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APA & MEDIA NEWS
3RD ANNUAL DRAGON'S ROAR ON SEPT 17
3rd annual
gathering of eclectic and acclaim artists from throughout the U.S. and
Asia will perform at Hollywood's "Sunset Room" on Friday: September
17, 2004. This night filled with first U.S./West Coast performances from
a number of popular artists are supported by sponsors such as EW Woman,
Hyphen Magazine, Pinoy Rock with Jason Baquilod, Yin N Yang TV, Los Angeles
Korean International Film Festival, Wireless Hotspot, Asian Romance, GlamLA,
Climax, Infusion Studio, US Asians and Know-It-All Records.
Read
More>>>>>
SARAH CHANG ENTERS HALL OF FAME
Opening night
offered a little bit of a lot of different kinds of undemanding (at least
to the listener) music poorly amplified even by previous low Bowl standards.
It included tributes to 23-year-old violinist Sarah Chang, Beach Boy's
Brian Wilson and the late film composer Henry Mancini this year's inductees
into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame as well as an appearance by Josh
Groban. John Mauceri conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
Read
More>>>>>
GONG LI'S IN ZHOU YU'S "TRAIN"
`Just an actress' is not a phrase one would readily apply to Gong
Li, the first superstar to emerge from Chinese cinema. A winner of
the Best Actress Award for her role in The Story of Qiu Ju at the
Venice Film Festival in 1992 and a veteran of 21 films, Gong Li is
probably the most widely recognised Chinese actress in the world,
thanks to her role as one of the faces of L'Orιal.
Chinese star Gong Li plays two very different roles in Zhou Yu's
Train - her latest film. But, director Sun Zhou tells Sam Connolly, they are really
two different sides of the same personality.
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ASIA'S STARS
Policymakers
Sonia Gandhi (President, National Congress Party of India), Chun Jung
Bae (Parliamentary Leader, Uri Party, South Korea), Aubrey Eu (Legislator,
Hong Kong), Zhou Xiaochuan (Governor, People's Bank of China), Heizo Takanaka
(Economy & Financial Services Minister, Japan)
Entrepreneurs
Tony Fernandes (Chief Executive, Air Asia, Malaysia,
Kim Beom Soo (Chief Executive, NHN Corp., South Korea,
Zhang Xin (Co-Chief Executive, SOHO China),
Yoshiko Shinohara (President, Tempstaff, Japan),
John Chong (Executive Director, Media Asia Group, Hong Kong)
Managers
Stan Shih (Chairman, Acer Inc., Taiwan),
Kunio Nakamura (President, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Japan),
Ratan Tata (Chairman, Tata Sons, India)
Kim Soon Taek (Chief Executive, Samsung SDI, South Korea),
Miao Wei (Chairman and Chief Executive, Dongfeng Motor, China)
Financiers
Timothy C. Collins (Chief Executive, Ripplewood Holdings, U.S.),
Lip-Bu Tan (Chairman, Walden International, U.S.),
Nazir Razak (Chief Executive, CIMB, Malaysia),
Mark Machin (Head of Asia Capital Markets, Goldman Sachs, Hong Kong),
Kathy Ku (China Head, Baring Private Equity Partners Asia, Hong Kong)
Opinion Shapers
Feng Xiaogang (Film Director, China),
Nick White (Director, Wellcome Trust's Southeast Asia unit, Thailand),
Kiran Karnik (President, Nasscom, India),
Teten Masduki (Coordinator, Indonesia Corruption Watch),
Wu Chuntao and Chen Guidi (Authors, China's Peasants: An Investigation)
Read More>>>>>
CHINA'S HISTORY SEEN ON PHOTOGRAPHS
Few new worlds are brave. Even those that come with a plan, an ideal,
some kind of vision thing, are cautious, expedient, accident-prone
affairs, cruising from crisis to crisis, consolidating nuggets of
political and cultural power and letting everything else, including
the past, fall where it may, often on the trash heap.
That's one impression generated by the several exhibitions of
photography from China that have converged in Manhattan this summer.
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MICHELLE WIE GIVE BENEFITS TO USGA
David Fay knew
what he was doing when he gave Michelle Wie a special exemption to play
in this week's United States Women' s Open. Fay, the executive director
of the United States Golf Association, was criticized for leapfrogging
the 14-year-old Wie into the Open. He responded by saying that she would
prove herself on and off the course. So far, he's right.
Read More>>>>>
GENERATION GAP IN CHINA
"What they're really afraid of is not political dissidents. It's
long hair, decadence, punks and hip-hop. That's raising more concern
than anything else," said Hung Huang, publisher of the Chinese
edition of Seventeen magazine. "In essence, China is experiencing
its first real generation gap, and it's a 7 on the Richter scale."
Read More>>>>>
HONG KONG WEEKLY POKES FUN AT CHINA
The small but plucky Spike magazine uses British schoolboy humor to
twit the capitalist region's communist rulers.
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GIANT ROBOT CELEBRATES 10TH B-DAY
For 10 years, "Giant Robot" magazine has explored Asian and
underground cultures, bridging Eastern and pop cultures.
"Mr. Wong explained. "But we're just not interested in
mediocre Asian actors in mainstream movies."
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INCREASED JAPANESE TOURISTS TO L.A.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of Japanese visitors to Los
Angeles plummeted. Terrorism fears remain, but a strong yen and the
lure of the Golden State have proved too much to resist.
Read More>>>>>
CHINESE DOCTOR & SARS
Chinese military and security officials are forcing the
elderly physician who exposed the government's coverup of the SARS
epidemic to attend intense indoctrination classes and are
interrogating him about a letter he wrote in February denouncing the
1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, according to sources familiar with
the situation.
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KOBAYASHI SETS HOT-DOG EATING RECORD
When it comes to eating hot dogs, "The Tsunami" still
blows everybody away. For the fourth straight year, rail-thin Takeru
Kobayashi chewed up the competition at the Nathan's Famous hot dog
eating competition Sunday, breaking his own previous world record
Read More>>>>>
YAO MING ON CHINA'S OLYMPIC TEAM
Houston Rockets center Yao Ming is to lead a 12-member
Chinese basketball team to the Athens Olympics that also will include
Menk Bateer of the San Antonio Spurs.
Read More>>>>>
RUAN LING-YU - SILENT FILM STAR OF CHINA
Imagine an actress, her country's biggest star, makes a
movie based on the life of another actress who, hounded by the press
because of her scandalous love life, committed suicide. A few months
later, the star hounded by the press because of her scandalous love
life commits suicide herself. She does it by copying the character
she just played: stirring barbiturates into her bedtime porridge.
Read More>>>>>
TED TANOUYE - HEROISM & PREJUDICE
The soldier's heroism was all the more remarkable considering that,
from the time he began training until the time he died, his family
was locked in an internment camp by the same government he was
fighting for.
Read More>>>>>
OUT-SOURCING
Above all, U.S. companies are expanding abroad and hiring abroad
because that's where the fastest-growing markets are. Most of the
biggest U.S. companies, including Procter & Gamble Co., IBM Corp.,
Caterpillar Inc., Coca-Cola Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp., gain more
than half their sales and income outside the United States. They
hire locally to serve local customers.
Read More>>>>>
ROCK BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER
"It's really mind-boggling sometimes to think of how rock 'n' roll
enabled us to bring this big world a little closer together,"
Phillips said late in his life. "It ended up doing more than all the
damned diplomats did in all the years we've had diplomats. It's
something to realize you had a part in all that. I mean, rock 'n'
roll was supposed to ruin us, remember?"
Read More>>>>>
FACTORS BEHIND THE "N' WORD
"Sticks and stones may break my bones/ But names will never hurt
me," runs the classic schoolyard riposte. But names do hurt, after
all which is the reason for the rhyme and words can
be "bullets," as one commentator points out in "The N-Word," a smart
and economical new documentary by Todd Williams.
Read More>>>>>
STREET MUSIC - ASIAN STYLE
Zhisheng Zhang, the 10th-generation descendant of a Chinese court
musician, descended into the Times Square subway station and
unfolded his stool on a platform. He took out a Chinese mouth organ,
called a sheng, wiped it carefully with a piece of clean cloth and
closed his eyes.
Read More>>>>>
HERBERT ALLEN'S "RETREAT"
When some two dozen rafts barrel down the Salmon
River on Wednesday, New York investment banker Herbert Allen will be
in his ceremonial post at the head of the caravan.
Read More>>>>>
CHINESE BBQ
In New York, demand for great barbecue tends to outstrip supply. A
few weekends ago, thousands of 'cue-seekers descended on Madison
Square Park for the Second Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party,
hoping for a shot at Mike Mills's Memphis baby backs and Ed
Mitchell's North Carolina ribs. The lines were epic. Some waited it out. Many fled to nearby Blue
Smoke, figuring that New York barbecue is better than no barbecue at
all. And quite a few present company included hopped on the
subway to Chinatown and sated the craving with a huge pile of
Cantonese spareribs.
Read More>>>>>
QUAN JUDE
George H.W.
Bush, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il - these are only a few
of the luminaries who have eaten at Quan Jude, China's legendary roast
duck restaurant.
Read More>>>>>
JASMINE TRIAS ON FOX'S "NORTH SHORES
"American Idol" finalist and Hawaii native
Jasmine Trias made a cameo on FOX's "North Shore."
Trias will played herself and won't be central to the show's story.
Read More>>>>>
SPIRITUALITY AND TINSELTOWN TV
I have had a chance to watch Tinseltown TV
featuring Sheeraz Hasan.
The first thing that struck me as being different was the fact that
when celebrities were interviewed, the interviews were not only about
the latest project being released like anyone else, but the
spirituality that resides within each celebrity soul and the drive
that gets them to success and make movies.
Read More>>>>>
MINORITY
WRITERS' CONTENT
It seems that
writers who happen to be members of minority groups are getting pigeonholed.
. . become understood and expected, at least by book editors and English
teachers and perhaps by society as a whole, that minorities write about
minorities and that white people write about everything else. With very
rare exceptions, any essay about a nonracial issue such as history,
politics, science or nature comes from a Caucasian. . . . Many minority
writers choose to write about minority issues; . . Textbook editors and
publishers seem to assume this is all that gets written and all that anyone
wants to read. will we really achieve harmony by endlessly thinking about
ethnicity and race? . . . I am concerned about our Asian, African American,
Latino and Native American students. . . .Are we doing them a favor when
we imply that the only thing they should be writing about is themselves?
Read More>>>>>
KHYMER GIRLS IN ACTION YOUTH GROUP
Khmer Girls in Action, an all-female Cambodian group, tackles issues within a
traditional community that dissuades women from speaking out.
Read More>>>>>
YI CUISINE SERVES ASIA
Yi Cuisine throws out the sushi bar to focus on classic and contemporary Asian haute cuisine. In other words, Asian fusion.
Read More>>>>>
WRITERS OF WHITE CASTLE
But I'll tell you what film has raised my Jersey hopes: "Harold &
Kumar Go to White Castle," written by two twentysomething buddies
from Randolph High School.
Jon Hurwitz, 25, and Hayden Schlossberg, 26, tapped their own
memories for the script, which they describe as a broad youth
comedy.
Read More>>>>>
MULTICULTURAL AUDIENCE'S NEEDS & WANTS
Digital cable/satellite services have reached 42 percent penetration
in urban households and broadband Internet is now in about one out
of every three urban households, according to a study officially
unveiled at a conference on the multicultural marketplace.
Asians most likely picked NBC as their favorite channel, although
Waterston said it was possibly because there aren't enough in-
language or culturally relevant programming to meet their viewing
needs.
Eight percent of urban consumers who speak another language said
they'd either pay or be willing to pay for programming in that
language, the study found.
Read More>>>>>
ASIAN AMERICANS IN AMERICAN FOOTBALL
"For Asians, it's never been about football," said Alex Chen, a
sleek, 5-foot-6, 130-pound senior taking a break during a recent
practice. "It's always been about other sports like tennis or
volleyball."
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MARY NOMURA - "SONGBIRD OF MANZAMAR"
'You can hear the ugly parts from other people.' In other
words, 'accentuate the positive.' "
According to psychologists who have studied the phenomenon, this
attitude has been common among Nisei. Before the war, many lived on
farms and had difficulty meeting other young Japanese Americans. In
the camps they were suddenly thrown together with their ethnic and
age peers in great, comforting numbers.
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CHINESE HISTORY IN UTAH
The distance from the subtropical rice paddies of China's
southernmost province to the mountainous desert of the Great Basin
spans one-third of the earth's circumference. Along this tumultuous
course of Pacific Ocean waves and Sierra Nevada mountain peaks came
Chinese men to forge an integral but mostly forgotten link in Utah's
frontier life.
Read More>>>>>
CHINESE SERVANTS IN THE AMERICAN WEST
Many Chinese laborers in the American West used domestic service as
an entry point to entrepreneurial opportunities. While much of the late Victorian era social life existed only in the
magazines and other taste-arbiters, it did seem that every home must
have its Chinese servant. Not just in the provincial capitals such
as San Francisco or Victoria, but even in remote mining towns in
Idaho, and inland communities such as Boise, Walla Walla, and
Lewiston.
Read More>>>>>
CONCUBINE, WIFE OR MATRIACH
Is your idea of femininity that of being able to please and to charm
the man in your life? The concubine can see herself bearing the
children of her partner, but they will always come second in her
priorities.
Read More>>>>>
CHINA'S CHALLENGE TO INDIA
China is challenging India as a low-cost home for software
development. In the process, says Dale L. Fuller, president and
chief executive of Borland Software in Scotts Valley, Calif., the
technology industry is becoming ever more globalized.
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VENTURE CAPITAL DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY
"When the venture industry went from 300 funds to 1,000" during the
second half of the 1990's, Mr. Schlein said, "everyone knew that
didn't make sense, and assumed we'd drop back down to 300."
So far, however, very few firms have shut their doors, according to
data provided by the National Venture Capital Association. With all
the capital that wants into venture, Mr. Schlein added, "we could
end up going from 1,000 funds to 990."
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ROAD RAGE OVER "JAP ROAD"
Jap Road, has long angered many
Japanese-Americans. Equally outraged are numerous people who live on
Jap Road, which has 100 or so residences; they view criticism of
their address as meddling in their affairs.
"I hear 'Jap' cars and 'Jap' bikes all the time," Buddy Derouen, 69,
a retired petrochemical worker who lives on the road, in the
community of Fannett, said in a recent letter published in The
Beaumont Enterprise. "Why not Jap Road?"
Read More>>>>>
CHINESE SUPERSTARS' LACK OF SUCCESS
Why doesn't anyone know how to engineer the successful
transition of the finest Asian film exports? Though a few scattered
blockbusters make their way to the fore, Hollywood still hasn't been
able to truly use the amazing palette of potential talents like Jet
Li, Chow Yun Fat, John Woo, Jackie Chan and their ilk.
Read More>>>>>
GREG PAK TALKS "WARLOCK"
"We're going back to the original inspiration for the character," Greg Pak
stated. "In 'Fantastic Four' #66, a group of mad
scientists known as the Enclave created a 'perfect' human being as
the first step in their plan to conquer the human race and usher in a
utopian dictatorship.
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LIFE OF BAI LING
The actress Bai Ling was in town for three days to do a fashion shoot
for Saks Fifth Avenue. She's got a reputation as a party girl; people
ask, "Exactly what does Bai Ling do?" (For starters, she plays a
lesbian fashion designer in Spike Lee's new movie, She Hate Me,
opening in July 2004.) On June 18, she slept until noon, then met me
outside the Waldorf Astoria.
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JOHN CHO INTERVIEW
Actor John Cho is packing his suitcase for another whirlwind trip to
promote "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle." He finally sits down
next to a window in his hotel suite overlooking the UCLA campus. To
cool down, he opens the window, pulls up the sleeves of his
brown "Better Luck Tomorrow" shirt, sighs and says, "So what's up?"
What's up is his lead role in "Harold & Kumar."
Read More>>>>>
TV LACKS DIVERSITY IN DIRECTING
"The report (DGA Report) reveals that producers and networks have failed to
fulfill their contractual good faith obligation to hire more women
and minority directors," said Michael Apted, DGA President and Chair
of DGA Diversity Task Force.
Read More>>>>>
APA ENTERTAINMENT PIONEERS
Asian Pacific Americans have been in Hollywood making movies in one
form or another for over 100 years some starting as janitors, and
other making it into the ranks of the most sought-after directors
and actors in the industry.
#11 - Mako: Actor
#12 - Maysie Hoy: Film Editor
#13 - Will Hoy: Film Editor (brother of Maysie Ho)
#14 - James Shigeta: Actor
#15 - Lucy Liu: Actress
#16 - Nancy Kwan: Actress
#17 - Doug Chiang: Visual Effects Designer
#18 - Haing S. Ngor: Actor
#19 - Albert Nozaki: Art Director
#20 - Wah Ming Chang: Special Effects Master
#21 - Philip Ahn: Actor
#22 - Dong Kingman: Film Designer/Artist
#23 - David Henry Hwang: Writer
#24 - Miyoshi Umeki: Actress
#25 - Charles Gemora: Make-Up Artist/Mask Designer
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JACKIE CHAN, CHINA & OLYMPICS
Hong Kong-born movie star Jackie Chan was be among a group
of three Chinese to take part in the final stages of the Olympic
torch relay in Greece before it reaches Athens,
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