Vietnamese-language discussion on poems for children with Pittsburgh-based Eduling, February 19.

Eduling International Academy is hosting a Vietnamese-language online discussion with two poets and a third writer on writing poetry for children. "Làm thơ cho thiếu nhi" will take place on Facebook live on February 19 at 8:30 pm EST (February 20 at 8:30 am Hanoi).

If you know Vietnamese and would like to listen to two poets from Vietnam and a writer from the US talking about writing poems for children, join this free event. The event will be live on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/236eYkxj8. You can also register to join it on Zoom by completing this form: www.tinyurl.com/edulingevent. This free event is organized by Eduling International Academy and H&L Books, which are located in Pittsburgh.

Xin mời các bạn biết tiếng Việt tham gia buổi chia sẻ về thơ thiếu nhi với PGS-TS-Nhà thơ Phạm Văn Tình, TS-Nhà thơ Phạm Đình Ân, và TS Linh Phùng. Buổi chia sẻ sẽ được phát live trên Facebook ở trang này: https://fb.me/e/236eYkxj8 nhưng nếu bạn muốn vào Zoom để giao lưu nhiều hơn thì xin đăng kí tại đây: www.tinyurl.com/edulingevent. Buổi chia sẻ được tổ chức bảo Eduling International Academy và H&L Books (www.eduling.org/hl) từ Pittsburgh.

A Virtual Reading with Jane Wong, in Conversation with Diana Khoi Nguyen, February 10 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of English will host "A Virtual Reading with Jane Wong, in Conversation with Diana Khoi Nguyen" online tonight, February 10.

Jane Wong is the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series' Virtual Writer-in-Residence this season, spending a week working with Pitt students and friends, and sharing her work in a reading on Thursday, February 10th, at 7:30. She'll also converse with Diana Khoi Nguyen about poetry and art, and take questions from the audience. This webinar is free and open to the public. No registration is required, and audience members will not be visible.

Jane Wong is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James Books (2021) and Overpour from Action Books (2016). Her debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, is forthcoming from Tin House in 2023. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University. Her poems can be found in places such as Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, Best American Poetry 2015, American Poetry Review, POETRY, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and others. Her essays have appeared in places such as McSweeney's, Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, The Common, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and This is the Place: Women Writing About Home. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Artist Trust, Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room, the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay, the Jentel Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Loghaven, and others. Her first solo art show “After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly” was exhibited at the Frye Art Museum in 2019. Her artwork will also be a part of “Nourish,” an exhibition at the Richmond Art Gallery in 2022.

The virtual event runs from 7:30 to 9:00 pm and is free and open to the public.

1957 Akira Kurosawa film Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城) at Row House Cinema, from February 11.

1957 Akira Kurosawa film Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城) will play at the Row House Cinema from February 11, part of a Shakespeare film series.

Akira Kurosawa retells Macbeth by replacing lords and kings with samurai and emperors in this rendition set in medieval Japan. Brutal, suspenseful, and visually stunning — this is by far one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made for the screen.

Ticket and showtime information is available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map).

"Tigress - Lunar Offerings" Pop-Up Art Exhibition / AAPI Celebration, February 5 at Seafoam.

"Tigress - Lunar Offerings," a Pop-Up Art Exhibition / AAPI Celebration, will be held on February 5.

*** Please note this is a masked and vaxxed event ***

A pop-up art exhibition and AAPI community celebration!

Featuring visual art, performances, a live DJ, an interactive cookie table and a community altar where folks are invited to bring items to release and receive.

Cookie table hosted by Jasmine Cho of Yummyholic. Quantity is limited and first come, first served. People are invited to meditate on what kind of sweetness they want to amplify into their lives while decorating their own cookies honoring the Year of the Tiger. Free but donations to OCA Pittsburgh will be encouraged and collected.

Performances, a community moon song, and an open mic for the AAPI community will begin at 7pm.

Featured artists include:

- April Brust
- Anne Chen
- Bonnie Fan
- Caroline Yoo
- Hannah Colen
- Jasmine Cho
- Karen Lue
- Lauren Nakamura
- Lena Chen
- Lexie D
- Sara Tang
- Stephanie Tsong

..and more

It runs from 5:00 to 10:00 pm at SEAFOAM in Brighton Heights (map).

2021 Japanese film Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー) to remain in Pittsburgh through February 17.

The acclaimed 2021 Japanese film Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー) which opened in Pittsburgh on January 20, will remain at the Harris Theater through February 17. A brief synospis from a December 7 NPR review:

The story follows a middle-aged Tokyo stage actor named Kafuku, superbly played by Hidetoshi Nishijima. He's a calm, mild-mannered guy who's been married for two decades to a screenwriter named Oto. We get a sense of their mutual devotion when we see Kafuku driving around in his bright red Saab, rehearsing his lines by listening to audio tapes that Oto has painstakingly recorded for him.

But their relationship is more complicated than it appears. Years ago, Kafuku and Oto experienced an agonizing loss that has led her to find solace — and perhaps something more — in relationships with other men. Kafuku has deep compassion for his wife, which doesn't make her betrayal any less painful. And then another tragedy strikes when Oto dies suddenly.

The Harris Theater is located in downtown's Cultural District (map), and tickets are available online or at the door.

Tadao Arimoto and "Woodworking and Japanese Design," March 3 with Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania will host Tadao Arimoto and his talk "Woodworking and Japanese Design" on March 3.

When wooden furniture is art, it becomes a conversation between nature and the craftsperson, harmonizing the inherent qualities of natural materials with the vision of the designer. Tadao Arimoto, a woodworker based in Pittsburgh, will share his unique technique and philosophy honed from a background in design with decades of experience using traditional Japanese and modern tools on American woods.
. . .
Tadao Arimoto is a woodworker living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before arriving in the United States, Tadao studied industrial design at the International Design Institute in Kyoto. For the past 40 years, he has practiced his craft in Pittsburgh and has often travelled to attend and teach domestic and international workshops.

In recent years Tadao has contributed works to local universities, presented his works at national events, and been recognized as a Master Visual Artist by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Tadao's focus has shifted from private works to larger and more public commissions, including a bench commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Pittsburgh Sakura Project.

It will be held at Threadbare Cider House on Spring Garden Ave. (map) from 6:00 to 7:30 pm. Registration is required.

Lunar New Year Virtual Event with Pitt's Institute of International Studies in Education, February 8.

The University of Pittsburgh's Institute of International Studies in Education will hold a Lunar New Year Virtual Event on February 8.

The Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE) invites the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and the School of Education (SOE) communities to our virtual celebration of the Lunar New Year 2022. Please join us and share your own story about the Lunar New Year. There will be opportunities to win gift cards during our fun games!

This Zoom event is co-sponsored by the Asian Studies Center (ASC) and School of Education Council for Graduate Students in Education (CGSE)

It begins at 9:00 am EST and registration is required.

Eric Nam in Pittsburgh, February 16.

Korean-American singer Eric Nam will perform in Pittsburgh on February 16. Tickets for the all-ages show at Mr. Smalls Theater in Millvale are currently still available.

"The Chinese Laundrymen of Squirrel Hill" presentation by Squirrel Hill Historical Society, February 8.

Tom Yee Laundry in Homestead, circa 1925.
The Squirrel Hill Historical Society will present Tammy Hepps and her discussion on "The Chinese Laundrymen of Squirrel Hill" on February 8.

Homestead Jewish historian Tammy Hepps, homesteadhebrews.com, will discuss the traumatic dispersion of Chinese laborers after the transcontinental railroad was built, examining their lives as laundrymen in context the microcosm of Squirrel Hill and Homestead.

For much more information on early Chinese residents in the area, and the context, see this well-researched article from the Homestead Hebrews website, whence the photograph of Tom Yee Laundry in Homestead comes.

The talk begins at 7:30 pm and at the Church of the Redeemer at 5700 Forbes Ave. (map).

Pitt's Department of Music presents Yun Emily Wang and "Listening Incommensurably: Sounding 'out' as homonationalist double-bind in Toronto’s Queer Taiwanese Diaspora" as part of Visiting Scholar Series, March 31.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Music will host Dr. Yun Emily Wang and her talk "Listening Incommensurably: Sounding 'out' as homonationalist double-bind in Toronto’s Queer Taiwanese Diaspora" of Duke University on March 31.

In this paper I analyze two ethnographic moments of sounding “out” among a group of queer Taiwanese immigrants in Toronto by tracking the incommensurables in each instance.

The first case study took place in a private home in 2014, when my interlocutors exchanged stories of navigating racism in North American queer culture and the ways in which Taiwan’s pending legalization of same-sex marriage produced polarizing family dynamics stretching across the Pacific Ocean. This discussion of intersectional politics was soundtracked by an electronic dance music track consisting of an auto-tuned anti-queer Christian sermon that had gone viral in Taiwan a few months prior, and my interlocutors interacted with the track as non-verbal commentaries that complemented the discussion. The second followed Taiwanese Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in 2017, when my interlocutors marched in Toronto’s annual Pride Parade. They broadcasted Mandopop queer club anthems with amplifiers on a small hand truck and invited parade bystanders to “party along” and celebrate Taiwan, drowning out the other queer Asian groups. In such politically charged moments of collective listening, singing along, and dancing, my interlocutors engaged with multiple sonic publics that participated in what Jasbir K. Puar calls “homonationalism-as-assemblage” (2015), the processes through which nation states claim sovereignty through queer-friendliness at the expense of the racially and economically marginalized.

Investigating the incommensurabilities between Canadian and Taiwanese queer politics, between sounding and listening, between openness toward an emergent Asian Canadian queer futurity and its own foreclosures, ultimately, I demonstrate the necessity of failures and complicity in efforts toward an otherwise world.

The virtual event runs from 4:00 to 5:30 pm, and will be available on Zoom for Pitt students, faculty, and staff, and on Youtube to the rest of the viewing public.