Winter holidays in the Pitt Nationality Rooms.

Kodamatsu in the Japanese Nationality Room, 2012.

From November 17, the Nationality Rooms in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh have been decorated for the winter holidays, and this year's Open House is December 8.

Rooms will be in Winter / Holiday Decor and Quo Vadis guides will be dressed in ethnic dress, stationed in each room, describing the rooms' appearances and customs.

Nationality Rooms Committees will be in the Commons Room offering food and drink for sale. The proceeds of sales go to Committee Scholarship Funds for Nationality Rooms Summer Study Abroad.

The various European rooms usually have the most impressive Christmas displays, while the two East Asian ones reflect their New Years celebrations. As of this writing, the Chinese Room is festooned in celebration of the coming Year of the Horse, while the Japanese Nationality Room has not yet been decorated.

Living with the Enemy author in the news.

Local state representative Richard Saccone is in the news for wanting "In God We Trust" to be displayed in Pennsylvania's public schools. Before this and other conservative headlines, though, the Pittsburgh native worked in North Korea with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and wrote a wonderful little book worth reading on his year there, Living with the Enemy: Inside North Korea. The title is facetious, and it's a book on the country that, uncommonly for the genre, provides insight without being judgmental or condescending. "My intention is for the reader", he writes on page 8,

to come away with a better understanding of the people of North Korea. My experience confirmed the most effective way to deal with North Koreans is to suspend our preconceived judgment for a moment and attempt to think as they do, to understand their perspective more clearly.

Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania has a part-time opening.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania, headquartered in downtown Pittsburgh, is hiring a part-time Office Manager and Program Coordinator.

The candidate must have strong organizational and administrative skills and experience. This person must also have a keen interest in and understanding of current Japanese popular culture including anime, J-pop and the like. Ability to read and speak Japanese and experience traveling or living in Japan is a plus for the position.

A fuller description available on the JASP website.

Anime Oribe, by Jeff Guerrero Ceramics.

A recent set by Jeff Guerrero Ceramics.

Conflict Kitchen's North Korean menu starts Friday.

The long-awaited (at least here) North Korean menu will begin at Conflict Kitchen on Friday, November 22. Conflict Kitchen, "a restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict", is located in Schenley Plaza in Oakland (map). The signage that went up alongside its Cuban advertisements promotes tofu stuffed with rice (두부밥), cinnamon tea (수정과), fermented soybean paste stew (된장찌개), and a buckwheat noodle soup (메밀국수).

Update, 11/21/2013:



The menu is now posted, too, and includes bibimbap, naengmyeon, and tteokbokki, and songpyeon.

Asian films in previous 3RFFs.

Old newspapers tell us a little about some Asian films part of previous versions of the Three Rivers Film Festival. Film lineups weren't published very often, and Asian movies---then as now---made up small fractions of the festivals as a whole, but there are some inspired choices, including: the first Studio Ghibli film, a 1992 Japanese porn-slash-drama, a Korean film that spawned "stories of viewers vomiting or passing out during the more gruesome scenes".


Laputa: Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ) was part of the 1989 festival; Tokyo Decadence (トパーズ) a couple years later; Take Care of My Cat (고양이를 부탁해), The Isle (섬), Lan Yu (藍宇), and Devils on the Doorstep (鬼子来了) played at the 2002 festival; The Cave of the Yellow Dog (Шар нохойн там) and Invisible Waves (คำพิพากษาของมหาสมุทร) in 2006; and Thirst (박쥐) in 2009.

Hollywood Theater adds two more shows for third Madoka Magica movie's Pittsburgh premiere.

The Hollywood Theater in Dormont (map) has added a couple more chances to see the third Magica Madoka movie, Rebellion, make its Pittsburgh premiere. From the theater's Facebook page:

Response has been really strong for our December Madoka Magica Rebellion shows, so we're adding two additional shows for that Saturday, Dec. 7th.

Tickets for the 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm shows on the 7th are available online.

As we wrote last month, the third movie in the three-part Madoka Magica series will premiere in Japan on October 26. U.S. showtimes for Rebellion (叛逆の物語) were announced yesterday, and Pittsburgh is one of several cities to have December 6 screenings, the second-earliest date in the country behind the December 3 premiere. Rebellion will debut in the area at the Hollywood Theater on the 6th, with initial screenings at 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm.

The Hollywood Theater also held the regional debuts of parts one and two in December 2012, and will show both again on December 5 at 7:30 pm, according to the movies' U.S. distributor's website.

Steven White presentation "China as a 'Innovation Nation'?" at Pitt, November 25.

The University of Pittsburgh will host a presentation by Steven White of Tsinghua University titled "China as a 'Innovation Nation'?" on November 25. The University Center for International Studies provides a summary:

China already vies with the USA for Olympic gold. Will it similarly catch up in the innovation race? Chinese firms have come to dominate many manufacturing industries in the global marketplace. The Chinese leadership and some executives, however, have recognized the critical need for Chinese firms to be more innovative in order to break out of the low value-added segments that they occupy in most of these industries. The recent emphasis on “innovation” and “creative industries” is actually part of a long-term, continued effort to catch-up with leading nations. This presentation traces this effort and accomplishments, and then reviews the significant challenges for Chinese firms to move beyond their current fundamental strategy combining imitation and cost-innovation.

It will be held from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in 117 Mervis Hall (campus map).

Free Japanese classes at East Liberty Carnegie Library, through December.

Very late notice, but the East Liberty branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has been holding free Japanese classes each Wednesday evening from October 2 through December 18. From the library website:

A fun way to learn a new language! Learn conversational Japanese in a casual setting. All ages and abilities welcome.

Library language classes are pretty informal, so students who have missed a month a session won't be hopelessly behind. The library is located on 130 S. Whitfield Street (map). Students must register, and those interested can do so online or by calling 412-363-8232.

A reminder that the Oakland branch holds Japanese for Beginners, Japanese II, and a Japanese Conversation Club on biweekly schedules each month. Each class is suited for a different level, so check the course descriptions for more information.

Discussion with artist Yasumasa Morimura at Warhol Museum, November 23.

On November 23, The Andy Warhol Museum (map) will host a discussion with artist Yasumasa Morimura, whose exhibition "Yasumasa Morimura: Theater of the Self" is running there from October 6, 2013 through January 12, 2014.

Join us for a lively discussion around the work of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura, with The Warhol’s Director, Eric Shiner, Milton Fine Curator of Art, Nicholas Chambers, Assistant Archivist (and Adjunct Professor of Chinese and Japanese visual culture at the University of Pittsburgh) Cindy Lisica, and Charles Exley, Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Film at the University of Pittsburgh.

It begins at 4:00 pm and is free with museum admission.

Morimura gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University before his Warhol exhibition opened, and its School of Art summarized his work thus:

YASUMASA MORIMURA’s fascination with the self-portrait, gay and transgendered life, art history and popular culture aligns him closely with the work of Andy Warhol. Renowned for his reprisals of iconic images drawn from art history and the mass media, Morimura literally assumes his own place in the historical narrative. In the process, he conflates issues of originality and reproduction, gender and race to create what he calls a “beautiful commotion.” Like Warhol and many artists today, Morimura explores the fluidity of sexuality and gender, and the meaning of difference in highly structured societies.