LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – When a grudge is held between two countries, what sort of action is considered “crossing the line?” On July 3, the Chinese paper The Chongqing Youth News published a map of Japan with cartoony drawings of atomic mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with a…
Category: East Asia
NORTH KOREA: New Music Video Upsets Government
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – If North Korea’s reaction to The Interview has not made it clear that the Hermit Kingdom takes portrayals of its Supreme Leader very seriously, the country’s opinion of a new Chinese music video featuring Kim Jong-Un will. The video consists of various clips of people dancing,…
LOS ANGELES: A Stellar Showcasing of Soft Power
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – Despite lengthy lines and oppressive heat, L.A.’s annual Anime Expo broke its previous attendance records, embodying the growth and impact of Japan’s pop-culture diplomacy. Each Independence Day weekend thousands of passionate fans descend upon Southern California for North America’s largest convention for all things related to…
VIETNAM: Potential ‘Senpai’ or Ally?
YVONNE EPPS WRITES— A month has passed since the fiasco in the South China Sea, but it seems that Vietnam has garnered the admiration of another East Asian country. Watch out Vietnam, it seems like ‘senpai’ has noticed you. Major Japanese TV stations like NHK, TBS and Fuji relayed their…
North Korea: New Movie Starring Seth Rogen and James Franco Sparks Controversy
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – This October, The Interview will give moviegoers a glimpse of what could happen if Seth Rogen and James Franco were hired by the CIA in an attempt to turn an interview with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Kong-un into an assassination attempt. Though it’s a comedy, not everyone…
PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE: On China, Australians Make a Lot of Sense – and Dollars
TOM PLATE WRITES – Among the easiest things on the face of the earth on which one can become quickly aware of is an Australian after-party. That’s because it tends to carry on for so long that with each additional (happy) hour, it gets very audibly happier. But, as a…
CHINA and JAPAN: Will the truth set them free?
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – The past continues to haunt Japan for its treatment of Chinese “comfort women” before and during World War II. On April 25, the archives in China’s Jilin province released 89 documents that include letters written by Japanese soldiers, newspaper articles, and military files that provide solid…
NORTH KOREA: One Does not Simply Ignore a Collapsed Building
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – The recent collapse of an apartment building in North Korea may reveal how the Hermit Kingdom’s media works. A large apartment complex recently collapsed in Pyongyang, but the national media made no mention of the incident until five days after the fact. While nobody knows why the…
VIETNAM: The Biggest Bully of the South China Sea
YVONNE EPPS WRITES — Tensions over the South China Sea reached its peak last week, but this kerfuffle between China and Vietnam is quite different than the tug of war over the Parcel Islands earlier this year. Everyone wants a piece of this pie, but who loses in the end?…
Q&A with Miss Asia USA Contender Eriko Lee Katayama
MIA MARTIN WRITES – When I first met Eriko Lee Katayama last spring she was a classmate of mine in Professor Plate’s Introduction to Media and Politics of Asia. At the time, I was unaware of the details that make her a one-of-a-kind competitor for this year’s Miss Asia USA…
EAST-WEST CENTER: International Fellowship Opportunity
ASIA MEDIA WRITES – Looking for international journalist experience? The East-West Center is now accepting applications from US journalists for its 2014 China-United States Journalists Exchange!
JAPAN: 21st Century Digital Girl Sings Herself to the Top
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – Can you say a voice is auto-tuned if the singer isn’t even human? Hatsune Miku has “written” more than 180,000 songs and has a whopping 1.95 million Facebook followers, more than any other Japanese pop star. So what sets her apart from the Lady Gagas and…
AUSTRALIA: Aussie Shows Scheduled to Invade China’s TVs
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – ABC’s Australian Network has landed a deal with the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), allowing various Aussie shows and other media content to be broadcasted in China. As the third Western media group to have broadcasting rights in China, following Britain’s BBC World Service and America’s CNN…
TAIWAN: Sunflower Student Movement Shines All Over the World
BRIAN CANAVE WRITES – It appears that Taiwanese students learned a thing or two from the movements of their American and French counterparts in the 1960s. Instead of simple protest demonstrations at Cal Berkley, students in Taiwan had a larger stage in mind: the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan of the Republic…
ART FEATURE: Zeng Fanzhi Reimagines Economic Progress
MIA MARTIN WRITES – A picture is worth a thousand words. For modern Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, those thousand words represented two major political issues: poverty and inequality.