JOSEPH LITTAUA WRITES — Most popular songs have a lot of things in common. For example, whether it’s a soloist or band song, most songs will have a short, catchy melody that gets stuck in your head, like Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” or One Direction’s “What Makes…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: FORGET ABOUT SILENCING THAT ANNOYING BABYSHARK TUNE
SARAH SHARPE WRITES — It is the evening of July 20th in the year of 2020. I am just getting home from my evening walk, about to watch the nightly news and catch up on my studies. I’ve done this same routine nearly every night for the past three months.…
Full Article CORONAVIRUS CHRONICLES: EDUCATION IS A PRIVILEGE
CASEY MCGANNON WRITES — Many immigrants have similar motivations for leaving their home countries. They may seek opportunities that simply don’t exist where they’re from, or wish to escape persecution or, like many Filipino nurses, they seek better pay. The average salary for a registered nurse (RN) in the Philippines…
Full Article COPING WITH COVID-19: HOW FILIPINO NURSES AND THEIR COMMUNITIES SUPPORT FRONTLINE HEALTHCARE WORKERS
KE SHEN WRITES — Just last month, two new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Beijing. Luckily, both patients were wearing masks while they went to the hospital and took tests. Worryingly, China’s Center for Disease Control has already conducted coronavirus tests for people who work at the Haidian district…
Full Article CORONAVIRUS IN CHINA: BRACE FOR SECOND IMPACT?
LIAM ROGERS WRITES — On June 30, 2020, the 14th corps. commander Lt-General Harinder Singh (of India) and South Xinjiang Military District chief Major General Lui Lin (of China) launched a third round of de-escalation meetings while The Indian Times reported that India will, among other things, be pushing for…
Full Article SINO-INDO RELATIONS: PAKISTAN’S COMPLICATED INVOLVEMENT
CHARLOTTE TRUONG, WHO HAILS FROM VIETNAM, WRITES — Recently, Netflix has stepped into the Asian movie market through collaborative works such as Kingdom of Korea and The Victim’s Game of Taiwan. Among them, Da 5 Bloods (Vietnamese title: 5 Chien Huu) is a film directed by Spike Lee, filmed in…
Full Article VIETNAM: SPIKE LEE’S MOVIE ‘DA 5 BLOODS’ IS OUT OF SYNC WITH THE COUNTRY IT PORTRAYS
LIAM ROGERS WRITES — On December 15, 1997, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced their ASEAN VISION 2020, which outlined different goals for the countries of ASEAN (Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace, Kingdom of Cambodia, Republic of Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Republic of the…
Full Article ASEAN VISION 2020: TIMES UP, WHY DON’T WE SEE CHANGE?
WILLIAM LIGHTHART WRITES — For almost every elementary school, secondary school, and institution of higher learning around the world, the last 4 months have been comprised of exclusively online instruction. Schools at all levels of education are attempting to create systems so that students can return for at least partial…
Full Article BEIJING AND SEOUL: OPENING UP SCHOOLS DURING A PANDEMIC
ASSOCIATE EDITOR CAMILLE BRYAN WRITES — Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so why are we surprised that after thousands of years of colonialism, those failed by the system are rising up? How could a nation expect to keep such tight control over marginalized communities and expect them…
Full Article FROM TIANANMEN TO MINNEAPOLIS AND BEYOND: HOPEFUL FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
JOSEPH LITTAUA WRITES — “Yellow Peril.” When I first found out about the phrase, it was on my own, doing research for a social studies class in middle school. I don’t quite remember the reason for the research, but the phrase stuck with me. Why would anyone be okay with…
Full Article ‘YELLOW PERIL SUPPORTS BLACK POWER’: RECLAIMING THE WORD ‘YELLOW’
TOM PLATE WRITES — Lockdown. Many of us have just been through it; others of us are still stuck in it. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the term usually meant the kind of harsh confinement that befall inmates of a penal institution in the wake of a prison riot. Slight…
Full Article TRUMP AND XI: THE ERA OF NON-MAGICAL THINKING
(This is the fourth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — “Fitting into middle class society is getting harder and harder for the younger generation.” So says Kim Sagwa, author…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: A SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR TELLS A UNIVERSAL TALE
SARA SHARPE WRITES — Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, countries have been scrambling to create effective and realistic economic stimulus packages. China has promised a year-long fiscal stimulus package amounting to 3.6 trillion yuan ($500 billion USD) in an attempt to continue its strong rate of economic growth,…
Full Article CHINA: UNCERTAIN COMMITMENT TO COVID-19 STIMULUS PACKAGE
CHARLOTTE TRUONG WRITES – Since the end of December 2019, in the center of Wuhan city (China), the COVID-19 pandemic has caused great damage on a global scale in virtually all areas: economics, politics, society and tourism. Although Vietnam is China’s neighbor, and had early cases of infection, the country…
Full Article VIETNAM: HAPPY LIVING POST-LOCKDOWN
ASSOCIATE EDITOR CAMILLE BRYAN WRITES — A true revolutionary dedicated to avenging colonial invasions, Chairman Mao would delight in seeing today’s uprising in the West: the burning courthouses, destroyed storefronts, street rampages — all in demand that the world hear those formerly silenced. In his own country, the Chairman legitimized…
Full Article LOVELL IN ‘MAOISM’: MAO’S INFLUENCE THEN AND NOW
(ORIGINALLY POSTED ON SCMP) COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES — For no self-respecting ‘superpower’ is failure an option. But history’s guarantees for nations are few: For big as well as small, survival can prove a struggle. And so, while humility might not be ranked as the first virtue of prudent superpower-ing,…
Full Article US PROTESTS: TRUMP AND US SHOULD FOCUS ON GEORGE FLOYD RATHER THAN HK AND TIANANMEN