the construction of the Philippine Nationality Room can begin in May 2018. They held a Philippine Movie Marathon and on August 6 held a “Merienda Cena” (high tea) - Saklohohan” (rescue) fundraiser. PAPG and FAAP provided an entertainment. Josie Crooks provided music entertainment.

The PNR Task Force met the required minimum for the Facilities Management to bid for the construction of the Philippine Nationality Room. The Room is scheduled for construction in May 2018.

The preliminary designs of the room come from Popi Laudico, who writes:

The room is designed to incorporate the look of the traditional Philippine Bahay na Bato circa 1820.

New anime film Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel 1. presage flower (劇場版 Fate / stay night [Heaven's Feel] 第一章「presage flower」) in Pittsburgh, November 18.

The new Japanese anime film Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel 1. presage flower (劇場版 Fate / stay night [Heaven's Feel] 第一章「presage flower」) will play at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont on November 18. Wikipedia has the closest thing to a comprehensible summary of the trilogy that begins with this film:

The story of the trilogy revolves around Shirou Emiya, a young and humble high school student who is forced to participate in the Holy Grail War, a fierce battle in which seven mages and their respective summoned servants are forced to kill each other in order to obtain the Holy Grail, an unlimited source of miracles. As the master of the servant Saber, Shirou allies with the prodigy magus Rin to defeat a threatening blood thirsty demonic force, which has been causing the deaths of countless people. However, Shirou's overflowing feelings for his close friend Sakura will lead him to a tragic journey of love, suffering and despair as the war reveals its deepest and darkest secrets.

The movie opened in Japan on October 14, and the Hollywood Theater is the only place in Pennsylvania showing it in November.

Tickets for the 2:00 pm show are available online for $15. 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.