"The Affective Alliance: TV Drama Fandom and Internet Communities in contemporary China," March 10 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present "The Affective Alliance: TV Drama Fandom and Internet Communities in contemporary China" on March 10 as the next installment of its Asia Pop series.

Dr. Shuyu Kong will discuss "participatory culture" and "affective communication" through a case study of internet media fandom of TV spy drama Undercover. She argues that Chinese media fandom demonstrates a new form of creative energy and interpretive practice among the younger generation of Chinese, and indicates a new social bonding through cultural consumption in post-socialist China.

The event starts at 6:30 pm and registration is required.

"Combatting Anti-Asian Violence Amidst COVID-19: Perspectives from Local and National APIA Organizers," March 15 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh will present "Combatting Anti-Asian Violence Amidst COVID-19: Perspectives from Local and National APIA Organizers" on March 15.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asians and Asian Americans have been scapegoated as bringing and carrying disease across the country. This rhetoric is not new. In this timely and critical panel, hear from local and national Asian American activists about how Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities are combatting targeted hate violence, how to be in solidarity with victims of racism & xenophobia, and what forms of justice our communities are fighting for. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology, the Global Hub, and the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh. We thank our panelists, Sam Huynh (AQUARIUS), Judy Suh (APALA Pittsburgh), Tiffany Diane Tso (AAFC), and Randy Duque (PCHR) for their time and expertise in contributing to such an important conversation.

The online event starts at 4:00 pm and registration is required.

2019 Chinese film So Long, My Son (地久天长) at Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival (online), March 6 - 12.

Thethe 2019 Chinese film So Long, My Son (地久天长) will play as part of the Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival, March 6 to 12. It was originally scheduled to play in person last March, but COVID-19 shifted the festival to online screenings in 2020 and 2021. A synopsis:

In the mid-1980s, two families work together in a factory in northern China. They are very close. So are their sons, who were born on the same day. But then a tragic accident pulls the families apart and, as China’s dramatic social transformation generates increasing inequalities, they follow very different paths both geographically and in economic terms. Will they ever be able to reconcile with one another and their shared but separating pasts? Moving backwards and forwards from the accident through four decades of Chinese history, acclaimed director Wang Xiaoshuai carefully constructs an epic, deeply moving drama of ordinary lives and severed connections in the midst of extraordinary social change.

Tickets are available online, as is a link to a free live discussion with the director on March 11.

Work progresses on Oishii Donburi in Lawrenceville.

via @oishiidonburi1

Work progresses on Oishii Donburi in Lawrenceville as they approach an opening date. From the owners of Oakland's Oishii Bento, the team with the self-titled company name purchased the former Design Island and Artisan Harvest spot at 5227 Butler St. (map) in May 2018.

Ocean Vuong with Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, March 22.

Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures will host Ocean Vuong on March 22.

Ocean Vuong is an award-winning poet and the author of the critically acclaimed bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a brilliant, heartbreaking family portrait – a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

Framed as a letter from a son to his mother who cannot read, this shattering portrait of a Vietnamese family and first love, asks how to survive, how to find joy in darkness, and the meaning of American identity. With stunning urgency and grace, Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are.

Tickets for the online event are $15 for general admission and $10 for students. The University of Pittsburgh community is also invited to register for a pre-lecture online book discussion on March 18 from 6:00 pm.

"Bento" coming soon to Shadyside.

Work progresses on Bento, a new restaurant coming to Shadyside. It will be located at 5811 Ellsworth Ave. (map) in what was most recently Daphne Cafe. Chen's Realty, LLC, purchased the spot in December 2019.

Eddie Huang film Boogie in Pittsburgh, from March 5.

The upcoming Eddie Huang film Boogie will play in Pittsburgh from March 5. From the distributor:

From acclaimed writer, producer and restaurateur Eddie Huang comes his directorial debut Boogie, the coming-of-age story of Alfred “Boogie” Chin, a basketball phenom living in Queens, New York, who dreams of one day playing in the NBA. While his parents pressure him to focus on earning a scholarship to an elite college, Boogie must find a way to navigate a new girlfriend, high school, on-court rivals and the burden of expectation.

It will play locally at the Cinemark theaters in Monroeville, North Hills, and Robinson, the Cranberry Cinemas, and the Waterworks Cinemas.

2004 Malaysian horror film Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam, March 3 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present the 2004 Malaysian horror film Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam on March 3, the second installment in its Malaysian Horror Series.

Join us for a virtual series of films based on the Malay folktales of a blood-sucking ghost born from a woman who dies in childbirth. The smash hit premiered in April 1957 and screened for nearly three months at the local Cathay cinemas. Its success spawned two other sequels in 2004 and 2019. It is also said to have launched the Pontianak genre in Singapore and Malaysia, with rival Shaw producing its own Pontianak trilogy.

The movie begins at 7:00 pm, and registration is required for the online streaming link.

"An Evening of Traditional and Contemporary Japanese Music," February 26 (online) at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Music will present "An Evening of Traditional and Contemporary Japanese Music" on February 26.

Please join graduate students Devon Osamu Tipp (PhD candidate in Music Theory/Composition) and Kanoko Kamata (2nd year PhD student in Sociology) for an evening of traditional and contemporary music for shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) and shamisen (three string spike lute). Music featured on the program will include traditional and solo works, and music by composers Elizabeth Brown and Nancy Beckman.

Kanoko Kamata is a second year PhD student at the Sociology Department and studying about social movements, especially how people are discouraged or encouraged to participate in social movements. Her late grandmother was a singer and Shamisen player of min’yo, folk songs. She started her Shamisen training in Tokyo in Ikuta ryu (Kyoto style). Now she is learning Shamisen from Sumie Kaneko in Yamada ryu (Tokyo/Edo style). For more information, please visit www.kanokokamata.com.

Pittsburgh based composer/performer Devon Osamu Tipp creates unorthodox musical worlds from ostensibly incompatible realms. An Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellow in Music Theory/Composition at the University of Pittsburgh, Tipp has studied traditional Japanese music both in the US and Japan, and has appeared at conferences and festivals in the US, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.greengiraffemusic.info

The online event starts at 7:00 pm and a link to the stream is available here.

"From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional Iconography in Korean Hip-Hop Music Videos" by Dr. CedarBough Saeji, February 24 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. CedarBough Saeji and her talk "From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional Iconography in Korean Hip-Hop Music Videos" on February 24 in the next installment of this term's Asia Pop series.

In her virtual lecture From Hanok to Hanbok: Traditional Iconography in Korean Hip-Hop Music Videos, Dr. Saeji will explore the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip-hop artists. She investigates what symbols and icons are used to visually represent Korea in the videos, as they take a foreign genre and imbue it with Koreanness. These videos circulate and re-circulate a limited number of icons of Korea, because the images are meant not to portray pre-modern Korea in its complexity, but traditional Korea both as a symbol of national pride and as a (domestic and international) tourist destination where the palace is a backdrop and you wear a hanbok to create a visually striking Instagram post.

It starts at 6:30 pm and is free and open to the public, though registration is required.