Uwajimaya grocer spells out future expansion plans - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):: "New Uwajimaya CEO Tomoko Moriguchi Matsuno plans to open at least three new Asian grocery stores in the next five years. Uwajimaya Inc. currently operates stores in Seattle, Bellevue, and Beaverton, Ore.

Matsuno said the company is looking at properties but is not disclosing any details yet. She is interested in the Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco Bay areas. Matsuno said she wants to expand in order to grow revenue and because she believes Uwajimaya has a good product.

The company's revenues were $85 million last year and she expects revenues between $89 million and $90 million this year. Uwajimaya is profitable, Matsuno said."


by Heidi Dietrich Staff Writer

LESLIE KELLY
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

When I told my friend we were going to hit the food court for lunch, she made a face. As if I had just suggested getting the car washed during a rainstorm or that we sit through a marathon of "Hogan Knows Best."

But the collection of global cafes at Uwajimaya isn't your typical food court.

Wander through when it's not super-busy and you'll likely be offered loads of samples, accompanied by a serious sales pitch. I've never felt so wanted.

Still, I didn't need to try before buying. I was in the mood for a beefy banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich served on a crusty baguette. At Saigon Bistro, these hand-held meals are $2.50. Cilantro haters probably wil want to skip this, as much of the flavor comes from the herb, as well as pickled peppers and onions. Read More

Labels: food

This documentary short by KEVIN LEE, shot entirely on in Chinatown, New York was the first to cover the effects of September 11 on NYC's Chinese American community. TAKE A LOOK premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MoCA) is the first fulltime, professionally staffed museum dedicated to reclaiming, preserving, and interpreting the history and culture of Chinese and their descendants in the Western Hemisphere.

Labels: Culture

Inside the studio and creative mind of Zhang Huan, one of the most recognized Chinese artists working in both the US and China. His latest exhibition at the Asia Society includes performance works, photographs, and sculpture.

Labels: art

This story about Masumi Hayashi first aired March 25, 2004, on "Outlook." It was rebroadcast Dec. 21, 2006, shortly after Congress approved $38 million to presevere WW II internment camps.


Masumi Hayashi exhibit on Japanese internment camps, part 2

Labels: Culture, Japanese

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Deadly bridge collapse in Vietnam: "A bridge under construction in south Vietnam has collapsed, killing at least 36 workers and leaving many more injured, officials have said.

The collapse took place in Can Tho, some 170 km (105 miles) south of the commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City. Rescue teams are looking for survivors said to be trapped under the rubble. It is not clear what caused the collapse.

The bridge was being built over the Hau River at a cost of $300m and was expected to be finished next year. About 250 people were working on the bridge when a section buckled at about 0800 (0100 GMT), the official Vietnam News Agency reported.

Hospital officials reported 36 dead, but a contractor with a Chinese company working on the bridge told Reuters news agency that 60 people were killed. "

This video was produced by the U.S. Government to explain their decision to forcibly intern thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent.

Labels: Culture, Japanese

Labels: Culture, Japanese

By STEPHANIE FARR
Philly.com
AS A commencement speaker at his high-school graduation in Salinas, Calif., George Ikeda spoke about the importance of civil liberties in the United States.
Three years later, on July 4, 1942 - Independence Day - he became an internment-camp prisoner, taken from his home by the government whose virtues he once extolled.

Ikeda's only crime was his Japanese heritage.

Hirotoshi Nishikawa was 3 when his family was uprooted from their Hollister, Calif., home and taken to an arid desert camp.

He retains few memories of his wretched experience, but the ones that linger are tied to his senses: the heat, the sand, the suicide.

On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the military to remove and imprison anyone who was at least one-eighth Japanese by blood.

It didn't matter that Ikeda and Nishikawa were born American, that citizenship to this country was their birthright. They were ordered to report to assembly centers by April taking only what they could carry.

"We weren't physically removed from our homes; we followed orders," Ikeda said. "There's a typical Japanese term meaning 'It can't be helped.' But you couldn't think of anything sadder than leaving everything behind." Read More

Labels: Culture, Japanese

This video provides a brief introduction to Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, describing the work we do in preserving the oral histories of Japanese Americans and informing future generations about the World War II internment experience.

Labels: Culture, Japanese

Press Release

COLLECTIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The catwalk will feature Penelope & Monica Cruz for MNG, fall and winter designs from Kenneth Cole, N.Y., Ed Hardy, Arden B., Road, Atsui Tokyo, and others.

On September 26–29, Seattle plays host to the highly-anticipated Seattle Fashion Week 2007 (SFW), which will feature established international and national designers and retailers as well as today’s top emerging designers. Buyers, local celebrities, forecasters, fashion mentors along with 1,000 attendees are estimated to attend the week-long festivities.

For the finale at Experience Music Project (EMP) on Saturday, September 29, SFW 2007 has secured a number of acclaimed international and local designers and retailers to unveil their latest collections. Only in Seattle, headliner collection Mango, from Spain, will reveal its fabulous limited edition collection Penelope and Monica Cruz for MNG. In addition, the runway will showcase established brands including Kenneth Cole, N.Y., Ed Hardy, Arden B., Road, Moda Europa, and Atsui Tokyo.

Photo: Charlotte, a model for the fashion show, tried on Stodja, Filly, and CITRUS NOTES at the Atsui Tokyo store.

Leading up to the high-energy finale, SFW has organized a series of other fashion events, including:

SFW 2007 Launch Party on Wednesday, September 26 at Revolution Bar and Grill at EMP, where proceeds will be donated toward Making Strides against Breast Cancer, an annual American Cancer Society breast cancer awareness event.

Urban Fashion Show on Thursday, September 27, 9 p.m. at Neumos featuring Silhouette World and urban lifestyle collections from Mango, Kenneth Cole, N.Y., Ed Hardy, Arden B., Road, Moda Europa, and Atsui Tokyo.

SFW 2007 Art Exhibit and Auction on Friday, September 29, with the mindset that fashion is art, showcasing a stunning art exhibition from local artist Jacquelyn Koala and a silent auction benefiting the American Cancer Society.

The trendsetting SFW 2007 is produced by Seattle Int’l Fashion Week, Gobo Foto Productions and J Promotions and Events, and sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company, Holiday Inn, and other businesses. For more information on SFW 2007 or to purchase tickets to event, visit www.sifashionweek.com or contact Jordana Engholm at jordana@jordanapr.com or 561.400.2990.

About SFW
Seattle Fashion Week was established by Gabriel Choy of Gobo Foto in 2003 originally as Seattle Int’l Fashion Week (SIFW). The mission of SIFW is to bring together the talented fashion community, including designers, retailers, manufacturers, models, make-up artists and hair stylists, educators, and establish Seattle influence in the ever changing world of fashion through elite fashion events, including SFW 2007.

Labels: press release

Bellevue Community College has launched a "I Love BCC" video contest on YouTube. An Apple iPhone is the first place prize.

Entries approved by a screening committee will be posted on YouTube.com for public judging, with public voting for the winners taking place on BCC's website November 13 - 30.

"Our President, B. Jean Floten, asked my department to get us a presence on YouTube," stated Trina Ballard, Director, Outreach and Recruitment Bellevue Community College, in an on-line interview. "After considering asking our students to produce videos for class projects, I came up with the contest idea instead to get a wider range of submissions."

There will be only one winner, but up to ten finalists. The winning video will be posted on the BBC website and DVDs burned for distribution.

Complete contest rules and an entry form are also available on-line at www.bellevuecollege.edu/outreach/ or via email at outreach@bcc.ctc.edu.

Labels: contest, Education, youth

Nhien Nguyen, editor International Examiner, talks to Samantha Chin, 2007 Miss Chinese Seattle about her new role in the community. Chin, who is the grandchild of former University of Washington Regent Ark Chin, will receive $5,000 in scholarship funds. Part 1 of 2.

Labels: Culture, interview, youth

Being Kevjumba automatically makes me a ladies man...


Jana(left) & Jasmine(right) sing to Kevjumba.

Bangkok, Thailand - Its high production values, driving musical score, and slick edits make the film, in the words of its producers, "very MTV."

But don't expect to see boy bands or risqué hip-hop. MTV's "Traffic" is a hard-hitting, US-funded documentary that is part of a campaign aimed at educating vulnerable youth in Asia about the risks of being trafficked illegally for exploitative labor.

The movie, which premieres Tuesday on MTV Thailand, is tailored for the US broadcaster's vast youth audience in go-getting East Asia (Watch Video). By raising awareness of the dangers, campaigners say they hope to address a practice that is akin to modern-day slavery.

Called EXIT, or End Exploitation and Trafficking, the MTV campaign includes public service spots, South Korean-made animation shorts, and a multilingual website (www.mtvexit.org). "Traffic" is being dubbed into eight languages by local celebrities, such as Korean pop icon Rain. In South Asia, a separate documentary called "Sold" will be aired. Advocacy groups say trafficking patterns differ in that region. Read More

Labels: Culture

Asians enroll in Orchestra, All others enroll in Marching Band

Labels: Entertainment

Kaori Hull chats with her mother, Yoko Hanazono, in front of their restaurant "Hanazono Asian Noodle" on Taylor Street in Port Townsend, WA.

Labels: food, interview, Japanese

September 30 at the Moore Theater

Win tickets to Shaolin Warriors

The first ten people to post a comment in this post will each receive one pair of tickets to the Shaolin Warriors! Contest officially begins on Friday, Sept. 7 at noon. Please make sure there is a way to contact you, or e-mail us at iexaminer@iexaminer.org with your comment and contact information.

Shaolin Warriors is more than a Kungfu show. The four scenes of summer, autumn, winter and spring depict the philosophical theory of the cycle in Buddhism. The unique artistic conception of summer, spring, autumn and winter vividly shows the rarely-seen temple life of shaolin monks: their Buddhist meditation, as well as their martial arts training during the coldest and hottest times of the year. In addition to the breath-taking Kung fu show, an attentive audience will gain some understanding of the profoundness of Chinese Buddhism, the Doctrine of “Unity of Zen and Martial Arts” in particular. - Source: Shaolin Warriors.com


Shaolin Warriors are interviewed by KuamNewsExtra.


Shaolin Warriors of Chinatown performance in Central Plaza on 5/27/07.

Labels: contest, Entertainment, event

Four sensitive guys who drive girls crazy.

If there's one thing the East Bay indie band Bento doesn't suffer from, it's a dearth of swooning female fans. In fact, of the few dozen folks who attended Bento's recent show at the Cherry Bar in San Francisco (which actually boasted a good turnout for a Wednesday night), about 80 percent were young women in improbably high stiletto sandals and Suicide-Girls mascara, sipping Midori sours and self-consciously clutching their purses while they made cow eyes at the guys onstage. When the band burst into its syrupy rock ballad, "Beautiful Girl," it seemed like everyone in the room was listing toward the stage. These guys may be schoolteachers and microbiologists in their early thirties, but hell, they look about ten years younger -- and they've obviously got the bobbysoxer crowd on lock. Rachel Swan - EAST BAY EXPRESS

Labels: Entertainment, interview

A multimedia look at electronic waste shipped overseas and the toxic effect it has on places such as Guiyu, China--known as "trash town." With an interview with Michael Zhao of the Center on US-China Relations at Asia Society. eDump

China's e-waste capital chokes on old computers

GUIYU, China (Reuters) - Guiyu is a modern day gold rush town. But instead of panning for gold in babbling streams, workers shift through piles of broken old computer parts in acrid smelling shacks, smelting down parts with crude equipment to extract valuable metals like gold and copper.
Every year, millions of unwanted computers, keyboards, television sets and cell phones are smuggled into China by sea. Much ends up in Guiyu, a rough town on the southern Chinese coast, not far from the former British colony of Hong Kong.

There is little regard for safety -- no masks, little ventilation and few signs of government officials enforcing what safety rules do exist in China. Read More

Labels: Culture

Intro to Learning from Youtube

CLAREMONT - The chaos of YouTube seems an unlikely place to conduct a college course. Countless billions of hours of U.S. productivity have been wasted on the popular video-sharing Web site, and it's unlikely that much of that time was spent on proper education.

That's no small matter at Pitzer College.

The liberal-arts school has launched a new class for fall semester devoted to the study of YouTube, and much of the class will be conducted through the site as well. Class sessions are filmed and posted on YouTube, and the class' group site is filled with student-created videos responding to comments and other videos on YouTube.

The class is designed, in part, to resemble the disorder of YouTube, with media-studies professor Alexandra Juhasz turning over control of the class' content to her students. Read More


Learning From YouTube Class Sept. 11 - Part 1

Labels: Education

The International Examiner staff talk about their Asian American Experience.


Session Questions:

5) What food do you like to eat?
6) Do you belong to an Asian American Club or organization?
7) How do you identify yourself in terms of your culture?
8) What is your definition of an Asian American? (more)

Labels: Culture, interview

APA | FIVE's singular mission is to educate, mobilize and inspire the next generation of Asian Pacific American leaders. By gathering our greatest role models with emerging young talents and creating a coalition of community organizations, we bring together all Asian Pacific Americans to promote active leadership, cultivate an interdisciplinary network and build a mentorship pipeline.

FIVE stands for the different professional sectors that we seek to unite: Business & Management, Education, Arts/Entertainment, Nonprofit, and Science/Technology. FIVE also stands for the various groups within Asian Pacific America that have yet to cohesively mobilize as one group: East Asian, Pacific Islanders, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Hapa / Mixed Heritage. Finally, FIVE stands for the premise that five individuals can make a great impact if they work together on a common goal.

Labels: Culture, Entertainment

Angela Pang, Feb 02, 2007
AsianWeek

Dressed in a red, white and blue USA jersey and jeans, pint-sized Jordan Eugenio, 9, pumps up the crowd and asks the students of Garnet J. Robertson Intermediate School in Daly City if they are ready for his next song.

Lil’ Jordan, who is Filipino, Korean and Chinese, turns his Oakland A’s hat backwards so the audience can see his face. He tells the crowd that the next song, "Puppy Luv," is about his first crush, which has girls, "oohing and ahhing." Slow hip-hop beats start to blare from the speakers of the gym. (Read More)

Labels: Entertainment, youth

Matt Chernicoff and Emi Meyer talk to Massive Monkeys, a Seattle based breakdancing group, at the 2007 Mayor's Arts Awards.

Labels: Entertainment, interview, youth

Launched in April 2007 by ABS-CBN Global (a wholly-owned subsidiary of ABS-CBN, one of Asia’s largest media companies), MYX is the company’s seventh Asian programming channel in the U.S.

MYX is a music lifestyle channel embracing the entire Asian American community through music, culture and entertainment. The Redwood City, CA based company is a nationally-distributed television channel (DirectTV 2067) focusing on the Asian American youth community. Source: MYX.TV

Labels: Entertainment

They're Big, but Not Yet Stars
With Humor and Confidence, Chinese Quartet Takes On Bias Against the Obese

By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 6, 2007



A group of women, seen as overweight by the society around them, have banded together to tour and perform onstage across the country. Watch Video

NANJING, China -- On the street, they are often the target of laughter or cruel whispers. Individually, they have all been denied jobs or their parents' praise.

On stage, however, the four members of a singing group known as Qian Jin Zu He are strong and confident, belting out their signature rap song, "So What If I'm Fat," passing out photographs of themselves and signing autographs.

The lead singer, 26-year-old Xiao Yang, is 375 pounds; the others in the group are between about 200 and 300 pounds. Together, they tour the country, performing at nightclubs, paint factories, garment industry conventions and shopping malls. Read More

Labels: Culture, Entertainment

Seattle is No. 7 Asian-American TV market in U.S., says Nielsen - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):: "Seattle is the nation's No. 7 Asian-American television market and is growing faster than the national average, according to The Nielsen Co.

Nationally, Asian-American television households are growing at a 3.9 percent rate but in Seattle, the market is growing by 6 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research data. "



Check out the Puget Sound Business Journal's New Daily Video Webcasts

Comfort Woman interview by Canadian Television CBC

China's so-called "Comfort Women" were forced into sex slavery during the Second World War, and after that, into the shadows. Now, they're finally telling their stories. Michel Cormier speaks with one of them, Lei Guying, in this report. Sadly, Lei Guying passed away at the end of April, just two weeks after her story aired on The National.

Labels: Culture, ie story, interview

Boa Kwon is a South Korean singer, commonly known by her stage name BoA, and the letters of her first name have been backronymed to Beat of Angel. She has been active in both South Korea and Japan. Aside from Korean, she also speaks Japanese and conversational English.

At the age of thirteen, after two years of training, BoA released her debut album ID; Peace B on August 25, 2000. The album received positive reviews and climbed into the top ten chart, going on to sell 218,114 copies. Meanwhile, her Korean record label SM Entertainment made arrangements with Japanese company Avex Trax to launch her music career in Japan. Source: WIKI


BoA the live 20th birthday - Aint No Sunshine (English)

Labels: Entertainment, youth

Asian Pacific Filmmakers Experience at Sundance 2007
"If You Build It, Will They Come? Aspirations for the New Asian American Film Movement"

Labels: Culture

Emi Meyer talks to Kathy Hsieh, Community Development and Outreach Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs for the City of Seattle,at the 2007 Mayor's Arts Awards Ceremony.

BTW: The 2007 Mayor's Arts Awards Ceremony can be seen on Seattle Channel. NOTE: The three hour plus video program requires Real Player.

Labels: art, interview

Emi Meyer, Singer-Songwriter, talks about her new CD, "Curious Creature." The college junior is the winner of the 2007 Seattle-Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Competition and will be studing Ethnomusicology this year in Kyoto, Japan. Emi was also KGRL Flower-Powered Artist in May.

Labels: Entertainment, interview, Japanese, youth