Food delivery service Hungry Panda hiring Mandarin-speaking Business Development Specialist for Pittsburgh area.

Hungry Panda is hiring a Mandarin-speaking Business Development Specialist for the Pittsburgh area. As PennsylvAsia noted last summer, more Chinese delivery options, like Fantuan and Chowbus, are making their way to Pittsburgh.

Squirrel Hill's Panda Supermarket (熊猫超市) opens at new location today.

Panda Supermarket (熊猫超市), an Asian grocery store in Squirrel Hill, will open at its new location at 5816-5818 Forbes Ave. (map) today. It will also expand to its pre-COVID hours of operation:

New store hours at the new spot: Monday - Thursday: 10am - 9pm Friday - Saturday: 10am - 9pm Sunday: 11am - 7pm

Panda opened in 2017 and began work at its new location in summer 2020.

2019 Japanese animated film Promare (プロメア) in Pittsburgh, September 16 and 19.

The 2019 Japanese animated film Promare (プロメア) will play in Pittsburgh on September 16 and 19. From the distributor:

The first feature-length film from the acclaimed studio TRIGGER, creators of the hit series KILL la KILL and Little Witch Academia, and director Hiroyuki Imaishi (GURREN LAGANN, KILL la KILL), Promare uses a bold cel-shaded visual style to tell a blistering action-adventure story, and is the spiritual successor to many of director Imaishi’s former works.

Thirty years has passed since the appearance of the Burnish, a race of flame-wielding mutant beings, who destroyed half of the world with fire. When a new group of aggressive mutants calling themselves Mad Burnish appears, the epic battle between Galo Thymos, a new member of the anti-Burnish rescue team Burning Rescue, and Lio Fotia, the leader of Mad Burnish begins.

It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theaters in McCandless, Monroeville, and Robinson. The September 16 shows are dubbed in English and the September 19 ones are in Japanese with English subtitles.

Screening of 2009 documentary Vincent Who?, on 1982 Vincent Chen murder, September 27 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present a screening of the documentary Vincent Who? on September 27. From the film's official site:

In 1982, at the height of anti-Japanese sentiments arising from massive layoffs in the auto industry, a Chinese-American named Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by two white autoworkers. Chin's killers, however, got off with a $3,000 fine and 3 years probation, but no jail time. Outraged by this injustice, Asian Americans around the country united for the first time across ethnic and socioeconomic lines to form a pan-Asian identity and civil rights movement.

Among its significant outcomes, the movement led to the historic broadening of federal civil rights protection to include all people in America regardless of immigrant status or ethnicity.

VINCENT WHO? explores this important legacy through interviews with the key players at the time as well as a whole new generation of activists whose lives were impacted by Vincent Chin. It also looks at the case in relation to the larger narrative of Asian American history, in such events as Chinese Exclusion, Japanese American Internment in WWII, the 1992 L.A. Riots, anti-Asian hate crimes, and post-9/11 racial profiling.

Ultimately, VINCENT WHO? asks how far Asian Americans have come since the case and how far they have yet to go.

It will be followed by a Q-and-A session with the film's producer. The event will be held from 7:00 pm in the William Pitt Union (map) Dining Room A, safety permitting, or online via Zoom; it's free and open to the public, though registration is required.

Pitt's Asian Studies Center offers language partner program.

The Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh is again offering its language partner program this school year.

The Asian Studies Center offers a language partnership program to match students learning Asian languages with native speakers of those languages. The Asian language learners will have an opportunity to practice their language with a peer, while native Asian language speakers will have opportunities to practice their English. Each partner will have the opportunity to build a relationship with another student across cultures. If you think you might be interested, visit our website and click here to fill out the request form. If you have other questions about the program, please contact the Asian Studies Center at asia@pitt.edu.

Those interested can register online.

Presentation on Japanese art and calligraphy at Carnegie Museum of Art, October 7.

The Carnegie Museum of Art and the Japan America Society of Pennsylvania will present Dr. Frank Feltens and "The Mary and Cheney Cowles COllection and 20th-Century Japanese Painting and Calligraphy in the Freer Gallery of Art" on October 7.

Dr. Frank Feltens, Associate Curator of Japanese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, will explore how the Freer Gallery’s Japanese art collection evolved over the hundred years since the museum’s founding and how the most recent additions stay true to the original intentions and aesthetics of Charles Lang Freer. The talk will conclude with a journey through the exhibition Meeting Tessai: Modern Japanese Art from the Cowles Collection that highlights the Cowles gift and showcases how Freer conversed with contemporary Japanese artists like the famous literatus Tomioka Tessai.

The talk will be held in the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater and will be followed by refreshments and a networking reception. Registration is free but donations are encouraged.

The event starts at 6:00 pm and is free and open to the public, though registration is required. The museum is located at 4400 Forbes Ave. in Oakland (map), accessible by buses 28X, 58, 61A, 61B, 61C, 61D, 67, 69, 71B, 71D, 75, and P3.

"Ecologies of Instrumentality: Global Capitalism and Ethical Artisanship in Japan," September 8 at Pitt.

via I G

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. Keisuke Yamada and "Ecologies of Instrumentality: Global Capitalism and Ethical Artisanship in Japan" on September 8.

How do we propose the most ethical yet legitimate ways for centuries-long traditions, heritages, and artisanship that require a great deal of nonhuman exploitation to continue existing in the future? This presentation tackles the problem of ontological struggles between the human and the nonhuman, the animate and the inanimate, the living and the dead, with a study of the practice, politics, and ethics that surround the making of a traditional Japanese musical instrument called the shamisen. All the materials that make up the shamisen are imported from other countries. The material condition and existential possibility of the shamisen have perpetually been shaped by the workings of global capitalism and biopolitical power across time. Revealing the darker side of the development of Japanese traditional music as part of the global history of extractive capitalism, it calls for a new ethical stance in order to recraft modes of living with both various nonhuman species and traditional cultural artifacts in an age of ecological crisis.

The hybrid event begins at 4:30 pm in 207 Lawrence Hall or online, and registration is required.

1954 film Godzilla (ゴジラ) at Row House Cinema, September 3 through 9.

The 1954 Japanese film Godzilla (ゴジラ) will play at the Row House Cinema from September 3 through 9.

Before Godzilla fought Kong or Mothra in 4K, he rose out of the sea and changed sci-fi films forever as an allegory for the follies of a nuclear world. We’re showing the very first film in the iconic franchise. See Ishirô Honda’s original smash hit classic that brought to life the unstoppable dinosaur-like creature hell-bent on destroying Tokyo.

It plays in Japanese with English subtitles, and tickets are available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street (map) in Lawrenceville.

"Jazz Poetry Month: Norihide Nakajima Quintet" at City of Asylum, (online) on September 14.

The City of Asylum will present "Jazz Poetry Month: Norihide Nakajima Quintet" in an online concert on September 14.

This concert marks the first time Jazz Poetry reaches Japan. A concert filmed for fans in Pittsburgh inside the top jazz club in Kyoto, Rag Jazz.

The program features original compositions, with Japanese poetry woven throughout as lyrics, as well as Japanese Jazz standards. Featuring musicians Utako Yamauchi (vocals), Tsutomu Takei (saxophone), Kiyoshi Takeshita (piano), Norihide Nakajima (bass), and Takehiro Shimizu (drums).

It runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm, and those interested should register in advance.

"Jazz Poetry Month: Bad Activist," September 20 at Alphabet City.

The City of Asylum will host Mai Khoi and Bad Activist on September 20 as part of its Jazz Poetry Month.

Bad Activist is an autobiographical performance piece, combining storytelling with state-of-the-art music performance. The narrative charts the extraordinary trajectory of Mai Khoi’s life—from renowned to Vietnamese pop star to dissident activist, fighting for artistic freedom in Vietnam and pitting herself against the strong arm of the communist government. Within this crucible of political titans, international powers, and constant surveillance and threat, Khoi develops a personal and unique art form. Her new sound is rooted in forgotten Vietnamese musical traditions fused with jazz and ripe with political song lyrics. Bad Activist explores both the actual historic events of the artist’s life, as well as the subconscious dream worlds that have fueled her work.

Unable to safely live and work in Vietnam, Mai Khoi is currently an Artist Protection Fund Fellow at City of Asylum and the University of Pittsburgh. This performance of Bad Activist features collaborators from the University of Pittsburgh’s PhD in jazz, and all new arrangements for larger bands.

The event runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm and will be held both in person and online. Please visit the website for ticket information and for safety protocols. Alphabet City is located at 40 W. North Ave. on the North Side (map).