VIDEO FEATURE – Asia Media International’s Video Anchor Janelynne Galera offers a succinct but thorough overview of the streaming rage in the globe’s most populous country. Janelynne Galera is a junior Business Management and Leadership major at LMU.
Full Article VIDEO FEATURE OF CHINA TODAY: UPSTREAMING AND DOWNSTREAMING
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – In an unnamed country, a family of three settles into a creaking house at the edge of an ominous forest. The father cannot help but notice that something is quite off about this place. Are the trees coughing? No… laughing? As so many…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS (2022) BY MASATSUGU ONO – THE EXISTENTIAL TERROR OF THE MODERN MAN
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – The topic of nuclear war is no joking matter, but I was rather tempted to cry out “Get me rewrite!” while dipping into my old book on the nuclear arms race. So much is changing now. My published tome had been premised on the…
Full Article THREAT OF RUSSIAN NUCLEAR ATTACK SHOWS WHY CHINA’S NO-FIRST-USE POLICY SHOULD BE GLOBAL STANDARD
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES – Tapio Tokunaga still remembers the first time he saw George Lucas’ Star Wars films. “I fell in love with it,” he tells me, recalling borrowing the DVDs as a seven-year-old in Yokohama, Japan. Tapio would go on to learn as much about the story, characters, and…
Full Article JAPAN AND STAR WARS: IN A SHOGUNATE FAR FAR AWAY
KIANA KARIMI WRITES – « Vous dépendez du pouvoir russe et vous dépendez de Monsieur Poutine…Vous avez contracté un prêt auprès d’une banque russe… Vous ne parlez pas à d’autres dirigeants, vous parlez à votre banquier Madame Le Pen…Vos intérêts sont liés au pouvoir Russe. » “You depend on Russian…
Full Article EUROPE: SELFIES FROM LE PEN AND THE FAR-RIGHT
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in her ongoing series on classic Indonesian literature) — Through versatility and natural eloquence, Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s, The Girl From The Coast (1987), took a seemingly simple story based on the author’s grandmother’s life into a complex metaphor that simultaneously represents female oppression and the exploitative dynamics between the ruling class…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE GIRL FROM THE COAST (1987) BY PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER — A PEASANT GIRL TURNED AN ARISTOCRATIC WIFE
TOM PLATE WRITES – Ever since my initial meeting with Lee Kuan Yew a quarter century ago, Singapore remained in my mind as special. By the time of the brilliant founding prime minister’s passing at 91 in 2015, that assessment was not so novel and was going global; even in…
Full Article SINGAPORE: CALIBRATING A ROLE BETWEEN CHINA AND THE U.S.
KIANA KARIMI AND LIAM ROGERS WRITE — What a scene: White, Blue, and Red stripes encapsulate a Moscow stadium with a crowd roaring in cheers and clad in Z’s giving a grand welcome to a celebration of “unity” while awaiting the illustrious dictator himself, President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government…
Full Article UKRAINE CONTROVERSY: MAKING THE CASE FOR ICC PROSECUTION OF PUTIN
ETHAN PATRICK WRITES – Can recently elected Mayor Eric Adams stop hate crimes against Asian American New Yorkers? Such crimes have spiked since the pandemic began, causing Assembly member Ron Kim to call on the governor to declare a state of emergency: “The community feels a lot of anger, as…
Full Article CAN NEW YORK CITY’S NEW MAYOR CURB ASIAN HATE CRIMES?
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?” To be a child is to imagine a world made of glass. All your romanticized beliefs about your country and its people are contained within one fragile crystal sphere that can fracture at…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE COLOR OF THE SKY IS THE SHAPE OF THE HEART (2022) BY CHESIL – A BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING COMING-OF-AGE STORY
GUEST ANALYST LYRIC HUGHES HALE WRITES — Most Russian experts and military strategists I follow doubted Putin would invade Ukraine. I agreed with their rational arguments, but here we are. I’m reminded of the Haruki Murakami novel 1Q84. The heroine alights from her taxi and gradually discovers that she is…
Full Article MEDIA BEAM THE MESSAGE: MURAKAMI’S MOONS FOR THE MISINFORMED
ALEC FARMER WRITES – The Cultural Revolution was a notorious period of China’s history that has been analyzed time and time again worldwide. The strict policies of Mao Zedong shattered the livelihoods of China’s citizens. Few people remain who can tell their stories of that dark and turbulent period. In the eyes of Chinese…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: FLOWING WITH THE PEARL RIVER, MEMOIR OF A RED CHINA GIRL (2022) – WHAT HISTORY LOOKS LIKE FOR THOSE WHO LIVED IT.
KEZIA LAKSMONO WRITES – I never thought that leaving my home country would make me more aware of food’s importance in my life story or identity. I see now, though, that the food which brings us back to our childhood represents more than just a taste. It is an extension…
Full Article INDONESIA: A HUNGER FOR THE TASTE OF HOME
GENEVIEVE KAMINSKI WRITES – Recently I took a birthday trip to San Diego. I tried new coffee shops, went to Balboa Park, and visited the zoo. I have never been a fan of San Diego due to the lack of entertainment and excessive quiet for this city kid. For my…
Full Article RESTAURANT REVIEW: SUSHI OTA IN SAN DIEGO
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in a series of reviews on Indonesian classics) — Is it not ironic to witness a person of faith advocating for love and understanding yet punishing a man for loving another man? For Indonesian author Norman Erikson Pasaribu, growing up as a gay man of Batak descent (an ethnic group…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: SERGIUS SEEKS BACCHUS BY NORMAN ERIKSON PASARIBU (2019) – THE POWERFUL POEMS OF A QUEER INDONESIAN
ARYANA KHALILZADEH WRITES – The major headline out of Iran the past week was not about the ongoing nuclear talks, but the continued struggle of Iranian women fighting for gender equality. The final match of the World Cup qualification between Iran and Lebanon was held in the holy city of…
Full Article IRAN: LET FEMALE SOCCER FANS HAVE FUN