Terence Chea (’00), Associated Press
Jan. 19, 2007

Chinese government officials say the Falun Gong spiritual movement has hijacked the traditional Lunar New Year celebration with a touring musical show they deride as little more than propaganda for the religious sect that is banned in China.

Performances of the popular “Chinese New Year Spectacular” are being held at high-profile venues in 28 cities worldwide, including Radio City Music Hall in New York City and San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, where audience members paid up to $168 per ticket earlier this month.

…”We strongly oppose the show because Falun Gong is an evil cult,” said Jian Huali, acting spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “This is not a real Chinese culture show. It’s a very politicized show … so people should not go to show their support.”

Read the full article here.

Former visiting scholar Kyaw Zwa Moe (’06) writes in Irrawaddy about the recent death of Burma’s poet laureate, an acquaintence and fellow exile, who was living in California:

“Saya Tin Moe passed away,” read a text message on my phone this morning. The news made me tremble, and I knew that the day would bring grief to Burmese communities across the world and throughout Burma. The death of such a man moves beyond grief. Burma has lost one of its brightest sons, both literally and politically.

…To call Tin Moe a poet does not capture the full stature of the man or what he has accomplished for his people. His literary career began in his teenage years, and through the decades fueled Burma’s many freedom movements.

Read the full piece here (via BurmaNet News)

Tomio Geron (’06) reports for KQED’s Pacific Time on the Asian American wave rolling through the Sundance Film Festival:

Asian American actors and filmmakers are a more common sight in the movie industry these days. That was evident this week at the Sundance Film Festival, the premier American showcase for new films.

The piece includes an interview with Justin Lin, director of the previous Sundance breakthrough hit “Better Luck Tomorrow,” about his film “Finishing the Game,” a comedy about the attempt to finish Bruce Lee’s last film after the martial arts star had died.

Listen to the report here.

Parvathi Menon, a visiting lecturer at the journalism school last year, was recently named associate editor of The Hindu, now the second largest circulating English-language daily in India. In December Menon wrote a front page piece for The Hindu on one of the thorniest social issues facing the country:

“What can one man do? They have given all the witnesses money,” said M. Venkatrayappa, whose wife Ramakka, sons Sriramappa and Anjaneya and daughter Papamma were among the eight Dalits who were burnt to death in Kambalapalli village in Kolar district in March 2000. He was the first prosecution witness among the 40 who turned hostile during the court hearings on the case, leading to the acquittal of all the 32 accused.

“I changed my version in court to save my children and because the wives of the accused begged me to help get their menfolk acquitted,” S. Gangulappa, second prosecution witness, told The Hindu.

Kolar district has had a history of caste conflicts that led six years ago to the killing of eight Dalits of a family in a case of caste revenge in Kambalapalli, believed to have been in retaliation to the murder of Krishnappa Reddy, a village functionary belonging to the “upper castes.”

Menon is also Bangalore bureau chief for Frontline, the highly respected weekly magazine published by The Hindu. Read the original article here.

Jack Picone’s striking photos of the lives of displaced Burmese and ethnic minorities living along the Thai-Burma border make up the current exhibit in the North Gate Hall gallery. From the accompanying text:

On the porous, shambolic border of Thailand they scrape a living as cheap labor, in sweatshops and in rice fields, on building sites and in grimy brothels.

With no official status or “state of place”, their existence is suffused with fear and hardship. At any time they may be captured and deported on the whim of the Thai authorities, and returned in cattle trucks to the evil regime in Burma they have fled.

Yet still they flock here to the Thai-Burmese border, striving to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

The photos will stay up until May 4. The gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. (Map)
Full details available here.

Jacky Jin , Visiting Scholar ‘07

[NOTE: This is the second in a two-part Covering Asia series on China's middle class. See the first part here.]

The U.S. consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has declared that China’s middle-class will become the major owner of the country’s wealth in the next few decades. However, this economic capital can be used for different ends.

The first, given the popular link between wealth and political power, is for members of the middle class to utilize their favorable position to protect and preserve their economic interests. Another option is for them to demand democracy for the masses and play a key and positive role in the course of democratization.

According to traditional Chinese thought, wealthy merchants were disdained because they were considered unscrupulous, exploitative and greedy. That negative image of the successful businessman has changed. As a major beneficiary of China’s two decades of open-door policy, the middle class has raised its status.

(more…)

Omid Memarian, an Iranian journalist and former Visiting Scholar (’06), and Dariush Zahedi, who teaches in the departments of political economy and peace and conflict studies at UC Berkeley, write on the grim prospects facing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a new op-ed for the LA Times:

THE BUSH administration’s decision to step up pressure against Iran by going after Iranian agents inside Iraq, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s increasing economic and diplomatic isolation, have pushed conservatives inside Iran to further distance themselves from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Many pragmatic and traditional conservatives, such as former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, who is the secretary of the Council of Guardians, were critical of Ahmadinejad’s management of Iran’s economic and foreign policies before U.S. military forces recently detained members of the Revolutionary Guard and Iranian intelligence agents in Irbil, Iraq. This incident, coupled with the U.N. Security Council’s imposition of sanctions on Iran because of its refusal to abandon its nuclear program, has reportedly prompted 50 parliamentary members to sign a letter calling on Ahmadinejad to appear before parliament to explain himself. There have also been reports that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given a green light to parliament to criticize the president’s performance. Coupled with the country’s deteriorating economy, these developments could push Ahmadinejad’s opponents to replace him with a less doctrinaire politician.

Read the full piece here.

Josh Chin (’07), Record contributing writer
January 10, 2007

When Iris Chang parked her car on a lonely road in rural California two years ago, placed the end of an antique revolver in her mouth and ended her own life in a bout of depression, the celebrated young journalist died having failed to answer a question that had haunted her most of her adult life.

Chang is most famous for “The Rape of Nanking,” her 1997 New York Times bestseller and the first popular account, in English, of the murder of more than 200,000 Chinese civilians at the hands of Japanese soldiers in the run-up to World War II. In the opening pages of that book, the author contemplated a riddle friends say she never managed to solve: How did this massacre, one of the most brutal and best documented wartime atrocities of the 20th century, go ignored in the United States for six decades?

Another decade later, the people behind “Nanking,” a documentary inspired by the book that premiers today at the Sundance Film Festival, have no definitive answers of their own. But they hope at least to extend Chang’s effort to cure the country’s amnesia. (more…)

A new photo exhibit has opened at the Institute of East Asian Studies with images of Shanghai’s nongtang (弄堂), the narrow east-meets-west residential streets that once defined the city’s social landscape. From the announcement:

These alleyways, unchanged from the 1950s to 1980s, embody the special living style of old Shanghai. These back passage ways gave birth to a special Shanghai neighborhood culture that is rich and varied. While the architectural style is one of traditional Jiang Nan (south of the Yangtze River) design, it is coupled with the decor of western architecture.

… Mr. Jianhua Gong, a well known Chinese photographer, offers us his view on the alleyways of Shanghai…His portfolio includes over 1,000 published photographic works as well as personal exhibitions in Japan, China and the United States.

The show runs runs Monday through Friday, from now through May 18, 2007 in the IEAS Gallery (6th floor of 2223 Fulton St.).

See the full details here.

By Lin Gu, Visiting Scholar ‘07

I was standing nervously in the corridor — one floor upstairs, a group of strangers were deciding whether or not to allow me to join their monthly gathering as an intruder, or more precisely, a reporter.

Minutes later, I heard a ‘yes’ from above, and the verdict immediately relieved me of anxiety. Facing a roomful of 20 people, all HIV-positive and ex-drug users, I introduced myself. The topic for the day was nutrition and daily diet. With fruits and snacks on the table, and smokes in hand, they laughed at the occasional jokes of the speaker and after the two-and-half-hour talk, some stayed and had dinner together. I was invited too. This was part of an initiative called Evergreen Tree: Caring for People Living with HIV/AIDS — with support from the China-UK HIV/AIDS prevention and care project.

(more…)