ANDREA PLATE WRITES – Donald Trump may have cheapened the phrase “witch hunt,” but American history is rich and notorious with sad sagas of domestic persecution: the Salem Witch Trials of colonial Massachusetts, immortalized by playwright Arthur Miller in 1953’s “The Crucible;” the pursuit, persecution and internment of “enemy” Japanese…
Full Article AMERICA WATCH: HOW MANY MORE WITCH HUNTS LIE AHEAD?
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Beauty is a weapon. In South Korea, widely known as the plastic surgery capital of the world, one finds themselves needing to be armed to the teeth at all times. “Korea is a place where you can’t leave the house without makeup if…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS (2014) BY PARK MIN-GYU – WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “UGLY” IN A WORLD MADE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in an on-going series of reviews of Indonesian classics) — A grandfather who seeks to marry off his granddaughters to his wealthy friends for connections. A young, successful model who suffered the consequences of her early success. A Chinese-Indonesian family was left with the scars and traumas…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: FAMILY ROOM (2010) BY LILY YULIANTI FARID — THE MANY FACES OF A FAMILY UNRAVELED
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Within Time is a Mother (2022), Ocean Vuong fashions a world so rich with polarities. No stone is left unturned. Vuong explores relationships in all their capacities: a person and their chosen loves, a person and society, and loving oneself. Following the successes of Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016) and On Earth…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: TIME IS A MOTHER (2022) BY OCEAN VUONG – LEARNING TO LIVE WITH DEATH AND ONESELF
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – Major participants in the Russia-Ukraine war, whether involved directly or by proxy, lack agreement about when and how it must end. These varying perspectives result in an unseemly policy scrum, adding more confusion to this humanitarian tragedy. This obscene war, despite the many ways…
Full Article RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: NO ONE, CHINA INCLUDED, WANTS TO SEE THE UKRAINE WAR GOING NUCLEAR
ARYANA KHALILZADEH WRITES – Many people have waited decades for a sequel to the immensely popular 1986 action film Top Gun, and Hollywood delivered with a bang – and a provocative propaganda hit at China. Thirty-six years after the first Top Gun film, its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick has broken…
Full Article TAIWAN: HOLLYWOOD AND MAVERICK COME TO THE RESCUE
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in an ongoing series of Indonesian classics) — Every person has within themselves a personal ‘tiger,’ whether it is vice, trauma, or an immoral act we bury inside of us. We spend our lives trying to subdue this tiger. Some succeed in taming their tigers, while others…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: TIGER! TIGER! (1991) BY MOCHTAR LUBIS — A TALE OF ONE MAN’S BATTLE AGAINST HIMSELF
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Like a hamster sprinting on its wheel, going precisely nowhere, thirty-four-year-old freelance copy editor Fuyuko Irie does not question the mundanity of her daily routine. Japanese author Mieko Kawakami’s latest release, All the Lovers in the Night (2022), follows a character with no real friends, no boyfriend,…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT (2022) BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI – THE CONDITION OF THE MODERN WOMAN
JARED SIVILA WRITES – Manga (Japanese graphic novels) is a globally cherished medium comprised of emotionally charged and exciting stories accompanied by charming, distinct illustrations. These works are very difficult to produce-just ask the many authors who dare to tackle the high-pressure challenge of producing their manga on an extensive…
Full Article JAPAN: A LEGENDARY MANGAKA IS BACK TO WORK, BUT WILL HE SURVIVE?
JARED SIVILA WRITES – The alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang have cast an uneasy shadow over the rest of the world for months, but with the most recent Xinjiang Police File leak leaders all over the world are calling for immediate action and investigation. What makes this leak particularly…
Full Article CHINA: THE SUSPICIOUS CASE OF THE XINJIANG POLICE FILES
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – It’s just possible that a favorable diplomatic wind is forming that could alter the trajectory of the storm of war raging over Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe. Pushing this war out to sea might help clear the gathering clouds of world economic collapse.…
Full Article U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: WHY U.S. ARROGANCE, NOT THE RUSSIA-CHINA RELATIONSHIP, IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO PEACE IN UKRAINE
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old woman who refers to herself as a “disease control specialist.” The so-called ‘vermin’ she spends her time exterminating for a high price are humans with a certain rodent-like disposition. Never mind her age and perceived frailty –that is how…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE (2022) BY GU BYEONG-MO – AN ELDERLY WOMAN ASSASSIN FINDS LOVE AND HOPE
Asia Media International announces the following staff developments: Cristina Pedler, who earlier this month graduated from the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University with her baccalaureate degree in International Relations, takes over at the helm of AMI, reporting directly to the founder and president of Asia Media.…
Full Article ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL’S NEW EXECUTIVE EDITOR
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